 EPISODE 3: songs 052-073
DNA (1999)
Including
out takes
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When Erin flew home we were left without a drummer for the last four shows of our national tour. In a cramped record store in Philadelphia we did the best we could with Free Verse guitarist Jenni faking her way through our songs. Ronnie called everyone we knew looking for a drummer in NYC who could jump in. Everyone gave us the same name: Tia Sprocket.
All three of us experienced déjà vu as we met to rehearse for the first time. If Madonna had a younger sister who went all out rock and roll I bet she’d look like Tia. Tia’s hair was dyed into what looked like flame; her white leather jacket was tour worn. The wrong side of Hoboken, New Jersey had given her a killer swagger and a charming Bugs Bunny accent. (Later Tia was hired to coach Gina Gershon for the movie Prey for Rock. Gina’s imitation is a feeble copy of the real Tia).
Tia was enjoying days off from touring and recording with Luscious Jackson. She had toured since age seventeen when she played with the pioneer female power trio Sexpod. She went on to drum for Raging Slab and Ministry.
Playing our songs with her was a revelation. She learned eight in an hour. Her power and experience supercharged us. Tia wasn’t much for indie. Let’s rock, was her motto. Our gig in Boston with her was probably the best live show we’ve done so far. There’s a bootleg of it out there somewhere I’ve heard of but never seen.
We liked playing with each other enough that we all agreed to get together for writing and recording when Tia had more time off. Back home, thinking about it, I realized that neither Ronnie nor I had the experience to get the full benefit of playing with such a skilled drummer. But I knew someone who did. Someone I feared music fans would otherwise never hear.
Margaret “Grit” Maldonado, the bass player of Girl Jesus, had been my bass teacher when I first started playing. I didn’t do her justice. I didn’t learn the scales she laboriously wrote out for me. But we had fun hanging out together and I loved listening to her play. I’ve never heard a better bass player. She can play flamenco on bass.
One of the ironies of riot grrrl and dykecore in Los Angeles was watching Margaret, who was a better musician than anyone else in the scene, as all of us readily admitted, busting her ass as local road crew, often getting precious little thanks, and very few opportunities.
I figured Grit and Tia would be a rhythm section from hell and I was right in more ways than I had imagined. I got to thinking about adding another guitarist. Danette Lee was a friend of Danielle from Revolution Rising. She was part of the dot com boom and bust; a highly intelligent Chinese American with a great ear for guitar tone and musical hooks (perhaps inspired by her collection of birds). Danette went on to play with Ginger Coyote’s White Trash Debutantes and then Butt Trumpet.
Tia took longer getting to Los Angeles than anyone expected. When she finally arrived we spent Christmas on the concrete and asphalt of Highland and Selma, at Fortress Studios. There we recognized how powerful our jamming was and decided to record that, too.
The sessions at Big Scary Tree were an often grueling week long explosion of creativity in a hostile environment that produced over thirty songs.
Danny Goldberg heard the recordings when he had just gone indie with Artemis Records. He had approached us before. In fact, he was almost at our first gig. Danny was impressed with the new songs so he began coaxing us along, he hooked us up with an A&R advisor, an ASCAP VP, and brought in Neil Perry to mix some tracks.
Neil had mixed “Closer” for Nine Inch Nails and “1979” for Smashing Pumpkins. He listened to every track we recorded. He said we had the “mescaline afterglow of The Doors” and said my skills were up there with Jim Morrison’s. Neil’s dad had mixed classic Stones records like Beggar’s Banquet, and here he was comparing me to the lizard king. It looked like Lucid Nation would finally get signed.
Tia introduced us to Nitebob, a legendary sound man who started out with Iggy and the Stooges and the New York Dolls in the Seventies. He’s worked with many top artists including Bon Scott’s AC/DC, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Steely Dan and even got fired from the stage by Limp Bizkit. Bob pulled in his pal Mike Barile, producer of the Candiria records, and they did their mixing magic at Unique Studios right on Times Square.
We liked the Nitebob and Mr. Barile mixes even better than Neil’s. You’ll be able to decide for yourself as the Hundred Song March continues. I loved the sound of those huge Neve boards at Unique with red hot tubes so the room had to be kept double sweater cold. Ronnie and I flew to NYC to be there for the mix.
Unique was best known as the place where Tupac was shot. All the other rooms were booked by gangsta rappers. One day we saw bloody paper towels in the shared bathroom and heard rumors of a knifing.
I did a vocal tag for a Clark Kent recording session when he couldn’t find anyone to get the right twist. I did it in one take. From then on when they saw me in Times Square brothers called out “Hey ‘voisier!”
Sitting at the built in dinette in the studio, drinking orange juice after midnight, between mixes I listened to a trumpeter playing for change in the Square; Ronnie played along quietly on Nitebob’s vintage Les Paul Jr.
Bob told us we could be The Doors for the new millennium, we could be the new Pink Floyd, we already were, we just had to let it happen. I felt like I was hallucinating. The nanny to rock stars like Iggy, Steven Tyler, Bon Scott was telling me this.
But it was not to be. The band was not getting along. We had our first show booked, at the Capitol Theater in Olympia, Washington: a fund raiser for friends producing an indie punk opera called The Transfused. Free Verse would join us for the gig. As it turned out, neither of us showed up. Free Verse’s van blew up en route. Lucid Nation blew up before the trip began.
As good as the music was the chemistry was terrible. A band of guys might have settled it all with lawn fights. Grit sang the Itchy and Scratchy theme while Danette, Tia, and I fumed, and Ronnie pleaded. Late night phone call ultimatums followed. I was heartbroken. I let my friends in Olympia down. I let Danny down. But in retrospect I’m happy it happened this way. Danny isn’t at Artemis Records anymore. All the law suits between the label and its bands, including Boston and Kittie, prove sometimes failure can actually be success.
Why the title DNA? The song Night Prowler PCH helped me regain my identity, so I called the CD DNA. Coincidentally, Ronnie noticed when you squash Lucid and Nation together the three center letters are luciDNAtion.
DNA did better than American Stonehenge on college radio, but it did not do as well as The Stillness of Over. Coyote, Night Prowler PCH, and especially Pimpin’ became online hits. A few years later The Orchard used Pimpin’ as the lead track for their first ever SXSW compilation.
Erin McCarley was still in the band in a way, since she provided the photographs and text we used for the CD booklet foldout and the tray card. We used Marina Vain’s photos for the front cover and the back of the booklet. |
