The Daily Dung--With Katharine and Company in the Recording Studio…

 
According to the 10/13 edition of The Daily Dung, the magazine’s fly on the wall par excellence, Omni Scient, managed to track down the recording studio where Katharine McPhee is recording her new album. Mr. Scient noticed it was the studio while hiding inside a post office letter drop box one day last week to spy on other celebrities going into a Starbucks across the street. He expected to possibly see Katharine show up at the Starbucks—but instead saw a furniture truck pull up outside the recording studio with Katharine and Nick Cokas following behind in their own car. When Mr. Scient saw a large couch, a lamp, a refrigerator and a digital TV being unloaded from the truck and into the studio…the thought was that Katharine was living in the studio as she worked long hours there. TDD reports that Mr. Scient then drove to UPS and had them bundle him inside a package to be delivered into the studio that evening. Mr. Scient knew about the Kat Pack and had the package addressed as coming from them so Katharine would accept it into the studio. With a few holes poked into the sides of the package to enable breathing and peeking—Mr. Scient listened in to and watched the conversations inside the studio that night during a particular recording session…

 
According to Mr. Scient, his first attempt at looking through the package holes was noticing Kat taking a five minute nap on the couch she brought in earlier that day. She apparently was waiting for her producers to come in and work for an evening recording session. At one point, she woke up, became bored from waiting, and started drawing little pen marks on her hands and arms again with a nearby available Sharpie. Witnessing this phenomenon up close got Omni so excited that he accidentally hit his head inside the box he was in…causing the package to jolt unexpectedly from where it sat on the floor. He could see that Kat noticed the package moving--and she went over to the package with a look people get when they think there’s a mouse or a rat in the room. She was just about to peek into one of the easily visible side holes when there was a knock on the nearby studio door. Fortunately, Kat appeared to want to wait and open the package until after the recording was over for the night.

 
In came three producers who were working with Katharine on several songs that would be recorded in a matter of half an hour. One was Nate Hills—and the other two were older white guy producers who obviously had worked in the business a lot longer than Hills had. The first guy was introduced as John J. Combover and the second was Frank Lugubrious….while mentioning that they’d worked in the industry going back to the 1950’s with the likes of such people as Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. Something came up about Clive Davis bringing in these two new guys after two others were fired recently. As Hills introduced Katharine to them, Kat and Nate both exchanged gangsta hand symbols that seemed to confuse the other two producers. One of them tried to mimic the gestures and ended up making a peace sign instead. The other one could only manage a sideways Vulcan hand sign. Everybody reportedly stared at one another with a chilly silence for a few seconds—and then broke the ice by breaking out into loud guffaws. Soon after, other staff arrived to get one track produced by Nate recorded before it got too late.

 
TDD reports that Omni loved the first song the group worked on that night. The beat was hot, the melody line creative, and Katharine’s voice was in the pocket. The balance of a Hip-Pop rhythm was just perfect and had turned into a new Nate Hills masterpiece that prompted the guy to high-five Katharine who was sitting nearby listening to playback. Everything was great until the other two producers stood up in the middle of the playback and said that the song needed some work. Mr. Combover reportedly said he wanted a few jazz chords thrown into the chorus and thought Kat should do a “into the bleachers” ending. Mr. Lugubrious said it should have a flute accompaniment during the bridge. More silence apparently ensued—followed by Nate Hills going over to the studio wall, banging his head on it…and then calmly walking over to Mr. Combover to ask what a “into the bleachers” ending is plus a demonstration of a jazz chord. After quick demonstrations from Mr. Combover on a nearby studio piano, Mr. Lugubrious proceeded to take out a flute to demonstrate what the bridge would sound like with it accompanying behind Kat’s voice. An air of disagreement rang out in the room when Hills said their ideas should promptly be stuck somewhere TDD can’t describe for their reading audience. Hills nearly shoved the flute up Mr. Lugubrious’ nasal passages before Katharine intervened to try to stop the bickering and get something creative done for the night.

Omni really gives some good insight into how Katharine seems to be a great peace diplomat among feuding people. He says Kat yelled out for the arguing producers in the room to shut up, sit down, and start learning who each other are so some kind of fusion could happen before more time and money was wasted.  Kat went over to stand in-behind Nate as if controlling a ventriloquist dummy. She started impersonating his voice:

 
“Yo, Mr. Combover and Mr. Lugubrious. Some call me by my real name…but my best friends called me Danja. I respect that you’re producers from an era before I was even a glint in my grandparents’ eye…and can probably find some way of incorporating your production ideas into Katharine’s song. But first, let me teach you a little bit about the ‘hood and my culture. And then I’ll educate you that I’m not all 100% about Hip-Hop in music.”

