One thing that popular movies get wrong about bands recording an album is that the whole band sits in a recording studio in a circle and just plays “the songs” live. Nah, man. That may have been the case in Little Richard’s time, but for well over 40 years, songs – and albums – have been assembled like a puzzle, with the only real guide the original intent of the songwriter (via his/her demo recording) and the intuition of the producers and recording engineers. The only real limitation is time. While this process can result in legendary recordings (like our own Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia), when it comes to playing the songs live, you kinda have to reverse engineer your parts.

Part of Zia’s process in learning her parts for live performance is what you see here. Zia makes these notes for herself during the initial rehearsal sessions whenever the Dandys venture forth on performing new material. She doesn’t need keep the notes on hand very long at all, just a few days. Quite frankly, I don’t know how we still have this sitting around the Odditorium, since these notes were obviously transcribed two studios ago. I think we have not thrown anything away, ever.

GOTHMAN