Meeting Angie Pollock

Strange world, where you can do something so intimate with someone you've never met.

A mutual friend introduced Angie and me over the internet. We got to typing, and after some file trading, came up with a new song, "Count To Ten," that is just lightning in a bottle. It went right out of my hands and and onto the audiobook for Kelly Corrigan's bestselling memoir, "Lift" (FYI: solo version available on iTunes).

Last week, I finally met my collaborator, who came through town with Goldfrapp, for whom she's playing keyboards. She rocked a keytar in silvery pants and goth-ed out makeup. Super fierce set.

Angie's a warm soul with an instantly-endearing Scottish accent. We hugged and expressed our love and our hopes for the song.

Also: I think I finally have lyrics to what was called "The Dobro Song." It's now "Drifing Away." Verse One for "Ready or Not" also completed. Down to the wire. Why would it be any other way?

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Strings change everything. Again.

Andrew Sherman has been working on string arrangements for the record, and so far three have gone down. Rob Moose (violin), Hiroki (viola), and Garo Yellin (cello) worked through Count To Ten, 1000 Miles and Everybody Knows. All with a glass of rosé within reach of their music stands. Classy.

I've taken some swings at lead vocals for Waving Goodbye, 1000 Miles and a couple others. It's not there yet, but it's coming. Also, working through some guitar solos, just looking for the perfect thing.

More and more, the MUTE button is becoming very powerful. Editing is supplanting tracking. It means we're getting somewhere.

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The pedal steel is a dangerous thing, which is why it's one of my favorites. To many, it's a one-way trip to Nashville, and its rep as "the rural synthesizer" is earned, mostly by the way people choose to approach it.

But there are others who have found a way into pedal steel that opens up an alternate universe of ache, longing and creepiness. Installation artist Bruce Nauman found it in his series of projected videos entitled "The End of the World." In that, four projected videos of steel player Lloyd Maines, filmed from the shoulders down, are shown on four walls. In each, he's playing slow, bending steel phrases, and the tracks mix and rub against each other in a ghostly, terrifying tonal cloud. I remember standing in a Soho art gallery and feeling as though I was glimpsing the impossible scope of the universe.

Pedal steel player Bruce Kaphan has been following this path into the instrument, and I was lucky enough to stumble onto his playing on American Music Club's "Mercury." In the context of Mark Eitzel's punk-torch songwriting, he opened entirely new harmonic rooms with an essentially reinvented instrument. I've been shocked by his playing for maybe a decade, now.

In short: With some prodding, I e-mailed him. He was receptive. And now he's playing on this record. He lives in California, so we've been doing the sessions remotely. I've never done that before, but at this point, I can say that at every juncture.

The tracks he's sending back to us are every bit what I could have hoped for. "Wish You Well," the first one he did, brought me to tears, and the others have been stretching the songs into strange new places. I've been giving him key phrases like "ghostly," "wedding in a sunken cathedral," "a couple sneaking to a dock by night, untying someone's boat and slipping out of the harbor," and he's been sending back abstract installation art.

I feel like that stolen boat, untied and drifting into open ocean.

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"Goat's toes" are a kind of percussion instrument. It's not a fake name. It looks like a strung-together bag of shells, but sounds a little creepier. Ken reminded that they are not technically toes, they're actually hooves. But yes, they're real.

Ethan had played them during the drum sessions for "Next Time," and they were just kind of weird, so we muted the track, along with a cowbell track and some handclapping we did together.

This had all been part of a plan to have percussion kick off the song, cowritten with Raul Midon, but the idea continued failing. I became nervous about the whole arrangement. I put the guitar on my lap to try to knock out the rhythm I was hoping for and Ken said, Yeah. Let's record that.

So we went back in, pulled the acoustic guitar-tapping percussion part into sections, tuned the guitar to give a harmonic, and suddenly, the idea started to make sense. Then we unmuted the cowbell. The clapping. And the goat's toes. And now it all works. Don't ask how. I was stunned. But I'm now becoming stunned at every turn. The record has ripped free from the mooring of past records, and is on its own trajectory.

I added an electric solo that reminded Ken of Muse, and we began muting and deleting parts, shaping the arrangement so that it continues driving through the entire time. It's a friggin' odyssey, now, reminiscent of "Skimming" or "Underwater," in my mind. Transporting.

