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We’ll be back to more behind the scenes blogging in a bit…

In the past, I’ve been breaking up the technical evolution and the emotional, artistic commentary, but in this case, I find it hard to separate them, so I will have a go at putting it all together.

First, some background. Some of you may remember that I resigned from a church music position in the middle of July 2007 to focus on free lance music and The Dailies full time. Without getting into the history in too much detail, although there is a song on the record about this experience, called Two Years Ago, it’s important to understand that the experience of being a leader in this church during that season was an incredibly emotionally taxing experience.

So there we are in 2007, thinking about this record. Starting to sketch out our songs, our ideas, and I have a massive case of writers block mixed with a little post-regular work hours depression. Yes, an artist who gets depressed, how original, I know. It was during this season of turmoil that The Tempest was born.

By Thanksgiving of that year, I had reached my low point. I hadn’t written much. In fact, there are 2-3 songs from that period that never made it even into the demo stage. They were just too unfocused and uninteresting. The money that we’d saved as a safety net against regular paychecks had been mostly spent. It was taking forever to see payment from a couple of high profile singing gigs I had done, as it takes a long time for residuals to filter through the corporate and SAG / AFTRA systems. It was a bad scene.

We went to Erica’s Mom and Dad’s house for Thanksgiving that year. They live in a rural area East of San Diego near Alpine. They took one look at us early in the weekend and said something like… “Hey, umm… why we keep the kids on the last night and you guys go get a hotel somewhere and get away.” This sort of statement is like catnip to the parents of young children.

I went online and discovered that The Hotel Del Coronado was practically giving rooms away. It was the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and they were just trying to keep the hotel reasonably full. For the price of a night at the local Sheraton, we got a room at one of the coolest hotels in America.

That afternoon, we made our way down there and checked in. Erica suggested a walk on the beach, and so we got a little coffee and that’s what we did.

It was a crisp, California autumn day at the beach, cold… but not unpleasantly so. The air was clear and a smattering of clouds dotted the horizon. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon. We were walking and talking and enjoying ourselves, and I realized two things. First, I was content. I hadn’t felt content in several months, and it was a refreshing feeling.

Second, I was struck by the beauty, the vastness, the majesty of the Pacific ocean. I realized that, even though we only live 20 minutes from the beach, that I hadn’t been down to see it all summer and fall. It had been beautiful every day, but I hadn’t come to see it. I had cloistered myself in my small studio, trying and failing to write good songs, but the ocean kept doing it’s thing, day in, and day out. The Tide did not care how I felt.

I found great comfort in this. I felt small, and unimportant. I felt like all the things I was stressing about were quite comical, and not at all interesting to this great, ancient, and massive thing that was my peaceful neighbor.

We finished our coffee, and went back to the room.

We had our guitars with us, Erica with her Taylor, me with my Fender acoustic bass. We often take them with us, even though neither of us are particularly great on them, to play together and relax. Erica sat down and started playing a simple little riff, that sounded like this:

[See post to listen to audio]

It pleased me. It hit me the right way. It was simple and lovely. I started playing a simple 8th note bass line underneath it, and began singing what came to me:

The waves roll out, and crash back in…
And I am somehow comforted by their indifference…

And our little song was born. The verses wouldn’t get written until much later, and we had a “B” section to the verses that got bagged and ultimately simplified and streamlined, but the essence of the song was created right there in a little room at the Hotel Del.

I’d say it was the 4th or 5th song we’d started, and yet immediately we knew that it was something special, and that it was going to be the last song on the record. I just had a sense about it.

Since I play exactly zero guitar, I had Erica lay down that little phrase once we got home. I started building parts around it, while crafting the lyric. Sometimes when I start a song, I just write, with not much of a goal in mind, this time, however, I knew with startling clarity what we were trying to say, and how to say it. The experience was simply too vivid to attempt anything other then simple describing what we felt in the moment itself.

It’s been too long since I stood here
At the edge of something vast
It’s been calling to me softly
And I answered it at last
Too long since I stood here
And let it wash my feet
Felt the touch of something ancient, something deep…

Once it was written, I demoed it up. Erica began a tradition during this time where she’d take the kids out of the house for several hours at a time on Mondays, as I was having a hard time focusing when I could hear them playing (or fighting) and wanting to engage. This demo was created on one of those days. We knew that Erica was going to sing lead from the moment we wrote it, so this is a rare and exciting chance to hear me singing way out of my range and making a general fool of myself. It should be noted, as I am listening right now to this demo for the first time in months, to hear the differences in the phrasing the way Erica heard it and sung it when it counted.

