Rantin' and Recordin'

Coming soon: What the Hell Was I Thinking Part Two: The "Fame" Years

But in the meantime some current events....

We haven't been practicing much lately. Christmas obligations took their toll and E has decided to get a real education. Last semester she was taking accounting, but this January she switched to Arts (surprise!) and her new schedule conflicts with our practice nights.

We had a stand-in drummer for one night. S is a great drummer, one of the best in the city. He was surprisingly tentative and differential. He said that he was holding back because it felt like we could jump back to the top of the tune at any time . We do that a lot, abruptly switching up the feel. Changes of sections and style are suppose to be a bit of a surprise and I guess they work. Anyway, it was fun to play with him, but not as much fun as I thought it would be.

Last night E managed to come to practice. God, it felt good. All was right with the world.

Today I got an email from P. He's been in touch with a sound engineer friend of ours. M is a great guy and really good at what he does. I have no problem with bringing him in to help us record. I realize that I'm a novice and even though I enjoy the process of recording and mixing our stuff M kicks my ass at it. Years of experience will do that.

Begin rant
No, what has me pissed off is that P said in his email to M that "the guitars sound too dry, too direct." WTF. He never told me this. I've asked again and again for my band mates to tell me what they think of the recording. What do they say? Nothing. Now I find out that P has problem with the guitar sound. Off the top of my head I can think of three ways to make the guitars sound less direct. I have no idea if they'd work, but I love experimenting and figuring things out. I taught myself how to solder and etch circuit boards for fuck's sake...grrrrrr!
End rant

I'd rather figure things out on my own, but I'm going to learn a lot from M. That is, if I can restrain myself from killing my passive/aggressive band mates.

Oh, and the reason we need to get a better recording is that we have a chance to get something on CBC radio. (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, nationwide) S has some kind of script in with CBC. I'm kind of hazy on the details but I think it involves interviewing us and some other local bands and playing a song or two from each. I'm not sure what the angle is, I suspect it's finding out why aging idiots like us, with no hope of fame or fortune, continue to play music.