Dino must have listened to my mp3 blog from the other day. I got an email from him last night. Here’s what it said.

Subject: buck up buckaroo

“johnson, don’t give up you fag, you know you got it in you. you know
how we libras roll, sit on it maybe for a couple of days, get
drunk . . . get drunk in the morning and sing it, maybe that’s how
tweedy does it.

happy new year bud . . . dino”

I going to try and not record anything for a few days. I’m starting to lose perspective on what sounds good and what doesn’t. Here’s what I think right now.

What sounds good – Everyone but me.
What doesn’t sound good – Everything I lay my vocal chords to.

I went back and looked at my blog from this time last year to see what my resolutions were and to see if I met them. Here’s how I stacked up.

get back to my pre-pregnancy weight – no
finish this album – no
get my saxophone chops back together – no
play more shows – no
pay more attention – no
smoke less – no (maybe a little)
have whiter teeth – no
get a boob job – no
be a better dad – debatable
be a better husband – debatable
get my CCNA – yes
get off anti-depressants – yes

My new year’s resolutions for this year?…same as last year.

I did today’s blog as an mp3 because emoticons cannot convey the depth of my pissedness.

Click here to download.

1.25 MB

My mood = shit.

Vocal for To Mother from Her Son = Sounded like ass 200 times in a row.
Guitar for On Martyrdom = Hand cramped up…too many bar chords…action too high on cheap ass guitar…won’t play in tune.
Vocal for On Martyrdom = Sang it like a pussy…over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Accomplished = Nothing!

My mom says that one of the signs of insanity is doing something repeatedly and expecting a different result.

I just got home from band practice. I sat down to check my email and here’s the exchange between me and my wife.

Angel – I changed my profile picture on MySpace.
Drew – (stunned silence at the lameness of the conversation I’m about to endure)…Cool.
Angel – Go look at it.
Drew – What is it?
Angel – Go look.
Drew – What is it?
Angel – (getting frustrated) It’s a picture of my twat! Now just go look at it!

There’s nothing hotter than hearing that word come out of a girls mouth…especially when she isn’t wearing a bra.

Speaking of genitals, I finished the lead vocals for Home and Cutout Bin today. Only four more songs to go. Tomorrow I’ll be doing the vocal for the song about my mother that I won’t mention here being that I’ve used the word twat.

I really hope the blog isn’t getting terribly boring these days. Whenever I’m working on a recording project, I get pretty consumed with it and it’s all I think about. So the current era of this blog is becoming more…uhhh…diary-esque? diary-like? diaretic? A true log of the album.

I totally roached out my voice today trying to track the vocal for Cutout Bin. That’s a song where you just grab your nuts and hope for the best. It’s all at the top of my range so I sorta have to yell most of it. I knew it was a bad idea to attempt that song before noon but I did it anyway. It sucked. If my voice is not totally warmed up when I try to sing a screaming song, it sounds really dull…like I’m singing with a pillow over my face. That’s what happened today. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I read today that The Beatles logged 700 hours of studio time during the recording of Sgt. Pepper’s. That’s a relief. We’ll try to keep it a smidge under that.

Merry Christmas. Now on to more important things…me.

I was finally able to finish the vocal for Admiration today. As much as I hate to admit it, I had to comp a vocal track. Doing a comp track is totally against everything I believe in as far as recording goes but I am a total failure so it had to be done. For those of you who don’t know, comping is where you do a few takes (2 in my case) and pick the best parts from each. Then you compile them into a single performance. This is an extremely common practice and not one that I condone. The two performances were both from this morning and they were both pretty close but not close enough. So I took about 75% from one and 25% from the other and voila, I’m a great singer. There’s no way you’d ever know it was comped by hearing it, but for those of you who read this, just consider it an Easter egg.

I got a bunch of cash and gift certificates for Christmas. This means I can finally get a new wardrobe. I look at our site, and the recording vids, and our holiday pics, and my High School graduation pics, and my 6th grade musical pics, and I realize that I’m wearing the same shirt in all of them. It’s time to move on and let go.

