2010
All songs written & produced by Darlingside. Drums for tracks 1-4 recorded by Eli Walker at the Clubhouse in Rhinebeck, NY. All other sounds recorded by Darlingside.
© Darlingside 2010
Pilot Machines (2012) is Darlingside's
new full-length subscription album.
Listen to the first track and find out
more at pilotmachines.com.
EP 1 (shown left) is Darlingside's debut studio effort.
It was recorded and produced by the band in 2010.
"Good Man"
Track 1 // 3:30
Lyrics
She’s walking like the devil
went the other way
Walking like she don’t care anyway
Watch her, how she gives herself
another day to rest
Say nothing of the trouble she’s in
Nothing of the places she’s been
Only watch her, how she sets the wind on fire
When she says
“Good man, follow where I go
A hundred miles below, honey“
And you’re out the door
Standing by yourself in the cold
Thinking that you’re suddenly too old
To wake up in a story that you
never told someone
But still you’re in a still-life she’s drawn
And it’s nothing like the places she’s gone
And you’re hanging by the line
that she’s walking on
And she says
“Good man, follow where I go
A hundred miles below, honey
You could be a good man, faithful,
on your knees
But I left you hard to please, honey“
And you’re out the door
Taking on a free man’s appeal
Taking on a better man’s feel
Never been a soul didn’t make a one-way deal
Brother, make a wise man out of me
Tell me how it ain’t how it ought to be
It’s just another devil and another deep blue sea…
“Good man, follow where I go
A hundred miles below, honey“
Maybe I could be a good man, faithful,
on my knees
But you left me hard to please, honey…
And I’m out the door
Sam's Engineering Notes
1. The drums used to continue through the first part of the bridge. Maybe it was the ungodly hour of drum tracking (maybe 3:00am?), or that I was already exhausted from hitting so hard for the first part of the song, or that the lighting wasn't quite right in the studio... but I couldn't play the part in time to save my life. When we got back to our studio and started doing overdubs, it immediately became apparent that no one else could play along to my loosely-interpreted "time," and the first part of the bridge was a train wreck. A little snip-snip solved the problem.
2. I had lots of fun with panning, reverb, and delays in the bridge. First, before the vocals come in, the "chopping" acoustic guitars switch sides of the stereo field. Most of the vocal parts have at least two reverbs and two delays on them. The voices fly around the stereo field, and in most cases the delay returns are panned to be opposite of the main channel at any given time. For example, Don's voice moves from left to right, the delay trail on his voice moves from right to left.
"Surround"
Track 2 // 3:27
Lyrics
I don’t care for you informing me of
gospel I didn’t know of
Thinking bless my soul, I lost my hold on every wishbone I let go of
I hope your good things said have nothing to do with the distance
I’m standing right next to you
But I’m not there inside your semicircular view
Oh, I guess I said too much too late
And you don’t feel it
So hear me now, give me once around
Hear me out, I surround, I surround
Understand, I’m heart in hand, and I am holding out to be shaken
Hoping with good things said I’ve
nothing to lose
But you never looked at the lines
Too worried I’m in the words, inside your semicircle again
Oh, I guess I said too much too late
And you don’t feel it
So hear me now, give me once around
Hear me out, I surround, I surround
I don’t care for you informing me
Thinking bless my soul I lost my hold
Tell me good things, good things
Tell me good things, good things
I said too much too late, and you don’t feel it
So hear me now, give me once around
Hear me out, I surround, I surround
Sam's Engineering Notes
1. The drum tracks were recorded at 4:00am. After a long night of setting up, mic'ing up, and tracking four other songs, we were getting ready to shut things down and grab a few hours of sleep, but I had that demo in the back of my mind, and I wanted another shot. I asked Eli to give me a click track at 139 BPM, a full 6 clicks faster than the demo, and fast enough to make the song start to groove a little bit. I tried to sing the song in my head and play with only the click for the first take, but Dave jumped in to help me out by playing the chord roots on the bass. I think we did three or four takes, and I comped the best parts together back in Hadley.
2. The version of this song on the "Iron Horse Edition" of the EP doesn't have hand claps on it; I simply ran out of time, and didn't record them until a couple of days later.
"Malea"
Track 3 // 4:30
Lyrics
Cut to the chase
Nothing ever happens
We are caught, we are fixated
We are carried away
We wake in our sleep
With voices in the attic
When we walk, we have forgotten
about the doves at our feet
I would have given everything I had to save it
I would have given everything I had to try
“Run away, run away with me“
You lean close, the way you used to
“Oh, do you think I would go as far
as Malea?” you’d say
Pick up an accent I can’t understand
But you’ve got a voice that could take a man
Pardon all the guessing
I can’t remember your name
I would have given everything I had to save it
I would have given everything I had to try
As ways to go go I wouldn’t have thought
it would end like this
Things I did yesterday I’ll do tomorrow
again and again
As ways to go go go go go go go…
I would have given everything I had to save it
I would have given everything I had to try
Sam's Engineering Notes
1. The distortion on the vocals is the result of a slick little plug-in made by Steve Massey (www.masseyplugins.com) called THD, for Total Harmonic Distortion. At the time I was mixing the album, I only had the demo version of the plug, which is fully-functional sonically, but has the unfortunate drawback of reverting back to the default settings each time a file is opened or closed. I spent lots of time tweaking the knobs, trying to recreate the same distortion sound over and over again as I was forced to re-open the file. It's a tricky business to get a vocal to sit right in a busy track, so the distortion settings were crucial; I probably should have purchased the full version sooner.
