I'm listening, at the moment, to Roger Waters' "Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking" on vinyl. In my considered opinion, this is Waters' finest post-Floyd work and is, in fact, nearly as good as almost any Pink Floyd record and, on some levels, in some small way, better than most of them.

I found this record for the first time, along with "Skylarking" by XTC, on a trip to Tower Records in London twenty years ago. Neither record ever gets old for me. Both records have, on so many levels, informed my sense of taste as a musician, songwriter, engineer, and producer. At the time, all I had was the music and a pair of headphones to hear it on, but I must say, in the intervening twenty years, not even learning how these records were made has spoiled them for me... not even a little.

And lately, I've been haunting L.A.'s many vinyl record shops and collecting my favorite records on vinyl again. The best ones. The ones that somehow changed the way I view music. I'm not at all about to jump on the "vinyl just sounds better" bandwagon. But I must say that I love how vinyl suggests a method for listening to music: FROM START TO FINISH. It's a wonderful salve for the sickness of the mix CD and the commoditization of iTunes.

Dear Feist,

Why is there an Apple commercial on your record?

I've recently stumbled across a copy of some very popular and widely used music software that I've had in storage for some time. I've never used it before or even installed it. Well, I installed it earlier this week and spent three or four hours learning it. Since then, I've been using it to make strange pulsating hypnotic electronic music, and I really think I'm on to something interesting. What I'm in love with right now are the possibilities. Time will tell. We'll see if I'm still as interested as the pieces develop and become what they are, doors close, and a wide open field of possibilities narrows into specifics. As a general rule, I dislike most electronic music. Maybe this is one reason why I'm not too bad at making it: really high standards for what does and doesn't suck.

I went to pick up Les at the Burbank airport. I love this airport and try to fly to or from there whenever possible. It is truly the perfect airport. Very smart. There's no traffic, only two terminals, and it's fifteen minutes from home. Security is tight, but fast and reasonable. I would never want to live in Burbank, but driving there certainly beats the hellish two to three hour soul killing horror of a round trip to LAX.

Tonight, Jes and I made sea bass (ill-tempered, of course) with rice and steamed bok choy. It was delicious, and somehow we ended up talking about elementary school cafeteria food.

After various (and numerous) conversations over the years with Jessica and many of my friends, as well as my mother, I have begun to suspect that the food at my elementary school cafeteria was worse than most. I went to private Christian school, so there was no public oversight at all. In fact, now that I think about it, whoever was responsible for the cafeteria at my school should probably be criminally prosecuted.

My entire adult life, I've heard people complain vigorously about hospital food and airline food. I've always found this a pretty frivolous complaint. Not that I find anything at all appetizing about either, but both are better than what I ate every day for nine years at school.

There was no cooking done on the premises. Everything was delivered frozen once a week and warmed up (most of the way) before they served it to us. Each day, there was one choice. On chili day, there was canned chili in a disposable plastic bowl. On chicken day, there was a piece of fried chicken and mashed potatoes (no gravy, no butter.) On pizza day, there was a single square slice of what I can only describe as cheese toast with shitty ravioli sauce under the cheese. On hamburger day, there was a patty of mystery meat (mostly soy I imagine) on a completely dry bun, wrapped in aluminum foil.

My description of the menu fails to adequately describe the horror that was school lunch. There was a certain je ne sais quoi that gets lost in the re-telling. It should be enough to say that hospital and airline food are both vastly superior in both quality and variety, but that doesn't quite do it justice. Maybe it was the side dish of "couldn't give a fuck" that was served with care along with each entree. Clearly, if they could have gotten away with not feeding us at all, they would have jumped at the chance.

Many things about this school only begin to seem odd to me as I reflect on them as an adult. Others were obviously wrong to me even then, as the idiot youngster they were trying so hard to teach us all to be.

There were certainly a few teachers there who loved to teach. A few of them actually were competent. Most were of below average intelligence and disliked me, in part because I was bright, but mostly because I was clever.

