Going to the
Chapel
November 16th,
It's early...very early. But Lee's already up and scurrying around the beach house, loading up his van for the day's excitement. Matthew, then George reluctantly emerge from each of their sleeping bag cocoons at half of Lee's speed. Matthew slowly staggers to the shower to break the zombie-like stupor he's found himself in. The three are shaking off the after-effects of an gig from the night before. The evening was the start of an extended contract with a mall in Texas City. Afterwards, the guys took a 1:30 AM ferry boat ride from Galveston over to Crystal Beach. The Christmas music is still ringing in their ears. (Yawn).
George rolls up his sleeping bag, while Lee is
on the phone with today's host: Nathan G. Lee
and Nathan have been friends for decades. He now owns a
popular bridal chapel on the island (GalvestonWedding.com).
Nathan's place handles up to 15+ weddings per weekend
during the peak season.
His 'bread and
butter' is the photography and video services he
offers in addition to the use of the chapel.
Nathan
is looking to expand his repertoire by adding
in-house recording services for voice-over work, musical
demos, jingles, etc. A sizable investment has
been made to build a fully functional recording
studio in the unseen second level of the
wedding chapel. But Nathan needs a few 'guinea
pigs' to make sure the studio is in full working
order before marketing it to customers.
Enter the guinea pigs: The trio has been using a demo of home recordings (made by Matthew and George) for months to pass out to potential customers . Lee is eager to upgrade the group's media kit to include a 'professional recording' and Nathan's price is right in line with the band's budget at this time: IT'S FREE!
As tired as the guys are, there is an air of expectancy at the beach house. Sponge Bob Square Pants plays on the television. Matthew has never seen the show. He and George discuss Sponge Bob's outstanding work ethic contrasted with Bob's slacker friend, Patrick the Starfish. Inspired, they make a pact to be 'Sponge Bobs', not 'Patricks' today. Lee (Squidward) is downstairs in his van ready to go, so George clicks off the tube and they head out. Unbeknownst to our fearless three, Matthew has mistakenly left his 'Scooby -Doo Rag' behind in the bathroom! (GP3 censors have asked us to refrain from going into too much detail here -check with Matthew directly to learn how this impacts the band).
On the ride over Lee and George leave their vehicles and move to the front of the ferry. The ensuing conversation includes everything from fishing, typhoon season in the Vietnam coastal region, the Jan-Michael Vincent/Gary Busey movie Big Wednesday and it's relationship to Lee and more. As the ferry approaches the dock, George returns to his car to the sound of some idiot's car alarm honking in the distance.
Nathan calls Lee and says he's running a behind and needs a little more time before the guys arrive. So the three head over to a Denny's for breakfast. Lee and George arrive first and convince the waitress to sell them a Denny's gift card with a $2.00 spending amount that they will give to Matthew to 'buy' his breakfast. Lee mentions to George that his new van has a car alarm system on it that he was unaware of. "That was your horn on the ferry?" "Yeah - I couldn't figure out how to turn it off!" Matthew arrives: "Hey did you hear that car alarm on the ferry boat?" "Yeah, That was Lee." "On the ferry?" "Yeah. (laughter)"
The boys finish breakfast and make their way to the register. As Matthew unknowingly attempts to pay for his meal with a gift card that only has $2.00 on it, Lee notices a Crane Claw Game in the corner. George and Lee (both being a tad compulsive) begin pumping quarters into the box to win a ridiculous looking plush donkey with a cape. At the height of the frenzy they manage to convince one of the waitresses to even try. A small crowd gathers around the machine. After several attempts George realizes that he is completely inept at the game and begins to 'sponsor' Matthew to play. But to no avail...the 'Super Donkey' remains trapped behind the glass. George looks for others that he can enlist. Lee tries to reach his arm up through the mechanism to 'liberate' the doll (a stunt he used to do as a young boy with soda machines). But it doesn't work today...and they have exhausted all of their tip money - dejected, the trio abandons the effort.
Upon arriving at Nathan's chapel, Lee breaks out
the camera for
some
photo ops by the plaster horse-drawn
Cinderella carriage out front.
Each take pictures wearing 'The
Magical Recording Hat'. [click
here to read the 'LEGEND OF THE RED RECORDING
HAT' ]. Eventually, the guys make
it inside to find Nathan performing some last minute
touches to the system. He's almost ready to go... or
not. There's a problem with the signal coming
from the piano/keyboard booth. Matthew helps
Nathan calibrate the eq and tries to solve the
midi send problem.
Meanwhile, George waits patiently in the small sound isolation booth. As the two continue to make modifications to the system in the control room George's mind wanders. He imagines that the small chamber that he's confined in must be like John Glenn aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft (only instead of control switches, there are multiple keyboard and synthesizers all around). Thoughts move to how he'd like his coffin to be designed with this many keyboards inside: Buried like a Piano-Pharaoh with everything needed to play gigs in the after-life. But these fantasies are interrupted as it discovered that there's an adapter needed that Nathan doesn't have.
Lee over-enthusiastically offers to go to a nearby Radio Shack to pick up a component. George yells to him from the sound booth that he thinks he has one of the adapters in his car, but Lee insists. As a matter of fact, Lee is SO determined to run this errand, suspicions are raised about his real intent. Matthew and George are convinced he's headed back to Denny's to play the claw crane game again. Whoever wins the donkey with the cape would have bragging rights for a long time. And bragging rights in the GP3 are huge and valuable currency! George becomes equally suspicious when Matthew suddenly has to leave to find a Kinko's to send a fax, even though Nathan has a fax machine directly behind him in the studio.
After an hour or so of tinkering with the
system, Nathan decides to have George bring his
piano from the car and plug in directly.
Sometimes simple solutions are best. Lee
returns, then Matthew. To George's delight
neither have the donkey. George puts the tip jar
out on his piano. "You never know..." Matthew
and George begin to lay down the 'scratch
tracks' for 7 or so songs. The work progresses
very quickly now.
Lee's in another part of the
studio singing from a Peter, Paul, & Mary
songbook he's found. George and Matthew nail the vocals; usually in less than 2 takes
(the red hat is working overtime).
As night begins to fall, Matthew heads back to Houston; few hours later followed by George. Lee is the last to leave at around 11:30. It's been a long day, and the guys have worked hard. Nathan is the most tired of all, but the CD is off to a good start. The trio will return in early 2008 to finish up for a 1st quarter release, but for now the super donkey waits.
To Be Continued...
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