Updated 21.12.2005
1st rehearsals 7.4.2005
It's been quite a while since we've last played - 28.10.2004 was the last time, to be exact. We've all done our things; working, vacationing and having babies - the usual stuff. I can only speak for myself, but in the past (read: last 5 years) I've worked too much. To make things better, which actually meant, to regain my life, I had to arrange for a long vacation. And I did. I spent 6 weeks travelling the world alone; writing them songs, reading and listening to music from my brand new iPod (the best invention since beer). I found new literary favorites that now rule my world: Oscar Wilde and Paul Auster, welcome to my life! I can't tell you how much I enjoy reading these two writers' work. Do yourselves a favor and go read the work of these two. I recommend you begin with Oscar with The picture of Dorian Gray and with Paul with The invention of solitude. If you choose to read something else, that's fine. Just read, it's good for you, I promise.
After fifth week of my vacation I started to get itchy and wanting to come back home, 'cause I really wanted to get to home and rehearse the new songs with the boys. The songs are so good and I have a lot of them; on the trip I finished 11 songs completely and 2 more are missing some lyrics. I feel that within the last year I've understood what music's really about. I've found my way to the heart of the matter, and boy, what a heart it is! I'm in love with music more than ever before. I also must confess that I've mistreated the gift of songwriting, that has been given to me, terribly. From now on I promise to cherish that gift and make the best of it, so I can share these beautiful and good things with you good people.
Anyway, more jibblejabble later, this is a diary, so diary-like must we be.
It felt really good to be with the boys again. We have a new rehearsal place which is grand. From there you can see outside, so if it's sunny outside, it's sunny inside. We've spent the first 10 years in the cellar, now it's time for us to come out of the closet and find our place in the sun. So far, so good.
In many ways this is a new beginning for us. We released the best of album last fall and we feel that we're done with that particular style of making music. We want to move forward, do something where you can hear that we love all kinds of music from all times. 90's are over for us, finally. We want to do music that will surprise you all, but first of all, surprise ourselves. The new songs are quite complex in a way that I can't really explain. Chord wise they are simple, but the structures are more complicated and the dynamics are completely different to what we've ever done before. Musically they are really beautiful, but it doesn't mean that they are slow. In my head I want to do an album that has the same spiritual feel that Beach Boys' Pet Sounds has. This world needs music that can heal people. Music that you can cry and dance to. Music that you'd like to take with you to your grave. These times are saturated with meaningless, empty music that only serves an egotistic need for people to have their conveyor belt designed images on the cover of magazines that write about nothing for people who listen to radios that play this music for other likeminded messengers of no personality what so ever. We wish not to be part of that scene. There are plenty of spike haired, tattoed "rock stars" with trained bodies, big tits and round ass' on the media without us contributing to it.
Oops, here I go again. Better get on with the diary stuff:
The first song we rehearsed is a pretty tune named I'm Mad (For You). It's a grower, literally. It starts slowly and grows out to be an Eifel tower. It took some time to get it right but after about ten rounds it started to shape. On the first rehearsal we also rehearsed a song called New Morning Light, which is a bit weird as well. Then again, it's just a pop song with average chord changes and a really long middle eight part. We rehearsed it for some time, but this one isn't ready yet. We'll save it until next time.
Before I go, I want to tell you how much I enjoy my new amplifier, 1955 Gibson GA-6. New toys make happy boys!
2nd rehearsals 13.4.2005
Back in the business. On this rehearsal we don't rehearse any other songs but the two we began with last week. New Morning Light finds it's final form and in a weird way it sounds like Calexico playing a russian song. This, of course, is only a good thing. Calexico is one of the best bands in the world right now, I'm really anxiously waiting for their forthcoming new album. I saw Calexico twice on my vacation, and they are one of the best live bands I've ever witnessed!
3rd rehearsal 27.4.2005
A bit of long break as I was in the studio producing Egotrippi's new album. It's going to be so good, very inspiring stuff. Watch out, people!
As for us, we're basically learning the two songs again, but we do have time to rehearse one more new song, Love Dissapper. It's a funny song as it begins with 3/4 beat but transforms in to 4/4 and then back. I never realised this while palying it with my acoustic guitar, but now I know - and I like it. This is going to be cool. It reminds me of Elliott Smith's stuff, but only remotely. Anyway, we nail it for other parts, except for the chorus, which isn't arranged right, yet.
One thing, that is different from before is that Ripa plays a lot of keyboards as we rehearse. We hear a lot of "wide" chords in that room, let me tell you. But today we have to leave early as Kelly and Risto have to hurry to Tampere to play a gig with Bilmo. We all leave the room with sounds of Ripa's organ, thinking, what does it all mean?!
On my way home I think I figure out how to play the chorus, but is that the truth, remains to be seen until the next rehearsal. I can't wait for it, I'm so exited!
4th rehearsal 4.5.2005
Not so long break is what we needed now. I can't claim that we are the most diligent at rehearsing, but it's good to take it steady & easy at first. Acclimatize, you know. My coffee this morning sure got everyone started,as it was quite strong. I don't know what happened?! I know that I can count to ten, and I made ten cups and I used the measurement spoon and all. Maybe there was something in the water, maybe someone's messing with our rehearsal place's plumming? I sure hope the sewer and tap water aren't connected, 'cause that would surely explain the coffee, but not in the way that I'd like to solve this matter.
Aaa, foggeddaboutit! Back to the music we go. We started on a new song today, which turned out quite darn good. The song is "Not Like The Rest" and it's sort of a mixture with an old slow soul song and some gospel stuff. Sort of, but not really... I'm sorry, but describing your own songs isn't the easiest of them jobs in this planet. Please, accept my humble apologies. Anyway, it's music - and that's all we really need to know. One thing I noticed was that this song is in 3/4 time as well. It strikes me as odd as we've only ever recorded one song in that time, and it's never been released.
BTW, We solved the chorus on "Love Dissapear" and it's very cool now. It's a poppier piece. Definitely reminds me of Elliott Smith - and White Stripes. Go figure.
We quickly check one more song, "The Last Dance", which - surprise - goes: 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3...yes, 3/4. I don't know what I've been eating, or drinking. Maybe the water in Mexico left my engine running with one sparking plug less and I never ever write another song that goes to 4. Well, who cares. This song is something I don't really want to rehearse, just go in the studio and see what comes of it. At the present time it's No.1 contestant for the much sought-after slot of final song on the next album.
A quick recap: we have 4 songs that are basically ready for recording and a lot more to come. Not bad for 4 rehearsals.
Today's rehearsals weren't very long (3+ hours) as Risto's gotta go build his house, Antti goes swimming, Kelly goes futuballing and I go buy myself a bike, because some f***ers trashed mine in front of Tavastia last fall. I just can't live without a bike. Please, people, don't mess with other people's bikes! Respect them, they're often man's best friend - and a lover... (5.5.2005)
5th rehearsal 5.5.2005
Now, look at this! Rehearsals day after day. We're on a roll here. Risto couldn't make the rehearsal because he had fever and the house to work on, but we decided to go ahead and rehearse as a trio, anyway. This is the way that we record the basic tracks in the studio so it's good to rehearse that, as well.
Despite of the lessons learned about making coffee, things didn't get much better today. Man, I don't know what's going on. Maybe the coffee we have isn't 1st class, top notch, quality. Dunno, but it sure has a strong laxative effect on a human bodily system. Have to change the brand or something. Or maybe just do the wimpy tea thing.
Enough about coffee, need to say a few things about music:
The songs are really shaping up. Playing them over and over again definitely doesn't hurt them. These songs are arranged to be played, which is nice. That's sort of why one is in a band in the first place. Beside playing the old songs over and rearranging the modulation in Not like the rest, we rehearse a new song that I don't, yet, have a name for. I call it "Tango" for now, as the chorus is very, very cool big tango. Antti came up with a beautiful bass line and Kelly got our butts a movin' with a swinging drum beat. It's time to dance, dear friends! (6.5.2005)
6th rehearsal 14.5.2005
Life is full of surprises. One of the bigger ones is surviving Friday the 13th without any trouble (and, please, let's forget the fact that it's quite difficult to make it through any day without any trouble). I survived the spell of that, shall we say, evil day. I guess, I should feel really lucky - and I do. To be honest with you, I do feel very, very lucky, and not only because I survived Friday the 13th without any permanent damage, but more importantly because I get to play in my favourite band of them all! Now, that's something to feel lucky for. I can't play in the Beatles, and it would take some serious work to get me to play with Calexico, so I do admit, I'm lucky to be in our band. Lucky me. Zippy-di dee!!!
I'm sorry, but I loose my self time and again, because right now I feel like I felt when I played in my first band. I've spent the past six days in the studio producing Egotrippi and, even though, producing is fun, the bad part of the job is that everyone else gets to play - not the producer. And, playing in the band is SO fun; rehearsing them new songs, magic happening every time we sit down and nobody else but us, can do it the way we do. That's magic! The best part is, that we don't need a shrink to do that! This creative part of being in the band is definitely my favourite part of being in a band. Touring is fun, studio is fun, but this is the most gratifying part of the whole deal. It's like having that first beer of the summer. The second beer of the day isn't as good, anymore. Neither is the third or the fourth one. After that, you only think they're better, but we all know better than that. And no later than in the next morning, even the one who claimed otherwise, has made up their mind and joined our 1st beer is the best -camp! It's one of the only things I could bet on, and I'm not much of a gambler or "better", for the lack of a better word. ...(If that isn't word play then what is?! Doesn't get any better than this...Ha-haa, I kill myself with my, so called, sense of humor)... But, if you never ever had that first beer, don't rush - it's not THAT good. Alcohol's not really good for you. A little education here, just incase someone needs it.
So, what was the reason I'm writing here?!?! Eerrmmm...
