We’re All In This Together

I played a house show at my friend Guy’s house last night. It was a good turn out. He lives between Los Angeles and San Diego, but closer to San Diego. On the drive down to his place, Shawn and I took the scenic route by the ocean. We stopped in a little beach town for lunch and had some excellent Mexican food. I wish there were places back east like that. We were a bit ahead of schedule, so Shawn and I checked out the Coronado bridge. It’s got one of the largest arcs in the world. Pretty amazing. One of the modern marvels, to be sure. Tonight, I’m playing another house show in Thousand Oaks at my friend Dom’s house. Then, it’s back into the studio tomorrow to play guitar on ‘Lie to Yourself’ and discuss what else each song needs.

We started tracking guitars today on ‘First to Promise’, ‘Give All’ and ‘Easier to Crumble’. I am pleased. Michael, our engineer and additional guitar player brought in his pedal board. It’s got this old Boomerang loop pedal and some other really cool vintage sounding stomp boxes. I’m having a lot of fun rocking out. I got to play some glass slide on ‘Give All’, which kind of turns it into Tom Petty meets The Verve. I think you’ll dig it.

I forgot it was a holiday today, until I went into Starbucks and they had it all decked out. We listened to all the bass and drums today. Just like I thought, there were little to no mistakes. We had to fix a couple of things here and there, but mostly Hal and Brian were right on. Tomorrow, we’ll start with tracking guitars. Rock.

Ah…fresh boxers. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of putting on just cleaned underpants. Shawn and I did some laundry today. It was way over due. We had a very productive hour or so, working on the lyrics to ‘Last to Know’ a bit. I really like the changes that we made. It’s more me, and less redneck blues now. After the laundry/writing session, we went to a place called Norah’s across the street. It was a very authentic Mexican restaurant. As I ordered my burrito, I began to regret my decision to take four years of German in high school, instead of Spanish. Our waitress was vaguely familiar with our national tongue. Wunderbar. We managed to communicate fairly easily, with lots of pointing. No problem. Ausgezeichnet. They had several different types of salsa at the table. The flavors ranged from mildly hot to burn your brain to a bundt cake. I chose wisely. Shawn did not. He is still recouperating…As we finished our meal, I noticed a man near the stage. He was setting up a microphone in front of a giant screen displaying a soccer game between Equador and Puerto Rico. As soon as the game ended, he started a CD and the words to some song in Spanish came up on the screen. Then, the numbers 4…3…2…1. He began to sing, pretty well I might add. I sort of hummed along and bobbed my head to the music. Our waitress smiled as she gave us our check, “You like?”, she asked. “Yeah”, I said, remembering that I at least know how to say yes in Spanish. No matter. She understood. Shawn and I stuck around for one more song and left. Tomorrow, we go into the studio to go over the bass and drum tracks. We’ll see if there’s any mistakes. I don’t think that’s likely.

Yesterday morning, I took a shower. But, it was not the usual turn on the faucet, hop into the bathtub and feel the water pressure cleanse your worries away situation. I will do my best to explain…Shawn has a camping shower. (For those of you who do not know what this is, I will include a picture: http://maddogs-shop.co.uk/items_images/112005926254_2.jpg.) He rigged the contraption up in the bathroom of the studio, using ultimate McGuyver skills. First, the bag containing the water was attached to a folding ladder.( About 3 feet too low, but it did the job.) Next, he emptied one of the gigantic Tupperware bins he got at Target. This was for us to stand/crouch/kneel in, while holding the nozzle and hose attached to the bag of water above us. While the water from the hose drizzled out, I had to sort of move it back and forth. Very laborious. It takes ninja strength and patience to wash one’s self like that. Last, we had to dump all the dirty water out of the Tupperware bin/make shift bathtub. Are you getting the visual? Yeah..laugh it up, jerk. Anyway, the McGuyver shower was genius. Not comfortable, but it got us free of rock and roll dirt. I’ll probably take another one today, just because. P.S. We did 11 songs, bass and drums in two days! It’s sounds amazing. Some of them were done in one take by Hal and Brian. Unbelievable. They are without a doubt the best guy’s I’ve ever played with.