So, have I talked about making a record at all lately? Because I've spent two Saturdays this month doing so, with Lost Locker Combo.


First weekend: Came home from the tour on Wednesday night, staying in Queens overnight then going back home first thing in the morning, so I could go straight to work - from which I'd go directly back to the train station, to go BACK to Manhattan to practice. Basically did the same thing for Thursday into Friday as well, only I managed to get home on Thursday and sleep in my own bed, but I went from practice on Friday (our last, for quite a while actually) to see The International Datelines and Daniel James Gang (both excellent), getting to sleep around 3 AM. Our recording was supposed to start at noon the next day.


So I was up by 10 the next day - of course, we got to the studio late, but actually because of some completely unexpected traffic jams and confusion about directions, not because of our own sleeping in. The first time around we recorded in Jersey City, with Adam from Dirt Bike Annie in his practice space (the "main" tracks at least - that's not counting the hours and hours spent in Jon's own Ill Street Studio in his apartment tracking things like extra vocals, glockenspiel, and so on), but he's since moved down to Florida, so this time we went to John from I-Farm/GSD's studio, who had a really great set up in the basement of his apartment (there was an actual control room! at least, I think that's what it's called!). I took some pictures, but they were all with my fancy new film camera, and I imagine they will not be developed for another month!


But the first thing on the agenda - drum tracks. This was pretty important, seeing as our drummer Scott was moving to Ohio the next week. I was also in charge of playing the scratch guitar track for this part (basically so he's not playing drums to no other sound at all). We get through everything pretty quickly, a few things in one take even, but it still takes a few hours. After finishing that we take a break to get food from the grocery store next door, and while I feel OK, everyone keeps asking "Uh, are you alright??"

Moving on to the "real" guitar tracks, which take us another couple of hours, up until almost 11 PM. Now, there was another show going on in Brooklyn, which, for some reason, I was convinced "I'm down to go, barring I can get a ride afterwards." After we finally break everything down and get ready to go, I sit in the back of Bill's van, and the next thing I know I'm woken up by Bill, outside of Jon's apartment in Queens, while lying down across the back bench, and the seat literally falling over on top of me, as if I'm the literal piece of meat in a bench sandwich - after which, I managed to pass out a SECOND time, while watching TV.

So this past Saturday we went in to finish the rest of the guitar and bass tracks. First thing on the agenda was to do overdubs/re-takes, which I had none. This made for a much pleasant experience of having nothing I needed to do but sit in the control room, and eat the food I'd bought next door. I compared it to having gone to a professional tutoring company as a child, that implemented a system where you would receive points for completing homework/becoming more proficient in your work, that you could eventually use to redeem toys or other gifts, and that my current meal was the equivalent of my ten year old self's Domino Rally set.

Once all that was finished however, I still had some work to do, in the form of lead tracks, which I found to be a lot of fun, because there's a little extra room to experiment, and I get to feel like I'm a lot better with my guitar than I really am. Some of these experiments included using assorted weird pedals, some of my own, and some of John's (we even had a brief conversation about obscure-ish effect units and such). And my ABSOLUTE favorite of all of that? The song where I proceed to do one pick slide, an attempt at a crazy guitar solo, and literally let the feedback ring out/build up throughout the entire song. Mental note: start new band where all my guitar parts consist of nothing but feedback.

Anyway, now it's on to the tons and tons of tiny little extra parts that go into a Lost Locker Combo record (Ok, I guess things like VOCALS aren't exactly "tiny", but you get the idea). Now we just prepare for our last show for a while in New York City.