STUDIO DIARY:
10/10/06 farewell boston....
...and you take that car horn of yours and shove it up your ass.
the record is done, we are moved out of "the octagon" (which now houses six metal dudes from ohio) and about to hop in patsy to come home to our families and loved ones (and local bars). this month has been amazing. we've had a blast with matthew, drank an ungodly amount of booze/coffee and managed not to kill each other.... we also made a record of crappy songs for jerks in our downtime.
so let us take a moment to reflect on some of the finer points of this month:
-the breakfast store
-the peoples republic
-the heptadecagon
-killing blood and/or tearing blood apart
-free redsox tickets
-photoshopping each other into gay pornography
-friends visiting
-boston burning to the ground
-warping matthew with our slang
-9 or so bottles of jameson
-scottie (although you guys never got that story did you? too bad. its a scorcher)
-rushhour prostitute blowies
-ghost slams
-business women throwing up on the street at 4pm
-breakdancing parties
-mustaches (both fake and real)
-that thing in the oven
-fishnugget shots
-blood red bats
-horny homies
-market basket
-underwear sunning on the roof
-the triangle
-band scheul
-the river gods getting hit by a car or bombed
-queen and motorhead stories from ellard
-peters coffee and cooking
-boats
so we'll see all you bros out on the ro-ad.... WHOS BAD PARTY TIME!!
ps. phil managed to weasel out of riding home and unloading the van AGAIN!! singers and their egos.
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Posted by Shane
10/10/06 THE RECORD IS DONE!
HOLY SHIT WE DID IT. WE FINISHED THE RECORD.
2:20am October 10th, 2006.
Biggest high fives ever to Matthew. Big high fives to his family for letting us steal him for so long. Shout out to BAXTERRRRR!
Big high fives to you for reading this whole damn studio diary.
Big high fives to BEING DONE! |
Posted by Phil
10/10/06 for the last 30 minutes...
Posted by Phil
10/10/06 45 MINUTES LEFT!
OMG! WE ARE NOT DONE! WE ARE NOT DONE!
/panic |
Posted by Phil
10/09/06 the end of my days
About a year ago, I met up with an out-of-town friend at this bar in northern VA called T.T. Reynolds. This bar is infamous for being the cheesiest rockin'-est jockin'-est bar in Fairfax and I try to avoid it at all costs. It's also the closest bar to Shane's house, so a lot of times he'll go there to lure hot college girls away from their frat dudes. Anyway, it was late, and there was nowhere else to hang, so we met up there and chatted over some beers. It was getting close to last call and I went into the bathroom. Once I finished my business and was washing my hands, I heard the dude in the stall puking harder than I've ever heard anyone puke before. He was puking so hard he was like... shouting the puke out.
Anyway, the guy comes out of the stall and I look over at him and his face is red and his eyes are watering. He reeks of alcohol and his eyes can barely focus on me. He goes to the sink next to mine. I say "Hey man, are you okay?".
He replies, "Dude, I just found out my fiance is pregnant. It's the END OF MY DAYS! END OF MY DAYS!", and then stumbles out of the bathroom.
That's kinda what finishing this record feels like. |
Posted by Phil
10/08/06 MotionPictures!
We were thwarted in our attempts to sneak into a movie last night..... so we drank booze instead. that seems about right. |
Posted by Shane
10/07/06 Horny Homies!
you know whats super awesome? when youre walking through an ally on your way to get some delicious dinner and you spot a car idling. weird? well we didnt think anything of it at first... but the full scope of the situation soon became clear. as we passed i made eye contact with a young lady in dramatic eye makeup for a very uncomfortable amount of time... but me being a mega personable dude, i thought "whatevs". then we noticed the older gentleman in the drivers seat grilling us hard. this was when i realized that we had (fortunately) stumbled upon an allyway rush hour prostitute blowie! YES!
and sure enough as we reached the top of the ally i turned in time to see the girls head lower and the dudes hand go back over the head rest.
ps. this all happened at about 6:00pm. nice.
pps. its six in the morning right now and we just got home from the stude a few minutes ago. long day dudes.....loooooong day.
we're delirious. we're giddy. we're singing............we're totally early morning boozing watching the sun rise. its a beautiful morning. today is going to be good. |
Posted by Shane
10/07/06 3:51 AM
WE ARE STILL MIXING!
