Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Personal

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From the studio: Mornings are for Bill’s all vocal rendition of Rusted Root’s “Send Me On My Way,” afternoons are for me. We ran out of tracks to record all of his a capella percussive glory, so we switched to a second tape, but for reasons i don’t really want to get into we couldn’t seuge up the two tapes, so now we’re doing it totally blind … trying to punch the percussion tracks in at the exact second we need them. Fun, eh? After this i think we’re headed to lunch, because i’m getting a bit loopy, and then it a marathon run through the rest of my demo, which should be simple compared to this and “Under My Skin.” Yeah. I’ll update you later….

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2860794/

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One thing i’ve started to notice after relistening to both of my previous demos as well as the 7-hours of audio i’ve got lying around on my computer is that my songs always lack momentum when i first play them. Sure, i’ve established a rhythm, but i’m more concerned with singing the melody well for the first time that i am with finding the frenetic pace that suits the song the best, and it shows: “Bridge,” “Deadweight,” “Under My Skin,” & “Lost” are all noticeably lacking in momentum in their early recordings. However, what they do clearly possess is a sort of naive take on the melody of the song that i can never retrieve; certain inflections become locked in after the early performances of the song, but if you catch one of the early ones you catch what my first songwriter instincts were before ease of performance and repetition takes over. The question is: which one is more desirable? Is the naive melody just me figuring out where a song needs to go, or is the gaining of momentum just my tendency to race faster and faster as i get more comfortable? Maybe there’s some sort of middle ground where a song should be recorded for posterity; even slow songs like “Crashing” have picked up several beats per minute since first recorded, and i’m not sure if i can slow them down enough for this record. [for proof of this momentum stuff, listen to a Trio with “Lost” in it, and then go listen to “Lost” at AMkitchen. Trust me, i’m not imagining it…]

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2857422/

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The first time i ever played “Under My Skin” fully on my guitar it had barely been written. Some lyrics were still not solidified, and it hadn’t really been laid out over its chord progression. But, that wouldn’t be so hard to do, i thought. So, i cued up my computer and recorded my first time through the song. It’s really awful and painful to listen to because i have no semblance of a rhythm established and i seem to be highly resistant to actually hitting any notes. The only two copies that exist are (1) on my computer and (2) in Laurel’s cd collection for posterity. However, there’re some shining moments within that naive melody, like where i sing the “unstylish clothes” bit for the first time, or where i ad-lib the entire refrain (don’t ask me how that happened, because i’m still not really sure). The second time i played the song was much more coherent and i wound up putting it on my last Demo just for the sake of it. But, that first time … scary stuff.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2857325/

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Ugh, the insides of my legs and my poor abused collar-bone hurt like hell, and i’m not entirely sure if it was the fault of our mad late-nite bowling excursion, or of my extended hours as a singer-songwriter today. Either way: OUCH!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2851333/

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Damn, that post took about as long to get right as “Under My Skin” did today. Obviously my brain is fried… or perhaps we tripped my “perfectionist” switch at some point today. If that’s the case, someone really ought to turn it off. (postscript: Of course, in classic fashion, none of the changes i made to the post are there anymore, and i’m not making them all over again. So much for that perfectionist theory…)

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2851180/