Click, click, click...

So since we haven't had a chance to get any drums laid down, Marcin and I went at Passing into August using a metronome through our headphones. VERY TOUGH! haha It actually ended up being nearly impossible for me to play, keep time and sing all at once to a subtle click in my ear so we ended up just doing the acoustic and bass. I will sing later when I don't have to keep a steady beat. Here we are with the first attempts.

"If you're MAN Enough"

When Dave isn't setting up mics and mixing tracks, he's a professional trash talker! haha "I'm just sayin..."

Lazy Musicians....especially singer/songwriters. haha!

Give Cullen the camera and you're gonna be in for a surprise...like I was!! (lazy musicians...HA!!)

Ask The Drummer Man!

After our Passing into August take we sat around and discussed Cullen's involvement after the acoustic and bass was completed. Marcin, as always, provided some silly entertainment!

Time to "Forge Ahead!"

After a week or so, I'm heading back in to record tonight with Dave and Marcin. Cullen is making a guest appearance as well though he will not be drumming tonight; perhaps a productive observation! Though we're not entirely prepared for anything, I think we're going to just go with it and see what happens. Some possibilities for recording tonight are as follows: Do What You Can, Stand, Passing Into August or Circles...all of which would be only acoustic, bass and vocals. Whichever we choose, there is a good chance we'll have to play to a click so Cullen can add the drums later. It's difficult getting the drums down first with the lack of practice time we've all had so at this point Dave and I feel it's best to "forge ahead" and get things done! I have set myself a new deadline of August 31st. I'll make this more official as we enter June and see how we're looking.

"A conversation between you and your mother..."

I had a chance to speak to Brendon on Friday about the progress of Ask You and I am very excited to see what he has been working on. I sent him the final take of what we did down here at the studio and he has been adding his special touches to the song for the past few days. Originally when we had played the song in front of an audience at my mom's memorial service, Brendon had a whole electric guitar arrangement throughout the song that seemed to work really well; in fact, i truly loved it! However, since it was so long ago he decided to take a fresh approach to the song. I had discussed with him my intentions for the different parts, namely the outro where it would build up in an intense and emotional way, involving all of the other key players on the album. In other words, the first part of Ask You would be mainly me and Brendon and then the last part would bring in Marcin, Cullen, Chad and whoever else had played on previous songs (Ask You is the final song on the album). In recent weeks, Dave, Brendon and myself have realized that we should really avoid cluttering this song with too much at the end. Less is more kinda thing...the vocals and lyrics really are the most important part afterall and I love that that Brendon and Dave also feel the same way and know exactly what treatment to use.

So in our conversation, Brendon and I discussed using cello, viola and violin as part of a string arrangement during the outro, as well as some light electric guitar strumming. During the second verse, he has a thought to use some ambient sounds as atmosphere to suggest something "on the other side", a sort of musical representation of my mom. He also plans on minimizing his involvement during the first part of the song because as he told me "it's a conversation between you and your mother" and that he will just leave it be just that...

Right on, man. Right on. Good to have you as a part of this.

Time for Vocals!

Hey all! Back from the cruise and it's time to start really crackin' on the last half of the album! We have guitar parts to add in, more songs to work on and start and vocals to insert!! I'll start back up strong next week but for now, here is a little at-home work on my vocals. Exercise video was so kindly done up by my friend Brian. He's my vocal trainer and boy do I need it!