There was a gym coach. He coached all the boys in grades 2 through 8, so I had him once a day for seven years. He also coached ALL of the after school athletic teams to dismal failure each year. The female coach who coached the girls was a high turnover position, and it's no mystery why. This man was one of the most unpleasant people I have ever met. His behavior was irrational, and he had a true fetish for dispensing punishment. If he was having a rough week, he didn't need a reason. On the weekends, he would often fashion new wooden paddles for hitting children. So he had gradually accumulated quite a collection in his office, with a few of the "greatest hits" hanging on the wall like fly swatters. He clearly was experimenting with differences in size, shape, and airflow. All but one of them had holes drilled in them. Some had large holes, and others had lots of small holes. Some of the older models were modified ping pong paddles. It was clearly more than a casual hobby.

Some of the weaker female teachers outsourced their beatings to him as well. So, if you misbehaved in their class or kept your eyes open during prayer, you would likely be sent to him (or have him brought to you) for a beating. Essentially, he was not unlike a classic S&M dungeon master... only he hadn't realized that this was what he was, so he continued to beat children instead of consenting adults.

I remember an algebra teacher who was a bright pink bald man. He was a true idiot. He would yell and scream and turn bright red. He wrote ".333333" on the backboard while staring at the class and yelling ".777777" He was so incompetent that nearly 40% of his class failed the entire year and had to go to (and pay extra tuition for) summer school. Surprisingly, he was not invited back the following year.

I remember when new science textbooks were bought, if you had science first period, the teacher would have us flip to page 62 and thumb all the way to page 114 and TEAR THOSE PAGES OUT and throw them away, to get rid of evolution. With no evolution to worry about, most days could be spent doing cute little Mr. Wizard style science tricks.

I remember the band director who, during his first week on the job, gave a heartfelt and tearful speech about how he was SO pleased to be there and thoroughly committed to building a quality band program and maintaining that level of quality for years to come. Three months later he left for a better job, and band became a study hall for the remaining six months of the year. He was the smartest teacher there.

This is only a small fraction of some of the jaw dropping things I could tell about a private Christian school in the south during the 70's and 80's. When people hear them, they often wonder why the parents put up with this. I think the answer is that they didn't know. Or most of them didn't. This is because so many of us went there from k4 onwards, and we truly didn't know that most of this stuff was out of the ordinary. It certainly wasn't what our home lives were like, but no one thinks anything is amiss when a young child would rather stay at home than go to school.

Combine the culture of the Reagan years with fundamentalist Christian values in Alabama, and this is what you get.

Exposure

One of the most egregiously offensive (and most frequent) abuses of musicians and bands is to ask them to play for nothing or next to nothing and then tell them they're being paid in "exposure."

Simply put: fuck that. Pay me. My time is worth money. Let's dismiss with the notion that "letting" me play is doing me a favor. Venues need to make money. If a band isn't going to further that goal, they book someone else. Simple. Nobody's doing anybody any favors. So don't insult me by telling me my time is worth less. I know you're getting paid. If not, you're a shitty businessman. If I don't get paid, so am I.

Labors of love and charity, where no one gets paid are a different story. But if anyone is getting paid, the musicians should be first in line, because what have you got without them?

Not that this has happened to me recently. I haven't played a live show in months. I'm not venting. I bring it up because...

It seems now we're asked to do everything "for exposure." Playing live is expensive enough. A professional recording, while less expensive than it used to be, is even more expensive than gigging. There are numerous excuses / justifications for file swapping and, when a questionable behavior has more than one (much less many) excuses, one begins to question the validity of any of them. One of the most annoying excuses I hear often is "exposure."

"If I download your music and like it, I'll tell my friends! That's good for you. Everybody wins."

Everybody wins except the band... again. If your friends like free music and "being on the list," please DON'T tell them about me. If they find me on their own, steer them elsewhere.

To what end are we promoting the music now? Spending even more money for the chance to get in line to give away more music so more people will show up for an exposure gig where everyone gets paid but the band? No thanks.

No wonder you see so many trust fund ponies in rock bands. You practically need a trust fund to afford to do it at all now.

Keep coming up with more and more justifications for illegal downloading, and to every single one I offer the same response: "But it hurts musicians." I don't need an adaptive response for each of the thousand different reasons why downloading is okay. That one works fine for all of them.

