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What day is it? Don't you hate it when that happens?

Kind of ran myself into the ground this weekend... shows on Thursday and Saturday, a full day of teaching on Saturday as well, and a studio session on Sunday. Add to that some nasty insomnia Sunday night, and I didn't manage to make it into work yesterday.

Instead, I slept with the hope of heading off fatigue-related illness, and watched the movie Sideways. Sideways was good. Maybe not as good as I expected, but still very enjoyable. It was one of those movies that frustrated me because I felt it could have been even better than it was. Paul Giamati was great, giving a very internalized performance similar to that of Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. One of the things I liked most about Sideways was that the director relied on showing the audience rather than telling the audience (Attention: Mr. Lucas!).

Plus, it really makes you want to go out and get drunk on wine. Our show Saturday at Double Door was good. The crowd was a bit lean, but I thought we played really well, and it was fun sharing a bill with our management-mates Buddy Nuisance, who are very cool people and a great band. Saturday felt like a nice transition point for us... we don't have any club shows booked for the summer, but have a lot of great festival dates. It'll be a chance to really dig into new material, play some outdoor shows, and regroup for a record release party in fall.

Sunday's recording session was another transition point in that I finished the last lead vocal for the album, the song Mermaid. I saved Mermaid for last because I felt like it was the hardest tune and would benefit from what I learned from cutting the rest of the album. It's also got the biggest range both dynamically and melodically of any song we recorded, which makes it doubly difficult.

MERMAID I opened my eyes to slumbering stars The wind wept with laughter, the ocean dreamt from afar Dreams of my trembling hands, your sweet mermaid face Framed by the lightening of this island place Chorus: The light from my window is brighter Than the light of the moon The light on your hair makes me a fighter But you're gone too soon You're the flame flickering in my heart Keeping hourglass time from the start Since you left there's been nothing by rapture and regret When darkness was spent, the night spirits gone We tripped over warm sand and cursed the new dawn It's calm to the west, and it's clear to the east But there's a storm in my heart as you crash into the sea Chorus I'll make my home where the water meets the land I'll plant my weary heart in the sand But I don't know where you've gone Taken by the sea's sweet song I'm out of touch, I'm out of place I've lost my head, I lost my face 
And I can't be alone

Mermaid is by far the oldest tune on the album... written in 2001. It's the only holdover from Blue New World that gets played regularly. It's probably the most important song to me because it was the first song that I wrote where I knew I had something special. I had written really good songs before I wrote Mermaid, but nothing quite as heavy, nothing as immediately and permanently effective (and affective).

The lyrics, I think, are both direct and poetic in a way I've never really been able to capture again. The structure is complicated but accessible. It's really a song about desire above all else. I knew we needed to get something special vocally for this song. It's my baby. So Dave and I really dug in and were persistent.

My voice was a little ragged from so many rehearsals and shows this weekend, but it translated well, and soon we were well into the tune and getting some great stuff down. It was funny because we worked in a circle for most of it. My first take was really simple and natural and Dave liked it a lot, but my voice just wasn't warm yet. As I warmed up, I also started overthinking and thus oversinging a bit, so we worked on getting back to the spontaneity of the first few takes.

When we got to the outro of the song, we faced some choices. The last passages have some really high notes I usually hit in my falsetto (or head voice) which packs a lot less punch than my normal chest voice. We weren't sure how this would translate onto the recording, if it would be too weak, etc. So I went for it full voice and actually hit the notes (high B-flats for those of you scoring at home).

Dave's response: "I didn't think you could hit those notes." Neither did I. But the full voice stuff sounded too strained. So I went back to falsetto and we thought we might double or triple up the parts for depth. But that sounded to fabricated to me.

So finally we settled on one track of me in my normal falsetto. I kind of think it's a little... daring to leave it like that. I only really have the confidence to do it after hearing some of Chris Martin's vocals on the new Coldplay album. He takes melodies into his falsetto (which is similarly airy to mine) with a gusto and I figured if he could do it, I could too.

It's interesting how sometimes somebody has to show you what you can/can't do... give you the confidence to do something you thought impossible or wrong. I guess that happens in all walks of life. 

Anyway, the lead vocals, pending final listening, are done. All that's left is some background vocals, a few little additional instrumental clean ups, and Doc's string parts. Then we mix and master and send it off for pressing. I think this whole weekend may have contributed to my insomnia the last few nights. Wrapping up the vocals, playing our last club show for awhile... it really feels like the "end" of all this material we've been working on for the last year and the beginning of a new direction.

So I've been awake, writing, trying to figure out what that new direction is. I think lately I've been overthinking my writing, trying to get too clever. I'd like to get back to what I captured in Mermaid. I'd like the band to work on playing simpler (not boring, just simple), on better and stronger melodies that are really the centerpiece of the songs, on words that connect emotionally without being butt-clenchingly simple or trite, on tight arrangement with cool subtle variations and savvy playing.

Of course a lot of this is already in our material and on the album. So I guess I'm really just talking about staying the course, continuing the try to write honestly and directly.

Let me just open up this bottle of Pinot and I'll get started.

jbg