Nothingness is wow

Ruth and I went to see Chalrie and The Chocolate factory on Friday, as I had a pair of free tickets to the Har Mar Theatre. They weren't showing it though, which was completly gay-o-rific; they had like 10 theaters of Wedding Crashers... But it turns out there was an antique show at Harm Mar, and Ruth bought me a Hawiian Tremeloa! A very cool instruement--a zither I guess--it's like an autoharp with a melody string and this arm & axl that slides a molody on the string, as well as doing this cool trem sound... Played right, it can sound like a cross between a singing saw and a slide guitar. I learned to play it a day later... I guess they stopped making these in the 40s, so it's pretty old...

On the 9th my band ended up just focusing on drums, and we ended up recording some pretty raw sounding drums, a la the Steven Drozd sound. We did two versions of Palace Rose Parade--a rock out version with the mad fills like we do live, and a simpler one per Freddy's request with just your basic drumbeat. Turns out this song was meant to be like a My Bloody Valentine sort of thing, so Freddy requires a simple beat to overdub millions of guitars on it! I liekd the original version, but we'll go along with the plan, I'm sure it'll sound great too. We also recorded drums for Pacifica (a song that reminds me of Definitely Maybe-era Oasis) and Theme Song (which reminds me of Tommy-era The Who).

Last Saturday's session wasn't bad at all, although we could have done more... Freddy couldn't make it so I overdubbed the bass on the three songs, and then Lane and I overdubbed percussion and air organ onto Pacifica. Lane and I also mixed down some 4-track demos of songs he was working on and I was amazed at what he had done! 2 very awesome songs, complete with voclas, harmonies, drums, bass, acoustic guitar, piano and air organ all on a 4-track. It sounded like a finished Elephant 6 side project! I urged him to continue making more demos of his songs. One in particular called "Nothingness is Wow" is very Whatever and Ever Amen-era Ben Folds Five, like one of the poppy songs like Kate or Fair. Very sunny piano-driven pop.

In my recent adventures in the Elephant 6 catalog, I got the first Gerbils album (who is led by Scott Spillane, horn player from Neautral Milk Hotel) which is awesome, lo-fi pop. Very 4-tracky but great songs, especially the song Glue, which Neutral Milk Hotel actually covered and the song She Is Fiona, whihc was produced by Bill Doss of The Olivia Tremor control and The Sunshine Fix. I also got the Pipes You See Pipes You Don't album (the recording project of Pete Enrich who is the keyboard player from Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System) which isn't so awesome lo-fi pop. Good instrumentation, bad songs. The one song he did in Olivia Tremor Control is better than his whole solo album. Sorry Pete... So I guess I recomend just downloading that song instead. :/