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Less is More
| Wow, what an interesting month it's been. First of all, we went up to Snohomish on a hot July weekend and recorded drum tracks for one of the songs on Vixy's upcoming album. Luis Garcia, of Puzzlebox and formerly of Ookla the Mok, supplied a great drum part for "Mal's Song", and I've got it mostly edited and mixed to my satisfaction. Boy, it sounds fantastic. But you don't get to hear it yet, neener neener. Then there was a wonderful housefilk hosted by the Garcias a couple weeks later. It was fantastic, with many wonderful people from all over the Pacific Northwest arriving to share music. That night, Vixy debuted a new song that we co-wrote, and it was just dynamite, everyone went nuts. I was so proud. For those who were there that night, yes, the song will be on her upcoming album, but it's going to take some pretty serious production to capture the 70's power-rock sound that we're trying to achieve. It was at the house filk that we realized that if we didn't do it right then and there, our friend Douglas McCorison wasn't going to get another chance to come down to Washington to record the bass part he promised us. So we kidnapped him and brought him down to Monkey Brains Studios (er, my basement), where we recorded his acoustic 5-string bass part for "Persephone's Song". Hm... Looking at this report, I think I'm going to have to talk to Vixy about variety in her song titles. Either that, or we're going to have to title it "Vixy's Album". Then, we finally hooked up with Sunnie Reed of Gaia Consort fame, and she came and tracked the most gorgeous fiddle parts for both "Mal's Song" and "Persephone's Song". Oh, folks, you won't believe how great this album is going to be. But you still can't hear any of it yet, neener neener. Then, as if that wasn't enough... I get a panicked email from the McCorisons. Their friend Rozalind MacPhail, the wonderful songwriter and flautist who we met at Pondfilk, had an emergency need for a recording engineer to finish her EP in time for an upcoming tour. It just so happened that I had the weekend free. The McCorisons put her on the ferry to Seattle, and again, Monkey Brains Studios was active. What a great weekend it was. Rozalind is dedicated, focused, intelligent, and professional (and a very sweet and wonderful person on top of all that). Because she was well-rehearsed, knew exactly what she wanted, and the instrumentation was simple, we were able to record, edit, and mix six pieces of music in four days. I pulled an all-nighter on Monday night just mixing and editing. Doing so much recording work in such a short time was the most challenging, fun, and rewarding experience I never want to do again. Some of the results of our session can be found here, on Rozalind's Myspace Page. Have a listen! I'm quite happy with the way things turned out. Although I wish I could have had more time for mixing and mastering the tracks, it's not bad for just a few hours' work. One of the most interesting parts of the process was using looping to accomplish certain things. She uses a digital looping pedal as part of her live act, and we incorporated some of that style into the tracks we made. I especially like the song "All the Sweet Things That You Do" for this. After the all-night mixing session, there was barely time to make a short visit to the Fremont Troll before having to put Rozalind back on the ferry. As if that weren't enough, I had a job interview scheduled for just 30 minutes after dropping her off. Ever do a job interview after pulling an all-nighter? Not fun. Hope they liked me, because I don't really remember much about what I said. I hope I didn't talk out loud about the gnomes crawling across the ceiling. Sleep-dep hallucinations are fun, but not appropriate conversation topics in a job interview. I've just awakened from a 13-hour power nap, and I'm wondering if anyone has any stories to tell about Jonathan Coulton's appearance at the Confluence convention last weekend. How did it go? Most importantly, how did he take to being around the con crowd? |
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What an interesting landmark that must be. Next time I'm up in Canada, I'll look for the signs for that "Trans Canada Fluteway". ;-)