What doesn't kill Matthew only makes him stronger.
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Posted by Phil
10/06/06 unemployed or unemployable??
"can you spare some change sir?" "ma'am, a quarter to get some coffee, er, i mean food?" better get used to hearing shit like this from nick and i! looks like our "real jobs" are on the chopping block... companies going under. yay! who needs money? not me thats who! all is not lost though..... cause i'm also going stir crazy listening to mixes! so thats a plus!
on a lighter note our bro dan came by today. we always enjoy kicking it with him. he even sprung for a delicious meal! now thats what i call a true dude..... also, we decided he needs neck tattoos.
ok. i think its time for another top five/low five. dont you?
TOP 5:
1. 40oz found in the trash that i'm about to drink
2. virginias unemployment benefits
3. peters coffee making ability.... the finer things in life
4. brand new hoodies
5. bose iPOD docking stations
LOW 5:
1. super late night mixing sessions
2. it being too late to buy beer, hence drinking trash beers.
3. its cold here and i'm cold blooded
4. poverty
5. nick barkley
that last ones not true. i love nick barkley.... or do i?
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Posted by Shane
10/06/06 SCARY DUDES!
this is what we look like when we listen to mixes on the little stereo in the studio. INTENSE DUDES!
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Posted by Phil
10/05/06 OMG!! LOL!!
i think everyone is collectively losing it on some level (see phils last two entries). this is the stir crazy part of making a record. the listening. the knit picking. the changing. the listening again... its easy to lose scope if youre not careful. luckily we're all the best of friends and have been giving each other hot oil rub downs in order to stay relaxed, to keep loose. phil, i've found, has very powerful hands and peter sure knows all of my spots!
in our downtime we've been experimenting musically. you know, really exploring the studio space. it turns out phil is quite the singer/songwriter!
and who knew peter was such a multi-instrumentalist! and so passionate about each and every piece of music he plays.
we layed down some serious magic on the studios remote protools rig. if youre lucky you may get to hear some of it some day. maybe it will end up on one of the 3 re-issues that will inevitabley come out... as they always do.
ps. news from home: my dog got a bath. i know youre all as excited as i am. she, on the other hand, probably was not stoked at all.
p.p.s. this is what percussion looks like:
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Posted by Shane
10/05/06 wheeeee!
Posted by Phil
10/05/06 mixing is stressful
we are all stressed out. it is awesome. fortunately today, to relieve our stress, two awesome things happened: we watched revenge of the nerds and clear and present danger. both came on the usa channel.
who is hotter? the collective cast of revenge of the nerds or young harrison ford?
 vs. 
we have a secret SURPRISE VISITOR TOMORROW. maybe he will make a SURPRISE SECRET STUDIO POST. here's a hint: he is sexier than both the above pictures. |
Posted by Phil
10/02/06 extreme boredom
Matthew has started mixing. We're waiting to track some percussion. Meanwhile, I'm bored watching EXTREME DATING on Fox. It's pretty intense.
Speaking of intense, Olympia just PIMPED OUT OUR MYSPACE... ohhh yeah. myspace.com/olympiaband
The artwork in the background is actually based on our new tour EP which we'll be releasing shortly. Consider it a sneak preview. |
Posted by Phil
10/02/06 keyboards!
Nick is "tickling the ivories" tonight... as they say in the BIZ.
GOULET!
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Posted by Phil
10/02/06 Rory Sheridan Guest entry 2
I just got a tattoo of a mini DV tape from a hefty fellow with a self inflicted Bill O' Reilly Portrait tattoo. Before i go on any further, let me tell you more of my Boston weekend and how rad my life is compared to yours right now. I woke up ate a gut busting breakfeast with the sexy man members of Olympia. I was so dumbfounded by their sexiness and Shane Johnsons ability to text message as fast as that dude from the micro machines commercial talks i followed them to the "stude". I read US weekly and admired Nick Barkleys facial stuble and wondered if i could sand down my computer table with his face. I peed 3 times and hugged Phil Will, and I was out. I went shopping with the Broph and Jess(the hot piece of ass i call my wife) I bought a Peter Gabriel shirt for 35 dollars. I drank a glass of cote du rhone in an old man bar and sent text messages to Shane. I got back to the Octogon and drank bud lights like gatorade. Nick Barkley took us to a red sox game.
