March 26 2011 at LUNA in LAKE CHARLES

We have headed east in I-10 many, many, many times for gigs. PLUMP always likes playing over at LUNA in Lake Charles, and in some ways even the drive out that way is soothing - if for no other reason than its familiarity. Every time we are driving through Beaumont, I always make a comment about the Babe Didrikson Zaharias museum. If I remember my sports history correctly (I could take a minute to look her up on wikipedia right now, but I won't), Babe Didrickson Zaharias (BDZ)was the best female athlete for the first half of the 20th century. I think she dominated the pentathalon or decathalon, or whatever that multi-event "thon" that has become an afterthought in this day and age, but in the decades past was the definer of "best athlete in the world". (OK, I just went to wikipedia, and I am happy to report that I was pretty much on point regarding my BDZ fact knowledge. BDZ was a champion in track and field, golf, basketball and was an expert diver and bowler. BDZ also claimed to have won first prize in a Texas State Fair for sewing - not a joke. The site also says she was quite proficient at pocket billiars - but not a champion.) But I digress. The reason I bring up the BDZ museum in Beaumont is that the museum looks like it is about the same size as my living room. The museum is circular, and from the highway looks like about 25 feet in diameter. If the BDZ museum holds one of BDZ's prized javelins, my guess is that the javelin barely fits. PLUMP has never stopped at the BDZ museum on the way to Lake Charles because (a) the museum is probably closed by early evening on Friday/Saturday nights; and (b) we don't have time. Although, I really think (b) is not a valid excuse, because by the size of the building we could probably see the whole BDZ museum inside of 10 minutes. (If curious, go check out BDZ's wikipedia page, as I am pleased to report that a picture of said museum is on the page!!!)



I have written about about LUNA and the staff and food and beer many times. LUNA always seems to improve on their venue everytime we come to Lake Charles. This streak continues, as they informed me that Dave (owner of LUNA) recently purchased the music venue across the street, so in the near future the bands will play over there. We have played said venue (for the life of me I can't remember the name) a couple times - an inside venue - and with Dave and staff running it I am sure the venue will be AWESOME. Hopefully they will still provide us with a cooler of Miller High Life.



Tonight, we decided to play "Ping Key" for the first time. Whenever PLUMP debuts a song, we are always quite excited and a little bit nervous. It doesn't matter if we have played a song 100 times in the practice room (by ourselves) and know the song forwards and backwards, because as soon as we play a song in front of people for the first time, there is a pretty good chance one or more of us will second guess ourselves and hit a wrong note, or play a wrong part, and/or sing the wrong words. I would guess for most bands, as soon as you bring 1 new person into a room, a song becomes much more difficult. So, we feel more conscious about the song because the song is new. Also, as with most of songs, we are curious to see if the audience likes said song as much as we do. Audiences will exhibit signs of enjoyment by dancing, nodding their head or tapping feet in time with music, clapping and screaming when the song is over, and shaking their fist in pleasure. On the other hand, an audience may voice indifference or displeasure at a song by leaving, making zero noise/not clapping when the song is over, or shaking their fist in anger. Ping Key is a funky number, with some cool parts and an interesting guitar solo. I am proud to report that PLUMP played the songs with no major issues, and we got some cheering after the song, which made us feel real nice (and also was quite a relief).



