Christopher Blog

4 aging wives sit in a booth next to me at a fantastic Japanese restaurant. It didn’t take much to discern that they all lived in the same newly constructed `upper class’ subdivision.

Below are charming nuggets of their sloppy noveau riche dialogue:
- I WOULDN’T LET MY CHILDREN GO TO EUROPE BECAUSE I WAS SO WORRIED! WHY SHOULD THEY GO WHEN I NEVER GOT THE CHANCE???

- MY HUSBAND WAS FRISKY WHEN HE GOT HOME FROM GOLF. I WAS STUCK IN THE BEDROOM ALL WEEKEND. IT SUCKED!!

- CAN YOU COOK MY SUSHI??? I DON’T LIKE RAW FISH.

- I’M GOING TO JAMAICA WITH MY DAUGHTER KAYLA! IT’LL BE SOOOO INTERESTING GOING TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY!!

- I’M HAVING A PARTY AND EVERYONE WILL HAVE TO WEAR AN OUTFIT FROM VALUE VILLAGE OR THE SALVATION ARMY. THERE WILL BE A PRIZE FOR BEST OUTFIT. THIS IS A WAY TO GIVE BACK TO THE POOR COMMUNITY.

I think one of the most fascinating aspects of this quartet’s offensive vibrations was that none of them were listening to one another. One would spout something about herself, and then another would respond in kind. It seemed as if one just contributed some sort of sound to the menopause cacophony, she was adding to a greater, more horrific force. Like an awakening of the Cooking Channel Cthulu.

Sorry for my tardiness. 

All the tracks are done for `Torched Laughter.’  And that is all I wrote in a blog draft a few days ago. The words weren’t flowing at the time.

I am currently listening to Cave-In and Misha Alpernin on Noise cancellation headphones. A certain someone had too much to drink and is belting out opera upstairs. She still has it. But I have a headache and those high frequencies aren’t helping my cause. I always like having a musical house, but motherfucker, I’m having a quiet day today. Ah well, let her have her euphoria. Misery will greet her in the morning.

Anyway, a few days ago I finished up the last 2 songs.  To make things all ceremonious, the last track performed was a triangle. You can blame Curtis Mayfield for the need to have that. I was listening to the Superfly soundtrack a few weeks ago and noticed that this little triangle was making a lot of the songs groove and shuffle.

GRRRRR THE KVLT OV TRYANGL

The only feeling I experience is relief that the tracks are done. I don’t get these surges of pride when something is accomplished.

Besides, the mixing process is going to tell the truth of these tracks.

48 recording days to record 7 songs. That’s abysmal if you ask me. But I did some math:

Since there was rarely a day where I actually could record for the full day, it took 14 8-hour sessions to complete the tracking for `Torched Laughter.’  Not so bad in the light of emergency room visits, learning new instruments, practicing, cavorting, and day to day responsibilities.

The `Torched Laughter’ blog is going to stop for a while after this post. Reason being is there are several other songs for the metal project that need finishing. It makes sense to do this instead of mixing because the rental agreement for the microphone is good for another week.

In the interim, I am going to post more anecdotes about the `Torched Laughter’ songs and how they came to be. (Like the Finely Tuned Meat entry)

Oh lovely, Nine Inch Nails is blaring up stairs. And I’m being told fervently that I suck.

Happy Good Friday

`Finely Tuned Meat’ can be summed up by the below anecdote.

My father was enduring colon cancer a few years ago. At the same time, another loved one was undergoing a horrific drug therapy as prescribed by a doctor. The therapy wreaked holy hell on the person’s body and mind. You probably know someone who has to suffer these types of drug therapies. I describe pharmaceutical practices like this: they destroy a house to save a wall.

It was an intense time. Dancing around verbal land mines and trying not to trip into my own pit of overactive fears. I don’t think there was any positivity to be found at that time. Though I had my health and an overactive imagination which I can escape into, I felt guilty for having them. The same could not be said for those around me.

Fortunately for my father, his cancer was caught fairly early and was to undergo surgery to rid his body of it. I made plans to fly back to the USA to be by his side, take care of day to day things around the parent’s house, etc.

I took a direct flight from Toronto to Newark. After being greeted by the friendly Canadians at Air Canada who thought I was someone famous (LOL,) I had to deal with the US Homeland Security `Team.’ After one question asked by the posturing-lackey-in-a-booth regarding my citizenship I was whisked away to a white room. Mind you, I was still on Canadian soil, but these garden variety shitnecks knew how to make you feel like you were in Guantanamo Bay.

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I’ve been rewriting the words to that last song that I meant to sing this past Saturday. Per my last entry, I really hated what I originally wrote. Thankfully, the words came kind of effortlessly last evening. Effortlessly in my world is sitting back with a stiff drink and listening to the same thing over and over again for hours. Eventually I get unhinged by the repetitiveness and the good stuff starts coming out.

The lyrics compliment the music and my current mindset quite well. I’m not a fan of revisions. They have a tendency to destroy the heart of a song. But there are always exceptions. Now this song has life to it. Unfortunately they are not done yet. I’m hoping tonight they’ll be finished. In the interim I am still singing, but for the metal songs. There’s a bit of Queen-esque vocal tracking, so each song takes a while. Trying to get as much use out of the Neumann TLM 103 microphone before it needs to be returned at the end of this month.

