A strange restless night of mixed sleep and jet lag, eyes closed and uncertain if I was awake and tired and falling between sleep and wakefulness, not sure which was which. But then the morning definitely came and I was up in the shower getting ready for the studio via avocado on toast. It was cold in the garage and the sky looked snow grey, threatening but not forthcoming, it was about half an hour to The Terrarium, the studio where we recorded my electric guitars and we were going back to record the vocals. This is the album I’m working on with sessioneer Fred Argir.
We met Jason the owner at 11 AM and Todd the engineer was waiting for us. Inside Jason had set up five Neumann microphones for us to try and after we demoed them all we settled on the U47 and we were off. First song, lead vocals and an album on the way.
We worked all day, Gerri Ann and Olivia were in and out, Gerri Ann reminding Fred about some lyrics, Olivia off to the tea house. We figured out some vocal arrangements for harmonies and somehow nine hours went by, it takes time to make records.
We left for the day, driving through the university campus houses onto the freeway and to a takeaway to pick up Italian dinner for all but me. The car in front signalled/indicated and it reminded me of that odd thing about American cars where the indicator often isn’t orange, you’d never see that in Europe. But then there’s Texas where we will be next week, it’s the funniest thing, but I’ll leave that till we are there.
Home to Fred and Gerri Ann’s, Thai for me, Green Bay Packers, and I forgot my tea at the studio. Downstairs to write, everyone gone to bed, Christmas tree on, TV on, and ads for five-minute slime, and root beer in the fridge, must be in America. Another clue, this morning I looked out of the window and there was a beautiful bright red cardinal, a bird you never see in Europe. A red squirrel and a small tree of sparrows, the sparrow tree familiar, the way they flock to a tree to squeak and chirp together on both sides of the Atlantic.
I’m suffering somewhat in my back and neck from being cooped up in two tin cans, one for eight hours and the other for three hours. A strange bed doesn’t help, the fact that it’s different with different pillows means your body has to adjust to a different shape, plus, my nose is running a little, a slight cough which is why when I was attempting a Beach Boys backing vocal today I sounded more like AC/DC in a tutu.
Music today has actually been what I listened to on the aeroplane, The Beatles‘ Anthology 3 (1996), how inspired, natural, joyous, down to earth, and interesting for the nerds like me.