Kevin, Shake That Bacon!

Know Eye Inn Teem rocked our very first performance before a live audience on Saturday, debuting our original tribute to Kevin Bacon, "Kevin, Shake That Bacon." The occasion was Kevin's 50th birthday party, which I hosted.

The song was not only the highlight of the party, but in fact one of my favorite moments of all of 2008. The audience ate it up. They even sang along to the chorus. Kevin said we put the Bacon Brothers to shame.

This was the also the debut of our brand-new drummer, Chris White. Chris was fantastic. The song with his drumming sounded innumerably many orders of magnitude better than without the drumming. It was like he took the song that Cerin and I wrote, and made it MUSIC. Unbelievably, he had not even heard the song until he showed up that night, but he dove right in and blew everyone away. Chris has signed on for our next album this November, and I am wildly excited about it. Expect big things from KEIT in November!

Marching To The Beat Of A Different Drum

Know Eye Inn Teem violinist Brad Scriber is Band Member Of The Month for June, because he found us some drums. No more banging on pan lids in 2008! Yay!

Brad has a neighbor, Dirk, who finds auctions and estate sales irresistable, and the man had acquired himself a boatload of drums. Wanting to clear some space in his basement, Dirk offered me all of his drums (maybe a dozen?) for a hundred bucks. I was tempted, obviously, but keeping in mind that I have limited means of transportation, and limited storage space and, well, I don't actually play the drums, I settled on 3 pieces, a stool, and some miscellaneous accessories for $50. Pretty sweet.

But what's missing from this picture? Right, a DRUMMER. Which leads to my second piece of news: we MAY have lined up a drummer. My coworker Chris White is a drummer, and was on board for our next album for about 10 golden minutes after I told him about the band, until I stupidly told him about NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/), which got me my start in music (see my very first blog entry). At that, Chris decided he wanted to write a novel in one month in November, not record an album. Consequently, I am considering recording our second album in October instead, so Chris can participate. However, I got a lukewarm reception to this plan from keyboardist Mic, who thought there might still be good weather in October, and he might want to go out and enjoy it rather than spending hours in the gloomy, 70s-style, fake-wood-paneled KEIT studio, i.e. my basement. I'm pondering this.

Meanwhile, there's more. I have written lyrics to a new song, and I even kind of know how I want it to sound. It is a depressing song about a break-up. It is not autobiographical, because for me to write an autobiographical song about a break-up, I would first need to get someone to go out with me.

I am also working on a tribute number for Kevin Bacon's 50th birthday, which I hope to debut at the party I will throw for Kevin in July. It is called "Kevin, Shake That Bacon."

And finally, KEIT got some great publicity when loyal groupie and talented photographer Kristian Whipple featured a photo of me in his series, "Half-Truths." My half-truth? "I am a rock star," of course! All the photos in the series were displayed at Artomatic (http://www.artomatic.org/). That made me giddy.

Parallel Universes

After months of silence that I suspect many of you found blissful, there has been a flurry of activity in the Know Eye Inn Teem world that I must relate.

First, loyal KEIT groupie Erin from Arizona (Erin! Who are you?! Apologies if we are BFF and I just didn't put two and two together...) sent me this piece from the NYT which I enjoyed thoroughly, and you will too.

March 9, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
And the Band Played Badly
By ALEXANDER
McCALL SMITH
WHY should real musicians — the ones who can actually play their instruments — have all the fun? Some years ago, a group of frustrated people in Scotland decided that the pleasure of playing in an orchestra should not be limited to those who are good enough to do so, but should be available to the rankest of amateurs. So we founded the Really Terrible Orchestra, an inclusive orchestra for those who really want to play, but who cannot do so very well. Or cannot do so at all, in some cases. My own playing set the standard. I play the bassoon, even if not quite the whole bassoon. I have never quite mastered C-sharp, and I am weak on the notes above the high D. In general, I leave these out if they crop up, and I find that the effect is not unpleasant. I am not entirely untutored, of course, having had a course of lessons in the instrument from a music student who looked quietly appalled while I played. Most of the players in the orchestra are rather like this; they have learned their
instruments at some point in their lives, but have not learned them very well. Now such people have their second chance with the Really Terrible Orchestra. The announcement of the orchestra’s founding led to a great wave of applications to join. Our suspicion that there were many people yearning to play in an orchestra but who were too frightened or too ashamed to do anything about it, proved correct. There was no audition, of course, although we had toyed with the idea of a negative audition in which those who were too good would be excluded. This proved to be unnecessary. Nobody like that applied to join. Some of the members were very marginal musicians, indeed. One of the clarinet players, now retired from the orchestra for a period of re-evaluation, stopped at the middle B-flat, before the instrument’s natural break. He could go no higher, which was awkward, as that left him very few notes down below. Another, a cellist, was unfortunately very hard of hearing and was also hazy on the tuning of the strings. As an aide-mémoire, he had very sensibly written the names of the notes in pencil on the bridge. This did not appear to help. At the outset, we employed a professional conductor, which is a must for anybody who is reading this and who is already planning to start a similar orchestra. Find somebody who is tolerant and has a sense of humor. The conductor also has to be sufficiently confident to be associated with something called the Really Terrible Orchestra; after all, it does go on the résumé. Our initial efforts were dire, but we were not discouraged. Once we had mastered a few pieces — if mastered is the word — we staged a public concert. We debated whether to charge for admission, but wisely decided against this. That would be going too far. So should we go to the other extreme and pay people to come? There was some support for this, but we decided against it. Instead, we would give the audience several free glasses of wine before the concert. That, it transpired, helped a great deal. We need not have worried. Our first concert was packed, and not just with friends and relations. People were intrigued by the sheer honesty of the orchestra’s name and came to see who we were. They were
delighted. Emboldened by the rapturous applause, we held more concerts, and our
loyal audience grew. Nowadays, when we give our annual concert at the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe, the hall is full to capacity with hundreds of music-lovers. Standing ovations are two-a-penny. “How these people presume to play in public is quite beyond me,” wrote one critic in The Scotsman newspaper. And another one simply said “dire.” Well, that may be so, but we never claimed to be anything other than what we are. And we know that we are dire; there’s no need to state the obvious. How jejune these critics can be! Even greater heights were scaled. We made a CD and to our astonishment people bought it. An established composer was commissioned to write a piece for us. We performed this and recorded it at a world premiere, conducted by the astonished composer himself. He closed his eyes. Perhaps he heard the music in his head, as it should have been. This would have made it easier for him. There is now no stopping us. We have become no better, but we plow on regardless. This is music as therapy, and many of us feel the better for
trying. We remain really terrible, but what fun it is. It does not matter, in our view, that we sound irretrievably out of tune. It does not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra have actually been discovered to be playing different pieces of music, by different composers, at the same time. I, for one, am not ashamed of those difficulties with C-sharp. We persist. After all, we are the
Really Terrible Orchestra, and we shall go on and on. Amateurs arise — make a
noise.
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the forthcoming novel “The Miracle at Speedy Motors.”

