More Singing

Yesterday and today were two more days of singing and comping vocals. Nothing fancy here, just the repetitive, mentally wearing work of picking out the best lines and words from each take, and magically melding them together (comping) into one final vocal track. That, after singing and re-singing a song multiple times (eight passes, on average). This is nothing like digging ditches (a job I've held before), but it will leave you mentally fried.

It was a brief day at the studio, but we're trying to take advantage of every free moment Ben has to spare in order to get this thing closer to wrapped up. Today we comped the vocals for "I Will Go With You". Yesterday I sang and we comped the vocals for "You Don't Have the Strength". Next week, we should have three straight, uninterrupted days of singing, which makes me tired to even think about, but hopefully I won't get sick between now and then (PLEASE no!), so we can knock out another healthy chunk of the vocals, which would put us on the path to the final light. Singing vocals is the scariest part for me. Sucky vocals equals a sucky album, no matter how cool the artwork, no matter how original the music, no matter how masterful the songwriting. I cringe whenever I listen to some of my early solo stuff because the vocals weren't given the attention to detail that they so desperately needed. Some of my earlier recorded material could have been so much better had I known to not settle. Live and learn.

Lastly, I hate forwarded emails, but my mom sent me this and I thought it was funny, even if it is fabricated.

Singing! At Long Last

I officially began singing keeper vocals this abnormally cold April morning at The Bee Hive. With Ben dialing in the vocal sound and giving me that sweet, tonic reverb inside my headphones, I sang through "Chrome" (or "Krome" as Ben likes to spell it with his direct sort of whimsy) six or seven times. I could feel my voice warming and settling down with each new pass, and by the final take, felt that we had much goodness to work with.

We then comped the vocal, a process by which the engineer/producer goes through each and every line (sometimes isolating individual words) with a fine-toothed comb (i.e., ears) and picks out the best, most pleasing versions. It might be a certain whisper or the way a vowel is uttered, or it might be the plaintive delivery confirming a sad mood. The producer/engineer then cuts and pastes each of these selected takes into one mothership of a vocal. Purists might argue that this process is fraudulent stating that it's not an actual take, but an amalgamation of several takes. I figure, it's still my voice singing, not someone else's (reference Milli Vanilli), and I'm a fraud already. Nobody's perfect.

I really, really like this song. The more I listen to the roughs Ben sent me, the more the song resonates with me, especially in these dark days of uncertainty and fear. I can't help but feel this song is at the center of what I'm trying to state with this album.

Chrome for my heart
Chrome for my skin
Chrome becomes a part of me like God inside of men
I want chrome

"Chrome" and the New Recession

Residing in newborn-baby land for the past month, shy of any alertness or creativity, I am indeed still alive, though my communication has been equivalent to nil. This winter/spring calendar has hands-down been the bleakest I have ever known as far as getting and securing work/shows/income. In some ways for us, it's not much different than any other month of any other year. We live in a recession each and every month, never really knowing where the next paycheck is going to come from. But church budgets are way down, and since that is where I play the vast majority of my shows, we have noticed a definite slowdown in our little cottage economy. Sweating bullets. But the flipside to all this is that I've been home a LOT to help (as much as a male possibly can) my wife in the transition from one to two kids. As a breadwinning male, I have found myself in the middle of a workweek playing with Ellis in the backyard sandbox or fixing peanut butter sandwiches fighting not only the noonday demon of acedia, but the very distinct and cruel head voice saying to me, "Here you are, you lazy sack. You can't even provide for your family, you worthless loser of a phony artist." Such are my days of late. Low self-esteem is a plague riddled with guilt.

Ben has been wrapping up a couple of other projects before we make the final push to finish my ghost of an album. I've officially titled the project, "Chrome", which I will explain in a later post. The release date, obviously, won't be anytime in March, and April is looking mighty doubtful. I'm still hopeful for a May release, but this train is, and has been, a slow one, so by now I should know better than to make any promises when it comes to these sort of things. What I can give you is a sneak peek at the album cover (or something close)....