I have not seen Fever Pitch, but im sure it fucking sucked compared to our experience. I ate a hot dog that made me shit 8 times, ate peanuts with my wife and slammed $7 beers with nick. Im getting sick of typing, My wife is here at the stude dancing around drunk and my heart is pounding from too much sparks ,and i havent sent a TM to shane in at least 12 minutes. To wrap this shit up. I had a great time, i have a new tattoo, Im going back to my new job with a mustache and i have Beef 2 on DVD. Olympia. I love you. I'm naming my first child Phil Will. Rory Sheridan ps. I'll add jpegs later.
EDIT: Here is a photo of the new tattoo - Phil
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Posted by Nick
10/01/06 ANOTHER GREAT NEW BAND!!
peter has left olympia! he is now starting a metalcore band, she blacks out my blood red august skies in december. the first record, tentatively entitled "rocky4:thesearchforspock", is set for an early 2007 release on victory records. with such hits as "tear your blood apart", "i'll kill your blood" and "you left your blood on my windowsill" this record is sure to be the quintessential metalcore record of the decade... perhaps of all time. complete with "chugga-chugga-weeeeeeeee" guitars and "bleghbleghblegh-singsingsing" vocals this proves to be one memorable record.
the heaviest of heavies! the prettiest of pretties! these songs will melt your aching face and smash in your longing teeth with a pure firestorm of brutality and destruction!
for fans of aiden, atreyu and avenged sevenfold! produced by matthew ellard!
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Posted by Shane
10/01/06 GUEST ENTRY RORY SHERIDAN
Part One The Flight. Jessica, Erin and I arrived in Boston late friday evening. The flight can be compared to Rambo First Blood Part 2, Because it was awesome. The stewardess on the plane bumped me and Jessica (my hot wife) up to first class after she asked me if i was in a band because I had tattoos, I said yes. (Rattler). Then she told me how her husband played drums for Ted Mcnugent once. I said "sick, we just got married". She moved us up to first class where we drank Chardonnay and read books in comfort of upper class travel. She also asked me for my autograph noting she met matchbox twenty before they were famous and she is pretty pissed she doesn't have they're autographs.
Part Two The Octagon We got to the Olympia real world house a.k.a "the octagon" where we proceeded to rip beer bongs, eat falafels, text message Shane, drink Jamesons and break dance. The house they are staying in amazing, set in the historic neighborhood of Cambridge, the 3 bedroom condo penthouse features a back deck, spacious living room and cocoa puffs. We also starting filming for the real world boston (you tube coming soon) I'll report back later, Im going to get a tattoo peter just drew me. Over and out, Rory |
Posted by Peter
10/01/06 RED SOX!
Hey dudes. Sorry it's been a while. Things are getting more intense at the studio as we get closer to our deadline. We'll officially move back to Mad Oak today, so we'll have internet at the studio, which bears well for people who like a lot of updates, because we're mixing and I'm sure we'll be bored.
Anyway, last night was probably the most fun we've had yet up here. Apparently, Nick's mom has a lot of friends in the right places and got us 6 tickets to see the Red Sox play at Fenway Park. Just in case Nick's mom reads this and Nick hasn't already thanked her enough, THANK YOU! I feel like I can check off one more essential Boston experiences off the list. I'm normally not a big baseball fan because I think it's slightly boring, but this was actually a pretty action-packed game. And of course, watching a baseball game on TV and watching a baseball game in the stands is a COMPLETELY different experience. The Red Sox lost, but it got kinda heated during the 9th inning as the Orioles took the lead. In the end, we were just there for the experience... but we were a little confused about whether we were happy or sad. In a way, we wanted Boston to win, because, so did the thousands of people around us.. but Baltimore used to be DC's hometeam for most of my life, so maybe we should have been rooting for Baltimore? Who knows. We had a damn good time though.
Something I'd never heard of before... and I don't know if this is a Boston thing or an everywhere thing, but in the bottom of the 9th inning, if the team is losing and they need to rally back to win, everyone in the crowd turns their hats inside out and it's called a "rally cap". Supposed to be good luck. I had never heard of this, but it may actually be a pretty well-known thing and I'm going to look like a moron.