Anywhoo.. here’s my demo

[See post to listen to audio]

This is a great example of why we demo. On a tune like this, where we’re trying to go for a bit more of an epic sound, since we’re SOOO not guitar players, it’s hard to imagine it if we were just to sit around and play it for you. I, personally, need to hear it in a larger, more arranged context to make sure it’s gonna work. Also, since we have limited time in the studio with the band, we don’t have several hours to waste learning a tune. We have to give them a running start.

Speaking of the band guys, tracking this song lead to the single most enjoyable night of the Eldorado week. We did this one late in the game, and everyone had really settled into the flow. Also, this was the demo that everyone heard and had very little commentary. No one said… “Well, I hear where you’re going, but we’re going to have to consider this instead…” Everyone just sort of nodded and said, “That’s gonna be fun.”

And it was. It was magical, actually. Now, bear in mind that when we recorded “What It Is,” in 2006, we had already tracked final vocals against the demos. We had it in our heads that it would help the process if the guys could hear really focused, tight vocals to play against. It worked, sorta. What we learned was that when listening to that record, we feel like the vocals are somehow detached in places. The band was feeling it 11, but we had only sung it at 8, if you will.

This time, we had nothing previously tracked going into the studio. Erica or I would actually sing live with the band on the first 2-3 passes, to give them that central focal point, but then once we got a decent pass, we’d back out and let them just play it down.

During The Tide, I remember clearly thinking that something special was afoot. Even though Erica was behind the soundproofed glass, singing in the control room, and the band was scattered throughout the tracking rooms of Eldorado, there was a unity. She’d belt a chorus, and the band would respond. She’d go soft at the end, and the band would respond.

As I’ve been typing this, I went back into the sessions and found her original scratch vocal, recorded against the band. For those of you who are nerdy, this band track is nearly raw. I’ve put a limiter across the 2-buss, and there’s a little reverb across everything, but other then that, this is what it sounded like going to tape. This is also a cool glimpse into an end to end vocal, warts and pitchy notes and all. No edits, no comps, no tuning… even a bit of distortion as she overdrives the mic pre.

[See post to listen to audio]

That ending, with all the alternate voicings on piano, was entirely improvised. I remember thinking it was so beautiful, holding my breath, praying for no foul notes. There were none. It was one of those songs where you could tell they wanted to play it again, not because we needed another pass, but just because it felt so good to play.

We took it home and went to work. We had made an aesthetic choice as we prepared for this record that we were going to simplify the sound of the vocals. Vocalists get a little heady about vocal tricks. Doubles, triples, stacks, licks, runs, bleh. Erica and are sorta over it. We just want to sing a phrase with good feel and good vibe. We made a decision that we were going to double at most, and only when it felt right, let it be the icing on the cake, rather then slathered throughout the recipe.

We made one exception to this rule, and it was for this song, specifically the bridge. I remember working on it, playing the bass part and thinking, “This needs to be epic. This is almost like the concluding statement of our whole record… the sum of what we’re learning right now… the sum of our artistry in this moment.”

Therefore, we decided to let it rip, vocally. Double the melody on the octaves? Yes please. Flesh out the harmonies? Yup. OOOOHHHH, how about some percussive ooohs and aahs! BRING IT!

For most of this tune, it’s 2 channels of vocals. On the bridge, it’s 26 channels. I just counted. I remember when Stick got a hold of this track for mix, he protested mightily at the taxing of his computer’s processing. Even his mighty Pro Tools HD3 rig was forced to bow to the mighty choir of Chads and Ericas. (Somewhere in the woods in Northern California, a very nice, very talented, very reasonable gentleman is shaking his head and muttering… “88.2 sucks…”)

Here’s the “Vocals Up” rough mix that came out of our machine after we had laid everything down.

[See post to listen to audio]

So we were pretty stoked on this tune. I especially dig the bridge, with all the vocals and the moving bass line and everyone just doing for it. For me, the lyric there sort of sums up the entirety of our last (almost) two years.

I may yet survive the tempest
But I won’t outlive the tide
It will breathe when I lay breathless
It cares nothing for my pride
For I am but a vapor
Drifting towards that other shore
Like every generation, every pilgrim gone before

I know that some people get wierded out by the fact that we, our lives, are really a blink in the eye of time. I find great comfort in it, personally. The self is not the center of the universe. We are all a part of something bigger and grander, and this realization is one of the keys to a life of significance, ironically. It’s nice to know, when you’re in the valley, that there’s a bigger, more beautiful world out there. The question remains, will you ascend the slopes around you long enough to take it in.

