wow. the hoedown was so ridiculous. it was incredible to have so many of our friends in one space. i just made an edit to my earlier post, the one that included the location of the hoedown, so as not to diminish the significance of our time together by having others who would perhaps arrive at a little later date. it was magical. truly. thank you. if you came and you happen to read this. thank you. i can’t wait to go through the pictures and see your face. to read your name. i will smile. it was magical. you fit the moment perfectly. cinderella some might say. i hope you could feel the weight of it. i could. it will be something i hold to. to look through the pictures and see your face and read your name and i will smile. it was magical. the pistol was there! could you believe it?! i couldn’t believe it. the pistol was in my freakin yard! did you see the smoke coming out of the barrel? smoke. from meat. coming out of the barrel. no way. in my yard. we will look through the pictures and see your face and read your name and we will know that what we do in some way or another means something to you and we will smile. thank you. you sounded amazing. really. it was the smile on your face that could be heard. i stood downstairs while you were upstairs and i listened to your voice coming through the speakers mingling with all our friends’ and i shook my head. i could not believe you were upstairs in my barn. singing. with me. and all our friends. you sounded amazing. i shook my head and smiled. thank you. i will look at your picture and see your face and read your name and i will weep. thank you. in the words of little richard, “…

that’s this one right here

it is official. we will now have the pistol smoker joining us for the evening. if you don’t know about the pistol smoker then it is unfortunate. it is a bbq smoker that is fashioned in the shape of a pistol. it will be with us tuesday night. you simply must taste meat from the pistol. it is a thing to behold smoke pouring from the barrel while meat is cooking to perfection. it is optical, olfactory, and gustatory stimulation. it is too much to take in really. we couldn’t have you come over for the evening without getting a little food in you. so hoe down and bbq. i could not be happier about this. see you soon.

this is an invitation. we have been thinking of you during this whole recording and although we have truly felt that you were a part of what we have been doing with the webcams and all, there has still been distance. so here’s what i propose – tuesday at precisely 6pm we will be gathering as we always do every evening at 6pm upstairs in the barn for the hoedown. we would like to invite you to join us. in the barn. for the hoedown. in person. you see we need to record some friends of ours having a joyous time singing along with us and we think it would be just perfect with you there. so here is the deal. come to the parking lot on the corner of xxth and xxxxxxx in waco texas. a fellow by the name of ben will be waiting for you there. you will see ben. you will see the barn. you will see the dr pepper house. we will be upstairs awaiting your arrival and then we will sing together. we will have a hoedown. now you can’t stay. you will have to leave. you cannot reside with us forever and ever. but for an evening we will have some times for sure! so you are invited to join us tuesday may 10th at the barn for the hoedown to record with us for the new record. it will be fun.

morning number 20 at the barn:

1. i could not sleep last night
2. we have a temperpedic mattress
3. i have been sleeping good
4. not last night
5. all i could think was
6. tomorrow
7. is number 20 at the barn
8. 20
9. we call solley twenty
10. or did for a while
11. http://www.davidcrowderband.com/news/articles.php3?id=000110
12. (thank you gnuattitude)
13. that’s not why i couldn’t sleep
14. it just came to mind and i thought you would find it funny
15. no the reason i couldn’t sleep is
16. because if it is morning #20
17. then that means that we only have
18. 8 more
19. days
20. left

today i received the following email:

—–Original Message—–
From: xanga@xanga.com
To: davecrowd@aol.com
Sent: Wed, 4 May 2005 15:13:42 -0400
Subject: atomic theory discussion

xxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com has sent you this message!
————————————————————

“neil bohr’s 1913 model of the atom redefined the way that physicists
and other
scientists would consider the nature of matter. although bohr’s model
was
indeed a compromise of the popular ideas of the day, it marked a
turning point
at which the phenomenon of subatomic activity could be more acutely
considered
and partially explained.

so, how does considering the progression of man’s ideas related to
atomic theory
shed light on other aspects of human experience? how can we use the
lessons of
the scientific community to further our understanding of other
phenomenon? can
the ideas of neil bohr set an example of how we can understand far
greater
phenomenon?”
tim

this morning began about the same time as yesterday, with the same intent. vocals. sing a song. that’s all i wished to do. simply sing a song. jack was here sitting at the table, stringing his guitar. i told him. “this morning i will sing a song.” he said, “that’s fine.” and so i went into the blue room to sing a song. “do not move.” i began to sing. it was not good. i stopped. i called jack who had just loaded his gear into his car heading to the church. “jack. i can not sing the song this morning. i will have to wait. i tried but it was not good. come back. play your guitar. i will have to wait.” so i wait. for the voice to settle. for the moment to rise. i wait. play jack. play.

