Week 6 - Tuesday 4/16/1991

Recording 'You Don't Know Me', 'Dog Town'.

My friends Tom and Geoff visited us in the studio today.

Work continued on the lead vocal track for 'You Don't Know Me'. Winegar recorded an additional piano track to help Gates pitch his vocals. After capturing one complete take of the vocal, Wallace and Puig corrected a few sour notes with a Harmonizer and Gates re-recorded some of his parts. Wallace still wasn't satisfied with the day's work. He decided to use the previous day's vocal recording for further pitch correction and punch-ins. We agreed to give the recording a rest for the time being.

We began setting up the drums for the next song to be recorded - 'Dog Town' - an upbeat number with a danceable rhythm. Gates and Winegar detested the song. Wallace, on the other hand, felt that it was worthy of release as a single, and so believed in it that he had recorded a demo of it some months earlier with Gates and Winegar at the Pier Southern Mansion studio. It was clear from the beginning that he had strong production ideas for the album version.

Our first attempt at recording the basic track included me on bass, Urbano on drums with a click track playing in his headphones, Gates on a Fender electric 12-string guitar into my Masco combo amp, and Winegar strumming a Strat plugged into a Vox AC30 Topboost. Berg sat this one out. Over the course of several takes, Urbano played without the click track and Gates left the instrumental lineup.

When the band gathered in the control room and listened to a playback, Gates and Winegar became extremely upset, more so than usual. Winegar did not mince words. "This fucking sucks!" He and Gates reminded Wallace that we were recording the song under protest, going through the motions only because Mio (our representative from Geffen) had insisted that we consider the song for inclusion on the album. Mio saw the song as a possible 'lead track' for MTV airplay and so on. Gates and Winegar saw the song as a piece of garbage.