david taus

The Fernanda Sessions

music: Drums and Tuba- Vinyl Killer

I realized this Friday afternoon that I hadn’t been to a concert since Phish’s final show in mid-August. Good that I was finally getting out and taking in some music: the Sam Kininger Band at Harper’s. While the show would be good in its own right, my friend Amy plays keys in the band and can throw down with the best of them. Even though she’s a friend of mine, she’s also a good enough musican for me to want to listen to her stuff regardless. The show was good; more than anything else it felt good to be back in the realm of live music. But it left me more hungry than when I came in.

I’ve been bitten by the music bug. it’s not enough to be a passive observer of the creation of music anymore. It seems that every time I hear music happening these days I want in on its creation. I’m not saying that I’m good enough to hang with the likes of the Sam Kininger Band yet (nor would I get off on playing funk for over an hour at a time), but hearing isn’t enough. Music is no longer a spectator sport. I left the show sort of bent out of shape because 1) I wanted to make some music and 2) I realized how little time I have been giving myself to pursue things I wanted to do for me. I spent the rest of the weekend with my guitar, bass, drums, and recording equipment getting some stuff out of my head and onto tape…er…hard disk. It’s now Sunday night and I’ve just spent a good long weekend doing little besides making music. It’s been just me on all instruments, but hey, I take what I can get.

This summer AJM and I cannibalized a tune written by our buddies in Madison and made it a connecting piece between two more structured tunes: Gato Negro and the Asphalt River. We retained its name but none of its lyrics. And so Fernanda became my little project for the weekend. Every time I get into a recording session the bar is raised in new ways-this time was a much, much better mic job on the drum kit thanks to Ron’s Oktava MK 12’s. Plus, this is the first song I recorded with the Gibson. The results are astounding; Fernanda has become an ass-kicker of a song. I seem to have worked myself out of the sappy campfire songwriting phase I was in from this summer. I also got a good drum and bass track down for the reworked studio version of Gato Negro (probably the best song I’ve had a part in writing thus far). To be finished this week sometime…but with the end of the quarter at school and tests and notebooks to grade it might have to wait for a while.

All this sound crunching has put my computer through the ringer. It’s probably more than that but things have been a little off with this trusty machine this past week. I’m getting some electronic static on audio tracks. It could be a whole bunch of things including the patch cables connecting the mixer to the soundcard (let it not be the mixer itself! and PLEASE let it not be the soundcard or computer…) but some of my work has some crackles in it. Funny part is when I rewind and replay that section, though, the crackles are gone. Curious. Cool Edit has flaked a couple times as well, randomly shutting itself down mid-session. Chalk one up for Microsoft. And this is probably unrelated, but over the past week my computer’s developed a case of insomnia- it isn’t able to standby or hibernate. I think this is because of something else (the error message says something about COM 1 and drivers) but it’s still frustrating. I’d like to lean heavily on this computer of mine for audio recording even though I know it’s not designed for such uses.

Recording sessions are a long process that require discipline and patience. And for now, the creative process is a solitary endeavour. Just as well; I need to make more time for things that allow me to grow. Plus most days school burns me out on conversations. Besides those technological glitches and electronic hiccups I’m glad to be getting this stuff down. Fernanda is an enormous rocker. I’ll still tweak levels and fiddle with the things for a bit but for the most part it’s done. It feels good to know I have the potential to make some really good music, but more than that it feels good to do more than consume. I’m now starting to contribute some original music to the world, and it rocks.

Posted by davidtaus at November 7, 2004 11:37 PM