ive been really enjoying the new Daniel Johnston record “Is & Always Was” produced by the always shiny Jason Falkner. Check it out. After watching “the devil and daniel johnston” i’ve kind of been obsessed. songwriting in it’s purest form.
finishing up mixing of Shelly Bhushan’s “Make Believe” EP… It’s pretty special. Depeche Mode meets Aretha meets mt. Finally finally finally completed tracking (sans vox) for Karen Rockower’s epic (17 songs) record. We’ve been working on free time over the last year or so on it, and we finally got a bunch of sessions in a row and knocked it out of the park. Big ups as always to Greg Samothrakis for providing what only he can.
After much soul searching about the project, I’ve decided to remix Rachel Platten’s unreleased (maybe never to be released) “Million Little Reasons” record. She’s been working on getting a deal that I think is going to render our recordings together old hat. Thing is I really want to listen to it, and the mixes I have are not very good. At this point if it’s just me and her band listening, that’s worth it to me. Who knows, maybe in a year or so people will be interested in seeing what she did before she broke…
we will see.
mt
so cold enter key got stuck.
feeling pretty good. tired, but thats just the way it is gonna be… for now. this is good. able to work around people i like. did some work on the sb ep. step drum machine shit on “yr mine”… now to mix it. strip it down… build it up. find it. bind it.
…
my keyboard is breaking. not good for me.
bouncing raw takes for observation… from last week’s karlie evenings. lots of tape.
tape
very pretty stuff indeed.
actually brought zoe to the lorimer space yesterday. we met ms platten… zoe approves. no small feat with my girl. sure she’ll charm you with a smile. but most must keep hands to self. zoe & rachel were fast friends… they’ll both be talking shit about me. in no time;) as for her music. it’s there… its bad ass. there’s more. i know its been a minute.
i just had irving place closed to traffic. it’s been a while since ive been involved in that sort of thing. back at sony that type of shit was commonplace.
pny is one step closer. got a lot of good stuff doing here. gotta see the big picture.
met an amazing band a few weeks back. brit boris & the cavalry. really good… i think people will dig it. im really hooping to make that happen at some point.
shit, drexel’s even talking about new material. finally booking a bunch of karen sessions to get that out there for the world. meeting with mandy & the Bandit, and Tyler about that project, and what it may become…
this as close as i get to a commercial.
truly amped to engineer for Andreas Levin on Monday…
Should be a great few months …
i love you yankees. thanks you.
This is a quick snapshot of an NYC commute by one of the greatest writers in the blog world… Alex Belth:
Monday morning commute. IRT. Let me speak in stereotypes.
Skinny white girl about twelve comes on the train. She’s wearing a colorful outfit–purple pants, turquoise cowboy boots. Bends down to put her metro card in her bag. Middle-aged black woman behind her turns around and tells the girl that she has bumped into her three times. The woman’s voice is sharp. The girl, shy, apologizes. Then, the girl’s father, milktoast white guy, steps in and tells the woman that she’s being a little harsh. They exchange words.
A gay Latin guy, wearing headphones, comes to the black woman’s defense. Calls the little girl a racist. Starts going on about how she shouldn’t be treated any differently because she’s a white girl. Which reminded me of an old family saying.
Think Yiddish accent: It’s not you, mind your own, sit down, shut up.
Then, burly white guy in a business suit tells the gay guy that if he’s such a gentleman, he should stand and give up his seat to one of the women. Next, an older Latin woman starts arguing with the Latin guy in Spanish.
And that’s what you call a New York brush fire. The black woman and the Latin guy got up and exited at the same station, leaving a few parting words on their way out. The white girl, dazed, and her father, relieved, exhale. A think Dominican mother sitting next to me smiles at the girl and the girl thanks her. I talk to the Dominican mother about the nature of angry people and racism.
