baby lets hit the information superhighway...

so i'm still done. and i've been spending way too much time on the internet. its getting out of hand guys.
i've also been the only one to actually leave the studio which has worked out in my favor. its nice to embrace the local culture and their inability to pronounce my fathers name. hey if a guy named gerland magooree stops by, its cool, he's with me.
last night i saw some friends from jersey for the first time in forever which was awesome then ran in to the orange island BROS and accidentaly bought dave a nice beer. then i drank some wine. sort of.
yup. still done.

ouch vocals

so i started doing vocals today, and basically it seemed doomed from the beginning. it took a long time, a lot of terrible feelings about myself, multiple talks with mike, a few unorthodox recording methods and a few shots of jack to loosen up the old vocal chords and get me sounding pretty good. i got a lot of my confidence back, and now things seem to be running more smoothly. i wasted a lot of time though, which i feel pretty crappy about, seeing as time is of the essence, but it seems that for the next two days at camp street we have almost all of the kinks ironed out and we can hopefully blow through a lot of stuff. whatever we don't get to though, we'll have to do at god city, and while i'm not as excited about that as i am camp street, it still is supposed to be a great studio. so, that being said, i'm really happy with everything. if i can pull it together vocally, i think we're going to be alright. greg and kelly sound wonderful on guitar, and i have no doubts greg and kell will blow through their vocals. well, make sure you read everything kelly wrote, and keep yourselves well on top of it all. bye bye.
peej

no i

So since we've gotten to Boston, I've really gotten down to buisiness. The drive up seemed long, especially coming from DC instead of NJ. We're staying at a Holiday Inn Express not too far from the studio, and it serves the purpose. Highligts would include complimentary continental breakfast and clean towels everyday. Downsides would be getting locked in the bathroom and the funky smell we can't seem to expunge from the room. Nonetheless, it's working out fine and we've been at the studio so much, we spend but 1 waking hour at the hotel.

Today is day three here at Camp Street, and the traffic seems to be getting worse on 95. We all cruise down to pick up Mike in the van, greet him with his own plate of our complimentary breakfast, and then head over to the studio, usually arriving before 11. The place itself is insane, and we have everything and anything we could ever want at our disposal. There is a substantial collection of guitars and amps from the last century, and tons of pedals and effects. Still, I think Greg and I have been leaning more towards the conservative side when it comes to trying lots of guitars. We've had a couple of tuning issues with a few, and somewhat surprisingly, we've fallen back on our own gear for some stuff. It seems to make sense: the stuff here is great, but we're trying to use it in a smart, efficient way.

Unlike the guitars, we've been having great success with the amps here. A silverface twin has been getting a lot of use by both Greg and me for clean sounds, and after a bit of trial and error, we decided to use an old Selmer head for some dirty sounds. That seems to be one of Mike's favorites. I also got a killer sound using an old Jazzmaster through a Tweed Bandmaster. Oh, and the first day involved an experiment with an Echoplex and some surprising results.

Anyhow, we finally seems to be picking up the pace a little. At this moment, PJ is tracking some of the first vocals for the record and it's going to be great to hear them. The record really seems to be taking shape. We plan on doing some organ and cello parts here, and I'm eager to lay down some more acoustic parts with the 50's Gibson Jumbo. We finish up here Friday and then it's on to God City for more tracking, and then back down to Salad Days to mix.

camp street

so we're at camp street now, in the boston area. this studio is insane. it has so many amazing guitars, amps and pedals. i'm pretty excited and jealous for kelly and greg for having such an amazing place to track guitars. it has almost an old school feel too. oh yea, this is the place where piebald, the mighty mighty bosstones, morphine, the go-gos and a ton of other bands recorded. rad, huh? i feel so incredibly lucky. thanks mikey!

oh yea, so we're going to need some help booking some shows on tour. so if you know anyone in the following areas, or are willing to put on a show, please let me know at pj@outsmartingsimon.com thanks!

sat. oct. 23 - georgia
mon. oct. 25 - georgia
tues. oct. 26 - south carolina
thurs. oct. 28 - DC area

these places are slightly flexible too, so if you know sombody reasonably close, that would be rad too. thanks so much!
pj

bass tracks, what!

