GOODNIGHT, HANGER STUDIO…
Goodnight ramps
Goodnight amps
Goodnight group of microphone stands.
Goodnight pedals
and tangled cords…
Goodnight speakers…
and mixing boards.
Goodnight beers
Goodnight fears
Goodnight fits of joyful cheers.
Goodnight drones in good headphones
Goodnight risers…
and synthesizers.
Goodnight switches
Goodnight kitchen
Goodnight late nights of unproductive bitching.
Goodnight stairs
Goodnight snares
Goodnight studios everywhere…
December 23th, 2008
When my friend, Simon Guzylack, asked me to record a lullaby for an exhibition called “Kinder Zoo” that he’s curating with Bianca from CocoRosie, I couldn’t say no because he’s just one of those sweethearts that you can’t say no to. However, up until about two hours ago, I had never tried to record myself before, so it was a rather ambitious/moronic thing for me to agree to at the time. I don’t really know much about the show except that they plan on transforming Mad Vicky’s Tea Gallery in Paris into a room fit for a child, replete with toys and this “kiddy-friendly” soundtrack, so I tried to imagine what song I would sing to my hypothetical baby, and the first thing that popped into my head was The Cure’s “Love Song.” I don’t have ProTools or anything, but I have a sweet little HoneyTone amp and an mp3 recorder accessory for my Ipod, so I did some very lo-fi recording where I played my Rhodes and sang into the recorder, then recorded the recording while it played out of the HoneyTone, and kept repeating that process until I ended up with this very crunchy MP3, which I now fear is too creepy for a child’s sensitive ears. But, not too creepy for you, dear reader.
(BTW, A.R.S fans take heart, this is no indication of what’s to come.)
Here it is:
Happy Holidays!!
XH
December 17th, 2008
My friend Ken has been working on this. It’s about asking 50 people, 1 question. That’s all. The result is pretty great, and you might recognize the music for the Brooklyn video.
Check out the website here:
http://fiftypeopleonequestion.com/
Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.
XH
December 16th, 2008
Diamonds indeed last forever, but if the dopamine doesn’t, then your relationship doesn’t stand much of a chance. Tell your special lady that you’ll be there for her long after the brain’s chemical trickery has worn off by presenting her with a sterling silver dopamine necklace, crafted by Raven Hanna, a Yale-educated molecular-biophysicist has been channeling her love of science into jewelry that I think any Poindextery woman would love. If you’re lucky, you might get some serotonin cufflinks in exchange.
http://www.madewithmolecules.com/
XH
December 14th, 2008
Another day in the studio–one of our new songs has a melody line in it that sounds like what we can only describe as “Zelda,” but we didn’t really know how accurate of a description that was until we heard this, and our assessment is, very accurate. How great is this?!?!
In other news:
“SAN FRANCISCO (DECEMBER 9, 2008) – The San Francisco Zoo is proud to announce the birth of a male baby western lowland gorilla, born Monday, December 8 at 11:30 a.m. This is the first gorilla birth for the Zoo in a decade and plays a contributing role to the conservation efforts taking place for this critically endangered species through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan (AZA, SSP). This is the fourth successful gorilla birth in North America this year…”
XH
December 12th, 2008
It’s been over a month now since I wrote anything for this blog, which recently made me realize which side of the line between doing science or music I inevitably had to fall over to. So this little blog of mine is about to get very music-centric and A.R.S-centric because, well, that’s what I’m committed to doing right now. All I think about from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed is this record. I’m sure that there will be a time in the future where all I’m thinking about is rockets, but that time is just not right now.
If you’re interested in reading more about what’s going on in my head, I just did an interview for my friends Jason and Eleanore, who are the band “The Hundred in the Hand.” They used to be “The Boggs,” which I played in for a while.
You can read the article below, or just visit their website. I recommend doing that and downloading their music.
http://thehundredinthehands.com/
In other news, being in the studio all day has been great for my drawing and purse-making endeavors. Check them out in the new pages (top right of the screen).
Thanks, readers!
