Downloading masters.  Finishing artwork.  Deciding track order.

Phone dead.  Charger broken.  Internet out (sitting outside Brooklyn Public Library).  Pockets empty.  Face unshaven.

Hit with a flu.  Hungry.  Tired.  The proudest and happiest I’ve ever been.

Check tomorrow.

Virginia Is For Hoverers: Part II is nearing the finish line.

John Carmack said that you can make anything you want if you have enough pizza and diet coke.  I don’t have either of those things, but my apartment is a cave of wires and microphones and empty water bottles (I found out recently that soda is bad for you).  Dirty dishes, darkness, harmonies coming from the headphones.  This record began as another frustrating excursion into the world of no resources, trying to make a good record with no money, no time, no gear…..most of the pianos I have to tune myself.  Most of the tracks were recorded in different places.  I have to track vocals when the girl downstairs decides to give the dance-club-level hip-hop an hour’s rest.  I don’t know if she has a job or what, but she’s up before 7:30 and she stays up all night.

So I started this record with the frustrating knowledge that I will be cutting corners.  I was ready for a compromise.  But something magical has happened…the obstacles have become beautiful.  I’ve become so good at location recording, using cheap gear, EQ’ing out loud hip-hop….this is really the Chris Merritt sound, if there is such a thing, at it’s very finest.  It’s quirky and raw…but the production quality is the best it’s ever been.  I’ve been lucky enough to have some amazing people work on this record, too.  Brett and I tracked a couple songs in a great studio in NY owned by our new friend Nathan, and then my new friend Andy, who is a producing genius, has been generous enough to do a few mixes and let me track some things at his studio.  Brett has been putting great, crazy percussion on everything.  Jake Thro has put his finest basslines of all time on a couple tracks, has produced the album’s finest tracks, and is mastering the album at this very moment.  Well, actually, at this very moment he’s reading this sentence right now, aren’t you Jake?  Get back to work you lazy-…. (That only works for Jake but I bet it freaked him out)

My intention was to release this album, and then make a “best-of” to start shopping to labels and other folks.  But I’m starting to think that this record is a “best-of” on its own.  Big words maybe…but it encompasses what I’ve been after….the lyrics are science-ridden, but I’ve also taken a sentimental turn back to cheesy love songs….there are biting rock songs….weird time signatures…..but also these pretty, poppy, embarrassing songs.  But good embarrassing.  If nothing else, these songs feel really honest.

The final songs are these (I had to draw the line….there were more I wanted to do…)  White Boy, Surfin’, Radio, Pep-Pep, This Is Your Brain On Carl Sagan, Big Girl, Sugar, Wire, Spin The Bottle Champion, Pulse, Such A Long Time Ago, Donna, Margaux, Two Guitar Songs.

I know I suck with deadlines.  My problem really boils down to bad prediction skills.  Jake says the masters will be in my hands on Sunday.  I’ll have everything ready to go and you can expect this new record on Sunday sometime.  Please buy it.  I’m broke as hell.

Tracking done.  Mixing mostly done.  Mastering being done by our very own Jake Thro.

This thing is actually sounding ok!  Better than hoped.

Looking like

Margaux, Such A long Time Ago, Surfin’, Radio, Times Are Changing, Pulse, Donna, Big Girl, Sugar, Pep-Pep, Wire, Walking On The Water, New Secret Song, maybe another new secret song, maybe This Is Your Brain On Carl Sagan, maybe Little Bird

off to tune Simon’s piano and hopefully eat some of his food.  Then back to finish final songs.  Tomorrow work in the morning and then off to Andy’s studio to finish Times Are Changing and a couple others.  Jake is mastering as we…..speak?  Brett has disappeared to the sunny Galapagos Islands to find himself.  Or maybe it was snowy Russia, I don’t know.

I’ve wiped my schedule clear for the next week and all I’m doing is finishing Virginia Is For Hoverers: Part II, which I hope, when it’s finally finished, will be considered by music scholars everywhere to be one of the worst named albums ever.

I sit confined to my cave and I’m ignoring the virtual heap of email and the phone rings like a joke that’s left unsaid.  I let it finish its tantrum and resume recording a vocal take.

Here’s a song from the last time I tried to mix a record:

I’m not sure when this will be done.  I think it will in fact be done at some point, though, if I don’t die or starve.  I said the 12th?  Hmm.  Release date updated to….maybe this weekend.  This is really the first full day I’ve had to work on it.  Yesterday I was in every inch of Manhattan running around.  Worked in Rosalyn, picked up a paycheck from the Upper East Side, dropped off a bag of someone’s toys midtown (long story), picked up headphones from Sonny at his production studio, paid bills in south Brooklyn (perfectly depressing place to pay bills).  By the time I got home I tracked vocals for Such A Long Time Ago and fell asleep in my chair.

