Day 4 – “Ghost in the Machine” – January 21, 2000
Yesterday had its ups and downs.
Our first day of basic tracks* was productive until nightfall when we started experiencing some concerning glitches. Tracks we’d recorded moments before stubbornly froze, refused to playback, and then disappeared entirely. It was extremely frustrating to finish a great performance only to watch the recording of it vanish into thin air. Losing tracks means losing studio time, equipment rental time, and most importantly, what money can’t buy, enthusiasm and energy.
Fortunately, today the computer gods are with us and we’re making progress on “Dvoren,” A song I wrote about a geeky-longhaired physicist I once struck up a conversation with in a hot tub when I was at ‘college. Jeff sat on the ledge of the broiling, color-changing tub, the steam enveloping his white, overtly hairy legs and skinny arms. He spoke with a lisp and a faint stutter as he told me he’d discovered the rate of disintegration of something called the “Z particle” and thus had been given a full-ride scholarship to Penn State. As he went on enthusiastically about his little-known “Z particle,” I found myself edging closer to him. I was so taken with his brain, so excited about his knowledge of physics that I insisted he stop talking. I was going to have to kiss him. We dated throughout the spring before he left for Penn and I for Colorado. I have no idea where he is now.
The studio’s beginning to look more like home … probably because let’s face it, we’re living here. My clothes are strewn about the living room, my favorite mug and house plant have moved in, and I’ve adopted a couple slow-moving, stinkbugs bugs which I hang out with between takes in our vast common room which smells of cedar and marijuana and warm apricot honey. The sun rays spread throughout the room and dust fairies drift through, oblivious to the musical which they appear to sway and dance to.
This is the new and improved Sky Trails, the same home studio where I recorded “TomBoy Bride” but with an upgrade. The studio and all it’s equipment has been moved from Lyons, CO to Boulder, CO. Its new canyon view is a spectacular mountain scape, lined with tall pines that empty into a snow-kissed Boulder with its endless eastern horizon. The ceilings are tall and vaulted with plants peering like peeping toms behind high-ledged corners. There’s a kitchen to the left of the control room where we relax and eat popcorn and Brian taps on a wooden table with drumsticks. On a huge black grand piano sits a purple bouquet of irises next to a dozen or so red candles. Kenny sets his new mechanical hula girl doll beside the flowers — a gift from his father-in-law for Christmas. We gather around it like kids at a “show and tell” as Kenny switches it on and suggestively mimics its gyrating. We’re all a bit giddy—we laugh easily and hug freely. I think the boys are as relieved as I am that recording is finally underway.
Moving in seemed endless between Michael’s need to tinker and my need to nest. Like a bird, hauling twigs to a birdhouse, I collect props and assembe backdrops for my fledgling songs. Each needs its own setting, its own nursery. For example, when Michael announced we’d be starting with “All This Time,” a retro 70’s tune, I hung beaded curtains on Brian’s makeshift drum tent and adorned each player in rainbow sweatbands and huge orange sunglasses.
And in the evening, when we recorded “Forty Years,” I lit 30 candles and poured everyone a glass of cabernet to set the tone.
Footnotes:
*Basic Tracks: Bass and drum tracks that scaffold each song.