Second, loyal KEIT groupie Michael Minkus sent me this link: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/48759-little-happyness and it shocked me to my very core, not only because of the band name, and the fact that The Aluminum Group has a photo of an eye on their album cover JUST LIKE KEIT DOES (see http://aluminumalbum.blogspot.com/2007/12/some-of-urgency-went-out-of-finishing.html), but also because KEIT, too, has a "sophisticated, highly designed, and reserved aesthetic," don't you think? However, unlike The Aluminum Group's album, I guess most people don't argue that "There is not a note or phrase out of place" on The Aluminum Album. But as the review notes, such a characteristic "could be a recipe for sterility." Clearly, this is why some of our notes are out of place.

The final excitement for Know Eye Inn Teem is that loyal KEIT groupie Joaquin Esquivel has written some code that will permit you to listen to our music on the blog. Of course, I am an imbecile and have no idea how to make it work. Do I paste the code into my blog entry? Or....what? I am clueless, but hopefully Joaquin can help me make this happen soon.

We're The Next [Fill In Blank]!

I am grateful to loyal KEIT groupies Dave Cranor and Beth and Andy Byers for offering up the feedback on the album for which I have been longing. According to Dave, "It is perhaps the fowlest peace of music I've ever herd." Well put!

Andy compared us to Cake, which I take as a considerable compliment. Know Eye Inn Teem has also been compared to The Bangles, and The Barenaked Ladies. No one has compared us to U2, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, or any of the other artists whose songs we covered, but probably that was just too OBVIOUS.

I had an eery experience last weekend. I gave a copy of the album to some friends at a dinner party, and they popped it into their stereo. We listened and poked fun at it for a while, then the conversation veered elsewhere. While the music was still playing, in the background. I was stunned to realize that The Aluminum Album is normal enough to function as background music at a dinner party. That blew me away.

Keep those reviews coming, fans!

The Silence Is Deafening

Over the past couple weeks, I have handed out dozens of copies of The Aluminum Album. It often happens something like this:

Casual Acquaintance Making Small Talk: "Hey Jennie, what ever happened with
that album you were recording?"

Me: "Here it is!" (whipping a CD out of my purse) "Keep it! Look, I want you to know that we know it's terrible....that is its charm. No really, keep it! No, I INSIST."

The absolute worst thing, as far as I'm concerned, would be if someone thought that WE thought that the album was actually good. Because then they would pity us. Ha. We have no illusions about it being good. But I hoped that being up-front about its badness might prompt some humorous jokes about it. I pictured people listening to it, and having a good hearty laugh, and writing some sarcastic reviews on the blog.

Instead, pretty much no one has said anything about it to me at all, to my huge disappointment. The exception is one listener's inquiry as to whether he was correct in believing that the background noise in "You Know I'm No Good" was generated by a bevy of constipated back-up singers (it was not; that's the kazoo). I was grateful that someone finally made a joke about it, but it doesn't really count in terms of "feedback" since it came from Brad, who is in the band.

Sigh.

Maybe the rest of you haven't even listened to it?

Please, make some jokes!

Listener's Guide

The seven songs on the album speak for themselves, of course (and perhaps unfortunately), but I was compelled to make some notes about them that may prove enlightening as you listen. Naturally, all the blog entries over the past month and a half also shed some light. If you are checking out the blog for the first time after seeing the web address on the CD, it will probably make more sense if you read my first blog entry: http://aluminumalbum.blogspot.com/2007/10/auspicious-beginnings.html

Above all else, as you listen, keep in mind that we recorded the album in 30 days (more or less) and while it may not inspire any talk of a 35-city live tour, I do think it features moments of musical brilliance - however fleeting! I should also mention that the KEIT members surprised me over and over again with their creativity, dedication, insight, and courage. I am so grateful to them for making my wacky idea a reality.

