Recording: Days 18-20 (with a new rough mix!)

The hot, humid weather has finally broken, and the last two days have been gorgeous. It's been spring weather: blue skies, puffy white clouds, and mid-70s temperatures. In other words - hammock time! Ben (and his kids, Ali and Cameron, who are staying at the house for the summer) set up this hammock in their yard, and it is soooo comfortable, that I want to get one of my own. First I’ll need to get a yard. ;)

Gordon Lustig flew out from Napa, CA to record in NJ on Sunday. Gordon is a longtime family friend, and also my first (and when, I really think about it, only) guitar teacher. Not to besmirch his skills as an educator, but I still don’t know how to play the first song I asked him to teach me (now, some might claim that The Who's Pinball Wizard wasn’t really an appropriate "first song" choice on my part... but all those folks are wimps). Gordon is an amazing musician and songwriter (check out his song, “I Am Not James Taylor” on YouTube, where its’ already garnered over 2,700 views), and I am so glad that he was willing and able to make the time to fly 3,000 miles to play on my record. The rough mix I'm posting today (the link is at the end of this blog entry) has some of Gordon's work on it, and it's fantastic.

On Monday we worked with Eugene Ruffolo, a well-known singer/songwriter in his own right. Eugene gave us some nice male background vocals on a few tunes.

Now, to go back in time for a quick sec...My childhood friend Juliana came to visit me in the studio in NYC last week, and took some really great pictures. I just got them, and I'm posting a couple here for your enjoyment...one is of Rich playing drums, and that other is Ben in an unscripted moment. Thanks, Juliana!

Today we had a “clean-up” day, recording some more piano (adding a part to “You’re Gonna Find Someone”), synthesizer (on “Sleep of the Dead”, which is really starting to come together), and listening through the rest of the songs to see if any vocal tweaking was required. I'm happy to report that things are sounding pretty clean!

And, as promised, I was able to secure a new rough mix to share with you. This song, called Halls of Your Heart, is one of my favorites…I hope you like it, too. You can listen to it by clicking HERE. Be sure to use headphones to get the best impact - computer speakers won't do this song justice!

Have a great evening…and THANKS for listening.

Steve

Recording: Days 14 - 17

Another week of recording is in the books! Working in Ben’s New York City studio was a totally different experience from recording at his home studio in the New Jersey suburbs. Not that the actual studio equipment was all that different…it’s just being IN THE CITY that made everything about the experience so much more intense. There’s so much to do! So much to see! NYC is a city of near-constant stimulation. I flew in on Sunday night, and settled in for the first three nights at a hotel in Times Square. The hotel had a very fancy elevator system…you punch your desired floor in on this keypad, and then it tells you what elevator to go to in order to get to your floor. It reminded me of the “smart” elevators in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, which were imbued with the ability to see a few minutes into the future...thereby enabling them to be waiting for you at your floor before you even knew you wanted them. Pretty snazzy, right? Of course, Problems ensued when these super-intelligent elevators became depressed over the simplicity of their lot in life, and simply elected to settle down in the basement. Here’s a transcript of the original bit from the Hitchhiker’s radio show…don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya.

On Monday and Tuesday we worked on drums. Ben brought in Rich Mercurio…he looks young, but he’s got a ton of experience, and a great sense of rhythm…during those two days we put drums on all of the songs that needed them (12 in all – there are 2 that will probably go without), along with all sorts of other percussion (shakers, tambourines, etc.). One of the coolest things was to look at the “charts” that he – and later, the bass players – drew up to assist them in their playing of my songs. It’s like Sanskrit to me – some sort of secret musical language – that enables them to take detailed notes in a kind of shorthand. I’ve attached a couple of pictures, just ‘cuz I think it’s cool.

We wound up taking Wednesday off, since Ben had to attend an unexpected funeral (a friend’s father passed away in Philadelphia, Ben’s hometown). I took the opportunity to take care of some work for my legal clients (I’m not actually on vacation this trip, but trying to work on music during the day, and law at night). I have apparently become the exact opposite of a superhero; I do this incredibly cool stuff during the days, and at night I become...a mild-mannered attorney! ;) I got to see a little bit of the city that day, too…I’d moved hotels by this time to a place closer to Midtown (in Koreatown, actually, on E. 32^nd between 5^th & Madison), and I wandered around that neighborhood, and had my first decent kosher pastrami sandwich in I-cant-tell-you-how long! 2^nd Avenue Deli is now on 33^rd Street (don’t ask me why), but the pastrami was delicious all the same…they even served me a taste of bosco (chocolate soda), or maybe it was an egg cream..I don’t know, but it was good! In the evening I was able to visit with my old friend Jonathan, and his wife and son, which was very nice.

