tilly and the wall's recording diary!

Day 18 and 19: Final Countdown

2005-11-17T23:52:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

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)

2005-11-15T17:51:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-13T15:52:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-09T19:22:00.000-08:00

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!

2005-11-09T19:18:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

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)

2005-11-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-04T06:05:00.000-08:00

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....

Day 8: Rain of Bells (way tamer than slayer...)

2005-11-02T22:34:00.000-08:00

November 1st, 2005

today we welcomed our dear friend charlie vinz! into the studio. he plays a fuckin' mean glockenspiel. today though, he played us something similar, but more along the lines of bells. i'll call them sweet special bells. cuz the way he plays bells....they ain't no average sounding bells! he's amazing! the swiftness, the deftness, he's a wiz. and a sweetie. thanks for coming charlie! then he was off, in a blaze of gentle goodbyes...back to chicago, his home. then it was back to piano. nick played wonderfully again. he recorded this darkly gorgeous and sexy part. a spanish road..beautiful men and women...vibrant colors lighting up the night. his playing inspired imagery, so full of life. it was awesome. so, tomorrow, it's girls day! we'll be experimenting with layers of taps, finishing up bass parts and starting on those fun percussion instruments/toys.
can't wait! xoxo

1 & 2. charlie vinz!
3. nick the wonderful.

love~kianna and the tillies

Day 7: Piano Man

2005-11-01T18:02:00.000-08:00

October 31st, 2005

nick has lovely talented fingers! he started recording piano today and it is sounding glorious. he and derek decided to record this one song live instead of seperate from eachother. they tried it that way, seperate, recording it to a click track, and we felt like it lost it's soul. it was too restrained, it took the life and made it strict. so they sat down with both guitar and piano mic-ed up and did one take of this song, together. one take...it was magical...we all sat in silence, listening to what we knew was perfect unity and pure soul coming through those speakers. we were covered in goose bumps, we were close to tears, we were so enamored anew with our wonderful friends, it was so beautiful. unfortunately, we have no photos to share. we took a ton of video, but no pictures! sad! but tomorrow, we'll get some super sweet ones. we'll see you then my dears!
love~kianna and the tillies

Day 6: Bass City Extreme

2005-10-31T16:39:00.000-08:00

October 30th, 2005

well, first of all, the Halloween party was so fucking much fun! i was really impressed with everyone's costumes! sometimes people don't really go for it you know...but shit, everyone went for it. seriously! my favorite memories: a nasty ass flasher riding on the back of a unicorn...a flower dancing like the 90's mechanical dancing flowers slash crazy person, team zissou member cracking my ass up all night, crew of old grandmas as golfer team "the blue-haired birdies" equipped with troubled addict daughter along for the mother-daughter bonding, two awesomely home-made ninja turtles and so many others. it was such a great night. everyone there was in such high spirits, i can't explain it so well, it turns out....what i'm trying to say is that there was so much love in the place. so many great friends just being together and appreciating eachother's company. and us five...we had sort of a shock later in the night...some news came that ultimately made us appreciate eachother even more. last night i think we realized just how much we love eachother and how lucky we are to have eachother. these are 4 of my 5 best friends in the world. i couldn't be luckier to have them in my life. please, remember to tell your family and friends you love them. and remember to live everyday like you're on fuckin' fire!

in other, more boring news, neely and i recorded bass today. hahah, it went really well and oour songs are sounding more and more full everyday. we're gonna bump that bass up too, real phat like. like 90s booty bass tape PHAT. ok, maybe i'm just reeealy tired......goodnight!

some halloween madness:

1. tilly girls: jamie as carol, the recovering addict on the
mother-daughter bonding golf trip. neely as team zissou member
extraordinaire. me as odette from the ballet swan lake.

2. derek as the the grumpy flower.

3. a.j. mogis and his lovely lady gina as vikings! she made those by the way.

4. nick and claire as golden something and annie.

5. todd and lindsey as flasher guy and uni.

6. nik and rachel as kevin federline and britney spears.

7. c.j. as the cutest, fattest, skinniest robert smith!

love~kianna and the tillies!

Day 5

2005-10-30T15:00:00.000-08:00

Rappenin' is what's happenin keep the ruckus happenin' and hands clappening!

October 29, 2005

so, today is an early day. we started early in order to end early so
we can each have ample time to decorate ourselves with halloween
glamour. we are almost finished up today and let me tell you
something, the percussion on this record is CRAAAAZZZAAAYYYY. yeah,
totally out of control crazy shit happenin'. all day was spent on
percussion of the unordinary kind. more stomps, some weird stepping
and a shit load of hand clapping in bizarre playground rhythms. it's
all turning out so organic. but with so many strange beats, it makes
you want to move in these weird ways. like, "i don't know what this
is, but it makes me want to dance..??!?!?" hahaha, we haven't ever
really heard the ideas with the songs since it's hard to mic nine
different rhythms at practice! so, we're sort of just discovering our
own ideas today, for the first time..they're coming to life. it's
been a really fun and cool day. now it's off to omaha for party
central 3005. whoops, not quite yet....3005 though, that's gonna be
crazy ass shit...love yous.