1. 6AM
This was our sole original song, of which we are all really enamored. We find the chorus really catchy. We want to hear you humming it as you walk the dog, and singing it in the shower (which is not to say we want to take a shower with you, necessarily). I added the background vocals as an afterthought and became obsessed with the echo sound enabled by the software. Probably it is a bit over the top, but I don't care. Also, I really like the end of the song.

2. Super Freak
Mic did such a great job on this that it was really criminal that I had to ruin it with the kazoo at the end, but we had no good alternatives. Derrick, man, you have to locate that saxophone before November 2008! (oh yes, we'll be doing this again in '08)

3. Sunday Bloody Sunday
This was our only live number; the rest were recorded track by track. We kept accidentally speeding up as we played it, because the percussion wasn't very prominent. In the end I decided I liked it played fast, so I just followed the keyboard/guitar with the percussion. Consequently, it starts at U2 pace and finishes at U2-on-amphetamines pace. The amazing thing about that is that Brad had to play the violin part toward the end a LOT faster than U2 plays it, and you know what? He was amazing. Bono should think about using him. Also, I cannot resist pointing out that I think I sound EXACTLY like Bono when I sing the "wipe the tears from your eyes" part, so listen for that.

4. Brighter Than Sunshine
A big thank you to KEIT Guest Recording Artist Jamie Bellis for stepping in after technical crises threatened to doom this song. We wanted Jamie to be in the band all along because she has an angelic voice, so it was like a homecoming.

5. I Just Called To Say I Love You
It took only 2 KEIT musicians to record this song, isn't that remarkable? Mic did 3 tracks on The Device and Peter did the vocal track. I have always been a 70s and 80s Stevie Wonder fan but was especially struck, as we recorded it, by the complexity of what sounds on the surface like a pretty simple song (which was why I naively chose it). That Stevie has a genious beyond what I understood back in October.

6. Eleanor Rigby
Too bad we didn't have a KEIT Guest Recording Artist on the day we did "Eleanor Rigby," because you got stuck with me instead. I know, I know, I cannot hit the right notes, except the very last line sounds miraculously in tune, somehow. Anyway, try to ignore me and just focus on the rich sound of KEIT's 2-person string quartet.

7. You Know I'm No Good
This was the first song we recorded, back on November 2 when we were oh so green. The product reflects that greenness. You have to start somewhere!

Flying Off The Shelves

50 of the CDs have been burned, with more finished every 5 minutes! The CD case inserts have been printed, cut, and folded! The Aluminum Album is FINALLY ready!

Want a copy? Prepared to be blown away by its wonderful awfulness? Think it would make an excellent Christmas gift for your Great Aunt Bessie? If she's largely deaf, you may be right!

All those interested, just say the word, and I'll have The Aluminum Album in your eager hands in no time.

Freaking Lasers

This evening I started recording the songs onto CDs. This went swell the first few times, but with the fourth disc, I started getting an error message indicating that "the device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media," whatever that means. It is as if Dr. Evil sent a school of sharks with laser beams on their heads swimming around my iMac.

I have a portable CD, um, thing (what are they called?) that I have plugged into my desktop computer because its built-in CD thing also conked out at one point, so I plugged the portable thing into my iMac and proceeded. It works great, but takes about 5 minutes per disc. So with 96 discs remaining, that translated to 8 hours of recording.

If anyone has bright ideas about speeding this up, I'm all ears. So far I have recorded a whopping 11 discs.

And no, I still don't have the CD inserts printed. It is frustrating to finally have the darned songs all ready to go and yet be mired in the logistics, twelve days into December.

The good news is that none of these issues impairs my ability to go to holiday parties and brag about my album. So I'm doing plenty of that.

All Songs Are Go!

I finished assembling all the remaining songs tonight and exported them to iTunes to be copied onto the 100 CDs I bought at Target this morning. I haven't finalized the song order yet, though. I do know that it will start with "6AM," our strongest song, and end with our weakest, "You Know I'm No Good." There are a total of seven songs.

I had been procrastinating on finalizing "You Know I'm No Good" because when I put all its tracks together last weekend, I was alarmed to find that it simply did not contain enough music. It sounded like it needed more instruments and more musicians. There was one part of the song where no one was playing anything, except the percussion! Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I whipped out the kazoo tonight and did a little filling in. It sounds bad, of course, but not as bad as I had feared. It will have to do. I am counting on the fact that many listeners will be so put off by the mediocrity of the first six songs that they won't even still be listening by song number seven!

Incidentally, I can't help noticing that Amy Winehouse was nominated for six Grammies, yet Know Eye Inn Teem only snagged five nominations. What gives?

Just kidding. Actually we only received four Grammy nominations.

The Aluminum Album Proceeds In Slow Motion

Some of the urgency went out of finishing the album today as we learned that logistical considerations would prevent us from holding an album release party on December 10. I confess that I was relieved as much as disappointed. I was starting to freak out about the party.