Another roadside attraction on I-10 between Lake Charles and Houston that is difficult to not comment on while PLUMP is in the car is the Longhorn Saloon. The Longhorn Saloon is the kind of establishment that could only truly exist on the Louisiana side of the Texas-Louisiana border. The beauty of the Longhorn Saloon is its ability to function as a truck stop/diner/casino/hotel/country dancing honkytonk venue. PLUMP has passes by Longhorn Saloon to and from Lake Charles everytime we visit Lake Charles. We have only patronized the place once, which was about 2 years ago when Jody was in the band. Longhorn Saloon is only about 30 miles from Lake Charles, so it is not your typical bathroom/coffee place for PLUMP (our traditional on-the-way-back from Lake Charles is the Iron Skillet truck stop in Beaumont). Our foray into the Longhorn Saloon was due to a simple twist of fate: a 2:30 am traffic accident a few miles ahead on I-10 had caused gridlock on the freeway, and as luck would have it, we were stopped right at the turnoff for the Longhorn Saloon. PLUMP headed inside, and scurried around the maze that is the truckstop/diner/casino/hotel/country dancing honkytonk. Eventually, we settled in the sleepy diner that was at that point occupied by PLUMP and what looked like a motorcycle gang. Everyone was friendly. The LHS had some sort of breakfast special as I remember, so we all got eggs, breakfast-meat, biscuits or pancakes, etc. Then, Jason walks up, holding 1/2 of "The Bomb" (which is a large, microwaveable beef burrito), after presumably having eaten the other half. He sits down, sees the breakfast special, orders, and then proceeds to eat the other half of The Bomb. Next, two buses pull into the truckstop. Said buses seemed to have been full of a bunch of ne'er-do-wells. The bus people looked exactly like Cleetus the Slack-Jawed Yokel from the Simpsons, half of whom were hanging out of the windows of the bus smoking and laughing and french-kissing ladies and doing who knows what, and the other half of whom were streaming into the diner and gazing around like the diner was the zoo (maybe it was). The diner became extremely entertaining. I wish I could say that a fight broke out between the Cleetuses and the biker gang, but everyone was cordial. The cordiality was probably due to the food coma to which everyone was forced to submit. The breakfast special was humongous and nasty - one of those situations where you know the food is terrible, yet there is no way to prevent yourself from eating as much as you possibly can. Jason, after having eaten the burrito, ate all of his breakfast, and probably the rest of mine. At this point it was about 4 am, and we were all extremely full, sick to our stomachs, exhausted, dirty, ashamed, and entirely depressed because we still had to drive two hours back to Houston. At least the traffic jam was gone. I remember Jody (who is the best late night driver I have ever seen) stating that he had to sleep it off, so we all took a nap for about an hour in the Longhorn Saloon parking lot before heading back on the freeway. I was burping up nasty breakfast most of the next day. Damn you, Longhorn Saloon.

SAT MAR 5 2011 at Zapatos

My house is the launching pad for all PLUMP road shows. The trailer is parked in my garage, and my Explorer is the only PLUMP vehicle that can both carry 4 people and some of our more fragile equipment and pull the trailer that over the years has accumulated a couple thousand pounds pa, amps, drums, et al. Actually leaving for a gig is much easier now than is was about a year and a half ago. When Jody was in the band, PLUMP travelled in style in his van to all the gigs. The van was AWESOME, and Jody was a great driver, so the road trips were killer. BUT, his van was quite tall and would not fit in my garage. The inability of the van to be garage-friendly had a negative affect on how we hooked up the trailer (i.e. we could not just back the van right to where the trailer was resting in the garage, easily place the trailer hook-up on the van's "ball", and go on our merry way). Instead, we were forced to employ a strategy in which the van was backed up to about 2 feet outside the garage, after which 3-4 of us had to drag this trailer (that was full of gear) about 5 feet to meet the parked van. We also had to lift up to fit the trailer on the "ball" as the "ball" rested kind of high on the van. The dragging of the trailer was dreaded by all, and I think its a miracle that no one permanently injured/disfigured their back from participation in this process. The hook-up of the trailer now is much easier, as my Explorer fits in the garage (like a glove), so the trailer is now attached in the safe confines of the the car-hole. So, now instead of dragging the trailer, we can spend our time before leaving for a gig standing around in the kitchen, shooting the shit, until every one has arrived.







The next step in the effort to leave my house is the shuffling of the cars, as there is nowhere to park on the street at my house. I have to drive my car and trailer out of garage/driveway, then one lucky person parks in the garage, and two people park in the driveway. Due to cigerette smoking, getting stuff out of cars, loosing keys/wallet, looking for keys wallet, locking keys in the car, staring off into space, or other similar time wasting activities, this stage of the PLUMP launch can last anywhere from 3 to 25 minutes. Luckily, no keys were lost today, so we got out of my neighborhood within a reasonable amount of time.