Happy Monday, folks.
tomorrow is the atlantic antic… the holiest of all the brooklyn days… shoot yourself in the face if you dont get your ass to it. its the largest street fair in the city… good times. my lady has a booth for the party too, so there will be a place to chill right in the middle of the thing. She’ll be chilling between smith & beorum place… i’ll be doing my thing wandering up and down… enjoying the bands… the booze… the treats.
playoffs start next week… what are the chances that i’ll get cable in the studio by then?
mt
just watched a video of a kid in chicago getting killed in a fight. it made me a little sick. upset. im waiting for the yankees to field a lineup you’ll never see again. monday night… zoe is soundly sleeping in the back… this ambulance out front is trying to fuck my shit up right now… this is a breather, a night i dont have to work.
the work… pny is cranking… just put a sweet new rig in studio A… hopefully it scrubs… mixing shelly, first mix sounds really good… five great songs… people will really enjoy them. starting the twin ep’s with karlie this tomorrow. mt the king of the ep.
then there’s the slow burns… sounding great. karen’s record… decidedly not an ep… stoley… he will release the fucking fury… tracks sound great.
eager to get things started with brit, jill, mandy…
i love making records. maybe just maybe we’ll get this platten record to the people soon. the world needs platten. really.
the royals. nice uni’s. nohomo.
maybe i shouldn’t take monday night’s off? or drive shit around in the middle of the night? i actually enjoy the time. driving around the hood half asleep at 5am. great talk radio at that time. the sky is amazing… brooklyn has the best morning sky… possibly in the world. the glow off of the skyline. california may have the sunsets… but we got the sunrise. and we all know when a light show the best? when you’re a little off. whether you’ve woke up way to early, or have been doing your thing all night long. we earn our morning sky.
lets go yankees.
mt
the breakdown/ buildup in “only in dreams” is still magical after all these years… yet another great work to come out of “the lady”.
mt
ive been waiting for the David Bazan solo record “curse your branches” for almost three years now. Sure he gave me the “fewer moving pieces” ep to both hold off my appetite and whet it for the full length.
upon a week of listening, i have to say im a bit disappointed… much of the feel of “fewer” is lost from the production of these songs. it also has the feel of recordings that really missed the mark of finding the essence of the songs themselves. sure there is a bunch of really amazing songs, but unlike bazan’s last four releases, it is not a complete listen. lyrically he is much more direct in message. this is the writing of a man who has struggled with being brought up to believe one thing, only to realize another truth entirely. pointedly critical of christianity, in a way that only someone who had been sheltered by it for their youth could. the characters here are bazan himself.
fuck, these mono mixes of the beatles records are glorious.
i had to go and check out the new ingrid michaelson record “everybody”. having worked on her two previous albums, i couldn’t resist seeing what she and her gang were capable of on her first record after “making it”. my first impression of the record was that it really sounds great, so well done guys. there is nothing “budget” about the sounds, and the mixes are spectacular.
it seems like the work of an artist that really doesn’t want anyone to be left out of the party. the title and much of it’s lyrical content only affirms this impression. the influence of touring for several years with many popular “singer-songwriters” and huge arena acts have clearly had an effect on this set of tunes and their sound. gone are the more “indie” elements of michaelson’s previous work, but this again seems intentional. its a sound and style shooting for the widest possible audience. ingrid and co may take a bit of a critical hit for this but it surely wont show up in record/ticket sales. the album is super focused in scope and sound, and its extremely mature. my favorite tracks are a bit buried but i was really happy when i finally got to them, and they made me want to come back for more. I would love to hear a record she made after touring with someone like bjork…
grizzly bear have just released a single for “while you were waiting for the others”… from their masterpiece “veckatimest”. great tune, but the b-side of the single contains the song with guest lead vocalist MICHAEL MCDONALD!!! how cool is that? if i were in charge i would’ve had him just redo all the bgv’s and leave the lead as is, but for some reason grizzly bear didn’t ask me to be involved in the project… go figure. as for “vackatimest” itself, amazing. recorded in a house by the water, it puts you right there. songs that were clearly written with an acoustic guitar do not sound like it anymore. mood and vibe rule arrangements, and its so much better for it.
gonna get some more records and write about em soon.
take it for what it is.
mt
read some rants on a baseball blog that started as a conversation about the new yankee stadium compared to the previous incarnation. the subject quickly morphed into the changes in the city pre and post giuliani. someone brought up the glory days of smoking joints in the upper deck. i couldn’t believe some of the BS that incited from other readers. here are some of the juicier bits…
6. Mr. OK Jazz TOKYO
Yanks could up their Run Diff byt 25 this weekend..easily…
slowing down here..anyone up for some classic Stadium stories? Guy I know here told me the other night about smoking weed in the Upper Deck at the Old Stadium..and guy he bought it from was an on duty Security guard at the Stadium..think that happens these days?