...oh yes, we have a band and we're rehearsing new songs for the next album, and I promised to tell you about that. Yes, indeed. Well, it's going really well, as you might have read in between the lines. Today we went through the songs we already knew and came up with the final arrangement for "Tango" which will most likely be titled "A Lonesome Dream". It's a song about following your heart, even if it doesn't always seem like the best thing to do. Very simple but ever so important stuff. But we also rehearsed another brand new track which is titled "Will I Ever Find Out". Existentialist stuff in here, beware. One of my favourite songs of them new ones. I could never have imagined the arrangement we came up for it with the boys, it's so cool. This song's like a mixture of French movie song and soul and good ol' gospel. Antti thought that maybe we could label our new songs as "Heavy soul". I must say, it does make sense. And do not worry, it's nothing like the Paul Weller's late solo stuff. Man, I just don't know what happened to him after Stanley Road?! Must respect the man, though - one of the greats.
Spring has also reminded us of other greats: Weezer released an excellent 5th album, Aimee Mann's doing pretty well with her new one, Ben Folds' Songs For Silverman is just brilliant, White Stripes is going all weird on us, but that sure feels good, System Of A Down has released the party record of the year, no-one can top that one, and Eels is just tearing my heart apart with them Blinking lights and other revelations. One not so well known artist here in the north that I want to advertise, is Keren Ann. She's my absolute favourite right now. Buy ALL her albums, they're all great! Plus, get his side kick's, Benjamin Biolay's Rose Kennedy album, that's a treat for all of you, who enjoy their music in French and very, mucho, sentimental. I'm sentimental now, so I better go and enjoy it. Being sentimental, I mean. Until next time, dear diary. (15.5.2005)
7th rehearsal 19.5.2005
Not the best rehearsal we've ever had. Sometimes it's just not as happening as it could be. It's good for you to know that this isn't always laughs and pure joy. It wasn't horrible, of course, but today the early wake up call just seemed to take us all by surprise. We like to rehearse early in the morning, if possible. Well, 10 am may not be early for lotta ya, but for musicians it's very unknown time of the day, the dark territory - and I must confess that I find it quite funny that to me it's always a surprise to see so many people out if I'm out around 9 am or earlier. It's just beyond my understanding that most of the world seems to wake up at around 7 am. Good for the world, I guess.
Another explanation for our not so great rehearsal can be laid upon the fact that we had to rehearse at our other (old) rehearsal place, due to some schedule problems. That was a bit of a bad déjà vu, so I lay the blame on that fact, a lot.
Still, we managed to work on a new song which will be titled "Would You Die For Me?". I'm still working on the c-part, or middle eight as they say in America, but we got it right, up until that missing part. This song reminds me of Coldplay and Screaming Trees mixed together. It's a very cool, and quite long track that just keeps on growing. It seems that every song we rehearse the last, ends up as my favourite.
8th rehearsal 24.5.2005
Another early morning rehearsal. This one's about 1 000 000 times better than the last one. One of the major things happening in between these rehearsals was definitely the arrival of the summer of 2005. This seems to make us all happy. And, man, I've been riding my new bicycle like crazy. It's the 3rd best invention in the world (1 & 2 mentioned earlier). Everybody, go buy yourselves bicycles! If you don't know where to go, check this out - a great store with good people telling you everything you need to know about them bikes.
Today we finished the arrangement for the song we began last week. The c-part is working out great and there's room for Ripa to do major soloing with his guitar. Unfortunately, Ripa hasn't been able to attend couple of the last rehearsals as he's stuck with the building of his house. We understand, but miss him, too. All the songs are ready for recording now. There are 7 songs all in all, if my countings are correct. We're planning to begin the recordings for the album during the summer and there's a slight chance that the album might even come out before the end of this year! Let's see and keep our fingers crossed. Meanwhile, let's ride them bicycles and read them books. I'm sure you've all read Paul Auster's The Invention Of Solitude by now, so next go and read his Moon Palace. Greatness from the bottomless well of genius and literary smarts. You won't regret reading that book, that's a promise.
We were supposed to have a rehearsal this Thursday, too, but we decided not to. I'm busy for another day with mixing Egotrippi and have no time to check new songs, and we don't want to kill the ones we already know by rehearsing them too much. Must leave some magic for the tape, as well - and enjoy the summer, while it lasts!!!
(25.5.2005)
9th rehearsal 30.5.2005
Another rehearsal, and not a bad one. We just went through the songs we know, as we're planning to record demos for the 7 songs, later this week. Usually, we don't do demos, but this time around we want to go that way. It's good to change your methods of working, then you don't get stuck in a rut as easily. And due to the fact that we're going to produce this record on our own, it's good to listen to what we're playing from a recording. You often hear things differently when playing at the rehearsals. You might think something you play is great, when it's actually shite. I've had that happen to me a many a times.
What made me really happy, was the fact that today we found the correct way to present New Morning Light; we just need to play it as slowly as possible. We've been playing it too fast and it's been missing the funky feeling it once had. Now, its great - big bottoms, beware!
Later, after the rehearsal, I wrote some new lyrics to Love Disappear. It's much better now. I've decided to have all the lyrics ready way ahead of time, before we go to the studio to record even the basic tracks. Previously, it hasn't always been the case. It's a bit of a different feeling to sing a lyric you've had time to digest, compared to the ones you write 15 mins before you record the lead vocals. Been there, done that. No more, thank you.
After the demos are done, we begin to rehearse more new songs. It's good to clean the table before moving on with more songs. If you rehearse too many new songs in a short period of time, there is no time to dig deeper and some songs might be left without the care they need. This time we will not be guilty of that. Time's the revelator (God bless Gillian Welch!).
On a more important notice, I just heard the new Posies record! I'm sure most of you know, that The Posies is one of our favourite bands ever and it's been a thrill to know that the boys are back. The album is very, very good! I say no more, cause I don't want to ruin anything, but let me tell ya, no one does it better than da Posies. Love & respect.
Another record that, actually, surprised me positively is The Tears' Here Come The Tears. Brett and Bernard are at it again, and the album has some beautiful tracks. Much better songs than most of the stuff on the last two Suede albums. Though, I must say, that I'm not so happy about the uptight, Pro Toolsy, sound of the album. It sounds like someone used too many plug-ins. It's not bad, but I sure wish it sounded a little better. I'm very allergic to these modern day, home-made, over-compressed computer recordings. One should be careful when doing it on their own. Too many toys make confused boys.
Now I kick the critic out of me and say that it sure makes me happy that there are still bands that care about songwriting! It's the single most important ingredient in any music. I'm so bored with all the "cool", modern, up-to-date, "now", blaah-blaah music that everyone hypes and forgets the second another "cool", modern, up-to-date, "now", blaah-blaah artist comes along - and one hits the scene at least once a week. A lot of hyping and forgetting for people to do. I recommend you spend your money on something that lasts and will bring you pleasure for years to come, like Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" or Nina Simone's "Pastel Blues/Let It All Out" cd.
Love music, live in peace!
(1.6.2005)
10th rehearsal 2.6.2005
This time we were in our proper rehearsal place (the one with the windows) and recorded demos for 7 songs. This meaning, that we recorded the basic tracks (drums, bass & guitar) and I'm going to do some overdubs at home and at studio with the boys, before we're going to record the final versions of the songs. The songs sound amazing, I'm not sure you believe me anymore, but they do - can't help it.
The recording is very easy, I do the engineering bits while Antti and Kelly drink coffee and smoke some cigarettes, to get that true rock'n'roll feeling that's sometimes missing in our (mainly) very straight and un-cool rock'n'rollless (it's a real word!) lifestyles.
Back home I do some more rewriting with the lyrics; little phrases here and there. Perfection takes time but will make us all happier, in the end.
(5.6.2005)
11th rehearsal 10.6.2005
More rehearsals - need we learn more? Yes, we do. Learning is fun! Like eating ice cream or making little knots with your hair, and trying to make them so tight that you can't open them. I've never learned that but I do rehearse quite a lot - hair knotting. I guess that makes me a knotter.
We begin the rehearsal by listening to the demos that I've been overdubbing at home. At the present there are 5 songs that are about done. They sound really good. Someone could mistakenly think that these are the final recordings. They're not THAT good, though. There's no sense to make these too good, it's good to leave some mystery to the actual recordings. But because of the demos, it's going to be easier to think what needs to be done, it'll be easier to push the limits a little bit more. Find ways to make everything really interesting and as good as possible. Also, we can now give these to our stringmaster so he can arrange strings everywhere. Yes, we're going to have a lot of strings this time. Love them like donuts.
After we're done with the listening party, we rehearse one new song. The song is "Heart burns" and it's really a country song, which we don't play like country. At first it's a little like White Stripes but in the end there will be massive - sorry, I mean MASSIVE - ending with strings, montains, skyscrapers and little explosions. Kelly came up with the best drum beat he's ever invented, which is so very cool and strange. Our friend, the Strangster, lives among us and he's a good man.
We'll that's about that, really. There'll be more.
12th rehearsal 15.6.2005
They just keep piling up, don't they?! The rehearsals, I mean. We're really happy that Ripa is with us again. It's good to have all the boys in the room at the same time. We tell funny jokes, drink a lot of coffee, some smoke, some don't and we tell more funny stories, because we're so God damned funny - we think, anyway. It takes us so very long to get to the actual playing part at our rehearsals, not only because we're so funny, but because sometimes we're hilarious, too. It takes time, you see.
This is pretty deja vu in the sense that today is an exact replica of the 11th rehearsal: we listen to the demos (now 6 songs) and rehearse "Heart burns". Only thing that has changed is that there is now four of us in the room, and our stories are a little funnier. In between these dates I've also spent a somewhat lost weekend in Amsterdam while Ripa has come across unexpected, not so funny, surprises in the land of the merry house builder. We all still think that "Heart burns" is great, which is good, because it was so strange that it could have been pure s**t after some thinking and wheeling.
I gotta go, or soon there won't be anything for me to say anymore, cause I've said so much of nothing, really.
Have I told you that I really, really love Aretha Franklin?
