Session VIII – Listening With New Ears

I put in about 3 hours last night to working on the album and while levels of frustration were up, I’m glad that I was able to go in with a new set of ears and REALLY listen.  I started out trying to lay down guitar tracks for “Ghost Town” but after 21 takes, I was ready to throw my guitar through the window.  Instead, I decided to go back through and listen to what I have so far.

“Winds of Home”, while I thought it was already in the can, really isn’t done.  The guitar and the vocals are so abrasive and heavy that the warm, dark mood of the song is gone.  It sounds like someone was pissed having to do this 15 or so times just to nail it with the click track.  Good to know as I’ll be revisiting that song to give it a complete overhaul.

What I was really pleased with was to hear that “Prison Story” is complete.  Sometimes in my head I hear these extra tidbits of music to add to songs and then when I go to actually do it, it just doesn’t work.  I had these great visions of slide guitar and harmonies on this song but when I tried it, it just sounded contrived.  Guitar, vocals, harmonica and the song captured the haunting, solemn vibe that I was going for.  “Hope” still sounded good to me and with exception of needing a little bit of mixing, I was really happy with it.

I attempted to try and nail a guitar track for “Back To When” but I’m having a hell of a time nailing the finger picking along with a click track.  Goddamn having to play “in time”.  I may just cut it as a vocal/guitar split track without the click and just say fuck it!  Since I got tired of the 10 takes I was going through for “Back To When”, I spent the rest of the session applying compression to the guitar tracks of  3 other songs that I was really happy with (Drunk on Sunday, Crescent City Girl and Jennifer).  I was really happy with how the guitar tracks came out for these tunes.

Next session I will start out by “listening” to each of what I have and see if I’m still happy with it.  This particular session had a bit more structure to it but I still found myself bouncing here and there a bit.  I have to go in with more of a structured schedule and stick to it to avoid any unnecessary insanity.