to the extreme i rock a mic like a vandal. rolled up to the studio this afternoon. i just like saying that. combining "rolled up" and "studio" in the same sentence makes me feel important. like i'm an artist creating stuff for mass consumption. like, "i rolled up in the studio today and knocked out a few tracks. kicked back, relaxed a little bit, worked some, sipped on a keg of lemon water. the album'll be out in june. holla." and then go get in my limo and cruise away into the sunrise.



but alas, i was only in the studio to witness the decimating talents of my friends. the studio was somewhere in el cajon and it was typical studio stuff. big warehouse building with aluminum siding and cars parked all about. i mean, nothing big. so blase, this studio stuff. you've seen one recording studio you've seen them all. ha. totally not. being in the studio was really cool. i like looking at all the machinery. i am mesmerized by all the blinking lights and the pushy button things. i like thinking, "stuff is made here." it's obviously incomparable to being in a flute factory but it's very cool nonetheless.



victor was crooning away when we first got into the recording lab and we could see him through the glass and communicate via microphones and speakers. i wanted to take a picture of me, all serious-like, sitting at the boards but i figured that would be disrespectful to the real sound engineer. anyhow, hung out at the studio for a couple hours, watching and listening to gene and james do some singing and guitaring. it's damn neat to see your friends shine. whether it be on stage or in a little two by two hot box.



i don't get tired of listening to the same thing over and over again. especially if it's good stuff like gene's got. instead of getting sick of something due to immense repetition, i learn to appreciate more when i can see the whole creation process. it's a neat feeling. whether you're sitting down to video edit, write something, create something, if you're there during the whole process you can marvel at how a project got from a to b to c. i wish i could of captured my feelings in some sort of written form. but instead i just read magazines and tried to soak the atmosphere in. i did of course dust off my trusty camcorder to get some footage. so look for that on some bootleg business someday when everybody's famous. if you can't make money off your friends' talents what good are they anyway?



i am also amazed at the musical technical expertise of the people in that studio. "that bar there, that something something there." they have to repeat and do takes over and over and correct tiny little things each time. for me, i can appreciate the medium of music but i don't know enough about it to be breaking it down. so watching and learning how a group of people work with each other to pick out little nuances and details is pretty amazing. because of my lack of knowledge, everything seems so magical. vagical even. that's the new word from today. if it's better than magical, it's vagical. sick and stupid. but hey. you reap what you sow. peace.