Okay, off to the shower and to the STUDIO! |
Posted by Phil
09/28/06 Producer Of The Year!
So we got internet back at the apartment.. but I feel like the story of Scottie would be best told by Nick or Peter, so it's up to them to share it with you. The suspense continues...
What I'd like to post about is that Matthew, our producer, just won a Boston Music Award for Producer Of The Year! He had been talking about it last week saying he was so confident that he wasn't going to win, that he wasn't even going to go to the award show and stay at the studio to work on the record. He was pretty surprised to get like... 8 phone calls around 9:00 last night telling him he won. So, we've got an award-winning producer on our hands. Congratulations to Matthew!
We're working hard on guitar and vocals. We just finished lead vocals last night and today we start backing vocals. All the main guitar tracks are done and now we're working to finish up the guitars. Then we begin keyboards and percussion. Good times! |
Posted by Phil
09/24/06 update coming soon!
Lack of internet in the STUDE (pronounced st-ood) has made updating this thing ridiculously difficult.
I'm in a coffee shop paying $3.95 an hour for internet. Not cool!
Anyway, today we narrowly avoided death at the hands of a drunken ex-con named Scottie. The full story.... coming soon. |
Posted by Phil
09/22/06 Finally... the TALENT comes forth
Greetings from the STUDE, dudes!
so i was informed that the www.world has been chomping at the bit to hear my thoughts on things. now i know i've been rather quiet and its nothing personal towards the collective you guys. i've been madcrazy busy... cooking questionable but delicious meals, extensively exploring this fine city on foot and just generally getting awesome! but now that i've found the time, here are a few of the things happening in the BROlympia! camp:
1. phil whil is stoking all of us out (and kinda scaring himself) with the new and exciting things his voice is now capable of. its pretty intense watching him. i keep getting singing boners and have to look away. theres just too much rock sexy in that dude!
2. peter is lacing these tracks with sweet fiery guitar licks. finally things are coming together and sounding like rock songs. i must admitt, even though i am the true talent in this band, i cant carry a song all by myself. also peter made me a lovely birthday card and bought me a delicious breakfast. he's the best girlfriend i've ever had!
3. the menace is really good at brick breaker.... and letting chicken go bad then leaving it out and stinking up the kitchen. hes also good at wearing cowboy boots and underwear on our rooftop around people hes just met.
4. i'm a text messaging fool and everyone keeps calling me out on it. jerks. cant wait for my crippling fone bill thats no doubt winging its way to me right now. i'll be setting up a paypal account to accept donations.
in other news a drunk jerk tried to talk shit to us as we were leaving the stude the other night... but what really made it super awesome is that the dude was totally wearing a poker visor! honestly!!
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Posted by Shane
09/19/06 Phil
Oh hey there, didn't see you all come in. How's it going friend? Wecome to my studio diary. I know I haven't really been here updating you much, but understand this is mainly because up to this point Shane and I have been the only one's recording, so there hasn't been much nerd out internet time for us... UNTIL NOW!!!!! And being that yesterday was Phil's Birthday, and I just got the first solid wifi connection at the house in weeks I figured this would be the perfect time to accept his challenge and show you all my first diary entry.
Dear Diary,
Since our last entry much has happened in my life that has been level 10 awesome. I finished tracking bass in 2 1/2 days, and all i can say about that is that my fingers look like they do in cartoons after they get smashed with a hammer and get all red and swollen. That's fun. I'm super stoked on the way everything came out so far. I'm really excited to have bass done and move on to guitars and vocals. This weekend was a blast. We had our first day off Sunday, and hanging out with our good friend's Ben and Jay and my old friends Matt and Emily was a blast until Jay got sick. We decided that we had to quarantine him so he wouldn't get any of us sick, so we built him a fort out of couch cussions and didn't let him out until Ben was ready to make the 9-10 hour deive home. It was the only way I swear. The weekend was a blast. Many things too awesome for words, but if I can get Peter's camera may be i'll release some of the photographic evidence. Speaking of Peter, he started tracking guitars yesterday and its sounding AMAZING! I don't know if you've ever heard him play guitar before, but he's pretty good.