We have played at Zapatos many many times. If you have ever been to Northgate in College Station (where Zapatos is located) you will know that it can be quite difficult to park in the area. It is particularly difficult to park if your vehicle is connected to a trailer, making your overall vehicle parking effort a little more than twice as long as normal. Typically, the final 3 minutes of our journey to Zapatos is spent vocally musing and hoping and praying that the miniscule curb side parking right out front of Zapatos will not be completely filled, and that there will be room for both the Explorer and the trailer. This luxury happens 1 in 20 times at Zapatos. Luckily, on this night, the rock-n-roll gods smiled on us, and there was enough room for us to park right out front of Zapatos (Which is key because by being out front, our load-in walk is about 25 feet. Otherwise, the load-in walk can be 150-200 feet which totally sucks given all the terribly heavy equipment we have). Unfortunately, the rock-n-roll gods did not smile on my ability to park both the car and trailer in perfect parallel to the street. I inched forward and back a good 15 times, but each time, the trailer was extending at an angle into the street. Luckily there is a solution to this predicament: (1) unload all of your gear out of the trailer and takesaid gear into the venue for set-up; (2) find another 3-4 guys - in our case The Hooch, who were opening for us; (3) lift up the now reasonably light trailer (which can be lifted by 7-8 people) and move the trailer, while still connected to Explorer, sideways a few feet so that said trailer is now perfectly parallel to the street. Mission accomplished.



The Hooch is what I would call a pop/jam type band from San Antonio. They appear to either be in college or are just out of college, and are some very nice guys, and have a good sound. The Hooch were on the bill at our fabled gig at the Reggae Festival in San Antonio at the Reggae Bar in which the festival got cancelled due to too much noise right before PLUMP was going to play (see October 2010 blog entries). Tonight in College Station, The Hooch had a bunch of friends from the College Station area come out for the gig, and they sounded great. They have some nice "in-between-song" banter, kind of resembling a Vegas club act, which I found entertaining based on both the humor and based on the colorful blazers two of the guys were wearing. AND, their drummer even let me play on his drumkit, which saved me the time of setting up, and eventually taking down, my own personal kit. I always appreciate it when drummers can share kits, and frankly I enjoy trying out someone else's kit for a few hours. And, as nice as some drummer's kits have been over the years, I always end up prefering mine (which is a good thing, I think). PLUMP was fortunate enough to have a great crowd that was up and dancing the entire show. People were up and dancing from song number 1, which is always very good for us. The shot bar and the regular bar and the outside area were all really crowded. "Gimme Some More" and "the Trifecta" seemed to get the audience particularly riled up. AND, it was cool but comfortable outside, which is extremely important for an outdoor show in March in South Texas. This show was a keeper.

PLUMP in the recording studio Part VI

This is Part VI of PLUMP in the studio. For Parts I-V, please scroll down below.

As stated earlier, Jason and I are quite new to extensive lead vocals singing. Jason is a really good singer, and is much much better than I am at hitting specific notes in harmonies and such. We had some fun the first night in the studio--we had been sampling the lone stars and ended up staying later than Al and Josh as Jason sang the vocal tracks on "Loose Tight". We were really having a good time with it, but by gawd, the next day we could hear the drunkenness in his voice, and he re-recorded some of them. For the chorus of Loose/Tight, we each sang multiple tracks, all tracks with deep vocals, and the resulting chorus, to me, resembles a chorus sung by a posse of tough guys -due to the low notes we were hitting and the scratchiness we were getting from our throats. At first, I thought it might sound too tough, but after listening to the song many times I must admit that I have really warmed up to it--the chorus sounds really good.

