days 97-112 "the making of......."

woahhhhhhhhhh, i can't believe it's been so long since i blogged. i put it down to my being ill for most of this time with a nasty flu like bug that found a nice resting place in my sinuses. very, very annoying. i'm just now starting to feel better.
so, wassup, you may ask? well, just before the lurgy really set in, I decided to do a vocal on one of the jp songs here in my home studio. I wasn't completely happy with my performance on the version we did at the hob studio, so i asked john to send me the backing track, sans lead vocal for me to re-do, which he did. oh, i should say also, during this little 2 week break, jp had to go to new orleans, so all was a bit on hold, except for my redoing my vocal. i really liked how it came out and jp came over on friday to have a listen. he liked it and said that he immediately understood why i wanted to redo it. we shall call it "bedroom studios"!! ha; these days, it doesn't really matter. you can have state of the art equipment set up anywhere-except maybe on the street, for the noise factor-and you're good to go as long as you at least know the basics of engineering whatever it is you're trying to record.
so, he took the vocal back to his studio and will be putting it into the track that he has back on his computer at home. i decided to do another vocal for the other track that I felt my performance was a bit lackluster on and redid that friday afternoon after he left. i really like the way it sounds too. today, I'll put some lush background vocals on it. this was the one song i was gonna get a bunch of my singer friends to sing on, but due to everyone's schedule being very different from mine, i decided to just do them on my own, which is totally fine. i've done all the background vocals on all the other tracks and i do love doing the bv's.
i'm meeting with jp on tuesday to put some more stuff on the tracks, mostly the string lines that i did in the demos, we are going to redo. I may do my harmonica for one of the tracks here and bring it to john on my little portable hard drive. it's about the size of half of a nail file, amazing what you can do these days.
i forgot one important thing that I didn't mention and never announced till it was final: for nearly 3 months i was in negotiations with a company called music sales who are experts at getting music into film and television. we finally reached an agreement and i signed the documents on november 6th which i'm very happy about. i'll be meeting with them very soon, things are already happening, all's good.

so, on that note, I'll say adieu till next time. i won't wait so long till the next blog, more to report in the coming days!!

love always;

marcy xoxoxo

days 93-96 "the making of....."

well, this week was not what i completely expected it would be. for one, i didn't make it to the club on monday, too tired. also, didn't meet with jp, but that was cool. he actually sent me mixes of all the tracks with percussion on them, they are all sounding really good. now, he's going off to new orleans to see jon cleary, amazing guitarist/keyboard player who played on my songs. he's back on tuesday next week. we will convene then and figure out what needs doing.

on wednesday, i went to sit in with some friends, jimmy vivino on guitar [conan o'brien, tonite show], rick reed on bass, barry goldberg on keys and also scott healey, also from the conan show band. i had big fun sitting in with them, doing my clapton co-writes. jimmy is so sweet to have gotten them all to learn my tunes. he is a great musician; he works every day taping the tonight show and still wants to play a little gig at a small club, just for the love of it. i do believe he is the hardest working man in show business and i could even venture to say he probably loves music and performing more than me-that's A LOT!! he is one of the finest guitarists i've ever played with-I've played with some pretty good ones too!- and it's always a pleasure and honor to work with him.
so, had communication from someone today with more release options. still, "nothin's final till it's vinyl" as they used to say in the old days, meaning, until it's a "record" you can't count on it happening.

and that my friends is the end of this week nearly. if there's anything new to report, i'll put it out there, if not, i'll wait till monday. oh, one other thing, albeit vague; had a cool idea tonight for some kind of interactive thing with my fans on my site. early days but i will talk about it with more specificity very soon.

ah, bed,,mmmmm...zzzzzzzzz

love;

always;

marcy xoxoxoxoxox

days 90-92 "the making of......"

