OPTICAL DELUSION
A History
Music has, over the past two years, become a very important part of my life. It's never been something, growing up, that I thought I would do. Yet, here I am. I'm a drummer. I'm in a rock band. We're recording an album. It's amazing to me, if to no one else.
The history of Optical Delusion is an interesting one. It originated in Texas with my brother, Chris, under the name Black Monkey Project. He had a bunch of losers in the band. Not that it mattered. He ended up moving to Statesboro GA where we met (see “Hellview City Limits” & “Chris & Ricky”). He restarted the band there with more idiots that liked shitty music. Awesome. Anyways, finally Chris moved to Connecticut where it just got worse. Jared. I escaped Statesboro and finally moved to Jesup, where I currently reside at the time of this writing. While in Connecticut, Black Monkey Project finally died and he decided he was sick of just any old moron fucking up his dream of making good music. He turned to me. Our conversation went basically like this:
Chris : Meh, learn the goddamn drums.
Ricky : Okay.
Chris moved to Florida and I spent $300 (pretty much entire tax return from 2005) on a set of Pulse drums. I started with a book for about a month: Learn to Play the Drum set by Peter Magadini. I got pretty sick of learning out of the book. I learned the basic rock beat and how to set up my drums, and I said “Fuck it” and started work on my own. Chris sent me a few guitar recordings and I got to work. That was approximately April of 2005. I spent the next nine months practicing constantly. Finally in January 2006 our music came to life.
At some point during all this Chris's dad tried to say “optical illusion” and fucked up, saying “optical delusion.” We had a name. Rock.
In January I made a trip to Florida where we had plans to start recording. Remember, this was a scant nine months after I'd first picked up a pair of drum sticks. I had a week. I was on vacation from work and it was not only a recording session, it was the first opportunity for Chris and I to see each other for a long time.
We got right to work practicing. We did pretty well except we couldn't play Depths of a Cracked Mind for shit. So, finally on the 25 Jan we began recording. The first song: A Bag of Jargon.
We recorded each of the parts separately, beginning with myself. It was difficult because I was used to playing with a guitar accompaniment, and suddenly I had to play alone. Lame. So, I talked Chris into hooking some headphones into a small amp so he could step out of the room while I played and recorded. Pretty haggard, but it worked. I can't remember precisely, but it only took a few takes before I got it. He immediately popped it into the computer and soon he had the bass and guitar tracks recorded. He made a rough mix. WOW. It was great. I wrote in my livejournal that day that it sounded “rather cactus.” I hold to this today.
The next day we did some more work on A Bag of Jargon. Chris recorded and mixed in some keyboard and I recorded a short drum solo to end the song. It turned out pretty well. Over the next few days we recorded three more songs: Power Struggle, Depths of a Cracked Mind, and Subspace. All turned out great. Depths proved to be the most trouble and we ended up having to record it into two parts. I like to call it the “cursed song” because, to this day, we don't seem to be able to get through it entirely when we play together. It's mostly me because I suck.
Subspace was also an interesting song. Chris wanted to add an effect to the drums. He got the idea from Led Zeppelin's When the Levee Breaks. Simply put, we moved the drums and recording equipment into his garage and miced the walls instead of the drums themselves. This way we recorded the echo of the drums. It turned out pretty good. The effect was awesome and even though I don't particularly have a “favorite” song, Subspace is my favorite in regards to the sound of the drums, especially the fills. They sound amazing.
We met again in April 2006. We recorded two more songs: Lonely Cactus Blues and I Had the Plague. Both turned out well, except I had nothing for one riff of Plague. We skipped that part. Instead of the usual 4/4 time signature, the riff is in 7/8..or something. We also recorded a short jam we added to the end of Lonely Cactus Blues called Stolen Jam. It's pretty great.
To date, that is the last recording we have done. However, on my birthday, 9 Sept, we got together again to play a small “concert” for my friends and family. About fourteen people showed up to the first ever Optical Delusion performance. I called it Cactus Concert 2006. It turned out great, in general. A few low blows were the fact that Chris and I have so little opportunity to play together. We're both used to practicing alone and only meeting to actually record. In fact, the first time we'd ever really played together was in January 2006, when we started recording Self-Titled. We both made mistakes, but apparently they went unnoticed.
The second “disaster” neither of us could prevent. My nephew, Michael, who was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2004, had a seizure while we jammed Stolen Jam, about halfway through the show. We paused the show for about twenty minutes until he was given medicine. Sadly the medicine put him “under” for the remainder of the show. It was a real bummer and I wasn't even sure if we should continue. His mother, however, assured us he was fine, and we moved on.
The recording also turned out pretty poorly. A friend of mine from work, Steve, was supposed to lend us recording equipment and a PA system. However, at the last minute something came up and he had to leave town. In the end, we had neither PA system nor recording equipment. I'm sure the audience didn't mind, as we were forced to play all of the songs acoustically, sans vocals. That wasn't so terrible, but the lack of recording equipment hurt. Our only means of recording was a ten year old video camera. It worked except it didn't pick up low sounds well at all. Many of my fills and the bass drum were either barely picked up or not at all. However, all in all, I'm still happy with it.
Final recording was completed in January of 2007. It was mixed and produced by Chris, and pressed by a South Carolina company named DubHouse. Self-Titled was released both as a CD and on itunes in August of the same year. I personally think it turned out great.