11/23/09
This past Saturday morning I was in the studio: I’m now working on song #9. (Pardon the Beatles pun) While I do have a little fix I have to do on song #8. I’ll catch that before all the lead guitar tracks are wrapped and the music is officially done. It’s only about a 45 second patch I have to do anyway.
#9 is a special one that has to be just right. It’s about my eldest daughter, Megan. Megan is officially 3 days past her due date of delivering her first child. She called me today to give me an update and told me that if she has not had it by this next Saturday, they will induce labor at 8 am on Saturday. So… if not sooner, I will officially become a grandpa then. (Too wild to try to comprehend, man) I’d been toying with some ideas very infrequently over the past couple weeks. Maybe just 2 or 3 times and I had a couple ideas but nothing concrete, and Saturday came up on me WAY too quickly.
Friday: The night before: Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge Gary Hoey fan. Gary was playing in Detroit Friday night and I had to go see him. Yes... “Had to”. I tried to rally some troops to go but no one wanted to make the trek. My brother in law, Steve, lives in Plymouth and he wanted to go check him out since his brother had turned him onto Hoey after I had turned him (his brother) onto Hoey. So I drove the hour drive to Wixom solo where I met up with Steve and then drove the ½ hour to Blondie’s in Detroit. That’s in… DOWNTOWN Detroit. Right down the road from Joe Louis.
My session was at 9 the next morning and all night long that was burning in my head that I had to be at the studio by 9. As it turns out there were two opening bands (Surprise!) and Hoey didn’t come on until 10. He played (quite spectacularly) for 2 hours. Once he finished I made my way over to the SWAG table to get yet another picture autographed (I’ve seen him 4 times now). As it turned out he remember me from the 3 times I’d seen him up close and person in Lansing and even made reference to one time in particular (fan or stalker? I never know where to draw the line) so I knew he really remembered and wasn’t just being nice. He shook my hand again and said how nice it was of me to drive all the way to Detroit to see him. He’s such a great guy. Got a couple pictures snapped with him then drove to Plymouth to drop my brother in law home. At this time it was about 1:30 am. My wife had called and said for me to stay there and just drive home in the morning and Steve was offering for me to stay. I knew if I stayed there I wouldn’t sleep well and would be crap in the morning. So I drove back to Lansing that night. Got home just after 3 am and hit the sheets ASAP knowing that I had an early session.
I actually woke up in the morning with the song I was to work on in the studio playing in my head. I don’t’ know if I fell asleep thinking about it or if it just came to me or what. Five hours of sleep is pretty good for me and I didn’t feel too bad. I grabbed my guitar and processor and headed to the studio. As luck would have it… my studio partner Jeff had to do some errands first thing in the morning wouldn’t be back until 9:30. I unlocked the studio, went in, and started playing. I normally don’t’ get a lot of warm up time so the first few takes are always crap. But I had a good ½ hour to just sit and play and run through some things. By the time Jeff got there I was pretty loosened up. He pulled up Megan’s song and I hit the intro in about three takes. I did a harmony over it at one point and while looking for one passage, found another and ran with that one. Intro done. After the first verse there is a break between the 1st and 2nd verse that I played some leads over to break it up. Nailed that relatively quickly as well. Again, a harmony lead here and there just for flavor and that was done as well. Now the hard part. There is about a full minute of soloing I do during the chorus. This was the hardest part. I had some ideas I had been working with but still had a lot of uncertainty as to what I was going to do. For the most part I like to just not plan and see what happens. Then once I get a line down that I like I can go over it and refine it or change it until it’s right. Finally I had a long run that I was able to remember. Not note for note but when to change and move up and what not. I’d do a track and then say, “Quick! Give me another track!” and then before the thought and inspiration left, I’d do it again. I did this like 5 or 6 times until I was comfortable that we had something to work with. We replayed them and I picked the one I liked the most. There were two “little” parts that I didn’t like and we were able to pull from a different track to patch it. It was a seamless patch. Again, I went over and did a couple harmonies here and there. As much as I keep using the words “harmonies here and there” it wasn’t to the point of overkill. It’s really just here and there (there it is again!) for flavor.
It was about that time that my cell phone started going off and “the rest of my day” was beginning. I had to call it a day at that point. But I did so knowing that I had gotten a LOT accomplished. I took a copy home and have listened to it over and over and over and haven’t heard anything jump out at me that I don’t like. All I have remaining on this song is the outro leads. Granted this consists of playing the chorus again but I also have a key change about 30 seconds into it. It’s probably another 90 seconds or so of playing. Maybe not quite that long. But… it was one of those sessions where I left the studio SO STOKED! It really went well. A lot better than I thought it would. It was one of those times where I walk out of the studio going, “Self high five! Got no friends!”
Once this song is finished then I just have the last one remaining and that is it!!!
I can’t believe it’s actually getting this close, man!
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