Another fun song for the vocals was definitely "The Sixer". For this song, Jason, Al, and myself trade off singing, almost "row, row, row your boat" style where one of us sings the same line as the singer immediately before, but where the line is sung before the earlier person is finished. The three of us are each singing a different note, so it sounds pretty darn cool. The song is in 3/4 time and the verses have a way of spinning around, so I swear the chorus of the song could possibly make the listener dizzy. Since the song features a sub-theme of drinking lone star beer, we thought it appropriate to start the song with the sound of popping the top off a lone star tall-boy. I quickly volunteered to perform the "cracking open" a can of lone star in the vocal booth--and I wasn't even nervous. The resulting recording--glorious.

While in the studio, we also took the time to record some of the covers we like to perform. I don't think we will overdub anything on them, as we basically gave these songs the treatment of "live in the studio". I sang while drumming, and I tell you, Mark did a great job of setting up the microphones, as there is little bleed from the drum tracks into the vocal track and vice versa. The covers we recorded were: Uncle Remus (Frank Zappa), When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob Dylan), Gimme Some More (The JB's), Memphis Soul Stew (King Curtis), and Corrina (Taj Mahal). I truly doubt we will ever release these songs, but the recording will both be nice for us be able to listen to for us and will serve as a living document that we were actually capable of learning these songs. We spent probably about 1 hour recording these, near the end of our second 12 hour day in the studio. Once we were done recording these tunes, I was completely wore out.

Prior to heading to the studio on Sunday, Al, Josh, and I frequented one of our favorite taquerias in Houston (Guadalupana - on Dunleavy). The tacos are small, but delicious, and they have some of the best cinnamon coffee I have ever had. Some bands will postulate that if you are hanging out all day for two straight days in the studio, then perhaps you might want to find different schoolyard chums with whom to eat your breakfast. Not us. Some of other favorite pre-studio or pre-Sunday practice breakfast places in Houston include 11th Street Cafe, One's a Meal, Tepatitlan 2000, Cafe Bieniet.

So at the end of the weekend, we had recorded 12 songs, one 12 minute jam, and 5 covers. We had recorded the vocals for at least half the songs. We still had not recorded the majority of the guitar solos and saxophone solos, and any extra tracks we might like to put on. What we like to do is take a couple weeks to give all of the songs a good listen, and then we go back and add tracks, change tracks, delete stuff, etc. After a couple weeks listen, we will definitely have a better idea of what we like, and definitely the sounds we want to change.

PLUMP in recording studio Part V

This is Part V of PLUMP in the recording studio. For Parts I-IV, please scroll down below.

Another thing I love about the studio is how great the music sounds when we listen back to it (while we are actually in the studio in the engineer's room). What I mean is, all studios in general, and the Bungalow in particular for the purposes of this journal, have a BAD ASS stereo system. I don't know anything at all really about stereos, so I really have absolutely know basis of knowledge to tell you exactly why this is or specifically which components make up this badd ass stereo, BUT please know that every studio I have been in has an awesome stereo system in the room with the engineer. In the Bungalow, the engineer's room is maybe 15 feet by 15 feet, and there are several very nice speakers pointed right at the couch that is directly behind the engineer's chair. So, the best place to listen to the playback of the music is either the engineer's chair or the couch. My experience is predominately on the couch. Mark will crank it up, and I tell you, the music has nowhere to hide. The other cool thing about listening to your music on playback is that you can look at the computer monitor and "see" the music. While a song is playing, the monitor shows every track was utilized for the particular recording, and thus the monitor shows the sound wave for each sound that was recorded for that track to make up the song. After a while, you get used to what different beats look like. When Al is strumming real fast, the sound waves look like someone colored in heavily on the screen with a magic marker. As such, we spend a lot of time in the engineer room Mark listening to the music and watching the screen and hemming and hawing and dancing and pointing at the computer monitor.

