Oh God, Not Again

I'm 3 hours behind Marta, so I'm at T-minus 12 hours. Weird.

I thought I'd post my studio, although it hasn't changed much over the years. I'm always curious what other people's bedrooms - I mean studios - look like.

 

Here's the tech half...as you can see, I have little concern for where my cords go and possible electronic interference. My new Avantone CV-12 mic, my huge-ass Roland Fantom keyboard (which I will NOT be using if at all possible), and a bunch of little shakers and instruments in that cubby.

A couple of guitars, tambourine, glockenspiel, melodica (in a case), and a big old electronic drumset (which I will not be using!).

I've been thinking a lot about my previous idea of dark folk/Espers type stuff, and I realized I'm probably not going to be able to write 30 minutes of that stuff without repeating myself. So plans have changed, a bit.

In the Record Time event page, Dan Clark wrote something that sort of made my brain twitch -- he said his album is "gonna get weird." As much as I'd like to create something beautiful and straightforward, for some reason I can't deal with someone else making experimental music when I'm not. So I think my approach will be similar to my Record Time VI album, where I threw together random, unconnected passages, Mr. Bungle style. It might be pretty, but it'll be weird, too.

This time, I'd like to keep it all acoustic, or at least use no samples (I may want to use some electric guitar). No "drums," but tons of percussion. My plan is to lay down 30 minutes of acoustic guitar tracks in 3 days, and build the rest of the music on top of that. RT6 was built around the drums, RT7 was piano, and so this will be my acoustic guitar album. It helps that for Christmas my parents restored and gave me my mom's 1970s Stella parlor guitar. It sounds great and it's fun to play.

Oh, and this weekend I restrung 3 guitars. For anyone wondering, restringing a mandolin is like staring Death in the face. A terrifying experience all around.

Like most RT veterans, I'm excited and somewhat annoyed at the prospect of this week. To all the noobs out there, I feel the need to point out that Record Time is generally dreadful for the first 3 or 4 days. Your songs will sound like ass, and you'll probably curse yourself for knowing me. But once things start coming together around Friday or Saturday, you'll be like "aw yeah." If you're anything like me, you'll spend Sunday in a blissful mania, feeling like the most productive and talented person alive. Then on Monday you'll slip into a horrible post-project depression and start marking the days until RT9 on your arm with a sharp stick. Am I right? Anybody?

One way or another, though, you'll come back...they always come back.