I took February off the road. But I wasn’t off work. What was planned as a month of writing and home recording turned into a lot more work on quite a few projects. I teamed up with Brigitte Demeyer and Chris Donohue for Tuesday nights at Belcourt Taps and Tapas. I sang some demos for a very exciting project Sheryl Crow is working on. Angela Easterling’s new album is being mastered today, and I will take the mixes of Ilo Ferreira’s new album to Jim Demain at Yes Master on Monday—-Jim is mastering Angela’s record as I type. Bill Toms’ album is being mixed by the wonderful Rick Witkowski right now.
I have been writing and honing my home recording skills. Beginning with my “Americanitis” CD, I have been doing a good bit of the recording of my albums at home, at first on a Mac Powerbook and a Pro Tools Digi 002R interface, with a couple of Oktava Microphones. Now I have a newer iMac with a Black Lion Audio modified Digi 002R, a couple of better mic pres and a little bit nicer vocal mic. I have built some acoustic treatment panels that I move around the 9 x 12 room, depending on what I am recording, whether I am mixing, etc. It is trial and error. I am trying to take what I have learned watching over the shoulders of David Henry, Lij, Brad Jones, Eric McConnell and many others over the years. I am getting better, but it is never good enough. My plan is to have some brand new songs available from download at my website’s digital store before heavier Summer touring begins. I want to release an album’s worth of songs that way before I release another ‘official’ CD. We’ll see what works out, but for now that is my plan. I am working on what seems to me to be two separate albums at once: one, a blues- and folk-oriented group of songs; the other, a pop record that reflects my love of The Beatles, The Kinks, Big Star, The dBs, XTC, Crowded House, The Windbreakers and Let’s Active—among many others. I may mix them up as downloads before releasing them on CD. Time will show the wiser.
See you in Kentucky and West Virginia. And Mobile, a little later in March.
