Well, dear readers, I must say I have a splitting headache right at this very moment. That makes it very hard to concentrate, and even harder to have any sort of wit. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, when one has a splitting headache it is very hard to have wit. I, for example, have no wit at this particular moment because I, for example, have a splitting headache. I don’t know where said splitting came from, but it came upon me quite suddenly. I was sitting at my computer like so much fish, feeling fine and dandy and also dandy and fine. Then, quite suddenly, a splitting headache came upon my person like a gazelle having a hot flash. Excuse me for one moment.
There, I have taken two count them two Advil. If this splitting headache continues, I may inadvertently turn into an axe murderer. I may suddenly be doing my impression of Miss Joan Crawford in Straight Jacket. Well, perhaps if I talk about other things my splitting headache will go away. Perhaps if I talk about the things I did yesterday my splitting headache will go away. Yesterday, I awoke just before nine o’clock. I had quite a few e-mails to attend to, then I had to make some calls, then I had to skeedaddle to Vinnie’s home environment to mix the first eight songs on the Guy Haines album. We began with my very own song, Born Too Late. The first thing I do is listen to the rough mix that Vinnie has done. I get the sound and song in my head. Then I comp the vocal track. Usually, there are two to three takes, and I listen to each one all the way down, whilst jotting notes on my official comp sheet. Each verse is broken down into numbers, and I simply insert the take number for each line of the song. Sometimes I put a question mark, so if I hear a better reading in a subsequent take, I’ll either change the number or listen to both as we comp. It really goes very quickly. We then do the comp, with Vinnie putting all the takes where they belong. I then listen to the comped vocal to make sure it’s all of a piece and that it does what it needs to do in terms of emotion, honesty, and singing. Once that’s done to my satisfaction (and I am very picky during that process), then we begin to finesse the actual mix, making sure all the instruments sound good, that the vocal is in the proper place within the sound field, that you can hear each line of the vocal without it being completely “in your face”. We then adjust certain orchestral lines that I might like to hear more of, and in general just smooth everything out so it sounds as good as it can. Once that’s done, we listen down another time or two, make any final adjustments, and then we “print” the mix to a folder for the finished mixes. Then we move on to the next song and start the whole process over again. The songs we spent the most time on were Love, Look Away (the track I knew was going to be the hardest – not for vocal reasons, but because of the way in which the track was recorded), which we finished but will still probably do one more pass on (after adding a cello), and Getting Away with You, a song for which I had a very specific sort of sound in mind. I’ll be listening to our work in the morning (I never listen until I’ve had time to forget what we did, so that I hear it with fresh ears), and I’m hoping that the extra time we spent on those two songs will have been worth it.
We did take a lunch break – we ate at the nearby Hamburger Hamlet, and I must say we all felt that the lunch was too greasy. I had a hamburger, Vinnie had a veggie burger, and his girlfriend had some kind of burger, too, I think. We all had the onion rings, which turned out not to be regular onion rings, but the thin stringy kind, and they were swimming in oil. Blechhh. Of course, we ate them all up, but afterwards we all felt kind of yucky about it. Tomorrow, Vinnie will get up the rest of the mixes, and then I’ll be there on Wednesday to comp and finesse.
I then came home and spent two hours catching up on phone calls. I then got a splitting headache. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’m hoping that by the time we get to the next section that the Advil will have started working.
The Advil apparently have not started working. I know this for a fact because I still have a fershluganah splitting headache. Damn them, damn them all to hell. If only Dino were here, he could play some soothing chords to soothe the savage head.
I had no time to watch a motion picture on DVD, but I shall watch two count them two this evening to make up for lost time. We must not fall behind, DVD-wise.
Did you know that many celebrities and news personalities have started doing blogs? And I don’t mean those one-line things that people call blogs, I mean they’ve started copying haineshisway.com. We led the way, and they have followed. As usual, it took some time for them to catch on to the popularity of this here site, but once they did they just ripped us off wholesale. I am glad we are here to lead the way, as I am glad we were here to lead the way for other record labels to use our very special business model for labels. The more the merrier, although I hope they don’t make the bad mistake of trying to claim credit for what they are doing. If they do so, then we shall have to send out all hainsies/kimlets into the fray to make certain they know they are mere followers of a trend, not the trendsetters.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must write, I must spend much time on the telephone having conversations and meetings, I must do some organizational things, I must hopefully pick up some packages, I must go to Armani Wells and pick up my altered clothing and my tuxedo, and I must find time to nibble on a foodstuff or two. Today’s topic of discussion: Since I so enjoyed all of our scary book posts from yesterday – what are your favorite humorous or laugh-out-loud funny books? I’ll start – my favorite funny short stories and cartoons are by James Thurber. To me, Thurber was about the wittiest man who ever lived. When I was younger, I loved Jack Douglas’ books, Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver and My Brother Was an Only Child. I also thought Charley Weaver’s Letter’s From Mama was highly amusing. As for comic novels, I’ll be self-serving and say I find the Kritzer tomes very amusing, and I also have enjoyed Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg’s Candy, Jack Finney’s Good Neighbor Sam, Nora Johnson’s The World of Henry Orient, and many others. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we try to get rid of this damnable splitting headache.