Blazed session

I spent a good chunk of yesterday with a friend who wanted me to come by and record some stuff on a new computer music studio program he had set up. Nothing particularly complex...just a decent microphone set up in a small room. I wound up laying down at least 9 songs, with a couple of them being just stuff I was making up off the top of my head.

We got pretty blazed...I'm not the everyday "blazer" I used to be, but this guy always has the most potent stuff you could ever need. So what the hell, eh? It did what it was supposed to do, and I found myself forgetting what I had been talking about only seconds before. It's a strange feeling to realize that you can't coherantly string together a sentence or two without a total breakdown in language skills. What's even more disturbing is how you don't seem to mind. In fact, you see it as a good indicator of just how blazed you are.

Needless to say, the recording session was done in the afore-mentioned state of blazedness, so I wasn't too sure how they would turn out. There was every possibility that what I thought were classic performances would instead sound like shit the morning after. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

But they didn't turn out too bad. The vocals were quite nice. The guitar parts had their fair share of screw-ups, but that's only natural when you're a novice player like I am (on the guitar, that is. You'd better believe I'm a professional when it comes to the bass). The "one mic" technique was the only downfall in the whole thing. The mix of the guitar and the vocals was inconsistant. We could have tweaked it, had they been recorded on two seperate tracks. But what we got is what we got, and they were'nt meant to be anything but very rough demos in the first place.

I do tend to get nervous behind the mic these days. It hasn't always been that way. In fact, there was a time when my best stuff was coaxed from me when the tape was rolling. But those days are gone. Whenever the "record" button is pushed I lose my nerve and all my self-confidence. Which results in a weak effort.

I've got a friend in Tecumseh who has a very decent studio. I've got an open invitation to use it anytime. I can remember when such a prospect would see me hanging around his house so much that he would beg me to leave. Now I have to MAKE myself go there. And I don't think I've been happy with anything I've recorded there. I hope it will all change soon. I imagine it will when I can get it through my thick head that no one is listening anyway, so why not just roll with it?

On a somewhat different note, my psychiatrist is shutting down her private practice, so now I'll only be using the local MH center to keep up my meds. She is moving on to a state job, as she wasn't able to keep up with the costs of her own clinic.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I like her enough. She has been instrumental in getting me approved for SSDB. She was the one who adjusted my meds to a level that I can live with. She seemed to be a good person. But, that said, I don't think we covered a lot of ground in regards to my bipolar. We talked about stuff, but I don't think much of it would be considered "psychoanalysis". So I sometimes felt like the trip to OKC was wasted. But at least it gave me an excuse to get out of the house.