The album is close to done, however. Technical unpredictabilities necessitated the re-recording of the vocals on "Brighter Than Sunshine" by KEIT Guest Recording Artist Jamie Bellis, who did a lovely job at 10 PM on Monday. Then Mic's unflagging willingness to take on Stevie Wonder prompted him to volunteer for yet another keyboard track on "I Just Called To Say I Love You" last night. This wasn't even at my request. I told him I was happy with it as it was, but he was very keen, in true Know Eye Inn Teem spirit. We've got keenness going for us.

Absent the need to frantically mix tracks and obtain CDs and CD cases and copy songs to the CDs and produce a CD insert and get color copies and cut them down to 4.75 inches squared and promote a massive party and figure out beer and food and obtain a microphone for a live performance, things have slowed blissfully down. Tonight, on the way home from work, I stopped at Home Depot and spent a good ten minutes just sniffing Christmas trees (they smell so good), then I came home and put on fleece and watched an hour and a half of television. You could look at this as a sign that I am single and pathetic, or you could look at it as a sign that I am relishing my newfound free time.

Here is a sneak peak at the cover of The Aluminum Album:

KEIT Triangulist Julie Flinn

Photos from Wednesday's rehearsal. Julie was working on percussion for "6AM."

Verge of December

The month of album recording will draw to a close in 15 minutes. Loyal KEIT groupie Carina Armenta tagged along to the final rehearsal tonight and supplied champagne and orange juice, so we wrapped up the month in style with mimosas.

While there is much rejoicing about having reached the finish line, we won't actually cross it until I finish assembling all the tracks into final versions of songs, which I figure I can wrap up by the middle of next week, most likely. I need to create an album cover, too. I'm going to base it on the description in the novel. That's right, the novel I wrote.

Then you can listen to The Aluminum Album.

We are also hoping to have an album release party on December 10. It may not happen, but if it does, you will not want to miss the chance to join the screaming throngs of fans assembled to hear Know Eye Inn Teem live in concert, and mingle with the rock stars in person. So mark your calendar.

Miracle Button

Big, BIIIIIIIIGGGGGG sigh of relief: I just figured out how to fix our 11th-hour technical problem. I was messing around with "You Know I'm No Good," and I realized that depending on which cute icon I pick for each track, I can make it sound different. And here I was just choosing the icons based on how pretty they were! I was especially fond of the red guitar.

Anyway, I used the icon button to make KEIT sound really awesome on that song, and then moved on to "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which had a volume problem from the beginning because we recorded it live so a lot of us were aiming sound waves at the microphone simultaneously. I was scrolling through the icons and settled on one called "Live Performance" (actually just a silhouette of a man's head; not pretty at all), and poof! Volume problem solved.

The implications for my two troubled keyboard tracks were immediately evident. I opened up "Brighter Than Sunshine," clicked the miracle button, and held my breath.

And it worked!!!

I am so excited, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to sleep.

Feeling Faint

Something awful happened tonight when I assumed my usual spot on the couch with the laptop, shoveling leftover turkey, stuffing, and apple pie into my mouth (yes, I'm still reliving Thanksgiving at every meal, and loving it). I pulled up "Brighter Than Sunshine" and began listening to the tracks, and realized that the keyboard track was way, way too quiet. There must have been some sort of wiring issue between the keyboard and the recorder.

I did everything I could think of to fix the problem. I opened up the GarageBand "help" file. I went back to the original .wav file of the track. I made duplicate tracks and played them on top of each other. I experimented with buttons labeled "compressor" and "equalizer." I adjusted volume curves.

Nothing helped; it was still too faint. I tried to rationalize to myself that a song with "brighter" and "sunshine" in the title was just as easy to discard as ones with "happy" in the title, but the thought of tossing aside another song after the band had already done so much work on it was dismaying.

I tried to shrug it off by moving on to "I Just Called To Say I Love You," and horror of horrors, it has the SAME PROBLEM. There are two keyboard tracks: one, recorded on the 15th, is fine; the other, recorded on the 19th, is unusable. Oh it was terrible. Here we are, a mere five days from December, and suddenly two of The Aluminum Album's songs are in jeopardy.

Mic thought he was all done with the album last week. I have, via email, thrown myself at his feet and begged him to re-record those tracks on The Device, which is something of a logistical pain, especially on a tight schedule. If he will do it, I then have to get another violin track and vocal track, even though there was no problem with those tracks, because otherwise the timing won't match up. It pains me. Does Stevie Wonder have to deal with this sort of setback? Does Aqualung? I think not.

Giving Thanks for One More Song in KEIT's Repertoire

My weekend so far is going something like this:

1. Sprawl on couch with laptop, play with GarageBand software.
2. Eat excessive quantities of leftover turkey, stuffing, gravy, apple pie.
3. Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.....

Yesterday Brad and Cerin came over to record "Eleanor Rigby." Earlier in the week, some ominous band email traffic had given me low expectations for this rehearsal. The emails contained negativity along the lines of "that's not gonna happen" and "couldn't find anything" (referring to the proper sheet music) and "have we given up hope?"

I sat my string section down with some beer, pie and whipped cream as soon as they arrived, and braced myself for the bad news. Was "Eleanor Rigby" just another pipe dream, destined to be abandoned by KEIT like "Happy Together" (dearth of horn players) and "Happy, The End" (too damn hard)?

No, KEIT rose to the occasion, as we so frequently do -- leaving intact our record of dismissing only songs with "happy" in their title. As a tragic and depressing song, "Eleanor Rigby" sparked our can-do attitudes. In fact, we sailed through the rehearsal with very few problems.

