RECORDING in LA #2 (overflow pics and week 2)
Sun Aug 03, 2003 7:48 pm
The other page was getting to slow. I have new sympathy for dial up
board'rs who have to endure snail speed. At the end of this I'll start
posting about the rest of the week. For Sunday's journal and pics, go to
the end of the other post. Thanks.
Waiting for Graphton dudes to pull car out from subternaneal chambers,
the band sees the CMJ (New Music) article for the first time....thanks to
"Kingspin" from this forum who sent me a care package with several
magazines and a bag of Doritos and an CD.
We're on the way over to the studio and these are some girls who are in
the band
awww....Bob. gone. But can you believe this was up on
Thursday?
driving through Burbank to get to the studio. I just love this old graphic.
...and this is pretty cool too. Not "world"...."studios"
In front...before the gated gardens and studios at Glenwood Place.
If you keep walking past the studio door - and we were; on the way to eat barbeque.
The band walking down the garden way to the studio
But first...milk. The girls were impressed with this real milk in real
bottles...the kind they used to deliver to our front porch every morning in
the 60's.
great food. people in line.
That's eisley with Ken - who is Craig's A&R assistant. He just got back
from Japan to study demographics and culture and style and music so he
could better understand how WB can move their artists into that
marketplace. It was a personal vacation.
Stacy smirking/eating
Sherri shooting Stacy
another.
Sherri walks in to all the vip's in the room and quickly darts back out;
everyone is about to listen to the stuff
That's Craig and Dave, of course...
That's Judy from Warner Chappell.
After everyone left, Stacy started tracking the intro keyboard part to
OTMWG. A box with tons of samples was plugged into this Roland to get
close to the Funmaker that we never really found.
The labelmaker was the backdrop to the week. Sherri, Stacy and Weston
bought these guns at Brookshires before leaving for the trip so they
could, you know...make a bunch of lables. We kept getting labels pinned
to our shirt that said weird things. Also, there's a practical use for labels -
Literally hundereds of uses if you just use your imagination.
breath "spay"
Stacy diligently places her labels on her jacket.
Chauntelle with Stacy in foreground working on label peeling.
Note Jon's wallet says cell phone.
This proves I'm alive to my wife. We talk on the phone, but... how does
she really know if it's me; It could be my evil, mutant, twin
brother..."Broid".
Chauntelle excited about something.
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Continued Sunday night:
After slumbering and loafing all afternoon, Weston, Jon and I emerged
from our cave on Sunset. We did what any self-respecting Texans would
do when faced with hunger. We found a Baja-Fresh. But just as we sat
down, those Eisley girls called us: "ok. we're ready...come pick us up."
So we cramed the food in our mouths and darted over a few blocks to
snag them.
From their report, John is taking a different approach than Rob. He's
going to pick one or two songs to finish out. That's not a bad idea. He
started with a song...made a drum loop, wrote bass parts, tracked
some guitars and vocals, etc. - building it that way instead of tracking
drums and building from rhythm section - up. Tomorrow they'll really get
into it... We're not really clear on what all happened since we weren't
there, but I guess we'll find out at high noon tomorrow. No doubt, John
knows what he's doing. This should be fun...a learning experience.
more tomorrow.
bd
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Monday August 4
Hey. In outline form:
1. We got up at 10:00am (well, I get up early and walk down to
Starbucks for a Caffe' Lotte' Venti with 3 packets of brown sugar and a
blip of half and half)
2. Drove over to the same smoothie place with the girls since they didn't
get to experience it yesterday. Sucked down breakfast.
Actually, forget the outline; in the spirit of communicating the minutia that
connects all our moments, we had two spilling accidents as we pulled into
the gated Henson Studio courtyard; I tried to stop mine from toppling off
the center console, but in the process - rammed my kung-foo thumb at
lightening speed - striking the styro straight through the side... It
was horrible, cold and funny. I just stared at my my thumb - now
plumbed into the frozen Orange dream; the kids spewed in laughter....
Then Jon tried to flab down the back seat and knocked over Chauntelle's
frozen drink and it slurped up chugs of purple all over the seat.
Anyway, once inside, we said our hello's, walked past a sypmphony
tracking a Nike commercial...and that was impressive. John rolled the
recorded stuff from yesterday - namely, Musical Things. It's nice.
Beautiful...no drums or bass yet. Everyone is sortof ok with it. The vocals
rock my face off with a rusty old Dodge Newport. (no, you have to
imagine that it drove into my face). The guitar tones are good...a little to
"swishy" for me. I like a little more attack with some gangly
crunch....(but not enough crunch to creedify it) I actually like Chauntelle's
raw tracking from the live Rob sessions...which Rob captured very nicely.