(20.6.2005)
13th rehearsal 28.6.2005
A bit of a break here. 13th rehearsal and no bad luck in sight! Bite that, Mr. Superstition. In between the rehearsals, there have been many opportunities for us to foster the commencing braindamage that we've all developed at a quite young age, due to many festivals and mid summers etc. that we've experienced among other not so recommended activities, as far as them little brain cells go . It's That time of the year, you know. But if anything, I do wish to promote the Sodankylä film festival which has to be the best festival on earth! Blessed are the movies and people who go to see them, and the ones who still believe in the making of them and presenting them in a proper way.
This early Wednesday morning brought us all together after all these vice comprising events and it seems, luckily, that not too many brain cells were lost in between the rehearsals #12 & # 13; we must be getting old - but it sure is fun and feels good!
The rehearsal today was a success. We're going to studio soon and I want us to learn a couple of more songs, so we'd have between 10-12 songs to record. I'm not sure you (or me) are following our calculations but if I'm correct, we have rehearsed 8 songs so far, plus there is this song called "Neverfall" that we're just gonna record without rehearsing. That would make 9 songs total if I'm not an imbecile, which I very often feel like I am, though. Then again, I'm not sure if I've included "The Last Dance" in my countings, so it could be a total of 10! I'm too lazy to go back and read this diary, so let's just say we have anything between 9-10 songs ready for recording at the present. That's a pretty accurate estimate from a musician, anyway.
Oh yeah, the rehearsal, sorry. I wanted to rehearse this beautiful song that's been written by Antti. At the time, it does not have a title but let's be super resourceful and call it "Antti's song". The song is great, very Brazilian influenced. We don't want to do it in a very Brazilian way because, whether we want it or not, we do come from Finland. Therefore, it seems, that it's more natural for us to aim for the Russian way with them sounds. It's more familiar to us, as we've been living with them polar bears and having vodka shots every morning and so on, you know. But this doesn't sound Russian at all (I don't even know why I brought the whole matter up?!), it's quite groovy and makes a perfect couple with "Will I Ever Find Out", as far as the arrangement goes. Ripa plays Würlitzer, which adds a nice flavour to the song, and Kelly has become one hell of a groove master with his beats.
That's really it. It's a happening thang!
One more thing I want to share with you is that after the rehearsal I went and worked in record store for couple of hours. Boy, was that fun! I've wanted to work in a record store for so long, and I pressured my favourite record store owners to have me working for them, even if only for one day. Lucky me, they accepted. It's a great way to listen to records and do something useful at the same time. I listened to Ennio Morricone albums I haven't heard before (I think he's got like 300 albums...), Camel (cool prog-rock), Doris Duke (Grreat soul-singer!), Irma Thomas (amazing 60's stuff!), Lalo Schifrin (a lot of recordings, too), Rory Gallagher (guitar hero to the boot), An italian movie soundtrack to a film I Giovani Tigri (This is what is said about the film: "Here's the soundtrack from the 1968 Italian film known in the U.S. as The Young Tigers. Fast cars, loveless sex, Russian roulette and general rebelliousness drive the teens to the brink of disaster. They look for anything to rebel against and take advantage of every opportunity to show up their well-meaning but vapid parental figures. Starring Helmut Berger. ") and there was something else as well, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway, now you know where the inspiration comes from.
I hope this makes some sense for you - I dunno, and don't really care, as I really like writing this zeebadeeba. So, thanks for reading and apologies, too. Maybe it's time for you to do something useful now, alright?
Got to go, but you will hear from us, soon. Peace&luv. (28.6.2005)
14th rehearsal 29.6.2005
The last rehearsal before the studio. We're all here and we're going to go through all the songs, so they're ready for the recording, plus we're going to rehearse one more song. We've got 8 hours to rehearse, a full working day with lunch breaks and all. Before we get any further with the rehearsal, I do want to tell you that we had indian food for lunch. Indian food is good food.
All the songs are ready for recording, that's one thing that is sure. "Antti's song" sounds as good as yesterday, which is very nice. The new song that we rehearse today is one of the "wedding songs" I wrote a while ago, called "The Perfect Couple". I need to think about our future and once we reach the older age, there's always a chance for us to continue as a wedding band - so, we better have some songs to play. This will happen the day, when we're too old and fat to wear leather pants. It'll be a couple of more years, but it gives me relief that our future is sort of on a solid ground with this new song.
Antti comes up with a cool bass line that reminds us of "Stand by me" and other great 50's & 60's songs. First the song is shuffle but it doesn't really work. We play this song for a while, but something's missing. One of the things that's definitely missing is food from our stomachs, so, off to the indian restaurant we go. After the lunch Kelly changes the drum beat so that it isn't a shuffle, and suddenly, the song works. The song is really pretty and very classic, something that we would never have done when younger. Nowadays, this type of a song isn't exactly teenage music, but 40 years ago it would've been. The times...damn, it's just all getting worse, ain't it?!
We do some rehearsing with the click for the songs that require a click and play the others without, naturally. We rehearse all the songs in the form that we're going to record them, which is Kelly, Antti & I, all together, live. This way we get the reall band feeling, which we've always loved and have tried to preserve on our albums.
For now, we've time to rest and think about all this until Tuesday, when the studio session begins in the good ol' Petrax, in Hollola. (29.6.2005)
THE STUDIO 5-8.7.2005
Tuesday (Day 1)
We've, once again (well it's been over a year since the last time), arrived at the beautiful and great Petrax studio in Hollola. We have four days to record the basic tracks (drums, bass and some guitars) for the songs we've rehearsed. It should be more than plenty of time because we're really prepared for this - more than ever, I think. Antti and Kelly came with the gear on Monday night, this way they can enjoy sauna and relax before the session. Jyrki, Ripa and I arrive on Tuesday because Jyrki and I went to see Lenny Kravitz on Monday at Areena, Helsinki. Lenny was in top form, I must say that I really enjoyed his gig, even though, the new songs off the last 2 albums aren't very good. One could say they're shit, but let's not get that far. Anyway, the gig was great, he's a true rock'n'roll star and the band is great. 10 points and a big slap on the back.
But back to business, we're in the studio with Jyrki Tuovinen, who's going to record and mix the album. We're producing ourselves, which is cool. Jyrki is also the outside ear to tell us whether our takes are really that good...
We begin the day by taking the ping pong table outside to play some ball and enjoy the beautiful, hot day. After we get acclimatized with the country side, we move our sun drench and bug eaten bodies inside for the soundcheck.
It takes us some time to do the soundcheck and we don't begin the actual recording until around 17:00. The first song we do is "Love Disappear" because it just seems to be the one we find the easiest to do. It's very possible that it wil be the opening track on the album - some songs just have that feeling within them. We play the song without click as it's got some nice time changes and the tempo changes give the song character. It's about 4th take that ends up as the final take. It's weird, but this take is so tight and rockin' that it reminds us of Queens Of The Stone Age in some distant way. This, of course, isn't a bad thing!
Next we record "Heart burns" as it's got the same mood with the sounds. We begin the song without the click but notice after several takes that it just doesn't work as well without one. As soon as we begin to play along with the click, it only takes us one or two takes and the song is done. It's tight as hell and rocks well. Kelly fixes some drum fills in the end as there are some very odd fills and beats, but it sure is great! After these two basic tracks are done, we decide to call it a day. We've achieved plenty for the first day.
Wednesday (Day 2)
We wake up around 10:30, some much earlier, but collectively we're awake at this hour. After breakfast, coffee and early morning pétanque, we begin this day's recordings with "Antti's song". It's basically quite easy for us to play, but then again, everything's not as they seem on the first sight. Boy, there are a lot of chords and it takes us some time to remember them all, but in the end, it comes out right. I'm glad we've been playing all these songs as much as we have. After that, we record "A Lonesome Dream" which is suprisingly easy. Not much to say about that: it's gentle at times and it also rocks. Next we go with "Not Like The Rest" but with this one we change the recording set up so that we put all our amps in the same room, so we can play without headphones and get that resonating sound on the drums as the bass and guitar amps pow wow their way in the room. This way you also get some leakage for each instrument which only emphasises the sound of the band playing in the same room, which we are of course doing. The song comes out great, it's fun to play this way. We also record "The Perfect Couple" this way.
While we rehearse the song, we change the snare drum from rimshot to the snare without the wires on. It's a bit more weird and interesting this way. Once we start recording the song, quite surprisingly, we nail it on the first take. After the take, we think it's alright and want to do another one, but Jyrki asks us to come and listen to it because he thinks it's great. He says, if you can say what you'll do better, then go ahead with another take. Once we listen to the playback, we're all amazed how good it sounds - there is magic in the air with this one. We can't come up with anything that would make it better, except for maybe playing it in tune, but this doesn't qualify as a reason for another take. Damn, if we worried about being stricktly in tune, we'd need to do all the songs over again - better yet - we'd be better off if we just sold our instrumentsand went home. Man, playing in tune is so overrated, IMHO.
While we've been playing, Ripa has prepared us an awesome indian meal with tandoor chicken, curry and raita. Good food makes us happy, too. Ripa is a great chef!
A good day it has been. Basic tracks for four songs is a good score for us. We end the day by watching the great Big Lebowski with the boys, while enjoying some red whine and "brusky".
