The TenGooz Loooong day

Good morning,TenGoophiles! I hope you are in better shape than we are! We have barely survived another marathon recording session up among the verdant hills of central Ibaraki. Luckilly,we had the harvest moon to dazzle us and illuminate the blueberry orchard around us as we labored through the night, our stomachs fueled by Jons delicious barbecueing.

Before I get into the details of our day, let me quickly satisfy your curiosity and put you at ease by telling you right up front which songs we recorded.

Lost in translation

Strange Chord

Picture perfect

Ice Palace

Oh,Yeah

With the exception of Picture Perfect, these songs have been in our repetoire from the start and it was good to finally record them,though we are still gonna have to do a bit(or more than a bit) of remixing.Picture Perfect is a recent song which was generated by chord progressions brought to us by that bluesman turned Tengu, 'Frets' Tanaka(by the way we have a new nickname for him after last night,The Cat).That why we sometimes refer to it as Tanakas song.It was a little more dificult for me to get through this one because the lyrics had not yet been set until seconds before getting before the mic.

Our Looooooong day!

Though neither Jon or I had gotten much sleep the night before, Jon picked me up promptly at 6am. We had miraculously woken up without alarm clock assistance (the excitement and expectation of getting back to the studio activated our inner clocks!),though we must not have been a pretty sight.I really felt awful and course I wanted to sleep,but that would be unthinkable to sleep while Jon had to be behind the wheel(by the way everyone,I dont drive!).

We rendevouzed with Hase G and Tanaka(who doesn't drive either. We are an extremely transportation challenged band!) at a convenience store and were off to Hitachi Omiya via the Joban Expressway. After picking up some food and a couple of bottles of cabarnet Sauvingon at another Convenience store near our destination( Life in Japan is a series of stops at convenience stores or as we call them, Konbinis), we finally pulled up to the studio,all gung ho and ready to go.Jon came prepared with all kinds of gadgets to document the session. Digital cameras,video cameras and a computer. Over the course of the day, we got some really great shots and footage of the band. We hope to get the best of it on the net soon.Come to think of it, we might have come away with better video and visual results than we did with recordings!

It was deliciously cool up where we were,but we spent many hours cooped up in a small room under asphyxiating conditions due to the preponderance of chain smokers present. Kenya was a little late arriving and he too seemed to be as sleepy as the rest of us.(in fact ,besides me everyone ended up spending a few hours sleeping at one point or another. When he arrived we had already started laying down Lost in Translation.I just want everyone to know, that I wrote and started performing this song a couple of years before the movie of the same title came out, so dont imagine that its based on or about the movie. It is a song about the communication gap between men and women!

Everyone did a good job on the recording, but after listening to the results at home and in Jons van on the way home(Jon: I've gotta remix this!')and then again at home this morning its clear that the verse section is to cluttered and busy.

We then put down Strange Chord, with Hase G coming up with one of his wildest bass accompaniments.We went all out trying to make Strange Chord as Strang as possible We hope you like the results. This was the song that got us all the most excited, though Jon is not happy with it(he is especially against delay and overdubbing of the same instrument). the cacophony of it represents a disharmonius couple in a frantic, though humorous way.There will surely be plenty of mixed opinions about this one, but no one will deny that it is a blazing tour de force!

As I mentioned earlier, Tanakas song was a tad stressful for me, because the lyrics were not ready. Somehow,though it pulled together, and despite the fact that I am far from satisfied with the results in terms of lyrics, it sounds alright. Jon had a good suggestion during mix down, and our engineer followed his advice by bringing the instruments into the break a little at a time. I think it works to good effect.

After the 3rd song, we had a little falling out and Hase G and I exchanged views in excited tones. The gist of the spat was that he wanted to rerecord Inertia, while i thought it would be better to record other song we had never laid down before. Things got a little out of hand at one point where Hase G and I were both ready to quit the band, Jon , Kenya, the engineer and even the Cat Tanaka joined in the fray and calmed things down. We had a vote to decide the next song.Ice palace won.

We put it down in a flash and decided to do a fast take of Oh, yeah, too. My voice was already shot at that point(though it is never very good anyway!) and I think we made a mistake not having Kenya sing play the fast chorus as opposed to my singing it. Jon and the guys went off for barbeque supplis and I stayed put and read. The engineer started to prepare the mix down.

It was gonna be a loooooong night......

To continued

Avi