Sorry folks, I couldn't resist the title. One of the biggest problems with being raised by a pack of wild smart asses is that you can never let an opportunity to make a joke slip by. If you do, you'll remember that moment and how funny you know it could have been for years. Regret is a killer. Best to let fly with the sophomoric humor and allow that part of your personality to weed out the condescending snobs from your life. There are plenty of places for them far, far away from this drummer. To be fair to myself, this really is a photo of us "jamming" ( I hate that term! ) as we were in fact "cramming" before we went into the studio. The title of this post is appropriate, after all. I took this photo while watching a video on Tannon's phone he shot a couple of nights earlier down at the space. I've seen way too many horror movies. The video starts with Tannon looking down at the camera while he set it in place before walking back to strap on his guitar. I couldn't help but think he was about to walk back to my limp body and start removing one limb after another, until eventually he found zombie gold in what would appear to be a couple of feet's worth of link sausages with thick, crimson slime dripping down his arms. As it turned out, what I saw instead was the two of us conjuring up some sort of reptilian servant of the underworld with our heavy, creepy, dark Loin "jam". Hmm... shall we get back to tall tales of Loincloth's weekend in the studio, and whatever-the-hell a "dark Loin jam" might be? I think that's a splendid idea.
Man, was I sore after our intense recording session last weekend! You name it, and it ached. Sore shoulders, sore arms, sore hands, sore butt, sore back, sore legs, a scab on my forehead and a ringing in my ears that's still as loud as anything in the background. Hmm... kinda sounds like most Sunday mornings when I was in my twenties, except for the part about the sore butt. I want to be clear about that. That body part never ached. Draw your own conclusions, just keep them to yourself. Loincloth were bloodied and sweaty by the end of our weekend in the studio, but oh! how sweet the fruits of our labor!
Tannon got into town Tuesday of last week and we began putting together the final rounds of tweaks in the songs we planned to record. We were to record six songs, but only three of them had been played in their full form, and one of those had an ending that we still needed to figure out. So two of six songs were done except for any minor drum things I was going back and forth about. A third song needed a finalized ending, the fourth song had to have some things flushed out and some of the "fat" needed to be trimmed. That song also had an ending that we had never played together, and my pattern at the end was one of those that I could play just fine by myself, but because of the way it wove in and out of the guitar it was a real bear to get right with someone else playing with it. The fifth song had never made it out of the rough draft stage, but that wasn't even the real kicker. Our sixth song was nothing more than a series of riffs that we knew we could put together somehow but that had never been played together in any combination whatsoever! There was only one riff that I had spent much time playing, but that was well over six months ago. The other riffs that went with it back then were scrapped and Tannon came up with a new batch of companion riffs. I had some guitar files Tannon and I had been working with via emails to sculpt our arrangement, but the most we had ever played the riffs was when we tried them out around two o'clock in the morning a month ago so I could get them "into the system", so to speak. We didn't have any ideas about how we'd put things together, I just wanted to get my toes wet. So you can see, we had a lot to do and we were supposed to load in at the studio about forty hours after Tannon's flight got in. Talk about the hot seat!
For all of us who love good sci-fi and horror movies, dark art and metal, one of our visionary leaders has left us this week. H.R. Giger died Monday, and the world of black surrealism may never find another artist to replace him. Best known for his work on the sci-fi masterpiece "Alien", there is almost no corner of underground metal or of horror film making that has not been influenced by Giger's own brand of erotic, techno-occultism. Even if you are a fan of all things scary and heavy and are not directly influenced by the man's work, there is no doubt that someone whose creations you do find inspiring has been shaped by his paintings.
H. R. Giger was able to create a completely hopeless world of demonic ritual and overcharged sexuality cast almost exclusively in blacks and greys by combining two completely opposite painting styles. He was a master airbrush artist, which was easy to forget because he always tempered the free flowing nature of airbrush with the cold, defined rigidity of stencils. Whatever "life" there was in his paintings was typically engaged in some type of sex act or demonic sacrifice, was dead or dying, or was some freaky, menacing alien thrown against a backdrop of mechanized static. Simply beautiful!
Well, Loincloth only have two weeks before we find ourselves knee deep in microphone cables and hypnotizing electronic gizmos. Phase One of our plan for total world domination cranks up two weeks from yesterday once we begin to load all of our equipment into the studio to record our second album. To say that I have a lot to figure out between now and then would be an understatement, but I'm up to the challenge. One benefit to having no idea of what you're doing at any time behind a drum kit is that you aren't held captive by convention. The term "thinking outside the box" implies an awareness of a "box", and I have zero awareness of any collection of do's and don'ts. Or of anything at all... ever! While I have been accused by more than one person of being nothing more than a 'rock drummer' ( my apologies to any 'rock drummers' who may take offense to that label ) I can assure you that my basic skills pale in comparison to anyone who can actually 'rock', or who has even studied drums for more than a week... between commercials! No one ever told me there was a box that showed you how to be accepted! My own 'strength' such as it is, lies in a willingness to give most anything a shot, and in the fact that I can count to four several times in a row.