2. If you've seen us live, you know that the clapping sections in the choruses are handled by the other four members of the band, because, you know, I have to play the drums. For the recording, I went into the basement one morning by myself, and set each chorus section to loop over and over again in record mode in ProTools. I stood there in front of one of my favorite mics, the Advanced Audio CM414, and clapped my brains out for seven or eight runs through each chorus. With each repeat, I changed up the clapping pattern, starting with some basic quarter notes and eighth note patterns, and progressing to some strange patterns I created on the spot. I gave each take its own track, and panned them all around the stereo field. If you listen in headphones, in the car, or if you have a stereo system properly set up to appreciate the stereo field, you can hear the claps "ping-ponging" around the speakers.
"The Catbird Seat"
Track 4 // 4:38
Lyrics
Here I am now
It took some time to come around
Sometimes I think it took me down
Sometimes I think
In the catbird seat
The only trees were on my street
The only step was at my door
Into a city I stood for
Here I have been
This view with a room and a stupid grin
Not fit to choose which shoes to fit in
Not fit to choose
Here I have found
That you can sink on solid ground
And words like that don’t make a sound
When something looks sturdy
In the catbird seat
The only shoes were on my feet
In them I walked Mass Avenue
Street-wise and see-through
By you I swore
By the light or the way you wore it
Now instead I swear I’m over it
In the catbird seat
The only dreams were in my sleep
And all the things I ever owned
Were in boxes I borrowed
Sam's Engineering Notes
1. The song features both acoustic and electric cello. Most of the cello parts are played on the acoustic instrument, but there are some subtle electric cello parts in the background of some of the harder parts of the song. Going into the mixing process, I had probably three complete acoustic cello takes and three electric cello takes, with various amp tones including a couple that were pretty heavily distorted, to choose from for any given part of the song. For example, the loudest verse (right before the dropout) features double-tracked acoustic cellos panned left and right (not completely, but probably to 10:00 and 2:00), and a distorted electric tone tucked back and panned close to the center. Also, that crazy growl that comes in during the intro and swells under the violin part is a heavily-processed electric cello. We liked it so much I cut it up and put it under another verse as well.
2. The violin and cello duet during the drop-out section and in the outro were recorded live in the room. Unfortunately, such a process was rare on the album, but we made the most of the opportunity here. The limitations of our home studio meant I couldn't wear my own headphones while Harris and Auyon recorded the parts, so I could only hear what they were playing, and not how it matched up with everything else that had already been tracked.
"All That Wrong"
Track 5 // 3:21
Lyrics
How we do always go along
Apple-ing pears and so on
It’s troubling
How I make mistakes for you
One more word is all I have to say
Oh my God, I did it anyway
And it’s troubling
How I make mistakes for you
But I wasn’t all that wrong
Sam's Engineering Notes
1. The mandolin only plays two things in the song. The first, during the quiet intro and first verse of the song, is a five-note repeated pattern. The second, which comes in at the dropout section, is seven-note repeated pattern. Both of them cycle over the other parts in cool ways. Auyon worked very hard to get the incredibly complex picking pattern for the second one down. I get tired just watching him do it, yet it only took him about fifteen minutes of takes to get both parts down.
2. Recording the cello solo was a multi-step process. First, Harris played through the solo section on loop until he was happy with a few of the ideas. We listened back, picked out the best bits and pieces that we thought should make it into the final take, and Harris practiced incorporating those ideas into one super-take. Setting the tape rolling again (actually, setting the hard disk spinning), he played another five takes or so to get the right one; we thought it was important to get a solid take of the solo all the way through, rather than comping multiple takes together to make a kind of Frankenstein super-take. Once we had The One, we re-amped it back through Harris' amazing pedal board, back through the amp, and mic'ed up the amp with my favorite combination of an SM57 and the KSM313 ribbon. I put in my ear plugs, set the solo to loop, and sat back for about 15 minutes while Harris sat on the floor in front of his amp and twiddled knobs to get the best combination of great tone with crazy modulations, delay, and tremolo. When the dust had settled, we had twenty-seven takes of the same cello solo processed in radically different ways. The hardest part of all was choosing which one to put in the song! In the end we settled for a relatively conservative one. Maybe someday we'll post some of the wilder options on the site for everyone to enjoy.
"In The Morning"
Track 6 // 3:56
Lyrics
Give me a leaf in a condiment jar
Fill it with well water
My feet and my head
Tucked in and wet
Beneath a plate of shale bone
I liked it and I’d do it again
To be a turtle and a mayonnaise-magnet
The world is quick and I’m a coward, boy
So I’ll see you in the morning
Give me a corner of the third drawer down
Or hang me up from the mantle
There’s not a foot (naught afoot?) in this place
But I’ve got plenty of space
Somewhere there’s another
I liked it and I’d do it again
To be a sock and made of polyester
But nothing’s easier than wearing me out
So I’ll see you in the morning
Give me a plot and I’ll tell you a story
About the trials of birds and beavers
The hammock swings
I count my rings and my roots
In your backyard
I liked it and I’d do it again
To be a tree and a canine kickstand
Everyone’s a user and I can’t say “no“
So I’ll see you in the morning
Sam's Engineering Notes
1. The is the only song on the EP on which most of the instruments were tracked live, with all of us playing together in the studio! Only bass and vocals were added later. It was the last song started, and one of the first to be finished.
2. Because we hadn't rehearsed the song sans vocals before trying to record it, we found that the only way we could get through it on the same page was if Dave hit record to start the tape, then rushed to the middle of the room to sit on the floor and hold up scrawled paper signs indicating "Verse!" and "I liked it and I'd...". It took several takes to get used to the cue sheets.