6/1/2005 - Mastering by Chris Griffin all finished. Wayne's working on the cover.

 

5/1/2005 - The recording and mixing is all finished! This turned out to be about a 500 hour project, which is a lot, but I think it's come out a bit better than Good, Smart Bear and it took about 200 hours less time. I'm felling really good about every song on this disc;  I think each one is everything I could make it for now with my budget and meager abilities. 

I still get frustrated with my voice at times but the vocals came out much stronger this time around than on GSB and plus I pushed myself a lot harder and covered some new ground. Now it's time to edit some outtakes together and start laying out the liner notes. I want to get clips of all the tunes up on the web site but that'll have to wait a little while.

 

4/1/2005 - 4/30/2005 - Fiddle on Great Big Love with Al Pieper. Lots of editing & guitar work as well and the final mix. Did lead guitars, space guitar and piano (leaving several sections of Todd's brialliant playing from earlier) plus the final mix on Song for China.

3/29/2005 - More work on Northern Spy, including the final mix. I hope.

 

3/26/2005 - Editing, a little more backup vocals & more mixing on Northern Spy.

3/25/2005 - Horns with Sam Skelton and Kevin Lyons on Northern Spy.

 

3/23/2005 - Acoustic lead guitars on Great, Big Love.

 

3/20/2005 - Telecaster lead gtr and premix for Great, Big Love.

 

1/1 - 3/5/2005 - Got a new computer, hence the lack of updates for awhile. Did some extra guitars on and mixed Open Letter to Andy Partridge. Mixed  Fat Americans, did some backup vocals with Laura and Mandy, did some guitars on Song For China with Matthew Troutwein, and took As Hard As We Try off the list for this disc. I like that song but 12 tunes is enough for one CD and it's getting late. The new computer kicks ass.

 

12/28 - Finished the remix of Don't Let Me Down.

12/27 - Piano and organ on Song For China with Todd Skrabanek.

 

12/19 - Added some more lead guitar on Don't Let Me Down, re-did some backup vocals that weren't working, and started the re-mix.

 

12/14 - Acoustic Guitar on As Hard As We Try.

 

12/13 - Marty Rifkin played pedal steel on Fat Americans and Pendulum from his studio in California.

 

12/11 - Rhythm guitars on Song For China.

 

12/7 - 12/9 - Lead & backing vocals on Song For China.

 

12/6 - Acoustic guitar on Song For China.

 

11/29 - Organ on As Hard As We Try.

 

11/28 - Fretless bass on the intro of As Hard As We Try. Not many things make me want to slit my wrists like playing fretless bass in the studio, but if you can stick it out, it's usually worth the extra trouble.

 

11/27 - Fretless bass on Song For China.

 

11/26 - Lead vocals on Fat Americans.

 

11/23/2004 - Organ on Fat Americans.

 

11/10 - 11/16/2004 - Bass, Acoustic and electric guitars on Fat Americans.

 

11/5/04 - Drum editing, EQ programming & clean up on Fat Americans.

 

10/27 - 10/31/2004 - Spacy guitars in the bridge of Open Letter to Andy Partridge, edited in Kent's crash cymbals, final drum program edits largely based on Kent's drum track from earlier and fixed a vocal thing. All that's left now is the trumpet part and mix down for this song.

 

10/18 - 10/26/2004 -- Mixdown of Nostalgia. Pre-mix work (as in track EQs, effects stuff and some editing) and backup vocals for Open Letter to Andy Partridge.

 

10/16 - 10/17 - Final editing, some extra guitars and a shaker part for Nostalgia.

 

10/8 - 10/15/2003 - Loops, synth parts, extra guitar, final editing & mixdown for Without You. Drums for Fat Americans and Song For China with Kevin Leahy .

 

10/3 - 10/7/2004 - Backup vocals, some extra lead vocal finishing touches and a new guitar layer in the bridge of Just One Thing, plus final editing and mixdown.

 

10/2/2004 - During the last month the following happened: Backup vocals and mix of Don't Let Me Down, prep work for drum sessions on Song For China and Fat Americans, backup vocals, guitar finishing touches and mix of Just One Thing .

