Delusions in 7/8

Quiet Nights In Fall

We didn't accomplish as much as I hoped on Saturday, but seeing as how it was kind of an experimentation session anyway, and the first real bump in the road so far, I guess it's no great loss. We've got a solid schedule set for the next few weeks and recording itself should be done by the end of the month.

Self-doubt creeping in. To be expected I suppose, after such initial rapture. Immensely depressed by the sound of my singing right now, especially when, after doing a take that felt pretty good, listening back to discover that it's all off-key and horrible. You know the feeling when you hear your own voice recorded, like on an answering machine or something? That weird moment of dissonance at hearing an objective representation of what is usually so subjective, so naturally, unthinkingly you? Well, imagine listening back to this over and over again, and it's not just some voice message small talk or "call me back" it's somewhat intimate, maybe slightly embarrasing admissions about your mental state, or something. It's kinda creepy.

There are only two more songs that need vocals. I hope I can do them justice. I also seem to have developed a wicked sore throat.

I've pondered and planned and worried about this album for so long that I'm a little scared that in the end it'll just be another collection of electronic blips on disc. There's a feeling we're going for, something hungry and unrestrained, and you can get a little buried under the nuts and bolts of it all, putting it all together, so I'm not really sure if it's gonna come out as we intended. But I do have faith, I do. And it's been really fun and exciting and invigorating and exhausting and frustrating all at the same time. Like all the best things I suppose.

I caught a documentary about Johnny Cash on TV late Friday night. It was mostly Johnny and June Carter driving around the south in an RV in like '69 or something, playing shows from prison to prison. It's funny, cuz we're making a big, loud rock record and for the last week all I've been listening to is Johnny Cash and Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan, all much more organic, stripped-down music. Anyway, Cash seemed so at home in his persona, so at ease in performance, it was amazing just to watch him roll out that rich voice so casually, like it ain't no thing at all. And then I'm sitting around yesterday, hungover and tired and here's The Man In Black singing for a Comfort Inn commercial and the guy in the ad is showing a series of placards with cities written on them, an obvious take on Dylan in the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" segment of Don't Look Back, and I'm thinking, ok we're really through the rabbit hole here, nothing even matters anymore. The fourth dimension has already been discovered.

posted by Khmer Rouge @ 10:57 AM