Here are some pictures from our holidays.

My wife Angel.

My son Riley avoiding the holiday paparazzi.

Riley being forced to follow in my footsteps.

Riley bribing Santa.

My followers.

I made numerous attempts to record the vocal for Admiration Day Parade today. And when I say numerous, I mean countless. God this song is hard. Who knew? The dynamics are all over the place. In the first four beats the vocal goes from a whisper to a roar and back to a whisper. Pretty tough stuff.

Tonight I went back and listened to the few takes that I thought were at least close. The only thing I got out of that was knowing what not to do. When I’m having trouble figuring out how to approach a vocal I have a tendency to over-sing, over-stylize, and over-suck. Kinda like Jewel and Alanis do on every song…except for the over-suck part.

So in the morning, after Santa has come and gone, I’ll get back to it. Just in case I’m too hoarse to type tomorrow, Merry Christmas.

I finished the lead vocal for Outta Sight Shake today. I got this one on the first take too. That’s two in a row and totally unprecedented for me. I never get anything tracked on the first try. What the hell is going on here?

My wife just bought me a huge hard-cover book of the Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums of All Time. I immediately turned to the glossary looking for Invention of the Wheel. Upon discovering its absence, I threw the book in her face. “Are you mocking me? Is this some kind of joke?” Merry Christmas to you too, whore!

These lists always make me mad. Hell, they make everyone mad, especially people like me who know everything about everything. Here are a few of my reasons why…besides the exclusion of Invention.

1) TLC’s Crazy Sexy Cool was on the list. This is in and of itself a crime but to make matters worse it finished above PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me. Come on people.
2) Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk didn’t make the list. It should have been in the top ten.
3) Radiohead’s The Bends finished fifty places above OK Computer. The Bends is excellent but OK Computer is a masterpiece.
4) Nirvana’s Nevermind came in 282 places higher that Jeff Buckley’s Grace.
5) Madonna made the list four fucking times.
6) Kiss’ Alive came in 235 places above Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs.

I could go on. This list deserves a resounding pfft.

Thanks for the book honey. I love it. I love you too.

Vocal for Dog and Pony Show < —-finished. 1st take…you’re welcome. Tomorrow = Outta Sight Shake.

Our long awaited return to the stage is booked. It’s Saturday, January 28th at Off Broadway with Tight Pants Syndrome. (See the “Live” page for links)

So that means you’ve got one month to find a babysitter, buy a new dress, wax your legs, get on the pill, make sure your vaccinations are current, get tested, book a flight, book a room, decide which panties you’d like Drew to sign, tell all your friends, wonder whether we’ll play any DJB tunes, find out if it’s true that Dino has started singing background vocals, bet on how many strings Drew will break, and get that breast lift. Now get to work.

Hughes came by practice last night to drop off the Manley pre-amp and Manley compressor I’ll be using to record the vocals. That’s Manley as in the brand name…not the opposite of girly. Now that I’ve got the stuff here I’m considering having my house re-appraised to take into consideration the value added by such expensive gear.

I was setting it all up earlier tonight in hopes of getting the vocal for Dog and Pony Show tracked. To set the input/output levels I needed to sing the loudest part of the song over and over to make sure nothing was getting fried. So after screaming “I hope you gave ‘em attitude” for 20 minutes I was sure that everything was dead nuts. Time to give it a go. Sonofa Nutter Butter!!! Now my voice is totally shot. Shit! Maybe tomorrow.

I was extremely nervous to hear the rough mixes that Hughes gave me. (not because of the mix…because of the performances) Today was the first time I’ve heard them other than during playback while we were tracking. I was afraid that all the warm and fuzzies I got when we were tracking would turn into what-were-we-thinkings. They didn’t. This is really good shit. I’m very proud and relieved. The energy in these performances is great. It sounds like an ass-kicking rock and roll band kicking ass.

When we first talked to Hughes about doing the record he said we have to do it live. Four guys, one room, lots of bleed, lots of energy. I can’t tell you the difference it makes. I’m really glad we did it that way. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it.