Dr. Frank's What's-it

The Delightful Horrible Magic of Sound Recording

The first day of recording is fast approaching. I'm glad but it makes me nervous, like an exam-- I've been studying for it for the last three years, reviewing for the past few months, cramming for the past few weeks, and I'm sure we'll end up "pulling" a few all-nighters along the way. I feel pretty well prepared, but you truly never know what will happen with these things. No one "aces" the recording test.

There's this perfect, beautiful, powerful, charming, challenging, irresistible album in my head; and a series of obstacles, hurdles, trick questions, sand traps, land mines, and possible WMDs that will have to be surmounted in the process of trying to render an approximation of the ideal, one that is close enough that something of its character can be grasped by listeners who know nothing of it, who have no stake in it, who may, indeed, approach it with extreme skepticism as a matter of principle.

You can never take the thing in your head and cause it to materialize exactly as imagined. Even if you try really hard and do it really well, and have unlimited talent, time and resources (we don't) the process of turning an idea into an artifact itself changes things about the idea. Sometimes the best you can do doesn't quite make it. And sometimes, you just screw up. Some of the errors, deficiencies and failures will turn out to be inadvertent improvements that you (and only you) will "get a kick" out of every time you hear them; others will be the cause of a quiet remorse that will trouble you for the rest of your life. Oh yeah, and it helps quite a bit if you "have fun" while you're doing it. On that, everyone agrees. I'm going to do my best, but I'm not going to lie to you: my heart will be in my mouth the entire time. It always is.

The first day had to be moved from July 19 to July 22 for studio reasons, which will put us in the awkward position of having two shows (my solo show at the Parkside on July 25th and the MTX at the Lookout Records anniversary show at the Great American Music Hall on July 26th) smack dab in the middle of basic tracks. If you see me drinking too much, give me a friendly reminder, if you would, that being hung over isn't the best state in which to listen to eight hours of someone hitting something as hard as he can over and over again. Ow.

I was planning to do another round of Cyber-Busking before the recording begins, though I don't know if I'll get it together in time, as I'll be pretty busy. I could just throw up another of the "eight little songs", but I think a ninth little song would be more interesting - I imagine most people who read the blog and are at all interested have already acquired the CD anyway. I'm considering "She Runs Out When the Money Does," my newest song which I like quite a lot (but I like them all a lot when they're new, and even probably too much even when they're old); I'm still trying to decide whether it should go on the album or not, assuming we even have the time to learn it well enough. The other option is a grossly irrelevant techno instrumental called "Tentacles, a Love Story." That almost definitely won't be on the album, but I think it's kind of fun anyway. Let me know what you think, if anything.

Also, if I can get it together, I'm planning to try to blog from the studio. I have no idea how well I'll do with it, or even if it will be technically feasible. I'll have a lot of other things on my mind, obviously. There's a lot of down time for individuals in the studio, but as I remarked of touring awhile back it's sometimes difficult to do anything other than stare off into space during those empty moments. I think it's a cool idea though, and I'm going, at least, to give it a shot.

Finally, thanks to all who have left comments on songs here. I'm planning to spend a bit of time today responding to them, so check it out if you want.