hey all,
so, the two pictures maguire put up are him killing it on the drums, and the other is macaroni mikey bro tools poordude setting up a new snare for maguire. i love mikey, he's great. he and i have been working on bass tracks for a day and half now, and things are going pretty well. hopefully i'll finish today, but if not we'll finish it all up tomorrow, and then head up to boston so mikey can see his wife and we can move into a hotel in lexington (the british are coming, the british are coming!). mike is really easy to work with because he is so laid back, but gets his shit done. i like that.

hopefully we'll get off our lazy butts and post some more pictures, but if not, we'll eventually get some up. ok, that's it i think. thanks for stopping by.
pj

so now i can die in a fiery crash...

yo i'm done. its weird. three days of locking myself in a room with the legendary mikey bro tools and all my drums are recorded and what not. so now i can die in a fiery crash and the record can still come out as scheduled. weird, right?
poorman tried to get me to play shirtless the other day. sort of. what the fuck man.
the drums sound retarded. in a good way. and although brian mcternan has been nothing but awesome to us, i am left with no choice but to hide the 7x14 snare i've been using in my pants and go home with it. sorry dude.
and how did i celebrate my big finish today? i fell asleep for two hours. then called my mom.
now get ready for a night of drunkeness and 24 watching. mmmm i love that show all of the sudden. who knew?
later on everybody.
oh and happy birthday greg. i was totally the first one to say it.

sooo many birthdays!!!

hey everybody!

so here is the lowdown, sorry for belatedness:
linda (amelia's mom) - sept. 20
gregor - sept. 23 (today!!! happy birthday duder)
minu (wonderful woman we're staying with) - sept. 25

awesome eh?

so, i have a favor/new rule. can you guys put your names when you post, unless you actually want me to sit and scratch my head for an hour to figure it out. some of the initials are cool, but lets be honest guys, i'm not the brightest crayon in the box, so a little help would be lovely. i'd greatly enjoy knowing who is saying all of these wonderful things about us.

ok, now down to the nitty-gritty:
as i type, maguire is tracking the last of his drums. it's been a trying process for he and macaroni mike brotools i'm sure, but they've done an incredible job, and the drums sound fucking amazing. as they're finishing up, (hopefully, barring any problems) greg and i are going to go up to baltimore with minu and go trapeezing. sweet, huh? she invited us, and i was interested, and obviously greg was way into it, but it's a bit pricey. but i decided to spit in finances face and enjoy 2 hours of swinging 23 feet above the ground. i love greg for pushing me to spit as such. a great kid i tell you.

tonight we will probably celebrate maguire's finishing by watching him enjoy a drink or two while we complete yet another disc in the box set of the wonderfully suspenseful series "24," of which mikey mike poordude is as into, if not more so, than we are. then, we wake up in the AM so i can start getting some bass sounds, and hopefully start tracking before it gets too late. i have tomorrow, saturday, and if necessary, a few hours on sunday to track every one of my bass parts. whoa. wish i practiced now. then, it's off to good ole mass. god bless they say. 5 days at camp street/fort apache, 4 days at god city, then back down to wonderful salad days to mix.

yo, seriously, brian mcternan and minu are the sweetest people in the world. they keep being nice to us, which makes us feel weird and uncomfortable, because they treat us like real people, like a band that actually matters. strange. oh well, we'll trick them as long as we can, cause this place rules.

radical. ok, i'm going to go check up on maguire's progress, and get ready to trapeeze. have fun, stay safe and share kisses.
peejer

finally

so, after switching to a third hard drive, and working for many hours to iron out any kinks, we've finally started full speed recording. maguire is about three tracks into the record, and hopefully between today and tomorrow he can finish up. i have no doubts, because he's a killer drummer and i'm really proud of his progress. then, i'm up for bass jams. hope that goes ok. so, that's about it for now. hope you're all doing well.
peejer

Back in action!

Okay, we are back at it. As PJ mentioned in his last post, we ran into some temporary troubles with harddrives and all that non-sense... gotta love computers (why did I ever get a degree in computer engineering??). But needless to say, the faithful Mike Poorman and Brian Macternan managed to take care of everything in a heartbeat and get us back on track, both literally and figuratively (please, next time you see me, punch me for that stupid pun. i suck).

So as we speak, Maguire is slamming away at his drums, which I must say sound absolutely huge. I honestly can barely contain my excitement about all of this. I feel like already things sound and feel better than I could have ever expected. Let me elaborate on the "feel" part of that statement...

