Saturday was percussion/vocal day in the studio. Perk brought 2 full banquet tables full of every type of percussion instrument you could imagine down to the studio. It was pretty awesome. Shakers, castanets, tambourines, eggs, bells, blocks, marimbas, tom toms, congas, talking drums, spoons, and so much more. Many of the objects I stared at for a good long time before I gave up trying to figure out what they did. He has collected all these precious devices in his travels for years. Each one has a story, a global location, and type of music that it calls home. He worked with Brian most of the day, then I got there for the last two hours. Once he was finished with his ideas, he indulged me with a sound I have been hearing in my head for "Teahouse".

This is an up-tempo song, and over the main riff in the intro and after the first B section, I have been hearing a rhythm pattern on ... bottles. Don't know why, I just hear it. He was happy to give it a pass, so I ran down the street to 7-11 and bought 2 snapple, and two Sobas. Back at the studio, we drank different amounts of the teas to get different pitches from the bottles (the more you drink, the higher the pitch). We set them up in front of the mic, and he got all into position to be comfortable getting a part. He experimented with how you hit them, where you hit them, and got the part sounding great. I hope it stays in the final mix. We also ran some tape on Stephen just going to town on his makeshift glass drum set for a few minutes. It sounded so cool, would be good for some sonic texture for in-between songs. Basically, Stephen is so great, he can make absolutely anything into good music.

After he took off, I did some singing. Gave "Outsider" a few passes to see if something new comes out. I left around 11pm so Brian could get some comping homework done.

Today Dave is re-tackling "Go On" and hopefully "Ashes". We have decided to use the "old" version of "Go On" (my favorite version), and tack on the "tag" ending section from the second version; t came out more floaty and ethereal. This new version, we call "version 3" and I am really happy how it is shaping up. Dave, Chris and I need to re-do our parts to get better tones, and I plan on re-singing the verses.

The Panic Channel site has been pretty stagnant lately, here's why: We have enlisted the help of the uber-talented Robert Chafino, the guy who has done such great work on the Panic Channel Radio, to be my right hand man for the website. I designed and built the version that's up now, but he is completely rebuilding it, and making the content really easy to update, and installing things like the radio, video player, blog engines, etc. Once there next version is ready, it will go up, and the updates will be WAY more frequent. I am really excited to see how it all comes out.