STRIPE CLUB
With the EP nearly finished, Joel and I got out the tripod, our wedding photography-worn camera, and some hot pink H&M tights to take a crack at a couple of press photos for Sex & Sound.
Check out the pre-shoot experiments and the outtakes in the collage, and the two finished photos below. Hooray for cheap legwear, mini-blinds and a completed project!
Recording a little More Guitar
So we ducked into Big Scary Tree Studios to do some quick guitar fixes on one of the tracks we’ve been working on… it only took a couple hours but it was pretty cool experience.
Jeb Lipson, the proprietor has put together an absolutely beautiful collection of vintage guitars and amps that made getting the “right sound” both easy and enjoyable. And just like that the “Sex and Sound” choruses where big and awesome!
We are getting so close I can taste it! It tastes pretty good too, like wintergreen.
-Joel
Hot Russian spies?
Some things went down on the recording this week…secret things.
Ready or Not…
It’s time to start mixing!
So Graham got us moved into studio 1 and started bringing up a mix. I joined him after fulfilling my personal assistant duties for the day and helped to fine tune some of the balances and make treatment decisions on several tracks. However when it came to the real “mixing” Graham was the one making it happen.
We printed our final mix just shy of 2 a.m. and cleaned up the place to make way for one of the studios more recognizable clients.
When my alarm went off that same morning just after 6 am I had momentary “mixed” feelings about the whole thing, but listening back to the track we’d made got me excited for the next opportunity to get into the studio and deprive myself of some sleep!
One down four to go.
Check out the pics below to see mixing the track “Ready or Not”.
-Joel
Rock n Roll tracking done.
Rock n Roll mixing begins.
Well hopefully it will begin soon.
Below are some photos from our final tracking session at the SSR. I performed a few more vocal fixes as well as some guitar overdubs, while Amber got busy in the vocal room prettying up one of the numbers by adding a female voice. The session was definitely a necessary one and legitimate improvements were made. We kept doing stuff and Graham (our go to engineer) kept nodding and what not so we must have been on fire.
With any luck we’ll be back in the studio for a few days of concentrated mixing, but regarding the tracking experience we’ve had here at the SSR, it’s been just so damn cool, from the staff and the vibe, to the equipment and the live rooms, I gotta say, this is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. When I’m at the SSR my imagination runs away with me to places it’s rarely gone in my adult life. The feeling of possibility is a good one and it keeps us doing all we can, in hopes of returning here to track an album!
-Joel
FINALLY BACK IN THE STUDIO!
After a nearly five-month wait, on Tuesday Joel and I were able to get back into the studio to do some of the final tracking on the EP.
Joel and I can’t agree on whether this recording just won’t die or it just doesn’t want to live, but in the end that’s just talk. The important thing is that on Tuesday night we brought a finished product a little closer to being a reality, and there is more reason to hope that it will get done, and that it will turn out well.
backyard photo shoot
Joel and I have been working on some band photos in the backyard of our place in Santa Monica. We’ve found that what our tiny studio apartment lacks in size it makes up for in the quite useful creepiness of the wildly overgrown backyard.
Just a few outtakes. We’ll be posting the finished pictures here when they are done.
Progress. Oh yes.
It was early November the last time anything tangible was accomplished on the recording Joel and I came to Los Angeles to make.
Finally, this past weekend we were able to get back together with our extremely busy engineer Graham to do some digital-style organization of everything that we have done so far.
Moving Like Its a Hobby
No, for those you that may be worried, Joel and I are not moving again, thank goodness! Not right now anyway.
But since we have moved seven times since we moved to L.A. a year and a half ago (and also moved all of our things in and out of storage two additional times, as Joel likes to remind me), I’d like to share little bit of the chaos of moving constantly when you really don’t want to, but you just have to if you want to stay in Los Angeles, finish a recording, and live under a roof.
Vocal Session 2
Coming off some much needed rest we arrived at the studio on Wednesday to find we had been bumped from Studio 2 by what promises to be a very interesting collaboration between an American postmodern legend and a young female French vocalist.
This left us in studio 3, which I will take any day of the week, Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 not excluded. So here are some more pics of Graham, Amber, and I doing what we do best, making noise.
