Whatever that means.

I am happy to report, however, that tonight I’ve returned from Seoul with a great deal of my mission acocmplished. After about 6 hours in the studio (I miscalculated it earlier) it looks like I got all the tenor sax tracks for the new Dabang album recorded. In fact, aside from a voice track and a soprano line on one track, plus one sound effect to be applied on another track, I think I got seven of the eleven tracks completely done. Which, let me tell you, makes me proud.

We only had to cheat once all day in my playing. It was very late in the session, and aside from a searing headache and a certain amount of muscle pain in my recently-broken-and-recovered finger (it’s not the bone which was hurting: that seems fine now, but having not used that finger for a few weeks has robbed it of some strength), I was having a great deal of trouble bending a very low note a certain way. We tried about a dozen times to get it right, and finally, after playing through the track a full time, I managed to get one take correct on one section, so we sampled it and copied it to the other locations where the same sound was needed. Whew! But everything else I did the old-fashioned way.

It was great working with Seung Moon and Min Gyu and our other engineer, a young guy whose name I can’t remember now (I may never have heard it, I’m not sure). These guys are jovial, patient, open-minded, and always willing to experiment and try something out. I was happy to get all the tenor tracks done, because it means one less horn to haul up to Seoul on Saturday, when I’ll go finish the other four tracks. (We also recorded the tanpura track to “Lost My Dog”, so all I’ll take is a couple of flutes, a soprano sax, and my effects processor.) Today I went with Thai, but on Saturday I will go with Seong Hwan. I sure hope he wakes up early enough, though if he doesn’t I’ll just go without him, and bug him on the phone till he gets on a bus.

One the way back, Thai and I grabbed a Jinga Beoga… that is, in English, a “Zinger Burger”, from KFC. I was dubious but hungry and in a hurry to get home, so we settled for that. But I really envied Lime; she also had chicken for dinner, but a much more appealing-sounding “dalk kalbi”, one of my favorite Korean dishes.

My God, I’m posting about what other people ate for dinner. I really have lived in Korea a long time, I guess. Wow.

I’m a little nervous about my next band-related task, after Saturday, which will be the creation of a website. This could be time consuming, you know? I think I’ll make it as simple as possible. Less archival, more conceptual, blog-based, and easy to update, with some funny graphics stuff but nothing too intensive, for now. I can then play with it as I go along, later. I know for sure that I will not learn how to use Flash in time to do that. Next album, next band, whatever.

Anyway, got home at midnight, had me some Stan Getz and a chat online with my sister about her new job, and how age is reckoned in Korea… and now it’s time for sleep.

By the way, I’m The Man. Well, I mean 7 tracks in one day is, well, I think it’s pretty darn good.