November 25, 2003 - 3:50 AM

From Ecstasy to Agony. The Unadulterated, Unmitigated, Unequivocal Evil Kind.

Have you ever heard a song that was just plain wrong? I don't mean the song itself, but the execution of it. A total gathering of bastard parts that, when fully assembled, causes ears to bleed and brains to hematomize and lemmings to club each other to death because walking off a cliff takes too long. What do you do if you find yourself stuck in the middle of recording such an abomination? Do you cry in the corner? Beat up the artist? How can you ever appreciate music again when you know that THAT is out there?

Let's back up a few days. Back to when music made me feel good, nay, glorious. Back to Friday.

Friday was Susan Werner in Santa Monica, which is always a treat. Blues guitarist/singer Keb'Mo' is a fan, and I've spotted him in the audience the past couple of times she's been through. The last time she was here in January, he accompanied her on her encore. This time, for the encore, he started accompanying her on a blues riff song called "Light Sleeper" that Susan does on the piano; however halfway through, as Keb was soloing after a verse, Susan picked up her second guitar and they traded licks back and forth, then made up their own blues verses that were pretty funny. A real gem of a show. I love Susan. She be so great. We talked about stuff at the end of the night, how my life has been going, the latest rumors of Alex Rodriguez being traded to her hometown Cubbies (yeah right). I've been going to see Susan for so long, I've moved beyond "stalker" status and am now a demi-friend. I also love her roadie, Jane Paul. Jane is a sexy beast who can kick my ass. Yay Jane! And for those keeping score, they too call me Paulkim. All on their own, that's how they address me. I'll have to go into the strange phenomenon that is my name at a later date.

This was the initiation of my cousin Tony, his girlfriend (I Love) Margaret, and Margaret's cousin Joan into the fandom of Susan. They seemed to dig her quite muchly...I'm proud that I've also been able to brainwash my sister, my brother, my mom, and my friend Mike into being fans. After the show, Tony, Beloved, Joan, and I went out to some hip Japanese restaurant for late dinner (we were the last customers and the staff was subtly trying to get us to leave). sidebar: Hey, She Who Is the Light of My Life, is it ok if I get a crush on your cousin too? I'd never met Joan before (I resisted the urge to point out that Joan of Arcadia was on that night, or that my sister Sophia came THIS close to being named Joan, or that she and my brother started off grade school at St. Joan of Arc), but I immediately liked the cut of her jib. In fact, the way she talked and laughed bore an uncanny resemblance to the way my best friend at Berklee, Kellie Lin Knott, talked and laughed, which is strange because Kellie is white and from Minnesota. Hmm...well, to be honest, I don't think Kellie curses as much as Joan does.

The following day, I was called in to fill in for a few hours on a session. Considering the fact that I had requested the day off in order to see Sylvie Lewis and Splendid, I was pretty grumpy about being the last hope for the job. There was a lot of fretting since I had to do a setup for a fairly big session, and problems kept popping up that I had to address. Finally, the guy I was filling in for arrived, and I checked in to the Hotel Cafe to catch Sylvie and Splendid. Splendid, of course, is the duo featuring Angie Hart of Frente and her husband Jesse Tobias. There was a packed house for Splendid, who played at 9 PM. I have yet to get their albums, so I wasn't familiar with most of their songs, but they did play two that they performed on Buffy, even introducing "Blue" as the one that "our good friend Joss Whedon wrote." They also pulled out the bare, beautiful Frente cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle." Much of the crowd stayed after their set and got to see Sylvie put on a dynamite show that started with an acapella rendition of "Roxanne" that left the room dead silent. In a good way, of course. She had different players backing her up, including a drummer, a harmonica-ist, and a pianist who also did harmonies. Sylvie continues to floor me with her supple vocals and her ever-growing cache of killer tunes. We're gonna try to work something out where I'll help her do some recording for her next album.

Sunday, I did some more recording with Sara and Sandy, although we didn't get much done. The perils of being unprepared to record, I guess. I've come to appreciate artists and producers who come to the studio with a rock solid idea of what they want to do, but are still open to good suggestions, because usually there's no futzing around, no wasted time; just good solid energy all the way through. Too often, though, especially with young people, recording time is wasted because those involved haven't thought everything out, haven't rehearsed it, or haven't even written it. That's supremely frustrating. After a long day, we packed it up. I stayed around to do some set up for a session I was assisting on for Monday, milking the clock for a few precious hours.

And so we come to the debacle from bulgary. I had no idea what to expect since I was given minimal information about the session. At first, I thought we were just going to record piano and vocals. Then an assload of synth gear arrived. I helped set that up, just as the artist, producer, engineer, and pianist entered the picture. Luckily, they're professionals, so they got their shit together and did the job quickly. Unluckily, they were producing some grade-f shit.

You remember that techno-opera thing in the movie The Fifth Element? That was frickin' groovy, wasn't it? Well, imagine that, only less "cool" techno and more "white dippy schmaltz faux" techno, mixed with a little Sarah Brightman, a little Mary Fahl (a stunning alto), channeled through a group of Bulgarians who actually think Europop is awesome, and then extracted from the gaping maw of a castrated man. Oh god, kill me now. And by god, I mean Denise.

I don't know if the singer is a castrato (I think I heard him say that he's married, but that might have been a lie to throw me off the scent), but, well, if you just listened to the vocal tracks, you would think that you were hearing Kiri Te Kanawa or some other opera soprano. It was like the Vienna Boys Choir all growed up. If it was just this guy, Arno (short for Arnold, and, yes, they were all making jokes about that other heavy accented Ahnuld), singing opera arias, then I would have been merely cringing. But to hear him singing, with that stupid miu miu enunciation that opera singers affect, over a synthy-karaoked out version of BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS for cripes-sake...and everyone in the control room gushing about how this was going to be a huge hit...it was freaking the hell out of me. The hell and the crap and the piss and the lard. All fleeing my body. After desecrating Simon and Garfunkel's legacy, they moved on to some uptempo pop-rocker about wanting some woman's body or something sexy like that, only, it came out sounding like a joke told by a yarling cat in heat. The last song we recorded was a ballad where he promised to love his girl "the only way (he) knows". I'm not even touching that one.

The good thing about this session was that I was very hands-on involved with the engineering aspects, running the computer and solving all the problems we were having with it as well as running the more complex operations of the console. The bad thing is that these Europeans developed, over the course of the night, that special funk that only Europeans can do, and do so well. In addition to ear plugs, i think I'll need nose plugs when we finish up tomorrow.

While I did work for 18 hours today, that joyful bounty was nearly unbalanced by the last thing I heard, as I did some preparations, with the clients gone for the night, for the next day. I opened up a song that we were going to mix, but that I hadn't heard, and was assaulted by pure soul disco with funky-diva backgrounds and x-rated coos and calls and THAT TESTES-LACKING DEVIL-MAN-GIRL VOCAL leading the way. The horror. The horror.

Now Listening To : SCREAMING MIMIS TO ERADICATE ANY MEMORY OF WHAT I EXPERIENCED TODAY!
Random Thought : If this is my last entry before T-Day, I hope y'all have wonderful feasts, and spend quality time with your loved ones.

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