One aspect of these recording sessions that is different is that Jason Jackson and myself are performing all of the vocals. Neither of us is a complete stranger to vocals in the studio, as we have both sung back-up vocals, and I sang the lead vocals on two of the songs on the "I Like the Idea of Chance". However, this time around, one of us singing the lead on every single song. Not sure about Jason, but I wasn't nervous about singing in the studio. I definitely consider myself a drummer more than considering myself a singer, and as such I think this mindset simply prevents me from placing undue pressure on myself as a singer. However, what I didn't consider was how quickly my voice and throat got tired from working on vocals. Because I was singing constantly in studio as opposed to having time between songs, jams during song, trading off with Jason where I don't sing on songs, etc., my voice got hoarse more quickly than I thought. Also, I am here to tell you that studio vocals have nowhere to hide--we can't bury studio vocals in the mix like we could (if we cared to) during a live show. The extremely high quality microphones utilized by Mark in the Bungalow capture EVERYTHNG, so a singer REALLY gets to know exactly what he/she sounds like, and any mixed note or squeek or breathing too loud can be heard during the play-back.

Another reason vocals in the studio is slightly different is that I am not playing the drums while singing, which is how I have to do it during the shows. Singing in the studio is my only experience singing in which I am fully concentrating on the vocals. It does make it easier to sing, and since I am concentrating on vocals, my mind is freer to experiment and try new ideas on the fly. Mark has these really cool microphones that he uses for vocals. There is a huge disc-like "spit-guard", which is a kind of very thin, black, nylon mesh, about the same circumference as my face, that blocks any spittle from hitting the very expensive microphones. In my mind I always envision myself really singing into the spit-guard, as opposed to actually singing into the microphone. Mark also advised me to actually sing with the headphones positioned so that one earphone was on one ear, and one ear was without headphone--just like you see on TV and in the movies. This allows this singer to hear what he/she is singing better than if the headphones are covering both ears--and it works. Because I felt like every songer I had ever seen on TV and in the movies, and because singing in the studio immediately provides the singer with humongous visions of grandeur, power, superiority, and a sense of the inevitability of ultimate world domination, I started making outrageous demands on Al and Josh--including that they bring me green tea every 15 minutes.

Actually, I find it quite hard to sing well in the studio without a lone star either in my hand or placed within 5 feet of the microphone.

PLUMP in the studio Part IV

This is Part IV in the Plump in the Studio installment. For Parts I-III, please scroll down below.

Now that I have described the songs we were set to record, I can get finally get to the part where we actually walk into the studio.

We went into the recording studio on Saturday February 26, 2011, around 10 am. When I say the recording studio, I mean the Bungalow Recording Studio, located at 1441 N. Durham, in the Heights, in Houston. The proprietor and engineer of the Bungalow is, of course, Mr. Mark Shannon, Esquire. Years ago, he bought a house and turned the house into a recording studio. It appears the house used to have 2-3 bedrooms. These "bedrooms" are now comprised of an office, a room for the guitarists and bass players to put their amps (during the recording process), and the room with the giant mixing board, actual recording devices, amps, compressors, speakers, computer screens, chords, etc. etc. etc. (I actually don't know much about this stuff, but I do know there is a lot of it in the Bungalow.) What used to be the garage is now the big room where the band actually plays. There is a big glass so we can see into the engineer's room, and so that Mark can also see us. Of course, the house still has a kitchen. Mark isjust about the nicest guy in the world, with a great attitude and sunny disposition. He always has summer sausages and cheese and crackers and tons of coffee for us in the kitchen. We, in turn, keep his refrigerator stocked with Lone Star tall boys. PLUMP recorded the "Voyage" album and the "I Like the Idea of Chance" album in the Bungalow with Mark, and we were very excited about being in there again. I think the fact that we are recording in a house makes the sessions always feel very relaxed. I always really love being in there, and we have a "more than excellent" rapport with Mark, which makes the whole process easy and lots and lots of fun.

So, we arrived and loaded in. When you go to record, you actually don't really start recording for a couple hours. First, we have to bring in all of our equipment. Next, we have to set up all of the instruments. After the set up, Mark sets up all of the microphones (I think the drums probably had about 10-11 tracks) for the drums, the guitar and bass, saxophone, and different vocals. The set-up for us is that Josh, Al, and I are all in the big room with my drumset and the guitar and bass. The bass amp and guitar amp are in either one of the other rooms, or (for this weekend) in the kitchen. Jason sits in the engineering room with Mark and plays in there. Obviously, we all have headphones so we can hear what everyone is playing and so that (when we are not playing) we can hear what Jason and Mark are saying in the engineer room. Next is the soundcheck to get all the levels right and to make sure we have all the guitar effects sounding good and to make sure there is no extraneous "buzz" coming out of the amps. (No kidding, a couple years ago it took us 2 hours to get rid of a buzz in Al's amp). After all of this, we are finally ready to play.

