SMM, Poundy, 4th St. Oh My!

The last two weekends were whirlwinds in the studio. They also ramped me up to... well... here.

After the long running fun of Katrilma, things slowed down on Thanksgiving day 2005. Christina and I spent quite a bit of time catching up on house-holdly chores and repairs and the like. It took quite a while for me to clean up and rewire my studio to a point where I could begin working again. Once an acceptable amount of progress was made in those regards, it was back to work on the South Mountain Magic Audio CD and a couple of other outstanding obligations.

I finished the first draft of the SMM master the weekend before last. This past weekend I had a couple of irons in the proverbial fire. First off I brought my buddy L.B. (whom I often call PoundCake or Poundy) into the studio. I have the honor of producing Poundy's debut CD later this year. He is a friend and a damned fine singer-songwriter so I'm thrilled to be working with him. Poundy is one of the very few people I have in my life who is the same age as I am - just a weird thing. But the interesting thing is that despite having played guitar for some time, he didn't begin performing professionally until Booze Monkey was playing regularly. Consequently I've watched him develop from amateur to pro, a fact that provides an unusual and pleasing perspective on his work.

Poundy joined me in the studio late Friday afternoon after we'd each done our day-gig thing. We performed mic-tests for a few hours and discussed, at length, differing aspects of what is to come during the production of his debut album. On Saturday morning we went into the studio together to record a demo of some of his songs. He will be able to use that demo to acquire more gigs and to generally get excited about what's in store. Also he accumulated more studio experience, which is arguably the most important benefit.

I spent most of Sunday tweaking the SMM soundtrack and creating the final master. I had a little pruning and tweaking to do. I have now completed the CD audio master for SMM. It should go to the manufacturer this week (as soon as I finish the graphic design work). Now I can, finally, archive all of the work related to that project and clear it off of my studio system. I purchased an external drive for just that purpose, as the amount of data related to SMM would require one hell of a lot of dual layer DVDs.

After finishing the SMM audio master I began sorting through Poundy's demo takes. It takes a while to ascertain which takes are the "keepers". Then I mixed them and began working on the mastering stage. I finished one song late Sunday night and should be able to finish the rest of the work tonight. I listened to it again today and I'm pleased with the results. Often a mastering job needs tweaking after a day has past - the ears get tired.

Now things heat up... I have to complete whatever outstanding errands and chores I have this week. As of Saturday morning 11 February 2006 I'm going into the studio for 10 days to begin work on the next Booze Monkey CD, Fourth Street. I'll spend every free moment this week tweaking instruments, changing strings and tuning drums and polishing my chops. Hopefully while I'm in the studio South Mountain Magic will undergo the majority of the manufacturing process.

I am completely stoked about going back into the studio, I really need the catharsis. Time to blow off some steam.

There are two full Booze Monkey albums worth of material that haven't been recorded in-studio (some of the songs have shown up on BMo live albums). I'm feeling so musically creative at the moment, my biggest problem will be restraint with the material (and minimizing new stuff). Tee hee.

I plan (hope) to keep placing entries here regarding the album's progress. For those who find this kind of entry overwhelmingly boring, just note that the category for such posts will be "Music" so you can easily skip over them if you read this site because you like to like my usual vitriol.