This is the part of recording that I get really excited about. This is when your songs start sounding like the songs. You get to put to rest the tedious mechanical work of getting the basic drum and bass tracks done and start adding the special spice to the recording sauce. This is the part of the process where I have the most fun. This is when going to the studio is like opening a window on an advent calender of rock, and each day you get a new piece of rock n' roll candy. Not that crummy stale candy that you're used to either. This is awesome candy! Better than the gummi Venus De Milo from that Simpsons episode. I'm super Excited to be here with my dudes making this record and I can't wait for you guys to hear the finshed product. Today Peter continues to melt our collective faces with his hot licks. After the next few days of Guitars we'll start spliting our time half and half between guitars and vocals. Color me excited.
In closing I will leave you all with my Top 5 and Low 5 for the last few weeks.
Top 5: (in no particular order)
- Shane, Peter, Phil, and Matthew Ellard
- Making everone listen to bad Gangta Rap on the way to the Studio
- Inside jokes brought on by studio fever
- Rooftop Boozing
- People's Republic
Low 5:
- Parking
- Last call and Blue Laws
- Construction
- Coming dangerously close to running out of money
- Fear of running out of time in the studio
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Posted by Nick
09/16/06 new studio!
Greetings!
Sorry for the lull in studio diary entries. We have moved to a new studio where we are now doing our bass, guitar, and vocals. The studio we're in now is Ellard's loft studio and it's called Bubble & Squeek. The one problem with the studio is... there's no internet access, which directly correlates to making entries in this thing. So all entries have to be made before and after the studio.
The past few days have been crazy. We've got four songs done on bass, which means we're making really good time. We'll finish the rest of the bass tracks today. The past few days our curse with the local bars have been lifted. On Thursday night we went to this bar called Proletariat and Friday night we went to the Middle East Club. Both were pretty cool and we had some drinks and felt like champions for actually making it to a bar before last call. Last night our good friends Ben and Jay arrived. They are our first official visitors. They hit a lot of traffic so they got in pretty late last night, but a good time was still had and we were definitely up later than we should have been. Sadly the only place we could figure out that they could park was a metered lot that started at 8am. Brutal.
I feel like I don't have much to offer in the way of excitement and humor. I will let you know there are some unauthorized videos of Shane and Peter having a breakdance competition that will hopefully surface in the studio diary soon. Just for the sake of your imagination, I will tell you that Shane competed wearing only his underwear. Deal with that!
Okay, time to go. We're running late already. |
Posted by Phil
09/14/06 spontaneous magic DOES happen
the other day we were tracking some hot tunes and something just wasn't working out right. maybe it was the guitar line. maybe it was the tempo changes. or maybe the vibe just wasn't mellow enough.
when we listened back i immediately knew what was missing. it was a stellar groove. i needed to lace the track and i needed to do it right away to repel the negative vibes. i played around for a little while with some scales and polyrhythms, then we rolled the tape. it was magic. slap bass can do a lot for a record.
love, peter |
Posted by Peter
09/14/06 DRUMS ARE DONE
the big news is that shane finished tracking drums yesterday. he valiantly played his drums for about 5 days straight. if you've never seen shane play the drums, you may not understand the gravity of this undertaking. he hit's them hard as crap. no, i mean he hit's REALLY hard. it's like punching someone you hate as hard as you can over and over again, for 8 hours a day, for six days. it would be very exciting but after a while would become extremely tiring. but he stuck it out and made it happen. we now have 10 songs of pounding rock drums. at this point we are hoping shane doesn't take his drum tracks and begin his solo career.
today we are moving studios later today for bass, guitar and vocals. starting with bass. it's time for the menace to shine.
check this link for footage of shane smashing his drums and saying "fuck" really loud when he screws up in the end. shane plays like a girl |
Posted by Peter
09/14/06 massachusetts vs. drinking
okay, business first. we finished tracking drums today. high fives to shane. we are super stoked.
now the bad news: massachusetts has SHITTY blue laws. we have tried to go out and drink in this town on three occasions and been defeated all three times.
first, we tried drinking at this bar close to our house called "river gods" on saturday. we tried to drink there and got there right after last call, so we were turned away at the door. the next morning, we saw the bar is totally shut up with boards. we think it got hit by a car or a terrorist bombing or something. it makes perfect sense that the bar that's the closest to our house would get hit by a car. regardless, now drinking at river gods is not an option.