Cerin dragged her parents to this rehearsal, poor dears! They are in town for Thanksgiving. Both are musicians themselves and delightful people. I couldn't convince them to contribute to the album, though. Maybe next year!

One of the fun things about "Eleanor" was that Cerin and Brad recorded two different tracks each on their cello and violin, respectively. This made it sound like they were a quartet. The final version is quite textured in that respect.

I insisted that Cerin record a vocal track, then I also tried one myself after she left, for kicks. My voice is a little deeper than hers, which gives me more of a McCartneyesque sound, but she has the advantage of being on key far more often than me. At the risk of tooting my own horn (band joke! SO funny!!), I really did pretty well with my vocal track, to the point where I can't decide whose version is better. Or less bad, if you prefer. So I kept them both. I will need someone else to decide which version goes on the album. But make no mistake, I will cry myself to sleep for a week if that person chooses Cerin's vocals over mine. Got that, neutral third party? : )

Cerin Dresses The Part

It turns out that Brad was offended that I described his last rehearsal as unnoteworthy, so I hope I have done justice to yesterday's rehearsal.

Hide and Seexophone

I am trying to coax a saxophone solo for "Superfreak" out of loyal KEIT groupie Derrick Brent. Derrick is an actual sax player, self-proclaimed rustiness notwithstanding. Apparently his basement is the sort in which a large brass instrument can somehow get lost, but he is working to track it down. He suggested that if he can't find it, we should cover the solo with that underappreciated and underutilized instrument, the kazoo. He was kidding, I assume, but as a contingency plan I purchased one kazoo for each of the seven KEIT members for 79 cents each off the internet this afternoon.

We have made decent progress over the past two days, but none of it really noteworthy, so I will just let these artistic photos from Sunday's rehearsal speak for themselves.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

You were left on the edge of your seat, I'm sure, at the end of the last blog post, when Know Eye Inn Teem was experiencing technical difficulties that threatened to bring us to our knees. Rest easy, they have been resolved. I was still at a loss when Mic arrived on Thursday to tackle Stevie Wonder, but after a little fuss, we realized that the problem was that there were hidden files on the memory card. Damn the hidden files! When we got rid of them, we could use the recorder again. We are back in business.

We recorded the bass keyboard track on "I Just Called To Say I Love You." It was another one of those semi-painful rehearsals when Mic feels his way through a song while I sit uselessly next to him, hitting START and STOP on the recorder. Sometimes I interject comments, like "that sounds right" or "mmmm, sure," designed to give the misleading impression that I have some idea what he is talking about, which I usually don't. To give you a sense of how tedious this process is, I secretly recorded a portion of the proceedings. Here is a near-verbatim excerpt of Mic thinking out loud:

And then the E, that’s A-C-E, what’s above E, that’s an F and that’s an F sharp [plays notes] so yeah well f**in’ whatever, that’s an F sharp, I’m just going to pretend I don’t see those, that’s an F sharp so it’s [plays notes] this just goes [plays notes] no this goes [plays notes] and then that goes in B [plays notes] and that’s A, E, that’s an [plays notes, hums note, plays notes]. That’s a f**kin’ bastard of a little bit there! But that’s repetitive. So that is an A. So at this stage we’re in B, are we? [sound of pen clicking] So that’s saying, hold on, so that’s A, F, [plays notes] that’s D [plays notes]. That’s just trad-style D-D-A-A then [plays notes]. And that’s A, E [plays notes]. Doesn’t matter if it sounds weird, does it? Okay, so I’m going to try this, I’m just going to try, let me see, no, I need this page as well [sound of pages rustling]. Okay, “I just,” “I just,” “I just…” [plays notes]. F**k it! [plays notes] So it’s two Fs. F**k it, how the f**k am I going to be able to do this? I’ll just have to practice it over and over and over again [plays notes]. So it’s how many, two? And then the end. Okay. Let me just try it one time here. I just need to go [plays notes]. Okay, I need to switch over that E bit. E-E-E, so you see I’m looking at one bit here, [plays notes] hold on it goes [plays notes] I’m almost better off not looking at the notes and just memorizing it, I think, in this case here [plays notes]. What’s the tune? No no no it doesn’t [plays notes]. You see it’s not, that note is held, that’s why he’s changing the timing of it here [plays notes].

Hi, are you still awake? Oh, good. Hang in there. Recording the Aluminum Album does feature its fair share of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll (or at least rock-n-roll), but Thursday night was a real sleeper. Still, this background work is critically important to building our album.

The band had Friday off, and the only progress today was me ineptly piecing tracks together on the software. We'll be back in the swing of things tomorrow, however, with "Brighter Than Sunshine."

Every Band Needs A Dictator

The past two rehearsals have not been wildly exciting, but we have added some texture to our Know Eye Inn Teem original song, "6AM." Everyone agrees that this song rocks. I believe it will be our legacy. It would be the one that we would market as a single and it would go to the top of the charts, if there were a market and charts for songs by makeshift bands recording an album in someone's basement in a 30-day period without the benefit of a full set of real instruments.

If such a market existed, we'd have it cornered right now.

