Tag: Pete McDade

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21 Jan: studio

SHERMAN
Pete McDade – drums

MYSTERY COVER SONG
Pete McDade – drums
John Cerreta – Vox organ, Clavinet

Tonight represented (barring the return of “Mr. Mysterio” to the track list) the last two songs. Meaning, every song intended for the CD has some part of it complete. It may not seem like much, but for a CD that was begun in October of 2000 it means a lot.

Pete came in to do the drums for both songs. Having him on most of the final songs has been great, not just because I love his playing, but because I think it’s helped add some cohesiveness to the process, if nothing else. Having him there makes it almost a band project, rather than the string of hired guns it started out as. He nailed the drums to SHERMAN in a couple of takes (having never heard it before), the other song in about 2 or 3. John did the organ work for the mystery song and he also played around with the Wurlitzer while SHERMAN was playing back, leading me to realize that will be the song that has the Wurly all over it. Damn, but it sounded good. I did the vocals for both in 1 take, the backing vocals for song #2 in 1 take with a few bits and pieces added in afterwards.

The cover song was done a little looser than anything else has been, just because it’s meant to be an extra track that’s a little light-hearted. This particular song seems to have suffered a fair share of musical abuse from the Million Box since we started playing it. An atonal, existential version keeps popping up in rehearsal, and in the studio an impromptu “sexy” version of it appeared, which may or may not see the light of day.

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14 Nov: studio

NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR
HEY, CALIFORNIA
FALL DOWN
Pete McDade – drums

We tracked the drums for these three songs.

“Now Wait for Last Year” has just been added back to the list of potential songs (and is close to having worked itself into the set list). It’s been around since Radiant City, when we did it as sort of a 4/4 dirge. Later I played it solo for a while as a 6/8 waltz kind of thing, having removed a verse. It’s now back to being 4/4, but the rhythm is much bouncier. I love the chord progression which is why it still lingers. I can easily say that this song has the most storied history of anything I’ve written.

As we were wrapping up this song I got a call to call my boss. Our parent company is shutting down our office, effective Friday. I have no job. Thankfully I’ve just paid Rob a sizable sum of money to finish the project, so at least it doesn’t affect me recording. So I try to pretend things are fine and we continue.

“Hey, California” just features the drums at the end of the song, which is all we recorded.

“Fall Down” took the longest. We worked it out as a sparse, sort of jazz-influenced thing, but it just didn’t seem to work very well, so we tried it with a more straightforward beat, and that seems to have done the trick. Pete’s playing with bundle sticks, and it gives it a nice fifties sort of feel.

More tomorrow…

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2 Oct: studio

KING SHAM
me – vocals
Rob – guitar, bass
John Cerreta – organ
Pete McDade – drums

It’s October 2, 2001. I began this whole process on October 29, 2000.

It does bother me. Objectively I know it’s not as if I’ve actually spent a year on it… even apart from the lack of recording between April and September when we have been in studio it really only amounts to one or two days in a week, punctuated by a couple of weeks off. Hopefully, I’m going to be able to give him a lump sum within the month, and we’ll set aside a block of time to wrap it up. I can’t say enough about Rob and the fact that he has been so willing to work with me on doing this, given the frequency with which he’s actually getting paid by me.

All that said, we began work on song #7 of 11 last night. Pete came in last week and laid down the drum tracks. Last night with a scratch guitar track and the bass already done I did the vocals. One take with a couple of punch-ins, and then doubling it. I could already hear the backing vocals, which is always reassuring. There’s nothing worse than not hearing anything, like staring at empty paper with a deadline looming. Then Rob and John did the intro to the song, a kind of warbley (I love trying to type a word like that… like “wonky”) guitar and organ bit.

Basically things went really easily. I wasn’t absolutely crazy about the song, and I hardly ever play it acoustic. But when we rehearsed the band a couple of weeks ago I brought it out and the version we hashed out sounded great (and I had sort of known that it really was a band song). When I was doing the vocals last night the song wasn’t grabbing me much, I was thinking it might end up being a weak point, but as things fell into place it really started to sound great.

It’s hard at times to keep myself excited about the CD, just because the process has taken so long and has had so many long breaks of no activity. The CD is really meant to be a whole entity (what they euphemistically refer to as a “song cycle” instead on “concept” record, sort of like calling a comic book a “graphic novel,” it just serves to make you seem desperate to not sound uncool) so it’s hard to keep a grasp on it with so much time passing between songs. But I am eager to get it done and out, I want to have a SECOND CD… it’s hard to explain. It’s hard to keep saying that what I do during the day isn’t my real “job,” that what I am is a musician, when I look and only see one CD sitting there. I want development.

Don’t get me wrong. I feel good.