A quiet night at home after a busy weekend. We went to Whole Foods (in general, I prefer Trader Joe's but their produce selection is crap) and got vegetables for dinner. Les dropped in later to watch Californication with us.

Rashid called inviting us to join him on his maiden voyage to Amoeba, but it was right when we were cooking, so I didn't make it.

Saturday night, we went to the "Religiously Delicious" exhibit and then to a massive block party in Silverlake. It was pure madness. Probably 500 people. We finally found a quiet corner in which to sip whiskey and chat with a small group of people.

Sunday, we went to the NuArt on the west side to see Control, Anton Corbjin's movie about Ian Curtis and Joy Division. I really enjoyed it, but afterwards they brought out the cast and one of the producers to talk about the movie. The movie was so compelling for me that I really couldn't sit and listen to people ask, "So what was it like to be in this movie?" I went outside and waited in the lobby, where I couldn't stop wondering why the manager looked so familiar. Did I know this guy? I was sure that I did, but I didn't know from where. It was driving me crazy.

Afterwards we went to Father's Office in Santa Monica for drinks. I was surprised, when we got there, to find that it was microbrew beer and wine only. I had a beer.

Then to Izzy's Deli on Wilshire for dinner.

Later I realized that the manager at NuArt was the movie geek from Beat the Geeks.

Mostly a quiet domestic evening. Jes and I cooked Mexican food (taquitos, tamales, and refried black beans with cayenne and sour cream) and watched 30 Rock and The Office while we ate. Later, I neatened the house a bit, did the dishes, and cleaned the kitchen. Completely uninteresting, uncool, and not music industry related.

I succumbed to the meal and accidentally napped for an hour, which is something that happens sometimes when we cook delicious rich food at home and eat in front of the television without a solid plan for what happens next.

Later, I went downtown, got a cup of coffee at the Pantry, and went to the studio. I worked for a few hours on the Beggars mixes. Then I worked on bass lines for two new Black Pill tracks and made rough mixes.

Today's listening: Here Come the Warm Jets by Eno, Velevet Undergound and Nico, and The Slider by T. Rex.

Wednesday night / Thursday morning...

I went to see some old friends and their bands at the Silverlake Lounge tonight. I hadn't seen them since exactly five years ago this month, and it was great catching up, and the one band I made it in time to catch was really good. The Silverlake Lounge is a surprisingly good sounding room for its small size. It seems like the kind of room that would have a lousy sound system, but it doesn't. I don't know exactly what they have, but it sounds really good. I also like that it's pretty loud. Most rooms in town sound pretty good, but a lot of them aren't really powerful, and this room is.

Silverlake is unusual to me. I definitely understand the appeal to indie hipster artists and musicians. It isn't tourist infested like Hollywood and not full of yuppie douchebags like so much of the west side. The businesses there are really cool, and there's not a lot of corporate chain stores. On paper, it seems like the perfect neighborhood. And real estate prices and rent certainly reflect that this is a popular view. But, for some reason, I'm just not crazy about it. I almost never go there.

After the show, Les and I met at the studio to work on whatever we pleased, presumably either mixing his music or working on Black Pill tracks. As it turned out, we got nothing done, because we spent the entire time talking... about music, people, recording budgets, business, films, and dream logic until 4AM.

Today's music listening: Mostly work-related.

So, I'll give this blog another try after more than a year of inactivity. I'm well settled in Los Angeles and working hard to get the new studio up and running. So far, the control room is ready to go, but the tracking room still needs some touching up. More to come.

I simply can't wrap my brain around the number of unreturned emails and phone calls I have to deal with. Surely people are upset with me by now. It's been an astoundingly busy and chaotic week.

Sunday, a session I was very much looking forward to was cancelled at the last minute, allowing me to go to the Collarmoth event at Sakura and bump elbows with Birmingham's finest artists and artisans. It was, and always is, a pleasure to see Merrilee, Andrea, Hollis, Chris, Anne, Jonny, Lester, Has, Jen, Chance, and Eric. Hi guys. It's always a delight to see you all. Chance, I had hoped we would have time to talk for longer.

