Recording! Injuries!! Shows!!!

It's nice to finally start hearing our songs coming to life in the studio!  We've done a LOT of demos in various stages of songwriting in the practice room, more often to not forget them the next week rather than to create a polished product - so hearing these incredibly badass sounding tracks being layered evenly and equalized (and other technical things I wouldn't even begin to be able to understand) is completely energizing, and we are just about halfway done!

We are going for a big, full sound relying on musicianship over effects, and very naturally getting a live feel to come through.  Scotty Harsh hits his set like a wronged girlfriend hammers through a car windshield, and we recorded some aggressive drum tracks - I think we actually need to tone DOWN some of the cymbal crashes and whatnot!  His little Yamaha kit is battle scarred and sounding extra big with its new heads on, and our buddy Kyle made a little cymbal magic happen to give Scott more things to whack.  Basically the drums were recorded in an evening, and all the pressure has been transferred to Bo and I to do the percussion justice.  (Not really pressure, but you know!)

Since my "tone" is the natural tube distortion of my JCM 900, we just miked up the cab and fine tuned the levels.  Interestingly enough, I found that there are parts to our songs where full on distortion is too much, and a sort of half-crunch is better suited, plus a clean tone snuck in every once in a while - so I used not only the DeArmond and its full, crisp sound, but a 1960 (gorgeous) Les Paul for a big, deep tone and my '89 American Strat for some biting high end stuff - plus a Dual Rectifier to add some more crunch!  Basically lots of classic sounds which will be blended into Hurricane Gun's guitar tracks!  Its about the only time I have been all gear geeky and rockstar soundish (but can't say I didn't love it!)

Bo is just now laying down some bass, and the red beauty in the photo will be the go-to.  Bo is a man of many instruments, but by far this Fender has the best bass tone - it sounded fantastic just plugged directly into the mixer!  It's a good thing bass is up and guitar is 99.99% finished, as I filleted my finger with some pruning shears and am on injured reserve now.  We do have a show at Burro Bar during Artwalk, which will be packed, so I will be sucking it up, but damn I am surprised how much I use my right hand ring finger when playing (I had no idea)!

Here's some carnage to end the post:

Note:  Doc says this is what it looks like when you need stitches...oops.