Now, the problem was that when it came to mix, the bridge section wasn’t about to ascend a blessed thing. It was collapsing into itself. Stick built, and rebuilt it, and still it wasn’t happening. He finally threw up his hands and said something like:

“Well.. the bass is playing up the octave and the low end disappears half the time. You can’t bring the thunder if the bass player is in the wrong octave!”

I sheepishly announced that since I love the sound of the bass high on the neck, that I had encouraged (read: directed) Dana to play it as such. Score one more for Chad, superproducer.

We went over to a friend of Stick’s and borrowed a Fender J-Bass, similar to the one Dana used on the record. One of the problems we had faced was that a typical four string’s low note is an E. This song is in the key of D, so that low root note is unavailable, unless you have a five string, or a drop-D tuner on your bass.

So, we just detuned the bottom string. This presented an issue, in that as I attempted to recut the part, the intervals were all out of whack if I tried to move to another string, and I’m just not a good enough bass player to make the mental transitions on the fly.

So, what you’ll hear on the final mix / master is this: Dana works his magic on everything except the bridge section, from the downbeat at 2:49 to where the band goes back into a straight groove at 3:43. In that bridge section, you hear me, playing that line on one string, like I’m in a Jr. High garage band. Rawk, baby.

Here’s the final mix, with the new bass part in place:

[See post to listen to audio]

As always, the mastering job did wonders to bring it to life. Keep in mind, as always, that the mastering is just the manipulation of the two channel mix. They do nothing other then apply final compression, limiting, and EQ. But man… what a difference it makes.

[See post to listen to audio]

In many ways, this song is the counter balance to the song we talked about previously, “The Tempest.” In fact, for about 10 minutes, we seriously considered calling the record “Tempest and Tide,” but then we went back to “Mixing Metaphors,” as we felt like it more accurately and interestingly described the record.

If you’ve actually read and listened all the way through this 2553 word epic, I salute and thank you. The record is actually done, and we get to pick up the copies this week. We’re looking forward to sharing it with you all.

So, I play just enough bass guitar to get myself in trouble. I picked up the instrument a few years back because I wanted to try something new and I thought, “Hey… I only have to worry about one note at a time… how hard can it be?” I took one lesson, and off I went. It was Rosy, actually, who sorta taught me how to play bass. About three years ago, Mike, Corey, Rosy, and I were hired to back up some friends of ours on a weekend gig at Hume Lake. This weekend was actually the first time The Dailies band played together, and lead to the making of the first record later that year.

Rosy at one point actually said to me something like… “Watch my kick drum. Don’t play a note unless you see me hitting the kick.” Some of you might be thinking… man… for him to say that… you must have been really bad. You’d be right. However, even though I’m a pretty noob-i-licious bass player, I’m a pretty good musician, and it all worked out. I do U2 style 8th notes quite well, thanks,

Anyways. I actually played bass on the 1st record, which is one of the many reasons why it has a for more garage band feel than this new one. After attempting to play a few gigs, singing and playing and fumbling and mumbling, we decided to hire a pro, our friend Dana Decker.

Playing bass, even though I’ll never be Sting, has lead me to make better choices as a musician, as a songwriter… well… most of the time. More on that in a moment. Even a rudimentary understanding of the instrument helps out. I’ve actually had a couple of bass players comment that it’s more fun to play with me when I’m on keys, because I stay out of their way these days. But I digress…

So we’re working on this song, “The Tempest,” and it all starts with a bass line and a hook idea. It was actually one of the first songs written for the project, which, I think, contributed to the issues we were having later on. It took a little while for the songwriting engine to get cranked up and firing on all cylinders.

So, we write the tune, and I demo it up. The bass line in question happens right at the 0:13 mark, and then loops… endlessly. I want you all to know that this is an exercise in humility for me to share this with you, but it’s a brave new interactive world out there, and here goes nothin’

[See post to listen to audio]

Man… that was rough. Glad we made it through there. So, if you’re like me, I hope you heard a lot of potential, but you most likely heard a fair amount of mush and dissonance. We did, too. At this point, as creative people, you start to rationalize with yourself.

“Well… that arrangement doesn’t quite work, but I really like the lyrics and the melody, and it’ll be fine once the band plays it.”

We moved on to other tunes, and other demos, and there you go. By the time we got to Eldorado a few months later, I was moderately dreading this tune. So many of the others, like Signal Chain, had seemed to pour so easily from the pen. Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize, and off we go.