It's really incredible to be welcomed by such amazing people, and to be working with someone who just honestly cares about us and our music. I get nothing but the most sincere vibe from Poorman, and I can barely describe the way that makes me feel in words. After a single day in the studio, I feel like he will do everything in his power to make this record absolutely killer, and that faith in him has really put a lot of the stressors in my life to rest. I'm probably rambling right now, but I just can't seem to find the words to express how at ease I feel at this moment. I'm so incredibly excited, and anxious, yet I know we are on the right track and that that feels so damn good..

Alright, enough talking, time for some dinner. We are making some ravioli we found in the fridge, so thanks to whichever band decided to leave it behind for us. We always appreciate food!

--g

wow

incredible.
that is how you've all made me feel. honestly.

so, here's the low-down:
we got to salad days outside of DC last night around 10 pm or so. we met with macaroni mike poorman, who introduced us to brian macternin and spider (of kid dynamite fame) who were both extremely nice. we unloaded our gear and just hung out for a bit talking about random jams. it's amazing how loosely and nonchalantly speak of awesome bands is thrown around. "oh yea, when we were working on cave in's 'jupiter'....yea whenever 5 o'clock would hit, chuck from hot water music would just say, 'it's time to bar-b-que." and so on. there's an awesome apartment in brian's basement that we're staying at, with this huge television set and beds for four people. the kitchen is really rad, and it's so nice being able to walk out the studio (which is in brian's huge garage type structure), go about 10 feet, and be in our living quarters. i'm sure it will be a little less chill when we're in boston, but i look forward to it all.

today we set up the drums, got all the extra gear we needed, brian helped set up mics and stuff (which was incredibly cool of him) and we're starting to track now, at about 5 pm. if you've never recorded, an incredible amount of work goes into just setting stuff up, it's mind blowing.

so, this place has an incredible feel. we also hung out with brian's wife, minu, for a while last night, who is incredibly sweet and does trapeeze. rules, huh? but anyway, the friendliness with which brian, mike and minu welcomed us and treat us (besides the occasional hilareous sarcastic commentary) is incredible and life affirming. this is the way to make a record i think. comfort, happiness, closeness, and three awesome dogs, as well as some cats we've yet to see. oh, let me introduce you to our friends (pictures to come later).

mason - chocolate lab puppy. cutest little pup on the world. i love this pup.
pedro (the husky) - red husky who is so chill, enjoys listening to bands track. he is credited with assisting on everything brian does.
nala - quiet other husky that stays away because she was abused when young, but hopefully she'll come around.

so, i just found out the computer is recognizing our hard drive, so i'm going to go see what that's all about (as if i can help). anyway, thank you again so much for everything, and i hope to keep hearing from all of you.
love,
the peej

so i guess i'll go first

hi, my name is pj, and i play in a rock band...

we leave for the studio in a few hours, and to be completely honest, i feel very similar to the sentiment expressed in that penfold song about wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. as a band, we've put so much time into these new songs and to writing in general, that i feel like this is one of the bigger things i've ever taken part in. as friends, we've spent endless hours arguing and cheering each other on, helping ourselves and each other up the hills and smiling and laughing as we cruised down the other sides.

i figure if you're reading this, you probably got maguire's email. that kid is an incredible mass emailer. for real.

so, we're going in, and it's not going to be easy, but it will be really exciting. i've never done an entire record in a proper studio, and while this will be in three studios, they're all great places, and have their own little glow about them. plus, we're working with the wonderful mikey poorman, whom i've only met once, but have had the wonderful pleasure of speaking with over the phone almost daily since we met a few months ago. i think we're all excited about the record, and that makes me really happy.

who knows what will happen. maybe we'll do a great job, get out, and do minimal touring, and then eventually have to realize we have to stop. or, maybe we'll do a great job and then get to tour all the time. or maybe somewhere in the middle. but, you know what? i'm still scared, and nervous, but i love everyone who's ever had a part of this band, most especially brian squared and greg, and i can't imagine anything else i'd rather be doing with my life right now, regardless of the fact that every one of us has destroyed all of the relationships in our lives.

we love you all, we love what we do, and we really really appreciate you supporting us. we're incredibly lucky people. i hope you realize what it means to us. we'll see you all soon.
love,
the peejer