Up before 7, finished Greenberg's Gerswhin book; off pace on reading for the week, excusably for the week I suppose. Went to gas up the car and pick up biscuits for breakfast w/ Matt. Met Mitch at 10 am for data transfer, shot the breeze for a while, talked a bit about next steps (probably looking at April for the main overdub/vocal session, though I may do some bits at NY studios in the meantime). Left a little before 11, dropped of car, made the 1 pm flight; read Arlo Quint and did the medium sudoku. Split from Matt and Brandon at Laguardia, home by 3. Recorded most of the receipts for the trip, talked w/ Bree when she came home, went out to E77 about 6:15, responded to most of my email, wrote to Jarvis from Woods about seeing a studio in Greenpoint he does work at, read various election postmortems. Came home, read 50 p. of Gone Girl, learned that Leonard Cohen had died. Lights out at midnight.
11.9.16
Up at 6:30. Trump is the President-elect. I can't watch the victory speech. Poem in daybook. Went into the studio before everybody else to work on guitar parts, decided to play a break in "Faith & Credit" w/ capo. Mitch came in 10:30-ish, Matt went thrift/record shopping, not sure where Brandon is - seems justifiably subdued. We worked on aforementioned F&C guitar, ok but Mitch decided the Strat was misbehaving (tuning), so we switched to a marimba part, which I got fairly quickly, and the main guitar for "Untimely Beggar" (my Ibanez, subdued). A fairly delicate part, but I got 90% of it in 2-3 takes. Mitch went to get the Strat set up in town at about 1:30. Probably got back in gear around 3, edited the "Beggar" part - not fancy, but controlled, and the tone is exactly what I'd hoped - and re-did "Faith" one more time, capo and all. Thus ends basic tracking! Started rough mixes at 5, took a dinner break while Mitch went at it (drove our rental for the first and only time), finished before midnight, went to bed pretty quickly. The strongest recordings at this early stage are probably "Still in Error" and "Different City."
11.8.16
I've got a feeling it's all rigged
I've got a feeling it ended a long time ago
Nobody tells me
I've got a feeling it's over now
I've got a feeling it's over now
I've got a feeling the votes are in and I got none
And all I want is one
Game Theory, "Throwing the Election."
Up about 7, read a bit of Gershwin. Started at 11. Stood at a mic and sang rough vocals for the entire album. It was quickly noted that "cummerbund" &c could easily appear on the list of "Least Metal Words." Recorded Pete, more Telecaster on "Still in Error," doubling a lot of the riffs, and took down several solos through a great Sovtek fuzz unit. Tried my own solo on "Shovel-Ready" again, wrote out a line for Brandon to add in the long break in "Believe in Ghosts." Mitch had to duck out a couple of times because his gf had a flat tire. This took us to almost 4, so we (the band) took Pete to the airport, found Japanese food in Greensboro, hit a Walgreen's, came back by about 6. I was half-dead or a little hung over or something, so I rested until Mitch got back. Spent the evening recording Matt on percussion we probably can't do elsewhere: 2 tracks of tuned tympani for "Enemies of Song," rachet and assorted bells for "Believe in Ghosts," 2 passes of maracas throughout "Still in Error," and clapper and metal-on-metal (the staircase to Mitch's engineer's loft) on "Shovel-Ready," may be forgetting something. By the time we knocked off at 9, elections returns were coming in, and it started looking worse once we were back at the cabin. (Mitch said he was going home to watch, get drunk and anxious as well.) I caught up in the daybook and we all looked helplessly at the internet and listened to local NPR. I don't think I've ever been in a state that went red during a presidential election. Went to bed at 12:30, before the official call but with little hope.