Thursday (Day 3)
We begin the day like winners and at the time of me writing this, it seems we end the day more like weeners. Some of the day seems to go well, a lot if is a bit more work. The day began pretty good with recording of "Will I Ever Find Out". At first we played the song with click track banging into Kellys ears, but it didn't take us many takes to realize that this song needs to be click free. Once we realized that, we nailed it in two takes. It's great. Now, this is where the trouble begins. "Would You Die For Me?", man, we play this song for about four hours and it just doesn't work right. First with click then without click. It's pretty good, but not nearly good enough. The magic is missing. We need magic, where are you? After, what seems to be a very long time, we decide to leave the song for Friday and go on with recording of "New Morning Light" before Kelly runs out to the town and sells his drums. Now, Antti and Kelly play it without me, and it comes out cool and groovy. This song is going to be so multi layered with different guitar sounds that there isn't a good way for me to play along with this wihtout ruining it for the rhythm section. Hell, I'm not sure if we'll be ever able to play this track live, properly. Them boys finish the recording of the track right in time for the Hot Dog dinner Ripa's prepared on grill, outside. After dinner it's time for coffee, cigars and pétangue, which comes to a quick end when the storm suddenly takes hold of our skies and let's the rain fall on us along with heavy pounding of the thunder. We need to turn off all the studio gear and computers while it's thundering. This is just to avoid any major catastrophes a bolt of lighting can do in the countryside. I'm not sure whether it is a good or a bad thing, but we end up watching Trading Spouses on the telly, and boy, is that a weird f***ing show or what?! "Your mommy's gonna go to another home for a week and be a total asshole, as she's at home. Wish me well...". Shiiiiit, give me a break, where the hell do they come up with these ideas?!?! And did somebody actually get paid for this idea?!?
After the thunder and lighting has left the building, and even thought it's quite late at night, we still decide to record I'm Mad (For You). It's a fun song to do because we've decided to record it in very little bits and pieces. On top of demo guitar and click track (the good ol' cowbell), Kelly first plays hi-hat, then cymbal, then some heart beat drum and some crash cymbals. After this we play the ending of the song as a three piece and it's huge, magnificient and beautiful. To finish the day on even a better note, Antti plays the bass on the first half of the song, and we have ourselves finished basic tracks for this song so fast and easy that it's almost scary. Maybe we're not weeners after all...
Next it's sauna after which we watch Coen Brother's Ladykiller. Everyone's seen it only once which isn't nearly enough for any Coen film. They're genius' and have yet to make a bad film, which we hope they'll never achieve.
Friday (Day 4)
The day begins on a mellow note, even though, the milk for coffee has run out. No one's in a rush to record anything, which means that there is an early morning pétanque game going on outside and I'm playing drums inside to get some exercise. Not much exercising here, otherwise. One thing that makes me happy is that we've been behaving like good boys with the evil alcohol; not too much of it, but by no means too little, either. It's all about the balance.
Once we get our act together, we begin the day by listening to "Would You Die For Me?" which actually sounds really good!?! Especially the first take after we threw away the click. This is the strange part of the recording; something might sound like crap in the evening and in the morning it's great. We were planning to record this song from the scratch today but decided against it. We realize that the bass sound isn't the best possible, so Antti takes his cool Burns bass and plays a new bass track, after which the track is perfect. We're all SO happy, and Kelly doesn't have to sell his drums and get a real job!
There's one more song for us to do and then we can begin overdubbing. The last song we do is "The Last Dance" which we haven't rehearsed but once. I've recorded a very primitive demo with click, acoustic guitar and demo vocal. On top of that Kelly plays different beats and drum stuff, and that'll be it for these sessions, as far as drums and bass goes. We're going to finish this one in the studio, later, editing and just having fun with it. No one really knows what's going to come out of it, but we know it's going to be something interesting and beautiful.
As I'm writing this, Kelly is overdubbing percussions for the tracks. We're way ahead of our schedule; we'd been happy if we would have had the songs in a form they were three hours ago when we finish these sessions tonight. But it's sure going to be nice to have the percussions ready as well. Who knows, maybe I'll get to play some more guitars!?! Anyway, we need to end the day early because we all want to see Teenage Fanclub, who are playing at Tavastia tonight. Man, that's going to be great - they're one of the better bands in this planet, and have been for many, many years.
Besides, we need to play some more pétanque before we leave. (11.7.2005)
MORE STUDIO
Wednesday 13.7.2005 (Day 5)
We've come back to Helsinki and survived the TFC gig at Tavastia, but the life immediately after the gig is another story...damn, summer is crazy! Alexia, where are you? Remember, we played at the same ferry once! Alexia...why didn't you join our toga party? Oh yes, she didn't have a yellow toga and wasn't allowed to join us.
Yeah, right, the heat is doing it's thang and I'm running on very low gas right now. Anyway, we're doing overdubs at the legendary Hitsville IV studios, where we've recorded our first album and a lot of other stuff as well.
First of all, I'm really happy that all the computer files open without any hassle. The computer hassle is a new feature in recording music, something that everyone involved with them evil machines will come to learn sooner or later. Luckily, the machinery doesn't want to hold us hostage and we can get to the business right away.
It sure takes a while to get in to the mood of actually recording the album. You need a certain state of mind to do that, and at the time, I'm still in the demo-mode. But it'll pass, eventually. There's no-one else in the studio but the band. Kind of odd without an engineer but I've decided to do the engineering myself. It's the way it's gonna be now, just us. We're old enough to go to bar and drive cars, I'm sure we can handle this, too. And for some reason, i think we can come up with more intimate and interesting things this way.
It's the same old story where I record some guitars first and then we see if anything else fits the songs..ha-haa! Just kidding, there'll be a lot of interesting sounds, besides the guitars, but there are some things I need to do before we can get on with the business.
I think the most interesting thing we get done on this first day is the first half of I'm Mad. It takes a shape really fast after I do my guitars and Antti adds his Fender Rhodes on top it. We're all enjoying the mood of this track, Antti thinks it's like Liekki, Kelly thinks it's Pink Floyd and I think it's just beautiful. Getting there, slowly and steadily.
Thursday 14.7.2005 (Day 6)
The day does not begin on a very good note. I bought new strings for my acoustic guitar, because I was planning to record it today. Well, when I change the strings, the A-strings snaps right before I get it in tune, and I'm left without the string right there. Nice. I also thought I transfer some of the demo recordings (demo vocals, cool guitars sounds etc) to these sessions and last night, at home, I made sure I had all the files on the hard disk. But guess what: in the studio, I found out that I took the wrong hard disk with me this morning. Nice. And as if that wasn't enough, I did bring the video camera with me today, but forgot to bring the tape. Very nice.
After not deciding to go home and just hate everyone and everything, I turn up the amps really loud and play some more of electronic guitars, after which, Antti sits behind the piano and bangs it away for the rest of the day, recording Love Disappear, Heart burns, I'm Mad, Would You Die For Me? and Will I Ever Find Out. Our piano is pretty out of tune, and I really like it. That's the one thing I hate about digital instruments, they're always perfectly in tune! That's insane, nobody's ever perfectly in tune, as far as the human go. It's inhumane to be perfectly in tune. Please, let me give a free piece of advise for ya'll: Don't even try! Needless to say, our piano isn't digital. I guess I don't need to mention that we quite rarely use digital instruments. Then again, sometimes they can be good, but only as a small part of a greater entity. I'm not saying that one should be always, intentionally, out of tune. That's no way of doing business, either. It's all about balance, people, the balance - sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't. Where to get it??? No-one knows.
Anyway, Will I Ever Found Out changed drastically after we came up with a piano part for the song. It's now, basically, a piano song. And it sound sooooo classic! Like Harry Nilsson, or something. To end the day, I play some Brian May like guitars for the song and after that we go home, by bicycles - the greatest way to transfer a human being from place A to place B. God bless them wheels.
Friday 15.7.2005 (Day 7)
More guitars...Yep, it sure is slow, innit? Today I finally get to do them acoustic guitars and some electric ones, as well. I begin the day with Love Disappear, and I must say, that I came up with pretty cool, short "solo" bit to it, which reminds me of some funny classical bit that should be played with a harpsichord, very Beatlesque thing - very cool, that means. Then it's time to do acoustics for Will I Ever Find Out, A Lonesome Dream and Not Like The Rest. Nothing special there, just pretty songs with pretty guitars. Today I'm in the studio alone. That way I get more done because I find it easier to concentrate, when alone. I get more guitars done for New Morning Light, too: I did a cool Leslie-guitar for the middle part of the song to make it more airy and spacey. After that I had to quit around 18 o'clock (eighteenhundredhours) because DKT/MC5 came to rehearse in our studio before their Ilosaari gig. It's cool to meet all these guys, they're legends, super nice and just one of the greatest bands there ever was/is. Long live rock'n'roll!
(19.7.2005)
Monday 18.7.2005 (Day 8)
Today our day begins a bit later because I had my radio show at 9 am on Radio Helsinki. Today's Ripa's day in the studio. He's about to record his first notes for the album, and we're all very excited. Risto's been preparing himself and things go really well.
First up is New Morning Light with two guitar tracks; one of them is really cool, kind of reggae thing, which brings out the groove in the song even more and another one is very reverby, almost clean chord thing. We keep wondering, why it is that everything with rock'n'roll is always so loud? Well, the truth of the matter is that real (read: old) guitar amps just need to be really loud to get the real sound out of them. They don't work quietly. Today we use Fender Vibrolux and Vox AC-30 to get that gritty rock'n'roll sound, and they are both really loud amps - and great sounding, so what the hell.
It's a hot and humid day in our A/C-free studio. We record cool guitar tracks for A Lonesome Dream and Heart burns, and that's it for the guitars & Ripa for the day. After Ripa, I play this really distorted guitar, directly to the line input through RAT-pedal (works always!) to A Lonesome Dream, and Antti plays one lead track with the same sound for "Antti's song". To end the day, I play some finger piano for New Morning Light, which makes it sound even more exotic. After that, it's time to ride them bicycles in to the warm evening of the beautiful, good ol', Helsinki.
Oh, BTW, the coffee's been much better lately!
Wednesday 20.7.2005 (Day 9)
Our summer sure does have it's highlights: the trip to the studio with the bicycle and back home, after the day is done. Recording, of course, is fun but it's definitely something one could do any time of the year. I hope the summer leaves a sunny mark on our otherwise quite melancholic album. That would be good, and is very likely.