well, weekend over, onto another week of fun and not so frivolous. tomorrow, i'm going over to jp's to discuss what else needs to be done on the songs. oh, forgot to say, yesterday i met jp at the studio and we had this great percussionist, lenny castro, who has played percussion on nearly every record known to man, play on the songs. sounded great! he played shaker, congas, and some tambourine. one of the shakers was actually about 8 beer cans joined together with some kind of gaffer tape with some kind of beans or something inside! yeah, i got a picture. it sounded very cool, smooth, but fuller than an ordinary shaker.

so, we shall see tomorrow what more needs to be done. I think I'll bring my Dflat harmonica to put on one of the songs, i can probably just put it on tomorrow.

should be an interesting week. i think i'm going to see a friend of mine play tomorrow night at this interesting club on sunset called "the libertine". the band is very funky with a great rhythm section, horns, you name it. look forward to hearing that. last time I was there it was a great night; the place was heaving, people were dancing, just having a great time which is pretty unusual at a club here in l.a...what a concept!

nite 4 now.

love always;

marcy xoxoxox

day 89 "the making of...."

woah, so thrilled, I played tonight and did 4 of my new songs at a songwriters showcase. they seemed to go over very well!
talked to jp today, we are going into the studio on saturday to have someone put some percussion on the tracks. very happy about that, moving along. also, i'm going to meet with jp on monday to discuss what else needs to be done.

now....i am tired.

so i say, good night!!! more news tomorrow.

love always;

marcy xo

days 86-88 "the making of...."

well, not much to report. jp sent me an edit of one of the songs with a guitar he put on a few days ago. it sounded very good. but i've not heard from him since monday. tried calling today but he wasn't there. something must have come up. we are very close to being done, only a few more things to add. it's all sounding great, i'm very happy with it all.

i'm sure i'll have some more news tomorrow. been practicing my new songs. i've been invited to do a little songwriter's gig which I'm doing tomorrow, thursday october 22 at a place called arnie's cafe in tujunga. always a good crowd. it will be interesting to see how the new songs are received.

nite for now. as john lennon once said, "I've got blisters on my fingers!!!!"

but, really, I've got callouses and their getting even bigger now!

love always;

marcy xoxoxoxo

days 82-85 "the making of....."

woah, where is the time going???? mid october already. been kind of hectic since i returned on tuesday. i was exhausted in every way, so didn't keep up with the blog again. but, hey, i'm here right now.
not much has happened this week, since i was not really able to do anything till wednesday. but i've been in communication with jp. he took it upon himself to do some technical stuff with one of the tracks, he's still working on it. once that's done, we're gonna get together and listen to the guitar he put on it; i may play some guitar on it too. it also is the last song to need background vocals. i did the background vocals for the other 3 songs on my own; but this last one feels like it needs other voices than mine, so we will organize that very soon.
meanwhile, i picked up a Dflat harmonica to play for one of the songs. it's actually a Hohner, "blues harp"; i haven't played one of those in a while, but it sounds good. i usually play a hohner, "marine band" or a "lee oskar" [harmonica player from the band "war" who developed his own line of harmonicas which I really like too]. so, we'll put that on this coming week too.
i have been rehearsing for a little giggy-poo that i have this coming thursday in the l.a. area. just me, accompanying myself; gonna play some of my new songs that night, should be a fun night. i'll post some info on it in the next day or two here in case anyone wants to attend show me some love baby!!!!!
gotta make some calls this week, see some friends that have come in from outta town, should be a fun week.

hasta luego!

love always;

marcy xoxxoxoxoxox

days 73-81

where have I been??? wish i could have kept up with the blog, but i had to leave town for a few days to tend to a family emergency, sorted thank goodness.
well, where was I..... got back yesterday, and pleasantly surprised to see that jp had sent me some mp3's of some ruff mixes of the background vocals we did just before I left. everything is sounding really good; he added guitar to a track too. i may be seeing him on friday to put my harmonica on one of the songs. we are going to have someone put some percussion on the tracks too. that will happen v. soon.
back tomorrow for more news. going to have to pick up a harmonica in the key of Dflat [Csharp] for the song. they're holding one for me @ guitar center, yahoo!!

love always;

marcy xo