Monday, April 21, 2008

We have a new link, Houston...

...so please check it out. My new buddy from Chicago, Tony Kuzminski, SCREEN DOOR founder, fellow traveler and Federici fan. He was kind enough to post my thoughts on the passing of one of the finest musicians to ever ensconce himself behind an organ. And I am honored to be even a miniscule part of that unending chain.

And speaking of posts, please check out the equally engaging (and, sorry Tony, much better looking) blog WHAT'S WITH ALL THE FEATHER BOAS, by my good friend and still quite the knockout - above and below her neck - Siren Cristy.

By the way, I promise I will get around soon to actually posting parts of the new book from which this little blog derived its clever little name. And then the real fun will begin...

More to come,
Brian

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Get me a beer and get that man a bucket

TRACKING FOR THE NEW LISIK CD continued Jan. 13, when Craig and I descended upon the venerable Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, along with the ever able-bodied Clint Holley of Audio Spectrum Recording (and Hayshaker Jones - on the nights when he is wearing his good boots) behind the boards.

The session went quite well, although it's still kind of hard to tell much without bass and such. Plus my hands were frozen the whole time, which might have been because of the fact that the heat was turned off in the Beachland most of the session, but was probably because of the cold cans of PBR I was drinking the whole time. For the record (and for those stalwart show attendees who might actually recognize some of these titles) we did "Small Town Royal Family," "To California," "Change On Your Own," "A Mess," "Five Other Rooms," "Longest Day Of The Year," and "Yesterday Wasn't Real."

As a side note, while my performance was...oh, fair... Craig went for the jugular the whole time and this sucker is already rocking like hell! Due in large part, I'm sure, to the particularly inspiring atmosphere. About half way through the session we we're kindly asked to take a 1/2 hour beer break in the adjoining Beachland Tavern because someone was setting up a projector for some art show going on the following night. Being the polite young gentlemen we are -and after getting assurance from Clint that he wasn't going to charge us to watch him sit and drink - we agreed to do so. During said break, Craig and Clint talked about recording gear (best line - Craig: "Clint, you remind me of a guy I knew in LA who came from Mayfield - you ever heard of him?" Clint: "No, but there are a lot of people in Cleveland ....") and I talked about The Small Faces, The Faces, and how I really wish I could have been a member of either of The Faces.

Then, while we were recording "Change," the Beachland's lovably "grumpy handy man" (Clint's term, incidentally), stood next to me pointing a flashlight at the ceiling watching a leak (Us: "Are we in your way?" Him: "No, just watch where you put your stuff. God-d***ed roof is leaking here."). Later, a buddy of Craig's who books at the Beachland, plays in a band called the Hot Rails, and looks and sounds just like Eddie Money came by and began a stirring conversation about how much indie rock blows these days (Me: "I just hope there is a happy medium between not being stupid and 'lets get drunk and naked.'" Him: "Oh, there is nothing happy or medium about us - we went straight for 'let's get drunk and naked.'") and the greatest band/album names never made (The Happy Mediums; The Single Entendre; Steve McQueen Latifah, etc....I'm stealing them all for us).

Oh, and I (quite accidentally) got a great "girl's room reverb" guitar tone on "Small Town Royal Family." We had the amp run into the women's' pisser and for some reason the stalls really made it sound great on that one. And yeah, I peed in there too. Pretty cool.

In the end, I just wish Eddie Tomecko had been on hand with a video camera while I was standing bundled in a leather jacket playing even worse than usual with my frozen hands, Clint was standing in the most amazing pile of cords and wires you could ever imagine - wearing a trucker hat, Craig was sitting in the middle of the huge empty Beachland floor in one of his "Cypress Craig" get ups, and the handyman was looking at the ceiling leak.....as we tore into "A Mess." It would have made the greatest video ever. Well, next to the one from Wizzard that Craig showed me on Youtube later when we got back to Clint's studio to dump the tracks and get a big contact buzz from our engineer's unique vegetarian diet.