DIARY OF A MAD BAND:
The Making of Album No. 4
Halloween 2003
Can't remember when the decision actually became official. No one made a proclamation, there was no formal stamping of a document. But at some point in October 2003 we realized we were sitting down to write a new record.
There are a few caveats:
Chief among them, the album can't take as long as Parlour to write, record, & mix. The idea of a "concept record"—what loftier goals can a band have than the ubiquitous concept record?—is tossed around. Might still be lurking up in the ball tower, who knows. The new record might be an EP. The new record might feature Jymm singing a cappella in the nude. Comrade tacklebox starts on cd-cover mockups, all of which would have to ship in brown paper wrapping.
Equipment is leaner. An acoustic guitar & a small drumkit & an ADAT. New tapes are filling up fast with ideas, & a check of the pre-Parlour sessions reveals a handful of gems in there too. Now to sort through it all & focus on a few at a time. Jymm is fond of lists, you see.
Some working titles: "Traveling Music", "Long Way Home", "You Two", "A Cappella" (see? see?), "Foovana", "Summer Nights", "Jaymes Bond", "Look at the Sky", "Sunday Seal", "Bohemian Overture". Hard to say what any of them sound like at this point. Lots of strumming & "La la la".
But that's where genius starts, you see, in the space between la la's.
2 Nov
Today's rehearsal was a wash. Jymm's car wouldn't start. Thing you got to know about Jymm's car is, it's famous.
It was driven by Ray Bob Chewdribbler in the famous Louisville Demolition Derby of '97. Ray Bob took home the champeenship beer stein that year. Then famed daredevil Billy "The Prosthetic" Chewdribbler crashed it in his stunt at the Louisville Demolition Derby of '98. A large crane suspended Billy inside the car, then swung it from side to side into two buildings until what was left was a mangled mass of steel, glass, & prosthetics.
The remains are what Jymm drives to this day. Ergo, a certain amount of patience is due The Man & His Ride.
In other news, Saturday's session went well. A review of the "idea list" reminds us of the pre-Parlour sessions, & a long night of the band sitting around pitching their choices for songs to make it on the album. Some cool new ideas, & some cool stuff that just wasn't working by the time we went into the studio. We'll see what the list has for us this time around.
In the meantime donations to the Buy Jymm A Car Fund can be made through the Chewdribbler Foundation of Louisville, Kentucky.
6 Nov
Jymm expresses his desire to record an all-Ethel Merman album. He is quickly sedated by the band's doctor & work is put off till the weekend.
9 Nov
Saturday several ancient ideas are dusted off & infused with blood. Some regain their pulse. Others shrink back into the dusty netherworld of Bad Ideas from whence they came.
Sunday the band convenes in their Burbank Bunker & works on 2 such revitalized ideas, as well as 3 or 4 spanking new jams. "Loaded" has a nice druggie irony to it over a good beat you can dance to. Some slow ideas, some springy ones like a new pair of Hush Puppies.
We've restricted ourselves to 8 tracks of ADAT. The drums take up 3, then guitar, bass & vocals, & 2 left over for extra vocals or guitar. Enough to get the idea, certainly. Tapes are filling up. Time to go shopping for more.
Also a UK fan named Mark who's setting up a DV fansite mailed the band cameras a while back...they're in the studio & the band plans to take pictures shortly. We know we keep telling him that, but there you go. We're musicians after all.
16 Nov
Today we worked on "Sunday Seal" exclusively. Don't ask where working titles come from, although as a point of fact many working titles have stuck till the finished product. Jymm's name is one example.
Anyway the mid-tempo Sunday Seal began simply enough with guitar. Very strummy guitar. We recorded a rough idea of the form, then recorded drums to help keep Cami in time (you know singers). Jymm's bass playing is coming along—he's really almost got a firm grasp of eighth notes now.
The song has sort of a (dare we say it) uplifting feel. We'll see what we can do to keep it from being...happy. The form has stuck so far, so the song has that eerie sensation of being damn close to done. (Knock on wood.) A new song's completion is always a good omen for a new album.
While the juices are flowing we'll attack some of the other new sketches, & see what Frankensteinian stitching we can do to some older noises.
We were going to take some pictures to show how fascinating three people sitting in a dimly-lit dingy room full of equipment looks, but...didn't.
22 Nov
Fresh off his birthday recovery, or perhaps not, Steve recorded bass to something called "Evil L'il Bassline". It had a bass part but as it had been recorded on a ghetto blaster it was more inaudible than not. Now it is audible, & somewhat twisted time signature-wise. See what the rest of the band have to say tomorrow.
