WED, July 7th @ 9:00pm
The Green Room (21+/$6)
1426 1st Ave, Seattle, WA
w/Starving Art Family and Koko & The Sweetmeats

FRI, July 16th @ 9:00pm
The Skylark (21+/FREE)
3803 Delridge Way SW, W. Seattle, WA
w/Strange Jerome and The Riffbrokers

SAT, July 17th @ 9:00pm
Main Street Saloon (21+/$5)
221 Main St, Renton, WA
w/Jodie Watts and Grunion

I’ve also compiled all of the “Track by Track” posts into a single digest. It’s over on my blog, which I’ve neglected for months.  Happy 4th to those in the U.S.–go grill yerself something.  Many things will be going “boom” over the weekend, but please: don’t blow your nuts or digits off.

Aside from Lincoln’s spacey guitar and Sam’s dream-time Wurlizer piano, this song has a lot to do with percussion. Besides the percussive qualities of acoustic bass and resonator slide guitar, Brad draped a Weezer t-shirt over Brian’s snare drum to achieve that tight, muffled slap effect. There’s also the sound of six different shakers, shaking live in the Two Sticks drum room–a Shaker Choir, maybe?

Sam created a great string arrangement for the end of the song and after the intense ride ride that proceeded Weeds Grow Around, the strings were a way to ease you out of the 12 Songs Of The Apocalypse. (The swoop up at the finale is either a cruel twist or a question mark after THE END.)

And speaking of…that brings us to the end. Thank you for reading and listening.

During the recording process, we had been listening to David Lee Roth’s awesome/hilarious isolated vocal track from “Runnin’ With The Devil”; I tried to conjure up a touch o’ Dave for my vocals. A couple of wild obscenities and hollers were cut in the final mix (even though Brad tried to convince me otherwise); in our age of the technology, I’m sure this mix will surface as all things do.

“I Am The Rust” and “Weeds Grow Around” were at odds when played back-to-back, so a breath was needed in between. That’s how Lost Transmissions came to be.

Sam played a reprise of his Mellotron line from “I Am The Rust” followed by the outro of “Weeds Grow Around” played on a Melodica. The two themes segue like time has elapsed. Additionally, Brad took an unused portion of Lincoln’s guitar feedback on “Weeds” and reversed it, placing it under the Melodica until it builds to a crescendo.

Dear Sir,
In your recently published “Track by Track” post for Golgotha Drone, you referred to the process used by the bass player to produce high harmonics. You incorrectly (and innocently, I’m sure) identified the source of the sound as “moving [one’s] fingers up and down the string.” The correct source of the sound was bowing close to the bridge on an open D-string. The Double Bass is a strange and profound instrument, capable of producing myriad sounds through a variety of methods, so it is difficult to correctly identify playing methods simply by listening.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
H. Phatherbatham, E.S.D., PhD

This man is a PhD for cryin’ out loud; clearly he knows what he’s talking about.

Both “Let The Wind Know” and “Lake of Fire” use an open C tuning that I copped from the Led Zeppelin song “Friends” (damn, I love that tuning). The tone of this song was so emotionally resigned that only a barn burner like “I Am The Rust” could make a counterpoint; we’ll get to that one next (plus a bonus track).

During recording, we often referred to Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategy cards; for this song, we drew “Make It Dirty.” Since the interpretation of the card is completely open, it led to a three man “instrument” I dubbed the Eno-Tron: Sam playing a Mellotron vibraphone sound run through a Chorus Echo (that I was knob-twiddling to the point of feedback), while Brad ran the board faders to keep the signal from distorting. Surprisingly subtle, it adds an almost dreamy twist to the latter  “La Dee Da Da” sections and outro.

Oh, and please ignore the Myspace calendar–there appears to be no way to delete dates or make changes, so we’re going with the ReverbNation calendar. Myspace Tom is a harsh mistress it seems (if he even works there anymore).

Sam is playing bowed bass on this track, which sounds a lot like a synth when he’s bowing those string harmonics (by sliding his finger up and down the string). This track marks my first recorded attempt at Tuvan throat-singing and Brian sings that creepy, basso profundo backing vocal. Ed Brooks (mastering engineer) has also predicted that a Norwegian Black Metal band will one day cover this song.

The song was supposedly finished until I started thinking a female voice to counter my own would take it to an even better place. Not long after, I caught a solo set by Mia Boyle; her voice had a perfect PJ Harvey-meets-Chrissie Hynde vibe that triggered the low-watt light bulb above my head. I introduced myself after her set and recording magic commenced!