We continue work with Ripa, and this time he's about to play some keyboards. It's the first time he does it on our album, usually Antti's done most of the keyboards because he's very fluent with piano, but this time we want Risto to do his parts. There's always a different kind of magic in the playing when one really needs to concentrate to get the parts right. Besides, it's much easier to learn the stuff for the gigs if you've recorded your own parts.
First up is Love disappear. Ripa plays a cool organ to the song, which fits the song perfectly. The sound is good, people are happy and on we go with Not like the rest, which gets the Rhodes treatment. It takes some time to get the tracks right, but the song sounds really cool with the keyboards.
After Ripa has had enough of keyboardism, we continue recording some little things here and there, mainly with guitars. After all, we are a guitar band. Me loves guitar.
Friday 22.7.2005 (Day 10)
More keyboards due to be recorded today. We're feeling very lazy with Ripa, just drinking coffee, eating goodies from bakery and smoking cigars. It takes us about two hours before we record a single note. Once we do, it doesn't go very well. Ripa hasn't had time to rehearse his parts and can't concentrate very well. We try to record the Wurlitzer for Not like the rest, but after a couple of hours we just give up and decide to continue later. It's not always that easy in the studio, which I believe, is only a good thing.
Ripa goes home and we continue recording some guitars for Antti's song, which still has no name - or lyrics, as a matter of fact. One day... Anyway, I record new guitars for the choruses, because the live version isn't good enough on that part of the song. I play my faithfull Fender Jazzmaster and some beautiful Rickenbacker 12-string that I also added to New morning light, as I wanted to re-record on guitar track, I felt, didn't have a good enough sound and vibe on the first recorded version. Sometimes you need to record things twice (or more) to get them right. Antti want's to try wah-wah guitar on his song, but it just doesn't sound right. Before we give up, we somehow come up with the idea of me playing a one take guitar solo with the wah-pedal and then we reverse it. If it works, great, if not, no harm done. Well, guess what: it works perfectly! Antti plays another track, we reverse that, too, and the ending of the song has been taken to another level. Boy, this is the most fun part of the recording; experimenting and coming up with stuff you never thought could work.
Sort of like buying cds, but not listening to them before you buy them. Today I went to do just that and came home with Wes Montegomery's "Tequila", Quincy Jones' "Quintessence", Julie London's "Best Of" and Gert Wilden & Orchestra's "Schulmädchen" (cool soundtrack music for german erotic films from 1968-72, I strongly recommend this to everybody!).
Maybe I'll list some of the records I buy/listen during the making of this album and then you can later find out, whether or not any of them were influental in the making of this album. Besides, it's fun to list albums and music. (25.7.2005)
Wednesday 27.7.2005 (Day 11)
Man, is it only 11 days that we've been recording this album?! It sure feels like we'd been working on it longer. Well, it doesn't really matter because we basically have non-limited studiotime. Maybe on 27.7.2007 I still continue this diary and wonder "has it really been 378 days in the studio?!", and the completition of the album is nowhere near.
Worry you need not! It's going well and things are progressing nicely. Today I'm in the studio alone working on some guitar tracks that I need to finish. I've only recorded one Rickenbacker+vox guitar on "Would you die for me?" and it needs a lot more. This is a cool track because it just keeps building and building: it begins with quite out of tune Landola, nylon acoustic with my small Backpacker guitar which both sound very small and crappy. After the first chorus the song transfers into this big pop song with big guitars and space. The middle eight will be something else too, this is going to be a very cool song. Anyway, I do some Rickenbacker 12-string, two tracks of acoustics and play some wild and groovy electrics to the middle eight of the song. I love recording guitars and multitracking them, they just sound so grand. I can go on for hours and hours doing that, forget to eat and drink until I notice my bodily functions slowly diminishing until, finally, remember to nourish myself. I did record other guitars as well, but I can't remember what it was. The days and tracks just get mixed up in my head. Boy, how I wish those would be the only things getting mixed up in my head. Oh yes, now I remember; I did another electric guitar for Love Disappear's chorus to make it a bit more punchier. Interesting...
Thursday 28.7.2005 (Day 12)
Kelly and Antti are in the studio with me today. We decide to do something cool with some cool instruments. We have no plan whatsoever, but that's one of the beautiful things in the ways of our workings this time. We had to postpone our agreed time of the arrival as I needed to sleep a little longer. Sometimes it's just better to sleep that extra hour than to struggle through the day tired, lost & lonely in your hazy sleepless world. I've tried that a lot and it's never been even a little bit funny.
So what do we do today? Kelly does some percussions, we experiment with some ideas that don't work, I drink coffee more than I should and Antti brightens up our day with his intellect, while Ripa is enjoying summer on the countryside. A regular day at the office. I think we got something done, but I'm not sure.
Come to think of it, I remember recording this very beautiful guitar space for the ending of the I'm mad. It's massive, and this proves that I'm not lost-cause-fruit-cake with my memory.
Friday 29.7.2005 (Day 13)
Today all the boys are very late, they've been to Jonna Tervomaa's gig last night, and we all know how those things end. I went to see Ville Härkönen and Ville Leinonen do cover versions of classic finnish songs (former) and Juha Matti (latter). It was an exellent evening, these two guys are so talented and good.
As soon as the coffee's done, I begin the day by recording a slide guitar solo for Would you die's middle eight part. If you don't know what this means, it's the part that comes after the second chorus. It's been troubleing me a little as I haven't written the lyrics for the melody and I've been thinking that the song is now so complete lyrically that I wouldn't want to ruin it with any useless extra angle on the story. Besides, I think we need more instrumental parts in our music, therefore, I decided that I wouldn't sing the melody, instead I did the melody with slide guitar and once Kelly and Antti had shaken the last night off their shoulders, we recorded some very cool gregorian-like choir to double the melody. On top of that Antti doubled the melody with mono/poly synth, to make it a bit more strange and interesting.
Earlier, before Kelly woke up, we turned Antti into a woman and made him sing these high "aaa"-harmonies that sound like a female singing. Then we did some tricks with his voice and added this "aaa" that sounds like a cursed baby singing her first notes at the gates of hell. Very pretty, indeed. This song is turning into something very strange, and we all love it!
All these days we've been working from 10 to 18 which sure is nice. Sort of a work day and then get on with the life and do something else. A lot of the time one tends to stretch the studio days very, very long and that's not such a great thing. My personal record is 19 hours. That'd be alright once, but when the next day is 17 hours long and the day after is 18 etc, that's when the shit hits the fan, as you can all imagine. I've never been the one to praise sleeplesness for it's positive impact on creativity.
BTW, I'm listening to Sufjan Stevens' Come on feel the Illinois. It sounds very interesting! After hearing it once, I can recommend it to any fan of quality pop-music. World Leader Pretend is also a very promising new band.
Anyways, we spend most of the day just messing with Would you die. It's so fun to have the time to actually listen to what you're recording and at the same time, experiment with things. Before we leave the studio, we decide to try if we could fit this very old and nice sounding Hohner stringmachine on anything. After the last hour of our work day has gone, we've added it on Antti's song and Love disappear. It's a good way to end the week. Next, we have about a week off and after that someone should get his shit together and begin to sing these songs. I wonder where, or who, he is?!?! Call me if you know. (30.7.2005)
Random recordings pt. 1
This is something that cannot be counted as full working days, therefore, let's call these random recordings and see how many parts we'll come up with before the album is finished. Maybe in the year 2006 the total count will be 157 days and 98 parts of random recordings. That's something to ponder for the ones paying the bills.
It's hard to keep my hands out of the recordings because it's so easy for me to open the computer at home and do little things here and there for the sessions. I've tried some very bad ideas plus recorded a couple of good guitar tracks. For The Perfect Couple I recorded a pretty cool phaser guitar for the chorus that might be necessary to re-record with a better sound, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe we just double the sound with something nice and see what it all adds up to. For Love Disappear I recorded this (very remotely) Jimi Hendixque guitar bending at the end of the bridge that no one will probably hear off from the final mix but it'll make me very happy to have it buried in there somewhere. All the best stuff is always buried somewhere deep in the mix where only the person who played it can hear it. That's all there really is to make a proper recording; just record a lot of stuff and bury it all somewhere. It really isn't more complicated than that.
There is, however, one majorly overly cool thing we did manage to do at home: we got the Posies' Jon Auer to sing some backing vocals for Will I Ever Find Out and Would You Die For Me? You all must know, how much we love the work of The Posies, so, this was a super nice thing for Jon to do. They happened to have a day off in Helsinki and what better way to spend your days off than to work, eh?! Jon's voice is so beautiful that it makes me j.e.a.l.o.u.s. and, also, encourages me to work harder to maybe learn how to sing, one day.
Jon, Ken, Darius, Matt, Matt and Joe, we salute you! Thanks for the good times and welcome back!
We need to put the recordings on hold for a little while as we have our 10th anniversary gig coming up at the end of the month. This only, because we really need to practice - it's been almost a year since the last gig. Hell, I needed to learn some the songs from the records, you just can't remember them all. Let's all hope, we remember at least some of them on Aug. 26. See you soon! (10.8.2005)
Random recordings pt. 2
Alright, it's been a while. There are two reasons: 1) we haven't been to the studio much, 2) my right hand isn't in a very good shape due to too much guitar playing and messing around with the computer. I shouldn't be doing this writing business, you see. So, I do have to be brief and catch up with the details later, but I really wanted to let you know that the party's picking up again. My right arm doesn't agree with me but let's see how long it'll hang along with me here.
There have been some random recordings that I don't really remember. A guitar here and another there, Ripa recording a Hammond organ at home - that sort of stuff, nothing much. We had a bit of a break as we really needed to rehearse for our 10th anniversary gig and I've been busy playing with Emmi and producing Egotrippi. Today is 1.11.2005, it's about 0:30 am and I'm just home from the studio, but more about that later.
