Day 18 and 19: Final Countdown

November 14th and 15th

well, it is done! these last two days have been spent putting finishing touches on everything. we were joined by our wonderful friend ryan fox on monday. he brought along his little saxophone friend with him, and he guessed he would play us an awesome tune! hehee, he recorded some sweet ass shit that day. thank you for being a part of the record dear. and then a lovely young lady named carrie came by with her wonderful weeping violin. it was gorgeous and now, when i hear this one song, i can't keep my eyes dry! i'm not kidding! i am a sucker for the strings. thanks so much carrie! and then, today, we added some bits and pieces, an omnichord...so beautiful.. so amazing, nick played it so well. and some harmonies on one of derek's jams...some claps, tambo and organ, which a.j. played for us! he wrote a sweet part too. we really want to say thank you to him for recording our new baby record. it's an infant now, but it is born into our lives! he helped us realize all that we could do with recording and he had great ideas along the way. thank you forever a.j. and now, in two weeks time, our babe will be a little older and we'll know it a little better, and then we take it into it's first day of mixing. that's where it will become a real grown up! we can't wait to see how it will turn out. it'll be mike mogis this time, molding what his brother recorded into the end result. we are SO EXCITED!!!!!!! we shall talk to you later you sweeties! xoxox kianna and the tillies

last day's photos:
1. carrie
2. myself and the lovely omnichord
3. a.j. and his surprise cold stone cake! yum!!!

Day 17: Visitors To Our Lair

November 13th, 2005

well guess what..more vocals! hahaha, i guess it does make sense,
it's the last thing. more of that and then something very special!
we had guests! and lots of them. first off, we had five lovely women
from the university of nebraska at lincoln come by to record some
sweet group vocal parts. they sounded like the perfect angels we were
looking for. they were all so pleasant and adorable and just our
luck, really good singers! they call themselves Trip the Light
Fantastic. don't know what that means, but they were sure fantastic!
then we were visited by a tiny little elf named Stella. she dropped by
with her momma Jessica to visit her uncle (our engineer) A.J. we
happen to be huge Stella fans, and actually, we are pretty huge
Jessica fans too, so we were VERY pleased to see both of their sweet
faces. Stella is walking around like mad and mayyybeee following in
her dad and uncles musical footsteps??? i have evidence i shall post
of her playing some mean keyboards! and also, just before the elf
showed up, our wonderful friend C.J. showed up, just like we'd all
hoped and he was such a welcome presence. yay! it was such a great
day! we are almost done! it's too fuckin' exciting!!! xoxo








phhhhhoootos!:
1. T.T.L.F. girls plus, the rest of us. Group vocs style!
2. Elven Beauty...Stella.
3. Evidence of future musical genuis??? Yes.
4. Jessica and her lovely girl.
5. Neely is in gangster-harmony-study pose!
6. Oh look at that sweet smile!!!

Day 16: ROB BASS (like bass, the tonal range or a bass guitar)

November 12th, 2005

our friend rob walters has been filming us for months and months now,
for a project of ours. he was in the studio yesterdays all up in our
grills (which we love), when we asked him if he'd be willing to sing
on this new song of ours. he, thankfully, obliged and what turned out
was some of the bass-iest most radical-est vocal takes ever! like,
calvin johnson bass. like, feel it in your chest bass! hahah, so
good. we are crossing our fingers that our lovely engineer A.J. will
also humor us with his vocal presence! maybe tomorrow!? we shall
just have to wait and see. neely's dad also stopped by for a while
and took some photos of us all during this process. oh yeah, her
momma aslo stopped by, no big deal...just some BOMB ass lasagna and
FUDE and PUMPKIN bread! oh my god, no words...'cept, thank you!
then it was bizzz as usual, vocs, vocs, vocs! more VOCS! sounding
more and more complete! only a few more days! woohoo!


1. mr. walters a.k.a. rob bass...cept, what's weird, besides it being
a throw-back to awesome early 90s duo rob base and d.j. easy rock, is
that we actually have a friend named rob bass!!! like, bass fish bass,
GAH!

2. miss jenkins and her wonderful father keith jenkins!

3. myself....suffering from a massive headache which jan jenkins later
remedied. thanks again! i was much more pleasant when cured.

Day 15: Second Verse...Same As the First

November, 11, 2005

well, not too terribly much happened today that was out of the ordinary. these days are pretty much dedicated to getting all of our vocals down. it's good to be back to work and we can all finally see the finish line now. most of the songs are sounding pretty near done, they just need a little polishing. tomorrow, we sing again! see you
then!

love~ kianna and the tillies

1.um, i just wanted to be nice and say how much i liked my tillies.
well, neely changed it to "titties" and well...you can see how derek
feels about it! those bitches!

2. this is how we do it. we are kind of just learning some of words
we are singing, so these are some cheat sheets!

