Got a minute to say something to you all, ’cause Billy’s playing drums, of all things. And, seriously, all talk of cuteness aside, he is so adorable when he plays drums: he goes cross-eyed, his tongue sticks out really far, and he grips the sticks with a very sweet white knuckled kind of panic. He’s going to delete this, I can tell already.
So now we’re in Stage 3 of studio life. The first thing that happens when you make a record is: you play songs very politely and professionally because that’s all you can think of doing and, after all, you are a professional musician. This is Stage 1, the “Boring Stage”. Next, though you continue to play and record music, your hair begins to reflect the realities of unusual hours, unusual sleeping positions and the fact that nobody around you cares what you look like. This is Stage 2, also known as “Ocean Madness”. In Stage 3, though, you begin to hand instruments to other people in the room, be they husbands, Fed Ex guys or dogs, mostly just to hear what happens, but also so you can sneak off and eat pie. This is also known as, “Sucking”.
Also? “Thunder Snow” can happen! Did you know this? Did you know there even WAS such a thing? Yesterday, the sky just lost it for a few hours — all of a sudden, it was snowing sideways and there was thunder and lightning and 75 mph winds and the horses in the stable where I record were yelling and running around and then there was white out snow and then power outages and then it cleared a little and there was a crazy golden light on the black and white landscape. It was absolutely amazing. We had to stop working while Rizzo ran around taking movies and opening doors so we could smell the ozone scented snowy air. And oddly enough, the song we had on a loop was “The Thin Man” which repeats the words, ” in the ozone snow” over and over and over. Not as creepy as it sounds, but it was still cool.
Meanwhile in hell: Bernie was pushing his thunderous thigh muscles to their limit. The US National Cyclocross Championships are being held at Roger Williams Park in Providence, RI this weekend and Bernie’s here riding in 2 races, one on Friday (yesterday in the “Snowicane” and one on Sunday, tomorrow). Last week he finished half a wheel length out of first place in the California “class B” championship. Yesterday, he finished, like 63rd, in a race chock-full of guys getting paid to mostly cyclocross. His hands and feet and even eyelids (yes, eyeLIDS, not eyelashes) froze. He had to physically look at his hands to see if they were even moving when he wanted them to shift gears or something. If you’re around Providence tomorrow, come watch a rested and defrosted Bernie race more!
We’re so proud of him. If he actually lives through this weekend, maybe he’ll play bass for 50FOOTWAVE again.
Love,
Kristin
Posted in: words on December 10, 2005