Underland

Ugh! Getting up in the morning was not fun! I actually had quite the St. Patty's Day hangover. Aren't I too old for this?
I tried my best to get up early enough to make it to LMU - Loyola Marymount University - by 8:30, which is when Charley (Stauber, the student producer) asked us to be there. I was making good time, flying down the 405, which made me feel a little vindicated from all the times I sat there in morning traffic on my way to CKL. But then I took some wrong turn after I exited the freeway and then ended up north on the 405 somehow! So much for living in LA for ten years - I still can't get around properly.
I was a little late, but still the first of our gang to arrive. Charley met me outside so I could unload my car, and he even helped carry everything in. Shortly after meeting two Jons who were also going to be helping Charley out in the studio, Amy, AJ, Laura and Carrie arrived, with Red Fox not far behind. While they LMU students set up the microphones, Amy and Red ran to get some breakfast foods and morning energy beverages.
The first song we recorded was "Full Release" and I think we've all been excited to get a decent recording of this song. It's the first song that has been really put together with this current lineup and so the sound is made for us at the present time. It's loud and fast so it's pretty fun to play for all of us, I think. It seemed like Charley and us captured pretty well the essence of the song; we did a few different takes and we all seemed to really like the last one the best so we listened to it and then moved on. He really only needed to do that one for his assignment, and he was just supposed to mix it live, so there weren't any overdubs or punch-ins or anything obviously. No tweaking and redoing.
We got into a little debate about what to record next since we had some time. I had been planning for quite some time that we would record "6 Underground" as the virtual "b-side" to "Full Release" which we could just post online for people to hear if they wanted to, and even download. "6 Underground" is the other song that truly belongs to only this incarnation of Shitting Glitter. Even though it's a cover song, we've made it our own and I thought the contrast of not only that song to "Full Release" would be interesting and unexpected, but also to the original Sneaker Pimps' version. And I really like how Amy and I sing it (but mainly Amy).
Anyway, Amy decided she wanted to do "Milk Money" which I really wasn't keen to do in comparison to "6 Underground." I have played both songs live a relatively short amount of time, but I am much more comfortable performing 6U because MM is actually a pretty difficult song for me to play, much less to also sing, and so I would have preferred to have been able to practice it a few times before recording it, with recording it in mind. I don't know all the notes as instantly as I'd like. But, we ended up having time to do both, so it worked out well. I thought "Milk Money" sounded fun and it was good to hear with the new lineup but it was definitely a little loose. 6U sounded brilliant.
After we were done in the studio, we loaded everything into the cars and then did a little impromptu photo shoot in the new library. Red Fox graduated from LMU but she had never been in the new library, as it was opened after she finished, but we were thinking her student ID card might still work to get us in. Fortunately, we didn't even need a card to get in, so we just headed up to the aisles of books and took a few pics of us all with our nerdy glasses (well, mine were just my actual glasses) and our best "collegiate" style clothes. It was fun but I kept getting nervous that we were being to loud or would draw attention to ourselves and get kicked out; luckily we were fine and left on our own accord.
We all said goodbye and went our separate ways and I wanted to get home and take a nap. Traffic was so bad that by the time I got home, I only had about an hour to nap (after uploading all the photos from the library shoot to Facebook, of course).
My alarm went off around 6:15 and I hurriedly got ready and headed up to meet Brandon, Angie, Rebecca, and Justin at Barney's Beanery in Burbank. Dylan had gone to pick his mom up from the airport as she was returning from Las Vegas, and they actually beat me there. We had dinner and drinks before seeing "Alice in Wonderland" in IMAX 3D.
I really enjoyed the movie. I used to love the story of Alice when I was young, I remember being so young that I thought it was about a girl named Allison Wonderland because I had a friend in school named Allison and I misheard that name of it. Anyway, I thought Tim Burton's new take on the Lewis Carroll classic was fresh and interesting. I loved the 3D and all the colors and animation, and of course. I liked the way they incorporated some elements from the books and the older cartoons but played around with them and gave things new meanings. All in all, I have to say it was better than I expected even. It made me want to go back and watch the Disney cartoon that I grew up with, which luckily Dylan owns on DVD.

Hello 2010, goodbye junk!
NEW YEARS RESOLUTION LOG ENTRY 76
Not For Tourists (NFT) 2003 Guide to Los Angeles. This is a great little guide to the city, but being as it's the 2003 edition, it's probably pretty outdated with how fast things change out here, and it was just sitting on the shelf collecting dust anyway.

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