PLUMP typically starts by playing a jam. On this particular Saturday, we did this really really cool jam we made up on the spot. It is about 12 minutes long, and it has all kinds of neat changes. There are a couple spots where we may have kind of messed up or something, but I really hope we figure out a way to include parts of this on the new album. We did the same thing on the "Chance" album, represented by the first track (I like the idea of chance) and a later track (still liking chance). Next, what we did was play each song three times. We took some breaks and stuff, because this amounts to basically playing about 36 songs, and this process took us probably about 5-6 hours. Because, what we would do is play the songs, then go listen to them, and then play them again, etc. I remember particularly enjoying playing "Gonzo Says" three or maybe four times, and I was really enjoying each and every time we were playing the tune. What is cool for me when in the studio is because we have headphones--the sound is very clear and pure. I can always hear what everyone else is doing better than I can when we are practicing or playing gigs. As such, the songs always take on a slightly different life, and they are really fun to play. This alleviates the stress and bit while we are recording, because at the same time, we know that the end result of this recording is going to be around forever, so there is a bit of pressure to not mess up and to really sound the best we possibly can.

Stay tuned for Part V.

PLUMP in the recording studio Part III

This is Part III of PLUMP in the studio. For Parts I and II, please scroll below. For the uninitiated, I have been attempting to chronicle the history of the PLUMP songs being recorded, in order of the writing of said songs.

8. The Guzzler - This song was written in the Fall of 2009. We jam a lot in practice (especially at the beginning of practice), and whenever we hear something that sounds like it could be a good part of a song, we record it (often as a message on Al's iphone). Back in 2009, we had the luxury of having Jody in the group, who was all too happy to bring his computer, to record the new stuff we were playing, and to sing (of course), so we were able to put The Guzzler together quickly. Also, as it happened in the fall of 2009, we had a "hot" period when so much of what we were jamming was "song worthy". We were in the "zone", I guess. Regardless, we put together the parts to the Guzzler quickly, with 3 funky riffs topped off with a rocker at the end with a lovely Al Bear guitar solo. Jody came up with the "tip the bottle up and guzzle it down" line right off the bat, so the song has always been called "The Guzzler". Jody and I worked together for the lyrics, which combined a tequila drinking chorus with a verse containing the ubiquitous "saturday night stew". This became a heavy rotation song immediately, with Jody singing the lead vocals. After Jody left the group, "The Guzzler" was actually the first song we played at our first show sans Jody (which was an outdoor grand opening for "The Liberty Bar" in Houston, which was in and of itself a right smart party), sung by yours truly, with some back-up vocals by Little Jason Jackson. The song continues to be in heavy rotation. I changed the lyrics for a few of the lines, as some of the words didn't have the same feel with me singing it as the words had sounded with Jody, so the lyrics needed a slight "freshening up".

9. Loose/Tight - This song was also written in Fall of 2009. In fact, we came up with Loose/Tight at the same time that we were writing "The Guzzler". Loose/Tight refers to the two main riffs we came up with for the song. The opening riff (I call it the verse) has a loose, floaty riff, with a lot of the melody coming from Josh's bass, and Al playing a really cool, ethereal guitar part over the top (i.e. the Loose). The "Tight" is the chorus riff, where it always feels to me like we come together in a nice way. The ending to the song was a lot of fun to put together--a kind of really syncopated heavy/funk riff. We all do the "fills" together--I really do love the ending to "Loose/Tight". As I recall, Jody wrote pretty much all the lyrics to this song, and said lyrics have a kind of "zen" feel to them. Loose/Tight was the last song we wrote with Jody. Right after we wrote a batch of 4 songs with Jody (the batch consisting of Superfan, Reggae #2, The Guzzler, and Loose/Tight), Jody moved to Austin. (This would have been around November 2009.) He stayed in the band and played in all the shows through about June 2010, but he probably made it to only 2-3 practices after November 2009. Now, Jason Jackson is the primary singer on "Loose/Tight", and I provide some back-up vocals on the chorus. The song remains in heavy rotation at PLUMP shows.

