So... What IS going on?
Ok funny story:

So there I was kicking it, old school in fact, with the one and only O-town, lords of TRL. We were talking about the usual stuff, hair styling products and the oppressive state of pop radio when Ashley turned to me and said "You play bass don't you?" and I was like "Sure do my man, why do you ask?" then Jacob was like "Our bass player pulled his popping finger while we were totally jamming out at rehearsal" and I was all like "Whoa that must have been some intense rehearsing" then Dan was like "Yeah we like to turn it up! Anyway, we need somebody to sub for him for two weeks or were sunk. We all talked about it and we decided you were the only man for the job." and I was like totall blown away! So, long story short, I've been away and unable to post all the sweet studio gossip. I got back just in time to rock the Citywalk at the Beerfest. Now it's time to prepare to open for The Cult on the 26th... or buy a Nissan.

Starting Rhythm Guitars
Today started the rhythm guitars. Mostly the clean ones. Joe was jumping from song to song while the guitar was sounding a certain way as to maintain continuity throughout the album. Everyone was there at one time or another, but really Donovan was the only one of us that actually recorded. I nearly did, but we're going to save it for later. Mike was there to put his PolyChorus expertise to use. Kevin stopped by to attempt to avoid traffic and, I suspect, for the free food. Elsewhere on the premises all manner of O-town things were happening. It seemed that MTV people kept taking over rooms to have secret meetings in or make secret calls from. There were definitely more bodies moving around today than usual. I suppose it helps to keep those of us less busy from boredom. It didn't happen today, but lets all keep our fingers crossed that Mike will get to interview the "town" for an upcoming issue of Hinge. I don't think I could bear to see his little heart broken again tomorrow.

O-town Turns Up the Heat
That's right, none other than the incomparable O-town was responsible for today's rise in temperature; at least for one journalor for sure. That was easily the most exciting thing today: seeing all my heroes from Making the Band in the flesh. I could hardly contain myself, unlike the 7 (SEVEN!!!) groupies who sweated it out in the parking lot for a glimpse of their fantasy boys. I must say when the time came I was really let down by the complete absence of screaming and/or running. In fact, they remained quite calm as various members of the "band" graced their presences. Maybe theirs some boy-band-groupie protocol I'm not aware of; only act insane when the cameras are on... conserve your fanergy! To make a long story even longer; look for me on the new season of MtB!

Finished today was the bass for Glistening. I rewrote a good bit of the parts - not massive changes, but Joe and I agreed that I had some cool things to add to the part. We did one take quickly before dinner and one after and that was all she took.

Trying to finish the Drums... really.
Today everyone came in to redo the drums for Captain Courageous and to try to come up with a better arrangement for Glistening, Joe's new favorite song. I don't know if we nailed it or not. We'll see when it's more put together I suppose. So maybe this was the last of the drums and maybe not. We changed CC around a bit so I get to go back in and redo my parts again - which is fine by me - I can always do better. Found out today that we'll be playing for the Beerfest again this year - November tenth or somewhere around then.

A little bit of Bass
Today I was at the studio for 2 hours and knocked out 3 songs worth of bass. I had lunch and they sent me home. Not much else to tell.

Drum 'n' Bass
We're coming to the end of the basic Drum and Bass tracking. Today we did drums for Higher Than My Vertigo which had previously slipped our minds, and we worked on changing the beat for the chorus of Captain Courageous as Joe had not been feeling it. Kevin wasn't 100% sure he gave 100% so we may go back and hit these again when we attempt to finish the drums on Monday with Glistening. After Kevin had to leave for work Joe and I knocked out a few more bass tracks: Sideways Silverjet, So Sexy Avalon and Face the Strange. In between all of this Joe managed to teach us a one person pool game. Donovan spent hours and hours playing it while we were working on bass. There was also great distress as the chef was out ill and we got no free meals. Everyone scrounged for food or made grilled cheese sandwiches as suited them.

Blowing Up
Today was another of those "all about the bass". When we were getting the sounds up the way we liked we discovered that the vintage Ampeg B-15 we were using wasn't sounding good at all. We'd had a little trouble with it before and weren't really up to letting it slow us down anymore. Fortunately we were able to rent a sweet Ashdown ABM 500 (my favorite amp in the world) from my friends over at Bass Central. Everyone (Joe, Jamie and I) loved the sound of it immediately and we plan to run all of the previously recorded bass tracks back through it for that sweet sweet Ashdown sound. While we waited on the amp I played a few games of pool with Joe's intern, Ben. He's quite good. I'm quite the opposite. But on the day I won 2 games to 1 (he scratched on the eight-ball the last game; what a way to go). When the day was don we'd gotten the bass done on Madelin Zero, Captains Courageous and Juggernaut.

