SEA TACT
I woke up this morning, not exactly refreshed but having slept maybe 7 hours, to see enormous flakes of snow tumbling earthward. Being above freezing, they are disappearing upon contact with the pavement, and dusting the lawns ever so slightly.
I was working, even on the eve of my departure, mixing songs for Billy & the Firm, which are turning out amazingly well. Some of the tracks were pretty garage-y sounding, but I saw the artist's intentions and managed to pull out something much more hi fi and big sounding. I ended up mixing half the album, which was reasonable for the time I had. I had originally been under the impression I was to mix the entire album that week, which was possible but daunting, esp. since we live a couple of time zones apart, and the make mix-get comments-incorporate comments--make new mix--fine tune further process takes some time. PLUS right at the end of the day, just before I was making that day's backup, I kid you not, but my hard drive crashed, and I lost a day's work. An important one too, I had basically mixed an entire song and even done some serious editing on another one. I called some places in Paris and Seattle and was quoted prices in the thousands of dollars. Then I discovered a place in Paris called Chronodisc. They charge the same prices--IF you need it that day. Most data recovery places assume you are a big company, and bringing them vital, valuable, sensitive stuff that needs to be recovered that day otherwise biz will grind to a halt. I believe my stuff to be value, but, I had other stuff I could work on, and then I was going away for mover a month. Plus, Chronodisc (who's logo and imagery spoofs the Chronopost logo, the French Poste's Express mail service) had a tiny dropoff office in the 12th, about a ten-minute walk from home. So, we'll see. If they quote me a price in the thousands, forget it, but they seem to have a sliding scale if your case can wait, so potentially it could be a coupla hundred euros, and that would be fine. They haven't even looked at it yet so we'll see.
I handed off to Bud Reichard his hard drives, as the project is done and he's going to press CDs this month in fact.
All the while I was packing and preparing for my trip to Seattle/South America/New York, trying to sort out as much business as I could before I would be much less able/interested in being online. THE DiSCiPLiNES video for YOURS FOR THE TAKiNG was finished and put online, it's fantastic. Check it out on YouTube
here or in better resolution on
Facebook.
On my last nite in town, I was finishing up the last song for Billy, which I began at the end of my day, the nite before, having to start a song from scratch despite the work, temporarily (at least) lost, I had spent 8-10 hours doing that day already. I started at about 10pm and worked til 3am, thinking that I just done the basic work, and I would open up the project the next day and find it in rough form. I went in the morning to buy more drives and drop off the ailing one, and at about midday opened up the song, and found that it sounded amazing--I had been working that night on headphones, which is a terrible way to work, very misleading. Plus I don't want to wear my ears out, so my volume was minimal (which is a good way to work, less misleading than being impressed by volume). And to my pleasant surprise, it all came together and then it was just fine-tuning via email with Billy. So I was able to sit down and enjoy a nice long dinner with Dom & Aden, and spend the last night curled up with my family.
No need to say I woke up before the alarm, at 5. Always a bit nervous on flight days, esp. when they are intercontinental. I have nightmares about missing flights, and I have missed three in my life: once around 1990, I slept thru the alarm and missed my flight back home to Seattle while visiting my g.f. at the time in L.A.; once, in an airport somewhere on tour, I didn't notice the gate change and thought the flight had been delayed. Somehow in both of those instances, I was quickly rebooked and it was OK. Then, last year, when horrible traffic in Paris caused me to miss a flight and cancel a show in Barcelona, which I made up a few months later.
This day, I had no such problems. My flight to Chicago was really empty, and i had a row to myself to sleep in. My flight to Seattle was full, but I slept the whole way anyway, well, I saw an episode of '30 Rock' and one of 'Everybody Hates Chris', so I caught up on US TV for the year.
My friend Brian, hosting me for this trip was there to pick me up at the airport and we went directly to Palace Kitchen, where we opened up two bottles of wine that we had gone in on together...they were exquisite, I mean, these were legendary wines: we had a half bottle of the 1961 Chateau Palmer, one of the greatest Bordeaux of all time; and a 1997 Bryant Family Napa cabernet, which Robert Parker said might 'redefine greatness in Cabernet Sauvignon'. The Margaux was soft, wonderfully decayed, rich, velvety, opulent. The Bryant was bold, powerful, classic Parker huge. Of course by the end of this meal I was simply a blob but it was a perfect arrival to Seattle and a nice pause in the action.
These days i am working again at my old Seattle base
Soundhouse, working with Seattle band
Red Jacket Mine, on recordings I produced and played on last year. These are wonderful sounding recordings, engineered by Kip Beelman, made with the four band members plus me on keyboards, all playing live together in the room. The resulting sound is so rich and wonderful, reminiscent of Dylan's Time Out of Mind which was recorded with the same theory (except we overdubbed the vocals). It's some of my favorite sounding stuff that I have worked on. Great band, great sounds, great songs. Day 1 I was reacquainted with the studio and set up with Jack Endino, the legendary Seattle producer/engineer (Nirvana, Mudhoney, et al), who runs the studio now. Jack is such a kind, helpful person, and a real character too. And a great, great mixer and engineer. So, my setting up and preparation and track cleaning and all that for the songs took a few hours, followed by mixing not one but two songs, and of course the first song is the hardest, so I was mixing til 5.45 the next morning, came back to Brian's, then slept maybe two hours, and went back to work. The next two songs went much more quickly so I was out of there by midnight, and thus, I woke up on my own jet-lagged steam at 8.30 or so. The good news is that jet lag works in your favor going this way, I have energy, and little apparent need for sleep. When I get home in April, despite the fact I am working my way eastward in South America and will be several time zones closer to home than I am now, there will be a price to pay...
Love
KS
Seattle