Rachel began work on the vocals on Monday but we did not get a final track that night, even after I brutally forced her to record it over and over and over again to try to get it perfect. Sometimes, as the album's producer, I have to crack the whip a little. Cerin bitterly accused me on Saturday of treating her like "my little guitar monkey," or some such thing, which is silly, because she IS my little guitar monkey, and why can't she just embrace it? It will be interesting to see how many of my band members volunteer for this again next year.

Last night we did finalize the vocals, with Rachel and Julie (shining at her first rehearsal) collaborating. They got one track that was great before the trombone solo, and one that was great after the trombone solo, so I intend to cut and paste the good parts into the final product. Peter demonstrated his uncanny ability to spontaneously add trombone noises to a song to make it sound better.

Unfortunately, before we could have Julie add some triangle-n-tambourine action, the recorder's memory card filled up. I tried dumping some material I'd already uploaded to GarageBand, but this did not solve the problem. This could be a major issue if I can't figure it out before Mic shows up tonight to do the keyboard part on "I Just Called To Say I Love You." Stay tuned.

The Fun Returns to The Aluminum Album

This past weekend was a very productive and energizing one for Know Eye Inn Teem.

I had written some lyrics for an original KEIT song called "6AM," but had not finalized a melody. I keep a little digital recorder by my bed because sometimes as I am on the verge of sleep, tunes will come to me and I will hum them into the recorder or lose them forever. Unfortunately, the "6AM" tune fell victim to the "lost forever" phenomenon, so when Cerin arrived on Saturday, she was horrified to learn that her task was to help me make some words on a piece of paper into a real song, without much idea what it was supposed to sound like. Apparently my directions, along the lines of "it needs to sound angry," were not much to go on.

Indulge me as I take a tangent and wax philosophical for a moment. One of the best things about writing a novel in a one-month period, as I have done three times, is that you find yourself thinking in entirely new ways. You look at things differently, and interpret them differently. You surprise yourself with these new thought patterns. It is exhilerating.

The same is true for someone recording an album with no musical experience. Music has started to sound different to me than it did just a couple weeks ago. I appreciate things about songs that I didn't notice before. I have been learning how to approach a song to try to make it sound musical, which is a welcome challenge.

All this translates to Saturday being really exciting for me. Cerin played chords and from nothing, we teased out what "6AM" should sound like. It was not easy. For example, part-way through the process I was certain that Cerin had started playing a different chord during the chorus, and I liked the original chord better, but I couldn't remember what it sounded like, and Cerin insisted she was playing it exactly the same, and I couldn't find the spot in the recording to prove that I was right (probably because I was wrong, I admit, but we will never definitively know; isn't that convenient for me?). Also there were some problems with my lyrics having too many syllables in places. Also I can't carry a tune, so it was hard for me to articulate a melody, while being even harder for Cerin to make up chords and sing along at the same time.

Also, Cerin was not wild about my verse about the penguin. Some people just do not appreciate a good penguin reference in a song about getting up in the morning.

Amazingly, though, the end product was the outline of a real song! I can't get over this. We wrote a song. And it is awesome, if you ask me. Both Cerin and I have found it running through our heads afterwards. It is the kind of song, we decided, that you could imagine some annoying person singing out loud on the metro.

We have a guitar track, and over the next few days we will be adding percussion, vocals, and trombone. I cannot wait to hear the finished product.

Still riding on this high, KEIT tackled "Sunday Bloody Sunday" yesterday. This was a kick. We decided to record it live, rather than with separate tracks for each musician. This meant we all had to play together, which is really fun. The original attempts were laughable, which was reflected in the first few recordings, which contain a lot of laughing. Peter and I, doing vocals, had some struggles with timing, and Cerin and Mic had issues with an E-flat in the middle. No one could figure out when the song was supposed to end.

Worst of all, there were major problems with the drumming, which we were doing via keyboard. We couldn't hear the drumming well enough to stay with the beat, and we couldn't turn it up because then it overwhelmed the song. We tried a couple of fixes unsuccessfully, and then finally decided to scrap the keyboard drumming and revert to our old standby, Jennie Banging On A Pan Lid, and miraculously, it all came together without the drumming - all of a sudden, everyone was playing and singing the way we were supposed to. I should mention here that Brad made his KEIT debut on violin for this song, and he was fantastic - as Mic's girlfriend Summer put it when we forced her to listen to it afterward, the violin really makes the song sound Irish.

What was especially fun about the "Sunday Bloody Sunday" effort was that we got immediate gratification because there are no tracks to mix with a live recording, so when we finished rehearsal, the song was done, and we could listen to it and pat ourselves on the back. It is the first finished song for The Aluminum Album. The Teem is very proud.

Highs and Lows, and I'm Not Talking Musical Notes

Band rehearsals can be pretty fun. When we played "Superfreak" a couple days ago, we got ourselves in the right frame of mind by pulling up the 1981 Rick James video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75qXUfp4wtw). Mic innocently professed he had no idea the song was about prostitutes when he selected it for KEIT to play. We were not fooled.

We had Chinese food delivered (if the rock-n-roll lifestyle is about subsisting on delivered pizza and moo shu pork, I will be a Grammy contender by the end of this month) and then Mic warmed up in the studio on "the device" and Peter, Rachel and I ran through the vocals upstairs. It quickly became apparent that I should have chosen more songs that feature, as "Superfreak" does, 1) back-up singers, and 2) lyrics like "yeow" and "blow, daddy!" Interestingly, I should have known this from my novel, when I had my characters choose songs based on the fact that the lyrics contained whooping and shouting.