wow. this morning was overwhelming. i awoke to a large saw in my upstairs hallway. the house is being remodeled and the tools are loud. very loud. this saw looks like a sword fish and the operator was jabbing it about the place with little concern for himself or what it would begin to tear at. it was beautiful and loud. there will soon be stairs where he was cutting. nice. i didn’t get to the barn until like 10:10am which was late for me. i was to sing this morning so it was better to get a slower start to things. “rescue” was the song. i have been a bit worried about it as it has a large role to play at the end of the record. it is a very personal song and one that holds a lot of emotion and sometimes it is a difficult thing to get this into your voice and skin. but it was all very present. it is a wonderful thing to feel. i know a few people who are unable to feel anymore. life has just taken it out of them. so i sang. and i felt it all. i am glad. the third verse we did a pass with a geek mic (ok here is an aside as i have used this same term in reference to drum micing and perhaps some other places that i don’t currently recall. here’s the deal. a geek mic is, hang on, i’m going to ask shane how he would describe it…”when you’re looking for a sound from a traditional source that you would like to have an option of presenting in a less than traditional manner, you chose a signal path that consits of either a mic or compressor that, distorts is not the word i want, ummm…(he holds his finger up) warps the sound a bit. yes.” so this signal path for the third verse of rescue was my sitting on the couch singing into a copper phone (made by the bass player of the polyphonic spree) into a danelectro nifty 50 mic’d with 421 into neve1272 into the purple mc77. i am so glad to feel. i think it’s all there…

it is a new day. the photographs went well yesterday. the folks that did it are a couple from austin. they actually both grew up in my hometown of texarkana tx. we were all quite comfortable. we were able to shoot 5 different sets so surely something will be worthwhile. we’re still using some photos from our first shoot for can you hear us. it would be a good thing for them to go away now.

this morning bwack is back tracking drums for “you are my joy”. last night we finished up drums for “come awake”. mike d will get in here later today and get the bass down for both. then perhaps i’ll sing another vocal or two. we’ll see how things progress.

since we’re back to drums i’ll now let you in on the signal path for our drum micing:

yamaha sub kick – amek 9098 mic pre
inside kick mic – akg d112, chandler channel, urei la3a
snare top – sm57, telefunken v76
snare bottom – sm57, presonus m80
the two snare mics are being combined in a custom summing box then out of that into an la3a into a 9098 eq
hat – sm81, amek 9098 micpre eq
toms are top and bottom mic ev 408s all through presonus m80s, alan smart c2 compressor, tl audio tube eq
overheads – rode nt 5s, langevine dual vocal combo
room mics – rode nt2s, aurora gt q2 mic pre eq, dbx 160x compression
geek mic – blue baby bottle, presonus m80, squashing the living out of it with a dbx 119 an old home stereo compressor from the 70s. it rules. sounds like the room is on fire.
everything that is to be digitized goes through radar s-nyquist for analogue to digital conversion then into a protools hd rig. we’re clocking with a lucid genx6-96

the bohr model of the atom developed in 1913 was an attempt by neils bohr to come to an accommodation with two opposing schools of thought on the nature of particulate matter. the classical school maintained that all sub-atomic activity could be explained and understood in light of the classical laws of physics postulated by individuals such as sir isaac newton (laws of motion) and galileo. the laws of gravity, electrostatics, magnetism, and electricity were considered good predictors of the activity that occurred in the macrocosmic world that we live and function within. on the other hand, there was a new emerging school of thought that maintained the perception that the world of the atom could only be understood, if at all, by a complete set of new assumptions and postulates that would govern the way matter behaved at the sub-microscopic level. bohr maintained that both views of the atomic world could be correct. he tried an eclectic approach in his model. the model consisted of a massive very dense nucleus composed of the protons. the electrons (key to our understanding of the chemistry of matter) were assigned definitely predictable “orbits”. at first, the orbits were concentric circular paths, but, later, the model was modified to consist of elliptically shaped orbits. the electrons circled around the nucleus being held in position by a balance between the centrifugal force propelling them outward and the electrostatic force of attraction between the positive nucleus and the negative electrons. electrons assigned to orbits further out from the nucleus would possess a larger quantity of energy then those assigned to orbits closer to the nucleus. there were immediate problems with this model. the fact that moving charged particles such as the electrons should radiate energy. if this were so, then the electrons should spiral down into the center of the atom. in other words, we are faced with an absurdity that all atoms should collapse upon themselves. of course, that was not reality so the model was not predicting realty, as any theory ought to do. the model did accurately predict the parameters of a one-electron system like the hydrogen atom, but with multi-electron atomic systems the predicted parameters were not forthcoming. for these reasons the bohr model was not the definitive answer as to what an atom looked like. however, it was a step in the right direction. the model is still used as a way of keping up with the number of electrons in the various shells or orbits. this is important. it has to do with what we are doing here in the barn.