Days 13 and 14: Accordian and Cello

November 7th and 8th

wow! we had some very talented people in the studio these past two days. first, our friend dan comes in all like "i hope you like the part" all humble and nice and shit. then he sits down with his accoridan and BLOWS OUR MINDS! hahaha, he is such a sweetheart and he truly wrote the perfect part...it's exactly what we had all envisioned for the song. it's the sexiest accordian part i've personally ever heard. we love it! thank you dan! and the next day, in came young miranda. we had to pick her up from her high school for craps sake! she's that young and SO talented. she wrote two parts for two seperate songs in such a short time. then just went in and knocked them out. all in less than a day. half a day more like! she ws great and sweet and just very easy to get along with. she made bringing in a total stranger, so fun and easy. thanks sweetie! and then, it was more vocals, castinet city, group vocals (with miranda's self) and other odds and ends. we have the next two days off so a.j. can travel with his bandmates from Criteria to the lovely city of chicago for a show. good luck guys! see you friday!!! xoxoxo kianna & the tillies

1. accordian king: dan
2. cellist of the year: miranda
3. group vocal "nothing can hurt us!" that is miranda standing in for jamie! haha!

Day 13: Do Over!

November 6th, 2005


well fuck..today we had to re-do that epic one take beauty from the first week. we went in to do some background shit and while doing them, derek noticed that it was tragically....way too slow! hahaha, it kind of took away the sway and the rythm. it had shit loads of soul, so we're not throwing it out. but, yeah, we had to do it again. sad! it sounds great though still. i really love it. nick got some sweet rhodes and keyboard lines down. other than that it was more of the same, filling in here and there with vocal parts . we also got a take of this brand new, like never been sung out loud before song. it was recorded a cappella. not fully sure what's going to happen with that one. haha, it's going to be a very interesting record! neely's wonderful parents brought us the most amazing fruit, cheese, veggies and crackers dinner. it is personally, my favorite kind of dinny! they are seriously so great, we could never tell them how much it means to us that they come visit us here. ....aaaaand let us stay at their beautiful house. ....... ......and eat all their food. xoxoxo kianna & the tillies

1. fooooooood CITAY!
2. family portrait minus a.j. who fishily dissappeared just prior to
this photograph being taken.

Day 12: Short Day

November 5th, 2005

today was very short indeed. a.j.'s band had a show to play tonight in omaha, so he had to get. but before he left, neely and derek recorded some tamoborine and maraca crap that sounded so great with the song. then we experimented with this idea derek and i have been talking about. it's like, well, i guess like making a choir. we never called it that, but we had talked about making chords with voices. like, instead of a guitar strumming the chords, we would make them by recording and layering vocals. we didn't finish the whole thing before a.j. had to leave, but what we got down sounded rad. nick was, as always, the weird harmony maker, neely and i can usually harmonize with most anything, but we can never come up with or find those weird harmonies that nick can. guess that's what you can do when you're a fucking genius piano player. dick.....i only jest. love you nick! also, i found ANOTHER funny old photo! got a picture of it. so funny!

love~kianna and the tillies

1. old school tilly photo. for those of you who were never a 6th
grade girl on yearbook signing day, H.A.G.S. mean Have A Good Summer!
2. nick a.k.a. Harmony Machine

Day 11: Voices Carry (till tuesday totally ruled)

Novermber 4th. 2005

today voices carried through wires, waves, magnets, currents, channels and amplifiers. they were captured and saved. they were caught, but not trapped. they were given eternal life. they are forever here. and what is so nice, is that i can hear my friends sing to me now..sing songs along. and i can sing songs a long too. so, only voices today, through the ribbons, cords and magnets. my friends spoke, laughed and yelled. and it is all there, forever. i love this place. love~kianna and the tillies

1. Miss Jenkins
2. Mr. Pressnall
3. Moi

Day 9: Girls Club

November 2nd, 2005

facetoday and tomorrow are deemed girl's-only!-no-boys-allowed-to-record
day! heeheh, sadly we had to say bye to our tilly boys for a couple
of days. they gots shit to do! we do miss them already, but we got
crackin' anyway. we recorded more taps, i know that seems like a lot.
but jamie and a.j. are experimenting with different rooms, surfaces
and mic techniques. today they even set up in the toilet! not inside
the toilet bowl or anything...just the room. haha, it's cool to hear
all the different acoustics and tones from each spot and setup. we
also recorded tambourine! that was fun as crap. it was super sassy!
there was another song i finally wrote a bass part to and recorded
that, aaaaand...yeah, that's about it! it was a nice day.
also, we found this old photo of us from way back. it was pinned to
the cork board. we all look so fucking different, it's wild! i'll
take a picture of it real quick-like. that's all i got cuties!
love~kianna and the tillies

1. bass city!

2. HOLY SHIT! this was a little thank you to mix master a.j. mogis
from when he mixed our very first effort. it was a cd called Woo!
that we burned and burned copies of to sell at shows. those were the
days of what we liked to call The Tilly Factory. one person would be
burning cds, one writing on them when they came out, one person
cutting out construction paper inserts, one gluing our picture and
glitter shit to it, and one putting the inserts and cds in the case.
hahaha, oh man....