Thinking I wouldn't be able to be there, Jes ordered a gigantic takeout order of sushi, which we ate later at my place while watching the latest Simpsons and Aqua Teen DVDs. Maybe a normal life isn't too much to (eventually) hope for. I certainly enjoyed the teaser.

As a pleasant surprise, I received a short but pleasant email from my favorite guitar guru. Since the point of the email was only to say thanks, I didn't risk becoming a nuissance by replying. I'm familiar with the stress of an overstuffed inbox and don't wish to contribute to the unwelcome stuffing of anyone else's. So, if you're reading this, I got your mail, and it was nice to hear from you. Go in peace. Best wishes. I ask for nothing. May the holidays bring you an inbox with the hoped for number of emails.

Monday's session was also cancelled at the last minute. I was looking forward to this one as well. This is the beginning of what promises to be a very cool project. Original Sugar LaLa's Mats, Leif, and Eric are being joined by Tim Boykin and James Risha for a new project which sort of resembles the LaLa's, sort of resembles the Primitons, and sort of resembles the Shame Idols and contains members of all three. So far we have two cuts nearly finished, and we were scheduled to work on demos and guide tracks for the next two. Maybe next week.

If it gets finished, this will be a great record.

Saw James Hall last week at the Nick. I was really glad to see him back again, as I had hoped that the demise of Pleasure Club hadn't meant he was no longer going to play. He played a great set, half of which was vocals and guitar. The rest was him being backed up by Taylor's band. They were awesome (especially for having only rehearsed twice) and it was a great gig with a truly fantastic set list.

I went up to James after the show to say how much I had enjoyed it. I was hoping he would remember me, but I was prepared to remind him how we know each other. He saw me and said, "Hey Daniel! Did you get my voicemail last night?!" I had not gotten this message, and I felt bad. But not so bad because I couldn't really have helped him. I think James lost some gear in the New Orleans flood, and he was hoping to borrow a Fender amp for his gig. Since my only Fender amp is just 5 watts, it wouldn't have been nearly loud enough to play at the Nick.

I hope James and I will do some recording in 2006.

It seems that the possible "Lunasect" gig for New Year's Eve won't be happening. I'm not really disappointed. I don't feel like we're sufficiently rehearsed. That is, I wouldn't presume to speak for J,J, or L, but I don't feel like I am sufficiently rehearsed. Of our last three rehearsals, we spent far more time working on writing new songs than we did working on playing (i.e. re-learning) the songs we already have. And rightly so. I had a fantatic time working on this stuff, and I think it's well worth giving up a New Year's gig for.

Additionally, I spent those three rehearsals re-learning how to play the electric guitar. I've spent so much of the last few months mixing and tracking that I literally haven't played the guitar for more than ten minutes at a time in many months. We worked up a cover of Iggy's The Passenger and my right hand actually had trouble playing the correct rhythm for the guitar part. This is pathetic.

I'm about two days behind on returning calls and emails. If I haven't answered you yet, I'm not ignoring you. I'm just very busy. You'll hear from me soon.

The tape loop in the Roland Space Echo breaks every month or so. I knew my analog tape splicing skills would eventually lead to a life of glory.



Grant and Trent.



The Lester. Probably thinking about something.



DF

Ostensibly a day off. Not quite. Lots of phone calls and several visitors, none of whom I was totally prepared to deal with.

One of the main sources of trouble was the UPS definition of 2 Day Air. Due to last week being a holiday week, UPS was closed on Thursday and only delivering air packages on Friday. So last Tuesday morning, I sent out a CD Master 2 Day Air (presumably for arrival on Friday).



Not exactly my definition of 2 Day Air.

In my own experience, UPS has about a 50% failure rate when it comes to packages arriving on time and undamaged. The USPS, on the other hand, seems to be the equivalent of tossing your package out the window of a moving car and hoping the wind (or whoever finds it) carries it to your intended destination.

My favorite example of what is typical for the postal service is the time, four years ago, that I received an invitation to join a music conference panel discussion as a panelist. The only problem was that, by the time I received the invitation (which was postmarked six weeks earlier), the conference had been over for two weeks. The irony, of course, is that I had actually BEEN to the conference and attended several panel discussions.

