GET HELP
I just got home from another landmark Get Help recording session at Smoke and Mirrors. While Jackson was off doing body shots of tequila off of Neil Young's tits, Chrispy, Tony and I continued on our relentless pace to make an entire record in a very short period of time. (In Jackson's defense, it was very good tequila.)
With no exceptions, every session has been not just productive but an adrenaline shot, an adrenaline IV. I've never made a record this fast in my life. On a couple of previous occasions, I've birthed a few Replacements knockoff eps that took a week or two. But this is painful in its progress. It's what childbirth must feel like. And like a woman in childbirth, a band at this pace screams for the epidural. (Jackson, you have empty bottles greeting you tomorrow. sorry.)
Tonight I got to use my Micro Synth pedal, which makes the scariest sounds I've ever heard come from my person. With it, I made the two finest-smelling noisetrack tulip fields I've ever tiptoed through. All for the gianthem 'Growing Circles'. It has eight guitars and counting, but five of them play the exact same thing. Chrispy suggested that Billy Corgan might like to introduce us at our R&R Hall of Fame induction.
Later on I stuck a microphone into a kick drum to record a guitar. And then I realized my favorite thing about Smoke and Mirrors - no one really gives a shit. I mean, they care immensely, sincerely and passionately about what they do there, and it shows. But they don't particularly give a shit about how it gets done. They're up for anything. And you know what? It almost always works out just fine that way.
The same holds true of the bathroom down their hallway. The cleanest thing in it is the toilet brush. Slooowww whistle. Wipe brow.
With no exceptions, every session has been not just productive but an adrenaline shot, an adrenaline IV. I've never made a record this fast in my life. On a couple of previous occasions, I've birthed a few Replacements knockoff eps that took a week or two. But this is painful in its progress. It's what childbirth must feel like. And like a woman in childbirth, a band at this pace screams for the epidural. (Jackson, you have empty bottles greeting you tomorrow. sorry.)
Tonight I got to use my Micro Synth pedal, which makes the scariest sounds I've ever heard come from my person. With it, I made the two finest-smelling noisetrack tulip fields I've ever tiptoed through. All for the gianthem 'Growing Circles'. It has eight guitars and counting, but five of them play the exact same thing. Chrispy suggested that Billy Corgan might like to introduce us at our R&R Hall of Fame induction.
Later on I stuck a microphone into a kick drum to record a guitar. And then I realized my favorite thing about Smoke and Mirrors - no one really gives a shit. I mean, they care immensely, sincerely and passionately about what they do there, and it shows. But they don't particularly give a shit about how it gets done. They're up for anything. And you know what? It almost always works out just fine that way.
The same holds true of the bathroom down their hallway. The cleanest thing in it is the toilet brush. Slooowww whistle. Wipe brow.
posted by stinkrock at 2:35 AM
2 Comments:
That's exactly why I love Smoke & Mirrors and the two proprietors. They are up for trying anything. That's how great shit gets done.
Shit, now I wish I had a project going on there.
Well, thank you, I think. Yeah! Thank you! Wait a minute... no, thank you!!
I've found that I never know what something's going to sound like until I hear it. Thus, I hear no good reason not to stick the mic in the drum. Besides, there's no greater joy than being present at the birth of a child whose development you've helped shape via secondhand smoke.
I do what I can, mostly.
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