No Subject

[Steve Luongo]

Day 6

I woke up today and was greeted by a half dozen or so assorted dogs in
the kitchen.  John's mom, Queenie, stopped by and brought Gretchen and
Otto the Rottweilers.  Sue the grounds keeper also brought Winston,
Rocky and Sebastian the Labradors.  Dave ( odd job ) brought his two
Rottweiler puppies.  So breakfast started with lots of doggie kisses.
I am a dog'animal person so I am in heaven here except for the fact
that all these dogs make me miss Cody, my wolfhound setter mix.  He's
the one that's sitting at the mixing desk on my page in the tour book
( Steve's favorite producer ).  By the way I was asked how we came up
with the name Bitsa Talent.  The first time John met Cody he said
"That's a bitsa" and I said "what?"  he said "you know bitsa this and
bitsa that" and so that's how we got the name.

The early part of the day consisted of moving gear around in the
studio.  We removed John's rig because he records direct into the
mixing desk.  John hates headphones so he records in the control room
and listens to the monitors.  Godfrey's rig was moved into the pinball
room for isolation and Alan plays direct in as well.  The only one
thing that has mics on it is the drum kit.

I was the first to get sounds with Bobby Pridden.  That is the worst
part of recording for me because you just sit there banging out single
strokes on one drum so that the engineer can get it sounding good in
the control room.

The kit I am using is the same setup as the one I used on the last
tour.  4 rack toms, 1 floor tom, 1 snare drum and 2 kick drums with
assorted cymbals and a hi hat.  That's a lot of single strokes!  Lucky
for me Bobby is fast and got the sounds in just under 2 hours.
Godfrey went next.  He noticed that a bridge spring was missing from
his Paul Reed Smith guitar. He asked Bobby if there might be one
around some place.  Bobby said "Maybe you should check the guitar
room."  This was Godfrey's passport to bliss.  He says that walking
into that room is like going to a classic guitar show.  When he
returned he told Alan and me about the inventory in the guitar vault.
Some of his favorites include all types of pre CBS Fender guitars
(stratocasters, telecasters and such) there are also a number of
Gibson classics like a 1962 SG Les Paul, a 1958 Explorer that Godfrey
offered to look after for John.  He also found some rare Firebirds and
flying Vs.  Alan and John were the last to get sounds and by late
afternoon we were ready to start tracking.  We started with "Left For
Dead" and things were going OK but John was unhappy with his bass
sound so we took a break and let Bobby and John sort it out.  They
were trying all kinds of things and John was getting pretty
frustrated.  I saw him come out of the studio with a scowl on his face
and I said "Did you smash anything yet?"  he glared at me and said
"Not yet!"

We were about to pack it in for the day because the sound wasn't
coming together and then we decided to try a few more takes.  All of a
sudden things were poppin' and sounding great.  We were all locked in
and we knew it.  2 takes later we had it and you could see joy and
relief on everyone's face.  Bobby had sorted out John's sound and we
were very happy with the result.  Godfrey went in for some acoustic
guitar over dubs and we were done for the day.  We will track 2 more
songs tomorrow and then start vocals.  You all will be happy to know
that John will be singing on most of the tracks we do this trip.  We
all share the vocals on Left For Dead.  Alan will sing the first verse
I'll sing the 2nd and John gets the 3rd.  Godfrey will share backing
vocal duties.  Of course this might change but that is the plan right
now.  John will sing the lead on "I Wouldn't Sleep With You" and most
likely on the 3rd one as well.  We are all pleased with the progress
we are making and feel very confident in this project.

12:30 am time to walk Scarlet and Flynn and off to bed.



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Alan McKendree        amck@eden.com        512-478-9900 x206
Adhesive Media, 101 W. 6th St., Ste. 210, Austin, TX   78701