On Tuesday, Wendy and I got together in the morning to lay down guitar tracks.  Unfortunately, I ruined the session with my terrible mood.  I’d taken antihistamines to counter my hay fever and they made me bristly, snappy, and slightly agro.  We left the studio at noon having accomplished little.  We agreed to take a beat and reassemble for a nighttime session at 6 pm.

My best pal Kate suggested we go to the batting cages to get let off some steam. What a gift it is to have a friend like Kate.  We hit balls and raced go-carts and watched horses trample the dry earth into dirt and dust. 

Afterward, we went clock shopping, not for a device by which to tell time, but for an instrument that gave the right “tick.”  I wanted a real clock “tocking” the time in place of a metronome in my song “The Goodbye.”  Kate and I must have looked very funny holding our ears up to different clocks and I assume most people thought I was mad when I loudly requested silence from an entire shop before bending down to listen to the intonations of a specific coo coo.  But finally, out of exhaustion, I opted for a cheep $5.95 pharmacy wind-up alarm clock.  It ticked in ¾ time but somehow managed to work for the song in 4/4.  You can hear it here.

Brian McRae (drummer) and Greg (stand up bassist) laid down tracks in the evening and even though everyone thought “The GoodBye” and “When We’re Together” were my weakest tunes, I advocated for them to be on the record.  It made me think that maybe I’m beginning to believe in myself.

We were at the studio until the wee hours of morning.  Each time we hit record, we had to remember to also shut off the house fans, close the door, and hit the buzzing dimmable lights to ensure complete background silence.   In those moments of dark and silence, lit by candles and smiles, we held our breath hoping for a steady performance, one that wouldn’t need to be redone or patched.  We sipped shitty 3.2 gas station beer and by 5 am we were stumbling out into a newly broken dawn. Bass tracks were complete on “The GoodBye,” “When We’re Together,” “Small Town,” “In My Mind” and “Red Room.” 

I know I change my mind about it every day but I think this demo/record will turn out to be grand.  And if it DOES suck, it won’t be because of the musicians.

I sat outside at The Trident coffee shop where white hippie stoners pridefully stroked their dreadlocks the way Park Ave. princesses stroke their pearls. They talked in smoke-filled syllables and cackled endearments like “duuuuude!” and “mannnnnnnn!” as I pressed the cell phone closer and pluged my right ear with a finger.

Tim White, Editor in Cheif at Billboard was calling to tell me he loved my album!  “It’s original and strong,” He commented before suggesting I take out the first song “The Complaint,” explaining, “It’s not as strong as the rest of the record.”

He recommended putting “Red Room” first then “Tomboy Bride,” then” In My Mind.” I scratched notes on a napkin. Everyone has opinions on song sequencing it seems. I’m grateful for advice. Dad recommended making a tape recording of the first and last 15 seconds of each song and patching them into various orders. This is a brilliant strategy. His sequencing suggestion is the following:

“Do you need help finding a record deal?” Tim asked me before we hung up.

“No,” I cringed as I said it. It felt heretical to be turning down such a once in a lifetime offer. “I think I’m gonna do this music thing on my own for a while. But thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your help and advice Tim.”

“Just promise me you’ll perform your best every night whether it be to one person or 100,000.  That way I can gloat when people come up to me in the future and say “You know Timmy, you were right.  She is awesome.”­

I drove to rehearsal at the warehouse with the band formally named “Not Eric,” recently renamed “Tiny Yellow Ducks.” Inside the refrigerator of a rehearsal space, I found Tom, Dave, and Jeff fighting over what an awful name “Tiny Yellow Ducks” is. 

Luckily, today a bass player named Kenny Castro left me a message on my cell phone saying he’d love to hear my tape and would I meet him at “Albums on the Hill” record store to drop it on him.  I left rehearsal early, frustrated. 

I drove to North Boulder yesterday.  My lovely purple Rav 4, balloon animal of an SUV purred along the edge of the continental divide.  I was late to meet up with Wendy Woo, a local musician with great street cred connections to both musicians and local studios and effortless style.  Wendy was sipping coffee out of a broad-rimmed mug near the drafty front door of “The Other Place,” an uncreatively named coffee shop across the parking lot from the garage where I rehearse with Mary Sister Reload/Not Eric/Tiny Yellow Ducks.   One cup of bitter grounds later we drove up to Wendy’s studio in Lyons an hour away.  On the way, we listened to my demo tape.  Her knee bounced along to my untammed drum tracks and ½ way through each song she already knew the choruses and sang harmonies along with them in perfect 3rds.

“Sky Trails Studio” was in a house nested in a canyon up a 2-mile-long dirt road lined with tumbleweeds and crumbling boulders.  The low ceiling space was small but light.  It looked more like a living room than the fancy studios I grew up doing homework in circa 1980 in Times Square.  but I liked the place and I liked the people.  They played me a recent track of a local gal named Michelle something who’d just finished her CD and used Wendy’s house band to record.  It sounded really good.

Driving back, I was all but determined to use Wendy’s musicians as my band until I called my pop and he convinced me of two things.

 #1 I need to find my own players. 

“Your songs are great Sal and you’ve been working on them for a long time and you know, even though it’s a self-released record or a glorified demo, it’s still The Release of these songs and the players on it are going to make all the difference (wise words). 

#2 There’s no rush to do this fast. 

I should take my time.  Once I put out the first recording the countdown starts on my second. 

But all the same, there are butterflies in my stomach itching to dance with lightning bugs in my head and my intuition screams: “IT’S Time!”

At $200 bucks a day (not including engineer, recording tape, or musicians) at Wendy’s studio I’m looking at approximately $6,500 to do my demo.  Not out of budget and I could probably still get my touring van. 

Candles winked flirtatiously across tables tonight at Dandelions restaurant. Kipp and I joined up with some musical friends for dinner and everyone agreed “Wait for your musicians!” How frustrating!  They don’t come in the mail ya know guys!

Sally’s To-Do List:

Finish writing my final term papers.

Study for finals

Find a drummer.

Find a bassist.

Find a keyboardist.

Find a rhythm guitarist.

Find strength in my music.

Sing on stage as much as possible.

Decide what songs I want to record.

Rehearse

Copyright my songs.

Get over my fear of flying.

Graduate from College

Rehearse to go on the road with Not Eric to open for The Samples on the 3^rd.

Get good at guitar.

Look at other possible studios.

Breathe.

The opposite of success in music is not failure, it’s silence.  I won’t be silent.