The Backburner

Spent the evening doing the 'final' overdubs for a friend's album that I've been producing - very, very slowly - over the last six years. You can see why 'final' is in quotes... anyone who's ever been involved in a long term backburner project like this knows that the finish line recedes faster the closer you get to it. Theoretically, we're going to start the final mixdowns on Thursday, and they'll be occupying the better part of my weekend. I'm looking forward to it, because when I'm in the studio I feel a confidence and decisiveness that's pretty elusive most of the rest of the time.

Tonight's work consisted of two final vocals - trouble songs that couldn't quite come together in the past. One got a complete melodic overhaul; Ryan (the artist) had written the original melody as a fast, rappy patter, with a lyric about someone else's romantic obsession with him. Neither the lyric or melody worked for me - in fact, it's fair to say that I really disliked them strongly. But the guitar solo had a completely different melody that I thought would work as a verse (it does). So, on Saturday - in a break from home repair - Ryan and I sat on the back porch and threw together a new version of the song, along with a more thematically appropriate lyric. The theme? Being unable to finish a long-term backburner project.

The other song just needed a tweak to make the melody more interesting, but apparently we didn't tweak hard enough, because even after redoing the vocals tonight, the thing still just lay there, a great instrumental track waiting to be fulfilled.

Other overdubs were mostly some 'final' vocal harmonies for me - a role I as a singer volunteered myself for, and I as a producer accepted. Ryan also laid down some nice harmonica on his ode to George Harrison - which was timely when we first started recording this album, so that should give you some idea of how long it's taken to get to this point.

Lord knows why these things take so long. Copper Man's own album, Selling the Downtown Dream, took about three years to pound through the tubes. The first sessions were done while Ryan was still in the band (in fact, about five of the songs on his album are his Copper Man compositions from those sessions) back in early 2001. Then those were laid aside. After Ryan left (alright, I fired him, sigh), Shaun came onboard and we developed enough new songs to replace Ryan's in the set, and went in to record those the week before Christmas, 2002.

Then Shaun flew to India to attend his sister-in-law's wedding, and broke his back in a terrible traffic accident there Christmas Eve, on his way back from the rehearsal dinner (well, whatever passes for a rehearsal dinner in Zoroastrianism). Then, his first week recuperating, they discovered that his wife was pregnant.

Think about that: that's got to be the most intense possible chain of events possible. I think only if he'd found out he was due to fly to Mars the following Wednesday would it have been any more storied.

So, we slowly recorded the guitars and vocals over the course of 2003, which Shaun mightily soldiered through, relearning each song before recording, not having a chance to develop any solo ideas that he really was thrilled with - although the guitar turned out to be a highlight of the album. But it all proved too much - he finally retired from the band in late 2003. The record sat around for a few more months, and then we finally mixed it - but by then, the spirit had gone out of it and I can barely stand to listen to big chunks of it (but I'm still proud of the achievement, so go figure that paradox).

It's funny - the rest of our lives, we spend trying to figure out ways to make time to play music - for many musicians I know, it's about the only thing that we really enjoy doing. But always, it's on the backburner, getting black and crunchy. Maybe when we all retire, we'll form some godawful band of octogenarian light rockers, an "America" for the 2060s.

But, really, who doesn't have something in their lives they'd rather be doing than the things they usually find themselves doing? Anyone who's figured out how to live that full life, out there? Or are you editing copy instead of printmaking? Assembling widgets instead of writing illuminating travel literature? Clearing tables instead of studying Byzantine Art? Answering phones instead of writing symphonies?

Really, why are we all jerking off instead of humping like bunnies?

Or was that just me?

D.

Many Miles, etc.

The days are longer, so it only seems appropriate that my days have been getting longer in response. For example: it is now 11:44 PM on Monday night, but I have at least three hours worth of work before I can get into bed. And I can't even really blame it on poor time management, because there simply isn't any other time to do the work I have to do, now.

Not such a great complaint, of course. Being forced to pound a few designs through Quark isn't exactly shoveling 16 tons - but I do owe my soul to the company store, these days, and I am deeper in debt, and will be another day older by the time I post this blog (E.S.T., of course).

Wait! Didn't I promise that this blog wasn't going to be about how life has wronged me? I suppose so. But this isn't really life that's getting on me (except for the giant flood in basement and the collapsed ceiling and the leaky toilet, etc.), but me deliberately overfilling my plate. So: what's the solution? Head down, as the saying goes.

The big problem is that I've always had a lousy work ethic. It's gotten better over the years (really, it couldn't get no worse), but I still find work just a silly waste of time. This is one reason why I've never been a very productive cartoonist - the trade I still consider 'mine' - apart from whatever doubts I might've had about my ability, the labor involved in creating comics just made it too much like work, to me. I have entire worlds in my head that only have my drawing hands as their outlet, and it's a bit like that on-ramp to the Oakland Bay Bridge that just got melted into slag - nothing is getting on or off that way.

Curiously, I can throw myself into music and have no problem doing whatever gruntwork necessary to make the music sound good. That sounds like a laugh-line, but I believe very strongly in being well-prepared for performance. But how does one 'prepare' to draw? My drawing preparation seems to entail a lot of stalking around and muttering obscenities under my breath.

My musician's eye (yes, 'eye') is very clear. I can always see clearly where a composition should go. In the visual arts, my eye is blind. No picture exists in my mind before I start to work on the page - just vague abstractions. Very, very cool, but very, very vague. My adult years will be dedicated to learning how to make that eye see and bringing that vision to the page. I've already taken faltering steps - but I'm both heartened and cowed by the fact that the drawings I did when I was an ambitious 17-year-old are far more sophisticated than anything I can do now.

Not a bad goal, I think, to get back to where I was 20 years ago.

Anyway, one aspect of the revised site will be a selection of some of my comics and other works, probably going back to when I was 12. I hope that others will find tracking an artist's progress fascinating. And there'll be plenty of music in the archives, too - I may take a cue from my friend Karl, and post an annotated song of the week. There'll be plenty of content, and not all of it old, of course.

That's not much of a mission statement, I know - but it's a place to start. And since it's now nine minutes past midnight (here in New York, that is), I am now another day older - and you'll have to excuse me.

Those 16 tons aren't going to shovel themselves.

D.