Record Update 4

January 18th, 2009 · 91 Comments

So it’s looking like a post-per-month situation here, folks. But this means that we are hard at work on more important aspects of the band. And this is true:

We’re up to a total of 17+ tracks that have been recorded and are at some state of progress. I’ll even go further to say that about 15 have guitars and drums, 13 have bass included and about 7 have vocals as well. Right now, we’re nearing the very end of full-band sessions. There are just a few songs that either need to be revamped or to have a final order written out and then recorded. From there on out it’s overdub season where I go to work on extra instrumentation and vocals. As of the last few weeks we’ve been “spinning” rough MP3’s of the body of work so far and have been very pleased with overall sound, diversity, performance and feel. I think that we’ve been favoring a good number of mellow songs, but I believe it’s because the “rockers” are a bit older. Once we hear them in their final mixes with added instrumentation, it’s a whole different ball game. That’s what I find to be one of the more strange things about making an album. A song that has been played a million times live can come out to be totally different in the studio setting. And also, a song that the band has never played live before can rival numbers they’ve been playing for years. It’s a scary journey into the future of every moment – and we somehow come out with a stamp of music and time.

My SLR camera has been making multiple appearances at sessions for the record and I would like to get a few shots up in the photo section. I hope to do this soon, but I also would like to save a lot of them for possible artwork purposes (boo!). However, most importantly, the record is moving along at faster speeds than myself or anyone could have thought for this project. We’re a more fluid band than we’ve ever been. Believe it or not, we actually have processes that make sense to us and have held up over time. They’ve been refined and it helps keep us on track. Just last week, we spent the whole day listening to the current state of every track we’ve laid down thus far. When the track was finished, the three of us and our friend/producer, Steve, would make notes on the opinions of the song and what it may need. Considering that we have a list of 20+ tracks to eventually finish, this process points us to the strongest tracks and we then concentrate our efforts in that direction. In about a week or two the sessions will be narrowed down to more specific and meticulous parts of the record. Vocals are the next big step.

Now, as for the “live” version of these tunes, we just spent a weekend in Chicago playing a pair of successful shows. Thanks to Northpilot for sharing a bill with us and also to everyone who came out to see us play. A very special thanks goes out to those who let us crash at their place and/or keep them up until 4:30AM. There was a coffee challenge and a beer challenge. However, the egg challenge has been postponed until further notice. If we are to talk of the future, we will be playing Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts on Saturday, June 7th on the Calder stage at 12:30PM. Our performances were “rained out” for the last two installments, but I feel lucky. After all, this year is my golden birthday! And lastly, I must mention open mic at Gardella’s every Tuesday at 10PM. Rider and myself host, playing mostly material that isn’t heard at “regular old shows”. Two-dollar domestic bottles and a five-dollar burger and beer combo! C’mon, you know your Monday wasn’t this cool.

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