Little Echo

So it's been a long long time since I've used this blog. It had some turbulence a while back when it caused some offense to people mentioned in it. I don't think I can go into that chapter in detail, but I do regret the turn of events that distanced me from using the blog for a long time, and which seems to have cost me a friendship. I don't see my self blogging regularly from here on out; I feel that this blog has somewhat served its purpose.

I do however want to share the birth of my wonderful daughter Echo Rose-Ami Lilah Kirke-Sofer with those of you who occasionally happen upon my little corner. She's really incredible and is all of two and a half months old right now. She was born on December 25th of 2006.

Saturady Night at Emak

And Bolio's in downtown JP, where I've begun to dwell more often. The wireless is reliable, the air conditioning quiet, our cats far away, the espresso near. AND the potential for interaction, though not particularly likely.... Tonight though is a Saturday, and there are probably more social ways to pass some time that I'm not being clued into - I don't often get called or told about BBQ's or parties - I guess that's ok since I'd probably not go anyway. I tried to work on some music at home but the computer crashed and Banshee was making a racket. There are two solutions to that - a better hard drive and finishing the studio on Brookside would be advisable. I've had a hang up as far as that project is concerned, it's partially to do with not wanting to have to ask MK for help, even though I know he supposedly doesn't mind. The other part is that I need some help both motivationally and physically - that and the fact that I haven't worked around there in a while so my need for the space to be more functional is minimal.
I've heard quite a bit of good music lately. The new Spoon record, John Vanderslice, Giant Sand. It's been a good music month. I guess it's kind of a decent month except that I'm not making music or building my own studio - but nothing really bad has happened either.

Cleaning and more

So we've been emptying Ima's house for a while now - usually on Wednesdays. It started out being very difficult but has been getting easier as time goes on, partially because we've gone through the more difficult personal stuff already, and partially because we've gotten better at figuring out what needs to be kept and what can be let go. Today I was affixing a certificate of authenticity to an engraving and I found a note Ima had put on it saying that it should be given to phyllis - that was kind of cool because it was kind of like her speaking, and kind of creepy because I didn't actually know that and didn't expect that. I forgot a little how difficult this process is, and how I have to be guarded - and that's what's been happening. I'm burying a lot of pain - I realized today driving by a funeral home that if I ever have to go to someone's funeral I will be crying as much for them as I will be for Ima, because I never really expressed my pain at Ima's funeral. And the funny thing is that those feelings are right below the surface, not far at all!
Some good news is that I'm getting some work based on my own talents and not just through Q - it's not a huge crush of work, but I've been a little more busy lately and the building of the studio is going to make this a good summer.

Almost a Month/Walking on Water

So it's been nearly a month since I've blogged anything. I guess that's because I've been kind of busy with work again, some of the time. I haven't been busy with the E.P. though I'm ready to finish that now. I can't waste too much more time on that, because It's something I realize I have to and want to share while it's fresh.
Other things: Karyn is still incredibly sad. This is very troubling. It's been a long time now, and tonight she burst into tears at the B-Side Lounge before a movie. The movie I think improved her mood - but the whole deal is so precarious. The movie was an Israeli movie called Walking On Water.

Update

It's nearly the end of March now. I have not been posting much in the last few weeks. I haven't actually been doing much. I've hit a little bit of a standstill with the EP Into The Ground for two reasons. One is that I don't like the fifth song I wrote, or I'm just not happy with it, and the other is that Dear Mr. Fantasy hasn't been going over that well, with people complaining that they can't understand the lyrics. I'm starting to think that isn't important, and that I should just leave it the way it is, but put it later on the EP, like last, instead of first. Other than that, I have not worked almost at all this month, save for a day or two, so I'm getting incredibly poor, and at the rate things are going I might have to do something drastic to pay for my rent.
We've been on a crappie cycle here at home where karyn and I are not quite on the same sleeping schedule but we're pretending to be, so I end up going to bed way early and staying up in bed for hours watching tv while she sleeps, then she gets up and watches tv while I sleep in the AM. I've stopped working on my EP and the house is dirty and nothing productive or creative is getting done. I'm hating it.
Today I have to go setup all my crap at the practice space to work with VD. Their singer is sick so its questionable how much work we'll actually get done, most likely it's just going to be a waste of time for me - I wish this dumb project was just happening in a fucking studio, instead of my retarded set up. I learn more all the time, but it always seems to be that I learn what i DON'T like or want to do.

Not Easier

I mean to say that the cards and emails and condolences keep coming. Not as many as before but a little trickle of thoughts keep coming through and I've noticed what I guess is a third theme, and that's from people who tell me to take care of my self and keep going, that Ima would have wanted that. That only started surfacing I think with Phyllis.
This brings us to thank you cards - we got together at Nomi's and answered the bulk of them but there are a few persistent ones that I have to complete, including one to Phyllis and now to the Deneen family who went out and made a donation to the Dana Farber in Ima's name - Mike is so cool.
I guess I've been feeling still kind of down - we went to see Million Dollar Baby the other night and that was nice because I got to cry a little during it, and that felt good. But the goness of it all isn't changing, and I guess that just won't change - it's only my relationship with it that can change..

Emptiness and Goneness

The permanence of Ima's death is stultifying. The sad thing is that she was suffering so near the end that I just wanted that the pain should cease, but of course that would entail her being gone. Now she's gone and It'd be so nice to be able to talk to her again; and I don't mean the way it was near the end, but the way it used to be where you could just talk once every few weeks. Part of the irony there is that we never had heart to hearts or great talks - she was a friend but not a confidant. If she were to return or if I could do it again, would she become that? Or am I too guarded?