Tomorrow, Bruce Kaphan takes first pass at pedal steel on Wish You Well, and Andrew Sherman plays string arrangements he's worked on for "Count to Ten," "1000 Miles" and "Everybody Knows." My head is exploding. Love it.

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Me and Ken. Ken and me. Me and Ken. Ken and me.

Nice guy, that Ken.

Oh, and there's Tomek. He's been engineering, recording, doing all kinds of good stuff in the studio. Setting awesome old microphones just right. I played tambourine into a mic that looks like the one Orson Welles used to announce the War of the Worlds.

We're keeping this thing on rails. Sleep is very hard to come by. I knocked out dobro for "You Could Be Anywhere" and "Ready or Not," and re-did a bunch of guitars for "Till I Get It Right." Scratch vocals, too, which came out better than they should have.
The songs were packed up and sent to the west coast, where Bruce Kaphan is waiting for them. I've never done remote sessions before, but you know? He's a god, and I want to give it a shot. No one's creepier on the pedal steel, an instrument that is built for creepy. Don't mind all that country twang. It's creepier than an orchestra of saws.

There's also strings coming. Ken and I made a list of what we'll give Andrew a crack at. No telling where this record's going to end up. Let's see.

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Spotlight turns back to me, as I am pulling out scratch guitar tracks and replacing them with the real ones. I still have my friend's dobro, and finished up what is still being called "The Dobro Song," because there are no words for it yet. I kind of like it without, but that's a cop out. I know. Get words. OK. Getting words.

Debate rages on the fully-arranged "You Could Be Anywhere." There's a piano take, and there's a Rhodes take. It's hard. Rhodes sounds great, but...it's a Rhodes. Maybe you have to be a player to know what I'm talking about. In some ways, the instrument's like a perfectly good pair of parachute pants. So comfortable. So bad. And yet, mixed in, it kinda works...? Oh, boy. That could be a disaster. Fear the Rhodes, all ye in earshot.

Coming up: Bruce Kaphan, a pedal steel player I know from American Music Club recordings. I emailed him out of the blue. He was into it. If he does what he did with Mark Eitzel, I'll just crap myself.

Also coming up: Strings. I've been playing with Jessie Reagen Mann on cello, and we're growing that section for the recording, with arrangements by Andrew Sherman. Ken and I are deciding what to give them a shot at. Did I say this was going to be a different kind of record? Yeah. It is.

In the in between time, shakers and tambourines are starting to get recorded. The "table setting" parts.

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1000 edits. Of everything. Decisions must be made. Tracks must die so that others may live. A xylophone died, in favor of an an electric guitar. A fair trade.

Matt came in, final day, to mop it up in the guitar department. He's made an unbelievable impact, on keys as well as guitar. And he's a cool guy. That's rare.

I have a chest cold. It'll clear in time for vocals. The coughing is a nice touch, though.

My head is smoking at this point as Ken and I elevate out of the underbrush. The forest is slowly becoming visible. I could try to describe it, but it could all change completely.

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Drive. Listen. Drive. Listen. Mental notes. Is that good? "Good"? To whom is that good? Me? Yes. I mean, mostly. I mean, it's where I went. Songwise. Beatwise. Too slow? Too fast? For what? I don't know.

These car speakers are totally effed. That's good. Unforgiving listen. The air conditioner is broken. We're in traffic. For hours. We just left a rest stop where the volunteer fire department is handing out terrible coffee, terrible hot dogs. And dog biscuits. The matronly volunteer saw me eye the dog biscuits and said I could have one.

"I don't have a dog."

"That's OK. I had a college professor who lived on them."

"Oh."

"As an experiment. To see if humans could live on them, water and vitamins."

"How'd it go?"

"He lived. You know, so much technology goes into engineering dog food. More than..." she glanced at the hot dogs, rolling on slick metal pipes, "more than what we eat."

I looked at the hot dogs.

"His thought was that we could send them to disaster areas, as relief. For the starving. Like in Haiti and such."

"You think?"

She laughed. "That wouldn't go over too well, I'm sure. Sending them dog biscuits. But the idea is to fend off starvation. And they can do it. It's the truth." I looked at the fire truck, parked on the lawn of the rest stop, and split open a pouch of non-dairy creamer.

"Well, thanks for the coffee."

"No problem, honey. You have a safe trip."

"I'll try."

Back in the car, the iPod fired up again. My rough tracks, like jumbled question marks. It's good. They're good. I think it's going well. I think.

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