Such A Long Time Ago.  Donna, Radio, Surfin’, Margaux, Times Are Changing, Splitting Me, Sugar, Big Girl, Wire, Pep-Pep, Favorite, Fool, This Is Your Brain On Carl Sagan, Little Bird, Pretty Bitch, Blue, all candidates lining up for evaluation.

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Don’t forget to buy your tickets straight from me for The National (Richmond, VA) show – you can get them cheaper.  Plus, we get more of the dough.

Friday.  Richmond, VA.  Eight of clock.  Free CDs with pre-sold tix.

Working all week.  Monday and Tuesday in the city.  Drove down to Virginia last night.  Working landscaping in VA today.  Tomorrow teaching a summer camp on jazz in Charlottesville.  Friday show at the National and Friday night back to NY to work Saturday morning.  Then huge nap and then….mixing!

I love the drive from NY to VA.  I love driving.  I think I could be a trucker.  I adore every part of the experience.  I prepare my books on tape ahead of time and last night it was No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy.  Mixed in with some Nada Surf, MJ, The Darkness, Pinback, and I finally gave Andrew Bird a good listen.  I like to stop once during the 6-hour trip and I fill up on gas, get a sandwich, coffee, and a Black and Mild.  I save the Black and Mild until the last hour of the drive as sort of a celebration.  I can only smoke about a third of it before I throw it out the window in disgust.  Those things make me sick.

As a side note, the woman who made my sandwich was this incredibly beautiful Russian woman in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania.  I only tell you about that because she really was incredibly beautiful.

Thanks for your comments/emails, as soon as I have a spare second I’ll respond!  Someone pointed out that one of the new songs sounds like old Paperface, which is cool, because that song was written in that era, and Jake of Paperface plays bass.  Good ears, wow.

Here’s a preview of this little record we’re trying to finish:

Hey guys!  Man, sorry for the lack of updates on the record.  I’m sorry to report that it’s been slow going – see, I have this job that calls me in sometimes last-minute, and they’ve called me in every day this week.  I was picturing myself not leaving my apartment all week, living like a near-blind, pale mole creature, gripping a microphone at all times and living off the salsa chips crumbs in the kitchen cabinets.  Which has been the case, but only from the hours of 6pm to midnight.  I have to say yes to work though, because I need the cash.  I’m hopelessly addicted to certain modern human comforts.  You know, like eating food.

Anyway, I’m really sorry to get you excited, if you were in fact excited.  I sure thought I would have more time this week.  But don’t worry!  Great things are afoot!  Here’s my Life Plan:

1) finish tracking these damn songs  2) go to a clambake-family-reunion-boston-thing this weekend (the food of gods, btw) 3) mix and master these damn songs 4) go to damn job and try to not get fired 4) draw some things 5) post my junk by August…..12?  That sounds reasonable…August 12, VA Hover 2 release date.  But, you know, take that with a grain of salt with me.

Here are some further life plans:

1) finish “best-of” CD – mixed, mastered, pretty 2) shop the CD 3) get a budget to make a record 4) make a real record, with real microphones, and real resources 5) tour Europe, America, Japan 6) release follow-up album to mixed reviews and waning popularity 7) meet a beautiful Japanese woman, get married, have babies 8.) become outspoken critic of modern culture and religion 9) get divorced 10) become addicted to horse tranquilizers 11) enter a slow decline in health and mental stability 12) move to some obscure village in Finland 13) ten years later get discovered dead and drugged up, surrounded by hundreds of recordings that will later be known on my Wikipedia page as the “Finland Tapes”, under the section titled “Decline And Death”.

Don’t forget – we’re playing at The National next Friday.  Wow.  It’s coming up fast.  Buy your ticket here, son!

Your friend in music,

Chris

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Holy crap!  A lot of anger on Twitter.  All I have to say is, where’s the love?  It’s not enough!

I do want to clarify my stance on the Hanson show, because the drama queen minority are perverting the truth.  In reality, I had a great time at the Hanson concert, and during the interview, I thought the members of Hanson were sweet guys, and we had a nice conversation about music.  I was like, totally nervous, so I couldn’t get my brain to work very well, so I was more weird and nerd-ish than usual, but other than that it was a blast.  I can’t stand watching myself, but I thought Quinn sounded really fantastic.  I think Hanson’s new single is a really good, classic song.  I even told them that.  We also had a blast playing in front of a huge crowd in Buffalo who were a fantastic and fun audience.  Those are points I want to clarify NOT to please all these angry preteens, but just because I feel strongly about them and I think there’s another perception being created.  Look, everyone was having a nice time:

I saw that some people are angry because I didn’t say what I think about Hanson’s music.  I did say I liked the new single a lot.  If you really want my opinion, I only know their older stuff.  Listen, I had to endure countless hours of ear-canal pain in the 90s when songs like Where’s The Love and Mmm-Bop and whatever else were being constantly blasted from radios, movie and mall-ceiling speakers, girlfriend headphones, etc..  Hanson used to be like, the embodiment of everything I disliked about popular culture, boring pop music, and vapid lyrical statements.  There, are you happy, Angry Hanson Fan X?  Presumably not.  You would only be happy if I agreed with your every opinion.

