In the studio all day today recording my guitar parts. Tried a lot of different guitars for the song I'm not the only one. Finally ended up using this Gibson les Paul that was laying around the studio. Hadn't played one in about ten years. Always had a problem with the neck being too fat. But the sound was incredible. Just really rock and roll. I could get totally addicted to les Pauls. The sound was amazing. It put my PRS to shame. We didn't even bother to use that one. Will sell it and hunt some les Pauls down on eBay. But after three hours my hand was killing me. Felt like arthritis or something. Just really stiff and in pain. Kept popping Advil to be able to cut the rest of the songs. Also laid some cool tracks for junkie.

A lot of work and time spent just trying to get good sounds. Me and Fred argued a lot about sounds and about how many tracks I could lay down. I am used to laying a lot of guitar tracks down. Just going for it. Maybe five to ten per song if I am feeling different parts. And then in the mix, picking and choosing. 

He is so old school he wants you to get your one or two parts down and that's it. at one point we were shouting at each other. He kept having me do my parts over so he didn't have to do a lot of cutting and pasting later. He says “it's my time… just do it again.” and I scream back “no man it's my time too. you know, I'm here with you and my fingers are fucking killing me and I don’t want to play it over again just because you don’t want too many guitar tracks to work with in the mix!” [the problem is that I have always just sucked at guitar, I mean my execution really just blows, because I never practice the guitar as an instrument and never play the same parts more than once, I just use the guitars to write songs, so that's going to be frustrating to any producer who is used to guys being able to actually play their parts right. granted]

You know the other thing is that I like creating big walls of sound, that's what I want to do. but he is so old school he just likes one or two guitars. I'm more into the my bloody valentine or velvet underground or sonic youth. He is going for more of a modern or classic rock guitar approach, so we are butting heads a little. He really wants the album to sound good and sell well and of course I am more interested in just getting off when I listen to it. but that was the problem we had on rise and shine too, you know, Fishy just wanted to do whatever he wanted to, and thank God for every fan who has bought rise and shine so far but a lot of people felt like we could have/should have listened to our producer more, so this time I am trying to be more open to that. we can always make our next album more just for us if we want to, but why not give this guy a chance.

Later tonight I went to C-Roc. I went by to kick back with a beer and a cigar after a long day in the studio and watch these auditions for a play, just soak in the whole actors at work vibe, but then they talked me into auditioning. So I did. and that was cool, because I'm not an actor, but they ended up asking me to play this part. I ask them ‘am I really supposed to memorize all these sheets of paper? How the hell do you do that?’ So I am postponing my trip to Italy now till at least December. The show runs in mid-November. More on this I'm sure. Me in a fucking play. And I have the worst stage fright imaginable.

Last Movie: not really a movie. the young ones, every stoopid episode. This just came out on DVD. Really funny. If you remember it. classic.

Current Spin: Radiohead, the bends. This album shows why Radiohead got so big. What a great record to go back and spin.