Everyone's taking a turn on bass these days. Except Cami, of course. The fingertips of her left hand are still in pristine condition. She maintains a blister-free zone.
Bass has also been recorded to several of the newer ideas, helping flesh out just what in tarnation's going on with each of them. Some good stuff.
23 Nov
Sunday Seal is now Sunday Peel. (Don't ask.) Wrestling with the chorus, real cage-match stuff. ELB got the thumbs-up, we'll see how she progresses this week.
29 Nov
More haggling over Sunday Peel. Some of the DVST members snagged a version of it before it was removed for more bodywork. We'll see how early renditions stand up to the finished thingamajig.
Came up with a nasty l'il ditty called (for the moment) Lickety Split, with just about everything distorted that can be. It's rather splendid. Not bad for an end-of-session burnout jam. It's up in the DVST Forum of the Posting Board, where we're going to be putting some of the demos on display.
Trying to focus on a smaller number of songs, cause tackling the long list all the time is headache-forming. Our lists keep getting away from us, & we get mired in our own genius.
7 Dec
Lickety Split got the faux pianoforte treatment in the bridge. What a wonderfully noisy piece. Two tracks of muy distorted guitar, lead vocal squashed like a bug, cymbal smashing. Glorious.
Exploring interstellar Sun Ra guitar harmonies in Look @ Le Sky. That one has a bouncy little groove. Once we get the details worked out it'll be a toe-tapper. That's where we are with it, details. Form & function.
ELB is slowly giving up melodic ideas. Has several time changes, so Cami's brow is furrowed but her heart is pure. Jymm yodels as best he can while Steve twiddles knobs & winces. But both of their hearts are pure. We refer to it as a riff song, it's all built around a riff that boys & girls can emulate on air guitars or otherwise in the privacy of their own bedrooms, or otherwise.
Still, it will be exciting to watch Cami negotiate the ever-changing landscape of 4 & 3. What else does one do with singers but experiment with them, like hamsters, or red-butted rhesus monkeys.
On the agenda this week is tackling Tribal Something, a new thing that is sort of tribally in the Cocoon rhythmic vein but a bit more aggro. All we have is an guitar part, a new bass part, old drum part. That one trucks like a White Freightliner. It will be good to start hammering away at it.
Now if only Disco Duck in the loft studio upstairs will cease & desist his incessant rave beast that bleed into mic's we'll be jammin'. & he'll be pushing up daisies somewhere. Shaking hands with Elvis. Deep sixed.
12 Dec
Tribal Something is getting deeply rearranged, & a new chorus 'n stuff. Has a very driving feel to it. Cool bassline, though Steve plays it badly, as well as imitating the inimitable Jymm who is laid up with SARS. In an email sent to the band he declared his desire to dance on fire on the fine line between prog & pop "like Genesis did."
Obviously the poor devil's mad with fever.
Street Teamsters now have 3 demos to preview in the DVST Forum, Sunday Peel, Lickety Split, & Santa Maria.
Christmastime
Took time (well, about ninety minutes) away from working on Real Songs to record Winter Wonderland. A nice thing about working quickly is you end up not haggling over details as you do on a Real Song. Hence ninety minutes top to bottom. Would've been quicker had Cami worked out the lyrics beforehand, but that's a detail not worth haggling over.
Tribal Something has meat on its bones, according to Jymm, but one of the songs he's most enthused about is ELB. It will be strummed in Guitar Centers across this great land of ours. Cami's beginning to bust a melodic nut with it, at last.
Still haggling over the bridge in Look @ Sky. Steve & Jymm have opposing opinions about it, but what's new. Instrumental version's up in the DVST Forum.
Steve had a root canal. Cami had food poisoning. Work continues...
Happy holidaze everyone.
9 Jan
Something new popped out of the oven, called XMAM (don't ask, don't tell). One of those big chorusy affairs. Jymm thinks it's a drinking song. It's more of a driving song, perhaps, but that might simply be because living in LA, everything is a driving song. Definitely Bic-lighter-waving material though. A singalong situation over an easy summer groove, perhaps, but that might simply be because living in LA, everything is a summery groove.
Street Teamsters might get a peek at it soon, who knows. Back in the swing of things after the holidaze.
11 Jan
Today was the first divvying up of songs onto A list & B list, or Red folders & Purple folders. 'Twas an even split of 8 each side. Red (or A) are songs everyone agrees are bona fide. Purple (or B) have either a two-thirds vote or are still in the early stages of germination. Reference cd's were distributed to help the process.
The Reds include Lickety Split, Loaded, Long Way Home, Look @ the Sky (an interesting feature of songwriting is alphabetic clusters; for instance on Parlour there is Bardot, Benediction, & Beautiful, as well as Star Shoes, Say You Love Me, Smaller God. That sort of thing to feed the conspiracy theorist in us all), Santa Maria, Summer Nights, Sunday Peel, XMAM, You Two...