Nightmare

I guess I had a strange dream last night or early this morning that can be interpreted as a nightmare. It had just dawned on me, because I just remembered the event and began to reinterpret it as such. I can't remember much except for a moment where I was with my bubby and zaide and looked over at my bubby and listened to her talk, realized that her lips weren't moving, that she was wearing way too much makeup, and that she was in-fact dead. I think i woke up shortly after that.
I just got what I hope will prove to be an incredible purchase. It's a record by an Italian band called Jennifer Gentle, and it's very reminiscent of Syd Barret. It seems beautiful. I've been listening to M.Ward and Iron & Wine all the time.
Today I will spend my time alone. Internet and pangs of music, i expect.

Chains

My mother passed away early monday morning. I was at her bedside with her amazing friend Phyllis Koch; we stayed there all night until the snow fell and the sun rose, and with the new day my mother left her pained body.
The medical staff thought she died peacefully and free of pain, but to sit there near her and hear her breathing and heaving was to witness true agony and despair. I've never felt so helpless before in my life.

On the way out of the hospital a day earlier I took this picture, which I'm proud to say is my first decent black and white photo in years.

I wrote the following to tell folks that Ima had passed away, or Left, as Karyn would prefer to refer to it.

Dear Friends -
My mother, Bat-Ami Sofer, the amazing friend who introduced me to Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Lightning Hopkins, Muddy Waters, The Beatles' Abbey Road, and Bob Dylan (to name a few), passed away this morning at Brigham and Women's hospital.

She had been diagnosed with lung cancer in December of 2003 and had lived peacefully and fairly independently at home for the last 14 months. For the last 3 months she discontinued all treatments and enjoyed her family, many friends, and the bird feeders on her balcony which she could see from her favorite armchair. She had been treated at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute by two wonderful physicians. Surrounded by grandchildren, family, and friends we celebrated her birthday last Sunday: she turned 63 on February 16th. She was alert, active, and ornery until nearly the very end.

Her funeral will be held tomorrow, at 1 PM on Tuesday the 22 of February at her temple, Sha'aray Shalom in Hingham (1112 Main Street). My family will be sitting Shiva at my sisters' home in Framingham (36 Berkshire Road) beginning tomorrow evening.
Thank you for all your support throughout this past year.

I've also been working on a makeshift obituary that today, reads like this:

There are some things we don't expect to see and learn from our parents. My mother's strength and courage at the end of her days is one of those things; she was terrified of dying - she didn't deny that. But knowing that it was imminent rarely dulled her joy with the life she still had. She had an incredible and often times impossible to express love and devotion to her children and grandchildren. Her love of life's small surprises is another strength I will take with me from her teaching: at the end of her days the birds that visited her balcony to eat at her feeder caused her intense joy, as did a recent MFA exhibit of oriental pottery. She was easily pleased with simple things - a good Red Sox game, a bargain at J.Jill, a moving voice.
Let me give you a little history about my mother that may illuminate the most telling aspect of her life. In the 1960's my mother and father met on Kibbutz Orim in the Israeli Negev. I like to say they had a disease called Zionism - I am sure this might not be taken kindly by some, but I mean it most affectionately. They had incredible ideals and they were at the age where one's ideals can dictate one's destiny. Together they made Aliya to Israel and lived happily in the heady world of the Kibbutz. Eventually they wanted to take their passion and dedication to the Israeli dream to another level, and together with 9 other couples they founded and built from scratch Moshav Sde Nitzan in the Negev desert. It's in that beautiful and wonderful spot, in my parents' utopian oasis, that my sisters and I were raised as no other family I know (at this point!). The Moshav was one of my mother's proudest accomplishments, perhaps not often remembered since she left it almost twenty years ago, long before she ever thought of making the south shore of Massachusetts her home.
In 1986 she moved to Sde Bocker in southern Israel, partially so that I could attend a privileged private school, and partially to maintain proximity to my sister Tamar (at the time an officer in the Israeli air force, positioned in a nearby base.) Sde Bocker is only an hour or so away from the home she had built (and felt that she lost) at Moshav Sde Nitzan; it was at the beautiful and remote Sde Bocker that she made her and I another home. Two years later she moved again, but this time for a bigger, more monumental change. She reversed course and came back to Boston, to the United States, to the city she had lived in as an undergraduate and the country she had left nearly thirty years earlier as a wide eyed and youthful Zionist.
Again she made a home for me and herself, and was close by for my other sister, Nomi, who was studying in nearby Brandeis. She got a a degree in library science - again, since her Israeli degree wasn't valid. She worked a job while studying in the evenings, and it was through her job that her coworker, a kind and talented young man named Jonathan Rubel, would meet my sister while teaching me the most essential blues chords on the guitar. Soon the two would fall in love and start a family that my mother was so very proud of.
A few years later she'd move to the south shore of Boston to become a public library director. This choice echoes her idealism (not at all dampened after thirty years in the desert) and her belief in public works and Tzdaka. These are things it might be easy to forget as her children - that my mother never stopped being an idealist that continued to dedicate her very life to causes she so firmly believed in. She donated her life's prime to the Israeli Negev, and she was rewarded with a beautiful grandson of the same name who brought her intense joy in the last months of her life, in his first four and a half months on this beautiful and cruel planet. I think now that the Negev was her first love, and of her contributions to it she was very proud.
I want to remember my mother in ways I wasn't always keenly aware of when she was alive. She gave me Mao's Little Red Book and Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, along with mind-altering records by Lightning Hopkins; she was one of those rare people who lived as her heart dictated, and her heart dictated idealism. Even as recently as last month she fulfilled a dream and became a lifetime member of the Haddasah women's organization, right after making a donation to Rosie's Place, a women's shelter in Boston. She'd want us to remember her as someone who thought that good deeds are done by doing, everyday, all the time, for the long haul. She'd want us to remember her as someone who had an incredible love for her family, one that she couldn't always express in words but in retrospect I can see that she expressed in deeds.
Today my heart has a new pain I've never met. I want to call and tell her that I just lost one of my best friends, a subtle and old friend who was always there for me, a painfully honest friend. But she's gone - there's no one at her phone except an answering machine that plays what has become a special message. Recently I always listened to it when I couldn't reach her: it's my mother's voice before she lost it to the disease, telling the world that she couldn't come to the phone, but that she'd call back as soon as possible.

