Pershing Hill Sound: Loincloth Grind It Out in the Studio

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!

Most of the last week is already a blur.  I can piece things together well enough, but man! we were scrambling.  Interestingly enough I was never stressed out by our situation.  Though I had never gone into the studio with so many undeveloped ideas, I trusted that I had enough experience to make something really great come of all this.  Tannon and I put ourselves through the grinder before when we wrote and recorded 'Iron Balls of Steel' and we knew how well we work together.  I trusted myself, and I trusted us as a writing team.  We saved the songs that would require the most work for last and paid attention to the clock.  I wouldn't want to do it that way every time, but reality left us no choice.  I don't like hearing people brag.  In fact, I was raised to hate a braggart as much as almost anything, but we came out of the studio last weekend with good reason to be proud.  This next Loincloth record is well on its way to becoming a very unique recording with lots of nuanced riffery meant to confound and delight.

Over the course of the next few days I'll run through some of the highlights of our weekend in the studio.  I really love the experience, and now that it isn't as stressful as it once was it's even more rewarding.  Plus, being able to hear what works really well and what does not will go a long way towards ensuring that I focus on the right things for the rest of this album and for the next Confessor album.  Then, utter destruction followed by chaos and eventual world dominance will be within my grasp!   Insert diabolical laughter, here...