Progress Two: Sometimes I Am Mel Coolie(sp?)

Practice went great yesterday. I can’t believe it. We haven’t practiced since our last show. Even ANY QUESTIONS which we fucked up mercilessly and left for dead…was pretty tight in spots. I think we came up with a good plan of attack to deal with some of the differences with Larry – so we can finish the record.

Whatever the differences here...I’m willing to try and work stuff out to keep recording at LNL. It has nothing to do with any loyalty or feelings for Larry – because I’m loyal to the guys in my band and trust them first. My thing is: at that studio I no longer have to spend my life packing up, moving & going and keeping track of everything so something can be finished. If we have to push Larry a little bit to get the mixes we want: so be it. I’ll push – I like doing stuff like that anyway.

Chris & Joe are having the best run of basic tracks ever…Why? Because we don’t have to spend three hours setting up before a single note is played…and time spent during that three hours involves beverages that are not tea – and when we finally get started we’re all a little…uh, limber shall we say.

Having said this: I’ve spent a ton of time on the sounds here and Chris is right about the cymbals. We fixed ‘em on STUPID NOW (after sort of arguing with Larry) but DIL still has a similar problem – although it didn’t seem so dramatic at the time. It does now and I hear it more and more (or I hear the cymbals less and less) every time I hear DIL. We can fix this – and because the big crashes are more spread out – we might be able to spike particular portions of the tracks to make these things more, for lack of a better term, dramatic.

It seems like I always lack the “better term.”

Anyway – this is how collaboration is supposed to work. I know that I don’t have as good an ear as Chris does. I need him to keep offering the sonic input. But what I do know is how to finish a project and what it takes to work with and against certain forces to carry something across the finish line. This has less to do with talent and more to do with the ability to be a dick. You know I used to have all this resentment against the ‘you know what’ members…because sometimes they treated me like Beatle Paul or Mel Coolie or something like that…But I have this practical side. The creative, risk taking ed (in the record making process) sort of goes out the door after the writing stage. Um, the risk taking ed comes back when we play live – but in the recording, production, post-production stage (listen to me, what a dick) I am, or can become when need be, the uber-practical suit (without the suit). Devin is always in some sort of creative space – even when he’s changing poopie diapers. Chris & Joe really become more like artists/craftsmen when it comes to dealing with sonic matters. I have to remember this stuff.

Sometimes I am Mel Coolie – I just need to accept that.