As we’re nearing the end of our week here in the lovely land of the living desert in the foothills above Tucson, I thought I’d share a few pics with you…Help you get the idea of what it’s like laying down the blueprint for a new album…
First–and most importantly–everyone is VERY serious all the time!
My bass player and drummer hard at work. VERY serious!
Then of course, there is the question of sustenance…
Nothing inspires creativity more than a good blueberry muffin.
Then you have your usual array of hours of practice, notes, tempo changes, beat changes, lyric changes…The usual!
Getting the space set up!Very cryptic and cool notes.Fancy 2 channel "busking" amp--Professional!
Then you get all your standard inspiration from the environmental surrounds…
Springtime in the desert...Ahhhh...Cocktail time!
Mix this up for 7 or 8 days, and the result is a lot of wonderful bonding and some very cool tunes. I hope. :) Back to SmelLA on Thursday, then a show next week!!! All for now…
Well my favorite Brit and Austrian boys are back in the U.S.A. with me…Picked them up, loaded up the car with MUCH gear and drove out to my parents’ oasis in Tucson Arizona for a week of serious (more or less) rehearsal…Yippeee! Got all set up yesterday and crushed our way through 3 song arrangements. If that ain’t progress, I don’t know what is. I even brought my old electric guitar with me. Rock! Finished rehearsal, put our suits on, went for a swim, came back and watched the sunset and drank Tecates and watched stupid old James Bond movies. Just finished my 2nd cup of coffee which means I’m shaky enough to start singing again…Off to work! More soon.
p.s. Put it on your calendars…April 15th at 9 p.m. at Room 5 in Hollywood. It’s going to be right rockin’, innit!
I’m back in Tucson for a quick bout of rest and practice and–hopefully–inspiration before…My old bandmates Johnny and Tommy come back from Europe and we go in to make a new album~!! I’m very excited…Had a good meeting yesterday with a potential producer/engineer. We swapped great ideas relative to what I want and, maybe even more importantly, what I DON’T want for this album. This morning on the plane I spent some time listening to different songs with different production elements that I like…I love T. Bone Burnett’s drum treatment on “Raising Sand”, but it’s probably TOO open and echoey for me…Etc. etc.
In other news, I had a lovely fun time playing an in-the-round style show on Monday at Room 5 with 3 other lovely talented folks. Plus percussion! Djembe, snare, triangle, you name it…Very fun to get a little taste of some of my new material with beats…Good times had!! More bulletins soon.