Eyes Wide Open

Naked as we came seems to be an Iron and Wine song about dying. It's kind of funny how everyone has a song about dying. What do we all know about it? Tamar came in last night. Picking her up was a minor fiasco - got lost getting to the airport and then we got lost finding the Pike. Tamar was having a fit over this situation, wishing she had taken a cab... Then I wished that too. She is so like our mother, I am pretty sure that's why they didn't get along. After we got to Nomi's place she seemed to calm down a tiny bit and Nomi got up and we talked, just the three of us, for a few minutes. We probably could have spoken for longer - but we were cut off by Karyn getting there to pick me up. We spoke of the mourning, and Ima's stuff. We also spoke about how people are perceived - Tamar mildly infuriated that Ima could be perceived as a sweet person (!), which is when it became clear to me that Tamar really had some deep schism with Ima. I am not denying that Ima could be very coarse to us, and I don't know what happened with Tamar's relationship that hurt her so. I think the key to dealing with Ima is to do it on her, on Ima's, terms - and that's probably hard for Tamar who is essentially a controlling person.

Ima's cleaning lady, Salvina, called me up, very sad to hear that Ima's health has deteriorated, and she told me that 4 years ago or so she lost her 13 year old daughter to cancer; she said she cried last night when she heard my message. Ima is too young to go this way - and Salvina's daughter at 13 was way too young to go. People are pretty resilient special things. Speaking of which, sounds like, from talking to Nomi this morning, that Sue is still waiting for a positive change to happen in Ima's health. But for me, the worst thing about this whole deal is when Ima becomes conscious; yesterday she was crying either in pain or sadness. That was an awful scene in the hospital when Ima was conscious and crying and there were piles of people visiting; it felt like a freak show. I don't really want to go back there for more of that; I know I'm a wimp. But what good are we doing? I don't want Ima to go alone and afraid by herself - and that's the real point of this all is: to be there for her in her time of need. Then it can all turn around, and we can start our healing out of this dark hole.

The State Of Things

So I posted some pictures last night because words aren't coming easily; I feel like this is turning into a photo journal of sorts, and that's kind of cool. I love my photographs. I had been in the hospital until 12:30 am or so, and we're on our way back there right now (as soon as Karyn has her coffee and gets dressed. I wish she'd hurry up.) I called Nomi and she says that no one has been able to rouse Ima yet today. Maybe this is really it (well i know this is really it, but the when of the now is still unknown). Maybe we don't have to pull out the stupid fucking tube and cause her nausea and vomiting. I feel like we're being cruel - can't they just give her a lethal fucking dose of something and let her go??? It's clear that she's not coming back. Modern medicine can feel so cruel. I wonder what the nurses know - or the doctors. I feel like there is a basic flaw in the way these hospitals work, there is too much changeover and too little follow through. That we should have had some resident or intern come in and tell us what they did yesterday about Ima's white blood cells is scary; I mean it really changed our perspective on the situation, but it wasn't true!

I'm listening to this Jolie Holland record; she's singing a song called ' I Wanna Die'. The joke being that she sounds kind of fake - and if you read about her you find that she's 29 and she has been looking for her voice for years; she's experimented with hip hop and what not and has settled on this fake hillbilly folksy thing that she does ok. But it rings strange. She's lifting from Guthrie, Dylan, Billie Holiday. It's funny that bluegrass is making such a big comeback - according to this weekends globe at least. I feel like I've been ahead of all the trends really. I'll just keep doing what I do. I also read in the globe about some italian duo that was making pop music using egg timers and helium balloons... On paper it sounded great - I love that people are making music with -ma she-ba la-yad -what ever comes in handy. It's such a gift to be able to listen to the world and hear music.

Brigham

I've spent two days now at the Brigham and Women's hospital with Ima. She's suffering from a blockage in her intestines, and is probably on her last legs - so to speak. We expect her not to live for very much longer. She's suffering and we're hoping that she won't have to suffer for long. Here are some pictures from the last two days.

Valentine's Day

Walk around the pond and environs with Karyn yielded these pictures this afternoon.



That above is simply the pond at dusk. This picture was taken a few minutes after the next picture - the light didn't change that much in those few minutes. I like to fool the camera when the flash is off. It's kind of a trick I learned from my analog canon camera, wherein you let the light meter in the camera adjust to a certain area and then move the camera to another target so that the picture comes out over or under exposed.




This was K's suggestion of a tree to look at. It was actually partially wrapped around another plainer tree. I like how you can kind of see the pond in the washed out background. Karyn was picking at the bark. It would be a little better if the majority of the bark was in focus instead of that little bit.




These are goose prints maybe?
It was valentine's day and we took a very long and pleasant walk around the muddy river.

Driving Home

I was coming home from Weymouth the other day and took this. I love the Black and white feature in iPhoto. Today we celebrated Ima's birthday and I took a bunch of photo's of the kids posing and hamming it up and the kitchen table. That was the most fun I've had with them - I took about 13 pictures quickly and we all looked at them as they came up, and thought about what we'd do next. I sent the pictures to their parents with explanations, and my middle sister wrote back and said this:

Thank god for digital. These would definitely qualify for the trash if they were prints. Your efforts are admirable, their behavior a little less.

Ha. No wonder she doesn't get along with my mother. They are exactly alike!