It was just plain fun. We married it all together for a few live -- and lively -- run-throughs, then sequentially recorded keyboard (including a drum beat), vocals, and back-up vocals. It did take longer than expected. We were supposed to wrap up by 10:00; it was 10:45 by the time we finished. I'm sure my neighbors were delighted.

Unfortunately, that's when the fun kind of dwindled a little. I was supposed to play with the software the next night, but I was in a gloomy mood, so I let it go. Then last night Mic was the only band member available, and he and I spent lonely hours trying to pick out the piano notes and chords in "Happy, The End" because we couldn't get the sheet music. We only got about half-way through, but KEIT was supposed to have finished that song. I am not sure how the grueling schedule is going to accomodate spending more time on it to whip it into shape. Sigh.

So the latest lessons learned about one-month album recording are that you should pick songs with sheet music, back-up singers, and super-freaky lyrics, and it is important for band morale to get as many band members as possible together simultaneously for some jam sessions, even if you are recording their pieces separately.

Incidentally, I should mention the band dress code, as the pictures of Peter and Rachel sharing a set of headphones might raise some questions on that point (and other points, but I digress...). Band members are encouraged to dress like Beyonce or Snoop Dogg to the greatest extent possible, but business suits and pajamas are also acceptable. At least Peter took off his tie.

The First Inklings of Actual Music

With two rehearsals under our belt, my prediction is that The Aluminum Album will consist of songs that sound mostly mediocre, yet recognizable. What I mean is that when we are playing "Superfreak," you will know it is "Superfreak," but you might not want to listen to it all the way through. We are okay with that.

And speaking of "Superfreak," we had to adjust the discography a little bit. It happens that we couldn't get sheet music for "Home Grown," so we have cast our lot with Rick James instead. "Happy Together" may also go by the wayside because I chose it for its brass instruments, but our trombone player will be giving a no doubt fascinating presentation about urban planning or something on the day we were supposed to rehearse it.

On the other hand, we are creatively getting around some of these hurdles. I thought we were set for "Happy, The End," but it turns out that what I identified as guitar noises were actually bass noises, and furthermore it turns out that a guitar is not the same thing as a bass, and on top of that an electric guitar (or bass) does not make the sustained noises I had in mind without some kind of additional electronic contraption. Who knew? But not to worry - Peter set us up on the software with a sound called something like "Shimmery Dream Guitar Reverb" (or was it "Dreamy Shimmer Guitar Reverb"?) and it sounds kind of good. "Good," of course, being a relative term.

The software, GarageBand, is awesome. So far I could not be more inept at using it, but it is the key to our album. I can't wait to figure out how to get it to do our drumming so that we can be spared the agony of me beating arhythmically on a pan lid with a wooden spoon.

Loyal groupie Brian Levy generously lent KEIT a microphone and recording device that are proving very impressive. In fact the mike is almost too good: it picked up that we were recording while listening to the actual songs on headphones, so you can hear us playing "You Know I'm No Good" and Amy Winehouse singing it oh-so-faintly in the background. Oops!

Tonight's rehearsal will be Mic's debut, on keyboard (known to KEIT members, reverently, as "the device"). "Superfreak" is the song. We're superfreakin' now.

Knee-Deep in the Rock-n-Roll Lifestyle

Last night I partied like a rock star with an actual rock star, namely Bono. Okay, well it wasn’t just me and Bono. Queen Noor, George Soros, and Ashley Judd were there too. Okay, and several hundred other people. Anyway he was very excited to hear from me that Know Eye Inn Teem will be covering "Sunday Bloody Sunday" on our album, and wholly endorsed our plan to set it to a mambo beat, wondering aloud in his charming Irish accent why he hadn't thought of it himself.


I was drinking, so the details of that story may not be entirely accurate.

Bono and me

I got to bed around 3AM, and then woke up about 7:30 this morning to have time to run to my office to retrieve my new (used) iBook before my sound technician would arrive at the KEIT studio at 10AM. By "sound technician," I actually mean "raccoon exterminator" (as many of you know, I have raccoons). Unfortunately, he never showed up, which was particularly aggravating because before I became a rock star (i.e. yesterday), I was used to getting a lot more sleep.


I did squeeze in a 30-minute nap before the very first KEIT rehearsal, then powered up the iBook for the very first time right before Peter and Cerin arrived. I will confess to you that at that moment -- hung over, sleep-deprived, staring uncomprehendingly at GarageBand software I had never seen before on an unfamiliar computer -- I had some serious self-doubts.


But we ordered a pizza and dove in. We played "You Know I'm No Good," and you know, we were no good, at least at first. But we got the hang of it, and Peter figured out how to layer the instruments and vocals on the software. So after we played it through a few times together, we finished the rehearsal by each listening with headphones to Amy Winehouse singing the song, and recording it as we played or sang along individually. Now I just have to figure out how to put the layers together.

Today's rehearsal was miraculous, in short. I am very proud of the Teem.

Getting Those Musical Ducks in a Row

I think there is no better way of demonstrating one's love for music than by donning a carrot costume and parading around in front of your coworkers for a $100 prize to be applied to band expenses, so that's what I did at my office Halloween costume party today. I won!