then on sunday at 8:00pm, i decided to head over to the liquor store to buy some beers for us to drink at the studio. i arrived there at 8:07pm to find out that it was CLOSED. three other stores later, and still no beer. so drinking after 8:00pm on a sunday.. also not an option. damn you, blue laws!
so fast forward to tonight.. we were going to celebrate our recent drum accomplishments.. we went to the middle east club, which is a famous boston venue and a sweet bar... aaaaaand we failed yet again. on weekdays last call is at midnight. we arrived at 12:30. we're used to bars closing up shop at 2:00am. but apparently that only happens here on the weekends. bruuuutal.
so the word of the day is: FAILURE.
massachusetts doesn't want us to drink beers.
thus, we hate massachusetts. advice to any virginia / DC friends coming to visit: B.Y.O.B. or risk not drinking at all. |
Posted by Phil
09/12/06 intern!
So the studio has an intern that was here when we arrived this morning. I have no idea what the deal is, but apparently he's here to help out and learn about recording an album.
Now, some of us have BEEN interns before but never HAD interns. So we did the first thing that came to mind... we had him go buy some coffee.
AWESOME! |
Posted by Phil
09/12/06 BUMMER!
Posted by Phil
09/11/06 TOMORROW WE JOUST!!
Posted by Phil
09/11/06 lack of self-discipline
Obviously boredom is a very powerful thing.
At this point, I doubt Nick has even read my challenge. He is busy photoshopping all of us into compromising photos. That seems to be the latest activity here in the studio. Every few hours, someone holds up their laptop to show the latest horrific scenario that we've been photoshopped into. Just a pre-warning: I have no doubt that at some point these photos will surface in the studio diary. A lot of bands worry about protecting their image and wouldn't want photos like this to be made public. We are definitely not that band.
Anyway, so I told myself I wouldn't update until Nick does, but it's 10:00pm and I'm bored, so there you go.
6 songs are now done. We've got 4 songs left. We've only got two more full days left here at mad oak studios. So basically the general mood is: go! go! go! go! go!
Interesting fact: Matthew Ellard told us today that a lot of studios claim to be haunted, but it's usually mostly just hype to get bands to want to record there. As far as we can tell, Mad Oak is not haunted. |
Posted by Phil
09/11/06 shot down
This morning Nick gave me shit about updating the studio diary too much.. and suggested that people might not actually be interested in videos about monkeys fighting dogs or stories about the revolutionary war. My confidence is now shaken.
It's time for Nick to step up to the plate. Nick, this is a challenge. YOU do a studio diary entry. Let's see how awesome it is. Bring your best game, son.
Everyone, your job is to leave us comments on myspace telling Nick to update this shit.
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Posted by Phil
09/10/06 studio fun!
so today's excitement is that shane is playing drums. doing drums in the studio is the most boring thing when you're the singer, because you literally have nothing to do while everyone else creates the scratch tracks that go with the drums. so after reading all your awesome myspace surveys and watching all the videos you've posted on youtube, i decided to come back and update this thing. seriously, the low point / high point of my day so far was this amazing video i watched of a monkey trying to fight a dog. i have laughed at this probably 20 times today.
nick has been entertaining himself by getting on all of our computers when we walk out of the room and changing our myspace status to "gay". so if you see any of us change our sexual orientation on myspace this week, now you know why.
matthew, our producer, is totally awesome. he's british and he was explaining today about how england let america win the revolutionary war, so that we could become a superpower and give the brits a break from being the most hated country in the world. he may be right. he also told us some stories about recording with freddy mercury that are too salacious for this studio diary. get us drunk and we'll tell you someday.
special section: olympia recipes! - "ghetto casserole"
shane's lunch creation of the day is "ghetto casserole". it actually tastes pretty good, but the smell is kinda intense. here are the ingredients: tuna fish, (1) box velveeta shells and cheese, (1) can of peas, (1) can of carrots, hot sauce. mix together. serves two.
beverage pairing suggestions: jameson, 30-pack of stroh's, boilermakers |
Posted by Phil
09/10/06 Day Three
Hello friend of Olympia.
Sadly, the first two days of our studio diary have been lost due to the destructive power of the internet. Here's what you need to know:
We are in Boston. We are currently tracking drums. Boston drivers are assholes. We are changing our band name to "Math Potatoes".
More important details to come. |
Posted by Phil
