So there wasn't any jamming in the KrakaTomb on Monday as originally planned. However, Richard did get the site back up-as you can now clearly see. Looks like we have a little housecleaning to do, since some of the material here is pretty dated as of this writing.

Last night, we went ahead as planned, i.e., we recorded some vocal tracks. To be more precise, Jeremy ran the recorder, Richard sang, and I wailed phrases like "gathering adornments" and "freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" at semi-regular intervals. Richard and I each sang into separate microphones at opposite ends of the basement facing away from each other so we wouldn't bleed into each other's tracks. Ew, not like that. There was some discussion as to whether we should each record our vocal tracks separately and mix them later, but we decided not to. First of all, that would have taken twice as long, and secondly, for some reason it's easier to harmonize with a live person than with a prerecorded track. Jeremy will have to do the latter at some point, but that's his problem.

Guess what the hardest part for me was? You'll be surprised. It was standing in one place throughout the song. Generally I like to shuffle around a lot, especially when I don't have anything to do with my hands, but that's not a good idea when recording. Jeremy gets the levels about where he wants them, so it wouldn't do for me to sing "freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," walk around during the verse and come back closer to the mic than I was before so the next time comes out "FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and then wander around some more during the solo and misjudge the distance again and be all "freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" the next time. Being a rock star is hard, dude.

Anyway, Richard and I took care of vocal tracks for "Adornments" and "Free" (in case you hadn't figured that out yet), we talked Jeremy into singing with us on a few takes of "Boomtown" (neither of which is likely to be the final, but at least the last one was better than the first), then Pete arrived around 8:30 and Richard did a take of "Polaroid" before we reconfigured into jamming mode. I took off my headphones during that last one and just listened to Richard sing. He could hear the musical tracks he was singing with (so could Pete and Jeremy, because they were wearing headphones too), but to me it just sounded like he was belting that sucker out a capella. I was impressed with his level of commitment. We're getting a lot closer to having the demo done; the first two songs will be finished once Jeremy adds his vocal and lead guitar tracks. I assume he'll be working on that this week, since he brought home a microphone and stand after we were done.

Then we just jammed for a couple of hours. Sometimes we have jam sessions that make us feel like if someone called us up and offered us a gig tomorrow, we'd be ready. This wasn't one of those sessions. We were a lot more ragged and relaxed, like this one didn't count. We worked on our cover of the Buffy theme song for a while, expanding it from 45 seconds to more like 1:15, then we just took turns calling out songs (mostly covers) and tearing into them with more energy than precision. With all this recording we're doing, the main thing is that we don't forget how much fun it is to play together live. Aww, group hug, everyone.

Speaking of getting offered gigs tomorrow, we have word that Rob is making progress on that front. Apparently he has spoken to some of the Twin Cities' finest music venues' answering machines.