Purples include Beautiful Loser, E Bass Thing, ELB, Jymms Bond, Something Dirty (don't ask), Traveling Music, Tribal Warfare... A student of the cabala might be able to find hidden messages about UFO's & empty moonlit Kentucky fields. There are other ideas too, who knows if they'll find their way to the table or remain in the dank underbrush.
XMAM's coming along nicely. Almost done, wethinkst. Something 1 which became E Bass Thing has a good verse, the chorus is being bitchy, as choruses are wont to do. Jymm kept reiterating he was too close to the forest to see the trees, but that may have been due in large part to caffeine withdrawal. Hallucinations. Residue from the last interplanetary rectal probe. Or a long night in Long Beach at the wedding of a pro baseball player from San Francisco. (Don't ask.)
At any rate, the A & B listing process is a vital step. New stuff always pops up when one least expects it (XMAM being a prime example). 2004 looks ripe with possibilities.
5 Feb
As Steve took the time to move, Cami took the time to write lyrics. Lickety Split is now "Matador," a much better title. Really get a feel for it now. We plan on popping its cherry at the show on 21 Feb.
XMAM looks to be next lyrically. Who knows what she's on about, so long as it's in time & in tune.
10 Feb
Working out a set list for the 21 Feb show. Some oldies, some newbies. After 3 records (soon to be 4) DV has an honest-to-gawd discography. Fun to pick & choose, albeit with that Angel slant to things.
Cami's been a busy beaver on 4-5 new ones. No new title for XMAM yet, perhaps it will stick, much to Jymm's annoyance (for some reason). Popping new songs's cherries live is much fun. Plus there'll be a new cellist performing with the band, & that's always exciting, for reasons more to do with preparedness than stringed eccentricity.
In other words, work on the album continues, & the upcoming show, albeit short, should be a doozy.
15 Feb
Today featured the first (& only) rehearsal with the new cellist. Her name is Jen & she employed a strap-on (cello that is). L'il electric number without a body, & a strap so you can stroll around as you play. Nifty. Evidently on Saturday she'll have a normal sit-down version, which is still nifty.
But we can imagine the strap-on, & smile.
23 Feb
Post Wolfram & Hart & time to get back to work on the new songs.
The show Saturday went well, lots of heart despite the so-so mix. While it was good to get out of the studio & rock a little, the Holiday Inn surroundings & wide open dance floor (until Cami coaxed a few courageous souls to come dancing) were a little disconcerting. Nevertheless new songs Matador & XM came off with much rejoicing. Cellist Jen did a superb job for her DV cherry-popping, replete with an Industrial Light & Magic-designed electric cello that resembled an intersteller hot rod. Rawk.
Officially it was also the first time the band had to load in through a kitchen. Masterful techs Bobo & Becker & Maeline of the Merch did their duty & kept it a smooth-running operation. Also a big thanks to the Steves who did their duty in quickly stocking the green room with vital essentials any rawk band needs to get the job done.
The band met Pyrofenix from the DVPB, Baltimore, Georgia, & points beyond, in a dapper blue suit & fake vampire fangs which he foisted onto the band to wear with him. Strange lad. Also photographer Gurl Green who doesn't want to be Gurl Green anymore, but Sarah Palmer, perhaps an even more bizarre sobriquet. Also Cin, a dedicated fan who flew in from Miami just for the show, unofficial winner of the evening's Long Distance Award, who explained, "DV is a band you need to see at least once before you die." True story.
But the award for Most Determined goes to the Stowaways, an intrepid pair who snuck in to the convention & hid in a bathroom just to hear the band. Evidently we sound good even in the head.
Fox Home Entertainment interviewed some of the band for The DVD. Hopefully we won't end up on the cutting room floor, as we have in the past, when an impromptu DV sighting on camera threatened to upstage the Main Attraction. We have that effect on "celebrities" & their handlers. (Mouhahahaha.)
& now, back to the regularly scheduled writing of the new record.
Setlist was as follows:
Over You
Jessamine
Matador
XM
Candy Jones
Cocoon
Blue Sun
Carry on My Wayward Angel Theme
Beautiful
4 March
More forays into odd time signatures in "Long Way Home". The verses are in 6 to begin with, which Cami is handling intuitively (good girl). We warped a new bridge into alternating measures of 5 & 6, which is very clever. The song is really all groove, a good driving tune, simple & bouncy, & then along comes this pseudo-Spanish thing in 5. Haven't quite got an optimum way out yet, but at least Cami's keeping up for the most part with the music. Yeah we know, we know, we shouldn't underestimate singers...but it's so hard not to.
