Recording, coffee, pipes, strings, winds, brass, Keaggy and the Mets.

Monday started with Jim Dineen and I fine tuning the gear in The Map Room and getting everything ready for Tuesday's tracking. We drove over to Guitar Center and picked up some cables and extra mic stands. After lunch we recorded 6 & 12 string acoustic guitar parts and edited some of the tracks in protools...things are really progressing and I'm thrilled with how it all sounds. There's still a ways to go but we passed a few mile markers this week...

Tuesday we recorded drums and bass in the living room. Todd Bragg played a very basic kit set-up (kick, snare, hat and ride) and it sounds awesome. Todd rocked it and he also played some percussion with his Indian wedding drums...very cool stuff. Matt Slocum dropped by and played a bass line that I wrote and sung to him. We put our heads together on it and had a lot of fun. Both of these gentlemen are hugely talented and it's been a joy working with them.

We also overdubbed some percussion on an instrumental piece I wrote for guitar. I'm not sure if it will make it onto the record but I'll definitely be playing it out live.

I'm in a good head space now....knee deep in new music and ideas that just keep flowing. I've been working really hard trying to get outside my head and go to places I've never been musically. It's proving successful and I'm encouraged to keep digging deeper. Writing and recording is always a wild ride for me. Different every time.

I took Wednesday off to rest but Thursday I listened back to what we had recorded and worked more on other songs.

Friday morning I met up with Matt to discuss arrangements for the strings, woodwinds and brass. He's going to help me score the parts I've written and add some parts of his own...this will be the coolest part of the record I think...the BEAUTY. I keep having to remind myself that these tracks aren't done...they still need the classical elements to complete the pictures I've sketched. The tracks are pretty bare otherwise...and in some cases it's freaked me out that they are so naked and I've added instruments (piano, more guitars, etc) to cover them up in the meantime. They are just really raw and exposed but I know that whatever I've added I'll end up removing and paring back once we've got the classical textures on them.

I got the idea to do this sort of album a couple years ago when I was sitting in the studio recording the string parts on The Innocence Fires with Monroe. I was in the room as the string quartet (cello, viola and two violins) were going down live to tape. It was an overwhelming feeling to have all this tone and beauty pushing through your chest and wrapping its lovely arms around you. I remember thinking to myself, "this is it! I want to do a whole record with this feeling. Whatever this is...this is it!". Three years later and I still haven't forgotten that experience. I hope we can capture it on this record and complete the vision I've had.

Later in the day on Friday I ended up going to Keaggy's to smoke pipes and drink coffee. I haven't seen him in a while and it was great to reconnect. We played some music for each other but mostly just sat and chatted the afternoon away.

I got home at 6:30 and Kierstin and I watched the Mets lose game 2 of the playoffs to the Cardinals. I hope New York makes it all the way to the World Series...I've been a fan since 1986 back in the days of Gary Carter, Doc Gooden and Daryl Strawberry....I was ten years old the last time they won the Series.