 

9/2/2004 - I caved. Everything's taking so long with this project that I'm starting to worry that it'll never get finished. I've decided that I'm going to take four of the most finished-sounding demos and use them instead of re-working everything. Too bad I didn't make that decision before cutting drums and bass for their new versions! It'll still help get the disc finished faster though and I'll add some finishing touches to those demos and re-mix them.

 

8/30/2004 - Backup Vx, Clavinet and Electric Piano on Northern Spy.

 

8/20-8/29/2004 - Electric guitar, Acoustic guitar & Organ on Northern Spy, Vocals, backup vocals & elecric guitar on Pendulum.

 

8/7/2004 - Electric rhythm guitars on Pendulum.

 

7/31/2004 - Piano on Pendulum and Northern Spy with Todd Skrabanek .

 

7/29/2004 - During the "tonsillectomy break", somehow the following got done: Bass, Organ, vocals & backups, acoustic guitar & some editing/clean-up on Pendulum, Bass, editing/clean-up & lead vocals on Northern Spy. These songs have a long way to go but they're off and running now.

 

6/12/2004 - Acoustic Guitar & Bass on Pendulum. The fretless was a pain but it was worth the trouble.

 

6/11/2004 - Replaced Kick drums on Pendulum, did some clean-up.

06/08/2004 - Through a haze of hydrocodone (from my tonsillectomy yesterday) I think I managed to finish up guitars on Don't Let Me Down and the percussion, too. All that's left is the vocal, but I can't imagine doing that until next week some time!

 

06/06/2004 - Finished up most of the guitars on Don't Let Me Down. Did a tambourine track and a shaker thing, too.

 

06/05/2004 - Wurly and Electric guitars on Don't Let Me Down.

06/02/2004 - Acoustic guitar on Don't Let Me Down.

 

05/31/2004 - Drum edits/clean-up and organ on Don't Let Me Down.

 

05/30/2004 - Quick remix of Inside My Country; guitars weren't quite loud enough.

 

05/29/2004 - Played my new mandolin on Inside My Country, and finished the mix. Immediately took the mandolin in for a set up afterwards because the intonation was so bad I had to tune it differently and punch in for every single friggin' chord. Once the nut gets cut down it should be much better. Still felt good to know I could buy one of these things and actually put it to use within a couple of weeks. There's nothing like a good chord book.

 

05/28/2004 - Started mixing Inside My Country. 

 

05/23/2004 - Pre-mix, clean-up and editing on Inside My country .

 

05/19/2004 - Finished up guitars on Inside My Country. Managed to eek out a little slide part that fits pretty well.

 

05/18/2004 - Scrapped my vocals on Inside My Country from 5/16 because they SUCKED and re-did them. I've never edited, moved and spliced so shamelessly. They came out pretty good this time, though.

 

05/17/2004 - Drums with Keith Runfola.

 

05/16/2004 - Lead guitar and vocals on Inside My Country.

 

05/12/2004 - Acoustic on Inside My Country.

 

05/09/2004 - Organ on Inside My Country.

 

05/08/2004 - Drum edits & elec. guitars on Inside My Country.

 

05/01/2004 - Bass on Great, Big Love, editing/clean-up on Pendulum.

 

04/28/2004 - Bass on As Hard As We Try.

 

04/26/2004 - Bass on Inside My Country.

 

04/25/2004 - Drums for Just One Thing and Great Big Love with Larry Griffith.

 

04/24/2004 - Bass on Without You and prep for drums tomorrow.

 

04/18/2004 - Bass on Don't Let Me Down, Open Letter to Andy partridge and Nostalgia.

 

04/07/2004 - Drums for Without You and Nostalgia with Kent Aberle.

 

04/06/2004 - Prep work for drums tomorrow.

 

03/28/2004 - Recorded drums for Open Letter To Andy Partridge, Don't Let Me Down and As Hard As We Try with Kent Aberle.

03/27/2004 - Recorded drums for Northern Spy and Pendulum with Jeff Dahner (www.nillah.net).

03/03/2004 - Drum sessions with Steve Warner (www.TinyGirl.Net).