8. williamnyy23
[6] Nope…and I think that’s a good thing. I know some people pine for the more rowdy stadium of day’s past, but I prefer the more civilized atmosphere that has evolved over the past 10-15 years.
[8] $9 beers = civilized?
[9]If the more expensive beers mean fewer people who only come to the game to get drunk, then I guess it probably does.
[10] Perhaps I romanticize the past, but to quote Jimmy Breslin, when he was asked about Rudy G’s gentrification of 42nd St.. “What’s there now, The Outback and a Disney Store? I’ll take the drugs and hookers, please.”
[11] Drugs and hookers over families from all over the world enjoying a variety of entertainment options while pumping dollars into the local economy? That’s not my definition of romantic.
[12] Disney is one kind of drug, reefer is another..i’ll leave it to others to decide which is worse..the bland-corporate takeover of NYC (Yankee Stadium included) is just not cool with many of us..
[13] I’ve never heard of people killing others while high on Disney, so we’ll definitely have to disagree here. Recently in NY, a woman drunk and high on “refer” decided to go the wrong way on a highway and killed not only herself, but several others, including four young children. Something tells me that if that lady had fallen victim to the bland corporate culture of Disney as opposed to enlightening refer madness, there would be 4 laughing children alive today.
I’ll get off my soap box now…it just really annoys me when people glorify behavior that is so obviously destructive.
[17] All studies done on the subject show conclusively that marijuana is far less destructive than alcohol, yet it remains illegal.. I don’t know the accident you are referring to but I would imagine it was alcohol and not the effects marijuana that led to such a tragedy..
In any case, I could also go on for 4000 words about the destruction of true American culture by corporate behemoths like Disney but that will take us farther away from baseball than we’ve already gone..
For your pleasure though, williamnyy23http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5dgAszVslA
Friday pm here, time for some Guinness with Mrs. OK Jazz!
[18] Exactly. THANK YOU!!!! I loved going to Yankee stadium as a kid and smelling the pot. I don’t really think fans are anymore civilized now, many are extremely boring and lame, and others are too juiced up on testosterone and go there to start fights.
I’m not saying it should go back to the battery throwing days, but geez, a little identity with a stadium in the Bronx is definitely fine with me. I also love how people make arguments for “families”, people procreate themselves into poverty and then we have to pay for all their kids, their beautiful little kid grows up to be the biggest a-hole, I think the family and kid argument is a little lame. It’s thrown around like, “YOU ARE AGAINST THE KIDS, OMG!!!”. I didn’t say kill them, I’m saying they are not my problem and many are quite annoying.
I was at Saturday’s game and, yes, I was crazy high, I love having my brain frying like an egg with the sun beaming on it, it reminds me of the old Regan era “say no to drugs” commercials. The beer lady in the 300 area, where the imported beers are, asked me a question that I couldn’t answer too fluidly, for obvious reasons. When I couldn’t give her the answer the third time she asked me what did you just smoke “sour diesel” or was it “cush”?
ans: sour diesel
Plus I was too into the game. I’d rather she would have sold me THAT than the beer anyway, I just would have ate more garlic fries anyway. In the end, they’ll still get my money.
[17] BTW, the lady was drunk. I have yet to read a report that said she was high at the time of driving, she had pot in her system, but pot stays in your system longer than any other drug so I have yet to read conclusive evidence that she was high. To blame it on the “refer” is a cop out.
Well, this morning’s game recap thread is certainly enlightening.
[18] I don’t think public intoxication of any kind is an acceptable form of behavior. If you want to hang out at home and get high, go for it. But when you do so in a public place, you not only run the high risk of doing something disruptive toward others, but possibly deadly as well.
