…on the new album. Getting there. Thanks for asking.

We are no longer playing at Trees on Friday. Sorry for any inconvenience. The Thursday show with Darlington at Clearview is still on, however, so we hope to see you there!

I don\’t understand. You work for so long towards something you really really want, and then right at the end, all of your motivation gives way to frustration.

If you want to oversimplify things, the creation of a record usually consists of 3 main steps. First, the songs are originally thought up. This means that some guy (or gal) is sitting in a room somewhere, hacking away at their instrument of choice, when all of a sudden they stumble onto something that either they like or can\’t get away from (hopefully both). They play it over and over again, compiling a new thought each time, until finally they have laid the groundwork for something they would define as \”a song\”.

At some point, they show it to their fellow band mates. Then, step 2 begins. The leader (as I\’ll refer to he/she, the writer of the song) guides each person through their part; sometimes they tell them exactly what to play, other times they simply give a basic outline from which they are welcome deviate. The band practices and practices the song until, finally, they start to play it \”the way they play it\”. Everyone is comfortable with their own part and the leader is either happy with it, okay with it, or secretly discouraged with it (in the case of being okay with it or secretly discouraged with it, it\’s usually because they couldn\’t explain, or play, the exact parts that they originally imagined when writing the song, therefore they \”give in\” and just go with how it ends up. This can often wind up being a major cause of the intense frustration they feel in the end.)

So then, for some weird reason, they want to get this puppy onto tape for the world to hear, accept, decline, like, love, hate, worship, puke on, etc. Why they\’d willingly put themselves in this vulnerable position, we\’ll never know. But they do. This is where all logic and reasoning goes out the window and step 3, the Curse of the Recording Studio, comes in.

On day 1 in the studio, the task at hand always seems simple: just play the song the way you practiced it, do a few overdubs to \”polish\” it, and then mix it down into 2 stereo tracks that accurately represent your band.

The problem is that from the very first time you stop and start over with \”take 2\”, you\’ve sabotaged the spontaneity of the music. You see, music is meant to be spontaneous. When listened to, a song is just 2-4 minutes of time. If it\’s good, listeners will want to rewind and relive those 2-4 minutes again and again, but the fact is in the end, a song, from start to finish, only takes up 2-4 minutes of time. However, the process of recording a song can take hours. Possibly days. I\’ve even heard of it taking MONTHS to record a single song (although this is rare because burnout and/or suicide would have probably already occurred by that point). So, when you spend all that time on something that ends up being only 2-4 minutes of listening, it\’s heart breaking when those 2-4 minutes of listening aren\’t pleasing to you (the artist/ creator). The weird phenomenon is that this is common, practically \”a given\”, because you are so close to the recording by the time it\’s finished, your opinion is biased. You hate all of the time you put into it, therefore you usually hate the final product.

This is where self-doubt usually enters the picture. You begin to wonder what business you have in playing music. You start to compare yourself to other artists (a very dangerous action), and wonder why your \”career\” is not working out like theirs. You get really, really depressed and begin to wonder why you were even born. A short while later, you convince yourself that you\’re just tired of hearing the recording and that you just need a break, and that after the break you\’ll love it and be very proud yourself; as proud as you were the day you sat in that room and created the song.

So, time passes. Some of us give ourselves a month, some only a few days. But inevitably you come back to the same feeling: the record sucks and you\’re a complete phony who has no business showing songs to anybody.

That\’s when 1 of 2 things happen:

1) You believe what your burnt out mind is telling you and abandon the recording (possibly even your band) altogether. You live out the rest of your life as a bitter old man (or woman) that can never be satisfied with anything.

or 2) You realize that, as an \”artist\” who is constantly growing, you will never be completely satisfied with anything longer than it takes you to create it. You will eventually gut it up and release the record for people to judge for themselves. They will hear it, accept it, decline it, like it, love it, hate it, worship it, puke on it, etc. This exact process will repeat itself every time you create something new.

Alright, I guess I\’m going up to the studio now…