I like songs that could cook an egg

And I only know one way to get to them

It’s recording time ’round these parts. The full Tweedy band in the studio. Mining new things (namely GREAT SONGS BY MY DAD), getting better together.

It’s had me thinking again about what it means to trust oneself while recording. What a requirement it is.

There’s no way to step up to the plate in a studio and gush out something electrifying if you don’t trust (1) that the semi-thinking and unthinking parts of yourself have ideas, non-ideas, worth listening to, and (2) that it’s okay if those ideas don’t pan out.

(Trying to gush out something electrifying is at least one of the main points, right? I think all the time of Henry Miller talking about Cendrars in Dinner with Henry Miller. Make someone fart! Make their hair stand up!)

The trust I’m talking about is a pre-posture of belief in yourself more than any sort of funny positive affirmation or a conscious approach. It allows you not to think while you’re shootin’ a shot. It opens you up.

I don’t claim to have any special knowledge of this stuff. Just something I’ve observed in a short but pretty busy life so far of recording with people. You gotta trust. There seems to be no better way.

Of course it’s easier to trust yourself when you’re surrounded by people who trust you. In this band, belief in each other’s abilities and voice is so thorough that it doesn’t need to be explicit (though we do take lots of opportunities to gas each other up). Everyone comes to the table with music-life-histories, stocks of confidence built up over thousands of practices at vulnerability. So it’s ambient, underwriting everything.

But in the interest of not taking it for granted, I say: The exploratory self-confidence I feel when I’m sitting in a drum booth alone is enabled, kindlinged up, by their respect, their trust. Even when they’re not around!

Sima is amused by Liam’s normal t-shirt.

Still, if banishing self-consciousness doesn’t come easily to you, there’s a side door: curiosity and detachment. Instead of fearing or hoping what an attempt in the studio means for you, whether other people will celebrate or denigrate you, you can just head in there trying to figure out a question: What is it going to feel like when I try to play this particular part? Or play the first thing that comes out?

Having chances to ask those questions is a huuuuge gift; deciding to take those chances (and make new ones) is a necessity. Maybe even some kind of duty.

I said doodie.

Spencer

P.S. The preorder campaign for Observations: Year Two, my self-published chapbook of daily diary posts from 2020, is going well. 76% there! Preorder a copy here if you like. Thank you.