The pictures look like this:


In Safari there seems to be a huge white space before the table with the pictures appear. Any one know why?

Suggested Projects

Rings of Fire

Summertime

Winterlong

The L&N

A NY Minute and Other Stories

Two week ago before Karyn left for New Orleans with the Armband we went to Justin's opening in Manhattan - it was actually a good trip to NYC for me, but mostly because I got to walk around by myself for a while and later got to catch up with old friends Dan Hall and Andy in their neighborhood in Brooklyn.

I took this picture while waiting for the art opening to wind down. I was in a Starbucks on Canal in Chinatown, doing what coffee shops were invented for: watching the world go by and thinking.
I was thinking that it was hard existing without a way to record the world around me. The camera and cell phone are great ways to document, and sometimes that's all I want to do: Document. The beauty with constant documentation is that you can later put it in a context that changes perspective. I guess I've always been drawn to archiving in that sense. It also helps me from feeling useless or pointless - capturing and stopping time help create the illusion that there is some kind of meaning to my actions, or at least a greater motive. I spend so much time in silence and escaping people's companionship that my solace (if that word is appropriate) is in capturing and freezing time; even that of other people.

But I'd find more joy in it if I did in fact use it later. This past weekend has taught me an old lesson, that without living, you can't make things. I sat at home, hoping to make, but I haven't been living and with people, so my making was rather limited. I am moving forward and I'm excited, but the expectation that I'd just make some great shit over the weekend because I had some time to myself was misguided.

There is another picture I liked from the trip to NYC. I like the napkin above because if viewed in it's actual size (click on it) you can see the little pores in the paper and you can almost touch and feel the texture of that room. I like what my laptop does to the pictures i take - I often feel the digital images we take with that tank of an HP camera are best viewed on my laptop's screen. They often don't translate to paper pictures that well. But what is there for me to do with these pictures? I am thinking that "Into The Ground" is going to be my first real solo record - even though it's only 3 songs strong right now, but I want to go all out with the packaging and presentation. It's important to me, and I think it's worth doing...

Error Occured While Connecting

That pretty much sums up a few weeks now. Karyn is in New Orleans on a trip I just realized I had thought we had mentioned taking together. At home it's peaceful but boring. Even lonely. I don' t know how it would feel if this was permanent, or long term. Meanwhile both Banshee and Shadow have taken turns rooting around the paper bag placed atop the recycling bin. While I thought earlier that I had beaten Sally at her pee-cidental self, today I found a little puddle of moisture around the box - and I admit defeat.
For the last few hours I have tried against all odds and with the help of the low pass mooger foooger plug in to create magic where previously only radiators and jelly bellies dwelt. Several times I thought I was on the verge of genius when in fact all i had was common boredom. i think shadow would agree. I have had a chance to bond with nearly all the cats - except perhaps for shadow and sally. Shadow however is on the prowl, so I may hit it off with him yet.
This evening is indicative of a general problem: How am I to continue to captor inspiration? I had something going for a few weeks, but now I am merely chasing it. Part of it was the frustration born out by the refusal and inability of partners to collaborate, I should just say it like it is: the band wouldn't rehearse, so I had to make in the time allotted to making. This time I've been trying to use is time that may be alloted to other stuff, but I'm not managing it well. Hence the frustration.

Blizzard '05

Just wanted to drop a link to some pictures that I took of the blizzard this past weekend. Karyn and I went walking in our new snow shoes that Ima got us. It's loads of fun trudging around in the snow with those things on. Floatation is questionable; it seems to depend on the depth of the snow and its density. Any way, this is my favorite picture from the excursion:

The rest of the pictures are here.

Dream/Been There Done That

I worked with a kid this past weekend who took up a lot of email time.
Dreams, Fire Alarms, and Genetics
But first let me tell you about my dream. In my dream Ima had died. I can't remember exactly how or why, but she was to be buried in Jerusalem. I was in Jerusalem, in the funeral home, but it was more like a hotel lobby. I don't think I could really talk, but someone there wanted to talk to me about Rick Berlin, because they somehow knew we were from Boston. I think I told them I'd be able to talk to them later, but that right then my mother had just died and I couldn't talk about anything - we were trying to locate her grave site I think. I woke up very disoriented and worried. I was incredibly relieved to realize it was just a dream.
I wonder if it has anything to do with a thought I was having last night while watching West Wing. That thought was that I felt like I would always think of Ima when I have a tearing moment; which pop art can make me have. I am often moved to tears by people's courage and principles. I think that's an Ima trait. I also have begun to think that Humor might not have all come from Myron, but rather from her.
About Dreams:
It makes me wonder why people think that dream journals are important. I've tried to keep them, but I haven't been able to maintain them over long periods of time. I am also prone to sleeping a lot, so I think I have many dreams that are not very important. Even this dream that I woke up from feeling awful, was one from over sleeping I think, and somehow I discount that type of dream. This morning for instance, we had a fire alarm from 7:02 to 7:25 am, and then again a few minutes later. Both times the fire people came and shut off the system; finally they had to disable it. I had the dream between 8 and 11 when I got another three hours of sleep.

OK, back to the session from this past weekend.
Jay EF
The session wasn't nearly as extraordinary as the fallout from the session has become... When I started this post it was just another mediocre session; it's now been elevated to the strangest session ever! Let me try to tell what I meant to tell first.

The Emails Before the Storm Session
I had spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what this guys wanted to get done. I had initiated our email with a 9 point questionnaire that would help us both understand what he wanted to achieve. (As an aside note, this was the first time I had really done that in a systematic way. I was kind of excited about the service I was providing both of us.) We continued that conversation for the rest of the week; I tried to talk him into cutting expenses by not buying analog tape and digital back up tape and just going for the digital experience. He almost went for it but finally decides to stick with tape. He had mentioned a few records and bands he liked through out the conversation, Guns and Roses being a major one, and some other bands that I had never heard of being mentioned as well. He finally mentions a band called Alter Bridge saying that their record is EXACTLY what he wants his song to sound like.
Now this was my initial point of the post: Why would anyone want to record something in a way that someone else has already done it? Why don't people want and expect the unknown, or just the new and exciting when they record? Wouldn't that be fun?!

