I'm finally going to get back to doing this blogging thing but with even worse spelling and grammar, more stuff about random life, joyful news, depressing news and everything in between. So, with that said, we go on to the big things that have been going on.
This past week Katy and I spent on the road getting to and from Nashville to start working on the new Bearkat record. The story goes as follows:
Day 1 (Sunday February 14th [Valentines Day]):
We decided to get up bright and early that morning to try and get a jump on our 14 hour drive to Nashville. I woke up at about 6:30AM and after showering (about 10 minutes) and curling my mustache (about 20 minutes) I walked out the door of our apartment to be greeted by a very familiar grade school dance memory:
"LETS GET READY TO RUMBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!
ya'll ready for this?"
Now, if you use basic arithmetic, you can deduce from the figures above that the time was about 7AM. The next thing you might do is ask a question: "Who plays this obnoxious song at 7AM on a Sunday morning?" I have an answer for you: runners.
Apparently, we had missed the memo that the Austin marathon was happening on this particular morning and the route went perfectly around our neighborhood... thus trapping us helplessly in a claustrophobic situation filled with short shorts, un-aerodynamic/gaudy costumes, well wishers, whistlers, chanters, hecklers and people who had just happened upon the event. As you could imagine, our morning got a later start than we expected.
After watching a couple thousand fit (and unfit) people run by, we dislodged ourselves from our neighborhood and jumped on I-35 North to finally start our adventure and hope that our luck would change. Which, it did! We made a Whataburger breakfast pit-stop in Waco (narrowly avoiding conflict with an underpass full of crazy homeless dudes [apparently, they hang out under the same underpass... but, then again, I've never actually been to Waco... so who knows]) and got an extra breakfast platter! Granted, it was a mistake and the lady who served us was probably swiftly disciplined... but we felt like our luck was on the up and up!
One gas tank later... somewhere in the middle of Arkansas... this happened:
As soon as it was time for me to switch over and drive the second half of the journey... it started to snow. I don't know, it could just be me, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to snow anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. For the rest of the drive I had my eye on the temperature gauge in the car, anxiously waiting for the temperature to drop below freezing. I imagined it like this: at 33 degrees everything would be fine and we'd be driving along just fine on the wet roads and the BAM(!) at 32 degrees we would slip hopelessly off the road into a 20 foot snowbank that mysteriously been plowed onto the side of the highway. Luckily for us, this fantasy of mine never happened (its amazing the way your brain processes things).
We arrived safely that night in Antioc, TN where my good friend and fellow Mainer Jeff Elwell (see earlier posts for pictures of him) keep his fine household. We chatted for a bit, talked about his cruise to the Caribbean, pushy Jamaican vendors and Jimmy Buffet theme parks and finally laid our heads to rest.
Day 2 (Monday February 15th [Drive by Tracking]):
We woke up that morning to find the car covered in a thick layer of ice and about 2 inches of snow. This wasn't at big of a surprise to me considering the conditions we drove in with the previous night. It brought back all the memories of waking up early in the morning and letting my car warm up for 15 minutes while I scraped the snow off of my windows. Luckily, Katy had just come back from Maryland a couple of weeks before so she had a ice scraper in the back of her car. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that nobody knows how to drive in those conditions at all. People were sliding around on the roads (imagine the scene in Bambi when he's on the ice slipping around... that's how Tennessee drivers are in the snow and ice) from either going too fast or too slow. Cars were getting caught going up small hills and then trying to back up and turn around, then getting stuck in a ditch, or worse, flipping their car completely over and bursting into flames (yes, this actually happened).
We eventually made it into Nashville proper and met our friend James for breakfast. You may remember James from past posts but we'll re-introduce you to him.
Me overseeing the fun. Luke "Someone has to make sure nobody loses an eye" Kalloch.Some people have all the fun.
Not only was he joining us for breakfast, he was also joining us in the studio that day to lay down some sweet piano tracks!
We got to the studio and, honestly, we had no idea what to expect. The producer's name is Mark Nevers (best known for his recent work on the newest Andrew Bird record "Noble Beast"... other credits include some Silver Jews, Bonnie Prince Billy, Vic Chesnut and a little OK GO). Mark is a very quite guy with a house full of recording gear (my kind of guy). He calls his studio "the Beech House".
It looks like your run-of-the-mill Nashville residence but it has its very distinct qualities. When you first try and walk onto the property you go to open the front gate only to find that you run into it like a brick wall and then sit fiddling with it for a minute hoping that nobody else is watching you as you foolishly find out that it literally bolted shut and there is a side gate that you have to walk into. Here is the said demon gate.
