Additional work on "Awaken"

We did an extra session on Wednesday (as documented by Josh), so it was easy to slide behind the boards and get right back to work for Thursday's normally scheduled programming. We got a couple of tracks done, including cutting a new 12-string part where the song strips down and a bell part that may or may not make the cut. We also did a few other small parts and finalized the song's overall layout.

We're hoping to get the song "rough-mixed" enough to take it to Mike's soon - hopefully next week - and get the drum tracks completed for the final song on the album (and coincidentally, it looks like ATM might be the album closer, too). But the song is definitely so wheat! (No ice!)

EEEEEVVVVVIIIIILLLLL...........

That's the best word I can use to describe one of the small rewrites Mark and I did to one section of Awaken the Man. Mark and I got together last night to try and finish the song. We have so little left to do on it, we wanted to try and get it done quickly to hand off to Mike for drums.

Without giving too much away, one of the verses we were still working on as of last night is sung over a nylon guitar riff. We decided it might be a good idea to change one of the motifs of that section to help the music move along a little better. Don't ask me why, but very quickly I came up with this dark, dark, DARK chord progression that, to be honest, even surprised me as to where the devil incarnate has been hiding. Okay, let's be serious; it's not like we started worshipping Satan and all of a sudden he blessed me with Slayer-like riffage, but considering the musical output we've had so far, we usually don't find ourselves walking down the sonic path like this. It's so dark sounding for our tastes, in fact, that I'm planning on re-using the same chord progression for some Opeth-ish music I've been sitting on until this CD is finished.

I'm happy to say that we have the lyrics for the last two verses we've been working on. As always, I was having some trouble articulating what I wanted to say in a "lyrical" manner, but with Mark's help we got it working just fine. Laid some scratch vox down and it's sounding very swell.

Mark emailed me lyrics for the verse he had been working on. I was confused by them at first, because when we last spoke about the subject matter he had given me the impression that he was going to write about one thing, when in fact he ended up writing about something else. Once he filled me in on the subject (I can be a bit dense, you see) it totally clicked, and I dig what he came up with a lot. He has been toying around with a melody for the section, which I haven't heard yet, so hopefully tonight he'll be able to rough track his vox so I can hear what he's come up with.

There is one (yes, only one) section left that we need to make a decision on; whether or not there will be singing. I have an idea for a melody, and I've been telling Mark about it for a while now, but I haven't articulated it to him enough for him to really hear my idea and tell me what he thinks. Though I still have the very faint lingering of a chest cold/congestion, I'll try to lay down a rough vocal track for him to check out.

We're waiting to hear back from Mike as to when we can hand the song off to him and have him record. He's been listening to our original demo for a week or two now, so hopefully he's gotten a good idea of what he wants to do.

Happy Holidays

Peace and goodwill and all that mushy stuff. Mark and I both had a cool holiday, and we hope you all did as well. Since we last blogged, we finished the rest of the drum tracks (minus ATM) for the album. It's great to see Mike get excited about the songs. Seeing someone who initially had no input into the songwriting take a vested interest in how well the songs turn out is very cool, and once again Mike has shown us why he's such a trusted friend among our crew of musicians. A stand-up guy all the way.

I personally haven't had a lot of time to listen to the rough cuts with the new drums due to travel, but I'm planning on doing a bunch of listening this week. We're back at Mark's this week to (hopefully) finish the rest of the lyrics for ATM, at which point we can officially declare the song written so Mike can get his hands on it. He's been listening to the track since we gave him the first demo, so I think he'll be ready to go as soon as we tell him. At this point it's really a question of how long one of the verses is going to be. We didn't want to start tracking the drums until we knew how long the fourth verse was going to be. We should know by this coming Wednesday or Thursday.

As for X-Mas, I was happy to receive an iTunes gift certificate, some jazz fakebooks ('cause you can never have enough), and a bunch of jazz CDs. I'm digging them quite a lot, so thanks to the family for the goods. I bought myself a new pickup for my beloved archtop guitar. It hasn't arrived yet, and I'm champing at the bit for it to come in. I'm certainly not looking forward to paying my guitar tech to install it (it 'aint cheap!), but I'm hoping that the modification will give me the tonal quality I'm looking for. Wish me luck!

Second Session

Went back to the studio for some more recording of Mike's drums. he continues to amaze and impress us in every regard. He's bringing an energy to the songs, some of which are two years old now, giving them (and us) some renewed energy and excitement. Not that we don't love our songs, but after hearing them for two years or so, they tend to get a bit too "familiar."

Last night we got drum tracks for Turn It Around and The Bottom. As expected, Mike kicked the crap out of the tracks; he really does our songs justice. We go back tonight to hopefully finish three more, which would leave us only with Awaken The Man. Since ATM is only recently finished, we still have to figure out a timeline for having Mike record the drum tracks for it. We're not sure if the demo version is sufficient for recording, so we may have to go back to Mark's place to re-cut some stuff to be more permanent. As I write this, I'm listening to the demo version of ATM, and I'm just picturing what Mike is going to do with it. I can't wait!

First session with Mike…

So last night, into the wee hours of the morning, we watched/helped Mike lay down tracks to "Song for Life" and "Better than Before"... and all I can say is,


We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy!

Man, these tracks are gonna SLAM.