This is what we've been up to:
Saturday 6.8.2005 (Day 14)
I don't quite remember what we did but I think Antti and I were in the studio. We recorded this theme guitar to Would U Die 4 Me which took a while as we messed around with pump organ and synths that really sounded like shit, before we came up with what you're going to hear on the album. We also re-worked the phaser guitars, I recorded at home for Perfect Couple, with a Rhodes coming through some guitar pedals. The sound is sort of like Led Zeppelin did on Houses Of The Holy but then again not.
We finished the day by Antti doing some vibraphone for A Lonesome Dream. It's such a wonderful instrument that we just had to put it somewhere.
Friday 12.8.2005 (Day 15)
To be honest with you, any of the things I said we did on 6.8. might have happened this Friday. I have absolutely no clue... Anyway, in my calendar it says, we were in the studio that day. I'm sure we were.
Come to think of it, we might have tried to sing but there were some sort of technical problems and we just couldn't do it. More to the point, I think the technical problem was actually me.
I'd like to think that I played some guitar, where for the briefest of moment, I sounded like Hendrix, but in truth it's such a short moment that they still don't know how to measure it. One day.
Wednesday 28.9.2005 (Day 15 1/2)
This day we sang Love Disappear. It needed to be done, because the mixing of the song is 3.10.2005. BTW, we were in the studio for only 4 hours - is it a full day?
Thursday 29.9.2005 (Day 16)
With this one, we can say we're on the day 16. Another 4 hours in the studio and we're in to sing Would u die, cause it's due to be mixed on 4.10.2005. It goes pretty well. I'm teaching Antti how to use Pro Tools and produce vocals - he's a natural talent at it.
Monday 3.10.2005 (Day 17)
We're in the good ol' Petrax to mix two songs for the album. You gotta start somewhere and as these songs aren't going to have strings in them, we mix them first. Our string session is booked for 24-25.10.
As far as the mixing goes, there's not much to tell - other than that the weather is still amazingly good and we get to play petanque while Jyrki (Tuovinen) is mixing Love Disappear, inside. It all goes well, the sound is huge and the toms sound like f**king cannons, but we leave it to the morning to finish things up. Just to make sure everything is alright.
One (now funny) thing: Ripa hasn't had the time to come to the studio and record his guitar solo for Would u die 4 me, so, he needs to do it today. Earlier, he did a solo at home that I didn't think was right for the song, even though, it was a good solo, but I wanted something more intense for this song. It takes some brewsky and rockin' + rollin' before the final form for the solo comes to us. But, boy, it sure did arrive.
Tuesday 4.10.2005 (Day 18)
Ripa needed to finish the solo in the morning as yesterday's "inspiration" got a bit overwhelming. It's finished, it's great, it's another classic Ripa Eskolin solo for all you guitar solo freaks!
We're done with the mixing of Love Disappear at about 14 (that's two o'clock) and Jyrki begins with Would u die 4 me. Only now we realise that this song is quite massive; it has 70 tracks in it. It's the most we've ever managed to record for a single song - and it doesn't even have strings!!! At about 22 (that's ten o'clock) I need to cancel Creamstar's mixing that was planned for the next day, as we need another day to finish this mammoth. I've been producing Creamers as well. Don't ask me how I manage to do all that. You'll only get me mumbling something about me being crazy and having no life and and and and...
Wednesday 5.10.2005 (Day 19)
Just to let you know, there never is 70 tracks playing at once on Would you die for me. It's just that this song has like 5 very differently arranged parts in it, and it takes a lot of time to just open these tracks. I like the thought that someone will listen to the song and think it's just an average pop song with nothing special in it, and have no clue how hard we've worked on it. The thought makes me very, very happy.
We finish the mix around 22, right in time to catch the last bus from Lahti to Helsinki. The mix is absolutely brilliant!!! Jyrki is da man. And I'm happy to be at home. I don't get to spend much time in there.
Random recordings pt. ? 17.10.2005
We're planning to record more lead vocals, this time in Ripa's studio, which is really nice. Only, we run into problems, as his studio has Logic in there and our sessions are Pro Tools (this is computer stuff that you don't really need to know anything about). I knew this but just didn't think (who has time to think these days, anyway?!) and I had not prepared the sessions so that we could work on them.
Well, we drink coffee, chat with Antti and Ripa for 3 hours and head to the ever excellent Mare Chiaro for a lunch. You could call it a working day, eh?!
Monday & Tuesday 24-25.10.2005 (Days 20 & 21)
The dates just keep on adding up! We're in our twenties, already. That's a year older than what my mental age is, according to this website. They know the truth, don't they? If you ask me, I feel like I'm still 19. Some say I still look like I'm 19... yeah, when I'm swimming and my head is under the water. It's very kind of them, though. Cheers, friends!
It's the big day as we're in to record the strings. The genius, Pekka Kuusisto, suggested us that he'd be into doing the strings for this album, and how could we resist. He's decided that he's going to record all the strings on his own, just him playing everything. It sounded so interesting, and after we heard what he has got in his mind, we all understood why he wanted to go that way. We're in the HIP studio and Juha Heininen is engineering, which is nice, 'cause Juha is a super nice guy, and a great engineer.
I don't think I've ever witnessed such musical talent as Pekka's. He's beyond anything that I can comprehend. It was the greatest to just sit in the studio and listen to what he is playing - and see him do that for two days. I can't explain, I won't even try - but just watching him made me a better musician. Live and learn, god bless Pekka and his incredible talent, AND his great will to share it with everyone.
Before I go, I'll tell you the songs that got Pekka's treatment: Will I ever Find Out (insane string arrangement!!!!), Not like the rest (beautiful), The Perfect Couple (beautiful), Antti's song (eeerrrmmm...beautiful, sorry, just can't find any other word to describe the feeling), A Lonesome Dream (intense), Love Disappear (yes, we decided to record some strings to this, also. We just add them on top of the mix), I'm Mad (great electric space violin and regular, beautiful, strings) and Heart burns (this is also quite something...the whole song - just wait).
Monday 31.10.2005 (Day 22)
Finally, we're in the studio to finish the recordings of these songs. Our plan is to record all the vocals and all that was left to do after the strings. There's still a lot of stuff, but nothing that we can't cope with. We have a couple of weeks to finish everything. I think we have about 7 days booked in the studio to do what's left to do. Let's see, if it's enough. Anyway, it's lead vocal time and I sang both, I'm mad and Will I ever find out , today. It took a while to get going but it worked out just fine.
We'll continue tomorrow and I have to quit writing and let my wrist rest now. It's screaming like a mother f**ker at me. Peace. (1.11.2005)
Tuesday 1.11.2005 (Day 22 1/2)
Another 4 hour day, so let's just count it as a half a day, to get the most accurate day count for the finals. I'm in the studio alone, playing a little guitar. I can't tell you, how much I enjoy playing that good ol' guitar! Never do get tired of it. During the four hours I only need to get two things done: 1) the solo for Not like the rest 2) "mountain top" guitar chords for the chorus' of Will I ever find out.
First hour of the morning (today it's 10-11) is well spent chatting and drinking coffee with Tuure (our buddy), who's also in the studio building. At around 11 I set up this old Gibson amp, turn it up to 10 (Sorry, Nigel, this doesn't go to 11) and play the solo with my beloved Guild X-170. I play about 20 takes of the solo - just because it's so much fun. I end up with two good ones, with not too much editing, and decide to give it to the boys to decide which one is better. The other one is a bit wilder but doesn't necessarily fit the song that well - but it does make me laugh - the other is more for the song. I'm quite positive that the latter, the more melodic one, will be the take ya'll hear on the record.
For the other song I set up a Fender amp and play BIG chords with Fender Telecaster through some reverb and delay. "Look mom, I'm on top of a mountain!". These chords tie the strings and the other guitar+bass together beautifully in the arrangement. It's darn big, the chorus - and the song, of course. Except for some backing vocals, this song is finished and ready for the mixing. It turned out even better than I hoped for!
Wednesday 2.11.2005 (Day 23 1/2)
I should sing, but I feel lazy. Long coffee session and not so early wake up call sure helps matters within my body, but doesn't make the songs much better. For the first hour, I just listen to the songs and fool around, getting nothing done. Antti comes at around midday and we begin to see what we could do for I'm mad's beginning. I want it to have some sort of an intro/theme. We edit some of Pekka's Sigur Ros sound-a-like electric violin to the beginning and experiment with some other stuff for about an hour. What we come up with, in the end, is quite beautiful; very moody, spacy and floaty. This song is also finished apart from some backing vocals.
Oh yes, Antti really likes the wilder solo for Not like the rest but once Kelly comes in, we all agree that the other one is better for the song. And do not worry, it's not THAT wild - no harm done by throwing it to the bin.
At around 15 I finally get myself together for singing. While I warm up, Antti listens to the lead vocals of I'm mad to find out which takes are good and which ones aren't. This'll help the editing of the final vocal track and save me some time. The final vocal track is often a combination of many takes. The way we do it is that I sing the whole song about 20-30 times and then we just find the best bits and edit the whole thing together to fool everyone that I can actually sing.
Today I sing New morning light and The perfect couple. They go pretty well, so I decide to try and sing Not like the rest, too. It sounds pretty good, but not good enough. I tried about 10 takes of it, but decided to do it another day as my voice is getting tired and this time that sound isn't the best thing for the song.
It's about 2330 once I get to go home. Can't wait to crash on my couch and read the new Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies. I'm half way through it and it's excellent. I haven't read a single bad Auster book. Hope you've been reading, too. If you want to read more Auster, I recommend Leviathan and Oracle Night. Two superbly written books and great stories. Auster's writing and language is just so beautiful - my favourite writer as of now. Until later! (3.11.2005)
Friday 4.11.2005 (Day 24 1/2)
My right arm is still in disagreement with me, and especially, me writing. But for the sake of rock'n'roll, there are sacrifices to be made - and writing a diary certainly is one of the best reasons to do so.