Saturday started off rough. I don’t know if it’s because of the winter storms, but god damn it was insufferably dry again. Singing anything good took a massive amount of effort. It got extremely frustrating. Like throwing headphones against the wall frustrating. (Thank you Sony, for making durable cans for us divas)

Began the vocals on Thursday for a song called `Jaw Filled Wreckage.’ I completed about a 3rd of what was needed. The fatigue on my voice was no longer endearing so I needed to stop. The work done on `The Tilted Figure’ did half of the damage. The other half is not sleeping.

I write this on a Friday night nursing honey tea and listening to Cinematic Orchestra. I am not speaking and plan to head to bed early. Drunk fights and dramabombs are the last thing I need right now. Saturday will be ambitious: Sing 3 out of the 4 remaining songs. I need these to be done. I have something to prove to myself. I would like to do all 4, but one needs a big lyrical overhaul.

“Jaw Filled Wreckage” is a variation based on another song from the CD `Smoke and Origination’ called ‘Sharp Knives.‘ The former was the first one written for `Torched Laughter.’ It’s social commentary mixed in with the abstract. The title of the song was inspired by William Burrough’s phrase `Language Is A Virus’ (also a song by Laurie Anderson.) This term describes how certain sayings and words are picked up by other people and employed in their daily lives ad infinitum. Just like a virus, it replicates and mutates until everyone knows and uses some variant of them.

In other words, your fucking W00t is HIV.

The title `Jaw Filled Wreckage’ doesn’t imply a viral cornucopia of snappy sayings. It refers mostly to the mindless inane babble that we house in our mouths (or even our hands;) so desperate to deposit it onto another hapless victim: Filthy linguistic waste.

The title also refers to horrific teeth dreams.

Last night’s work was infinitely better than Tuesday. I hope Tuesday has lungs, so it can get a lung infection and drown in its own Tuesday mucous.

Fuck this night. It’s midnight and I’m not feeling the way I should in order to sing. The voice sounds wrong, the emotional flow is dry. The poor annunciation of consonants make me want to punch my mouth. Everything takes too much effort. I’m psyched out and tired.

I know when it’s time to just call it a day and go to sleep furious. These shit days are as common as hydrogen molecules when it comes to doing vocals. You may see a lot of these type of posts in the coming days. I have not just the 6 songs to sing for `Torched Laughter’ but another 16 songs of the metallic persuasion to do. 22 or so to do this month.

I’m certainly not seeking empathy. No one forced me to do this. But as a goal-obsessed alpha-thing, I get severly bent when things go awry.

I could simply vent and then go back at it, but I won’t.

I learned my lesson with a song called `Sunday Is Falling Apart.’ Which can be listened to and bought at www.cdbaby.com/christophermusic . It’s on `Smoke and Origination.’ For you see, dear reader, I was in this same situation then. Except, I kept going. After 11 hours and 267 takes later, I got enough down that I could splice together a good track. Not a single good track, but many bad tracks with some good spots.

Many months later after the album was done I decided to have a go at that track again: One take. Perfect. 

The song I’m currently working on is called `The Tilted Figure.’ I’ll write more about it tomorrow provided that I sing competently.

I mentioned the song `Inuktorviit’ in the Day 4 Diary. By my humble estimation, the tracking for this song is now complete thanks to the vocal tracks being done last evening. The Neumann TLM 103 microphone is fantastic. Flat response, no weird coloration. I compared it against the vocal microphone I own (an Apex 450.) Though the differences aren’t vastly different when laying down the raw tracks, the gap between Nuemann’s response and the Apex’s affinity for sucking will exponentially get wider when they are processed and mixed.As a recap, `Inuktorviit’ is a type of inukshuk that warns travellers of a very evil place, person or thing. A devourer of souls. The song has only a cursory relationship with the Arctic and the native Inuits. At this point in time it’s just a working title. Probably the 4th working title for this song. The other titles were really imaginative like `Song 4′ and `The Acoustic Song.’My memory is a bit foggy on this song at the moment. I think it was inspired by the wind you feel after the Great Thaw. The arctic chill is no longer present in the air, you close your eyes and enjoy the warm air on your arms. Your loving mate tears off your lips.

From the Toronto Star

Canadian rock and jazz musician Jeff Healey died Sunday in a Toronto hospital after a battle with cancer, his publicist said.He was 41.

Healey’s battle with cancer began at age one when he lost his sight due to Retinoblastoma, a rare form of retinal cancer.

Due to his blindness, Healey taught himself to play guitar by laying the instrument across his lap.

His unique playing style, combined with his blues-oriented vocals, earned him a reputation as a teenage musical prodigy. He shared stages with George Harrison, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I guess God needed a blind guitar guru from Canada who starred in a film with Patrick Swayze.

Jeff was a great guitarist who definitely had an influence on me in my formative years. I never realised he had to endure cancer his whole life. Any interview I read `back in the day’ he just described that he lost his eyesight at birth and that was that.

This is the time, dear reader, where you take stock of your life, appreciate his challenges and triumphs, and eventually forget about them. Before you and I forget, here is an anecdote of my childhood fandom of Jeff Healy:

My musical relationship with Jeff Healy started with blood and ended with insults.

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So I had the week off from recording. But possible setbacks were prevalent as per usual.Who would think that a microphone rental would be such a dramatic headache?The vocal microphone rental was not going according to plan. There was not a single Neumann TLM 103 in all of the GTA region for rent from Long and McQuade. The last one was held hostage by a Long and McQuade rep who was planning on buying it anyway. But I always have a plan B. And a plan C. And a Plan D. Each plan is more expensive than the former. My solutions are akin to western government. I should run for office. You should run for your lives.So, if no TLM 103, what else can I get?