I'm ready to get back to the recording studio. It's been three years since releasing "Party of One" and despite the many distractions in my life, I've managed to cobble together enough new material to justify the return trip. This is exciting stuff for me. Here's the plan:
1. Make rough working recordings of my new songs and send them down to Gary White, my producer and longtime friend, so that we can brainstorm about how best to present each song.
2. Set a work schedule that will include booking time in an LA recording studio.
3. Arrive a day or two before our sessions begin to work through pre-production issues.
4. Complete the basic tracking sessions and head back to Eugene.
5. Work with Bill Barnett at Gung Ho Studio in Eugene to complete the vocal work and mix the songs.
After that, it's a simple matter of getting the songs mastered, arranging for the artwork and manufacture of the cd's, and voila! My third full-length recording project will be complete. This is no small achievement for me and I will be very pleased once its done. It's a lot of work, some parts of the process are tedious. But some parts are great fun. It is hard to describe the special pleasure which occurs in the studio at the moment a tune you have written suddenly transforms into a fully formed, radio-ready song. Some songs never quite get there, but when an arrangement begins to click, it's like magic in real time.
One of my favorite musicians, Richard Thompson, performed in Eugene last week and his current bass player, Taras Prodaniuk, has become a good friend after working with me on my first two records. Talented and gracious, Taras seemed genuinely enthusiastic about working with me on this new project. Before working with Thompson, Taras worked for years with Lucinda Williams, and before that, Dwight Yoakum. His musical sensibilities seem beautifully suited for the sort of compositions I tend to write.
Spring is coming, and somehow it seems perfect that my new recording project is being launched now. Chances are good that I will call the new record "Seize the Day", making the song I wrote recently in Jamaica (for more on that, read my blog post of December 19) the title cut. In making this new record, I guess you could say I'm following my own advice.
