Whenever I type my name in an email, the Robot God inside the computer (Billy: “Some people call it a spell checker”) tells me I’m a cretin. And I don’t argue. Like if somebody yells, “Hey, idiot!”, you look up because you know it’s true and you’re only bummed because somebody else realized it.
The Robot God, of course, knows all. I think I mentioned to you that the new record was mixed, right? Wrong. (cretin!)
Last week, I made Trina climb up into her attic studio in Tennessee and stay up half the night to “bring the narrative back to life” in a chorus vocal — I had split the vocal into 3 parts: lead, double and harmony, which made it sound clumsy to me and like I had friends (clearly such was not the case).
I had to send her an MP3 of a demo from way back whenever so she’d know what I was talking about. Then we whispered through wee-hour cell phone calls and listened on headphones while our babies slept. Needless to say, Trina pulled it off and made it perfect.
Off the record went to LA, to be mastered by Joe Gastwirt, the master masterer. Done, done and done! Except…something wasn’t sitting right (cretin!) The end of a really nice, buzz guitar line was being swamped under a string swell in two different sections of the first song. Not a big deal to anyone in the whole entire world, I guess, except for me and possibly Billy. But we had it so close to perfect…
So now Trina goes back into the attic to make the song buzzier and then Joe’ll have to do it again. They probably don’t even like me any more (cretin!). But they’ll have to like this record, ’cause it’s gonna be perfect!
Also? I’m another aunt!!!
Two days ago, Hazel Parker Hersh joined the family fold, all 8 lbs., 5 oz. of her. Born here in Portland to my brother, Dave, and his lovely wife, April. Welcome, baby!
And special thanks to Strange Angel Erin McCown for turning me on to the magical Tuin, of Rose City Reptiles — now I’m back in the snake medicine saddle. Tuin has these wildly cool Miami corn snakes that filled a gap Forest Park couldn’t. Two hours of cuddling these beauties while Tuin filled my sons’ hands with all kinds of frogs, lizards and spiders was all it took.
Now if I could just find some snails and puppy dog tails…
Love,
Kristin