After you regain your self respect and muster up your courage you can enter the house and find a magical place chalk full of recording equipment and music instruments and snaggle toothed cats named Lulu.
The place was also full of amazing musicians. Mark had hired a bassist (Matt) and a drummer (Ben) we were probably two of the sweetest people you could ever meet... and also great musicians (as was to be expected). Its always a toss up when it comes to studio musicians... bassists are usually always nice but drummers almost are always on the douche side of the spectrum or the really really nice side. Luckily, Ben was on the latter side.
The tracking went ridiculously fast. We didn't go through any of the tunes more than 3 times before we had a solid arrangement and were ready to track it... and we didn't do more than 3 takes before we were done with a song and moving on to the next one. All-in-all we tracked about six songs in six hours... the whole vibe just felt so comfortable and fun... I can't really describe it. My only complaint is that I got dicked out on the booth I was recording in.
Ben, James and Matt's room. Probably the homiest of the bunch. TV, Andrew Bird and Vic Chesnut 2" tapes, plants, paradise.
My room. Washer and Dry. Small Efficiency. 400 a month.While everyone else got to hang out in a nice and comfy room and could see each other, I got stuck into the laundry room... but I wouldn't have it any other way, really.
So, we ended the first day wiped out and a little bewildered on what exactly had happened... but that didn't stop us from going out and seeing a show, dancing to some sweet motown music and running into people you haven't seen for a very long time. I ran into my friend Jess Rice who I knew from Boston (BURRITO MAXX!) and then later in Austin... and now she lives in Nashville and works with James... small world.
Day 3&4 (Feb. 16-17th [Overdubs, mixing and ice cream])
The title pretty much describes what happened in the studio those days so I'm going to go into the social aspect of them.
After recording on the 16th, we decided to take it easy and stay in at James' apartment and nest. So we went out to try and get some apple cider and rum... which turned out to be quite the chore because all of us are indecisive and couldn't decide on a rum to get and when we tried to get some apple cider we couldn't find any so we did what any good American would do... buy some artificial Apple Cider packs throw them in a huge pot of water and rum, call it good, cram three people onto a full sized bed and watch a movie (in this case "I Love You, Man"). I wish I could have taken a picture. It would have been such a nice moment.
The next night consisted mostly of me demonstrating my ability to eat massive mounts of ice cream. James' downstairs neighbor is also his really good friend (and another talented musician) Adam Popick (spelling?). We made two trips to his place the night: one of them to say "hey, lets watch a movie" and another one to actually watch the movie. On both occasions I had a pint of ice cream in my hand and on both occasions I arrived with them full and left with them empty. This is a pretty common occurrence for me but I have a feeling that it disgusts a lot of other people, bringing forth vomiting or uncontrollable gagging and in some cases the people watching develop lactose-intolerance. True story.
Days.......... the rest.
After three days of recording in Nashville we had 6 roughly mixed songs on a CD and a lump of joy in the pit of our stomachs. We bid our farewells to James (they are always bittersweet... I wish we lived in the same city) and made our way southward to my Dad's woodsy solar powered retreat in southern Alabama where the universe is at peace, chickens roam happily with wild turkeys, geese play with dogs, manure is made from human fecal matter and there is always a project to be done.
On our way there we stopped for gas at a very curious fill-up station on the border of Mississippi and Alabama. The outside looked like any ordinary BP but the inside had rocking chairs, old men with canes and dirt floors (well, almost). I wanted to get a picture of the place without being too suspicious (which really just made me look even more queer and suspicious) but only came out with this photo.
The day and a half we spent at my Dad's place were very relaxing. We at lots of food (which included going out to a catfish restaurant where they had Karaoke and very curious patrons [you'd think at least they would be used to a handlebar mustache!]), talked and worked on a "project" (which usually includes manual labor [you've got to make use of those young bodies while you have them around!]). The project this time was riding on the back of my Dad's John Deere Tractor (which has a name... but I can't remember it) and loading wood in and out of it. It was good fun. As you can clearly tell.
But I couldn't help but think it would have been twice as fun with James there... so through super sophisticated image manipulation technology, I made my fantasy possible.
And now... for ride from Alabama to Austin.
Alright. That about wraps it up. I'm really really really going to try very very very hard to write on this thing more often to I don't have these mammoth entries that usually peeter out near the end... much like this one. See you next time!Cheers,
Luke
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