Its Saturday morning and I woke up feeling guilty on 2 fronts. A) I miss my dog and b) I’m well overdue on the blog front. So here I sit, OJ in hand and because my computer won’t go anywhere without its power cable, stuck inside while Tom and B enjoy this beautiful day we’re having.
So where did I leave you? Oh yeah, somewhere in Guitar Heaven. Guitar Heaven is a crazy place. Mainly because when you leave it, it all feels like one day. I can’t even remember what songs went down in the final session. This may also be due to my joining Tom in celebration of a job well done afterwards. I know we left the bridge to ‘Back To Me’ alone in the end. We’ll wait for the vocals and organ to go down before attacking it with more guitar. ‘Curve’ was done. Nothing fancy. The solo in ‘Radio’ was pretty much done on the first take. T2 (Jesus) seems to have this uncanny ability to fear a song and then play the perfect sentiment on take one. This is further proven by the fact that he didn’t fear ‘All These Things…’, couldn’t work it out, then feared it and lit it up gorgeously. I guess the remaining piece was his solo on ‘Wait For You’. One he cringes at because it has Brian May’s fingerprint all over it, but once again, who doesn’t need a little Queen in their life? Not to mention, it’s a fuckin brilliant solo. Even if Greg (drummer) does make fun of him for it…
With much of the guitar work now behind us (there are some small parts that we’ll revisit after), its all up to B. This is a role she relishes so there is no worry in camp. Our only concern was how many songs we could get through in a day.
As has been our first track every step of the way, B immediately dove into ‘No Money…’ She very quickly knocked this one out of the way and we all decided it was time to get T2 and me into the booth, to get our feet wet. This one would be fun as hell though. Anyone who knows of this track already knows about the gang vocals in the chorus. Well putting them on the album was even more fun than singing them live. It was 20 minutes of Tom and I shouting the lyrics at each other in the booth. It took a few takes to find the correct distance from the mic and just the right mix of Sinatra and Hetfield, but it was hella fun. The backups on this one are certainly a highlight.
With some serious singing out of the way, Tom and I took off for a quick bite… C’mon, doing backups on one song can seriously take a lot out of a man. It obviously only got B warm though because by the time we got back she had done ‘Heartland’ and moved onto to ‘Radio’ already. After, it was time for T2 and I to get back to work. Francis was now surveying and certainly had some great instruction on how to get all of the harmonies just right. He would leave on tour the following day (yesterday) and so we possibly won’t see him for the remainder of our sessions, though he will be listening to rough mixes and conveying his thoughts daily.
Day one on vocals was an excellent start. Vocals are so scary because the slightest kilter of vibe and everything goes to shit. Day one was extremely positive and it would carry straight into day two.
Going into day two, we were pretty stoked. We had calculated doing two vocals a day and considering not only did we bang out 3 on day one, we finished 98% of the backups as well. Well guess what? On day 2 we got 4 down.
B was on fire yesterday. She started the day with ‘What’s My Name?!’. I love her vocal in it. During the verses, she comes at you with about as much attitude as you could fathom emerging from her 5’1’’ frame, but then in the chorus, where you expect her to take on some Janis Joplin rock persona, she doesn’t. Instead she is herself which makes lines like “Here I am, ‘turn you to an honest man” sound stern but not standoffish. She will say this is what she doesn’t like about the song, but then again you’ve never seen B look at pictures of her. If you ever have, it explains everything.
Next was ‘All These Things…’ I would say our most Pearl Jam sounding song. Very ‘Yellow Leadbetter’-esque except once again, its Bernadette and not Eddie Vedder. Who is considered the female Eddie anyways?
She then tackled ‘Back To Me’ and did what every great singer does… resurrect a song! It may be her strongest vocal yet. Its all you want to listen to when you hear this track now. Whereas a couple of days ago I was wishing we could start it again from scratch, two lines into it and I was back on the bandwagon again.
Our day concluded with ‘What You See On The Way’. B carried the momentum from ‘Back To Me’ into it and produced another splendid effort. Credit goes to our reworking of the intro which now perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the song. We never got to lay backups on it yet – still some things to work out – but it sounds almost like it doesn’t need any, and that’s always a good sign.
We called it a day by dinner. B’s brother and I picked up a shit-load of KFC and we all went to town. There’s something to be said about KFC over here. Its like a major food chain. At home I group it with chains like Dairy Queen. That tier of fast-food just under the big shots. Here, its on par with the WackDonalds’ of the world; tons of meal options, very current ads and huge lineups. We then watched the movie “Jumper”, which was surprisingly entertaining. Not great, but certainly entertaining. I wish I could jump home right now and see my dog…
We’re taking a break for the next couple of days, picking it back up on Monday. I will be off to Tesco when I’m done this. We haven’t been in a few days and the cupboards are bare. I have to point out a couple of funny things we’ve learned by going to Tesco.
For one, hoods (as in hoodie/jumper hoods) are seriously frowned upon here. I’ve been told on several occasions to take mine off while in there. Seems wearing a hood over here has somehow been taken as a sign that one is potentially up to no good. I suppose its sort of like not being able to wear “gang colours” to some clubs in Canada, except that those are clubs and this is a grocery store and not gang related at all (I must also point out that I always thought the “gang colours” deal was bullshit too).
The other is to do with our credit cards, as in our North American credit cards. To my Canadian friends, when is the last time any clerk ever looked at your signature on the back? Ok some background first. Over here their credit cards all have chips on them, so they have to punch in a code, thus authorizing the purchase. Fair enough. So here’s the deal when I use my “swipe” credit card here. First I have to tell them it doesn’t have a chip and needs to be swiped. This either a) confuses the shit out of them b) pisses them off or c) all of the above. They then swipe it and keep the card (something that also never happens at home). As I sign the card, they examine my signature, in the same manner a jeweler would go over a diamond, before returning my card to me. On a couple of occasions I’ve had to either show another piece of ID or something else with my signature. Its become quite comical to me for the same reasons I always find (many) retail clerks comical. Why do you care?! You are the bottom rung of the food chain there and yet you care soooo much if someone takes the company with a stolen credit card for a few pounds. Always baffles me. These people are either bored or the reason capitalism works so fucking well. The people with the least to gain from it are the ones who protect it the most…. Oh well, off to Tesco…
Can’t wait for the new album!
You are very lucky to have a legend like Francis add his input to it!
Been a good a read as well.
Leigh
Miss u too!!!