A Little Less Silent Night

The full-time membership of The Tappan Sea turned up tonight in the basement to engineer drums in advance of recording - we didn't quite 'get there,' but we got within shouting distance of 'there,' in spite of all sorts of self-imposed difficulties.  Only one pair of marginally functioning headphones, a drum key that was AWOL until it turned up right atop the kick drum an hour later, no monitoring system to speak of.

But we ended the night with a 70% decent sound, way better than we had any right to expect.  Honors largely go to Karl and Shaun, and I was largely lumpy.  Karl tackled the cabling & knobbing, and Shaun did all the duct taping.  Edz thwacked dutifully, which must really take a lot of patience on his part.  Next up, we work out why the kick drum sounds like someone overturning a plate full of spaghetti on the floor several rooms away.

Meanwhile, Yesenia expertly stripped the tree and packed away all the Christmas decorations.  The before/after was a little alarming when we finished band stuff and came back up to the living room.  It was like we went downstairs on Disneyland's Main Street and came up on Avenue L in Pascataway.  After everyone else lit out, I took the naked tree unceremoniously out to the curb, and reflected yet again that the saddest story I know is The Fir Tree:


"Now I shall live again," it rejoiced, and tried to stretch out its branches. Alas, they were withered, and brown, and brittle. It was tossed into a corner, among weeds and nettles. But the gold star that was still tied to its top sparkled bravely in the sunlight.

Several of the merry children, who had danced around the tree and taken such pleasure in it at Christmas, were playing in the courtyard. One of the youngest seized upon it and tore off the tinsel star.

"Look what is still hanging on that ugly old Christmas tree," the child said, and stamped upon the branches until they cracked beneath his shoes.

I went back inside and shut the porch light.

D.