Session Day
Setup
I get to Q as early as I can because I have to calibrate tape machines and make sure that stuff is working properly. After all, Dr. Smith had a session canceled the previous weekend for some mysterious reason and I under no circumstances wanted that to happen on my time. I had a great intern who knew the mics and could set shit up, so I left him to do that while I took care of control room stuff and machinery. I spent a bunch of time trying to get the computer to spit out time code, to no success, but since we were going to be on tape that wasn't essential, but would be very useful.
The session moves on more or less like sessions do. I am unhappy with the kick drum and prefer the original snare the drummer had to whatever little snare I found in the hall way. I don't like the bass at all - it's five strings and they opt for a jazzy sound, instead of what I consider a good rock sound. I tell the drummer as much. Also during the bass setup Jay does something funny, which is insist on putting the bass mic at a particular spot on the cabinet and at a certain distance... I let him start with that, but I have to change it to eliminate a loud note. I don't say anything, I just change it.
Tracking
We track a bunch of takes and Jay like the very last take of drums and bass best - to the drummers surprise. He doesn't want to edit or do anything like that. I let them listen by themselves with Mike the intern running tape and mix for them. When I hear the take we're keeping I understand the drummers surprise - it has some very unsteady parts in it. I don't say anything though. Maybe I should - but I figure I'll just try to fix it in PT later. I don't want to cut tape and I don't have synch, so I'm at a disadvantage.
We move onto a basic guitar so that Harris the singer can cut some vocals. I can tell Jay gets frustrated at this point, but I don't know what about. I think it's guitar sound, but it turns out there is a part issue. Then he wants to change the bass part, but I had already moved the outboard and and mic pres for the bass, so I try to explain how I wouldn't be able to get that sound back. I guess I feel it's not that important, and as though it's a slow down to our progress, I mean we're almost at the point where this guy is ready to sing!
Vocals
Good News: The singer can sing. Though it's a genre I obviously don't listen to, he has a decent voice and sounds best on a U47. I only audition that and a M49, because I want to move things along. We end up keeping two takes and then punching on a third take. I think it goes quite well. I have a few bad punches but we fix and move on; I think absolutely nothing of it and only feel bad about one punch where I accidently erase a word because I went in one line early. We fix it and it seems fine. It's not the most completely seamless vocal track, but I feel like I can make it work, so I don't make a huge deal out of the punchiness of things; I really want to keep momentum.
It's getting late at this point (like 10 p.m.) and I tell Jay that I'll stay as late as necessary to get all the vocals done, without charging over time; he's had a female singer there since 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I say that after that if we want to continue with guitars as planned we'd have to go into over time. I think this is a very cool offer. While we eat, intern Mike and singer Harris put down a couple of back up harmony track ideas. I am so grateful Mike can run the tape machine and that I get some time out to eat and check my email for a second.
Jay decides to send the chick singer home... We comp backup vocal ideas to two tracks of hi harmonies and low response parts. Jay gets worried for some reason that we're not going to have any mixing flexibility with backup vocal levels, that we're going to have limitations. I and everyone else explain that we still have lots of options, that in fact putting the different parts on different tracks gives us options.. He presses more and I say somewhat irritated that tape has limitations; that's why people use it! I kind of explode (because I am seething all day that we're using tape and not pro tools), but in what I consider to be a friendly way...
Good Night
We make a rough mix and call it a night. I make sure the CD works before I send him on his way, and I explain that I'm doing that because I don't want to have to come in a week later and make him another rough mix because that CD was unreadable. We part on what I thought are good terms, end of story.
BUT No!
The RantMan
Tuesday morning, at Imas, when I finally get around to starting this post about the session, I also get an email from Ed V asking if I had a rough session. He's asking because Jay has emailed him a letter that says that. In Ed's words it's kind of "over the top." I respond in amazement, thinking that we had a decent time! Turns out the guy thinks I am the Biggest Dick Of an Engineer at Q Division. Ed wonders if he simply hates short people. He then goes back and forth with Ed V and Mike Deneen, both of whom defend me incredibly. I am moved beyond belief at their lack of hesitation.. Of course the guy comes across as a complete douche in his emails, so it's easy to see that he's got issues. He emails constantly. I should probably collect and publish his emails, they are an incredible testament to this guys boredom.

Create

The desire to make things has taken a little bit of a hold on me during the last week. It has probably been brewing for some time; the past few years (especially since the completion of PYGA) have been kind of barren for me both intellectually and creatively (I'll even go out on a limb and say that engineering isn't always the most creative and satisfying way to spend my time!). Spurred by a cancellation of scheduled band practice I began recording and found myself surrounded by nearly all my instruments a few days later. I even started another song when I felt the first (I think I'll title it Grim Work) had been completed enough to be left alone for a few hours. I tend to think some music sounds really fun because it's been groomed quite deeply. And by that I mean every little sound is special, unique, inhabiting a special world of its own. And the question I struggle with is when to leave well enough alone?