Thursday we started on bass. Zev Katz has been touring a lot lately, and was only in town for a day before taking off on another project, so Ben snagged him for the time we could get him. He did a great job, of course…he’s one of those players who doesn’t really seem like he’s doing much of anything at the time, but once the day is done and you listen back, you’re really impressed with the stuff you've gotten. One thing I’ve noticed about session players is the wide range of personalities you get…some are very “business as usual” types – come in, record, not much chit-chat, and not much interest in interacting with the actual songwriter (me), or even connecting to the songs themselves…these types of folks pay attention to what the MUSIC wants, but not necessarily to the gestalt of the song as a whole (if that makes sense). Zev was a bit like that. That’s in stark contrast to the bass player we had in today (Saturday), our first day back at Ben’s home studio in Ridgewood – Lee Nadel. Lee came to the session having listened carefully to all the songs in advance, and was so excited to work on them…he commented many times on how much he loved the songs themselves. Both of them did a fantastic job…it was just a bit more fun for me to work with Lee, who was so clearly excited to be there.

Thursday night I was able to spend some time with my friend Lori, who I hadn’t seen in years. It was a real gift to be able to reconnect with her. On Friday night my friend Gabrielle took me to a synagogue in the Upper West Side (B'nei Jeshurun) – a very cool experience, with a mix of all sorts of traditional and modern melodies, along with Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions (if you’re into that sort of thing, you fellow Members of the Tribe). That was followed by a fantastic dinner in the Upper West with some of Gabrielle’s friends, and an impromptu jam session with Eleanor Dubinski, one of Gab’s friends who is a really talented singer/songwriter in NYC. She does stuff in English, French and Spanish…you can check her out here.

I left NYC this morning, and took the train to Ridegwood, where we’ll be working all this week. Thankfully they post very helpful signs on the trains, to make sure the intelligenstia among us don’t hurt ourselves. My friend and original guitar teacher Gordon Lustig arrives tonight, which is very exciting – he’s flown out from Napa to record with us - and tomorrow we’ll be working with him to add some additional guitars. I expect to have another rough mix to share with you over the next couple of days…the “rough mixes” are starting to sound more and more finished, though, as all the instruments are being recorded. As Ben said to me this afternoon, everything we get from here on out is really just icing on the cake. I’ll look forward to sharing the new mix with you as soon as I get it.

That’s all for now, but more to come soon. Enjoy your weekend, and – as always – thanks for listening!

Recording: Days 12 and 13 (The End of the Beginning...)

I find myself in a bit of a philosophical mood as I write this journal entry for Days 12 and 13 of my recording session, which are my last for this first phase of the project. Actually, we made much more progress than either Ben or I expected; we had planned on using the full two weeks to simply work on my guitar and vocals, but instead were able to spend one full day earlier this week working on overdubs of background vocals and violin (with Elana Arian), and the last two days working on guitar overdubs in Ben’s NYC studio.

Ben’s NYC studio space is small – just one room – and full of recording equipment of all kinds. I’ve never been much of a “gearhead”, myself, so I really have no idea what all the stuff does…that’s what I hire a producer for, anyway. Here's a picture from the studio, and a small sampling of the gear.

In one dimly-lit corner under a little nondescript table lamp, sit Ben’s two Grammy Awards. The placement of these most sought-after objects speaks to the sort of person Ben is – understated. For someone with his experience, he’s a real pleasure to work with.

So, on Wednesday and Thursday, Ben picked me up at the Ridegwood house, and we commuted by train to his studio in the city. Once there, we met up with one of Ben’s preferred studio guitarists, Billy Masters. Billy had brought along a whole slew of stringed instruments: an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a baritone electric guitar (they called it a “bari”), and a tiple (a fun little instrument that sounds a lot like a mandolin), as well as a couple of other instruments we didn’t get around to playing during our time together. As for the recording process, it was very free-form, and extremely unplanned. Billy didn’t even really listen to the mixes we sent him beforehand; instead, Ben would pull up a song mix on his system, and play it for Billy, and Billy would throw out some ideas for instruments that he “heard” on the tune. Ben would chime in with his thoughts, and then, to the extent that I had a “vision” for the song, I’d try to share that, with varying degrees of clarity or success.

