Well, dear readers, I’m happy to report that session number two for the Guy Haines album went as well, if not better, than session number one. We started out the day recording the three solos we hadn’t done at all – Sail Away, Love, Look Away and Point of No Return. That all went relatively quickly, although certain parts of Love, Look Away and Point of No Return took a while to get right. We finished those by one o’clock and we then spent the next hour-and-a-half listening to yesterday’s work, and then we ended up doing full takes on five songs, just to have another choice (these were all songs where we only had one or two takes from yesterday). I’m also happy to report that we never had to do more than three takes of anything, which will make the vocal comping go fairly fast. At two-thirty, Miss Juliana A. Hansen arrived and she and Guy did Little Red Hat. After one brief rehearsal for levels, it was an exact repeat of yesterday – two takes and we were finished. Juliana sang beautifully and was cute as a button and Guy hit all his notes, even the repeated high Fs at the end. I must say, Mr. Tom Jones wrote a lot of words that go very fast at the end – a real mouthful. Then our “ensemble” arrived – they included Mr. Kevin Spirtas, Miss Tammy Minoff, Mr. Ari Fife, Miss Fleur Phillips, and Miss Hansen, who filled in for someone else to whom Tammy forgot to tell the recording date. They quickly learned their oohs and aahs for Point of No Return and we did those quickly. They then had to learn the slightly more complicated but short parts for On Your Toes. That took a bit longer, but we wrapped on time and it all sounded splendidly splendid. Vinnie is working on another project the rest of the week, and he’ll start getting rough mixes up over the weekend and I’ll join him on Monday. I’m anticipating just Monday and Tuesday, and this stuff isn’t going to be hard to mix. The only real time consuming thing is comping the vocals, and I do that pretty quickly, especially because there aren’t a huge amount of takes to go through. Then the only thing that will be left is Kerry Butler’s duet toward the end of May. Then we mix that, and off it goes to the mastering facility. Of course, I must decide on an order and that will probably take some time, although I at least know how the CD opens and closes. I must say that Guy, other than occasionally having to take a water break or a gum break or a Ricola break, was in good voice throughout and I was pretty pleased with what I heard coming from his voice box. And now, I get to run around, be gay and carefree, speak as much as I like, go swimming if I so choose, and go out in the evening if I so choose. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Last night I only really had time to begin watching a motion picture on DVD – it was entitled Blue. Other than to say that at twenty-five minutes in it is already in the pantheon of bad films, I will have a full report on the ‘morrow. But, this I can say: This is one of the most beautiful DVD transfers I’ve ever seen. This transfer is a demonstration disc in my opinion (IMO, in Internet lingo). It is so sharp it’s mind-boggling that it’s not Hi-Def. I always wonder when I watch transfers that are mostly excellent why the mid to long shots are so frequently soft, or, in worse transfers, why everything is soft. I mean, the negative or the print they use isn’t soft – it can’t be. It has to have perfect focus. So, it’s something they’re doing in the actual transfer. Part of the problem is that they’re probably watching on a 12″ monitor. Well, everything looks sharp on a 12″ monitor. But Blue gets it perfect – great contrast, amazing color, but, above all, this incredible sharpness no matter what distance the shot. While I couldn’t recommend the movie to anyone, I do recommend the transfer as a perfect example of how good a DVD should look. This thing puts almost every other DVD to shame – the fact that they could do this for a film which played less than a week in its initial engagement and then vanished to TV land, either means the elements were in perfect condition because they hadn’t been touched in all these years, or someone at Paramount is really learning how to do this stuff right.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because there might just be something fascinatingly fascinating in the next section.
Nope, nothing fascinatingly fascinating in this section. Just words, words, and more words, all adding up to sentences and paragraphs of no importance whatsoever. But, since when has that ever stopped us?
I think I shall tool around the city in my motor car today, and catch up on all the things I had to put aside while I took care of the voice box. And, if it’s as hot as it was yesterday, I may even put on Ye Olde Bathing Dress and take a dip in the pool.
Tomorrow stay tuned for our huge anniversary party here at haineshisway.com. It’s a big one, and we’re going to have lots of festively festive festivities and even a give-away. You won’t want to miss any of it, for it will be lively and sparkling, I can assure you.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must get back to my writing (fleshing out Act One of the play, and perhaps even starting a new short story), I must do errands, I must pick up packages, I must eat a really good meal (after the disappointment of Musso and Frank last night), and I must do various and sundried other things. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old thing you like and we get to answer any old thing we like. For example, you can ask me any questions about the sessions or the songs from the new Guy Haines albums and I will be blunt and frank and also frank and blunt, not necessarily in that order. Let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely posts, shall we?