Awesome Days!:

1. Jamie and I in motion. Hands clappenin'!

2. Waiting for the track in our headphones to start so we can record
us playing paddycake.

3. D Rex playing some sweet guitar riffs for us.

peas out party peeeepuuuuuuul! love~kianna and the tillies

Day 4: Stomps

2005-10-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

October 28, 2005

stomps, stomps, stomps! that is what happened today. that and a lot of fucking around. aaaaand a lot of chocolate cake eating. mmmmmmmmmmmhmmm! neely spent her off time making her halloween
costume. she is going as a crew member of team zissou. it's off the fuckin' chain! she went full out, it's gonna look hot. woowoo...tomorrow is super-awesome-saturday-night-halloween-party night! i am betting there will be some stories to tell tomorrow! i wanna hear a big "FUCK YES!" for halloween and big "SHIT YEAH!" for costumes! see you cuties later on..

photo city usa:

1. a.j. mogis giving us his "thinker" pose....that or he's checking
his pulse...you decide.

2. miss neely jenkins and myself making faces while derek is trying to
record serious guitar stuff.

3. the stomp session. it took some time i'll tell you what...

love~kianna and the tillies

Day 3: Drums!?

2005-10-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

October 27, 2005

heeheh, yes drums! our good friend jesse came down to lincoln today to record drums for us. it's for a rock song and his talents lend a perfectly loose bob-your-head and dance back beat . we love it. thanks jesse! otherwise, there was a lot more guitar happening. just layers and layers and songs and more songs. it's very tedious but extremely satisfying to do. also,the jenkins' brought more homecooked love to us for dinner...aaand i am beginning to hope for a trend. cuz let me tell you what, that woman can COOK! heehe! plus, they are a welcomed presence here in the studio. thanks again you two. tomorrow........??? we shall see!

photo world:

1. jesse and derek rehearsing before recording.

2. derek forcing everyone to try out this vocal part he thought up. haahahah...

lovelove~ kianna and the tillies

Day 2: Lasagna

2005-10-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

October 26, 2005
today we recorded more and more taps all the way into the night. jamie felt alright to keep going , but she finally decided she should rest till tomorrow so she could start fresh. that's when derek and a.j. set up for guitar. they recorded a bunch of guitar tracks, doubled up some acoustic and got some electric tracks too. i thought it all sounded really cool. well, that was how recording went, but really, what most of are doing when the others are recording is: watch tv, read, eat a LOT and look at the interweb for funny things to watch. today it was the kid who faints at the spelling bee. his word was: alopecoid. that might have made me faint too. turns out it means "fox-like", but it's not even listed in normal dictionaries. i found it in a "dictionary for difficult words". hahah! anyway, the girls are totally addicted to that MTV show Miss 17. we like, totally can't wait for how like, totally awesome the next bitch fest will be! woo! see y'all tomorrow!

Photos:

1. Presto! parking lot. derek points out how shitty it is when your car gets towed. it wasn't one of ours thankfully.
2. Jamie and Neely watching the crap out of Miss 17!
3. The duct tape tap platform set-up.
4. These are of The Jenkins'. They brought us some amazing homemade veggie lasagna and brownies. It was the BEST. Thanks you two!

-kianna & the tillies

Day 1: Presto!

2005-10-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

October 25th, 2005
Presto! Studio
hey you beauties! here we sit in lincoln, nebraska at our new home of sorts. we eat here, we read here, we talk, laugh and even sleep here. but the reason we are really here is to encourage music to emerge from our fingers, throats, feet and souls. today, Jamie completed all of her tap parts on our very first song of this recording session. our wonderful recording engineer A.J. Mogis had great ideas for mic-ing her platforms and getting interesting sounds from them. she ended up elevated on her main platform, sitting atop two other platforms with yards of duct tape holding them secure, and surrounded by heavy amplifiers to keep anything from moving. A.J. even busted out his soldering iron and made a microphone out of some weird gadget he picked up at radio shack! it's a forever evolving process figuring out how to record the taps, and we really love how it sounded!
tomorrow we begin again here in this amazing place. we can't wait to see what happens and what will be created!

here are a few photos from day one:

1.Neely, Derek and Nick computing. it involved searching "sexiest keytar player". we suggest checking her out.

2.A.J. setting up some microphones for Jamie. This is before the major duct tape platform structure was built.

3. Kianna in front of Presto! Studio's cute door.

-kianna & the tillies.