well we are finishing the drums now. he is leaving in a couple hours. today we have cut “tarantula”, “100 pianos” and we’re about to do “blue”. this is ballad day or something. i am finished with nearly all my guitars. i may have to re-cut some acoustics for blue (they’re hissy) and i need to re-cut a few parts for six hour drive. so drums and my guitars are about wrapped up. but there is still a whole lot left to do. this record is taking forever. maybe, i am turning into a perfectionist. so far i have completely re-cut three songs from the ground up because i changed my mind about the tempos. maybe it is just that self-producing, i keep doing things wrong and then it takes me longer to realize what kind of mistakes i am making. that’s some of it. then there’s the idea that if i think something is wrong and i’m working by myself, i can just re-cut it. i don’t have to feel like i am annoying somebody with a million requests or being overly meticulous.

working with frank has been great. he’s really done a fantastic job getting tones and making suggestions. it is a nice relief from me sitting down here alone so much. he and dan have really gotten along well and the three of us have had a lot of fun. even if we may be a little crazy with our attention to detail, this is the most laid back album i’ve ever done in terms of vibe around the studio. there are no contracts, no money exchanging hands, no deadlines, nothing hanging overhead. we’re just having fun and i think it’s going to sound like it.

also it will be our most musical album yet. dan’s parts range from thrash metal to bossa nova. it has really been cool to have him experiment with so many different feels and sounds. we were talking yesterday–he has always had the ability to play all sorts of things really well, we’ve just never done an album that really allows him to stretch out in this way.

we have fifteen tracks recorded. we’re either going to release all fifteen, cut some, or keep going and make a double-album. that’s just sort of a joke but who knows. we have enough songs for it…

tonight i’ve gotta finish a painting.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Recording. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.