 
Katharine reportedly then ran over behind Mr. Combover to do an impersonation of him. She held her nose to create the guy’s nasal sound:

 
“Hi there. I’m Mr. Combover. I guess that’s pronounced ‘Com-bover’, right? Well, I understand that I’m not hip on the Hip-Hop sounds out there. I also think I understand that this isn’t 1962 any more. I’m a consciously aware person of other cultural sounds and will do my best to understand them when working around one who believes in them. I’ll also practice in the mirror doing those gangsta signs so we can get along better. That doesn’t mean, though, that any of us are actual gangstas.”

 
Then she went behind Mr. Lugubrious to do the same thing.

 
“Hey there, Mr. Danja. I think my last name is usually found on advanced vocabulary tests—though that doesn’t matter. I, with Mr. Combover, know Jazz like Katharine does. But we’re perfectly capable of knowing that the chords don’t stop there. In fact, I think we’re capable of combining more contemporary sounds with the past…just like Katharine has been doing.”

 
Everybody apparently fell silent again and stirred around in their seats as if they’d just looked into a mirror and saw a million of their flaws exposed to the world. Then the producers all looked around at one another and let out more loud guffaws to break the ice.

 
Omni says that Katharine just looked incredulous—yet still expected the producers to try to come up with something for the song material before it turned midnight. Being a beer fan, she opened the nearby refrigerator that had been moved in earlier in the day, took out some cans of beer, and gave each of the producers a can as she took off for a bathroom break. Omni had trouble hearing everything in the background, but some staff member in the back of the studio informed the producers later that Katharine got stuck on the phone with her manager and some family members. It’d be probably half an hour before she got back to work in the studio. That’s when Omni reports hearing the refrigerator door open in the middle of some interesting cultural discussions among the producers. One empty beer can fell down near the box Omni was in—followed by two…then three…then four.

 
When Katharine finally came back into the studio, she found Danja doing a juggling routine with empty beer cans and singing ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ in a slurred voice. Mr. Combover and Mr. Lugubrious were making up spontaneously slurred rap to each other. Obviously some kind of cultural understanding happened while Kat was away…even if it was instigated by Miller Lite.

 
Mr. Scient then says that Katharine took advantage of this and had the producers butt creative heads as Kat recorded the three tracks she wanted done for the night. The end result turned into something overly creative. An unannounced visit by Clive Davis to the studio at the end of the evening brought on some interesting descriptions of the playback. Quotes of “Kat singing with an off-balance washing machine in the background” and “Strange sounds of a kazoo and a duck-caller in the drum machine track” were only a part of Mr. Davis’s curiosity into just what she was creating here. Kat explained that the Beatles used mentally-enhancing drugs to create their albums—and that beer may have brought on the same result in this studio tonight. However, Katharine decided to let these tracks stay under wraps until unreleased material would be needed for a box set someday. Clive Davis let her have them under her ownership to hide in her own home until then…even though Mr. Scient could clearly hear Clive suggest Kat burn them in an outdoor bonfire ritual.

 
Omni looked out one more time through the box peephole and could see Kat and Clive looking down on Kat’s couch. Passed out on it were Nate Hills, Mr. Combover and Mr. Lugubrious…with about twenty beer cans lying around them. Kat reportedly covered the producers up with a blanket, kissed Clive Davis good night…and then decided to turn her attention to the box Mr. Scient was hiding in. Mr. Scient reports in the last part of the article that he had to dodge the giant razor blade inside as Kat opened it. Omni originally planned to cut himself out of it to escape while Kat slept. Now TDD’s master fly on the wall was about to be seen for the first time by a celebrity…

 
Apparently Katharine gasped a little when seeing Omni inside the box. Being the quick thinker he is, though, he jumped out, started doing a tap dance and warbled a made-up ditty about the Kat Pack sending a singing telegram. Kat just stood there stunned and finally uttered a confused sound of appreciation. When another painful bout of silence ensued…Omni’s mind went blank and he darted out the door. Fortunately, he also was smart enough to put on a mask he had with him of Michael Sandecki, the nerdy Clay Aiken impersonator seen on the ‘AI’ finale in May. Omni always keeps this mask in his back pocket in the off-chance he’s ever seen and so his real face will never be seen.

 
TDD says that they’ll try a way to get into Katharine’s studio again later—but through a method with fewer risks. And reports are now that Katharine later called in a police report about Michael Sandecki sneaking into her studio while hiding in a giant package. There’s been no arrest of Mr. Sandecki yet as of press time, but TDD claims no responsibility if he actually is.