This is good news, because the secondhand iBook with GarageBand software that I will be picking up tomorrow is still kind of pricey, plus I have been drooling over drum sets on Craigslist.

According to the grueling band schedule, I am slated to play percussion for the first two songs we tackle: "You Know I'm No Good" (Amy Winehouse) and "Happy, The End" (The Innocence Mission). Based on listening repeatedly to these songs on my iPod during my metro rides into work, closing my eyes for concentration, and mouthing "ONE two three four five six SEVEN eight" while tapping on my purse, I have judged that "Happy, The End" will not be too tough, provided I can find a cymbal or cymbal substitute.

"You Know I'm No Good," though, has some hardcore drumming that will be difficult for me as an absolute amateur to replicate, especially if I am merely banging on pots with a spoon.

I found something irresistable on Craigslist: a kid's drum set for $85!!! Apparently they are real drums; they're just, well, miniature! Which seems fitting for a band recording an album in a month. With the aforementioned grueling band schedule, though, I am unsure when I can go take a look at them and haul them to the Know Eye Inn Teem sound studio (i.e. my basement). Are there any vehicle-enabled members of the KEIT fan base who might want to volunteer for this mission? I'll even throw in the remaining $15 from my carrot costume prize as a hauling fee!

You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy...

With a few days to go before rehearsals begin, this seems like a good opportunity to illustrate the shocking prejudice that Know Eye Inn Teem must overcome to accomplish our goal of recording an album in one month. So here goes: after I invited all my local friends to be part of the band, I got a series of responses that affectionately suggested I am bananas. Yes! They did! An anonymous sampling, for your amusement:

"GOOD LUCK, NUT CASE!!!!!"

"There is a bit of fun in watching friends slip fantastically towards a wonder bucket of insanity."

"Jennie -- I think you're a little bit crazy in the head. I like that about you."

Not to worry; this sort of allusion to our compromised mental health only makes us more determined. We wouldn't be the first rock stars to suggest that "it just may be a lunatic you're looking for."

I am looking into getting a used Mac laptop from someone on Craigslist, so I can use GarageBand software to record The Aluminum Album.

Calendar and Discography

Today I selected the songs Know Eye Inn Teem (KEIT) will play on our album. It was a big challenge matching up band members' skills and availability with the songs we want to play. Given that there is not a single day on which every KEIT member is available, we will have to record most of the songs in layers - eg. keyboard one day, guitar the next.

Various subsets of KEIT will assemble on 17 of the 30 days in November for intense rehearsals and recording sessions.

Here is the discography for The Aluminum Album (the order will change):
1) Home Grown (Booker T. and the M.G.s)
2) Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
3) Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles)
4) You Know I’m No Good (Amy Winehouse)
5) Happy Together (The Turtles)
6) 6AM (Know Eye Inn Teem - an original song!)
7) I Just Called To Say I Love You (Stevie Wonder)
8) Brighter than Sunshine (Aqualung)
9) Happy, The End (Innocence Mission)

I will be tied up with work events on November 1 and 2, so rehearsals will officially begin on November 3. Until then, I will be attacking our scariest technical challenge: how are we going to record ourselves, anyway? Microphones, software, etc....I have five days to figure it out. No sweat.

Auspicious Beginnings

In lieu of writing a novel this November (see http://www.nanowrimo.org/), I am assembling a band to record an album. Friends received an email earlier this month with instructions on how to become a rock star, an idea based on my woefully bad third novel, The Aluminum Album.

Potential band members were advised not to worry if they, like myself, have no musical ability whatsoever. They would be heartened to learn that musical ability was not a prerequisite to be part of the band. Every interested and committed party was promised a role. Let’s just say our triangle and cowbell sections look to be very strong on this album.

The album will be begun and completed in the month of November. Since 30 days is not a whole lot of time to form a band, learn songs, record them, respond to fan mail, shave your head and enter rehab, etc., the schedule will be both grueling and rigid.

The name of the band is Know Eye Inn Teem. It comes from the novel. Yes, the novel I wrote.

The name of the album is “The Aluminum Album.” Again, from the literary masterpiece of the same name.

Auditions began on October 21. Peter Tatian wowed with a Queen song on his trombone. Julie Flinn came equipped with a Restoration Hardware "Country Band" set of instruments that included a banjo, a harmonica, and a washboard, and she offered a stirring tambourine accompaniment to U2.

Further auditions took place on October 26. The multi-talented Cerin Lindgrensavage, our band's only Andalousian lute player, tore up "What a Wonderful World" on acoustic guitar. Brad Scriber electrified with "Sunday Bloody Sunday" on the the violin, then he and Cerin turned it into a spontaneous duet. I detracted from the magic by chiming in with flat vocals. Mic Murphy arrived and set up his keyboard apparatus, jazzed around on it expertly for a while, and then took our "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to a new and wonderful level. We explored some variations after that, such as "Salsa Bloody Salsa."

Alas, after a week of unsuccessfully wooing drummers, I am still without someone with any experience in this area, but I think that with a combination of Julie "Thud" Flinn's improvisation and Mic's keyboard-created pseudo-drums, we will get by just fine.

I am not exaggerating when I say I am blown away by Know Eye Inn Teem's raw talent. I was really prepared to marshall a bunch of trianglists and cowbellers, and was quite happy with that plan, but now I see that we have potential to be genuinely musical. It's going to be an exciting November.