This raises an issue that I’ve discovered is endemic to the recording process, at least for me (and I’m guessing for others who don’t have either extensive recording experience or classical musical training); namely, how to communicate your desires to your producer/musician. Someone much smarter than me should write a book on the subject for folks like me, who have a hard time translating what we’re hearing inside our heads into English words that will convey the meaning to those folks who have to play and record the sound. It may sound silly at first, but it actually can be quite frustrating, especially when I hear something in my head, and can’t seem to get the player to understand what I’m asking for. This frustration became quite real for me on our first afternoon together, when we started working on Walking In Memphis. As I’ve mentioned in earlier blog entries, I’ve had to work very hard to create an arrangement of Memphis that is sufficiently different from Marc Cohn’s original (which Ben produced) that will make Ben feel excited enough about the song to let me put it on the album. The problem with that, of course, is that at this stage, neither of us has a clear sense of the direction that the song should take (other than that it shouldn’t sound like the original). Should it be a laid-back, vibe-y acoustic piece? A bluesy tune? A rock song? Or perhaps a hip-hop, hair-band, power ballad? While I know that you all are probably clamoring for the latter (“Dude, it’s ‘Bon Jovi’ meets ‘Ludacris’!. You'll love it"), when Ben and Billy started playing around with their ideas for the tune, it was clear that they were leaning towards the first approach. Which was all fine, except that I didn’t like it. This was the first time that that has happened during my work with Ben, but I know from my experience recording my first album that it’s not at all unusual. If you have a good producer, he’ll talk about his ideas, but then will ask you what you think, and do his best to give it to you (unless he thinks that your idea sucks, in which case a good producer will tell you so). From the moment Billy started playing over the song, it was clear to me that this song needed more of a “rock” feel. I felt it was begging for it, and I could hear it in my head. But I was having a very hard time conveying to Billy the exact sound that I was looking for. Finally, after an hour of fraying nerves and general frustration, I was finally able to express my need to him in a way that he could really understand (“grok”, if you will)…I told him I wanted to hear him play “an electric guitar part that sounded like Edge from U2”. Something “edgy, but uplifting and aggressive”. THAT, Billy grokked. He turned on the electric’s delay, and played these crisp, high, notes in tight circular forms that, from first listen, felt just perfect for the tune. Ben really got into it, too, and I was absolutely jazzed by the time we finished up the day. Here's a short vid clip of us working on adding Billy's electric guitar part (don't worry about the volume of the vocal and other instruments, it's not a real mix):

The best thing about that experience – which was then repeated several more times over the course of the following day – is that I’m learning to trust my instincts about what I’m hearing in my head with respect to a song, and sharing those thoughts with the player (and the producer). As you might imagine, I've often felt a bit outclassed by the incredible musical talent I’ve assembled for this project. I’ve always seen myself as more of a lyricist, and less of a “real artist” - hell, I don’t even know how to read music! So the idea that I could somehow have something valuable to add to this process beyond providing the words and the melody always struck me as a bit presumptuous. But this is my project, after all, and I want a finished product that I can be really excited about…so I’m learning to let go of my little inferiority complex, and speak my mind. It’s exhilarating to find that, more often than not, my instincts are right on the money. I guess I really am an artist, after all. ;)

These two weeks have gone by so fast. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was arriving in New Jersey...an emotional wreck, with fourteen songs to sing and play. Now I’m flying home to SFO, exhausted, still very emotionally raw, but excited to feel like I’ve got the foundations of a really good record in place.

Over the coming months, I’ll be going out to NYC several more times to continue adding instruments. The travel is a pain, but I’ve learned that it’s totally worth it to be there during the creative process, so I’m going to try to be there for as much I can. There’ll be drums, bass, cello, more guitars, and certainly some other stuff that we haven’t thought of yet…we’ll know more as the songs start to take shape. I’ll post periodic blogs during that time, and post more rough mixes as I get them. In the meantime, I’m going to work on getting more people to join the website mailing list (which I’ve found is a far superior way to communicate with folks than on Facebook). Please do encourage your friends who you think would enjoy my music to sign up!

Thanks so much to each of you for coming on this journey with me. It’s been so much fun to be able to put these blog entries together…I especially enjoyed it when folks posted their thoughts, comments, or questions, or wrote to me directly to check in. Please do keep the posts and emails coming!