So Much to Do
Today consisted of me hanging around and sleeping for hours on end while Joe worked on "behind the scenes" type things. I thought I was going to be working on bass, but that was to be put off till tomorrow. I thought about going home but Dave Swuz was supposed to come by around 5pm to shoot some footage of the band for an electronic press kit. The other guy showed up in time for dinner and we spent an hour or so being silly in the studio - pretending to be doing serious work. Fun was had by all.

Finishing the Drums
For the last 2 days we've been trying to get all the drums done. They've been short days; pretty relaxed. Everything has gone pretty smoothly and I believe we only have one or 2 more songs to do drums on. I think we've got 14 or 15 done. Nothing terribly exciting to report other than Mike discovering his natural pool playing skills and getting yelled at for stealing water. We got to heat some of Silly Song; just bass and drums and it was sounding pretty good so far - which is always encouraging. I wanted to hear more but I wasn't allowed. We were finished around 4:30 and everyone debated whether to hang around for an hour and a half for free dinner, but I don't think any of us ended up staying.

Feel the Bass!
Yesterday and today were all about the bass. I worked with Joe getting sounds refining the parts and laying down a bunch of takes for several songs. Last night we rehearsed for our show tomorrow night after the OMAs. We're going to have a guest trombonist play with us on two songs so he came by to play through them a few times. I'm still a bit under the weather; just can't seem to shake this nagging cough. Hopefully I'll be able to shake it during our performance tomorrow night. Who knows what tomorrow will bring...

More Drums!
Today was pretty relaxed. We managed to bang out five more songs worth of drums in between all the photocopier abuse. Plenty of time was made to eat as much of the catered food as possible and to toss pool balls all around the building. We were "on" today. We were able to get what we needed in far fewer takes, with the exception of maybe Sideways Silverjet. Most impressive was the expeditious "laying down" of Tinsel Town, for the first time ever it failed to cause any trouble. We wrapped up pretty early but stuck around for some free dinner. Tomorrow's all me baby - bass time. I gotta get some sleep first.

Day 2: Tracking da Drumz
Jamie! I knew it! Everyone convened at 11am to start recording basic tracks. Really we're only trying to get good drum takes, the rest will be overdubbed later. But we're all good sports and play on every take. We started with Hallelujah Girl then Silly Song, Dream Breathe Scream, and Blockbuster Blue. Halfway through working on The Way I Feel, Kevin's hi-hat clutch broke and as a replacement wasn't available, we called it a night at around 8pm. Today went really well. Bill will be up all night editing the drums and such - what a guy! Tomorrow we'll finish TWIF and try to get another 4 songs or so done. BAM!

DAY 1: Studio B
Today was our first real day in the studio, sort of. Kevin and Joe went in at 10am and spent the day preparing the drums for recording. They did all the miking and tuning, head replacement and such. I assume that Bill (who is operating Pro Tools for us), the assistant whose name I shamefully haven't yet learned, and Ben were there all day as well. The rest of us were called in at 8pm. After we settled in and the drums were futzed with a bit more we got set up to do scratch tracks of vocals, guitars, and bass. Mike and I had the pleasure of playing in the control room and I found myself amply distracted by all the pretty equipment. We ran through Hallelujah Girl a few times and as we did the toms sounded worse and worser. You see new drum heads need to stretch and acclimate to a room or they won't stay sounding the way you like. So we called it a night around 11:30pm as fixing up the drums would have taken quite a bit longer than I think those that had been there all day would like to have stayed. Otherwise I am nearly over my nasty little cold. We're to be back at 11am tomorrow (today really) so I'd best get some sleep.

Comments? Questions?
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Thanks

Final Day of Pre Production
Tonight was the last nice in our cozy Transcon rehearsal room. It almost seemed like more of a formality. We ran through a few of our numbers, but I couldn't say we really "worked" on anything. Mike and I did manage to score some of that catered food we've heard so much about and look forward to doing so again and again. Cesar Vargas was in attendance this evening snapping digital photos for posterity and just generally "chillin". The bulk of the time, it seemed, was spent taping this skit for the OMAs. We'll see how that turns out. We're to start in the studio, for really real on Monday. But Kevin gets to spend some time on Sunday getting his drums set up and such (as it takes a long time and the rest of us can't really be of any help).

