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A Tale or Two about Day For Night - continued
"Thugs" existed as a near complete song but, would change radically with the
passing months. "Fire In The Hole", however, was being born out of the various
dressing room jams. Everyone referred to the riff as "pointy teeth". "Nautical
Disaster" was being jammed both backstage and onstage; it evolved in the
middle section of "New Orleans Is Sinking" from night to night. Once this tour
ended we spent the last weeks of September in the U.S. By October 2nd, the
touring for Fully Completely was finished.
"A good song will continue to grow live. From there, new songs can easily
emerge." Gord Sinclair
No longer worrying about visas, laundry, or where the hell we were, we returned
to the scene of many favorite crimes, the Woolen Mill. An old burlap mill in the
north end of Kingston, the mill was a perfect rehearsal space but, also much
more. For one, it was my home for two of the three years the band used it for
rehearsals. And it was also, essentially, an impregnable fortress perfect for
keeping away prying eyes and those with ears too big for their own good.
The months between the end of the road and Christmas were busy ones. "Grace,"
"Emergency," "Inch An Hour," "Impossibilium" and various versions of "Thugs,"
were either written in their entirety or re-written entirely. Various other ideas were
being thrown around, including early versions of "Daredevil" and "Greasy Jungle."
We took a break for the holidays.
During the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, the band was
back at the mill, this time working with Mark Howard. We had known Mark
for a while; from back in the days when Road Apples was recorded and on
Another Roadside Attraction, where he was Dan Lanois' front of house engineer.
It was this week that gave the band the confidence in Howard that would result
in his co-producing the album. This was the week when "Thugs" finally found
its sound. This was also the session that captured "Titanic" as it appears on the
album. A number of passes would be made at "Titanic" later in New Orleans
but, none would match the atmosphere the winter lent the song. January would
give rise to "Yawning or Snarling" and "The Inevitability of Death" and February
provided a chance to play some of the new songs live. Sure, some of the new
material had been played live before: "Thugs" on Another Roadside Attraction,
"Nautical Disaster" at the Kumbaya Festival (to benefit people living with AIDS)
in Toronto but, it was the College Earth Summit at Yale that saw the first
performance of many of the songs. It was a small gig at Toad's Place but, the new
songs were received well and it was only a month before the band would be back
in the studio. That month passed (and none too soon, winter was kicking the shit
out of eastern Ontario) and it was time to head down to the Crescent City.
Kingsway studio, New Orleans La., is the kind of place the Hip can work. The
house is a studio or the studio is a house, either way a large mansion on the edge
of the French Quarter that is both familiar and practical. The Tragically Hip is
not a band well suited to isolation chambers and by-the-numbers recording.
Though that can be educational and productive, their best work has always come
from a more fluid approach and environment. The bulk of Day For Night was
recorded at the base of a large stairway, with the band within five feet of each
other most of the time. Set up and amp, mike it and throw a blanket or a pillow
over it, turn it up and play. Over time, patterns developed. Much of the day
would be dedicated to listening and listening again to what had been recorded
with the night reserved for new ideas, new tracks or new songs. Along the way,
a shadow record emerged; spacey jams, old ideas reworked, generally a chance
to blow off some musical steam. This music is not on the record but, it is as
much a part of the recording process as anything else and much musical
cannibalism will be its legacy. "So Hard Done By" is a perfect example. Played in
concert a very few times over the years, it finally found an arrangement everyone
liked. Many songs have been picked at over the years and as long as there are
tapes to listen to, that will continue. When it came time to leave New Orleans,
most of the recording had been done but the album was not yet complete. The
band headed for home.
continued...
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