I’ll speak with you again in my May newsletter. Until then, have a wonderful spring – and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Days 10 and 11 (with a NEW SONG to listen to)

The past two days have been a lot of fun. Ben, as it turns out, in addition to being a grammy-winning producer, is also quite the piano player…so he’s put on his “musician” hat over the last couple of days, and we’ve been overlaying piano tracks onto some of the songs. Here’s a very short video clip of him playing (you won’t be able to hear the song he's playing to, unfortunately, since it’s playing in his headphones, but you’ll get the idea):

One of the songs he added piano to was Lullabye for Zoe, a song I wrote to honor a very close friend of mine who passed away nearly three years ago. Mark was only 33 when he died of complications from a cancer that was discovered too late, and he left behind his wife Maytal, and their baby daughter Zoe (pictured with Mark). I wrote the song as a lullabye, being sung from Mark (wherever he may now reside) to Zoe, to help her sleep during those times when she feels frightened or alone. Ben’s piano additions were lovely, and as I listened, I found myself crying…with sadness at the loss of my close friend, but also with a bounding joy…almost as if Mark were here, listening, and smiling at some new beauty that he helped bring into the world. I still miss him terribly.

A fun moment from today’s session was when we were re-recording the vocal for Only Always. Ben’s son Cameron is also a musician, and he’s stored a bunch of odd instruments in the basement, including a xylophone, which Ben had brought up earlier in the day to show me. After we recorded the vocal for Always, as we were listening through, I started noodling around on the xylophone…and the sound was pretty cool! So we wound up using it on that song, as well as one other. I have no idea whether it’ll stay in the mix by the time we reach the final cuts, but the experience really serves to highlight how much fun this process can be.

Finally, at my request, Ben put together a rough mix of If I Were a Book for me to post for you. This mix has my vocal and guitar, along with Ben’s piano and Elana’s violin. While nowhere near the finished product, I think you’ll agree that it’s a big change from the original, bare-bones vocal-and-guitar mixes I’ve been posting to this point. You can listen to it by clicking HERE. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

That’s all for now. Since today was my last day of singing on this trip, I’m going to be going out tonight and enjoying some (or all) the things that I’ve had to forego for the last month because they’ve been bad for my voice: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and dairy products. We’ll see how well I do with moderation… ;)

Enjoy the rest of your day…and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Day 9

I can’t believe I get to do this! This is the coolest thing ever.

So today, I got to relax and let someone else do the singing for a change. Ben invited Elana Arian, a singer/songwriter in her own right who tours regularly with Catie Curtis, to come and do background vocals on some of the songs. Elana also plays violin (or is it fiddle? I never know the distinction – perhaps someone can tell me. My guess is that if it’s a classical tune, it’s a violin, and if it’s down-home country, y’all – it’s a fiddle!), and we got her to play on some songs, as well. She was great to work with on all fronts; very talented, creative, and genuinely nice. I’m sure we’ll have her back for some additional songs later in the process.

The thing that really stuck out about the whole of today’s experience is also probably going to be the hardest to describe, or to put into words. I’m a songwriter, right? I hear nuance in lyrics and lyrical structure, I hear basic melodies, but that’s really it. Beyond that, the world of music is a mystery to me. Ben? He hears EVERYTHING. With only the guitar and vocal tracks as a baseline, he guided Elana to try so many different vocal and instrumental options, ideas, etc…so many iterations, in so many different styles, just to see what worked and what didn’t…and while he was often quick to discard things that weren’t working for him, he was just as quick to seize on an idea, no matter how seemingly small, and tease it out until it became a core part of the song. I have no idea how he does it. I have no clue how he hears the things he does, or how he came by this ability to work within this realm with such consummate skill. It’s like a black box to me; it’s like magic. All I can do is sit back and appreciate it, and let him know my opinion when I have one. I can feel around the edges, so when I have strong feelings one way or the other about an approach, I voice it…but often, I find that I am simply trusting that Ben “hears” what is best for the project, and giving him lots of room for discretion. Given his pedigree, it seems like the wise course.

Tomorrow we’ll spend the day adding Ben’s piano parts to a bunch of songs. At the end of the day, I hope to have another rough mix that I’ll be able to share with you, showing you a song which at that point will contain background vocals, violin, and piano (in addition to my vocal and guitar takes, of course).

That’s all for now. I LOVE to see your thoughts, comments, and questions – whether on Facebook, or directly in the Blog – so please do let me hear from you! It’s great to feel connected, especially with the 3,000 miles distance separating me from so many people that I love. Thanks for being there, and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Days 5-8 (with VIDEO CLIPS of the recording of Walking in Memphis!)