A very hard day. Long hours, but very rewarding. First recording myself doing guitar overdubs for a new Lunasect song. Then Grant, Trent, Lester, and I did about 10 hours on the next phase of Sitting Still recordings.

The studio feels pretty timeless, especially after 14 hours. Time just vanishes, and you can become really introspective. It's hard to spend more than half a day in the studio, where it's cool, dark, and smoky, and then go out and have to speak to people and do normal things... as if you hadn't just spent 14 hours in a dark room, unaware of the passage of time.

my studio guitar setup

reach out and touch someone

big black pussy

the only two things better than a Marshall plexi:
1.) two Marshall plexis
2.) three Marshall plexis

Lester's Drums (with microphone)

Lester's Drums (with microphone)

aftermath

why does that guitar sound so dim?

the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand: real hammers, real strings,
real hard to keep in tune.

stuff we weren't using at the moment

Then to visit Jessica, and a trip to the store, which is kind of surreal, bright, and overly organized after 14 hours in the studio:

aftermath of the aftermath 1

aftermath of the aftermath 2

According to numerous sources, Star Wars Battlefront is currently the most popular video game in the country.

But that's only because they failed to factor in Desktop Audio Production which is, in my estimation, the most popular video game there is.

It used to be a craft, an art, and a profession. Now it is a video game.

Some thoughts on cheating

I'd someday like to be able to dispense with, or at least redefine, or at the very least clarify the word "cheat" in the context of record production.

Some people are purists. They might believe that doing overdubs would be cheating... that everything should be recorded live. Other people might be more moderate, so they might have a higher threshold for this. For example: overdubs are okay, eq and compression are fine, but using effects is cheating. Other people might be more adventurous and liberal, so overdubs and effects are fine, but editing the drums to be tighter and using vocal tuning software is cheating.

I've got news for you: It's all cheating. Every last bit of it from soup to nuts.

When something audible happens, we hear it and it's over. It has passed. After that, we have only our memory of the event, to whatever degree it is accurate and useful enough to be maintained.

The moment we conspire to use electronics to capture that event, preserve it, and replay it later, we're cheating. After that, everything is a slippery slope, because we're already cheating. After that, it's like robbing a bank and saying it's okay if we only take $5000, but if we take $10,000 it's morally wrong.

Basically, when it comes to record production, I'm a sociopath. As long as we're doing this rather deceptive thing (after all, these events happened EARLIER) called recording, we might as well focus on making it what we want it to be, because to focus on what it IS is to fool ourselves. What it IS is transient and passing. It IS something to be remembered, not something to be replayed.

But we will record things anyway, won't we? So, now that we've all unanimously decided that it's okay to cheat, let us please just dismiss with the ridiculous notion that some methods of cheating are more or less "pure" than others. Unless you're recording live acoustic performances to Gramophone in a single take, I have no patience for your arguments or sermons against tuning software, drum editing, sample replacement, and vocal comping. Get over it. We're both cheating, but I'm just doing a better and more thorough job of it and getting the results I want without having to feel guilty about what it takes to get there.

In record production, the central issue isn't whether or not what we're doing is cheating: it is. The question is whether or not we're doing it well. That is: whether or not we're getting the results we want. If in five years, those results sound dated and unlistenable, then we have bad taste, and that's another criticism altogether... and one worth paying attention to. But where tools are concerned, the only question is whether or not they help you acheive your desired result. If your desired results suck, it isn't the fault of the tools that helped you realize it.

And on the flipside of that coin... never EVER apologize for using a tool that helped your end result be more like you wanted it to be. Anyone who asks you to isn't in the record production business; they're in the religion business.

Welcome to danielfarris.com. I love the smell of "new website" in the morning. It was the most modest and humble domain name I could think of. This website is devoted to my work as a recording engineer and producer.

In the future, watch this space for updates, news, rants, raves, essays on clock jitter, studio time giveaways, video clips of animals having sex, and naked photos of Ernest Borgnine.

Cheers,

DF