May-July 2014 - Pumpkinland II, Northbrook, IL
Produced by Billy Corgan, Howard Willing & Jeff Schroeder; engineered by Howard Willing
Continued recording sessions for Monuments to an Elegy. Corgan and Schroeder track guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals to Tommy Lee's drums recorded in Los Angeles.
We’ve fired back up the starship and are back at it, blowing 2 amps today in our pursuit of a physical, muscular sound that will meet what’ll be flying drum-wise in 2 ½ weeks time.
After sorting a bass sound using the same primary gear as ‘OCEANIA’ (’63 Jazz, Reeve amp, SVT cabinet), eyes turned on my phalanx of 60’s-70’s-80’s heads: Marshalls, Laney, Sound City, etc. Though The Shredder and I would classify this as boring work, it does in the end save oodles of time when overdubbing and mixing; saving minutes as always being an imperative goal.
At least now we’ve got demo versions of T Lee’s drums to dial-in against; a huge advantage.
We’ve also whittled the field down to key guitar cabinets: The Mars (used on Gish, Siamese), and the Silver Ones (Mellon Collie, Zwan, Zeitgeist, Oceania), plus others used for touring and a vintage tweed Marshall. All good, all slightly different by degrees.
Tomorrow begins the additional mapping of overdubs and guitar arranging, as well as taking the bass lines past duh-duh-duh.[1]
We actually have moved on to some other tasks now that ANAISE is in the bottle. With The Shredder working up overdubs on ANTI-HERO and TIBERIUS, I started hacking away at lyrics/better lyrics/any lyrics at all.
I wish I had a computer program that had every couplet I’d ever written, and that could spit back at me if I’m somehow repeating myself. Would save some brain cells, y’all. So I’m goofed to say that I’ve got a decent block of ANTI-HERO cogent, something along the lines of a boy-girl-doo wop-he’s a rebel type schlamazzle. As you can see from this king’s English, there’s a reason I didn’t go to no college. Slow work indeed, but signs that a finish isn’t far off…
Ended the day with TIBERIOUS middle-8 melodies and a clearer finish vocally, and then 90 minutes with Jeff to prepare for the acoustic show in August. Best news is each day is filled with music, music, music; and ANAISE, ANAISE, ANAISE.[2]
Return to Monuments to an Elegy/Day For Night