Saturday, July 8, 2000

Obviously our new summer jobs (along with Bill's old one) was starting to take a heavy toll on our band and especially any Shack activities. Although I'm fairly certain we played at the Shack at least once or twice in this month-long journal hiatus, we really were too consumed with the day to day bullshit that comes with working.

The night before (Friday), Bill and I hung out after work. I can't remember what our plans were for that evening, but as we were driving towards our destination we fell into a conversation about a party being held the next night (Saturday). The shindig was an unofficial celebration for the class of 2000's graduation and was being held at the house of a mutual friend, Brigette. Amongst the many, random people from this class were a group of girls (that included Brigette) who hung out with us all throughout high school. We were all such close friends that when Bill, Richard and I (along with several other guys my age) graduated from school the previous summer, this group of girls gave us each a gift - an autographed photo of them in a human pyramid set in a frame decorated with our name. It was a cool, little crafty gift that I'm sure each of us still possess (although mine is pretty beat up now).

It was such a thoughtful idea that many of the guys had discussed returning the favor. Suddenly, however, Bill and I realized this party may be the last time we would be able to hand out said gift to all of the girls. First of all, it would be the perfect opportunity to get them all together as they would all be in attendance. Secondly, Brigette was leaving for some adventurous trip the following day and would be away for the remainder of the summer. Thus we had a hard deadline (24 hours) to give a gift but had no gift to give!

It didn't take long for the two of us to come to the conclusion that we should use Bras recordings as some part of the presentation, and we soon concocted a scheme to record songs dedicated to each girl. Song selection was pretty easy as we knew each girl's favorite bands, however most of these songs were way poppier than our tastes. Richard was unreachable (he was either out with parents or friends), so Bill and I immediately turned the car around and headed to my mom's place.

There, I quickly downloaded MIDIs of each song along with as much instrumental instructions (tabs, chords, lyrics, etc.) as I could find and then we raced off to the Shack! Using the MIDIs as a foundation, I layed down guide tracks to each recording and then Bill handled bass duties. By the time he finished recording it was nearing 3 AM and, since he had been up way earlier than I had to work his 9-5 job, Bill crashed. We had planned for this, as now I was able to go back and record all of the guitars while he slept (wow ... you know, Bill actually did sleep in the Shack!) but I soon grew exhausted. We were running out of time, and we didn't posses a MIDI for "Barbie Girl" so I had to scrap that song at the last minute.

Seven hours of playing (and maybe 1-2 hours of sleeping) later, Richard arrived. Initially, Richard put up a huge fight about singing some of the songs (especially "... Baby, One More Time") but was finally convinced to knock it out. And knock it out he did! Most of the vocals were one takes and Richard even added a cool piano break for the Britney Spears song. However, when he reached the final song, the Spice Girls' "Wannabe," Richard just couldn't get a good take. He wasn't super familiar with the vocals for the song and was starting to get tired of singing. So we took a break and went to a nearby strip mall.

When we returned I suggested we try the vocals to "Wannabe" one more time, as a group. Standing in front of our one mic, the three of us passed a lyric sheet back and forth to each other - directing in real time who would sing which line. Between each lyrical line you can hear us laughing and giggling like little school girls - an appropriate addition for a graduation gift for girls! The recorded track wasn't great but it was hilarious and oozed fun so we kept it.

We hasitly mixed the tracks, burned them to CDs, and made terrible CD liner notes (supplies bought during the strip mall break) and then headed off to the party to hand out the goods. Actually, if I remember correctly, the plan was altered probably around this moment. We decided that the songs were passable but could stand to use some more work. Unfortunately, with Brigette leaving, we had to get hers to her this night, so we burned her copy and gave it to her at the party. We would return to the tracks later, beef them up, and give the newer versions of the CDs to the remaining girls later.

On a side note, I didn't make the party: I was so utterly fatigued by the whole process I went straight home and fell asleep! - Stan