Tuesday Morning Update #12
Sep 23, 2003 myMusicShare/Save
To start off, please forgive me if the delirium of my raging fever has rendered this post incoherent or merely annoying….
So I’ve been producing and singing on this hip-hop track with rhymes by my friend Lin all week. It’s been a great antidote to my whininess about not getting shit done, because I AM, in fact, getting shit done! I’ve gotten reacquainted with Logic Audio and the whole recording/mixing process, which I had previoulsy decided I hated. And it turns out I’m actually pretty good at it! But it turns out I am also VERY VERY picky.
Especialy when it comes to my own singing, I cannot suffer a bad example to live. I’ll do a take over and over and over again and I will still never like it. However, I’ve come to realize that if I pile a couple of vocals on top of each other, they all start to sound better. Ooh, and it makes me sound like a white D’Angelo. Sweet…
I skipped out on a couple of shows and open mics and what-have-you because apparently the consequences of not resting your sprained ankle enough are inexplicable pains and stiffnesses from your foot all the way up your side, down your arm, and up to the base of your neck two whole weeks later. Bollocks. Throw into the mix the aforementioned delirious fever, and you have a perfect recipe for staying home. It’s too bad too – I was supposed to meet a drummer last night that I found on Craigslist, but I got to 125th St. and I had to get off the subway and turn back.
Finally, I discovered The Love Below, the Andre 3000 side of the new Outkast album, which I have been listening to incessantly ever since I discovered mtv.com’s free preview. Basically, Andre 3000 is absolutely insane and this album is totally mind-boggling. A couple of years ago, I discovered that my constant quest for new music was rooted in a desire to hear the album that I myself would be making if I could get my shit together. Well, thus far, I think The Love Below wins the prize for closest match. I may even have to write (gasp!) a full review of it once I’ve actually got a CD-quality copy…
September 23rd, 2003 at 10:00 am
The whole shit is hot, my friend. Those who hate on Speakerboxxx will rue the day they crossed the Daddy Fat Sacks.
In other news, while you’re getting shit done, how about that full-length recording of If We Were? I gotta say, the “extended” version (all 1:36 of it) is getting a little stale. I want the whole thing, not just the biscuit.
September 23rd, 2003 at 4:33 pm
It’s been happening a lot lately.. whenever I ask my friends at the sidewalk if they remember seeing a guy at the piano with big puffy hair (ie., you), they all enthusiatically exclaim “Oh, yeah! That guy was awesome!!” I know that you are only in it for your own appeasement and not for what the public thinks, but I just thought you should know all the same.
Hey the magic of doubling your vocal takes, hunh? Welcome to the world of musical madness. Fear the enemy known to me as “barely audible”, for that can sap up hours of time fixing up levels and redoing takes with minimal effect. “Barely audible”.. I *shun* thee!!
best, eocs
September 24th, 2003 at 12:42 am
Now hold on just a minute…I’m not trying to be all high and mighty and say I don’t care what people think. I’ve got an ego just like everyone else, and I love when people think I’m awesome. All I was saying was that I should be paying more attention to what I want to do rather than the expectations are. And that it’s OK if I don’t go to Sidewalk until I’ve got some new shit to play them…
In terms of barely audible, I’ve actually been pretty OK. My enemies have been “extra elements,” and “totally different feel.” I keep wanting to throw in yet another harmony, or redo that drum track to make it hot-hot-hotter. What can you do? I must appease the beast within.
Evan, that recording will come eventually. I feel like it needs to get the love it deserves, and these tracks with Lin are helping me learn about just how to give it that love. I promise you will be the first to hear it when it’s done. And probably numerous times before that.