Friday, March 14, 2008 at 01:29AM
It's quarter after midnight and I just got home from a late-night mastering session with the great Vance Powell. I am so loving getting to work with people better than me. I feel like I learn about a dozen things every day I'm at the studio, and I know it's making me better at what I do.
Vance just mixed the new record for the band the Raconteurs. Jack White, from the White Stripes, and three other guys, another of whom is also a lead singer/guitarist. I'm loving listening to this record. I can't get enough.
It reminds me of the first time I ever heard Jeff Buckley. I just couldn't believe that music like that could have been made. It changed everything I thought about the voice, the guitar, tempos, arrangement... I can honestly say that record made a fundamental difference in the type of musician that I am. The next day I was, very clumsily, a new guy. I had witnessed something utterly different and utterly wonderful and I knew I needed to chase it, I wanted to experience more of it.
That's how I feel with this Raconteurs record. I'm older, more experienced, so it hasn't hit me with near the same degree of radical-ness, but the feeling is there and I love it. There's joy and abandon in the playing. And they just freaking sing. I realize that I rarely hear people really sing anymore. Vocals are tuned and nudged and edited together. They're correct, but they're rarely a performance. Not like a Beatles or Led Zeppelin record. That's singing. That's why I love music and that's what I want to find for myself.
Anyway, enough of that tangent. We all know we're really hear to see who gave the best quote for yesterday's picture. As judge, jury, bailiff, court jester AND the guy who interviews the people coming out of the courtroom I've decided to have three runners up and a winner.
Runner up #3
Joshua Keel - Santa Claus’ guitarist brings Andy a much-needed ham sandwich and Coke.
Runner up #2
Rob O - You can have one too, just simply cut off an appendige and plant it in your garden. Two years later, and….. ta da!!
(this entry would belong, of course, to my brother. Who's obviously disqualified. Still: valiant effort.)
Runner up #1
Danny - “you can’t run from jesus or your elf.�
And the Winner...
Wally - Andy saying under his breath, “Cliff, can you remind me again why we have to have the Guild Room at these concerts�?
Wally, email me your address and shirt size and a package will be winding its way through the United States Postal Service to you shortly.
Now I'm going to bed. I hope I have another dream with that crazy elf tonight.