Now, once the band played it, it did sorta come into focus. A bit. On a rock tune, nothing will help it feel better like a real guitar player and a real drummer. However, we were still a bit troubled by it. It just didn’t… feel right, and so many of the others felt great.

Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize… “Well… once the final vocals are in place, it’ll come into focus.”

We finish tracking week, and head home. Again… this tune is at the bottom of our list of favorite tunes, which is really bumming me out, because I had such high hopes for it when we started out. I mean… what a great bass line, right? Can I get a what what? Anyone? Moving on.

One of the big struggles when tracking this one was finding the right keyboard part. Mike is not exactly shy about coming up with great parts, but nothing really settled down. He took a few cracks at it in the studio, then I sat down and did one, and nothing felt right. The Rhodes part that you’ll hear below is actually me, spending WAAAY too much time at home trying to make it fit.

This is a rough mix, coming from our computer, after we had finished tracking the leads. Ok… we can make it through, ok? This story has a happy ending. You really don’t have to listen to the whole thing, unless you’re a HUGE Dailies fan. Or a masochist. For some reason, this particular bounce hit the 2-bus too hard, and all the distortion somehow adds to the fact that the arrangement sucks.

[See post to listen to audio]

Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize. “Well… the problems with this song will be resolved once it’s all mixed and pretty.” This actually turned out to be true, but not in the way we thought.

When we finished all the vocal tracking, and were prepping for mix, I wrote up a whole mess of notes and ideas for Stick, our mixer. Keep in mind that Stick is a songwriter, player, producer, and arranger, as well as a mixer. He, like so many of us, wears any musical hat that will keep his kids eating food and the house out of foreclosure. Most of my notes were things like this, “So, on the 1st verse of this tune, I really like the guitar lick at bar 14, so make sure it’s up enough in the mix to hear it.”

On The Tempest, this was my note:

“This is our problem child song. Save this one for a day when you’re feeling like a challenge. Any and all ideas you have will be welcomed. Feel free to employ anything you can think of to give the song more arc.”

So, we clone our drive. FedEx the copy to him, and he goes to work. Now, June (Stick’s wife) told me a story after the mix was completed that went something like this. “Well, Chad, it’s funny… For about three days he was at work in the studio, and he’d come back happy and energized. Then, one night, he came in all downcast. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘Hmmm…. I just don’t know what I’m gonna do with this song.’”

Stick called me the next morning and said…. “How much leeway do I have with tune.” Considering I was on the verge of cutting it from the album, I answered, “How much leeway do you want?”

“Well,” he said, “I think we can keep the Drums, the B3 (organ) and the vocals.” I remember thinking to myself… at least he said we could keep the vocals.

The problem lay in the bass. With all that movement, all that schmutz, there was just nowhere for everyone else to go. Also, the nature of the line I wrote lead everyone else to play like it was some sort of southern fried rock tune, instead of a modern rock anthem. He put together a demo for his idea and sent it to me.

[See post to listen to audio]

Aaaaah yes. Everything gets simplified. Everything falls into place. Gone is the bass part that dominates and muddies everything. In it’s place, big guitars and a signature keyboard part. I love this guy! The other major change comes in the chorus. The original version went like this:

G//// G7//// C//// Cm7////

Stickman changed one chord, and the entire character of the thing changes.

G//// Em7//// C//// Cm7////

All of a sudden our little red headed stepchild is getting straight A’s and dating the prom queen. Now the fun begins. All the guitars you heard were Stick hammering away his studio and the bass is a sample, from Spectrasonic’s Trilogy plug-in. Turns out that Corey was going to be in studio the following day, for an unrelated session. Also turns out that they had the whole day booked and only about four hours of work scheduled. Corey, Stick, and I got on the phone and talked through the new parts, and off he went. Dana, excited to get to play a proper bass part, stopped by our place the next day and laid down some stank.

So, after a few more tweaks, and a little more love, here’s a final mix:

[See post to listen to audio]

Since this is a big, loud, four chord rock tune, it really benefited from the mastering process.

[See post to listen to audio]

So, what’s the moral of this story? Well, it’s simple! Write bad arrangements and then hire a great mixer to fix everything for you! Rationalize those structure issues away! Next song!

So, the actual moral of this songwriting near-miss-almost-disaster is this: I will not be fixed in the mix. A big studio won’t fix it. A great vocal won’t fix it. If your song isn’t working, it isn’t working. Strip it bare and find what’s wrong. Do not get attached. If I’m being perfectly honest, I think this track could have been even stronger still if we had done the extreme makeover earlier in the process.

