Week 5 - Tuesday 4/09/1991

Recording 'Existential Past', 'Useless Heart', 'Virginia's Dress'.

The session began at 10:45 A.M. with everybody listening to playbacks of the previous day's work. Winegar shuffled into the control room twenty minutes later, listened to his vocal harmony work, and announced, "This sucks." He quickly replaced the tracks with an improved version. To thicken up the massed vocals, Gates overdubbed several tracks of falsetto harmonies. Puig made his very first punch-in error during this overdub, accidentally wiping out a second's worth of Winegar's vocals. Once Winegar re-sang the missing two words, the vocal work was complete.

We experimented with tom toms pounding away during the pre-chorus section, but Wallace reminded us that there was only one track available on the 24-track tape. Gates said, "Well, if we can only add one more sound, I'd prefer a heavy wah-wah guitar." Winegar agreed, so he plugged my 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom into an old Vox AC 30 Top Boost and played brilliantly.

Upon listening to the playback, Winegar wanted to re-record the part with improved timing, even though everybody else thought the performance was perfect. Puig explained to us that the loose feel of the wah-wah guitar allowed it to stand out from the other massively overdubbed guitars. Winegar attempted dozens of takes, never achieving the perfection he demanded of himself. Wallace halted proceedings and declared the recording complete, much to my relief.

Gates wanted to re-record the ending section of 'Virginia's Dress', possibly replacing Urbano's drum solo with some homemade tape loops. Urbano stiffened when he heard the suggestion but held his tongue. As Gates and Winegar discussed their ideas, the mood in the control room darkened noticeably. Wallace, acutely aware of our relatively slow recording pace, wanted to tackle a new song altogether, but Gates and Winegar were too excited by the prospect of creating loops.

I pulled Puig aside at one point and asked him how he was feeling. He told me that Gates and Winegar were treating him poorly, as if he was getting in the way of their work. This was a first for him. In his many years of professional recording experience, musicians had always appreciated his engineering expertise and enthusiasm for discovering new sounds. The belittlement was all the more painful since he held much admiration for Gates' song writing and Winegar's musicianship. All Puig wanted was to be part of the team.

Gates and Winegar left the studio to pick up some audio CDs from the apartment for sampling. In their absence, Puig managed to clear one more track on the 24-track tape of 'Existential Past' and Urbano laid down some tambourine.

The session resumed with work on 'Useless Heart'. Gates experimented with synthesized wind effects for the next hour, trying to alter the pitch until the fundamental note didn't interfere with the lead vocal part, but couldn't dial up the right sound. He decided to record loops for Virginia's dress instead.

Gates and Winegar sorted through dozens of CDs, looking for samples. They ended up looping segments from a recording they had made earlier of Les Claypool (bass player and singer for the band Primus) playing drums while Winegar plucked and detuned the strings of a fuzz bass. I lost interest and wandered around the studio while Berg napped on the couch. The session ended at 7:45 P.M. after Gates decided to work on the loops back at the apartment, using Winegar's Tascam 388 1/4" 8-track machine to create the recording. It was the happiest I ever saw Gates in the studio. He loves creating loops.