For some odd reason I, actually, had a day off yesterday. They come to me in such rare measure that I hardly know what it means, anymore. One thing that I know, it means when I have a day off, I NEED to do something. It's insane. So what did I do: I read Paul Auster (surprise!), cleaned a very tiny bit of my apartment (my conscience liked this one), opened my phone at 14 (2 o'clock that is, and I mention this so that you remember to turn off your phones for the night and whenever you don't want to talk, it's the right thing to do), had a great Thai lunch at my favourite restaurant, went shopping cds (another surprise) and went to the movies to see Crash (a very good film) - and to finish the night off, I had a few drinks with friends of mine, Kelly being one of them. And why did I mention all this? Just to let you know that it seemed to be a good thing to finish the day off with a little too late night because singing in the morning seemed much easier and I got 3 songs done quite easily. If I hadn't had my day off and done those things, I wouldn't have gone to finish the day off at the bar. It's one of those one-thing-led-to-another and "boy, did we get lucky, or what?!" things, even though, it didn't seem like much as it is. Anyway, my somewhat strained and tired voice worked wonders on Not like the rest, The Perfect Couple and Heart Burns. We didn't need 20-30 takes this time, we hardly needed 10 to get everything right. Man, that was a relief and it was fun as well. Singing the songs is often a lot of work, you see.
Before we left the studio, Antti had time to play Würlitzer for his song. It turned out to be a bit trickier than we thought, at first, because of the sensitive touch of the keyboard but it worked out fine, in the end. Got a bit more of that 70's groove happenin'. We also decided that the song needs a trumpet in it, and while we're add it, it seems we might be putting it on The perfect couple, as well.
One more thing, if you need recommendations on new good music, check these out: Fiona Apple "Extraordinary Machine" (her best, yet), Kate Bush "Aerial" (sooooo relaxing), Bruce Cockburn "Speechless" (great instrumental record with a lot of acoustic guitars and good songs) and Merry-Go-Round "Listen, Listen: The Definitive Collection" (Emitt Rhodes' first band in the late 60's, first time on cd, excellent!!!). And, I've also enjoyed Nada Surf's "Weigh Is A Gift", a lot. Great powerpop! Go buy the music, anything, support you're local musicians - these are hard times for many.
If I remember correctly, I promised to tell you what I've been listening during the making of the record, so it's easier for you all to find out where we've been stealing stuff from. Here's a small list: A lot of Vampisoul records, plenty of Josh Rouse, Death Cab For Cutie "Plans", Atlantic Rhythm & Soul 1947-1974 (8 cd box), old Italian soundtracks, John Barry, Neil Young "Prairie Wind", Van Dyke Parks "Discover America", Calexico & Iron And Wine "In The Reins", Devendra Banhart "Cripple Crow", Mew "And The Glass Handed Kites", and maybe the most, Jon Auer "Songs From The year Of Our Demise".
Thanks for reading, it sure felt good to list things. Lists rule! And I'm such a nerd.
Mo' power to you all! Peace. (9.11.2005)
Wednesday & Thursday 9-10.11.2005 (Days 25 1/2 and 26 1/2)
Man, I'm losing count on what and when we've done. I've been slow with the diary due to my messed up hand (that is now somewhat better, but far from ok), but I do try to recollect my memories as clearly as possible.
One thing that's for sure is that we've been singing. I think I sang A Lonesome Dream, but what else is there left? I'm mad...eerrmmm...I guess it doesn't really matter, as there's nothing interesting about singing the songs - it's downright boring to tell anything about it, really. A LOT OF repetition, that's all it is. Antti and Kelly sang very cool harmonies on most of the songs, and that as well can take quite a lot of time, while creating a zero interesting anecdotes. All I can say is that we're on our ELO/Jellyfish mood, which we all find a nice change compared to our previous 2 albums. We all love vocal harmonies, so why not sing them a little more than necessary. Excess, that's what we're after, anyway.
Man, you know what, I'm trying very hard to think what else it is we did during these days, but I can't put myself back into that studio and remember what, actually, happened. This must be a sign that I've been working too much... way too much. I must confess that I'm insanely happy about the fact that we, finally, finished the recordings for the Egotrippi album that I produced. It took a lot of energy from me and sort of sucked my memory dry as a bonus. There was a morning, I remember waking up from my sleep and not knowing where I live, and not remembering it for some time. Swell.
Well, I do remember that we decided that some things should be left to Hollola to be recorded, during the time we're mixing our album. There's plenty of time for us to finish the songs in the studio, while Jyrki is mixing in the control room.
Wednesday 16.11.2005 (Day 27 1/2)
It's kind of funny how I keep draggin that half a day with me, but I do want to get the facts right. I'm just that way. This is the last official day of recordings and Ripa comes to the studio to record the solo for A Lonesome Dream. There's this very cool, sort of Russian melody that I want the solo to have, but I want Ripa to play it, and luckily, he has time to do it. After that Mikko Karjalainen, a trumpet player extraordinaire, comes to play his horn for several songs. We know that we want him to play a solo for The Perfect Couple and a melody line for Antti's song, which now has a title too, Guardian Maria (What's Good In Loneliness), quite self explanatory, eh. Mikko is such a great player and his solo for PC is absolutely wonderful. We can hear some Miles in there, and that makes me a very, very happy boy. After he's done what we thought was a must, he ends up doing a couple of things for Heart burns and some weird stuff for New Morning Light's middle part.
Excellent.
That's it for the day as I've been invited to see the preview of the new movie about Johnny Cash, Walk the line, and it's something I don't want to miss. I'm going to Jackson.
Random recordings pt.3 (Day 28)
At home, I listen to the songs we've done and feel strongly that the vocals on Not like the rest are still not good enough. They're technically fine (well not fine but as fine as they can be, when I'm the one doing the "singing"), but the feeling just isn't right. The mood needs to meet the storyline. Maybe this has something to do with me seeing Antony & The Johnsons live last night. I'm pretty sure it was the best gig I've ever seen. It was so divine, peaceful, powerful and generally great, that I simply can't put any words, worthy of their presetation, to it. I cried for the most of the set and drank myself numb after the gig to have the strength to get out of the club and meet all the people. A life changing experience. Thank you Antony!
I sing the song again in my bedroom, it gets better, but I still feel it's not quite there. Well see, but the good thing is that now I can take the 1/2 off from behind the studio day count.
Monday 28.11.2005 (Day 29)
We're in Petrax studio to mix the songs. The Plan is to have 5 songs mixed during the course of the week. Jyrki is mixing the tracks while we're taking it easy, mainly by watching DVD's: Wattstax (cool documentary about a concert that took place in L.A. in 1972 with Stax artists), some Festival Express (a wonderful doc about the crazy hipppie fest that took place on a train, in Canadian ground with all my fav bands, such as The Grateful Dead, The Band, Janis Joplin etc.) and we also watched an awesome documentary, Another State Of Mind (about early 80's punk scene in U.S.). All that and sauna makes us very drowsy and we hit the sack before we have time to say "good night". Jyrki's been mixing Will I Ever Find out, but it's far from finished after the first day of mixing, it's such an epic song - surprise. Excess, wait til you hear this one! It's going to be one of the best things on the album, you can quote me on that!
Tuesday 29.11.2005 (Day 30)
We continue to mix Will I... and whilst doing that, we read, listen to music and just take it easy. We can't get ourselves to continue our recordings, too much work.
Ripa and Kelly's girlfriend come to the studio around four o'clock and we decide to watch Kubrik's Dr. Strangelove. It's an insanely weird and funny movie. I think, I've never seen it before, although I thought that I had - so many things to do and see, and so little time to do it all. That's why I like to believe in the incarnation of the souls, I just hate the idea of missing on so many things cause our average 70 something years of life isn't nearly enough to experience all that I long to. There's so much I like to do and see.
Anyway, we finish the mix at around six thirty and continue the work with A Lonesome Dream. While Jyrki does all the work, we go dowstairs to watch the new Queen DVD that comes along with the 30th anniversary of A Night At Opera album. What a great band!!! It also seems like, we're not going to get our act together for any recordings today, either. I don't care, cause I can really use these lazy days. We finish the day with Big Lebowski, and call it a day. It's still probably the funniest movie ever made.
Wednesday 30.11.2005 (Day 31)
Now, this was a strange day. Everything started on a good note. Snow was falling from the sky and the nature was as beautiful as it gets, the song sounded great and we were about to get it done at around three o'clock when someone, somewhere decided, that we really needed a l.o.n.g. break. See, we're in the countryside, where power shortages are a common practice, not THAT common, but more so than in the cities. At around 1530 we get the first short power failure. We really think nothing of it, but in ten minutes we get another one, and that takes some time - 11 hours!!! The electricity comes back for some minutes time and again, but there is no way we can continue work. Slowly we all head down to downstairs and think that what if, we're the last survivors of some weird catastrophe and Helsinki is no more. It's a funny thought and we decide to celebrate the last day of the earth. A mild version of it of course, no orgies or nothing, so mind your wildest thoughts. But we do need to decide who is the one that gets eaten at first if we run out of food. As we're men and not that smart, we of course think that the only woman needs to be eaten first, because we all agree that the female meat must be better tasting than men's. Of course, it doesn't take long for us to realise that if we're the only survivors on this planet, we might need the woman for continuation of our breed. Therefore, we decide to have Antti eaten first, as he's not gone to the army. Military skills might be handy in a situation like this.
On a more acute matter, we're lucky to have 3 iPods with some power left in them, a battery run speaker system and a PC with full battery. This means we can listen to music all night and watch one film. So what is the last movie we're ever going to watch?! If we hadn't seen Big Lebowski the night before, it would've been that - of course - but we decide to watch Fargo, as it has the same kind of snowy set up that we're stuck in and it's just a great film.
As a necessary way of nerve control in this crisis situation, we also decide to drink all the booze that's in the house. It's a traditional Finnish way of surviving crisis. And what the hell, it sure helped us get through the situation. Then there's sauna in the candle light and a lot of laughing by the candle light. Once the light come back on, we turn them off, because it's so cozy in the dark.
