Recording Session Saturday

I just got done finishing up another session and two more songs to add to the album for consideration.  We have 19 songs to choose from but will get down to the necessary 12 for the album.  We're just about done.

The first song I did was Home.  It's basically a looking back at a life that hasn't been so fulfilling, noting of the time that I went out for baseball hoping to become a big star, but only end up striking out with the bases loaded.  And then moving to playing songs nobody knows about in a empty bar and the last verse a summary of the way things go.  I have too many demons in this life that rob the fun out of me and everything that goes wrong gets noted in some way.  It's getting old, leave me alone I'm going home.

The other song dates back to 1979 and was a smart ass drum only number called How Hard It Is, and back then I gave co writing credits to my best friends Russ and Steve, even though they didn't contribute.  This time out while Geoff was playing a guitar riff I started singing Seems to me you have changed and with a little revision and update from Martin we turned this into another sad song about begging a lover wronged to take another chance and of course the outcome would be that she moved on.  I think I prefer the 1979 smart ass version myself.

Took a break in the afternoon to go do errands, and to the recycling center to get rid of some things, getting rid of a old beer clock sign that didn't work anymore. It used to be a nice beer sign but the clock quit working years ago and it was taking up space.  To my amazement, I didn't run into many idiots going into Cedar Rapids.  For the first time I went out to the Nature Center to hear two honking Canadian Geese making a racket and flying overhead of myself and Martin.  In the chilly afternoon we sat and waited for trains that never came and while the sun was setting, the Geese that flew over our heads came back with about 10 more honking buddies, but fed up with lack of train watching, we took in a Mexican supper in Anamosa before coming back to the studio and listening to the playback and making notes here and there.  Working with Hugh McConnell once again and in true fashion has managed to make the album get done.  I recall we didn't take much time to do on 20, the last time he co produced.  After 2 weeks, we got the songs done and now the second step in putting drums on them will be coming up in the next week. And then mixing it down and finishing it up before the end of April.

But for a hobby of sorts, the music isn't selling, just like 30 didn't sell either.  It got airplay on Radio Buzz'd but the Radio Maierburg Records didn't get any sales, despite a meet and greet and and Q N A session on the After Dark special on Radio One.  It's like that for a lot of bands out there, there's so much music and so little time and you basically are competing with over 100 years of recorded music as well.  I haven't talked to Diggy about how  the Songs That Made An Impact 2014 is faring.  But I think he used the version of Cannery Row from the No Exit album rather than the better mixed version that appeared on 30.  I wasn't impressed with how the song sounded when it came on the Impact 2014 version.  I suppose if I lived out on the West Coast Diggy Kat would be setting fire to my butt to play some of the music showcases out there, here in Iowa, there's hardly any place to play.  But since I continue to fight myself in the studio, doing take after take of songs that I either fuck up by playing the wrong chord or singing the wrong words that I haven't made myself available to the public during jam sessions.  Plus having stage fright doesn't help either.

But I have good supporters in Geoff and Martin and Diggy Kat and they continue to help me through the crisis that is recording Forthcoming Trains.  30 plus years of doing this and it's still never easy to get through a song on the first take.  The more you work on something, the more you mess up and the song takes a different turn.  Knocking On Heaven's Door, there's such a resigned frustration that it does sound like I am knocking on heaven's door, even towards the end to which the ending gets fucked up and so we improvised and turn it into part of a song.  Even if we had pro tools, I still fear we would be fighting everything just to get a suitable take.

I donno if there's any other band or musicians out there that have to fight everything just to conceive and make a good album that I have to do. Why do I continue to do this?  Because I'm still a fan of this music and I still enjoy hearing the past efforts.  I still hold out some kind of hope to be discovered down the line by some out of country fans who make it a pilgrimage to seek out the artist.  After all that's the only thing left, I'm too old for the major labels and our music isn't for corporate radio.  It's for the fans out there, even though I could count on them with one hand.  I probably had a better chance playing in bar bands and playing Mustang Sally for the drunken crowd, even though I would have preferred our originals.   You make good money still in this day and age playing Talk Dirty To Me or Taking Care Of Business but to myself it would feel like a job rather than fun.

But in the meantime, I'll continue to shape Forthcoming Trains into a type of album that I'd play on a daily basis. It's the only thing that keeps me going.