6/25/14

Bigfoot Chester was at the Hole last night. We played the back stage, third on a bill of four. I knew it was gonna be a weird evening when I showed up. I got there and the first band was getting close to finishing on the front stage. The place was jammed with people and it was hot and sweaty everywhere. It wasn't weekend, crazy, sardine packed in, but you had to rub up against everyone you passed when you went from room to room.

The Founding Fathers went on in the back. Those guys look really old with that white hair and the tricorn hats (and long woolen coats...) I don't think any of them invented electricity, but they still rocked them electric guitars pretty hard. Then Black Joe got up with them (Walter and I played with him years ago) and I should make a really inappropriate joke about Andrew Jackson here but (this time) I'll leave it alone...

Bigfoot went on a little late. We knew we would have a short set ahead of time, but we only got six songs in... And one of them we played at double time... it was rough. I had to change the bass pattern because my hand would have fallen off if I tried to do it the regular way. That was by far the lowest point of the set. We really whipped Whale and Harpoon Man so at least we ended things on a high note.

It was a little bit painful, but it was our first show as a four piece in ten years, we were gonna fall on our faces it was more of a matter of how hard. We got a little scraped up, but it wasn't so bad.

Mixing the Ladies

There have been a couple of good mixing days on the new "Ladies" recording. Everything is at the tweaking stage and we (may) have something out soon.

The recording process is pretty cool. You put down layers and layers until you get some you like then you massage them in to a coherent track. Inevitably in the middle of all that there are some moments where your thinking "umm, we thought that was a good idea?" But after a little finessing you can generally make the pieces fit into something cool. Just like life, working with what you got is all you got. We got something pretty cool with this one.

It's possible that we are riding on the creative edge of music and we may have invented a new style, Jungle Soul! All of those drums (that really come out heavy on the recording) mercilessly beating away with sweet soul rhythms gliding over the top. It's a powerful sound that makes your ass bounce at the same time. That is art to me.

Kurtis is still a lot of fun to work with. There are definitely times when we are fucking around and not getting much done, but that's balanced by knocking shit out fast and right. It's all about knowing what your doing.