XH
Ps: one more thing:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081212-full-moon-biggest.html
FROM THITH WEBSITE: HEATHER D’ANGELO IS NOT MAKING LASAGNA ANYMORE:
I’m writing this from within the confines of our dimly lit, incense-scented, makeshift studio at Erika’s house in Williamsburg. It’s a crappy, rainy, cold day outside, but we’re warm and happy in here. Annie is knitting a scarf, as per usual, and Erika is sitting on a pillow on floor, typing away on her laptop. Our producer extraordinaire, Thom Monahan, is sitting at Erika’s desk, manipulating audio files in Protools. We’re listening to the tracks out of some nice studio speakers bought exclusively for this phase of the recording process—the intensely listening, pre-mixing, overdubbing part.
We’ve been going about recording this album in a more nomadic fashion than we’re used to—first we did pre-production at our practice space and at Annie’s home studio in Greenpoint, but she has cats so I couldn’t spend that much time there without having an asthma attack. Then we did a few days of tracking at a studio called “Salt flats” in Dumbo, which was, incidentally, down the hallway from our old Boggs practice space—Ah, memories. We did a bunch of tracking at Amber Studio in Manhattan and at Erika’s house, before moving to L.A to do ever-more tracking (mainly vocals) at Thom’s studio. After L.A., Annie, Erika, and I took a two-week break, giving Thom time to do plenty of re-amping, comping, and finessing-in-general. He flew back to NYC for Thanksgiving because his wife’s family is here, and so we took that opportunity to set up a studio at his mother-in-law’s house on the Upper West Side. But we didn’t want to overstay our welcome there, so we moved to Erika’s house about a week ago, and have been hanging out here in her living room ever since. She baked a pumpkin pie this morning that we’ve all been thoroughly enjoying. She also makes good coffee. That’s pretty much all we require of a studio.
We’re going to be here until December 22nd, after that we’ll take a two-week holiday break then start up again in L.A at Thom’s house. We’ll be there for a just few days before moving on to an undetermined location to do mixing. We’ve got a mastering date set for January 20th at Golden in Ventura, so that’s our deadline, but we still have four songs to record, so that’s a bit stressful. Two of those songs were written a while ago, but we never got around to tracking them, and the other two were written during our November break. Hopefully no one will have any new songs pop into their heads until February.
We’re all thrilled about how things are going though. Thom is an amazing gear-head synth-geek genius, so we feel truly lucky to have found him, although we didn’t really find him, Bjorn (the B in P.B.J) actually suggested Thom for us, so we’re indebted to him for that tip. None of us could imagine making this particular album with anyone else—we were looking for someone who had the ability to find a way of expanding our sound while continuing to honor our imposed limitations of being an all-keyboard band. We still don’t have guitars, we still don’t have a live drummer, but Thom has managed to help us make yet another entirely keyboard-driven album without it ever sounding tedious. At least, I don’t think it sounds tedious! Our keyboard sounds came from a long list of vintage synths that we either owned or borrowed from friends, our beats are all from vintage drum machines again. I don’t think that there is a track on the whole album that hasn’t been tweaked in some way through re-amping, pedals, or whatever else it is Thom is doing when we’re not looking. A magician never reveals his secrets. We also spend a lot of time listening to Suicide, which seems to have become more of an influence on this album than we ever imagined it would be—but there is something about Suicide’s powerful simplicity that resonates with the kind of aesthetic we’re going for—which is a much different aesthetic than our last album.
With “The Bird of Music”, we struggled with trying to reconcile our desire to hear a sense of space with our greater desire for everything to sound lush and layered, and when that confusion was coupled with our inability to effectively articulate what we wanted, the consequence was finding ourselves with an only half-achieved goal. It was our own fault though—we’re still learning as we go along obviously, and the forming of a cohesive idea about who we are, what we’re trying to say, and how we want to sound never fully jelled until we went out on the road for two years and were exposed to the world. Not that we were sheltered or something, but both of our past records were conceived and produced from within this little world that we created where any whimsical fancy of ours was explored and included. Like, we wrote a song about horse races, about calculators, teenage Mexican boys, etc. And its not like we don’t think those songs are great, but we were kind of stylistically all over the place. We’d have some emotionally evocative song like “Through the Backyards” on the same record as “The Disco Song.” And for me, our live shows always felt almost schizophrenic because at one point we’d be playing a song like “Lark,” which has all these gothic moments, and then play an 808-laden dance song about media politics the next minute.