10. Edge off the Edge - This song was written in and around April 2010. We had just spent pretty much all of February and March 2010 rehearsing and subsequently performing in the Horsehead Theatre production of the play "Faultines"--which ran for 10 performances over 3 weeks in March 2010. (A lengthy description of PLUMP's experiences with the play and the good people at Horsehead can be found, if you are interested, by scrolling down to the Feb/March 2010 entries of this blog). We had come up with some music for the score for this play, and we decided it might be fun to adapt this to a new PLUMP song. So we did. I always find the song to be quite toe-tapper. "Edge off the Edge" is the longest song we were setting out to record - I think it typically runs about 8 minutes when we play it. We have a nice jam at the end where we add a beat to the riff sometimes, changing the riff time from "8" to "9". The lyrics are inspired by the Horsehead guys and by the characters in the play "Faultlines". The song is titled "Edge off the Edge" because that was a line one of the characters (Joe) spoke that always stuck with us. We never got around to playing this one "live" with Jody. Jason and I trade off on the vocals for this song, which is a lot of fun. I would say this song has been in pretty much heavy rotation since summer/fall of 2010.

11. Ping Key - This song was written in October/November 2010. Definitely a funky rocker type of number. We employed the classic strategem of speeding up a riff to reach and achieve "nirvana" - if "nirvana" equals a strange and quirky section of a song that features a blistering guitar solo. At the beginning of the song, we provide a nice "tip of the hat" to bands like the Meters who loved to employ an idea wherein you repeat a riff multiple times, and each time everybody cuts out except for one instrument - and that instrument gets a 3-4 beat solo. Lovely. The lyrics are predominately about a hangover, with the chorus containing repetitive lyrics while and the music and vocals gradually speed up and speed up (in order to reach and achieve the "nirvana" referred to above). Ping Key is sung by yours truly, and as of the time of recording, PLUMP had not yet played this song in front of a "live audience".

12. The Brain - This song was written in November/December 2010. Really funky and classic Josh Matranga basslines inhabit "The Brain". There are two riffs that start the song that we all came up with together. Then, Al had an idea where we play this cool riff in the time signature of "5" all together, then I would continue to play in "5" with Jason, while Josh and Al switch to playing a pattern in the time signature of "4". We come back together after a set period of time--Josh and Al play their riff 5 times (with 4 beats per measure), Jason and I play our respective parts 4 times (with 5 beats per measure), and then we all come back together naturally after "20" beats. At least that's the way I describe it. We follow that up with a really cool jam in "5" - with all of us playing together in "5". My opinion on any band's opinion on their own songs is that the band's favorite song to play is their newest song. This typically holds true for PLUMP (and it almost always holds true for me). That being said, I think "The Brain" is extra special. I really like it not only because the song is our "newest" song, but also because the music is really unique. Before we wrote the lyrics, Josh suggested we call the song "The Brain". This was because "Ping Key" sounds like "Pinky", and apparently there was a show called "Pinky and the Brain". Sound logic to say the least. Lyric writing is always easier when a subject matter is already provided. Somehow, I got to thinking about "phrenology" and got the idea to write about different aspects of the skull shape and the resulting personality traits that occur--at least, the resulting personailty traits as prescribed by the leading phrenologists of the 1800's. So, I read up a bit on phrenology, and then "showed-off" my new-found skull knowledge, in song form. Huzzah. As of the recording date, "The Brain" had yet to see the light of day at a show.

Well, this history of the PLUMP songs being recorded took a bit longer than I thought. Next up, some entries about actually being in the studio (it's about time).