January 16th, 2006.

Heather and I, as usual, are hightailing it down a highway and thinking lowbrow thoughts. Sex, I fear, is on my mind. Shh. Don’t tell anyone. Let’s just say there are nights when I wish I was a little better (or worse) about taking advantage of fans and groupies.

The singer and bass player from Rupa, having a good time. We talked about how bands were really the way to get the homoerotic tendencies out that have been hidden since high school gym class. Their response was: “Hidden?”

Luckily, my robness reasserts and I’ll just sit back and glory in the visuals. Sunset through a smokestack, the world glowing red as we leave Massachusetts, hurtling at 80mph towards the Space. We’ll be meeting up with Keren Lee there, and he’s joining us in collective prayer that we all remember the same versions of songs.

Walking back to the car after playing the Grog and Tankard in DC we encountered a CVS that REALLY needed to clean its sign.

Heather and I have been talking about the new album – new album’s really. We have a number of things from old albums that need to be repressed, a good number of Live tracks that need to find their way out of the privacy of my computer, and a number of newly recorded studio tracks that are simply gorgeous. There’s business considerations, and strategic considerations, and above all I’m going to continue to push aesthetic considerations.

Rowan setting up… for what?

It’s funny – I’m eager to get back from travelling to rejoin with the band and play hard in the studio. I Love the tension at the end of the song when you find out whether or not everyone else thought it went as well as you thought it did… and invariably we’ve been unified in our response so far. I’m eager to get back in there and finish off “We Can Work It Out”, “Speaking Louder Now”, “Choke Cherry”, “Allergy”, “Matador”, whatever else comes through… Speaking Louder Now especially, I think that’s going to be the gem, if I do say so myself.

Heather and Rowan back in the studio getting ready to record tunes for a new album. THAT’S what!

At the moment I’m finding myself inexplicably stressed. Things are going pretty smoothly, and though there’s not enough money and there’s not enough time and I’m not writing enough and I’m not DOING enough – there will NEVER be enough money, and never enough time. People will never satisfy me and I’ll never do enough or write enough – it’s all of the above that will keep me burning to keep pushing myself and those around me – but none of that equals dissatisfaction or unhappiness. Just recently I’ve been feeling a little crazy.

Sharif documenting the studio process.

That’s a lie.

Recently I’ve been feeling a LOT crazy, and I’m not sure how to resolve it yet. I think some of it is mom-related, and so there will be a lot of things to resolve once she’s out of the hospital.

Ugh – in any case, I’m just sort of rambling. My head is still assimilating the imagery of “Pan’s Labyrinth” which went to Cambridge to go see with Whitney. I think it’s got me a little depressed. Good thing there are such pretty clouds out…

Matt Polanchek of Transcendent Third is our engineer. Here he is contemplating the pain that is trying to record ilyAIMY.

Me in the studio contemplating the pain that is recording me.

Suckin’ it up and recording.

upComing & inComing

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