Recording

Well, this is where I spent most of my week.  It's a recording studio.  I'm making another album.  Since recording is super-fun and generally pretty wonderful, I'm planning on doing it a lot.  When you go in and you know what you want, everything proceeds quickly and smoothly.  If you don't know and you can't describe what you want (or if you can only use negatives like: "Don't play like that" or "Don't do that"), things will slow down and get tense.  This happened just once, but it proved to be no big deal.  We recorded live instruments onto 14 songs in three days.  If that sounds impressive, consider that we got 11 songs in the can in the first two days.  The third day was just for horns, piano and vocal tracking.

I tried to describe the experience of the last album, but words failed me.  They fail me now, as well.  It's so fantastic working with this group of great musicians.  When they breathe life into a tune that previously existed only as a pale demo, it's something to behold.  I wish I could describe it.

This effort is funk.  You know, in the past my music has been compared to They Might Be Giants, a band that I don't particularly like.  It's so nice to put that comparison to rest.  I get compared to Beck, as well, but I don't mind that, because I like his stuff very much.  It's been years since Midnite Vultures - in fact 15 years - so it's time for something to follow it.  Of course, Beck's album is more of an eighties-informed work.  Mine is mostly from the sixties and seventies.  It'll be done in a week.  I plan to call it Unobscure at Last.  I know that "unobscure" isn't a word, but it works for my purposes.  It will be very good.

I have two more tunes to record vocals for and four days to mix everything and so far, I'm very, very pleased with the results.  I'll have more details as the release date approaches.