LNOYL

It rains almost every day. People say you either get depressed or adapt to the constant west coast downfall. The roof of the golden trailer must have been metal, because each morning I woke up to plinking pitter-patter noises from above. I’ve heard this sound before – it reminds me of being eleven years old. In the Caribbean islands, many of the rooftops are constructed with corrugated metal. I’d visit my grandparents, who’s second story apartment was adorned with such a roof. You could see its metallic grey and oxidized red from the balcony. In the early mornings, the rain could fall seemingly without any clouds around, and would echo loudly off the metal – you would have to raise your voice a little to be heard during a particularly hard downfall. The loud, echo sounds supplied the illusion of purpose – like the rain drops could not wait and rushed ahead of gravity to smash into the ground. I saw a lot of rainbows. My grandma had many pets, and lots of songbirds. Her African green parrot, Teeco, was the biggest personality of the bunch. Teeco didn’t live in a cage; he had this perch he would sit on in the hallway, near the kitchen. He would climb off his perch and bite me on the toe if I didn’t meet his approval (like if I was too hyperactive near his perch or something). He would laugh just like my grandma, and he even knew how to cry. I wonder what he thought as the years went by – seeing these kids grow up well into their teens. When my grandma passed on, Teeco died not long after. African parrots are very attached to their people…

Marty was in love. All the pistons of “puppy dog phase” romance were still firing away, and Marty seemed really happy…and serious. He was really, really into his new girlfriend. When he arrived off the ferry, I had imagined things as if we were back in the basement with all of our gear and instruments. Jamming, or just talking about anything at all for hours on end. We used to have these conversations, that would just expand and expand. We could talk about something in particular, draw the most cryptic stuff on chalkboard to explain it even more (pictures, words, whatever), and would end up pushing each other until we’d both walk away with something new for the effort. I guess that’s a tall order to sustain as lives become more sophisticated and new relationships unfold. Things like that are supposed to change, right?

Although it was just the two of us, I began to feel like I was the third person tagging along. With frequency, he would dial up his phone, or it would ring, and whatever we would be doing or talking about would get temporarily dropped as he talked to his girlfriend. “So, what were we talking about?” he’d say when he got off the phone. We decided to drive up the road to Victoria to get something to eat. When we got there, we visited a few landmarks and homes that had all to do with his new relationship. We visited and ate at a noodle shop that his girlfriends brother worked at. I couldn’t share in any of these experiences that obviously had meaning and were important for him, and I started to feel excluded. Plus, I was too busy being extra sensitive and jealous to understand what was really going on. I didn’t want things to change. Marty had been in a bunch of shitty relationships in the past. Not that he was involved with destructive people – it was just that he really gave each one all he had, and it never was reciprocated back in the same way. I should have been happy for him that he clicked so well with his future wife. I probably sulked.

Just before Marty arrived, I totally revamped the recording arrangement in the trailer. I moved around a few more things of Cathy and Ians, set up the little fostex mixing board, microphones, compressors and preamps. I arranged all the cables, and miced up the drums in their new location. As a result, things sounded better. When you are recording on your own, the preamble takes a lot of time. In a real studio, there would be an assistant, engineer, and the talent. The assistant runs around, fixes things up, tunes the instruments, assembles and disassembles, and completes all the grunt work the makes the session go smoothly. The talent does his or her thing, and then based on what the engineer is hearing at the board, he tells the assistant or talent to do something different (play this way or that way, change out that mic, or move the whole drum kit over there). This way, you get a sound that matches up with everyone’s expectations.

If you are trying to play all three roles in the recording process at once, you do a funny little dance sequence. You set things up, then hit record, swerve your hips to avoid all the boom stands while running back to the gear, play whatever instrument is set up, run back, hit stop, listen to it, then go back, move things around, tweak a knob, or play something harder or softer. Then rinse and repeat until you have something that approximates what you want. I can’t tell you how many of my early songs feature the sounds of jiggling change in pockets, or stuff falling down as you run back to the instrument after you hit record. It once took me 5 days to mic up a drum kit, working this way…

We recorded the rhythm section for one of Martys songs. It took us only a few takes before we nailed it. The original version was very sparse and well done. He wrote it while watching this old time movie, where a guy was situated in a boat on an artificial sea (you know – the painted cardboard cut out waves that go back and forth). I dropped him off at the ferry afterwards, and finished the rest of the song during the week. I over-enthusiastically added every new technique or sound I had on the pallet thus far. There was a cacophony of mangled cellos and violins all over the thing. It made sense, in a busy sort of way, but I should have set the volume on a few of the mixed in tracks to zero. Through this song, I learned that the mute button (the button that turns a recorded sound off while mixing) was an instrument in its own right – and it had to be on the pallet. Zero is just as important as all the one’s. I think that holds true for making your way within vital friendships as well.