This album is much more introspective, but I mean introspective as a group as opposed to individually. The three of us have become so close these past few years from constantly being together that we’ve become more similar people as a result. It would be impossible at this point to not write songs which all complement one another’s because we’re all coming from the same place emotionally, and since we’ve all shared the same experiences, we naturally are expressing similar things in our music. It’s also become impossible for us to hide what our songs are about from one another. All new lyrics are always met with an interrogation starting with “that’s about so and so!” with knowing smiles, finger-pointing, and blushing. In the past, I felt slightly embarrassed about recording our music and publicizing it before because I wasn’t sure if I felt comfortable with opening up our private world to people who would judge us—but this is even worse! This new album is like our shared diary, so we’re very protective of it, and are being very careful with it.
I just asked Thom to describe this album in five words and he says:
“pulses, gust-of-wind, gossamer, rustling leaves, minimal”
That was not what I expected to hear! Also not five words.
But I like that description. I think its kind of hilarious that what I would have described as “loud” and/or “powerful” he would describe as “gossamer.” Shit. I guess we don’t really know how to rock.
Another big difference for me with making this album is that for the first time I’ve been able to put forth 100% of my effort into doing just music. During this point in the process with TBOM, I was still trying to juggle my astronomy studies with my music, which was stressful for me. Consequently, I feel that both suffered from my inability to choose one. This time, I’ve decided to dedicate all of my time to the album, and put science aside for the time being. But I still feel a deep longing for it-studying science gives me a much different feeling of excitement than getting to play music does–I guess because its much more challenging for me than writing music–although the high that I get from suddenly understanding a physics formula is actually quite similar to the high that I get from writing a song. Both produce a sense of accomplishment. But I miss my friends at Columbia, I miss being in class and going to lectures…at the same time, I also realize that reaching the goal of this album turning out how I want it to requires that I be nothing less than fully present, and fully participating. I can’t be daydreaming about life on other planets if I want the album to sound good. I know this because there are so many decisions that were made on TBOM that I don’t remember being present for, and I know that I would have been more thoughtful about those decisions if I hadn’t been so freaked out about finals. Being able to do nothing but concentrate on our album has been good for me, and good for the album, but alas, bad for research.
We’ve been watching a lot of Youtube videos at the end of each night. Thom is a big fan of Juana Molina and Imogen Heap and after watching their videos I’ve started to obsess about doing more on stage now, despite the fact that this album doesn’t call for real-time sampling or vocoders. But I’m smitten by these talented one-woman-bands and secretly fantasize about what we would sound like if we all did as much. Imagine a band of three Juana Molinas!
Besides even that, I’m just smitten by musicians who are actually good at their instruments. I’m not even trying to be funny or cynical or something, its just that there is a lot of amateurish stuff out there, and I know I’m personally guilty of contributing to that. I saw Marnie Stern recently and though I’m not a huge fan of her music, I left the show being so impressed with her undeniable talent at playing guitar. I want to be like that, better at playing my keyboard, better at programming drum machines, better at doing more on stage, better at singing—and though that seems like a pretty obvious thing for a musician to want to do, for me, its not. Up until we started touring all the time, I’ve regarded being in this band as a kind of highly involved excurricular activity or as an after-work lady’s club, one that gradually took over my life until suddenly I found myself managing my own record label and writing “musician” in as my profession on my landing cards. But five years later, I think the imposter syndrome is finally wearing off, which probably means that the album will tank.
I’m ok with that too though. I’ve finally made something I’m proud of that isn’t lasagna.
November 5th, 2008
I don’t know about you, but the first thing that I did as soon as I opened my eyes today was hop out bed and run into the living room with the demented giddiness of a kid on Christmas morning, and turn on CNN to double check that my big shiny gift hadn’t somehow disappeared over the night. Like many, I’ve been conditioned over the past eight years to expect disappointment–even after CNN announced last night that Barack Obama was, in fact, our president elect, I didn’t really and truly believe it. I didn’t jump up, scream, and cry, like I imagined I would. Instead, I was suspicious and cynical. Even when the electoral votes started exceeding well over 270 votes, I still didn’t believe it. I took a walk around the East Village, and saw hoards of people banging on pots and pans, cheering, stopping traffic—some of them even jumping on moving taxi cabs. They sang “The National Anthem,” hugged and kissed strangers, waved flags, shouted “God Bless America!” and all I could bring myself to do was stand dumbly by. I was saddened by my inability to participate because I just had this sickening feeling that it was too good to be true, that it would all be taken away.
