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So April 24th we won the Rumble.
Around April 27 we could see straight again and PEZ and I booked all
five studios that we won time at. We'd finished the record already at
my own studio, but this was an opportunity to go into famous,
great-sounding rooms an make the whole record again with all of their
incredible gear and alongside their own talented staff.
May 6th - 13 hour drum session at New Alliance, drums tracked to analog
tape. Foster nails every song on the record. John Taft is incredibly
knowledgeable and patient. Foster is playing along to the previous
versions of the songs on what would have been the record.
May 7th - last time I got to hang out and relax.
May 8th through 12th - Bass, keys and guitar are tracked in that order
at Mad Oak with Benny Grotto and Joe (?). Best time in a studio ever.
Everyone becomes friends and ideas are tossed around for 5 days
straight. Foster stops in on May 8th but then leaves for Hawaii for at
least four months the next day. Will we see him behind the kit again?
Who knows. We hope so. Toward the end of the sessions, our friends from
The Lights Out, Muy Cansado, The Motion Sick and Logan 5 and the
Runners stop by to lend a hand with handclaps, percussion and trumpets.
Like a big recording party.
May 13th and 14th - lead vocal tracking at Zippah. Just me and Max, the
engineer. The contrast with Mad Oak is a bit shocking, but in
retrospect I'm not sure if I would have benefited from having everyone
there. Get lost in my own head one last time with the words. The lyrics
to Last Train are written here, a song that had been troubling me for
months but which we were determined to have on the record.
May 15th through 17th - back at my own Mad Science Studios - last
chance to fix anything. Our friends Beth and Clara from Eksi Ekso come
in to play some strings and it sounds lovely. Glenn French comes in with a theremin for some psychedelic screams. Backing vocals are added
here, with Daanen, Justin, and our friend Kelly coming in to deliver
some stellar harmonies. I miss Foster the most here - it seems wrong to
have him absent vocally on the record, but what are you gonna do...
May 18th and 19th - Mixing at Blue Jay, the most gorgeous recording
studio I've ever set foot in. They have a fully capable mixing engineer
there for us, but I've waited ages to get my hands on an automated
72-channel Neve console and I pretty quickly decide I'm running the
show. Luckily I'm doing a good job, so no-one minds. Talk about
daunting electronics. The outboard gear behind you when you're mixing
could buy the building, and it's a really nice building. Joel Simches
stops by and gives me lots of advice, encouragement and a few real-life
button presses here and there to lend some authenticity to the process
of mixing on such a mammoth piece of technology.
Two thirteen hour mixing days after 11 straight days of recording. By
the end of it my ears are completely fried and I haven't slept properly
in over a month. But typing this now I'm listening to the mixes in my
favorite headphones and it was all worth it. No matter what anyone else
ever thinks of this record, it's always going to be gorgeous to me. And
the feeling I had when we finished This Is Why We Can't Have Nice
Things is back and even stronger - I feel like the record is one
cohesive statement sonically, even with an oddball track like
Straitjacket in there... it feels like my kid and I'm proud of it. Hope
it plays nice with the other kids.
1:53 PM
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