We’re recording. New record is coming along very well. Instrumental parts are done, and this month we will do vocals, mixing, and mastering. Gosh. It sounds good, I gotta be honest with you. This week we will all have access to rough mixes of the songs with all the parts for the first time, and I for one am pretty stoked. So far, only our fabulous producer Mike Southworth and myself have heard the songs with all the parts. I’m excited that the guys are finally going to hear all the new keyboard stuff. Their parts sound great, of course. The bass and drums lock in together like…like, uh…a key in a lock? I don’t know where I’m going with this, metaphors were never my forte. Anyway, the bass sounds gooooood. Especially the solos. The drums sound gooooood. Huge. Enormous. And in the fucking POCKET. Oh yes. There are lots of guitar parts and keyboard parts too. A LOT of keyboard parts, that I can personally attest to. For the first time, we have made an album that we will not be able to play live – I mean, we can play the songs fine and have been doing so for the last year or so. But there are so many parts on this new record, it sounds so lush and thick even without being mixed or adding the vocals that the song-paintings on the record will be an entirely different experience compared to the live performances. Neat.
Something that I’m rather tickled about regarding the new album is that I was able to play my parts on real instruments, not just my keyboards. So, my piano parts are on a real piano, with a beautiful warm tone ever-so-slightly out of tune, with all of those lovely overtones and sympathetic vibrations that can only come from wood, metal, natural materials. Ah. My rhodes parts on on a real rhodes, my wurly parts are on a real wurly. And best of all, my organ parts were played with a real leslie. I got to play draw-bars. I got to put exactly the right amount of spin on the leslie. I’m getting warm and fuzzy just remembering it…My synth parts were augmented by Southworth’s enormous banks of synth sounds. Instead of merely hundreds of sounds to choose from, I had thousands. Overall, I’m thrilled. With all the new keyboard parts I wrote, even with my solos. An unprecedented first for me, to be pleased with my work and how I sound. But why not? I practiced my ass off during the whole recording process. Who knows if we’re ever going to make another record…especially one with a $20 000 budget. I wanted to enjoy this opportunity to the fullest and capture the very edge of my skill, the maximum, best effort that I could possibly put forward. Even though it was a very deliberate plan, I am still joyously surprised with how very well this album is taking shape. I can hardly wait to hear how the vocal parts turn out.
Also we’ve got some sweet shows coming up here in Vancouver. This Friday we’re at the Cobalt. Come on down. I’m looking forward to showing off the band again. It feels like it’s been a long time since we’ve assembled ourselves to play some rock for the people. In fact, we haven’t been playing or rehearsing much since we started the recording process. So it will be good to get back into the performance saddle again.