workday

i got president's day off! woohoo! i worked a full day at beans and bagels and then came home and set up an awesome drum recording set up that worked quite well if i do say so myself. i got two drum parts out of stefanie- 'down to sleep' and 'angels floating on the head of a pin.' unfortunately now the vocals sound like they're out of sync a bit, so now i have to redo the vocal synching shit again- which is incredibly tedious and maddening. she tried to do the drums for a new song called 'fade to white' which is really nice- it's very stark and there are tons of wide open spaces and such. we managed to learn to play it together last night and then we went through the vocals since it's sung in a super-weird way that really only makes sense to me and changes pretty much every time i sing it. difficult for the person who has to harmonize with me (her, of course). we managed to get a first take of it really quickly that i am too scared to change. i listened to it today briefly and it didn't sound as good to me as it did last night, but i also didn't listen to the whole thing. last night when i listened to it i was totally bowled over by the raw emotion and hair-rising moment-capturing type of mojo, therefore it will not be changed. i've found that it's always best to keep the first take unless it doesn't sound good enough to you at the time. if it captures the emotion and power and weight you want in it, don't fuck with it even if it isn't glisteningly perfect. i have learned this lesson over and over. when we first did 'the weather king' i always thought there was something wrong with it, but was always too scared to change it. i listen to it now and it sounds exactly the way it's supposed to. same with 'on the bridge' (both versions). shit, point and shoot every decent recorded vocal we've ever done has been that way.
stefanie only has a handful of drum parts to do now. i still have a lot of guitar parts to do and some other stuff. i might have to do some work tomorrow. i'd like to finish the 'born on a train' recording. i meant to have stefanie do the glockenspiel part tonight, but it looks like i'm going to have to do it tomorrow. it probably isn't even worth it at this point- the track probably doesn't have anything to merit any further work on it. i still am not happy with the guitar sound i got for it and am still not quite sure of the direction for the guitar part to take. we shall see... *sigh*. i'd like to just loaf tomorrow, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen, as usual.