I think Geroge W. Bush should take a lesson from us in how to deal with the crisis!
Thursday 1.12.2005 (Day 32)
The problem in solving crisis with the booze, is THE NEXT DAY. I'm sure this requires no deeper analysis, as most you know what it is that I'm trying to say. So, when we finally get our lazy ass' out of the bed and get our act together for some recordings, we begin to think, how many days it is that each of us has spent, during their lifetime, hung-over, unable to do anything but feel the pain of the whole wide world on one's shoulders. Just being a useless miserable fuck. The total count is something that not a single one of us wants to think too hard - it's such a depressing thought. What a waste. Even if you count out the good hung-over days - when American action films make you laugh, popcorn is better than ever and the whole world seems like an alright place to throw your deeper inner self onto - the count must be more than most of us have money on our bank accounts. But sometimes, sometimes it all just makes sense - and that's why we never learn.
But we must get on with recordings and manage to record new backing vocals for a song titled Neverfall, which is an old song of mine that we're going to put on this album. It's basically a demo I've recorded at home that everyone really likes. All we do is re-record all the harmony vocals by our boys' voices, I'll re-record one guitar (later) and that's really it. It's quite beautiful. We played this song once, acoustically, at Semifinal in 1997, but the arrangement and the lyrics weren't quite right, until Elliott Smith passed away and I re-wrote and arranged the song to pay my respects to him. He was the most talented guy of my generation, there's no doubt about that. Love&respect.
I should sing the lead vocals for Maria and Not like the rest but can't get the energy level up even to think about singing. That's just the way life goes. Add one up to the list of my wasted days count. Cheers.
Meanwhile, Jyrki's been mixing A Lonesome Dream, which is turning out to be a major song. Everything has gone really slow due to some more powerfailures during the day, but before the day is over, we begin to mix I'm Mad. And I go downstairs to watch Midnight Cowboy from DVD.
Friday 2.12.2005 (Day 33)
Kelly and Antti left last night, because they have a gig with Anssi Kela on Friday. Ripa's been fixing his car and he's off the building by the afternoon. Now, it's just Jyrki and I in this big ol' house, until my brother and brother-in-law comes to enjoy sauna and our (absent) company for the evening. Before they arrive, I had time to sing Not like the rest, and this time I got it down right. Man, it sure was a lot of work finding the right mood for this one. I also played a new acoustic guitar for Neverfall.
Man, I'm a shitty host.
I ask friends to come over and all night goes in getting everything right with I'm mad. There's so much going on in that song, that it takes quite a long time to get the balance right. There's a lot of tweaking to do and killing your darlings, but it turns out beautiful and huge. All in one. Like a good hair product!
After the mix is done, at around 1 a.m. our guests are asleep and I still need to sing the lead vocals for Guardian Maria. I'm about to go insane, as the melody is such that you can't sing if you'd like to breath once in a while. I've written too many lyrics and have to make small changes to the melody to have some time to breathe. I'm so very tired that it's not easy. But, I've decided to get this done, and after about an hour and a half's work, it's done. Lucky me.
Monday 5.12.2005 (Day 34)
I'm getting really fried with studio work. We're back in Hollola to mix New Morning Light and Heart burns. While mixing we still need to record some backing vocals for Maria and Perfect Couple. This just seems to go on. And on. And on. Well, guess what, after some serious and efficient work, we get everything done, it's all good and I never ever want to see a computer again in my life. I hate recording, and watching those little sausages on the screen makes my brain go numb. Well, it's been numb for some time, so that few sausages here and there don't make much of a difference anymore. What was my name again?!?! That's it though, no more recordings - apart from one backing vocal later on, that none of us is going to do. We're so lucky to have some friends.
Meanwhile, Jyrki's done an excellent job with New Morning Light. Grand!
Tuesday 6.12.2005 (Day 35)
It's our indipendence day. Everyone else has a day off and has been celebrating yesterday. Not us. It's just work, work, work. Days on end. Luckily there are no more recordings for us. That'd kill me. Today we mix Heart burns, the last of the big, excessive, songs on the album. It's insane. I'm insane. Ground control to major Tom: "Take a vacation, take a vacation!!!".
Yeah, come and get me.
We're going to continue the Lemo mixings in Helsinki the next week. One might think that now we all go home, but wrong. Jyrki and I stay in Hollola for the next three days to record the next album for Nieminen & Litmanen, the famous organ and drums band signed to our Grandpop Records. I know it's going to be fun, but I doesn't take away the fact that we're all getting very tired.
Tuesday 13.12.2005 (Day 36)
Back in the studio. This time in Helsinki, at Fried Music studio. It sure was nice not to have to leave home this time. I love Hollola, but I've been there for three weeks in a row (about 2 months this year!) and sometimes it's just so nice not to have to leave. For the first time, this year, the bubble that's only been filling in my head, is being emptied slowly, very slowly, but the direction is right this time. It sure feels good. Sunday I spent some merry times at the grocery store buying food to fill my fridge, knowing that this time they won't be left alone to die in that dark and cold, white box of mine.
It's quite a busy day for me: first I go to Finnvox where we're mixing one Egotrippi song, Jyrki is mixing Maria in Fried Music and somewhere in between I do the radio show with Jonna. Someone get me a calendar that allows just one note/day!!! Please.
We've saved all the easier songs for the last. It's nice change not to have these massive spectacles in the mixing desk. Maria sounds quite 70's, not much reverb and a nice groove. The vocals remind me of some Edu Lobo stuff. It's very beautiful. This is going to be the last song on the album's tracklisting, what a great way to finish the album!!! A great song. And I'm very happy with the lyrics: don't get too friendly with your good buddy loneliness. Ok?
Few days to go and the album should be finished by the end of the week. Now, THERE'S a good reason to celebrate and add another day to the wasted days of my life count. But not yet, not yet. (14.12.2005)
Wednesday 14.12.2005 (Day 37)
Today we give The Perfect Couple the Jyrki Tuovinen treatment. Not much to report as this is so simple, with only a few instruments in it and a very straighforward arrangement. The song's very beautiful, can't help it, but something about this one is very special for me. It's the unexplainable.
After the song is mixed we have time to mix the intro, which is just Pekka with strings and him whistling. We also make the strings fit the mix of Love Disappear as we'd already mixed the song before we recorded the strings for it.
Before I go home, I want to open the session for the next song (Neverfall) for Jyrki, so he doesn't have to wonder about in the morning. Well, glad I did, as it turns out that the newly recorded acoustic guitar files are missing. This leads to a late night call to Petrax and have Petri see, if the files are there. Luckily they are, and by the morning we have them on a server to be downloaded for the session here in Helsinki. This whole computer stuff is so amazing at times. Sometimes, though, I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing.
Thursday 15.12.2005 (Day 38)
This morning, for me, began with an interview at The Voice tv. It was so very quick that I have no idea what it was that I said in it. Probably something very, very smart. The good thing was that I had sparkling wine for the breakfast!
Before I go to the studio, I have time to go and test my new amp that I just bought: Vox AC-10, from 1965. It's such a beauty. Great sounding amp, and doesn't make half the noise that AC-30 makes, so this is something I might use live. This remains to be seen. Like I've said before: New toys make happy boys.
Neverfall is on the mixing desk. We don't think the new guitars sound as good as the old ones, so we just go with the ones that were there in the beginning. Something about them is more peaceful and swinging than with the new ones. Live&learn. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to make this one work as it is just a simple acoustic song with some vocals on top of the cake. Very Elliott Smith - on purpose. (19.12.2005)
Friday 16.12.2005 (Day 39)
Somethings are hard to understand. You know, one might do something really really stupid, something one would never imagine of being capable of doing, but does it anyway. It takes a while to understand that "did I really do this, just?!?". Or like when you graduate from the school after years and years of studies, it takes a while to digest before it sinks to your mind what, really, just happened. Stuff like that. There are about a milion things that makes us go "?". Well, finishing an album is like that. It's quite hard to understand that "is this really it?!". "Are you sure?". "It can't be!". Things like that, I could go on and on - but I won't.
Today is the day that our album is going to be finished. We have one more mix to go and that's it! That's it! Did you hear, THAT'S IT!!!
The last of the songs to be mixed is Not like the rest. The reason for this being the last of the mixes is simple: it's not finished, yet. Jonna Tervomaa has promised to sing backing vocals for it and today was the day that we could get it done. Since the day I wrote this one, I thought that Jonna should sing on this one - and boy, were we lucky that she liked the song and agreed to do it.
It's not very difficult for her to sing, but I record quite a many takes as it's just fun to listen to her sing, she sounds so good. Something in this song reminds me of Disney stuff, maybe it's the strings. This is probably my favourite composition of them all, on this album. Jonna's voice makes such a difference in the arrangement. People, who've enjoyed our earlier stuff that rocked somewhat, probably, will hate this track. It's so sentimental. But what the hell, I'm a sentimental kind of guy, and not ashamed to admit it. If I was still in school, I'd get my ass kicked for writing a song like this...
Anyway, we finish after midnight. It feels weird. Is this it? No way! It can't be, have we actually finished an album? Looking back at the diary it's fun to see what it takes to put one together: 14 rehearsals, 39 days of studio plus some random dates at home (I'd say the total with all the editing and stuff is close to 42 days) and all the writing that goes with an album. It's a lot of work, dear friends. And it still needs to be mastered and all the art work needs to be done, plus the pictures taken (the part I hate THE MOST) and what not.
Well, I must admit that I feel lucky to be able to do what we do. I feel blessed, and very proud, because this time I think we've delivered what we set out to do: something good for people, medicine for the hard times and joy for the good times. It's all there, like in a good Steven Segal movie. Kick-Whang-Bang-Bang!
Now all I can say is: "is this really it?!". "Are you sure?". "It can't be!".
"?".
Love you like donuts, grrrr!!! (21.12.2005)
TO BE CONTINUED...
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