Traveling Again and other adventures
Yep, I'm traveling again, only 4 days after returning from my vacation in Italy, I'm back on a plane to the Cayman Islands, for a working vacation. This weekend is Cayman Islands Jazz Fest and two artists I've been mixing for are performing, and an extremely talented artist/producer is also there, who's been a steady client of mine for many years. check out www.BenJHudson.com my absolute favorite song of his, one of my favorite songs period is called "Found A Girl". Anyway, it should be a good weekend of music, meetings and hopefully some sunshine. I also LOVE snorkling and the Caymans offer some of the best snorkling on Earth (i've been there before). I would love to scuba dive, but the remote risk of hearing damage negates any chance of me ever taking that risk, and speaking of pressure, I seem to be at the leading edge of catching a cold, and the decent into Houston, Texas to catch my connector i honestly thought my head might explode. I'm now in the air over the Carribean, and with some good cold drugs in my system, the flight is fine so far. I'm not looking forward to the decent though. thats the hard part.
Anyway, I'm also running on 45 minutes of sleep (more like rest), meaning, I havent been alseep in about 24 hours how, and i'm surprisingly wide awake. All this traveling gave me the rare opportunity to find time to read a book. I love reading books, (i just finished "The Rule of Four"...very good) but I rarely do because its such a time drain, and a good book has a hypnotic quality about it capable of distracting you from all else you know you should be doing (like getting some rest on the plane or mixing a record), so you can read "just one more chapter" which always turns into just four more chapters. So, i avoid books mostly. Kind of like video games. too addicting. I think i wear lack of sleep like some twisted badge of honor, like its an accomplishment or great feat of endurance instead of a feat of stupidity. Its certainly been like that many times throughout my career doing marathon sessions. The longest I've gone without even a cat nap was 67 hours STRAIGHT. I was mixing Public Enemy at the time and was so energized by the privledge of working with such a legendary group that the hours easily melted away. In fact my favorite mix on the album was the one I printed at the very end of the 67 hour stretch. If i tried to stay awake that long now I would end up in the hospital. 35 years old is MUCH different than 25. Especially when you've pushed your body to its limits over and over for years on end. I still quite often work insane hours, still often work 100+ hour weeks, but i'm trying to taper them off. Its hard. When i was working on The College Dropout, I barely slept for about ten days straight, i finally passed out from exhaustion, literally, when the final song was complete, and I have a Grammy to show for it. It was worth it. When it was over I think i slept for about 14 hours straight, dead to the world.
Well, this has been quite a rambling, fairly pointless entry, except i guess to show you young folk who want careers in this business how demanding the job actually is. It can and often does completely consume your whole life from the moment you wake up from too little sleep to the moment you pass out again from a very long work day. 3 days in the Caymans will do me wonders, even though i've just been on vacation. This should happen more often. More updates to come.
-Ken
Anyway, I'm also running on 45 minutes of sleep (more like rest), meaning, I havent been alseep in about 24 hours how, and i'm surprisingly wide awake. All this traveling gave me the rare opportunity to find time to read a book. I love reading books, (i just finished "The Rule of Four"...very good) but I rarely do because its such a time drain, and a good book has a hypnotic quality about it capable of distracting you from all else you know you should be doing (like getting some rest on the plane or mixing a record), so you can read "just one more chapter" which always turns into just four more chapters. So, i avoid books mostly. Kind of like video games. too addicting. I think i wear lack of sleep like some twisted badge of honor, like its an accomplishment or great feat of endurance instead of a feat of stupidity. Its certainly been like that many times throughout my career doing marathon sessions. The longest I've gone without even a cat nap was 67 hours STRAIGHT. I was mixing Public Enemy at the time and was so energized by the privledge of working with such a legendary group that the hours easily melted away. In fact my favorite mix on the album was the one I printed at the very end of the 67 hour stretch. If i tried to stay awake that long now I would end up in the hospital. 35 years old is MUCH different than 25. Especially when you've pushed your body to its limits over and over for years on end. I still quite often work insane hours, still often work 100+ hour weeks, but i'm trying to taper them off. Its hard. When i was working on The College Dropout, I barely slept for about ten days straight, i finally passed out from exhaustion, literally, when the final song was complete, and I have a Grammy to show for it. It was worth it. When it was over I think i slept for about 14 hours straight, dead to the world.
Well, this has been quite a rambling, fairly pointless entry, except i guess to show you young folk who want careers in this business how demanding the job actually is. It can and often does completely consume your whole life from the moment you wake up from too little sleep to the moment you pass out again from a very long work day. 3 days in the Caymans will do me wonders, even though i've just been on vacation. This should happen more often. More updates to come.
-Ken
posted by Protools Mixing at 1:22 PM
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