We took off Day 18 off as Matt and his buddy Matt took the day to home brew some beer. There is talk of possibly building a bar in the Tiki Lounge and having two taps, one with Marigold Brew, the other with Monster Brew. All in due time I’m sure, but there’s a bucket in there fermenting and we can’t wait to drink some down! I took some time to work on completing lyrics and let my voice rest a bit. Doing the same today, sipping on Tazo Green Tea with lots of honey and watching Matt mix. Pretty awesome so far, I’m really happy with how things are turning out. Short and sweet, but here is todays work…
Day 19: (Mixing)
- Better Way
- Sweet Love
What is left you say? Mostly vocals, 4 1/2 songs so to speak. I need to double vocals on Take It Away so we’ll call it a half, and then New Song, Hey Hey Hey, Knox, and Sadie are left to be singed, sanged, and sunged. We’ve also got a couple of loose ends to take care of as well, maybe some ebo and feedback tracks on guitar, but all in all, sadly and gladly, this whole process is coming to a close pretty soon! Gladly because it sounds good and that’s what we came here to do. Sadly because it’s over and this has been a blast no matter the hickups of being sick, we’ve all felt really creative and proud of ourselves over the past few weeks and its somewhat of a bummer for it to come to an end.
Did I mention that we finally got the Death On Two Wheels Casiorgan (Knox has so rightly dubbed it so) on the record? We’re using ProTools on this record and we’ve used Reason to track the majority of the keys. You can say what you will about that, but in the end, its affordable, fast and easy, and allows so much leaway in the editing process. So many sounds to choose from and so amazing how real the samples sound and the attention that has been put into the detail of makes each sample. When Knox joined the band I knew it was going to be awesome, he played killer parts for The Californias back when I managed them, you know, I just kinda knew he was the guy, so long as he was into, I really didn’t forsee any other speed bumps, his style was going to settle in perfect if he was into the tunes. And he was, woof, how killer that was the first time Knox jumped in with us, it was like the whole sound all of a sudden just filled out and was what it was supposed to be! But there was a speed bump, what the mess gear was he going to play??? He didn’t have an organ really, he’d always used Mike’s gear in The Calis, and for a time, he used that same gear with us as well. But then we got experimental. I really not sure who to credit with the hellaciously stupid idea. We’ll give it to both Knox and Jay … Knox plays and it’s Jay’s gear and he’s all about tone, so let’s give them credit for what seemed immensely retarted at first, but turned out to be a little miracle or sorts for the Death On Two Wheels. They took Jay’s Casio CTK-611 keyboard (honestly, one of the nicest keyboards out there really, you can’t really find them anymore, vintage, all the pros look for them, but so hard to find, retailed for at least $175 or higher when they were new, not sure where Jay got his hands on it) and plugged into a Fend Blues Junior amp (for really real, that is a solid little amp!) and POOF, a sound was born! Really this dirty sound that is what David’s Guild is to me, the Guild is THE Death On Two Wheels guitar, and the Casiorgan is our sound, our home, our own special muse of sorts. What was a handicap became our saving grace in a way. Its a sounds reminiscent of a Vox Continental in some ways, all the same charachter, not nearly as awesome, we’ve discussed painting the Casiorgan, but its dirtier and darker and it just rules! So here Knox stood in the studio, all these plugins and sampled sounds to choose from, everything we always wanted in a way, not the actual real gear, but the closest we’ve come to it no less, and he layed down killer parts, really killer, and you can make them sound exactly how you want, but we weren’t getting the dark and dirt that we longed for on several of our tunes. So on Day 17 we took care of it, knocked it out, we tracked the Casiorgan and now my heart rests easy. Its layered in some places with the other organ tones and it stands on its own in other places and does the same as it initially did, just brings a fullness and originality to the sound. Good times and a story worth sharing I do believe. I hope you enjoyed, maybe I left out some details, but I changed the names and places to protect our loved ones, ok, nonsense, good day!
- Trae / Death
