photo by Clayton Mitchell
well almost completely recorded . . . we still have a few little things to add . . . some trumpets, a violin solo . . . the sound of an exploding café . . .
photo by Clayton Mitchell
but Sunday through Tuesday we spent many hours in preparation and then in recording here at the Tower . . . and it went, in a word . . .
spectacularly.
from my sweet Jeremy-of-all-trades who tenderly held my Left Brain and coordinated a million little details for us . . .
photo by Clayton Mitchell
photo by Clayton Mitchell
to our engineer David Luke who came home half a day early from vacation to get to work with us . . .
photo by Clayton Mitchell
to Cristian Hernandez – the OSHEN’s bass player – who came hours early to set up and who let us use all of his amazing recording gear . . .
(BlueBird) photo by Clayton Mitchell
to Ann Peters and Nicole Francois giving up large chunks of days just to ease my mind, to the unEFFINGbelievable meals lovingly prepared for us by Iron Seth Nickinson . . .
photo by Clayton Mitchell
to these gorgeous photos taken by Clayton Mitchell . . . this was truly a community effort.
photo by Clayton Mitchell
last night and today when I’ve had the chance to listening back to what we did I am amazed. in particular today I listened five times over to one particular take of Savannah Jo Lack singing “I Remember” and every time I cried.
photo by Clayton Mitchell
and then there’s the take of Joel Dean . . . the opening line to “Rita” melting me like I was an ice cube in a desert.
photo by Clayton Mitchell
and Ms. Elizabeth Greenblatt, who we all swear did not make a single mistake, was stunning of course (and as the picture below demonstrates) . . . powering through these long hours and unending takes despite the fatigue from being in her second trimester of incubating a perfect little being.
photo by Clayton Mitchell
at one point I had an epiphany about the piece – realized that Rita and Elizabeth are two versions of the same life. Rita chose to stay in town, take over the family café and pop out a couple of kids and found herself divorced and sharp around the edges by the time we meet her, while Elizabeth chose to get out, go away and drift off into a world where she could forge her own path but more often finds herself lost. I wrote this so you’d think I’d thought it all through, but really so much of the creative process happens (for me) at the subconscious level. the epiphany stopped me dead at the beginning of a song and of course I had to share it.
(having the epiphany) photo by Clayton Mitchell
today I barely made it through work . . . exhausted beyond belief . . . but there’s an excitement that is building. we are making something beautiful here.
photo by Clayton Mitchell
Iron Seth asked me – for his parents – what the ultimate goal of this recording is . . . my first response was “A Prairie Home Companion, and a world tour”, but when I thought for a second I realized it is so much bigger than that. my hope is that in 50 or 60 years our grandchildren and their peers count this among their must-have records, right next to Blue, Grace and A Love Supreme.
(Lady Sunrise, Townsfolk #4) photo by Clayton Mitchell
and now we move forward . . . putting the sounds through the microphones was one part of the art. now a whole other round of artistic endeavour begins – now is the editing, the fine-tuning, the mixing, effecting (don’t worry, it’ll only be the slightest effect), and the mastering.
photo by Clayton Mitchell
simultaneously we’ll be working with Chris Ross, Nicole Francois, and a couple of other artists to put together both the Puppet Package (which is really a Toy Theatre, thank you Amber West), and to get the general design of the whole project together. we welcome any ideas you might have of course.
thank you all again so much for all the love, toil and funds you have given to this project. we literally wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for you. you are our heroes. you are our dream-makers.
much love. xo
photo by Clayton Mitchell
yay! so very inspiring.
By: jonah on July 15, 2010
at 06:52