The Making of "Kentucky"

"Official" Kentucky Release Date...

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:29:00 -0400

“Kentucky” will be “officially” released on Tuesday, June 3rd and will be available digitally at all major download stores (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon MP3, etc) and physically through the Collar City Records Store. Stay tuned for some fun ways of procuring the record…. Oh, also, I launched Kentucky Deluxe for those who pre-ordered the record in April. I’m slowly posting all the lyrics, some in depth song notes and eventually some unreleased songs from the sessions. If you want in on that, perhaps I can be persuaded.

Official

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 09:04:15 -0500

According to the RPM folks, “Kentucky” was received on 3/3! Excellent, certainly. This week has been tied up in trying to figure out release ideas, artwork, and general recording decompressing. I think one more pass at mastering will be in order and then this thing should be ready for sharing online.

The artwork is turning out excellent! I am using an image from Jason Antonelli’s current show at UGSS entitled “A String of Survivors”. As usual, Phil Pascuzzo is coaxing an impressive design out of my meager layout ideas.

So close, so close….

Thanks for listening...

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 08:27:18 -0500

… and paying attention to this journal! The whole project was a great exercise and to be able to look back at this journal is (and will be) invaluable in the future. The plan is to keep writing here as I continue to work on more recording projects I have lined up for the next few months. Stay tuned for that, and more information about “Kentucky” as I dot all the “i”s…

Modest birds (Harold & Bess)

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 08:25:00 -0500

Modest birds (Harold & Bess)

Finished.

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:50:00 -0500

It’s done… stick a fork, plug the meter, rope the chain, bathe the baby, etc. A few mastering fixes may be in order before it is unleashed upon the world, but.. stay tuned right here… more “Kentucky” teases on the way…

Sighing...

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:38:08 -0500

I don’t want to jump ahead, but it feels like the record is finished. Mastering scheduled for later today… I feel very done with it. Ready to move forward. I purchased a few new toys for the “studio” today. Seems like this journal will continue once the challenge is over.

Thirteenth Hour

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:28:25 -0500

Thirteen hours at the helm yesterday. Pretty sure it’s time to start mixing. I’ve been “mixing” as I went along as far as tightening up entrances and exits of parts, but finally pulling up the songs on borrowed monitors was quite a shock. Apparently those headphones I love to listen to (pre-recorded) music on are a bit lacking in the bass and super high end regions.

I have a lot of work to do.

( I realized last night that I hadn’t left the house since Friday evening ).

( Oh, and I think I have a title for the album… )

Your Only Memory

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:11:00 -0500

A twelve hour day down here comes to an end. The goal was to have all the music recorded so that tomorrow would be strictly mixing and tweaking things. Unfortunately, two of the newer songs need some more work so tomorrow is an extra long work day. This record will be finished soon.

Break / First

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:10:58 -0500

Taking a break from the “real” Marathon Day #1 (tomorrow being Marathon Day #2)… feels like another song was dropped from the final list due to general quality issues and my inability to bandaid it to a place where it would fit.

Spent the first few hours of today working on a new piece that will most definitely work as the first track. It’s the thirteenth ProTools folder marked “RPM” on my hard drive. It happens to be a bit spooky… coincidence?

(More later..)

Cuts

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:43:50 -0500

Two “ideas” (/songs) were cut from the list today. One was to be an instrumental piece based on a looped chord pattern drenched in reverb. Sparked from the desire to commemorate a recent birth in our close “family”, I realize now that I cannot put such an event into music at this time. Replacing it is a different instrumental piece that was conceived today. This piece has more of a shape and form and will reveal faster answers than the other.

The second idea that was scrapped was in fact the second piece I recorded from the project. I had a difficult time shaping what became quite a drone-y blob of sound. Sometimes the answers are clear in these cases, sometimes they are not. Instead of the blob, I recorded a brand new loop and riffer two days ago. It is perhaps the most aggressive moments I’ve recorded yet. Words and melodies began to form around it tonight, so I think there is a future there.

Still much much to do…

You have the face of a man spread thin over three half-finished records

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:30:07 -0500

Despite being so close to finishing the goal (well, at least the recording part of it…), I am feeling like I need to try a few new song ideas. Any reasonable human would stop now and start mixing, but am I reasonable?

Fever Pitch

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:24:46 -0500

Eight days, thirteen hours remain!

All is moving along fine. Tons of edits, vocal layers, scrapping, starting over, yawning in front of the mic, fear, thinking, not thinking, hoping, enjoying.

Goal: mix everything by Monday. ”Mastering” early next week… All the while trying to come up with packaging and promotion ideas…

I hope you will be surprised by this record. I know I have been surprised so far.

Laughing at Myself

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:53:00 -0500

I spent a good part of the end of my session today laughing at the stuff I was coming up with. On one of the earlier-ly conceived songs, tentatively “Threadbare”, I ended up writing a few ridiculous lines — lines and meters I’d never messed with before. Not sure if I will have the guts to include the song or even finish it at this point, but I wondered if I sounded ridiculous laughing between each take. I swear you can hear me smiling during the line prior to the ridiculous line. Anyway, a fairly productive day, nonetheless. Quite a bit of “bass”-work.

