A whirlwind of a day ended at 3am last night and after a long day of the au bon pain, studio, chinese food, fixing my fonts, more studio, Pluck U, Saintface, many drinks, soical time with the ladies of Internationalpoontang.com, a near barfight, a guy in a thong (yes he was the near barfight), a very public threesome (yes this involved the guy in the thong), and some pizza, I feel we all earned the right to sleep in this morning...
We were able to find Leo somewhere in NYC yesterday and after a fun breakfast catching up, we dragged his ass into the Birdcage and put him to work. As predicted and hoped for, Leo again left his mark on EXIT STRATEGIES. Let me be frank with you, I was handling problems in my other professional life, but Leo, at B's direction (Earn that producing credit, son!) did some sweet ass backing vocals for THE MORNING AFTER THE LIFE BEFORE. I had many ideas for backing vocals for this, but they went way out of my range (and believe me I tried), but Leo really came up with some great stuff that I think really punctuates the choruses significantly. While doing all this, Leo somehow fixed a recent font related problem in my computer, for which I am very very greatful, while giving me thousands of new fonts to play with!
We then gave Leo a playback of the song we wrote with him and Jamie Duffy, OUR FAITH, because he hadn't heard our changes. There weren't many other than my new vocals, so he he was really into it. He will be playing his own version of the song with his band, AM PACIFIC, at their upcoming shows in LA. You can't get a better compliment than that! After some Great Wall, we put a guitar in his hand. Brandt had wanted him to tackle LENINGRAD, but honestly I feel that song is truly developed, so, as mentioned in a previous entry, I knew we could do more to 1956, so we got him on the verses and boy did this turn out to be one of my better decisions. I won't give much away, but it's still getting further away from Primal Scream and closer and closer to Hypefactor. The effort is worth it, and like Charles before him, Leo now has opened new doors to this song that I think are going to make for an amazing final song. We're almost there with that track.
Thanks to Leo, always the pro, for coming in and really pushing our material forward again...
Later, I met back home with Irene for some Pluck U (which means she worked late and is too tired to fight me on the topic of dinner) and then had a few drinks with the ladies of Internationalpoontang.com, some of whom are quite sunburnt from extended sunbathing on either Long Island or Asia, depending on which poontanger you are speaking to. Congrats to Poontanger D on her new digs and the excellent drinks and kudos to whoever made the jello shots that Dan Hamill and Irene consumed like it was nobody's business.
From there we were off to see the Face, back in action. I think I missed a gig due to an LA visit, so I was psyched. I think I have mentioned my hatred of the venue, Sine-E, before, mostly because of their horrible technical problems. This time, the face were problem-free and the gig was another enjoyable experience. If anything, my dear comrade Mr. Peter is far too prolific for his own good. I feel like we're on album 5 when I don't even own album 1. Right when I get attached to a song, he goes and writes three more. My concern is that songs I loved a year or two ago will never see the light of day in my ipod. I know the album will own and don't get me wrong, the guy doesn't write a bad song. It's just we're 5 albums in when I still want albums 1-4. I love the man, I love his band, (and yes you SAW me singing along to the last song, Joe) and I say all this purely out of love for the music that I want to own. As a musician, I understand not wanting to be stuck playing the same songs over and over again, but songs like I LOVE YOU, MADLY and THERE IS A ROOM (which I'm certain has to be on the album) got you to the dance and got a lot of people in that venue last night. Give them the hits, lads, give them the hits!
We spent some time with the lads after the show. Peter, B and I discussed the HF album, and while he has his head around EXIST, melodically, CLEAN UP is a problem, so we are going to get Peterface into the Birdcage in July to work on it as a gang. I have now given him a deadline and he promises to stick to it. He's the last person we need to finish recording this album (No pressure, guy!).
Then at some randumb (intentional spelling) lower east side bar that seemed straight out of 1981, Dan Hamill didn't like the way a drunk man (with his thong exposed and shirt lifted) was treating one of our friends and he made this known. Dan Hamill is not an easy man to provoke so when I accidentally walked into this I just stood quietly backing him up while he defended the honour of our friend. I'm still not sure what this was all about, quite frankly. In fact, I am going to try to ask him to write something for the blog explaining, but he made quite an impact on this crew. After, one of the guys, obviously intimidated by my beard while backing up Dan Hamill, tried to sweet talk me, and I responded with "As long as none of my friends are fucked with, you'll be ok". After that, they went to the back of the bar so the guy in the thong could resume his dry humping of the two girls who were making out (yes we have photos). We have travelled all over the world with very few problems, or three ways so this is one for the books just to see Dan Hamill as Harrison Ford. I already respected that kid, but after last night, I respect him more.
The lovely day ended with a slize of pizza and garlic knots for my girl and I. As Leo and I sing in a song: Mas Bien.
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