Missed this one back in August of 09. Sorry!
Saturday, August 8, 2009At last, and finally… I got back into the studio. The summer of ’09 has indeed been a busy one. My daughter Samantha graduated from high school just after finding out she had been awarded a scholarship to study in Germany for a year. If you’ve ever had to prepare for an open house you know just how much work it is. The father’s role: We have no say in what happens nor are we involved in any of the planning. We do however do all the physical labor to get the house and the yard up to open house standard. Now if the child graduating is a daughter, I daresay it is ten times worse as things like “Themes” come into play. I had to do a lot of landscaping and cosmetic work in the backyard but it really did turn out nice and it’s so enjoyable now to just kick back in a chair under the umbrella with a beverage and a cigar and admire the upgrades.
Two weeks after the open house was my daughter Megan’s baby shower. Yes, another domestic title will soon fall upon me: Grandpa. Hmm… I’m still trying to get use to that. But as Megan has just entered her 3rd trimester and as I sat just yesterday and could not help notice that the bump on her belly has grown so much larger since I last saw her just a week and a half ago, it is a constant reminder that this reality will be coming to pass very soon and Grandpa Traceman will be holding baby Ziggy for the first time.
And being that Samantha, now in Germany, will obviously not be able to attend her sister’s baby shower, Patty (Mrs. Traceman) planned one so that while Sam would miss the birth of her first niece, she could at least take part in a baby shower before she left. And of course a baby shower means… another theme party. The good news is that while I did some more manual work and last second leg work, males at a baby shower is strictly taboo. My son, Jackson, and I went to lunch and then to the Michigan Museum for the day.
But then of course there was the going away party which Patty planned as Sam’s “Year In A Day” Party where ALL of the holidays that Sam would miss would be celebrated in one evening. This means we would need provisions for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Sam’s birthday, Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and St Patrick’s Day. So… while the actual party went over famously, it was a lot of work scurrying about taking down the past holiday and setting up the new holiday décor, as well as putting out refreshments for each. A lot of work but… a huge success and just an absolute blast!
Then the hard part came as we took Sam to the airport and tearfully hugged her goodbye and unconvincingly told each other that the 11 months would go by fast. Patty and I are planning a trip to Germany to visit her late ’09 or early ’10. Can’t wait.
But… with all of the summer activities and necessities out of the way, I can once again return to the place that, before the big absence this summer, I spend so much time at. To be honest, it had been so long since I had been there that I didn’t even know what to work on. As I made the drive down 4-96 to 127 North, I ran a couple different scenarios through my head. I have 6 songs that are either completely done or musically done, which means I have 4 more to work on, and all of this work would be laying down lead guitar tracks. 3 of the 4 shouldn’t be a huge undertaking. But in the back of my mind I’ve had this 1 song that every time I thought about I cringed and I knew needed a lot of work. Whenever we pulled it up to play it, I liked it less and less. Not that I don’t like the song, I just don’t like what I’d done with it. I had about 8 rhythm guitar tracks laid down trying to get a nice big full sound. For the past year or so, I’ve been pushing that off to the side or placing it on the back burner. For the past several months I’ve even been considering just dumping it all together and had nearly convinced myself to do so.
So as I arrived at the studio, I sat in my usual chair and looked around at my former home away from home and caught up with Jeff for a while. When Jeff finally said, “So what are we doing?” I asked him to pull up the difficult song and let’s take a listen to it. Initially I had thought to just scrap the rhythm guitar tracks altogether and just re-do them all. Before I did that I asked Jeff to play the tracks one at a time. Some were just ghastly. It was like when you’re digging up in your backyard and you dig up a grub. It’s so ugly you just have to kill it. Yeah, same thing with these tracks, I couldn’t say “Delete it!” fast enough. The funny thing was that with about 6 of the tracks removed the remaining two sounded pretty nice. I had an accent track that I just played an apreggiated A into an A suspended that I replaced. I had to listen to it several times to make sure but… lo and behold, that did it. So I tracked the intro lead at the beginning of the song and the outro lead at the end. It’s a heavy but laid back kind of feel, almost lazy at times. I was happy for the most part with it. And unfortunately, I was out of time as Jeff and I both had things to do at noon so I had to leave. I did have Jeff burn in to a CD so I could take it home and listen to it a million times and decide if I like it or if I need to re-record or tweak a part. After listening to it repeatedly I’ve found a part I do need to tweak, which I hope to do this weekend. Apart from that though, it appears this Lazarus-like song has indeed come back from the dead and is going to work after all.
I never cease to be amazed at what can happen in the studio. So often things will just happen, something will just spill out; Something unplanned and spontaneous. And when the record light is on when it does and it’s all captured on tape (so to speak), it can be magic. I am again excited about my project and cannot wait to get back in
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