As for the destruction of true American culture, again, we probably would have wild disagreements on that topic, but I’d like to think that “drugs and hookers” wouldn’t a better alternative to either of our ideals.
[19] To each his own…we obviously come from very different viewpoints, so needless to say I am very pleased that behaviour such as you describe is tolerated less at not only Yankee Stadium, but most public places that I enjoy going.
[20] You can check out the Daily News archive for more information, but according to one article, “The level of THC in her system indicates she smoked pot within an hour of the crash”. I wouldn’t doubt that the alcohol contributed more, but just because marijuana was the lesser of two evils doesn’t make it ok.
[22] That’s the first I heard of the THC level. I’ll definitely check it out.
As to your other point, what behavior are you referring to? The fact that I’m sitting there quietly watching the game or the fact that I couldn’t wrap my head around the question the beer lady was asking me? I agree, my behavior was really, really, awful and should never be tolerated. I was surprised that my behavior didn’t cause the national guard to come storming into Yankee stadium. Nothing worse than someone smoking their ganga and enjoying it, that’s just straight criminal.
[22] You’re right that it’s in the Daily News archive, but how come that’s the only paper that seems to have that information? I know the post says that weed was partly the cause, but I never saw that line repeated or anything similar to that line in the dailynews in the post or ny times (kindle edition).
[23] Right, because no stoners are ever disruptive. They all just sit quietly, enjoying the cosmos in peace and tranquility.
[17] I’ve never heard of people killing others while high on Disney either, but it’s been clinically proven that people who wait an hour and 45 minutes for Space Mountain, or experience It’s A Small World are likely to become tempted to kill. I think that’s why they came up with FASTPASS®.
BTW, the lady was drunk.
That could explain her aggressive behavior. I have yet to meet an aggressive stoner.
[23] If you can’t answer a simple question then maybe you wont be able to return to your seat without spilling your beer on someone…or falling on someone while climbing the stairs…or run them over with your car on the way home. Or, maybe it will just lead you to behave in a manner you might not otherwise if you were sober?
I go to Yankee Stadium to watch baseball, so I guess I don’t get why anyone would choose to get drunk or high during a game, but that’s just me.
[24] From AP:
“Diane Schuler, who died along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces in her red minivan, had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a high level of the main ingredient in marijuana, authorities said.”
AND
“Blood tests also showed she had smoked marijuana 15 minutes to an hour before the crash, said Betsy Spratt, chief toxicologist for the Westchester County medical examiner.”
[28] if you’ve never met an aggressive stoner you’ve never waited in line for ice cream after a Grateful Dead concert.
I think Damon jams to Peter Tosh. Matsui on the other hand……. ??????
If that lady had 10 drinks in her system, I think that’s ’nuff said. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone getting into an accident from smoking weed, though I’m sure it happens. I know I’ve never heard of someone being violent or aggressive from smoking it, but that’s probably happened too.
Anyway that story about the woman on the Taconic is bizarre. Her husband claims he never saw her drunk in his life … She pulls over to call and say she’s disoriented? Who does that with 10 drinks in them? Then she drives for two miles in the wrong direction? It’s crazy. I guess she was downing vodka and smoking weed the entire ride!
38. OldYanksFanAugust 14th, 2009 at 9:40 am
[8] Are you insinuating that people who smoke weed aren’t civilized? Me and Thelarmis take offense!
46. RagingTartabullAugust 14th, 2009 at 10:13 am
plese don’t tell me I came too late for the weed and hookers discussion.
I’ve always been of the mind that anyone who pines for the days of grindhouses and syringes on 42nd either a) wasn’t there or b) is just trying to write some good copy.
Now that being said, the Giuliani-era Disneyification of the area is just as disgusting but for a wholly different set of reasons, if your idea of a culture is Olive Garden and the M&M’s Store then hey, knock yourself out. After all this is someone who called a City Hall press conference (bought and paid for by city tax dollars) to announce that he was leaving his wife for another woman…so par for the course I suppose.
But there is something profoundly sad about living in a city (or country for that matter) where your choices have to be whittled down to “Mall of America or Crackhouse” or “weed in the upper deck or $15 Lobel’s sandwich”
/end rant.