To Wank or Not to Wank

That's the REAL question, and in the case of "Gold Rush," the answer is Yes. A whole=hearted YES.

In response to Kelly's last post...summer is ending. The end of summer means I go back to school, Kelly goes back to school, Daniel tends to leave town more often, and our nights and weekends book up as fast as they do during the summer. So I'm a little disappointed that we don't have more recording days to show for it as we wind it all down. We have some fantastic new songs, but I was hoping more that the new record would have more to it on the recording end.

Kelly is right that we must change the way we approach recording, and the only downside is that it may be longer until we're playing shows again in order to record. Oh well. Nothing is shaping up for August at the moment, so I'm content to give up some practice time in order to hit the studio for a while.

The delays in finishing the songs and to record have given me some hope to maybe write another tune or two in time to get them on the record. The spy song I started last spring may get finished and see the light of day after. And I've got some ideas for a Civil War song or a song about the Know Nothing Party. I'll probably only have time to write one or the other if at all.

My focus now in my energy is on artwork and the other sides of making this thing. I have three people in mind to design the cover, but not being able to pay our friends doesn't make for a lot of promise this far out. I'm hoping to get some design ideas together and just saying, "Can you do this?" to them. I'm also considering sites and cost efficient ways to do the band photograph that we want to do for the CD insert. Everyone seems to be okay with using my brother, so I'm happy about that.

I'm still extremely honored to be playing with Chris Freeman this Saturday. I have been listening to his music lately, and it is really great stuff. I hope it will help bring some new people out to see us.

Chill Pills

We need to take a few chill pills. For some reason I have been sort of flipping out over all this nonsense.

Practice is going to become an issue and it never really has before. Which is strange because even with the three week lull of June, the last 3-4 months have yeilded the most productive and the most practice in a short amount of time. So why are we freaking out. Good question, and I wish I could answer it. but I have a few theories..

Number 1: We are aiming too high.
Number 2: Tha D has to go out of town, and we've been lucky about that all summer
Number 3: i've got rock camp for a week
Number 4: we are just too damn excited and worked up about all our new material."
Number 5: we have t shirts coming!

I'll go with number 4. and maybe number 1. But the truth, we just need to take a chill pill and let all these things happen on their own. It seems we have gone far enough with making plans and such, and there is only so much we can do ourselves.

We planned for three days in the studio. It's not going to happen. The writing is on the wall. So, just one full day is in the works. Looking at it now, I keep wondering how to make it work and its just not an option. We should only do one day a week for studio because it seems these days everyones schedule changes literally over night. Its about time this happened because lately we've been pretty good with practice and doing it atleast once a week. Call it karma. But really there is quite a bit to do just that one day. Enough to keep busy. Maybe we can go back the next week? and then the next?

Last night I recorded a new old song. I had nothing to do so I recorded an old song of mine. It felt nice and I felt productive and I stopped worrying about the damn record. I have been putting way too much thought into all of this that it has been keeping me awake at night. Plus, I got new toys in the mail that have jumped started some more creativity.

I'm ready to rock tonight. We have practice and eveyrone is going to be there and its gonna be an all out assault. On the agenda is just the new shit but if we are feeling it we might just play whatever. I really want to skronk it tonight. The Sonic Youth show from the other night has really put me in a noisy mood. Lets do this!!!

To Skronk or Not To Skronk?

That is the question........

The 4th

It's the 4th of July. The day we set aside in rememberance of a bunch white, slave=owning, aristocratic males that did not want to pay their taxes.

Only two good things ever came out of England....America, and the Beatles!!

WTF?

Guitar Center was all out of Boss Tuner pedals! WTF?? They said it's one of their most popular items and goes in and out of stock all the time.

I find it funny that I finally decided to go buy one and the place I went to is all out!! I'm gonna hit up Nashville Used Music when I drop off Peach's bass today.....which by the way....

Getting a new nut for a bass is easier said than done!!! I;ve been through 4 and they don't fit, no matter how much I file it......

In other news, I was messing with possible tracklistings for the record, and the exciting thing about it is that the record is going to rock! The possibilities are endless, but I have two in particular in mind. I will reveal them later when I finish the next two songs.

Also.....all this new energy that Peach speaks of is all around us like a wild fire. I feel like braking something or climbing a mountain. I'm very worked up about all this....so worked up....I wrote two songs last night that are not history songs. How does this happen you say? No clue. But if you remember, the day of our first show, I was so nervous, Eli Whitney just spilled out and the chords, melody, and chorus for Paid In Cocaine came out on that day as well. I think this over stimulated excitement is going to prove to be useful...and with that being said....

After all this is over and the record is done, i'm going to announce my my canidacy for Mayor Of Murfreesboro.....or maybe just keep the rock going...can't decide.....

About Last Night...

The record continues to take shape as we arrange the songs into more diverse directions. Last night's practice was our single most productive practice probably since the first one I blogged about, and it was exhilarating. The more we play, the more excited I get about the individual songs we have. They continue to grow into their own and overshadow those old songs we used to play, taking the pressure off my old fear that "Man Vs. Cheetah" would be the only song people would want to hear of ours.

"Dear Abby" got its first band treatment, with Daniel playing E-bow. If he doesn't used the melody I wrote for it, I might make it the bass line. Josh knew exactly how to drum that one, and it certainly stand as the emotional anchor for the whole record. It has the farthest to go in fixing the details, but the raw song itself is so strong that it is really a hard one to get wrong. Getting it exactly right on the other hand...

"Commodity" is different from the rest of the songs we do because I have a very particular notion for how it is to be played and what it is to sound like. It feels so good to do that one as a full band after imagining it for so long. We had to tweak the ending on it because the original one I envisioned couldn't work with the drum beat. We found something else, and I think we'll get it within a practice or two.

"Gold Rush" is Josh's new favorite and maybe Kelly's too. It's based on Southern rock, and we took to it like ducks to water. Stadium solos. This one will require some stage craft, that's for sure. We can now play redneck dives anywhere in Tennessee by just opening with this song. After that, they will just eat out of our hands.

We finally gave a band treatment to "Election: 1800." The problem with it was that we just didn't know what to do with it, so we've sat on it since January, just planning to record it with Kelly and an acoustic guitar. "Dear Abby" is not solo acoustic, but it took away the emotional spot where I'd imagined "Election," so I wanted to try something new with it. I knew doing it with just distortion would yield a song that had nothing to make it stand out. The solution was a LOUD quiet LOUD formula, which morphed over and over until it was more like quiet loud quiet LOUD quiet loud quiet LOUD quiet LOUD LOUDER really quiet BERSERKER. The song that I didn't think would stand out much in a set has turned into a frantic piece that could easily become one of our more talked about songs. Kelly had always done it quietly, and it was interesting to see how quickly it became a shouter in places.

I still need to work out the bass parts on virtually all of these. I'm just playing root notes on them right now and feel that adds little to a song. My bass broke at the last show, so I've been borrowing Jason Manley's bass. It has much hotter pick-ups and a heavier sound to it more like a Thunderbird. I want to buy it from him to use as a back-up, but I'd rather put my money toward studio time. Maybe he'll let me borrow it to record "Let's Go to War" and "Gold Rush" and any other heavy numbers that may come along.

Daniel and Aaron came last night. I was happy to have them there as they are so full of ideas on arranging songs. They're the ultimate consultants for us as they understand the way we work together pretty well and can suggest parts for us individually or as a whole, always looking toward the good of the song and the idea of putting a spotlight on different parts of the song. We also talked seriously about booking studio time and the possibilty of booking some studio musicians to play on the record. I don't want to get into any details on either at this point as the recording process feels like it has stalled since March, and the plans we've made feel so delicate that I don't want to jinx them by talking about them yet. I will say we pencilled in some dates to record, and I'm now confident that we could get in there and hammer out a large chunk of the record in the time we have allotted if it comes together as planned. Here's hoping.