Recording journal #2
Drums, drums drum and then some... drum. Tonight we started with 'Cold Kind and Lemon eyes.' I remember a couple of months ago, when we recorded/demo-ed this song for the first time, Tyler and I both realized (totally at, like, the same second) that this album was going to be much different than 'Dust of retreat.' I mean, of course it was going to be different but there is something very new to us going on in this song, something that demands new ways of thinking. also it's an amazing song so it deserves some quality time.
In that spirit we decided to re-track the drums from the first time around. There were a lot of ideas that we wanted to keep, but the feel was a tad mechanical, or perhaps cautious... something we are going to avoid at all costs on this record. So Richard, Tyler, Emily and myself played with Chris during all the takes and we ended up with two or three that felt good. Trying to get as many continuous live performances is something we all want for this record and I'm glad that we are sticking to it. Even if that means playing a song 20 times in a row...
But that's the whole thing, really, that we are coming to terms with. The first few times you play a song, you are going to really f up somewhere but there are often these moments of like, naive genius or whatever you want to call it that you want to keep. So if you can find that moment where everyone is still fresh and also able to play through without falling apart, those takes seem to be appropriate for a lot of these songs. You can definitely hear this theory in action when you listen to outtakes from Pet Sounds or some of the beatles Anthology stuff, after a couple takes of a song they arrive at this golden point where the band knows what to do, but just barely, and it just feels... right.
What you rarely get to hear are takes done after the keeper take. Probably because they are boring. It's like wearing too much make-up.
Having said that, on the flip side of fresh we recorded drums for 'the Ocean' tonight as well. The difficulty with this song is that we have been playing it for about a year, so the thrill of hearing the song for the first time is diminished a bit. I don't really get too worked up about that, though, because I know we will find all sorts of ways to make the song new for us. Beyond that, i get all geeked about stuff just sounding good. However, it is a different sort of challenge than i was babbling about in the last paragraph. You can't get complacent about a song, but you can't just change things around solely for your own entertainment either.
i saw an episode of 'Making the Band' once where Diddy stopped whoever was recording and said, "you're already remixing!" I thought that was an amazing way to put it. We can't be remixing just yet. But there are always new ways of hearing things that might not relate to the way we played a song live. So, as ever, my mind is open.
- Andy

Labels: recording, studio