First, Happy Birthday, George! I’m getting a feel for the new studio with mostly covers right now and I threw this one together in honor of George… and also because that song got stuck in my head something fierce the other day. I ransacked the house looking for “Revolver” to no avail and finally had to record it myself to get it out of my head. I don’t listen to the Beatles every day or even every month anymore, but sometimes I still get a jones for them. This is complicated by losing half of my CDs every time I move house (it has only been a year since I moved, after all).
Miraculously, we’re still looking at early April for a release date. Mastering with Bob Olhsson went very well and since I blundered into the rare occasion of sitting in on the mastering session, Jimmy Ether and myself were treated to not only an education in matters of mastering but also were regaled with stories of the inner workings of MoTown in its glory days. After all, Bob mastered most of the hit singles that MoTown released in the 60’s. He has ears o’gold, a mastery over the technology needed to make digital recordings sound great and thank goodness he shares our disdain of mastering records as loud as possible so that the music sounds squashed. Ever notice how if you put the radio on a modern rock station, it might take you a couple seconds to figure out what the heck is going on? It’s mush. Pop it over to the oldies station and suddenly everything sounds clear - even Zeppelin on the classic rock station sounds meatier and clearer than anything on the radio now. Mastering for modern rock radio is a competition to see who can squash the music to get things the loudest (if you cut the top of the bedposts off, you could raise the bed to the roof!), which is funny because radio is also a competition to be the loudest - they limit, compress, eq and boost everything on the spot.
Thankfully this record doesn’t need to sound squashed, it just needs to sound good and I think we’ve done that. It will sound good on the radio and great in headphones.
Thanks also for sitting through a rant about things you could care less about and suffering an analogy that Chris Farley could have delivered in “Tommy Boy”.
I’m not just doing covers, I’ve started work on songs for the next record. I expect to complete a LOT and to be able to choose from the best since I have the luxury of time now. The Fishremover album is also being re-recorded on the new equipment, since it puts the old recordings to shame.
Oh, shows. We’re rehearsing right now… the next show will be almost entirely songs that haven’t been done live before. That will be coming up on March 11th at The End in Nashville. An album release show at The Basement is in the works, with another album release show in Atlanta. I’m starting to actually look forward to playing on stage again.
That’s about all I have to report. Heather is well, Paul has some teeth now and says “dada” and “mama”, depending on what he needs. Oh, and I have grown a beard… because I can.