Chauntelle say's they're not finished and she's liking the parts she's
coming up with....so, I'm sure it will be cool. Weston and Jon aren't sure
about his ideas for the drum/bass rhythms...but we'll see. He's a quality
guy...wants to deliver the goods.
Me and Jon and Wes are heading to the Hotel California to meet new
friends Richard and Chris, who manages the joint. The girls sorta missed
their chance but since we got booted again today - here we go. Will check
in later. bd
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Monday August 4
And head we did; we drove the wavey, topsy turvey Sunset blvd. right
into the drink, turned left and found our way down to Hotel
California where we hung out with new friend Richard somebody for a
long time; I guess we were in Sana Monica; It was really nice. A real girls
paradise. We walked all over the place, went down close to the beach,
walked on the pier that Forest Gump ran down on the movie, Weston and
Jon climbed tall ropes like 5 times while i talked with Daniel Ellis in Florida
(by cellulosis) - who was so inspired by my description of the beach and
water, he decided to drive to the beach and sleep overnight there on the
dunes. I have clips but...you know I can't do it tonight.
We let Richard hear the new material and all drove back to Hollywood
where we picked up the girls, met with Chris (Richard's friend/manages
Hotel California. If I sound sleepy right now, I can barely type.
Everything seems blurry and I keep making typos. Chris met us back at
the hotel...wait, that was before we got the girls. Anyway, we hung out
and acted manly...after we got the girls, we ate at some Tai-American
hippie restaurant on Sunset. It was sorta gross...because most of us
ordered sweet and sour chicken...but it wasn't battered and fried. Just
slimy.
Wanna talk about the studio? producing? NO.
Next subject? I'm too tired. Stop asking all these questions!
This morning, the girls and I got up around 9:30am, met Lucas (WB -
creative, street team reorganization guy...the best. Lucas is the best) at
the curb of the Graphton, got in his zipster and headed over to Art supply
and....well, bought them a bunch of art supplies; why you ask? (oh, you
didn't? then nevermind)
Then we went and bought Jamba Fresh smoothies again for breakfast and
headed back to get the guys who were on the curb waiting. Speaking of
being on time....when Lucas arrived, he put 40 minutes worth of change
in the dealeo because he assumed nobody would even be awake. He
freaked over the fact that we were waiting on the curb. OH MY Gosh!!
This has never happened!! Artists are always late....like one or two
hours... (said it took them almost 2 hours to get the lead singer for The
Used up). We said, well...it's just a Texas thing. We were taught that if
you tell someone you're gonna be somewhere at a certain time, you'd
better be there... He was like, "no dude...it's not a Texas thing....it's
because you'r decent people and you care about others...that's why".
And we were like, "nahh...we're just afraid of screwing up..." and he was
like..."dude...no" and I was like...bligga slagga...blagga gAK!!
I'm tired of this conversation.
So, anyway, tomorrow it's just the girls AGAIN. Basically the manly
rhythm section was only used today. That's today ONLY. But John is
working on 3 songs:
Musical things (or whutEver it's called)
Brightly Wound (uptempo)
Silver Bugs (sounding pretty much like orig...pronounced OAR-RIG)
It's going pretty good. uhh...more later. John is really talented at what he
does. really. Honestly, most of it seems too poppy for the band...but
either way, he's brilliant at his craft. I'm really sleepy. The last song,
Brilliant Bug Slivers sounds like it will have a bit of rock to it. There are
great guitar tones throughout...
We broke out of Muppetland at 10:45pm, went to a place on 3rd callled
"Doughboy" to eat a late supper. We came back, said goodnight to the
girls, jon, wes and I played "run onto the bed/awkward moments". That's
where you're judged based on how well you run to the bed and flop on it
in some weird way...it has to be creative and awkward. You can hop to it,
leap headlong, do ballet, or whatever you "feel" at the moment. It made
a lot of noise... Weston did one where he ran, jumped on the bed and did
a walk around on the wall before collapsing back on the bed. They are
really goood at it...both very creative. I laughed so hard on my matt on
the floor when I wasn't competing.
I think this was a pressure release valve. Pent up in the studio all day
makes you play those kind of games.
They were buying art supplies to paint some cool stuff for the Street
Team offices....new design, new everything... they'll paint stuff back in
Texas.
We're so ready to fly home. goodnight.
Broid
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