It's been one of those months of hell where you get no time to breathe, no time to relax and then eventually, your body just crashes against your will, forcing you to sleep. I thought this would be the weekend where I'd get to lie around and do virtually nothing, but this was not the case.
This was Irene's first full weekend off in about a year, so plans were made. Unfortunately life gets in the way and I found myself uptown unexpectedly hearing pitches via videoconference for hours Friday night (to the studio's credit, they fed us well). Luckily, Irene's focus for the weekend off was never leaving the couch, which was a brilliant idea, and this gave me leeway to still do my normal Saturday afternoon routine of going to the record store and grab the coming week's releases (new Kasabian single, which has a massive awesome B-side that rips HF off) for me and B before spending some time in the studio doing drum edits on LENINGRAD. It was a short trip, but productive, as I am listening to the results as we speak and we get closer and closer to a sound that is big and clean and exciting. So close.
We also went through some of the newer/future HF songs, including a lost classic called THE MAGIC WORDS, which has an interesting history. It started off maybe 10 years as a demo by Tom and Ash as an aggression track and had TONS of promise. Why we never picked up on it, I'm not sure, but I do recall adding some stuff to it later on and maybe even jamming it once or twice at Robins (Ash can possibly confirm that). GREAT bassline from Tom and sweet programming from Ash. Anyhow, it was forgetten in the HF/ILM transition and the cobra's got to it first, played with it for a bit, and then it again fell by the wayside. How this came up in conversation, I don't know, but Brandt mentioned his love of the song and I immediately CHECKED WITH MIKE to see if HF could claim the soon. Getting his blessing took about 4 seconds and within days he shot over the parts and I have been working nonstop on it. I'm really excited about this tune and think it can be a classic!
Finally, Irene and I found some free time and went to dinner at some new Pizza place where A Salt and Battery used to be on 2nd ave. I can't remember the name at the moment and can't be arsed to get up to ask her, so I'll get back to you on it, but it was really fucking good. They built the sweet ass woodburner thing in the place so you can see the pizza go in. They also had what could be the best carpaccio I've ever tasted. These guys are straight up eye-talian and the servings were fierce and we had the leftovers for breakfast this morning. Then your hero proceed to go home and literally pass out for about 12 hours.
I woke up today to receive a most exciting invite from the my fellow Gold Street Boy Gutterball Vinnie, who somehow was able to acquire TWO wristbands for rare acoustical appearance of PAUL WELLER at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square this afternoon. After losing out on getting tickets to see him down the block this week, this was a cool surprise. How Danny snagged the second wristband is beyond me, as it was listed as one per person, but he bought two copies of Weller's new singles thing and they gave him two bands, so naturally he called your hero spur of the moment and I dropped everything (meaning this got me out of food shopping) and there we were checking out Weller. This picture makes it seem further than where we were, but by not going in the main section, we had a dead on clear view, which we didn't expect...
He was joined by Steve Cradock from Ocean Colour Scene, who is a fucking amazing guitarist and they delivered a very brisk and cool 25 minute set. The Ex-pats were in full force, and it's fun going to gigs where we are the youngest there. The disappointment was he did not come back for an encore and everyone kinda just stood there waiting. Fuck that, G and I left, got some hot chocolate and walked back to MOGworld. While walking, this made us laugh:
Then we got back to MOGworld and watched disc one of the bootleg REVENGE/MONACO video collection that G so kindly pulled off bitorrent for me and burned. The second disc was fucked up, but G had as good laugh making fun of your hero's direct ripping off of Mr. Hook himself. What memories this brought back. Later, we were joined by Irene and the three of us met up with my folks (fresh off the plane from arruba) for a nice bite before returning back here to watch the ROYALE RUMBLE, which is never a bad PPV. Then we watched Extras and laughed.
Re-reading this entry, it reads like a phone call home from Russia in its play by play and I apologize for my lack of wit here today. I would like to give a shout out to GUSTAVO YAMATO MACHADO, just born this weekend in VA Beach and a quick Happy Birthday to my friend Frank, who turned 50 yesterday. He and I have a lot to talk about tomorrow if plans go accordingly. More on that soon. Anyhow, I end always on a good note with KRUGER BABY CUTENESS, who I will behold in PERSON this week when I fly to SF for a few days of biz-nez. Stay Golden, San Diego...
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