two ghosts recording diary
tue 5/09
“no. don’t take my picture. I hate it when people take my picture while I’m working.” and work he does. like a dog. sniffing sounds out with his ears and licking the frequencies clean with the deft turning of expensive knobs. he also uses his studio magic skills to tastefully turn the songs up to ‘a competitive level’. basically, jeff saltzman is one hell of a recordist and owner of great sarcastic wit. he also warms up after fed some nice curry. but don’t we all?
thur 4/26
after much mixing tediousness the album is done. pretty much. minor tweaks might be necessary. very minor. but the mastering date with jeff saltzman is in 12 days. then it’s 12th-round bells ringing and fat ladies singing. as they say.
two ghosts tracklist:
3000FLARES
from an oregon shore
into the open spaces of the west
asleep
(in) crossing wind
“we’ll blacken up the sky”
“tie them to the trees”
rebuttal 1
slow guns
rebuttal 2
damned
alliances
with the village bells
two ghosts
open space (reprise)
my drawings and such are currently being layed out by danny who has helped with the layout on pretty much every bedm thing ever done. I don’t think I’ll be handmaking this batch. it’s a bit sad but too much folding and drawing can make a boy’s hand fall off. (as they say?). anyways, erik stanfill will be making a video for 3000flares. and we’ll be doing some band pics. here we go….
tue 4/17
brandon of helio sequence
girls have wings. boys have flutes. that’s one of the many important things I learned from watching the dark crystal. (where have all the puppeteers gone?) needing to quench my thirst for weird epic spooky stuff I got ahold of brandon summers, who was sweet enough to take some time out of his wacky schedule finishing the new helio sequence record (it’s going to be awesome btw- ed.) in order to spookify the drumjam song with a healthy dose of his flautery. (btw- I should point out anything signed ‘-ed.’ is actually me. it just seems funnier that way.)
so we’re sitting in cha cha cha. brandon with chicken burrito in hand and medelo riding shotgun. myself with a perfectly hopped tasty beverage. later on brandon will calmly puff out several grand notes and we’ll agree that the song now sounds like something from the dark crystal. or perhaps a carnival. and thusly will my desire for spookiness be satisfied. thanks again, brandon(!)
tue 4/03
enough mixing. back to food. we have got to talk indian cuisine. here’s my top 5 PDX indian food ops:
1. bombay cricket club (dinner only)
2. swagat
3. india oven
4. india grill
5. K2 kebob
curiously, three of the my pics are on SE hawthorne (no disrespect to any other fine areas of portland). bombay cricket club is tops for me (and it’s not even close), but they don’t have that lunch buffet where one is able to piggify with only sharp pains in the side to stop them. well…..maybe that’s a good thing…..
anways, honerable mentions ought to go first to that place at lloyd center called wazwan for being quite decent, which for mall food is a major achievement. also, those prepackaged/precooked boxes of indian food at trader joes can be pretty darn good in a hurry. watch out. yum.
now back to mixing….
wed 3/21
ah mixing. if it were a book it could be called life in the basement. so I like to get out and listen to tracks while driving somewhere. it’s a good test. my little friend’s stereo has always served us well. in this case with the windows down on a beautiful spring day.
“excuse me.” now I’m looking over—she’s driving the car next to me headed up SE division.
“what are you listening to?”—ummmm. ummmm. it’s the cd I’m recording right now.
“what are you called?”—ummm. (trying not to run off the road) boy eats drum machine
“wow. it sounds really good.” and with that she sped off. right up division. leaving me teatering up the street at 30 miles an hour with nice heat forming in my head. truly the greatest moment of my life.
I was listening to the mix of this song (thanks, localcut!). also, the leadoff track is now up on our myspace and you can download track 2 from our pals at pampelmoose for free right here.
batch 1 (songs 1-5) is done. now onto batch 2….
sat 3/10
in what appears to have been the final ‘day’ of tracking for the album two ghosts, benjy layed down a bunch of synth bass and his lines for the song damned on his new gritty little pink bass. so from here on out it’s days of mixing (sigh) and few fun nick nacks here and there. then onto the mastering lab with mr jeff saltzman. so the deadline is set. but there will be adventures, I’m sure. halfway through the day b and I walked down to the pepino’s a few blocks from my new place. steak burrito for me—b got a thai veggie burrito. good stuff. not quite in my top 5 but a great value and tasty nonetheless. we’ll be back (up to twice a week).
wed 2/28
the very first sounds to be recorded here couldn’t be better. I’m thinking softly to myself. smiling widely. concentrating on the task at hand. I’m working. seriously, I am…..it’s just—sometimes things seem too easy—and in this case I’ve simply put a microphone in front of kate’s cello and as it absorbs the sounds of the instrument’s wiggling strings filling the room I can’t help but feel less like a recordist and more like an audience. a one person audience. with the best and only seat in the house. later she will pick up her violin and again fill the purple room and it’s high ceilings with notes that grab onto you and don’t let go for several seconds. and slightly out of breath I’ll find there really isn’t anything to say except “are you sure you’re not hungry or anything? there’s carrots or chocolate ice cream”
sun 2/25
I’m on my knees. hunched over a laptop and I can’t move. I’ve just spent two days lifting and unpacking and putting boxes and things (roughly) where they need to go. but it’s not that I’m tired. in fact, things are feeling pretty damn groovy right now. I’m holding my breath a few feet away from the microphone. I’m hoping it pics up the soft tapping of miss murgatroid’s fuzzy wookie slippers on her living room carpet as her accordion folds and unfolds under her attentive gaze. later on she’ll sing hauntingly into the mic “I forget you. you forget about me.” then she’ll insist we sing it together in grossly exaggerated italian accents. and laughter will go to my stomach….as will the burritos later at La Bonita. it’s going to be an awesome night but for now I’m not worried about that. I’m hunched over a laptop and I can’t move.
