Tracking Day at The Attic

I spent the day at Ken Lewis's upstairs studio, The Attic, alongside Ken, Brent Milligan and Ben Shive. Situated next to a powder blue upright piano, I have sauntered away this clear blue day in a green leatherette chair listening to the great parts these gentlemen have individually and collectively come up with. Brent, Ben and Ken are artists in the truest sense of the word, brushing their own musical colorings on the open-sky painting at large. They infuse so much of their own art, determination and professionalism into these songs that it puts me to shame. While no man is an island, here and now I am reminded that few, if any, artists are able to create anything worthwhile wholly on his/her own. That is easily the case here. I am a singer-songwriter. These guys are musicians. They speak a language I can barely decipher, and even when I can occasionally follow, then not all the time. I sit, nearly dumbfounded, but absolutely in awe of their abilities as they listen through each song once, maybe twice, charting notes along the way, talk amongst themselves honing in on specific chord movements saying things like "four over two", and then it's off and running as the microphones detail the occasion.




Brent playing the autoharp.

Today was Day One of bass and drums. Ken (drums, percussion) and Brent (bass, autoharp) kicked things off at 9:45am with smashing contributions to "In the Movies", then "Reality Came Crashing Down", where 1pm sneaked up on us just that quickly. We four grown men (barely) piled into my '65 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia to eat lunch at The Daily Dish where we parked and ate next to country music star Brad Paisley. After some incredible chicken and shrimp cacciatore, we (barely) piled back into the Ghia to head back to The Attic to work on "Chrome", "The Traveling Onion", "I Had To Tell You" and "Louisiana in the Dark". I say "work", but what I actually mean is that they actually worked while I reposed in the green chair, coffee in hand, nodding and offering my nimble opinion when asked.

It was good, so good, to see major progress made on these songs today, to witness the contributions of such skilled artisans to these little songs of mine, to hear beauty and space breathed into the mere guitar parts I played a few weeks ago. As I said in an earlier post, this is the fun part. And it continues again on Thursday when we'll hunker down in The Modern Metropolitan Museum of Paul where Paul Eckberg (drums), Tony Lucido (bass), Ben Shive will continue the reverie and the foreign language which they so eloquently and efficiently speak.

Tracking Day Doth Approach

A couple of big tracking days are occurring this week. Tuesday, we are working at Ken Lewis's studio tracking percussion along with Brent Milligan playing bass. EP = superdad eager to hear what these fine gentlemen come up with. Ken, of course, played drums and percussion all over Scarce, and is a wacky nice guy. Brent, who has been out on the road with Michael W. Smith and Stephen Curtis Chapman as of late, was the wonderful mind behind much of what made Scarce so gosh darn enjoyable (to me, at least). I'll be glad to be in the same room, at the same time, with Brent, Ken and Ben. Mental note: bring camera.

On Thursday, we will be tracking more drums and bass, this time with Paul Eckberg on drums at his brilliantly named studio, The Modern Metropolitan Museum of Paul, along with Tony Lucido on bass, a gentleman I've never worked with before. Ben assures me he's nice, especially since he knows I don't like working with mean people. I'm sure he's a good egg.

This week will be actual, physical progress, and for that I cannot wait. Recording drums and bass will be like giving a short man stilts to not only see, but be seen. It will be like filling a previously empty swimming pool. It will be like uncorking and sipping on a fine bottle of wine along with a spread of brie. In short, I am eager to see what these fine folks brew up. Poor similes aside, I'll keep you posted.

Day Seven (10/10/08)

Day 7
The final day of recording acoustic guitars!

Ben and I decided early on to record the acoustic guitars first in this process (most times drums are recorded first). Doing this will hopefully make tracking day (drums & bass) a much quicker, and therefore less expensive, process. Studio-wise, time usually equals money. A tight budget means we have to work quickly and wisely.

This morning I tried recording the acoustic guitar part for "Chrome" (a third-person song about my being a bicycle; I saw a bike at a subway stop chained to a post rusted, weathered and abandoned in Washington DC when Gabe Scott was with me on tour several years ago. It had obviously been left there by its owner several years prior. I wrote the song then - 2004 - but never did anything with it until now.), but I wasn't good enough to adequately pull off the part. So, instead, we asked Andy Gullahorn (one of the most tasteful guitar accompanists I know) to record the part. Besides, I'd been wanting to invite Andy to play on an album ever since Scarce came out in '06, so this was a great opportunity. After eating a Bar B Cutie lunch with Andy Osenga, Cason Cooley and Ben's doppelganger brother Josh, we drove to Gullahorn's place (The Night Owl's Nest) where he played the delicate, finger-picky guitar part, along with a couple of beautiful layering tracks, much better than I could have ever accomplished. Jill (Phillips) (whose wonderful new album releases on Dec. 1) was kind enough to bake us a chocolate pie upon completion of the task. Sugar rush on, Ben and I drove back to the Beehive to record acoustic guitars for "Run Down", the 11th and final song to track. This is a song based on the epic Richard Adams rabbit novel, Watership Down. If you've never read the book, please do.

A week of non-stop song arranging, acoustic guitars, and singing rough vocals has me mentally fried. I'm out of shape in more than just the physical sense. None of this is physical labor per se, but it certainly taxes the mind. At least it does mine since album-making is not an everyday activity for me. To know that we have all eleven acoustic guitar parts done is a most welcome moment. There were times while I was writing some of these that I was unsure I'd ever figure out how to actually play them, much less record them for posterity sake. I'm glad it's on tape now.

Ben and I break for another week or so before scheduling some tracking days with a drummer (to be named), a percussionist (to be named), and bass player (ditto). That's when the real fun starts. More to come. Thanks for staying tuned in. I'm glad you're here.