As it is, we’re pretty grateful that we were able to not only keep it in the mix, but that it turned out to be one of our favorites. We were affirmed in that feeling a few weeks ago, when Crucial Music selected it as one of six of our tunes that will be added to their library.

If this tune goes platinum, I’ll have to do something really nice for Stick, like get him a monogrammed pen or a gift card to Starbucks or something. We know how to take care of our people, ya’ll.

So begins our record.

…digital to analogue, conversion on the breath..
it travels on a wave the length of which cannot be seen
but anyone can hear it, if anyone is near..
cause it goes….alllllllllll the waaaaaay…..

What is a Signal Chain? In the studio, the signal chain refers to every piece of gear that transports a sound from an analog source into a recording system and then back out again so that one might hear it. Think about it like this:

A singer hits the booth at a recording studio. They hear the track as it stands coming off of a previously recorded source, say a DAW like Pro Tools or Logic. They then sing into a microphone which transforms its reading of the sound wave into electrical information which is then passed along through an audio cable where it hits the microphone preamplifier. This device takes the sound and, as advertised, amplifies it to a level that can be detected and recorded. After the amp, a little equalization is applied if the engineer feels its necessary. After the EQ, one might insert a compressor, to help the singer avoid losing a blown take because the signal overdrives and distorts, and also because the sound of rock and roll is the sound of compression. After the signal has been squished and squashed in a hopefully pleasing manner, it hits a device called an analog to digital converter. Now it’s all just zeros and ones, baby.

Now bear in mind that this is a rudimentary description of really only one part of recording an album. 14 signal chains for drums. 3 per piano pass. 2-3 guitar overdubs, 4-6 vocal passes, 1 track for bass, a partridge in a pear tree, and you can see how it starts to get REALLY important that you hire a great engineer, and a great mixer. They are supposed to know which knobs to turn and which buttons to push to make sure that every one of the signal chains in a recording process sounds as good as it should.

I got to thinking about signal chains as a metaphor when we recorded our first record. It was the first time that we had produced a full length album of original music in a large studio with multiple musicians. As songwriters, we start long before the signal chain even comes into play, with an idea. A hook. Something that’s just eating at us and won’t leave us alone until we write a song about it.

Sometimes we’ve tried to write songs and they just don’t come out right, either recorded or played live. Getting that idea from it’s fledgling state… I call it the baby fawn stage, as in, “Don’t criticize my freshly written verse yet! It’s a vulnerable baby fawn”… into a fully baked song with a beat and a vibe and an arrangement and the idea still intact is quite a thing to accomplish. Why, in our very next installment, of this ongoing 28 part series, we’ll talk about “The Tempest,” a song which almost got the axe!

So, I had this thought that ideas go down a signal chain. Then I had this other thought, that the whole idea of God has come down a signal chain as well. Generations are like signal chains. One generation hears the original idea and records it. The next amplifies. The next adds this crazy fx pedal and everything gets all loopy and phased out. (think… oh I dunno… the dark ages)

Then the next generation decides they don’t like that effect and they go back and discover that the original signal was split off and also recorded without all the additional schmutz on it, so they go back to the purest source so they can remix it properly.

On and on it goes until it reaches the listener. Or the lack of listeners. I would suppose it had to do with the strength of the signal and the quality of the chain.

We called this record Mixing Metaphors for a reason. We spent a lot of time trying to find new and interesting ways to express what we’re thinking about. It’s purposeful that some of the lyrics are vague and evocative rather than explicit and obvious. There was imagery that flashed into my mind that I couldn’t shake. I giggled at the idea of Moses hearing the voice of God from an Marshall stack… burning, of course. I enjoy the imagery of the last verse, talking about reverb and decay. It brings to mind the old, stale cathedrals that dot Europe. Is there still a melody bouncing around those old places?

I dunno.

But I know that we really like our opening cut. Hope you do, too.

Taxi is an independent A&R company, really a remarkable product of this brave new world of recording and music. Taxi serves as a place where 2 groups of people can work together. 1. Companies and producers who need music for any and all purposes. 2. Songwriters and musicians who wish to supply that music and get paid for it.

Basically, it works like this. You sign up for Taxi, which costs about $300 a year for membership. You then get listings for all the opportunities that Taxi has to offer, which are updated twice a month. Taxi’s literature claims that there are 1200 a year. If you see one and think that one of your songs has a shot, you submit it via your account, which costs an additional $5 a pop.

