Not Too Loud

Mary Beth and I woke up yesterday and did a little bit to go along with our morning errands. We had some India Palace buffet again, before the band got together. Jacques and Ryan both showed up and we worked on some things for Ryan to lay down. There's the long intro to "Histrionics" which he hadn't played on yet (which might now be called "Distance"). He put down some guitar on it. Then we set it up so he could add drum synth on "Safety Corridor." The Synare's had this problem where the 9 volt connector is broken, there's still a little nub of a contact for one of the poles, but it usually can't maintain contact with the battery. Well, I wedged a penny in the space and taped it shut and got it working fine and good! At least for now. So we had drum synths working in full force (the Synare along with the Syncussion that was used on the previous recording, when the song was just an intro). It sounds pretty damn awesome. Paul eventually showed up too, but there wasn't so much for him to do since his vocals aren't finished. We spent some time brainstorming album titles/instrumental titles/track sequence. We ended up going to dinner (well, Paul dropped out) with Mary Beth. We went to Kwik Check. With Ryan writing drafts on the sexy-ads back page of the Flyer, we came up with a pretty good sequence. At least for the time being, maybe things'll get adjusted when it all gets mixed and down to the wire, but for now: 1. Fall Behind 2. Cameras 3. Distance (?) 4. Histrionics 5. the one Ryan sings on (Jacques asked him to change the title from "Ivan's Lament" so it's back to being untitled) 6. Safety Corridor 7. Lost Year 8. Death Blow 9. the one Paul sings on 10. The Provincial 11. Battle Chant 12. Doctorate. Afterwards Jacques and I hung out a bit, furthering to brainstorm title ideas. We went a while without much luck. We typed up all our lyrics and printed 'em out to aid us with ideas. "Distance" was eventually honed in on from that as a title to the instrumental. Then, harping on Jacques's last word on "Cameras" ("blood") I pulled out the lyric sheet to Christian Death's first album, to look at words/phrases from the "Cavity-First Communion" (the song where he screams "blood" over and over at the end). Good ideas can come from goofy sources, take our band name for example. I wrote a few bits I thought could possibly work and "Stand Still" got translated to "Standstill" and we may have an album title. We'll see how it sits. After that, since there had been talk of adding reverb or delay or something to Paul's drums on the instrumental, I hooked up a couple delays to give it a shot. Two Moogerfooger delays, one for each channel and then I had them feeding back into each other. The results were simply AWESOME. It really now feels like it's come together. So late into the night (or the wee-est hours of this morning, however you view it), I finished reading Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon. Definitely far from one of his best, but it was good. It didn't disappoint me like Inherent Vice did, but it still felt like light work for him. It was still an enjoyable read. Late start to today. Oh, Friday night I made my first ever youtube video. It's really shitty, handheld from my phone, but I was having some fun with my new modules. And what I was doing when it first started was pretty amazing. I did a lot of other cool stuff, but it does have some lagging moments. And the video component is a joke.