Fun with words: 'background vocals'; 'session beers'

Our work last Monday on the poetry score to The Sydney Highrise Variations by Les Murray in Robert Goetz's home recording room (Studio Hate?) was a lesson in vocabulary.

We did a little bit of singing. Robert, Dave Melson, and myself all did some singing. On one take, I was supposed to be doing the lead and Robert was singing background vocals. We were trying to record the room sound, with both vocals going into the same microphone and onto the same track, for atmospheric effect.

Robert was standing at kind of an odd angle, and closer to the mic than me, for no great reason, that's just where he was when we ran through the session again. We listened back, and he was too loud in the mix. I suggested he move behind me - into the background.

The background. Vocals. Like, the background ... vocals. Background vocals. Now, I get it!

We also did some beer drinking. Poetry Scores' double-Grammy-nominated mix and master guy Adam Long brought me back a raft of New Glarus beers from his recent northern sojourn to his home country of Minneapolis. I thought I should share them. I shared them. We split each beer three ways.

These were beers ... for a recording session. Session ... beers! Like, session beers!

Actually, that's spurious etymology, since a "session beer" (to fancy beerhounds like us) is a beer you can drink any time and more than one of, a so-called "lawnmower beer," and New Glarus ain't that.

But, still, fun with words! That's what Poetry Scores is all about.