I'd like to try to document how I recorded Grim Work:

1. Basic dobro rhythm pattern was played and looped.
2. Three notes were chosen and overlaid in a sparse pattern using the dobro, then doubled.
3. Some of those notes were reversed, arranged, then doubled in harmony to make a chordal like pad that worked with the first three note pattern.
4. Arppegiated chords were chosen and doubled over the length of the song. Four different patterns were played in a systemic order, to make it easy to double them. Those patters were later arranged in various orders...
5. Toy piano was introduced at this point; many variations were tried until an additional three note pattern stemming from the arppegiated guitar pattern was arrived at.
6. At some point a few toy piano notes were stretched and gated using the original hypnotic dobro rhythm part as the key signal. This introduced another beat and a dance club feel. The key'd gate was also applied to the original three note dobro part for a few measures to create another rhythmic element.
6. I think ebow and electric guitar parts came next. I later returned to one of the guitar parts to double it with a harmony that leads into the bridge.
7. A radio sample made it's way into the song somewhere in this area. I had been wanting one that dealt with the Tsunami disaster, so I tuned into the BBC and recorded a little story about mass graves. The entirety of the short clip fit perfectly into the first drop section.
8. Soon I start missing having percussion and felt that a beat for the climax at the end would be a good change (the song clocks in at 5:20!). A percussion section came together: first using sand paper, then a nut can (later nixed), followed by hand claps(x10), and finally a cat litter box being hit with an inhaler.
9. Last real instrument to be added was the Crumar, acting as both bass and ethereal filter sweep guy...
10. Tweaking; arrangement tweaks are the major thing now: Adding kick drum to earlier parts, putting some cut up BBC in the second break, changing the sound of the hand claps, fixing levels and timing oddities that I overlooked because I was working quickly... I've thickened up some sounds with further layering, and focused the bridge by reversing some of the guitar parts. I imagine a toy piano feature still to come in those parts.

It's funny to note how quickly a home made demo can reach 24 tracks!
For a future project it'd be cool to set a time limit. I think a week would be plenty!


Now I'm at Ima's and I'm somewhat in suspended animation here, waiting to get back to my laptop and instruments. Truthfully, I could keep busy messing with images or sending mp3's from my laptop, but I feel bad taking it away from Karyn for whom it is an indispensable tool in her caloric count quest. Besides, it seems as though I could find interest in reading; last night I almost had that old ache for a nice piece of paper and a beautiful and simple black ink pen to draw with - I haven't had that desire in a long time. I hope it returns sometime when I have both the paper and the pen.
My renewed interest in making things is partially the result of frustration with the Invisible Rays overly relaxed approach to rehearsing, and part out of exasperation with my home life that has been void of creativity entirely. I've always thought that I could make things or write down an idea or document a moment at any time in the future, and I still feel that way, but I've already collected way too many moments that need to be dealt with, and I think now that sooner rather than later is better.
There are things I'd like to be able to do better - writing is a big one. I'd enjoy being able to impart a moment in time the way some writers can, capturing the wit of the moment or the grand beauty of fate. I think writing well is a thing that is very difficult, especially for a person like me who can "write." But can I write really well, inspiring?

Not Sane

That could somehow be the thread that connects many aspects of my life right now. Things are a little crazy in my realm sometimes. Karyn called today in tears because her life wasn't satisfying her, she feels empty and doesn't know what she's doing with her life. This happened while I was hanging out with my little niece Tia painting with water colors, which I have to admit I hardly ever get a chance to do, and it was a great time. I felt quite free from worries while painting within the lines of the walrus I was coloring!
Ima had a decent morning until the nurse showed up to move the location of the morphine pumps needle, and her subsequent visit freaked Ima out and exhausted her. After the nurse left the pump got stopped somehow and started beeping and alerting us to a problem, but it took a while for us to get the nurse on the line to get help with the situation. Meanwhile ima had a minor freakout. Finally we fixed the pump and she got a little shut eye before the Sofer-Geri family arrived.
Tamar kept looking and me asking what was wrong, with her old standard: "you don't look happy" routine. It's a little annoying because she has a way of looking at me for two minutes and deciding that. Then there was a shopping trip I went on, which I was sort of weary of because it included food for Tamar and Co. It seems to be hard to satisfy people these days with products, and no matter what I buy, I might get chastised for not getting quite the right product. Ima is particularly to blame for that, but other people are too. That's one of the reasons I seem to be spending time moving stuff from Nomi's house to my house, from my house to Ima's house, from Ima's house to her car, from Ima's house to my house, and back again. It's maddening!
The visit was fine, but I got roped into staying for dinner, which was kind of what I had planned but then I thought they wanted me to leave, so I was going to go pill shamoo and maybe shower and shave in JP and get K some last minute goodies, but now i'm going to have to improvise those tomorrow somehow. I'm glad I got most of what I needed ahead of time; it's just that there are a couple of bonus gifts I can think of to get her if I can swing by a record store....
Then tomorrow is going to entail a bunch of running around and then not waking up with Karyn to spoil her on Xmass morning, which is really going to bum her out, I think. It's important to have the presents wrapped and at least out the night before so that she can see them in the morning before I come back from weymouth. Meanwhile, i'll get Saturday day and night with karyn and I'll return to Weymouth on Sunday afternoon. What a schedule!

Morning Of ZuZu's Show

While maybe this post could fit in with the Invisible Rays blog, it's really more about me, so it'll just have to live here! I've been "off" of Ima minding duty for a few days now and I can feel normalcy flow back into my life, but I also feel incredible worry when I speak to her and she sounds lost or confused. The new morphine pump treatment was causing a lot of confusion for a few days. While I know that Sue cares for her a lot, I feel a protectiveness towards Ima when I hear that Sue might have neglected her in some way, or rather misunderstood her needs...

