May 11, 2005, 10 am
What a perfect day to record! The weather has been nice for the past few days, but today is cold and rainy. Each recording project we’ve done in the past has been during the summer months. Josie is an outdoors person, and during the warm months enjoys being in her garden or on her bike. All the past projects we’ve planned on recording in the winter, but the inevitable delays have always pushed it back to the summer. We’re happy to be doing this before the warm weather really hits. On a day like this the best place to be is inside.
| Tom has finished his recording, and feels strange leaving the house without a guitar. The plan is for Josie to finish recording today. The last session we were recording the violin track for “Josie”, but it took Josie several tries to get in the groove. She was wanting so badly to play it really well that she was trying too hard. When she started to relax and have fun with the song time was running short and we didn’t get to finish it. Today we’re going to go back and start about 3/4 of the way through and record the end. Today she’s psyched and ready to nail it. |  |
Next up is another take of “Spring Fever”. Josie wasn’t happy with the original performance and knew in her heart she could do better. Josie is notoriously hard on herself. Tom kept trying to reassure her that the original was great, but Josie is also hard headed.
 |
She asked Steve to play the song without the violin track so she could have a practice run. Sometimes you get a smart-aleck sound engineer who doesn’t tell you he’s recording when you think you’re just practicing. That’s what he did, and the first take was great. We once worked with an engineer who would pull this trick all the time, and it doesn’t take much before you get wise. Steve admitted that it only works once. |
3:30- We decide to get some lunch while Steve uploads the percussion tracks that Christian recorded in his home studio. When we get to the car we discover that the battery’s dead. Tom forgot to turn his lights off and the battery is as dead as it gets.
Tom drives a Honda Hybrid, and just yesterday was thinking that he doesn’t need the jumper cables because it’s got an electric motor that starts the car. Well, when the battery goes dead you still have to jump a hybrid. Fortunately, he procrastinated and didn’t remove the cables from his car. After a little maneuvering of the vehicles, Steve came to the rescue and we were off to get lunch.
After lunch we only have a couple of hours left, so we listened to all the percussion that Christian has supplied us with and burned them to a CD to take home. We’ll listen and decide what percussion tracks to keep and what to leave out. He intentionally gave us much more that we need so we have lots of options. That also means lots of listening!
Next session we begin mixing!
Photos by Tom Carleno and Josie Quick