And Angry Hanson Fan X, let’s quickly take an objective look at the situation, shall we?  Some guy you don’t know says things you perceive to be mildly negative (which they weren’t) towards a boy-band that rose to fame fifteen years ago, and you spend your time being verbally abusive to that person for the next few days??  You think it’s appropriate, when someone expresses their opinion, to tell that person to go kill himself?  To come up with methods of suicide in a way that isn’t even lighthearted or funny?  To attack his worthiness as a human being, and his mental faculties, and his moral philosophy, and his general appearance and everything else?  I’ve not been aggressive at all (except facetiously towards Rooney, fans of whom, interestingly, I haven’t heard a peep!), and you have been aggressive.  You’ve attacked me on a personal level.  You’ve even attacked people I care about and my family!  What does that say about your stability and conviction?

Hey y’all

Work keeps calling me in, which I can’t say no to, but it’s killing my time.  Here’s a rare demo called I’m A Liar:

In other news, I’m playing a show in Richmond, VA at The National on Friday, AUGUST 6th!!  Buy your tickets straight from me and get a free CD on the night of the show.

I’m also playing a show this Friday in New York at this place called The Alphabet Lounge.  104 Ave. C, New York, NY 10009

Today, I’m trying to finish recording and almost-mixing Surfin’, Sarah (name to change), and a song called Liar.

Love, Chris

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Here, have a free album.  And chill out.

Thanks for the comments guys.  I think I was being too dramatic with my earlier post.  Reading it now it seems embarrassing, but if you must, it’s up here.  Too much coffee or something.  Anyway,

Well, I know I haven’t done Tuesday Tapes the last two weeks.  That will all change tomorrow!  Meanwhile, I am going to try and finish these songs by Friday at midnight (what am I thinking?) – Surfin’, Sarah, (New Pretty Song), Radio, The Times Are Changing, Liar, (Sugar), (Big Girl), Fool, and……maybe Such A Long Time Ago.  And maybe more.

love_chris

I’ve been accumulating mass amounts of half-finished songs lately.  I decided it’s time to finish some of them.  So my question to you is, if I managed to finish an entire record in one week, would you pay five bucks for it on Friday?  I sure hope the answer is yes, because I need the dough.  Not for drugs or prostitutes (which I can afford) but for finishing a “best-of” album and getting a few hundred copies printed.  Just another rung on the ladder to imminent fame and fortune.

Virginia Is For Hoverers Part Two.  Coming Friday.  Unbelievable.  More info soon.

In other news, I opened for pop sensation Hanson last week.  It was one heck of an adventure.  If you saw us at the show, here, have a free album!

Firstly, thanks to any of you guys that voted for me.  I can’t believe Sugar got first place out of so many hundreds of songs!   I mean, it was clearly one of the only songs that didn’t sound like open mic night at Lame Ridge Middle School, but usually that doesn’t matter.  But man, this kind of thing keeps happening.  There must be an industry out there that has a hunger for genuine songs that consistently win over the hearts of the public and win contests!  What?  There isn’t?  Ah, well.  Starving artist it is then.

Anyway.  So me (Chris Merritt), Brett (drums), Simon (bass), Stacy (some chick from Long Island….JK, hi Stacy), Cathy (booking@chrismerrittmusic.com) and Kevin (husband@Cathy.com) arrived in Buffalo, NY at the venue to find hundreds of excited teenage girls lined up around the block.  That immediately struck me as weird – Hanson made lots of teenage fans in the 90s, right?  I was expecting a bunch of like, pregnant newlyweds or something.  Apparently Hanson fans defy the normal laws of  space-time.  There were loads of ‘em.  Hundreds – nay, thousands – of teenage girls, and the occasional patient, nice boyfriend who is too young to know that being patient and nice is the worst way to get girls to like you.

So we loaded up our gear backstage and went to do a live streaming interview in Hanson’s trailer.  My plan was to play some music during the interview no matter what.  Hanson’s team didn’t want to deal with it, but luckily, Cathy and I had decided to bring her awesome little Casio keyboard, and Kevin ran across the street to grab some batteries.  So I sat down with the keyboard in my lap just before Hanson came in and introduced themselves.

So then we did the interview.  Man, public speaking on a big level is really really hard.  I was nervous.  Your fight-or-flight instincts really kick in like crazy.  It’s nothing logical or reasonable, it just happens.  But I managed to keep it together and say some funny stuff I think.  We played Quinn and Sugar, and I was on this little Casio keyboard, with Brett on percussion, and Simon and Brett on back vocals, and I’m pretty sure the songs sounded phenomenal.  Hanson’s jaws dropped during Quinn.  That was a cool moment.  I also called Hanson out on a couple things, which is always fun.  But overall, I mean, jeez, they seem nice enough guys.  They rocketed to superstardom as young boys and they still seem like allright guys.  A bit pretentious and feigned maybe, but I mean, we didn’t even have security around during the interview.  That’s kind of cool.  After the interview, I asked them to check out some of our set later, but they said they were too busy.

I’ll post footage of the interview as soon as I have it!

Then we played our set.  The place was packed and the audience started out really chatty.  But as Simon said later, we won ‘em over.  Two songs in, the place was filled with cheering.  We opened with a new song called Radio and then went into Cult Of Karl.  Both songs came off flawlessly and HUGE.  Brett and I had been practicing the set like crazy, and it showed.  I lost my glasses at some point.  Simon, who is an overall amazing bassist and a great guy, won huge cheers from the audience.  He’s a great performer.  We did Sugar (which I kind of sucked at and need to practice), Madison, and Cruise Elroy, and I freaked out on the end of Elroy.  I think our trio got the most spontaneous response of the night, actually.   Cathy and Kevin also took AWESOME video!!!  We’ll have it up ASAP!!!

Oh, by the way.  This band Rooney also played that night.  Everyone keeps telling me they like that band, so if this includes you, please don’t be offended by me when I say that you are utterly wrong to like them at all, and that their music was literally the most offensive thing to my intellect I’ve ever heard.  They look like a bunch of trust fund kids who write the same song over and over as their pants get tighter.  “When did your heart go missing?”  Where did they get that brilliant lyric from?  The margin of a preteen’s first attempt at break-up poetry?  Their song I Can’t Get Enough should be called I Wish I Was Rivers Cuomo But I’m Clearly Not And Never Will Be, but I guess that’s too long.  That also goes for most of their other songs – lame impressions of Weezer’s lame post-Pinkerton years.  Although I really do love Weezer’s Green Album besides that frickin sonic train-wreck called Island In The Sun.  And now I’m officially completely off topic.

No, but at least Rooney were really nice guys.  Oh wait, except the exact opposite.  To break the silence backstage, as one keyboard player to another:  Me: “Cool keyboard.  What is it?”  Rooney’s keyboard player: “It’s called a keyboard.  It makes sounds.  It’s a Korg, which it says right there, and you can get it at Guitar Center.”  Well, screw you too!  I didn’t even give a crap, I was just trying to make conversation!  Incidentally, the keyboard player had an announced “solo” during Rooney’s set.  I use the term “solo” as loosely as possible because it consisted of him holding down a single note and activating some irritating siren-like effect.  I would say that it could have been done by a monkey, but even that would be generous.  That solo could have literally been played with a decently heavy rock.

So then I drew on CDs that my mom burned me (thanks mom) and sold them.  Stacy is a great saleswoman and was an irreplaceable member of our awesome trip.  We made about a billion new fans and they were all adorable.  I played tinfoil hacky sack with one group of girls, and drew horribly crude things on some other girls’ CDs, per their request.  We all had a good laugh and a good time.  Except of course the members of Rooney who looked frickin’ miserable the whole time.  Yeah, it sucks playing for thousands of people every night in a band, huh guys?  Would it kill you to smile when you get pictures with your adoring fans, who paid lots of money to come see you, and somehow missed the fact that your music sound like Weezer’s Brown Album?

Then I tried to get a Hanson autograph for Simon’s amazing wife, who was back in NYC with the kids.  In the rushed insanity of the interview, Simon had forgot to get it for her, and was at dinner with old friends after our set.  Anyway, no one would help me out, and everyone was rude to me, and one security guard swore at me and attacked me with a big ‘ol shove.  He weighed about 300 pounds but for some reason I decided to shove him back.  He probably would have eaten me if Cathy hadn’t found me in the nick of time.  He kept saying he was going to “drill me” which really does sound pretty awful.  I’m sure glad that didn’t happen because I wouldn’t have been walking straight for days.

Cathy and Kevin stayed for a couple nights and went to Niagra Falls, and Brett and Stacy also went to visit early in the morning.  Simon and I drove back together and had amazing conversations about physics, music, biology, philosophy, religion, life…..what a great guy. All in all, a great adventure and a great show.

Thanks to all involved for making it an awesome show!

Love

Chris