A Taxi rep then reviews your work, and either approves of denies it. If it’s approved, it then goes on to the actual company looking for the material. We have had 4 tunes selected by Taxi reps thus far, but no actual deals signed. So… we keep at it.

I thought that it was hooey, until I met these guys. Andy and Adam were the songwriters and producers on one of the tunes I sang on for Cheetah Girls 3, and they are also poster boys for Taxi. They got their big break through Taxi, a song that many of you have heard called “Beautiful Soul,” for Jesse McCartney. Since then, they have piled on success after success.

They told me that the Taxi thing is legit, and that it works if the material is good.

So, off to the Road Rally we go, starting tomorrow night. We have the kiddies with Grandma and Grampa, and a room in the hotel where the convention is located. It’s a three day convention and, from what we hear, schmooze fest.

This past monday, I spent a good chunk of the day in the car to assure that we’d have something professional to pass out. So, first, it was Thousand Oaks to Ojai and back. Ojai is where Doug Sax has moved his Mastering Lab after 30+ years of shlepping Hollywood. We have been working hard of a few final revisions, and it hit me that we needed a mastered disc like… yesterday, so we got in the car and got it ourselves to save the extra day the Post Office would have taken.

We got home, and I turned right around and headed out to Glendale, where our duplication house is located. We need a hundred or so of these things in less than 72 hours, so time was of the essence.

Everything has worked out beautifully, and tomorrow, we will pick up the first 100 copies of our finalized CD. It will be the exact same material we hope to bring to you, minus all the cool artwork. Plus, we put our cell phone numbers on these, which, no offense, we most likely won’t include in the final artwork.

So, if you’ve made it this far in my epic blog, and you wish to send some positive thoughts our way this weekend, we need it. If you’re the praying type, we need it. If you want to use The Secret… well… whatever works for you.

We need a breakthrough this weekend. We need someone to hear us, and say… “I have this client who needs music for this iPod ad we’re working on, and we’d like to pay you money right here and now!”

Ok, not really. But we need something to happen. We don’t have time to go play 12,000 bar gigs to raise a following. We need a break.

JT productions does booking for three L.A. venues, all of which we hope to play: Molly’s, Genghis Cohen, and Room 5.

Cold calling, or cold emailing as it were, is not something with which we have a bunch of experience, so imagine my relief when JT hit me back and said, “Like your stuff… let’s book a date.” Little did I know that he was serious, and we’re playing there in 4 days.

So… we need your help! If you’re in the greater L.A. area, and missed the HOB set two weeks ago, now’s your chance. Molly Malone’s is a cool spot, with great vibe and good sound. We’d love to see you there, and we need to make an impression. Come out! Hire a sitter! Have a beer!

More to come, fair friends. More to come.

I want to thank everyone who came out to support us, and if there are any of you here reading this who heard us for the first time last night, welcome! This is our little corner of the internet to share our thoughts and news and any or all things that should cross our minds.

We arrived very early last night. I had never been to the Foundation Room at the House of Blues, so we wanted to allow plenty of time to scope it out, load in, hang out, etc. We parked on Sunset, right in front, and proceeded to unload. Now, for a gig, I schlep a pretty hefty piece of gear, a vintage 1974 Fender Suitcase Rhodes. If you follow the preceding link, you should scroll down to the picture of the one sitting on the amp… that one’s similar to mine. (I mean yours, Michael Lee.)

The keyboard section alone weighs about 80 pounds and requires 2 people to carry, or one person who doesn’t need an intact spine afterwards. The amp is not as heavy, but just as awkward to move. After we had unloaded, we returned to find a parking ticket on our car. Turns out we were in a taxi zone, despite a clear lack of signage. Whatever. We are rock stars. We shall not be thwarted by a meter maid with a bad attitude.

We parked, legally this time, and went in to get a bite to eat. The Foundation Room looks something like this, although I think that particular picture is from the Chicago HOB. There was a small area roped off with monitors and mic stands. Adjacent to the Foundation Room is The Parish Room. There was also a sound system ready in that room, so we were a little confused as to where we were actually playing. We ordered a salad and soup and waited for the gal who worked for the promotion company to arrive and tell us what was up. Corey arrived not long after, and the three of us had some time to just chill out and enjoy the pre-gig energy that was mounting.

Turns out that the way they run these things is that BOTH rooms have bands and solo artists going at the same time. We found out we were up 2nd in the Foundation Room. The people started to filter in, the room filled up, and it was game time. The first act began, a solo singer-songwriter by the name of Judson McKinney. By the time he was through with his set, most of our people had arrived, and the room was actually quite full. He finished, and we were off. We didn’t have a sound check, so much as a line check.