How Time Flies

So it looks to me like the last post was after the first time I spent a night at Ima's. Well it's almost a month later, and I've spent many nights at her place. In fact I am posting from there right now. Her health has actually, on the surface of things improved; a more rational way to put that is that she is in less pain, and on many more heavy duty drugs to quell the pain. After my previous post there were about a week and a half or two of severe pain. Those led to the decision to quit the chemo treatment and join the hospice program. That in turn resulted in feeling better with the help of large amounts of morphine, codeine, and steroids. I don't know exactly what's going on in her body, but my understanding is that the steroids are going to give her a lift for a few weeks, but then her body will grow immune to them and she will start to fade again. The deterioration at that time will take a few shapes. She won't be able to get out of bed; swallowing will be difficult; then she eventually won't be able to breath. There are many drugs they can give her that will minimize the various pains and help create the illusion of ease of breath.
Right now she is sleeping peacefully above me. About the hospice nurse: Ima is sadly her first patient. About that Ima said: "it's just my luck." The nurse didn't instill complete confidence early on, but she is getting a little better with time, and is going to visit two or three times a week from now on. Ima and Sue are also having problems with their relationship, and I think I will also have problems with Ima if I have to keep spending this much time here. I know I will have to continue spending a lot of time here for a few months.
I've noticed a regression in her and I know it's not a particularly original thought, that people as they become older and sicker, begin regressing back to childhood. But it's odd to see it in my own mother. First there was having had to dress her. Now, there is the short attention span, the forgetfulness, the lack of dexterity. And then there is the disappointment she seems to experience from many trivial things. Today, for instance, the Netflix movie didn't come, and she was really disappointed. I suppose if I were living one day at a time it would be devastating if something I expected didn't happen.

Chemo

I spent the night at Ima's place. It's the first time i've done that in a while, probably years; the last time i can remember staying with her was on my return from the ill fated european excursion when I had contracted Hepatitis.
She's feeling practically awful; Tamar thinks this last round of chemo is a mistake. I don't know what to think - except that I get the feeling anything we do won't really help, and that Ima is in a rapid downward spiral. The cancer is spreading like wildfire, her voice is leaving her, she can't eat anything and she's in near constant pain. She asked about PAS, physician assisted suicide last night; i don't think she's really interested in it, but from my short reading about it on the web I find out that it's more of safety blanket for some people: they get pills in certain dosage from their physicians, and then they can end their suffering when they see fit. I don't think there is much of a moral or ethical question involved in this case. I am of course, not ready to see Ima go, but I have no doubt that I'd respect her wishes if she wanted to leave at her own pace. I expect Sue doesn't feel quite that way. Either way; it's getting grim around here.

Update later that day:
Her doctor (Dr. Ghandi) says that most of the symptoms Ima's feeling right now are directly linked to the chemo and not the cancer; that doesn't really cover the growths that she says are hurting; but the nausea, the weakness, drowsiness, etc, are caused by the chemo and the accompanying drugs. So that next week when the chemo wears off she should feel better, more normal. I hope she's right, and I am betting she is. I don't think that's good enough reason to continue the chemo.
I'm spending tonight at her place aswell. She likes the company and needs the help. Earlier today she got up to fetch something and fell right down.

Yesterday morning:
I also bought that M. Ward record the other night, Transfigurations Of Vincent, which is less grim that I originally thought it'd be. It's got that funny cover of Bowie's Lets Dance on it. I guess he's a young kid from Oregon, where PAS is permitted.

Iron And Wine

Just bought 'Our Endless Numbered Days' on the iTunes store - brings the number of records I bought up to 4, and i have to say it's really beautiful. Especially in these post funeral days where the thoughts of Bubbie's plain pine casket with the magen david on it, with her frail-once-lively body in it, being lowered to the ground are haunting me; and the silence and emptiness of her house are ringing in my mind.
It's a beautiful slightly melancholy record, home made, delicious, thoughtful. Comes as a great reminder that the right thing at the right time makes a song what it is, not all the production in the world.
Iron and Wine.com

Chicago - Is That All There Is, Again.

So my Bubbie, my fathers mother, passed away on Thursday November 11th. According to my Zaide, whose my fathers father, she did not pass away peacefully. "Those rotten bastards at the hospital killed her," he says over and over again as he chokes back tears and sobs. Who'd thought that Zaide, who we all thought, and had witnessed(!), being tormented by my Bubbie for decades, would be so shook up by her loss? It seems patently obvious though, that a couple who had been together probably day and night for 72 years, for better or for worse, would be devastated by a death.
However, it is hard for us who saw them at their best and worse to believe the extent of the devastation.

Is That All There Is

Now, who wrote that song? I'm listening to PJ sing it, the verse about the circus, which follows the verse about the House Fire... Who else does this song? It sounds heavily edited on this recorder version I'm listening to right now... It's from the album she made with john parrish. I wonder if she made this record after she separated from mr. cave.
Interestingly, the recording i own lives on a piece of maxell tape, closely followed by a recording made by natraj, that Indian influenced boston band. They play musica I couldn't possibly play.

soldier

October 5th

Turned out to be a good day after all. Great photo shoot with Thomas, who is always a pleasure, but the combination of the band, Cornelia and Thomas, I think was very successful. Here's the first pictures he sent, in color (I have posted my black and white composites at the Invisible Rays blog.







Then, after that Ms. K organized a surprise party for me, which was in-fact a big surprise. Now that i've been the subject of a surprise I know that I don't like them. Come to think of it I think I reminded myself of Bubby and how she'd react to an unwanted surprise. I was in a little bit of shock for a few minutes but I think I rebounded nicely after that. We ended up partying until the wee hours, in two basic waves: first day people and then night people. I ended up until the middle of the night, or morning rather, kind of buzzed but alone because K had demonstrated her backstroke to bed and that was the end of her attendance.
A mighty fine time was had by all i think, and I have a great toy piano to boast of!

