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12/06/2005: "DECEMBER 6 2005 - TUCSON - RECORDING AND THE LEADING UP TO"

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DECEMBER 6 TUCSON
WAVELAB RECORDING STUDIO


Matt came into town. Almost forgot he was coming. Been spending the weekend busting through the thick adobe wall here at the house. Making a doorway. I am covered with that stank I will miss someday; adobe crumble dust. It has a smell all its own. It takes the entire weekend to get through and set it up. Doug does most of the real tweak. I am the laborer with his mind on other things. Sofie is the foreman. She has it figured out.

Then matt reminds me to come down to the studio. Good idea. I clean up and head over. Night time and beer-thirty.

In wavelab again. This place is a funny old vault. It gives way to innumerable forays in previous sonic clump-a-lots.
So many over the years. I remember the old place. I remember coming in there in the late 80s when it was called something else. Did up the ‘band of blacky ranchette’ record then. The 3rd one; “sage advice”. Wrote most of it on the way down from the drive outta Joshua tree. Parked my barracuda right inside the studio space then, which was just a revamped warehouse. Great sounds there then. We came up with the minimalist mic technique that I used to use to use back in the 70s when I had too many ideas and too few tracks. The happy side effect is the capture of the room sound on everything, instead of being able to mic way too many things way too closely on way too many tracks.

Anyhow. They still use that sound there today. But the place has maybe too many memories for me. Ups and downs. Its thick with them. still, I can find comfort there sometimes. Anyhow, matt is in the house and that feels good. Nick luca too. So we record some things he has in mind. Then neko shows up. And tom larkins too. we muster up the gusto and stick it to tape.

Spend the next day much the same. But any studio is not my friend anymore. Cannot stay in there more then 2 hours at a time without some kind of gloom setting in. maybe I have developed an allergy. Anyway, I can use this mood swing to work for me sometimes. Shove them emotions into the piano and see how it bleeds all over the tape.

I also meet chris Scruggs there. He is a fine slidesman. We take turns talking to each other on the tracks. My piano yammering with his steel appeal. We also discuss the merits of alveno ray (and his singing guitar), whom I figure must have been my very first inspirational force on guitar. Way back, on tv, every week, on the king family show, in the 60s, I would restlessly sit through the entire show waiting for the few minute spot that would feature that singing guitar. I must’ve been about 8 or 9 I think.

Anyhow. Some good fun got on tape. We could play hotels I bet.

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NOVEMBER 29



I woke up and remember tonight is the benefit show for the 2 arrested humanitarian aid workers. They were arrested while assisting some migrant workers from mexico who were suffering in the swelter of the summer desert heat. Many die here like that every year. It’s a deep sadness. This time it was a father and son who got hit hard by the sun. so 2 aids, named shanty and dan, tried to get them up to Tucson for medical help. They were stopped by border patrol and arrested instead.

I wake up and figure I should write a song about it. Dare myself to go down to the community radio station (kxci) and record it so they can play it on the air and possibly garnish more air time for the cause and benefit that same night. So I do. "The ballad of the Tucson 2” .

it works somehow.

Meantime, susann is flying out of town and back to Dresden. Patti, her and I spent the day yesterday remembering chris whitley out there in the desert by where she spread his ashes. It was a stunning sunny cool crisp day in the desert. A memorable memorial.

Somewhere in that day she randomly mentioned something about matt ward playing in Dresden once. Circles within circles. Like a spring. A boing spring. If you look at the ups and downs of life as waves, and the familiar circular pattern of events here, it all kind of resembles the shape of a spring, this path we’re on.

This world is spring loaded I think.


Later that same night, the benefit for the aid workers goes very well. Tom walbank stuns the troops. Al perry proves why is the mayor of Tucson (without term restrictions). I did my set and attempted to remember the song I wrote and recorded and radioed all in the same go. It was a full day.

The next day my bed would not let me go. Just me and it. all day. The brain was busted. The heart, squee geeed. Time to do nothing. Soak in the nothingness. Sleep. Deep.
Tuckered and well tucked.