Day 3 Transcon Pre Pro
Rehearsed from noonish to fourish today. I was about an hour late due to all the sleeping. Feeling much better, but my voice is useless. When I arrived everyone was working on an updated rendition of Helly. We spent the most time on that, but didn't really get it to where we would have liked to. Mike and I don't really think the song fits with the new material, but we plan to record more songs than we actuality use on the record. Who knows what will end up working or not working once things start coming together. Back tomorrow at 6:30 for, I believe, the last rehearsal before starting in the studio on Monday.

Day 2 Transcon Rehearsal
Arrived around noon with Mike and Donovan on too little sleep and feeling quite a bit worse than the previous night - particularly my throat. Refreshing to have everything set up so we could just get right down to it. When Joe arrived Donovan and Kevin spent a few minutes discussing the new contracts while Mike and I lounged. Justin was ever so kind as to offer me some herbal tea to ease my sore throat. I took him up on it twice. Once we got into it we ran through a few songs and then began recording rough demos for Joe to mull over. After we'd recorded everything Joe wanted we called it a day around 4. It was a nice laid back day and I was glad it didn't run too long. The last to days have gone really well in everyone's eyes I think. We're back again tomorrow at 3pm. A little more time to sleep in.

Day 1... for real
Started tonight at on of the rehearsal rooms at Transcon. It looks as though now we'll be recording there instead of the Planet as they have catered meals. Justin was our assistant and he took care of set up around 7pm until Joe got there. Shawn (Sean?) also came intending to prepare some phat drum loops in advance of tracking. We tried it on So Sexy Avalon, but I don't think we were collectively "feeling it (bro)". But Shawn hung out the entire rehearsal and had a lot of positive things to say and vibes to bounce around. We spent the most time on Tinsel Town AKA The Argument Song. There has been much debate over several months about this song. Mostly regarding the arrangement. We definitely made a lot of headway with it; coming up with an arrangement that seems to work quite well. I think we're all glad because musically it's a very interesting tune and quite different from a lot of the other material. Where before it was questionable whether we'd use it or not - now I think I can safely say that we will be. I've taken ill over the last few days and am not looking forward to tomorrow's rehearsal being at noon, but I'll manage.

Day 2 PP: milk, eggs, bread, dog food...
Remembered earplugs! Mike and I arrived at Spotlight at 8pm and I was pleased to see that Tanner was already there setting up. Yeah, it's his job, but he's gone out of his way to make things a little easier for us. So "mad props" to TKO. Kevin arrived very shortly after and Joe was there by eight-thirtyish. Donovan was nowhere to be found so we started running through some tunes sans vocals and rhythm guitar. Eventually the whole band became present and we rehearsed more conventionally. No recording took place which almost makes it seem like our time at Spotlight has been wasted. We won't be returning on Friday as planned. The new plan is to reconvene Creed Style at a Transcontinental rehearsal studio. I think this will mean longer commute, but we'll definitely be much better equipped to demo the songs, which I believe will be most helpful in improving the material. The most "exciting" thing was the gargantuan Cockroach flying around the room. I was the only one lucky enough to have it run into my person while playing. Other notable note: Mike wore the same thing tonite as Monday night and I have it on good authority that it was also the same on Tuesday. I won't be surprised if the Led Zep T graces us once again when we reconvene at Transcon. Don't worry folks, I'll keep you posted. I think everyone is frustrated by the lack of a real schedule, though no one seemed to mind having Friday off. There was very minor conversation about the questionable tracks and the composition of the album. But no real discussion came about. No one really seemed to care to "dig in" to anything at all. We probably spent the most time on Juggernaut, but I can't say that we actually made any decisions. Will the apathy dissipate inside the magical walls of Transcon? Stay-tuned kids... it's definitely going somewhere. Definitely.

Day 1 Pre-production
Tonite we started at 8pm at Spotlight. Tanner came to set up the PA for us and ended up staying the whole night because we had to put it all away, we we're hoping to just leave it set-up, but i think we we're asking too much. When Joe arrived sometime after 10 we basically ran through songs that we're considering for the record. Not too much actual discussion about parts, no real changes made. We're just trying to listen differently so we can refine things. The new room isn't anything fabulous, but certainly no worse than our old space. Certainly more room. Must remember ear-plugs next time. Due to scheduling problems we won't be on again until Wednesday, then Friday. On Wednesday we plan to do some basic recording, just for listening to and picking apart as a band. It's easier to see the big picture that way. We sort of set up for it tonite, but apparently unnecissarily. Hopefully things will run more smoothly in the coming sessions and more notable progress will be made.