The Unicorns

Wow - a band with The in the title, just like the Rays,or the Beatles, or the The Doors, or The Yay!
So I finally picked up a recommendation CPS made whie I was atrempting to record death cab at Q that day they did the 'fnx broadcast; but all that's the minor part to the point that I've both: a. picked up a new band, and b. used the iTunes store which I've never done before. Mostly though, the record sounds great. Stereo is to be used with so much care, and when used right it's a fucking blast. Less Eq is more, but sometimes what the phase shift doesssss accomplish is genius, especially in the way it adds to stereo perception.
And I still haven't figured out the time zone deal yet. It's set up in hacker fashion of some sort that required math - I thought it had to do or required knowledge of Greenwich meantime, and it fact I think it does.

In a way I feel like my way of creating, and k's, is the ultimate in touching the core because we're used to being environmentally in-articulated, that when we open we crack wide. I thought this while making tea from a tea bag that i ripped with a knife while opening it.


And while all this was happening here's I found a picture Richard Avenon took for the New Yorker of DJ Spooky before Avenon died. I like the shape of his ear. Few people look really comfortable in Avenon's pictures. Surprisingly John Kerry is one. A women I don't recognize is another. By comfortable I mean natural.

Post the Fifth? New Blog

So I had this great idea and that was to make a separate blog for invisible rays stuff, a blog where I could sit down listening to the whole record and write what I thought about all the songs and how we recorded them, and what happened when. That type of thing I was hoping to include with the record and on the web site but it hasn't ever really materialized, so I think that might be the way to do it.
I am going to stop calling things post the this and post the that, because I am starting to loose track, even though I haven't posted that much stuff yet, but it's starting to get confusing, so this should be a good breaking point.
I am listening to Waits' Mule Variations, a record which I bought and as usual didn't listen to that much. I am struck by just how ambient some of the stuff is, and by the concept of recording someone singing into an amp, but recording both the person and the amp at once, from a distance, to give it a PA feeling, it seems like they might have done that a bit with Waits every now and then. There is just such a special feeling to some of the tracks.

In the meantime here's a picture I can't decide if I'll use for a self portrait - I am starting to get an idea of why there are so many bad pictures of people in their profiles. This, for instance, should be a nice picture of me listening on headphones in the van on tour, with a Mardi Gras throw dangling in front of me. I think we're on the way from Atlanta to Georgia. But who knows, eh?

Post The Fourth - The Cat Tree

So I finally started on the cat tree project - it has been in the planning ever since we moved into this apartment in the spring, but I somehow managed to not begin working on it at all. So I built three shelves yesterday, two access ones at 25 inch intervals and one top shelf for hanging out on, but the cats don't seem into them at all yet. The first shelf was a tiny bit used (especially by the two cats I put on it), but K says the distance to the second shelf is too great and that the top shelf is too near the ceiling to jump to. There is space to add shelves or change the shelves sizes; I also have not put any carpeting on them yet, which might make them more desirable, somehow.
Last night, Helmut called realizing the studio was free all weekend wanting to know if we could go in and work on the Gerbils stuff. I was non committal because I want to see Ima this weekend and I didn't know when we'd do that. I was also annoyed that he called late friday to ask about it, because he "forgot the studio was free." I should never have agreed to this project without compensation. I don't remember agreeing to that at all, actually, i remember invoicing them initially... Now I just feel bad about the whole thing, for the studio and for myself, and for them. I feel, because I am friends with some of the band that I have to bring them to a point they can proceed from on there own, but I would rather just give them the mess and make them deal with it.
The good news is that it looks like we might have an Invisible Rays photo shoot on tuesday, which is also my birthday, and I really like the idea of spending my birthday doing that, even though K seemed to not like that idea. All my birthdays in the past few years have been kind of lame, save for one dinner party on Bragdon st. that was exceptionally fun.
What else - oh yeah, MJH got the pro tools sessions I sent and may have begun working on the files, unfortunately i sent him something that is such a mess I can't imagine how he dealt with it. I should have sent something easier. The bad news is that he doesn't have a mac and tools and home, so he's using the school's radio station rig I think, which is probably hard to get comfy on.

Ok , that's a bit of info for now. I am looking forward to adding some images to this mess and maybe messing with the code on the page to make it look a little special.

Post The Third - UnderTow

In studio B between takes and every one has gone out for a smoke which I think I'll pass on. I started this post in the middle of the UnderTow Session Part II, in which we're recording 6 songs. Today is Wednesday a few days later so I don't have too many comments about that session at this point. The band was kind of wierd during that session. During the initial sessions which we started in november of '03 we had a lot of fun. But somehow I felt like there was a very aggressive vibe in the studio this past weekend with people being very confrontational and easy to get angry. I did blast some people with headphone noise at some point which I am sure was incredibly loud - it's that awful thing that happens when you've got something patched into a channel and you've cranked the send to their headphones and then you move a patch point and that makes a big huge pop in their cans - i've done that at least twice in my life and it's not good!
Last night I "Mixed" some gerbil tunes with Helmut (or is Cyrano?, I can't remember who's who...) It might take a while considering there are 13 songs to mix and only a few evenings left at our disposal. I don't know that i'll be the person to finish working on that material, but I don't really care either.
Today is the first real fall day - it's what you'd call Sag-Ri-Ri in hebrew; which comes i believe from the word Sa-Goor, which means closed. Either way it's a windy grey day and the temperature according to the times is 53 degrees.
I've been sending out copies of Put Your Gun Away like mad and getting back some interesting responses, but none of the rampant excitement that I'd like to get. Actually, that's not true. People are digging it but I seem to be unable to present it to some people whom i'd like to give it to. Let me rephrase: I gave it to SS and he hasn't said a word about it; which freaks me out a little because I'd like to give a copy to CPS because I think he'd hear some cool things on it he might like to use on his record, but i'm afraid to give it to him because SS never said anything about it. I feel like those guys might think it's immensely un-melodic or something, which it very well might be.
Any way - that should do for a moment. Off to breakfast and other communications.
;)