“Can you hear anything?”
“Sorta.”
“Good enough, play music.”

For years now, I’ve been coaching singers and musicians. I always attempt to get them to understand that the breath before the first note is as important as the note itself. The hard thing about a gig like this is that there’s no breath before the first note. So, we just sang without breathing. It’s a learned skill.

With a high noise floor in the room, I’d say we amped up the overall energy level 25-30% from where we rehearsed it. Several smaller nuances just went straight out the window. Call it adrenaline, call it nerves, but I’d like to call it adjusting to the room.

The room responded. Considering that this was, in essence, a bar gig, a surprising number of people turned their attention our way. The set felt tight. The changes in position and instrumentation(described in this post) worked beautifully, and felt like they propelled the set forward, and before we knew it, we had come to the end.

So how did it feel? Well… it felt great, honestly. I think the main thing we needed to confirm was this: if we play music, people respond, in any context. The cool thing was that we had people from college age to my parent’s age talking to us after the set, telling us how much they had enjoyed our tunes. I hope that we can appeal to people of all stripes, as I believe good songs should just transcend age and stage.

Do we love playing bars? Not really, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, we were to grateful for the experience, and the opportunity to sing for new people, and we’ll keep playing for anyone who wants to listen, just about anywhere. We had a great time. A great time playing music, a great time with friends, and a great time making new friends. I want to specifically thank our friend Richard Busch for hooking us up with this gig. You’re a cool cat, Richard, if you read this.

If any of you met us for the first time last night, hit us with a comment here. We’d be curious to hear from you.

As for the rest of you… see you next time!

Oh, I almost forgot. We put up 2 new tunes at our Myspace Page. They’re unmastered, but they are the final mixes. Enjoy!

As a part of that, we didn’t really feel like it was important to do a big photo shoot for the record. I had the idea for the alarm clock cover, and then our friend Kayla had the idea for shooting the polaroids of Erica and me and the band on the back. She also shot the pictures for the inside cover, literally against the side wall of Eldorado. Kayla is a really great artist, especially for a home schooling mother of three, but it wasn’t like we actually prepped for anything or had any expectations. It was more like… “Kayla’s here, come outside after this overdub and we’ll shoot some photos.”

So, two years later, and we’re at the cusp of finishing this record up, and it’s a very different proposition. We’ve basically staked the entirety of our last year on this record. I quite my job. We moved, and rented out our lovely condo to reduce our monthly expense. We’ve regrouped our entire lives around the idea that The Dailies could be a commercially viable way to support both our family and our addiction to making music. Part of this game is “The look.” People want to know what you look like, not just what you sound like.

We needed photos, and they needed to be good. I mentioned in a previous post that our friend Anacleto “Mike” Rapping was going to shoot for us. We met him and his lovely wife, Terrie, at church. Both of his kids participated in the choir that I directed before they moved on. Terrie has a wonderful garden at home and will often drop a bag of fresh tomatoes and goodies into our laps. They’re “Good people.”

We met with Mike several weeks ago to talk about ideas, look, etc. We decided that we’d shoot outdoors, to avoid studio costs, and that we needed a mixture of “meat and potatoes,” face shots as well as some more creative, artsy shots. Cliche as it is, we talked about shooting at the beach, as there are two key songs on the record that deal with water as a primary image and motif. We also talked about shooting in the hills around our valley, which if you watch the local news, are often charred by wildfires this time of year. We were struck by the idea of shooting against such a backdrop, as we had basically set fire to everything that we knew and relied upon in our own lives in pursuit of this dream.

So, for several weeks, we’d been observing and shopping. Neither of us are big fashionistas. Erica has a great sense of style, but we’ve never been people of extravagant means to support her excellent taste. I, having spent most of my adult life as shall we say a… ahem… plus sized model, had not given much thought to my appearance. I’m still getting used to the idea that I can shop most anywhere and expect to look reasonably good.

Erica made a find. At a vintage store, in Redlands of all places, she found a dress. It cost $15. Our friend Kayla, previously mentioned, spent a great deal of time in fashion school, and Erica had an idea to let her go to town on it, and see what she could do.

The finished product ended up slightly different, but you get the idea. As for me… well… who really cares, right? I wore clothes.