Just a few days ago, a group of us drove down to West Philadelphia to canvas throughout some very poverty-stricken neighbourhoods. The streets on my maps were lined with veritable crack-houses and broken-down townhouses replete with boarded up doors and shot-out windows. At first I couldn’t imagine that I’d even get anyone to answer the doors of these seemingly uninhabitable places; I was naïve, I know. These places were people’s homes—wonderful people—people who greeted me so warmly with big smiles and shining eyes, crying “Of course!” they were voting for Barack Obama. One very old woman who greeted me amidst her lovingly cared-for petunia plants told me that she never imagined she would live to see the day an African American would be voted into office.
Little kids that saw me with Obama door-tags came running over to me wanting anything with Obama’s face on it. I joked with them about being too young to vote, but they were each as serious as the most avid baseball card collector. After stockpiling their Obama loot, they went running back down the streets shouting his name, with their mothers trailing close behind.
Then I approached three young guys sitting on a stoop, rolling the fattest blunt I’ve ever seen. I asked them about voting for Obama, to which they began arguing back and forth with each other about their fears of Obama’s inevitable assassination. One of them said, ‘Why do they wanna kill him?’ and then the other said, “Cause he’s BLACK. And he’s about to be President!” Then they told me to make sure that Obama won. And warned me not to stay in the neighbourhood come sundown.
After I left Philly and had time to gather my impressions of the day, I was most struck by the fact that no matter how hardened the person I met, the mere mention of Obama’s name was enough to turn on that inner light inside—it made them shine. And lately, I recognize that same phenomenon in myself. I think its called hope. And though we all need hope—the residents of West Philadelphia are the ones that I’ve been thinking about today. I’ve never seen a hunger for hope like I saw there. And now that the polls are definitively in, and I’m finally sure that this is REALLY happening, I’m just so happy that this country didn’t let them down. I’d go out into the streets with a pot and pan and celebrate but I’m a little late. So instead, I sat down at my Rhodes, and wrote a new song. Which, of course, ended up having literally nothing to do with the elections or anything, but creativity is a funny thing I guess.
Speaking of songs, here is one I wish I wrote: (thanks to Ali for originally sending this to me!)
And here’s something all we Poindexters can be hopeful about:
The Day After: Science in the Obama Administration: Scientific American Podcast
Posted using ShareThis
XH
October 17th, 2008
This comparison came courtesy of my good friend and elections commiserator, Aurelio Valle.
xH
October 16th, 2008
We got into L.A yesterday for part two of our recording with Thom. We’re here until Halloween, but are leaving for five days right in the middle of recording to play shows in Tokyo and Hong Kong for the french designer, Agnes B. I’ve been alternating between feelings of giddy elation about going back to Japan (one of my favorite places) and excitement about visiting China, and fear about how I’m going to physically be able to perform live under the influence of massive jet lag, then return to LA for another few days of recording. Hopefully I’ll just be able to coast on adrenalin. Once I return to NYC, I’ve got about two weeks to recover before we start mixing and mastering the record.
I’m hardly complaining though, I’m in Thom’s studio right now, drinking coffee and he’s spinning OMD records for us. It’s a typically perfect L.A day and I have two and a half weeks of doing exactly what I love before me. I have little to complain about…life is good.
The world however, seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.
Watched the debates last night, and found these two gems…thought I would share:
eerily too close for comfort:
eerily close, comforting:
I found this photo here: www.dvorak.org
with the following text:
It looks like a lunar landscape but this remarkable photograph actually shows our Milky Way and the planet Jupiter in all their glory - viewed from a cave in America’s Utah desert.
The spiral galaxy, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, was captured by photographer Wally Pacholka using a 35mm camera and 50mm lens on a tripod with a 30-second exposure - long enough to collect the light but not to see the stars moving. He said: ‘I had to drive 800 miles each way five times to get the shot right. And I had to hike two miles to the cave and back again at night, getting lost each time I came out.’ His photo shows the Milky Way - estimated to be 100,000 light years in diameter and 1,000 light years deep - and Jupiter (to the top left), the biggest planet in the solar system with a diameter 11 times that of Earth’s.
Something about that photo makes me feel as though its all going to be ok. Am I crazy?
xH
September 11, 2009
any dance party which requires a hardhat, lab coat, and ID badge to go to is one that i wanna be at:
lyrics:
https://www.msu.edu/~mcalpin9/lhc_rap/largehadron.html
put your computer to work!
