Hump Day

Had a pretty damn fun band meeting last night to go over some business.

Listened to a mock up Doc did of the song Mermaid, complete with sound effects, and I have to say, it sounded great considering it was unmixed and had no vocals on it. A good recording often capitalizes on serendipity. A "wrong" note that everybody winds up loving. A new idea that comes out of a mistake, but takes the song to a whole new level. This record is filing up with them, and I like it.

On Mermaid, I wound up changing a rhythm guitar part up quite a bit. When Dave gave us the rough mix of the instruments to play with, he left my old guitar part in along with the new part, and the result was one of those happy accidents where the two parts work perfectly together. They clash in all the right places, and leave space where space should be. And the fact that this was unplanned really give it an organic rough feel that suits the song perfectly.

And Doc's sonic additions (waves, sound effects) really add to the emotional punch of an already deep tune. It's going to be great when it's all done. We also went over some artwork and settled on a cover for the disc. I like it and I like the fact that we're dialing back some of our initial ideas about the packaging and going with something simpler (and cheaper). I really think the music will speak for itself and the more austere we make the artwork, the better.

Good times.

When we get the million dollar record contract, then we can have a 32 page insert. And we kicked around a bunch of ideas for new band promo pictures, which was a good laugh, as always. We have two or three ideas, any of which should turn into some good shots. Although my idea of us standing in line naked at E2 was nixed by Aoife.

Go figure. Then, of course, I wound up staying up too late after getting roped into watch a Texas Hold 'Em Tournament from 2004 on ESPN2.

Yep. And I'm not proud of it.

Maybe it was residual interest from having lost all my money to my friend Dave in Reno a few weeks ago in a long game of Texas Hold 'Em. But it was pretty gripping.

Tonight, it's back to the sleeping pills.

jbg