For weeks, we’ve thinking, and preparing. I spent the past two weeks working out harder than I ever have. It’s silly, but I’ve never done anything like this, and I’ve never felt particularly photogenic, so the idea of paying a professional to take pictures with me in them isn’t something that comes naturally. I wanted to feel confident, hoping to look confident.

We practiced hair together. Yes, I submitted myself to the tyranny of the flat iron and blow dryer. No stylists here, just a couple of artists fumbling their way through, trying to look cool. Or, at least not like fools.

Last Saturday was the day of destiny. We arose at 4am. On purpose. We did the hair, gathered our clothing options, guzzled coffee, and made our way to catch the sunrise at the beach. Leo Carillo beach is about halfway between Malibu proper and Pt. Mugu NAS. If you clicked on that link, you can see that the landscape there is striking, with 3 or 4 coves with jagged rocks cutting their way up the cliff.

We were there as the sun was just starting to make it’s appearance. Mike was disappointed, as he had hoped for some early morning marine layer to go for a grayed out look, but it was clear as a bell. I haven’t been at the beach for a sunrise in years, and this one was a doozy. The waves slammed themselves into the rocks and their sprays sent thousands of droplets into the air, all to be caught and illuminated by the sun like a fireworks display.

We shot against the rocks, against the ocean, unsuccessfully dodging waves as the tide rolled in. This was more meat and potatoes stuff. Lots of face shots, simple clothes. I wore a simple black sweater and jeans, Erica wore jeans and a cool white hoodie with a faux wool liner. It was her, “Ice princess,” look, as she said. Once 10:30 rolled around, the morning light grew harsher and less interesting, and we packed up the gear and our clothes and walked back to the PCH.

We broke for lunch, and to spend some time with the kids, and a bit of a nap, and reconvened at 3:30 in the afternoon. Mike had scouted another location, this time near a park in Calabasas. As he told the story, he saw this cool looking massive oak tree at the top of a trail, decided to check it out, and much to his pleasant surprise, someone had hung a rope swing right in the center. In the afternoon, the sun came cascading through the branches, creating a canopy of amber and green light that filtered the sunlight.

Just above the tree was a burned out area from a recent fire. The golden, late summer ground cover of the California Chaparral gave way to charred black in a line that cut the hill in half. Hikers had reopened the trails, cutting brown lines through the middle of the hillside, where their shoes had uncovered the dirt underneath. It was a striking scene, at least what I could see of it through the beads of sweat dripping from my forehead, stinging my eyes. (Note… these are pics that I took, not the ones we mean to put on the cover of a record.)

We unpacked our gear and took the clothes out of plastic, and sat down to cool off. Erica went up with Terrie (using a photographic light reflector as a changing room) to change into the dress. I, being a boy with boxers, just changed.

We shot several pictures using the swing as a prop. Now, keep in mind this is all at about a 25 degree slope and more, so the swing, at the top of its arc, put it’s passenger about 10-12 feel off the ground. At one point, as Erica had gained some pretty serious momentum and was flying through the air, she said, “I feel like I’m in some bizarre, surreal perfume ad.”

We then continued our hike up the hill and shot against the burn area.

It was here that I think we captured what might become the cover. Mike was shooting us at close range, uphill, with a pathway leading up through the scarred hillside to another oaktree, aflame in amber in the setting sun. It’s hard to judge, looking at at 3 inch screen on the back of a camera, but the images I saw set my little heart aflutter.

We did some artistic shots, with some movement, one of us in the foreground, one in the back, etc. After about four hours, as the sun finally descended behind the hills and our light went away, we packed it up and went back to the cars.

I am dizzy with excitement to see the photos. Mike is sifting through the 16 gigabytes of photos he shot to sort them down to, “The best 100 or so.” This was the one part of the process that we didn’t experience last time around, and I have anxiety about the unknown. To have this done, and a reasonable expectation of success, is a major hurdle crossed. We were utterly exhausted by the end of the day. Who knew models had it so rough?

When I have links to some of the real shots, we’ll share them with you. Thanks for taking this journey with us.

We’d love to see you there. The promoter is sending us tickets, so if you’re interested, email us at thedailiesmusic@gmail.com.

We’re stoked, but a little nervous, too. It’d be great to have some of you Dailies fans out there to cheer us on. This is gonna be a cool, stripped down vibe, with just the two of us and Corey on guitars, so if you’re into that kind of thing, this is your gig.

The first is the opening piano riff for one of our favorite tunes from the last record, Wake Us.

wake-us-ringtone

The next two are from our upcoming record, which is still in process.

signal-chain-ringtone

all-in-ringtone

Happy Calling!