Saturday April 4, 2009

Day 1 in the Recording Studio...

Alarm goes off at 10:00 AM. I piss, shower, and air dry while I download some new music to my Zune. I throw on some clothes, pour myself an overly-large to-go-cup of coffee, and hit the road to pick up Dave and Tim from Dave's parents' house to head up to the studio on the south-side of the city.

I get there just around 11:30 AM and we pack their guitars in the car and head out. On the way, we jam out to some Silverchair tunes and bullshit about musical influences and our extreme distaste for today's music scene. It's a pointless rant and sounds more like we're the underprivileged scholars shitting on everyone who knows less than us. But, in the end, it feels good to be a music snob.

We get to the studio a little after 12:00 and start loading the equipment inside, which is always my favorite part (sarcasm). Our producer meets us downstairs and leads us into the studio where we will be laying down the drum tracks for the day. I start setting up my kit while Dave and Tim search the studio for some amps to use for the guitar/bass scratch track to play through the headphones while I drum. Once everything is in place, the producer starts setting up the mics and doing sound checks for the drums, at which time we decide to bounce and get some food before the recording starts. We settle on Taco Bell, which is probably not the greatest choice of food to be eating when you're about to do something important and involved. Nothing like having a case of flaming ass-hole while you're trying to keep a steady beat for a track recording. But I'm hungrier than a bastard, so I say fuck it and down 4 tacos and a large iced tea.

We gun it back to the studio and homeboy is set and ready to go. After a quick sound check, we start figuring out the beats-per-minute for the first song. This is my first time playing to a metronome, so I'm somewhat nervous that it's going to go horribly. I'm a free-style drummer. I taught myself how to play when I was 9 years old and have never had one lesson throughout the 12 years I have been a drummer, so when I'm expected to play straight and not free-style, it's kind of nerve-racking. But I don't really have a choice at this point, so I suck it up and start jamming out the first song. And just like that, in one take, it was over. I nailed it perfectly. I was fucking astonished. The producer was very impressed, as most drummers have to do at least three or four takes before it's perfect. This immediately lifts a huge weight off my shoulders and I feel more at ease with playing. We start setting up for the next song out of the 12 we are going to put on the album.

We wrap the session just around 7:00 PM with 9 finished tracks out of 12, which is damn good. We were only expecting to get through 2 or 3 tracks total, but wound up only having 3 remaining. Greg pops in during the last half hour or so just to see how everything is going and is actually very pleased to hear we accomplished so much today. This is good times. He then busts out his laptop to show us the live footage and interview from the Elbo Room show that was just put up this morning. The video went surprisingly well and the live footage sounded phenomenal. They ended up cutting a lot of the band's input in the editing room and focused mainly on Dave's personal Q & A. It was kind of a shame that they didn't leave any of the Q & A from the rest of the band in the final cut of the interview, but it was still awesome to see us all on video on a major website, nevertheless. We shoot the shit with Greg and our producer for a little bit before hauling all of our shit back out to the car.

Once everything is loaded in, we swing by Dave's apartment which is just a few blocks away from the studio so he can grab the present he got his cousin for her birthday. We then hit the road back to the suburbs. I drop Dave and Tim off and arrive back at my place just around 8:30, but not without making a pit-stop at McDonald's for 2 double cheeseburgers and some fries. I figured I already sealed my fate with the 4 tacos from Taco Bell earlier today, so I might as well just keep going. I get home, head inside, inhale my food and call Stin to see what the plan is for the rest of the night. He says that Martel and Steinhaus are in town for the weekend so everyone's going to Martel's tonight. After confirming plans for him and Mary to come pick me up to go to the party, I take a quick shower and air dry in my office while I update the diary.

Justin and Mary show up about a half hour after my shower and we head off to Martel's, which is conveniently just a few blocks away from my house. We make a stop at the liquor store and pick up a case of beer and a handle of vodka (not for me... I fucking hate vodka) and continue on our trek to Martel's. We get there and walk inside to an empty house and find out that everyone left to go to the store to buy some more essentials, whatever the fuck those may be. Me and the fun-loving couple waste no time indulging in the beer while we wait for everyone to get back. They finally arrive about twenty minutes later with ping pong balls and cups, i.e. beer pong essentials. This is somewhat of a let down for me, because I fucking HATE beer pong. I never got big into the "college" scene, so I guess it just doesn't make sense to me. But it's Saturday, I don't have to work until 4:00 PM tomorrow, and I've had a great fucking day so far, so my goal is to get ungodly inebriated by any means necessary.

The night goes pretty fucking awesome. Between multiple games of beer pong, a few shots here and there, and even a few games of flip-cup (college), I end up being exactly where I wanted to be: hammered. We chill there till around 2 in the morning or so, at least that's what it felt like. Mary is our designated driver tonight, so she starts to get tired and insists she take mine and Justin's drunk asses home before we can no longer stand up. We agree, bid our farewell's to everyone and hit the road. Mary and Justin drop me off in my parking lot and I stumble my way through the back door and up the stairs to my condo. Tool's already asleep, so I quietly enter and proceed to pass out on the living room couch. Yes, sir. I couldn't even make it down the hall to my bedroom. Good night.