Saturday, July 7, 2007

Day 6 update

Right now Norm is recording the drum track for one of 2 songs on the record that we aren't tracking live with everybody in the room. That puts me in chill-out mode on the most comfortable couch in San Francisco.

Today's summary:

-Finished tracking on one song (working title "If You Didn't Want to Know"). We had Norm play this song about 10 beats per minute too fast and then slowed it down and recorded the guitars and keys over the slowed down track. I think these guys did that a few times.

-Chris tore out a picture of Knut, a baby polar bear, and taped it to a window in the control room. Total morale booster.

-We went to a pizza place around the corner called Papa Potrero's. Singlehandedly the worst place I've eaten at in 2007, and we're pretty sure it's a front for something really sketchy. The most remarkable thing about Papa Potrero's is that all the signs around the restaurant are inaccurate:

a) They have a gigantic sign facing the street that advertises a happy hour special that doesn't exist.
b) They accepted our credit card as a form of payment despite the "CASH ONLY. NO CARDS. DON'T ASK" sign.
c) Norm used the bathroom even though he didn't purchase anything, therefore devaluing the "BATHROOMS ARE FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY" sign.
d) They had a shitty salad bar. There wasn't a sign that said "OUR SALAD BAR IS NOT SHITTY" or anything, but it should still be noted.

By this logic, I'm going to assume that they don't serve Modelo, their medium pizza isn't actually as big as the pan on the wall, and they don't deliver.

-I had to sit down while playing a song to properly use the Whammy pedal, which made me feel totally totally lame. Sidenote: the Whammy pedal has become an essential piece of equipment for the songs on this record.

-Griffin already mentioned this, but we seriously tried to get a gong into the studio today. Chris called up Guitar Center and the one sided conversation i heard was "Hello, may I talk to drums.....do you have a gong?....um, I don't have a specific size in mind, just a big-ass gong.....okay, great thanks!"

-For a while we've been talking about the theory of advancement, which is really fascinating and hilarious. It's hard to think of things that are advanced, but we're pretty sure Travis Morrison is advanced and MAYBE the second half of "Trapped in the Closet" is as well. Midgets=advancement

9 comments:

Walla said...

I think you're going about this all wrong.

Lea Michelle said...

Midgets^n = advancement. The books know nothing.

=p= said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
todzyface said...

i was going to make another RYAN MORELLO joke regarding the whammy pedal but then i remembered that not only have i been using one for almost a decade, but i also do that annoying pickup on/off stuttering thing. so nevermind.

Unknown said...

you guys should use the whammy on some vox, then you'll sound like midgets. That's advancement at it's finest.

Ryan said...

I don't know if Whammy on vocals is "advanced" as much as it is "animal collective."

And no, Animal Collective is not advanced...yet. But Panda Bear releasing that album backwards is very very close.

Unknown said...

Ha, i was personally thinking more along the lines of Battles, which is advancement to the fullest...atleast more so than animal collective

Ryan said...

Battles is "advanced" in the way that they are good at their instruments and they play music that wasn't supposed to be written until 2035, but that's not what the theory of advancement is all about.

"Advancement is a cultural condition in which an Advanced individual—i.e., a true genius—creates a piece of art that 99 percent of the population perceives to be bad. However, this is not because the work itself is flawed; this is because most consumers are not Advanced"

Battles is just GOOD. They're too widely perceived as good to be considered advanced. In fact, Trapped in the Closet might be too genuinely entertaining to be advanced. Travis Morrison is definitely advanced because he's kind of a genius but everybody thinks his solo record is bad.

Another thing to keep in mind is that an artist has to have a reputation of doing good work to do something advanced. For example, your friend's band that you like but nobody else does is not advanced.

For example, Animal Collective are a band that people have high expectations of, and most people aren't going to want to hear a solo record of one of their members completely backwards, therefore kind of making it advanced. The most i think about it, the more it might be "overt" and not advanced. It's a tricky slope. I'd suggest looking up advancement theory on wikipedia for a great list of advanced artists and songs.

For example, Prince performing a Foo Fighters cover at the Super Bowl=totally advanced.

Unknown said...

Ahhh i think i'm getting it now....so how about like half of Mike Pattons catalog? That's the best i can come up with.

p.s. are you guys ever gonna post that instrumental for fan karaoke???