Talk round the campfire at night about a show in April, ranging from a fan's living room to a club on the westside of town. We'll see how the songs progress, be nice to get out & do a set of mainly new stuff.
7 March
Today was all about sussing out Long Way Home's bridge. We think the issue has been settled, at least for today. Also toward the end out was spat out a new thing called You're Mine, Yoda. Kind of a slow bluesy thing. Need a shower after listening to it.
Speaking of which...
11 March
More work on YMY. Tired. Put the demo up for the street teamsters. More later.
21 March
With the help of an Apple music program called Garageband birthday boy Jymm is demoing ideas. Cool to hear strings & vibes over one of the ballads. Like Parlour, the new record already covers many bases, from requisite 3 1/2 minute pop songs to a little meatier compositions.
In a splurge we worked on an early idea called Traveling Music & Cami did kind of an Ani De Franco skat thing, unusual for her, came out well on the demo & really indicates the style the song will take. Another interesting thing about the song is Steve's drumming in 6 while Jymm strums in 4, so it's got an off-balance thing to it. Will be neat to see it evolve. Think we're going to put it up for the street team to chew on, we'll see.
25 March
Matador is off for a demo mixing (in a Kansas City studio, no less). Up go its bytes & pieces, down they come...ain't technology grand. Last rehearsal was spent redoing song for cleaner signals. Isn't that what we all seek in life, cleaner signals.
Traveling Music is now called Walking Papers, to everyone's surprise, & the street teamsters get to hear it.
7 April
With Jymm waylayed by "food poisoning" (if you believe *that* for a New York minute) work continues on the digital side of things, putting demos together on computers & such. Also redid Matador for mixing elsewhere. We'll see what comes of it.
18 April
XMAM changed keys. Down to E from D or something. Anyways it sounds good because it's more in Cami's range now. After much haggling over the chorus of Sunday Peel or Seal or whatever the hell it's called, we think we've decided or at least acquiesced on something. Once Cami has words it will be easier to discern.
The plan now, as far as we know, is to nail down forms/details on the songs that are close, then go dive into the ones that still need hashing out. So away we go. Close enough we've started mulling over studio options. Off the hook, baby.
2 May
The record heat in LA is disabling. So hot the flies ain't buzzin'. Everyone's laying about in front of fans or, for the chosen ones, central air. Steve's cat lays on his back with his legs spread & an expression that says "Please, enough already, my ancestors hail from Scotland..."
Had the DVST chat today, which was fun. The intrepid Pyrofenix organized & enabled it, & thanks to the 360-degrees of earth attendees. Have quite a number of highly literate & highly bizarre soljahs, mon. Funny questions, some good, some bad, some ridiculous, which were of course the funnest ones to answer.
Otherwise it was your generic discussion about male strippers, the aesthetics of baby oil application & bad lip-syncing on national television, album titles, Gary Oldman, silver bullets, stories behind songs, singles (musical & personal), animal love, a potential DV concert at Macchu Picchu, & oh yes DV world domination. A transcript should be up somewhere soon, for those interested in the raw & jarringly non-linear conversation that makes up a chat room.
Mission is to continue locking down arrangements on the six or so songs that are really quite close to completion, like Walking Papers, Look at the Sky, Sunday Seal or Peel or whatever it is, Matador, Long Way Home, YMY. Kicking around forms with some of the other more gelatinous ones. Checked out a studio downtown earlier in the week but passed, with its best feature being a view of the train tracks bordering the concrete-&-corpses LA river.
13 June
Hadn't realized such time had passed. With so many songs in various stages of disarray, but few intelligble words to accompany them, we're on a lyrical hiatus of sorts as Cami inexorably puts form to the fury. This is one of the many crucial stages in songwriting, where bad poetry can emasculate an otherwise groovy ditty, or likewise save its sorry ass from eternal damnation in the creative scrap heap.
So, no pressure... You can almost (almost, but not quite) forgive singers' egoism, lack of punctuality, lack of gear expenditures, lack of most things, when given their make-or-break responsibility for songs.
Or, that might be making too much of it. Whatever. We'll see.
20 July
After an extended break which found the band sojourning in Macchu Picchu & convalescing in a quiet seaside facility near Bath, England, we were smuggled back into the US aboard the good ship Lollipop & have since reconvened in the bunker. Walking Papers feels smoother now after the break, although, to her credit, Cami hasn't achieved bupkus lyrically.
We're now available at the iTunes Music Store, site of one of our favorite pastimes. We must do our best to "keep up" after all.