Excerpt from an email to Chris Wienk at WEXT ::

“Quite an excellent show I must say… what a talented bunch of young men. Our seats were absolutely perfect (two rows back, slightly left, directly in front of Thile….). The night’s two sets were comprised with (mostly) songs from last year’s “How to Grow a Woman From the Ground” and next week’s “Punch”. They performed “The Blind Leaving the Blind” suite in its entirety during the first set, along with a mix and mash of shorter tunes from the records in the second set. Highlights (for me) included “The Beekeeper” and “Bailey/I Know You Know” (which I believe is unreleased from the “Punch” sessions?). The four part suite was intense, in fact, perhaps too intense for me even having grown up with classical music all around and having witnessed my share of through composed long form pieces. At times I wondered what the goal was and I often wondered if the piece was there just because they COULD play it effortlessly and flawlessly…?

Anyway the talent and showmanship yielded some NASTY ensemble playing. The interplay between all five instruments was constantly varied and textured. It was interesting to note that there were no long, drawn out solos from any band members. Each “solo” was no longer than one chorus — sometimes even just four bars long - but each player took each opportunity to slay in those short moments. Excellent.”

That was my last chance for inspiration as I head into the final week of recording!!

Productive Day

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:42:00 -0500

How I was able to start, complete and record two songs’ worth of lyrics today I’ll never know. Today also marked the day where I can claim that there are now 10 different ProTools folders on my laptop. With 13 days left to finish recording, mix and master I can only hope that these ten ideas will prove themselves to be worthy of bring included on the record.

Some shows to attend this weekend: last night - Charlie Everywhere at Circus Cafe. This show was a last minute venue switch from a thwarted marathon planned at the VFW Post 420. While it would’ve been great to catch some new bands, I am fine with a night alone with the Everywhere folks. Josh and Sarah continue to write excellent songs and hone their live show as they prepare their first full-length album. Standouts include the amazing “You Are the Ocean…” and “When I’m Small”. On a completely different note, tomorrow evening we’ll be going to The Egg to see the Punch Brothers. Looking forward to a challenging night of music…

An exercise

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:56:00 -0500

Among the challenges in this challenge is the exercise of harnessing moments of inspiration. As Philip Pullman says here (on writing), “…if you’re going to write anything that will last - you have to realise that a lot of the time, you’re ging to be writing without inspiration. The trick is to write just as well without it as with.”

For this recording project I’ve been scribbling on scraps of envelopes, typing quick notes on my laptop, singing seconds of melodies into my cellphone’s voice recorder on the way to work among other ways to save these moments of inspiration from being forgotten. Looking back, it is fairly certain that I have missed many of these moments over the years and wish I could get them back.

Tunnel

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:46:39 -0500

The “juggling ten spinning plates” analogy is appropriate at this point. Looks like we are nearing the halfway mark! (Friday?) I am confident that I will finish, but I am unsure as to how many sleepless nights I will need to get this where I’d like it to be. Ideas keep coming, so all is not lost — just busy.

Tools

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:29:00 -0500

There hasn’t been any “technical” talk here. Not on purpose, I suppose? Besides the challenge of writing, recording, mixing, and mastering this record, I am also faced with the challenge of learning ProTools on my own for the first time. An MBox2 has been sitting in my house for just over a year now and it has simply collected dust. There was a brief brush with PT at the end of my college days, but the program has changed a bunch since then. Luckily, Ben Karis-Nix had a few moments to show me a few pointers in layman’s terms so at this point I’m comfortable comping together a vocal track, editing in general, and using plugins to my advantage. I made my first full song edit yesterday! (where I moved a whole verse section back about four bars — just too much space!) This confidence will evaporate when mixing.

Finishing the Unfinished

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:25:00 -0500

It’s this overwhelming feeling that nothing is finished. There are six song ideas going and going and it’s difficult to move forward for any new ideas until at least one or two of them have their parts completely committed. What does #1 need? Should I put more vocals on #2? What’s wrong with #5? More lyrics! More lyrics! There’s still progress though… some progress…

Re-thinking thinking

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:41:00 -0500

What a severely obsessive project this is turning out to be. When I am not able to be locked in the first floor room working on the record, I am constantly thinking about it. I am a little concerned that I have not met my goal of three completed songs per week - however, there are two that are nearly finished, two with decent starts and one that needs a ton of work. So in some ways I am a little ahead, and a little behind at the same time. More soon…

Some inspirations:

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:42:05 -0500

Since music was not recorded today, perhaps a sharing of some recent listenings:

Bon Iver: witness “For Emma, Forever Ago” (out 2/19)… a huge inspiration for this recording.
Why?: some songs from “Alopecia” (out 3/11) have made their way to my ears. Wild, and excellent.
Subtle: revisiting “A New White” and some songs from the subsequent releases. Doseone’s voice choicings and layerings are a study in how to squeeze out every ounce of sound. That and the band just kills at times.
Morr Music: I grabbed a few records from the Morr Music catalog on eMusic… looking forward to checking them out as I generally like or at least appreciate their releases. I’ll get back to you on that…

Sleep tight.