I am, once again, exhausted and drained as I write this. It’s pretty much a good exhausted and drained, though – the last four days have been full ones, with many evenings taken up as well, which is why I haven’t posted a blog entry for a while. So - where do I begin?

Wednesday was a picture-perfect spring day in Northern New Jersey. We weren’t starting in the studio until noon, since Ben, in addition to being a grammy-winning producer, has started a yoga studio in town and teaches there several times a week. Wednesday morning was one of his teaching times…so I decided to take advantage of the extra time by sleeping in a bit, and then trying out a fancy-schmancy gym that Ben had mentioned. I’ve been going to a really basic little gym here in town – I got a promo deal where I get 2 weeks’ access dirt cheap – but I’d heard interesting things about this other place, eponymously (and presumably not modestly) named “The Gym”. I took some absolutely beautiful back-country roads to get there…I got lost a bunch of times, but have some wonderful photos to show for it...

The area I drove through is called “Saddle River”, and after looking it up on Craigslist, it looks like homes there run around $2 million. While I question the need for 62 bathrooms in a 6-bedroom house, I suppose these New Jersey folks know what they’re doing. Maybe they drink a LOT of water during the day, or have really small bladders.

Anyway, the drive over to The Gym was gorgeous. Once at The Gym, the eye was accosted by any number of well-appointed housewives with fake…well, EVERYTHING…who were all coiffed and made up for their journey to personal wellness. How they can sweat in all that makeup, I’ll never know. Anyway, The Gym was clearly a place to see and be seen, but the equipment wasn’t much better than at my little, messy gym. That said, The Gym did have two things to recommend it: a bevy of masseuses waiting to knead your tired muscles (which I took advantage of a couple of days later), and the best friggin’ shower I’ve ever seen.

So. Ben and I worked on two songs on Wednesday – a cover of a punk song called Anything, Anything, and one of mine called We Both Know. They both turned out well enough…I was especially pleased with the punk cover. A free clip of the original tune can be found HERE, if you’re curious; I’ve stripped it, slowed it down, and made it an acoustic piece that’s really pretty cool (if I do say so myself). One thing about recording in someone’s suburban house, though, which I guess stands to reason but still caught me by surprise…you have to stop recording whenever the next door neighbor mows his lawn (which appears to happen daily at noon around here), or (as happened Wednesday) the neighbor across the street hires a company to use a power washer to strip the paint from his exterior walls. The microphones Ben uses are really, really sensitive, which means that all that noise bleeds onto the vocal and guitar tracks. So we had to take a series of breaks during the worst of it.

Wednesday evening I took Ben and his girlfriend out to dinner at Varka, their favorite restaurant in town. They have all sorts of fresh-caught seafood that they put out on ice for you to choose from. If you pay them extra, they will liberate the lobsters they have tied up, alive, on the ice. OK, that last part isn’t true, but I wish it were…it just seems so cruel to leave the poor guys alive and aware until some schmuck decides he wants to eat it.

The next day (Thursday) we recorded two more songs, I Do and If I Were a Book. On Friday I went back to The Gym for a morning massage, and Ben and I spent the rest of the afternoon recording Only Always. My voice was not at all strong on Friday, so I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to re-cut those vocals another time. Blech. Overall, though, my voice has been getting stronger…it’s just allergies that are giving me trouble at this point, and I’m hoping that some new remedies suggested by Facebook friends will do the trick for that (Alavert and a mullein tincture seemed to work pretty well today). Friday evening I went and visited an old friend of mine, Steve Sirbu, and his family in Teaneck (about 10 miles away). I’ve known Steve for a long time…we went to the same Jewish summer camp as kids (Camp Swig), and we roomed together for a while in college…he’s a rabbi now, and he invited me to come to services, and teach a song as well, which was lovely (I taught the congregation Debbie Pinto’s version of Oseh Shalom, for those of you who follow such things).

Today we recorded our final song – a cover of Walking in Memphis. I saved this song for last for several reasons. First and foremost, you should know that Walking In Memphis was the song that launched Ben’s career back in 1991, when he recorded the original with Marc Cohn (they won a Grammy for their efforts), so I had to do a LOT of cajoling to get him to even entertain the thought of working with me to cover the tune. Ultimately, he agreed to work with me on it, provided that he reserved the right to determine whether the song ultimately gets put on the album. With that in mind, I really wanted to impress him with an arrangement that felt new and, most importantly, sufficiently different from the original that he would be excited about it. To that end I’ve been working on a new arrangement on my own for the last few evenings, and when I finally shared it with him this morning, I was thrilled to see that he was really starting to get into it.