It will be strange to go on (with anything) tomorrow. This is what I said on facebook:
I have not posted once about this election. I could try to say this at greater length, but all I have is: knowing that the country is full of misguided and gullible people is one thing; incontrovertible evidence that naked assholes -win- is another. On top of anything strictly political, our apparent next President is every narcissistic cretin-bro I have ever encountered -- as much in music, poetry, or academia as anywhere else -- rolled into one, plus the uncle that sneered "when you discover girls, those books will go out the window" when I was 12. That matters. I doubt that even most Trump supporters deserve the shitshow that our civic life is likely to be for the next four years. And to my farthest-left and accelerationist friends: I don't honestly know whether you're right that the American experiment, project, etc. has been a bankrupt "settler" fantasy from day one. But a lot of people who can't rightly be blamed for that have to live here too, so unless the glories of the Commune are imminent, fuck you. Even if the asshole loses in the next few hours, fuck you.
11.7.16
11.7.16
Up about 8, read 50 p. of Gerswhin book before breakfast.
Peter Hughes came up from Charlotte, caught up while waiting for Mitch, stuck around until dinner - good to have another sounding board (and some confirmation that things seem to be going well). Tracked "Our Films, Their Films," w/ my guitar through an Orange-style amp, overdriven. 2 or 3 takes, used the chaos/no wave breakdown from an earlier one (slower by 4 or 5 bpm, which doesn't matter in this context). Re-cut "Old Currencies" (1 take + punches), and "Boring Postcards" (4 takes) from 1st day - "thicker" (in Mitch's word) and more confident on both. Same gtrs as the first attempts, different 2-amp set up. Peter and I agreed that recording seems like so much less of a struggle against our own competency than when we started. Broke for lunch and a little bit of frisbee in the yard. Matt spent some time going through Mitch's percussion to change the kit for a junky/scrapheap sound on "Shovel-Ready." Brandon played 6-string bass for a change, I played a very strange 1964 Standell, a guitar I never heard of that Mitch brought out when I asked if he had a Mosrite. I think we got it in 4 - Matt says it's another stamina song, which I wouldn't really have thought. Also did another gtr pass on that, and a terrible, but kind of great-sounding solo w/ my MXR pedal.
Dinner at Clark's, the recommended barbecue joint, Lexington-style, which means chopped pork w/ a "red" ketchup/vinegar/pepper sauce, w/ slaw, hushpuppies, and greens. The real deal. Came back and had Pete play a picking/textural guitar track (Strat/Matchless) over "Currrencies," and several different solo ideas. Mitch brought out a mid-1960s Fender instructional manual, which advised never to play the guitar so loud that the amplifier makes an unpleasant distorted sound. Knocked off between 9-10, had our usual beer/decompression at the cabin, listening to various Weird Al songs.
My facebook friend Drew Boston writes: "there is no way Clinton is a two-term president. The fact that that hasn't been written about more shows the scary lack of foresight and thought of the Democrats. and the scrubbed-up, 'I actually support protestors' GOP candidate of the future is getting groomed in the wings right now. and their election will put the final nail in the coffin of the welfare state and any hope of even tepid social democracy.
nothing will be 'over' after tomorrow. the real horror is only beginning." Adding that here to check back in 4 years and see if he's right.
11.6.16
Daylight savings time ended, which made it easier to get started by 10. Didn't take notes through the day, but:
Sent Matt and Brandon to groceries for efficiency, started by redoing Pete's gtr on "Different City." Much tighter on the funk parts than last night, added a "no wave" pass at the ending as well. Tracked "Faith & Credit," probably played it through about 4 times, changed gtr sound at some point, Frankensteined a master from takes 3 and 4 - doable in large sections b/c of the long breaks. Matt and Mitch spent quite a while on that edit, while I chatted w/ Carl Schlachte, who dropped over from Greensboro where he's going to grad school. That took until 3 - of course, my guitar parts are still a mess, and I'm worried that my verse riff is too direct a swipe from EC's "Temptation" (which is of course nicked from "Time Is Tight"). After (late) lunch came back to work on "Enemies of Song," which was a bear as expected. Again, took ending from a different take. Brandon's part, once you actually hear it, is a monster, and I don't think he did a single punch. Did clean up my guitar on that.
Solid basics for our 2 longest songs: a day's work. Knocked off about 8, went all the way into Greensboro (20 min.) for Thai/Vietnamese, came back and hung out. I caught up on the daybook in the morning, didn't read substantially.