thr 2/22, fri 2/23
basically I took this pile of stuff:
and p brought this drumkit:
and we took over a small auditorium in SE portland for two nights. it all culminated with a drumjam for the song tie them to the trees with b on timpani, p his drumkit, and me attempting to carve some miami vice drum fills on a couple tom toms. then it was off to mcmenamins for my birthday(!). it was nine days past and in all my moving haste I hadn’t had a proper party. some ales and one captain neon burger later I almost forgot just how mad the next couple weeks were going to be. it was like we were on tour again.
wed 2/21
three days before I move across southeast portland,laura gibson, who recently gave us the brilliant If you come to greet me, is standing calmly in the middle of an empty living room. in my headphones her voice is mixing with sounds of rain forced against the roof and dropping out of the gutters. it’s perfect.
(and) did I mention she is just a bit mysterious? I had a blast recording with her. she adds some excellent vocals to 3 of the songs and I couldn’t be more excited about it. thank you thank you, laura(!)
mon 2/12
pampelmoose.com interview:
click here to get the podcast and hear the entire interview.
(thanks, dave)
meanwhile out of necessity (I’m moving and everything is in boxes) the recording has become a remote operation with planned stops for violin, cello, accordion, and vocals at several peoples’ houses. recently I’ve been laying down some saxaphone, guitar, and vox in my kitchen. yes. what better place? and really- I plan on doing some singing in the shower. without the water on. it’s bad for the microphone they tell me. p has been perfecting his beats for his remaining 6 songs and we plan on invading an auditorium in SE next week for a couple overnight recording sessions. b reportedly has tracked down a lil’ pink bass. either someone told him pink basses sound best or else he simply thinks it looks snazzy. or both. very exciting, indeed! to be most certainly continued…
/jonny
thr 1/18-sat 1/27
tue 1/16/06
(oh snap)
portlanders aren’t snow-savvy. not driving in it at least. supposedly we eat alot of ice cream per capita. but sprinkle something frozen or fluffy on the ground—widespread panic. so I expect everything to be shut down today. what to do? I mean, is there anything better then laying around the house on a cold day?:
and for entertainment there’s always my barely opened x-mas haul:
but no. for the first time in nearly two weeks I’ll finally have some serious time to get back to the recording, which is going to be called two ghosts and be anwhere from 14-16 tracks long. I’ve been busy the last couple weeks getting ready to move and rehearsing 3 times a week as part of menomena’s choir:
yes(!) choir. there’s almost 20 of us singing and shouting and whistling and stomping and making animal sounds. we’ll be lucky participants in the boys’ insane FREE cd release party sun 1/28/07 at the crystal ballroom in PDX. FUN. yes it will be.
but for today I’ll be singing and making a decent racket in my basement. and what’s better then that?
thr 1/04/07
my PDX top 5 mexican food ops:
(it started a conversation….)
1: mole’ asada at taqueria nueve
2: fish tacos at san felipe taqueria
3: express taco at super torta
4: chile relleno burrito at el burrito loco
5: burrito clasico at cha cha cha
5: dinner plate at ole’ ole’
recording can be tedious. but mexican food never gets old.
sat 12/30
thr 12/28
here I am, finishing the first mix of the demo for “we’ll blacken up the sky”, which features p on drumkit and benjy on guitar and synth. you can check it right here on our new haystack.com page. we’re hoping we are onto the right track. to be continued…
wed 12/27
percussion, turntable, vocals—I don’t know what could be better then a day doing those things. tried out the tube mic nick H lent me (it’s on the vocals for the demo track here) and really love it. I am a very capable mooch. I have gear from several people making this recording possible. I’m also stoked to say a couple ‘guests’ for the new record have committed and I’m hoping for more. I didn’t eat anything exciting today. in fact, I drank mint tea (zzzzzzz). a fraction of coffee’s excitement but good for the pipes.
tue 12/26
benjy day(!) (you can hear the things he did here) we all three fit snuggly in the canning cellar I record in. p sat on the floor to make it happen. this was not a catered event, except there appeared some ales. I suppose that’s food: it’s liquid bread, they say.
b with his new synth
thr 12/21
we recorded from 10am to noon- plenty of time for p to lay down his drums for the song slow guns. p has now played on 8 songs.
tue 12/19 a full day of peter’s drumming. I made lunch: tamales (those frozen ones from trader joes) and salad. plus a little sausage. we watched that simpsons where homer goes to AA: my name is otto and I like to get blotto!. but mostly we recorded all day. p worked on six different songs. his broken drum sticks were thrown into the wood stove. tidy and toasty…
mon 12/17 it’s lovely to me: we’re recording. pics to come. after making demos for all the songs and kicking around ideas, we finally got peter’s drums started yesterday. (special thanks to nick for lending mics) thanks to super torta on SE woodstock we were livin’ large and eating well. somehow peter manages to play really good after consuming a burrito asada. go figure. more drums tomorrow—it won’t be long until benjy is laying down some standup bass(!) and sounds from his new synth:
wish us luck! we’re not playing shows for awhile—meanwhile, please feel free to check out some live footage of si(x)cuse me at our PDX show last weekend.
/jonny