I’m high on believing that we rock.

The Hoff flies like a moron!

So here’s the deal with the weekend.  As many of you may have heard, Phoenix Saga assembled in the studio for a monumental recording session.  A recording session to end all recording sessions in fact.  What we did I cannot say, but it involved massive amounts of caffeine and snacky foods.  …. Well… I suppose this story would end really quick if I DIDN’T say what happened…. so for longevity’s sake, here goes.

We obviously started by stockpiling lots of various food items.  I get cranky when I’m hungry.  A big box of mexican pastries, a big box of cookies, frappuccinos, mountain dew, red bull, Sweet Leaf tea, OJ, beef jerkey, doritos, and funyons.  oh and a big flat of water too.  We started setting up around 8PM at Jonathon’s little studio… I’m assuming that’s how he spells it.  because why not?  so.  yeah we got a camera from Joey’s uncle and we used it throughout the night.  Joey went to get us some dinner from Taco Bell because I was under the impression that we were eating dinner first.  I had not eaten yet.  Though i DID find some Mr. T comic books at Thor’s Hammer… the bubble tea place was close for Chinese New Year.  Year of the dog!!  that’s me!

So anyway, we ate and then I hummed Black Sabbath as I drank a cup of Sweet Leaf tea.  oh the irony.  download that song.  Joe locked himself away in his drum booth and we knew from experience to set up a mic so he could hear us talking to him.  The first song we did was She, because that’s in dropped D and it’s the only one besides the Message that is.  And it’s one of the ones we know so well we don’t even have to practice anymore.  We goofed around on it while Jonathon was setting the levels and recorded it on the first shot.  It was that simple.  We tuned back up and then played Can You Believe, which took a few takes and then Cardigan, which, as anyone who has heard it (http://www.myspace.com/phoenixsaga) knows it is a very fun song.  We actually played this one through twice I think.  Not that it’s a hard song but we could do so much better. I am pretty sure it was after this song that we hit the stroke of midnight.

Midnight, Friday the 13th under the light of the full moon… Phoenix Saga ate the pig.  and we burned.  we have pictures, which I do not have access to yet.  but I will show you when I get them.  Joey can tell you the spanish name.  lord knows I never remember.  then it was bock to work.  My throat wasn’t giving me much trouble at the time thanks to some awesome planning.  See… I have allergies right now.  and I did then as well.  my sinuses have been draining into the back of my throat and this does not = a happy Sean.  mostly because I have to cough up large wads of snot at regular intervals.  and the coughing = hurts.  Still we hadn’t done any singing yet.  the way we do it is we lay down "scratch tracks" of just the drums, bass, and rhythm guitar.  This lets us come back and sing over each song without having to play it.  we also add lead guitar and guitar solos after that.

So it came to pass that we plugged out Anymore Again and Guardian too and by this time we were starting to get a little loops from the lack of sleep and caffeine.  I think this was the period where the picture was taken of me furiously wanking my bass… among other things.  once again all in due time.  We also decided to do Covenant again and if we don’t like the recording we stick with our original one form affordable sound.  The problem here is twofold.  first and formost is that Joey has a hard time playign the intricate part that Brian played before he left the band.  Joey can play it, he just can’t play and SING it at the same time like he’s supposed to.  anyway.  We settled on recording it again at a hellishly fast tempo which turned out to be extremely fun.  Then we pounded out The Message.  Our 8 minute solo-filled guitar wankfest.  After I got the groove started correctly we got the song down in 1 take.  which was a heavensend.  because we would have died if we had to play it over again.

After that we set up the vocal mic and recorded vocals, and surprisingly, even with a sore throat I sang the most beautiful smooth versions of my parts like… ever.  Every time Joe had to do a take over Jonathon would call him Needledick and Joe would do The Waterboy’s retard scream.  It was awesome.  Joe and I didn’t stay the WHOLE time.  We left after all of our parts were sung.  this was just around 9AM.  It was kinda surreal to go into that studio in the dark and then come out when the sun is up.  craaaazy.  oh and on a related note, I got my MIC WORKING.  that means I can record your christmas presents.  be prepared for that!  so.  yeah… that’s what happened.  our album is like… 85% complete.  A few more parts here and there… some minor band-aids… mixing…. mastering… printing.  done.  on shelves and ready for people ALL OVER THE WORLD to buy.  for a mere… $10.  get ready.  it’s coming.