Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

memories

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As for the Cast Party on friday night there were only a middling amount of actual cast members there, but there was plenty of liquor and it got rather interesting rather quickly. Highlights included being told i was “the gay icon of the entire homosexual population of the Freshman class,” a rocking acoustic performance of “Like a Virgin” that didn’t even involve me, and how everyone was scratching and clawing at each other to get ahold of the one Pre-Mix demo i brought for Laurel, who left today. Lowlights included dropping a bottle of hard lemonade right on the ground instead of getting it into the pocket i was aiming for, not really having any females to flirt with in a productive fashion, and the inhuman amount of vodka i put in every single screwdriver. If you’ve got a low tolerance, don’t let me mix drinks for you, okay? The night came out alright, though i wound up sleeping far far into the afternoon yesterday after i finally dragged my ass back to the apartment. Certainly not a night i’ll be forgetting anytime soon.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3014867/

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While hanging out (again) with Kathe today she was working on a website for our Campus Activities Board and had forgotten to bring cds to the office with her. Of course, I came to the rescue fresh out of an incredibly dull mixing session in the recording studio, and proceeded to play the following for well over two hours: Lost Out, Punk, Deadweight, Inadequacy Song, Five Minutes, Touch, Afterglow, Falling Down, Hold On Me, Will It Ever Come?, All That’s True, A Long Time Since, Splinter, Under My Skin, Other Plans, Gravel, Both Hands, Tear In Your Hand, Never Say Goodbye, No Second Chance, World In My Hand, Typical, More Than That, Resolve, Relief, Revirginized Honey, Nothing To Say, Hide Your Eyes, Give, Burn, Make Sense, & Bridge. Yeah, that’s a lot of songs, and one or two were even omitted for time’s sake, if you could imagine. If it had been a real concert, intermission would have started after “Never Say Goodbye,” and the encore began the very rare (not played once in all of 2000) “Hide Your Eyes.” Lyrics to everything except the three covers can be grabbed from AMkitchen‘s lyric page. So… i’m all guitar-ed out for the day; my fingers are all frayed and dented and my voice is in nearly the same condition, although that tends to yield more fun results than numbed-out fingertips. Bed-time quickly approached.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2934232/

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Today’s big studio project was amping up “Lost Out,” which sounded pretty whimpy just with me and the guitar. I added bass, and two tracks that were all guitar harmonics and two measure solos. Between the two, i can totally ditch the guitar track and the song still carries itself. I think that’s neat.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2910776/

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I just spent 12 more hours in the recording studio, interrupted only by a short lunch break where Bill and i debated the merits of Britney and Christina again those of Motown girl groups. Before lunch we finally nailed down Bill’s awe-inspiring all-vocal rendition of Rusted Root’s “Send Me On My Way” in all of its glory, and afterwards we started to play with my stuff.


First on the agenda was sorting through the “Under My Skin” backing vocals from last night, which was not easy. I had to go through each set of vocals to see what parts were keepers, then decide if any of the keeper parts would interfere with each other, then mix the keeps down to a separate tape. Next came the bass, which was all fuzzy and un-bass-like. We separated it into a clean acoustic bass (which it is) and the fuzzy electric sound and mixed the two versions to separate tracks on the mixdown tape. Finally, my vocals and the guitar were mixed down as is. So, the mixdown tape now is in possession of all of the right parts, but at none of the right volumes. I made a wan attempt before leaving the studio at getting all the volumes correct into a final mix for cd, but my vocals were too low and some of Laurel’s backing parts were fuzzed over. However, the rough draft mix might be the one that gets debuted on here… we shall see.


After much UMS foolery, we moved on to recording some other things. We decided the “Bridge” from last night sucked and tried it again once before giving up. Then we recorded (mostly in a single take) “Never Say Goodbye,” “Deadweight,” “Relief,” and an obscure new song “will it ever come.” “Never Say Goodbye” was a simple thing to do, whereas “Relief” was awful. It just sounds bad. My guitar has way to much treble for the sound i like from the song, and all of my vocals sounded disinterested. Nevertheless, i finished it and recorded a second take of vocals, and then mixed the song down with the best parts from each vocal. Yummy.


“Will It Ever Come” was weird. Bill was just waiting for me to do something, so i told him i was going to attempt something new and launched into it. What’s hard for me about the song is that there’s lots of little fills on the lower strings of my guitar which i tend to be rather random about, but the vocals must follow the guitar, so i have to duet on the fly with whatever i’m playing. I somehow made it through in one take, and as we started playing it back i found myself singing along in the next octave, so we recorded that too, and now i’m starting to think the octave version is going to be the lead vocal.


Our final endeavor of the night was overdubbing on “Never Say Goodbye,” which right now features two of me, a guitar, Bill, and two pianos. I was planning on just adding my own backups, but Bill seemed to have lots of good ideas that weren’t ever going to be coming out of my mouth, so we got him behind a mic a recorded. Bill’s harmonies were too-perfect at points – pulling me into that dreaded adult-contemporary sound that i am desperately avoiding, so i’m not going to use all of them. My backgrounds mostly involved me singing non-existant harmony and cursing, but there were several pretty bits that i saved. As for the pianos… i was just fiddling with our keyboard while Bill listened to his harmony mix, and he (almost without telling me) patched my fiddling into the tape. After my first pass through we made one more just to be safe, and then called it a night (the song is in “B,” so i basically just played B and all of the sharp keys. Lovely and simple…).

Anyhow, Bill’s off on his Spring Break now, but i’ve got sole possession of the studio until Monday morning, so i’m sure i’ll be spending all of my free time within it. Which means i’ll either starve to death or have my own cd by Monday. Aww yeah.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2867519/

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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/