Oh, I had some real fun this morning!

Woke up early and went into my studio room and cut the electric guitars for "Things". This tune rocks. It really does.

I'm kinda funny. As I'm playing my instrument, or even singing, I get really focused on what I'm doing, and sometimes I get all tense. Sometimes I don't realize it until I'm done and I undo all that tension. This morning, after cutting and recutting and rerecutting all those tracks, I could hardly stand up, my back was so stiff!

Or maybe I'm just getting old...

Nah.

What was it that Ian Anderson sang, "You're never to o-o-old to rock and ro-o-oll... If you're still to young to die...."

:-)

The last two days I've been working on a brand new one. I just wrote it earlier this month.

It's called, "The Things I Do". I'll post the lyrics up soon.

So, yesterday, I cut a very raw acoustic guitar line, and an even rawer vocal track. It's just a guide so that I can work out the structure of the song. I'll end up replacing all of that.

It's a fun tune. It's got a sort of late-model Cinderella feel to it, a hard rock blues. I'm playing slide on it, in fact, and that'll be interesting, because I've never really seriously done much slide. I've been practicing it a lot with the acoustic, so hopefully that'll translate to the recording.

Wow. Been a long time since I updated everyone. I can't begin to cover all the stuff that's gone down in the studio since then.

This morning, though, I worked on "Rejoice", a tune for my wife. It was written many years ago, but only recently has started to come forward in the studio. I think I cut the basic guitar tracks about a month ago.

It's got this cool bluesy sort of beat, and it's shifting keys all over the place. During the verses, I'm playing this cool sort of triplet kinda beat by slapping my knee with my hands. You know, kinda like when you just get this infectious beat in your head and you start tapping along? That's the feeling I'm getting from this.

Anyway, this morning I cut the drums and the bass. Well, the drums part is kinda missleading. Actually I only roughed in the the kick and the snare. The bass was tricky because there's a couple of guitar solo parts where the bass does this sort of scalar walking around kinda thing, almost jazz-band like. But with all those key changes, it was pretty tricky. I had to record it in sections.

Oh, and more on John N...

He did some orchestration for me on "Millstones" and we decided that he would just help me co-produce the rest of the CD. I'm pretty stoked about it, especially since that'll get me motivated to get focused on it and get it done.

Just wait and see. "How Beautiful" is going to be a testiment to the power of cooperation and synergy. A long time ago, John Newman, a good friend of mine, volunteered to do the choral arrangements for this song. I would have done it, and I think I would have done a fair job.

Well, today he emailed me the score and some MIDI files. I imported those into the song and lined them up. I was blown away. They truly take this song to a new level.

I am sooo lucky to have friends like him!

Last night I put some more touches on "Here in Me". I recorded the acoustic guitar on two tracks. One of them is clean and just strumming. You'll barely be able to hear it in the mix. It's there more for rhythmic sparkle, not so much for notes or harmonic value. Just a little arranging trick.

The other track, I fed through the virtual amp and distorted. It's the broken chords that help fatten up the chorus.

Then, the fun part. The part where I do a rough mix, and then listen to it over and over, louder and louder...

:-)

A while ago, but still recent enough, I wrote a new song called, "Out There". It's basically written to encourage young men of the church to keep themselves moral and to treat women with respect. It's got a bouncy sort of pop/punk sound.

Someday, I'll find myself a style. I promise! It's like a quest... :-)

Anyway, I had just thrown it down. Got it saved in the computer really quick and messy. So, this morning I recut the guitars and did some serious cleanup. It's a fun tune!

Another late night session. I recut the vocals on "Here in Me", and I feel like I did pretty well. I have a hard time telling when it works and when it doesn't, because I'm so close to it and I can't judge. But I feel like this one will be done soon. It's tricky to do the vocals this way. There's so much going on in the house, and I've only got a few minutes at a time...

I worked on "Here in Me" today. I didn't do too much, just added a horn part. In spite of the fact that I essentially had to rebuild this song from scratch, it's almost done.

I just have to:

1: cut the vocals
2: cut the acoustic guitar
3: cut the lead guitar
4: mix it.

And it's done. I could have it done in a week or so.

I could even perform it at Raspberry Days at Bear Lake at the first of August. I'm not too sure if I should rock too hard up there, though. I just don't know what the crowd's gonna be like.

Welcome to my musical blog! This will be the place where I'll jot notes on recordings I've been working on, new songs, performances, all things that are musical in my life.

My other blog, called "Mo' Boy Blog", is more for personal observations and things like that. I might talk about music, but in a more philosophical or editorial sorta way.

Here--it's more nutzandboltz what'sgoinon kinda stuf.

I'm pretty excited today because I just put out a new song! I just did the third remix today and released it to mp3. It's called "Pharisee", and it can be found at my iuma site.

I wanted a very mechanical sound during the verses, because that's where the protagonist is so mechanically and methodically going through the motions of being religious. So, I got my two boys, 3 and 5, down in the studio and we banged on pots and pans for a while. They had a blast. I sampled it all and plugged those samples into my drum module and created a rhythm.

I also got some other samples that I know I'm going to have to use someday. I got one of Jacob sneezing that is just so crystal clear. Every time I hear it I swear I have to wipe off my speakers!