Many of you have expressed interest in seeing how the whole process of arranging and recording a song works, and thanks to my video camera, I'm finally able to share that process with you. The first video clip is about 30 minutes long (video quality is low so I could fit it all on the blog, but the audio is good), and shows Ben and I creating a new arrangement of Walking in Memphis:

The second video clip is short...a little glimpse into the recording process:

And in the third clip, you can watch as a very rough version of the recorded song takes shape!

With the basics of all 14 songs now recorded, and a female vocalist coming in tomorrow to do background vocals on several songs, we spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the songs and creating “rough mixes”. This involves Ben marrying a vocal track to a guitar track, adding some limited effects, and adjusting the various levels so that it sounds halfway-decent. I already posted one example for you earlier this week – a rough mix of a song called Wherever You Are (click on the link, and then the song title, to listen); I’ve posted another rough mix tonight for you to listen to, called Hearts in the Graveyard (just click on the song title to listen). We then sent the rough mixes to our female vocalist, so she can listen to them and do some prep work. I’ll look forward to posting an updated mix or two, with her vocals included, in my next blog installment.

That’s all for now. I LOVE to see your thoughts, comments, and questions – whether on Facebook, or directly in the Blog – so please do let me hear from you! It’s great to feel connected, especially with the 3,000 miles distance separating me from so many people that I love. Thanks for being there, and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Day 4 (this time, with MUSIC CLIPS!)

Tired, tired, tired after the end of another full day of recording. I’m thinking my little “fondue experiment” last night didn’t go over so well for my voice; from now on I’m going to have to stay away from milk products (they tend to make my throat phlegmy)...at least until my vocal stuff clears up. I’ll be spending the evening drinking hot tea, as well as sipping a special concoction that my acupuncturist suggests is good for someone with allergies…it’s chicken stock, mixed with fresh garlic and ginger. And if that doesn’t work, I may elect to try some of the more, shall we say, esoteric sore throat remedies – like the “GuggleMuggle” that my Israeli friends David and Judy suggested. I’m guessing I won’t be trying my high school friend Bill’s recipe…in his words: “Mix Lemon Juice, Tequila, and Honey, and drink as warm as you can. Either your throat will feel better, or you won't care!”

Probably true. ;) As Homer Simpson says… “To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

In yesterday’s installment, I told you that I’d be posting a video clip of Ben’s rework of the song Wherever You Are. Well, due to some very strange malfunctions with my video camera, I will not be able to follow through on that promise…the best part of the session appears to have been lost. To make sure this doesn’t happen again, I’ve gone to Best Buy and gotten a bunch of 8GB memory cards…one or two cards per day should do it, and should ensure that I don’t mysteriously “lose” any video again.

Since I couldn’t give you what I promised, though, I figured I’d do one better. Remember how I told you that we made some pretty substantive structural changes to Wherever You Are? Well, I’ve included a link to a video clip of me performing the original version of the song – just click on the video box to watch it.

Then, once you’ve watched that, click HERE and click on the "Wherever You Are: New Version" clip to take a listen a rough mix of the song, as revised. Ben and I threw this together this evening, so that you all could listen to what we’ve been working on. Remember, it’s just basic guitar and vocals for now – there are no other instruments or voices, so there’s lots of empty space…and no real production work has gone into the tune, so it’ll sound very raw and unfinished (including the vocal, which is quite rough in places). This is the baseline that we’ll be working from to create the finished product. If we’re lucky, I’ll be able to share the various incarnations of this song with you as we go through adding other instruments, vocals, and production qualities. Let me know your thoughts! Which version do you like best, and why?

Today we worked on two more songs – Close Your Eyes, which we’ve changed to be titled Lullabye for Zoe, and a song called Boats. Both seemed to go fairly well, although Ben and I had some disagreements initially over the treatment of the Zoe piece. We’ll see what happens with those issues as we move further down the road with production. Tomorrow we’ll be working on a cover of a punk song (Anything, Anything), and one other song to be determined by how strong my voice feels.

That’s all for now. I LOVE to see your thoughts, comments, and questions – whether on Facebook, or directly in the Blog – so please do let me hear from you! It’s great to feel connected, especially with the 3,000 miles distance separating me from so many people that I love. Thanks for being there, and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve