Image info: A little image from a Drum Tracking day in LA earlier this year. (left to right: Mr Black, Joey Mancaruso, me)
Good morning, it’s a wonderful spring out there. A little update for this last day of March while the river she runs from the mountain tops.
The last 2 weeks were vocal days for “The Crying Game”. It was nice to return to this track. Since the DEMO of this idea, I’ve been excited to get back to it and close it out to some degree… I’ve always wanted to retrack it with a little more energy. Another thing that always bothered me with the original track was the microphone I used, which was a brittle condenser that just didn’t sit well with me. The last few years I’ve been in love with my Sure 58, which is also my live microphone. It has a bit of a dull and warm sound that I like, it reminds me of the past. Perhaps it’s also a subconscious memory of old rehearsal days for me and that low-pass sound inside a room where high frequencies trail off in space. All other tracks for the record are in a holding pattern while I get a rough mix out of this new “Crying Game” idea. A few other things you might notice, I’ve detached the intro to the song… which is tentatively now called “The Divination”, it’s the 45 second poem intro.. I’ve always envisioned it as a warning, perhaps Leto’s warning to Niobe… a prophecy if you will. It’s a bit spooky, but then again… isn’t all Greek mythology spooky fun. I thought it would be nice if it had it’s own track listing so that you didn’t have to hear it ever time you simply wanted to rock the track itself. I also condensed the actual track, removing the entire 6-minute outro… it was interesting and fun on the demo, but in the end I really just wanted the song to be a song. The middle of the track did change as well… I think for the better. I’ve included a mix of some of the new work, I think one more day of edits and a few word resings and I’m closing out the tracking phase of it. Just a mix after that and then onto “Long Is The Road” just in time for the spring fog.
Hadder field notes are on Holiday while I finish music for the record. But who knows, those things come from nowhere and they are hard to stop sometimes. We'll see... I feel a story brewing out there.. beyond the hills of BOK, where the king has secretly commissioned his own mage to develop a weapons with great power. Some new characters are a brew.
I won't lie, I have been sneaking in a vocal tracking day or two on the "Rainbow in the Dark" cover song I'm involved in with the Stargazer crew. You'll hear it soon enough.
I’m pretty focused these days… simpler times, like a little calm before a beautiful summer storm. Not much expectation, just honest creation.
Video Info: A little video montage of anime that I liked to a small audio section of the "Crying Game" re-design.
farewell
-j