Started getting things together to re-track drums on “Ashes” around 1pm. This one is tricky. Gummo created a click map to guide Stephen on the different tempos for the different sections. We discovered that the choruses naturally want to be a bit faster than the verses. We worked all day on different versions, with the verse a touch slower, the chorus a touch faster, and poor Stephen every time went out and gave it hell. He was a machine today, and while patience was wearing thin for endless takes to get it right, Stephen hung in there and ripped it up every time. With the effortless recording of the two new ones (“Said” & “Left”) it was hard re-doing one of our first songs so many times. I see “Ashes” as a much more challenging song than those other two, so I am not surprised. It has more emotional depth, and a load of changes and feels. When this one is done right, and all this is over, I feel that it will be also one of the most satisfying. My personal agenda is that this song was about my friend Andie’s battle with cancer, and she died last October when we recorded this song the first time, so I don’t care if we have to record this song a hundred times, this song is for her and it’s going to be done right.

It took a while, but we got the right setup for the click map, and Perk nailed a really good drum take. Just fast enough for some urgency, but slow enough so that all the notes can swirl around and have space to breathe.

My buddy Dan came by to hang out and videotape us for a bit. Most of the video of the recording up until now is featuring 3 guys and mysteriously missing me, …cause I am holding the camera. Now we have a bit of help in that department.

Chris took a while to find his bass tone, and got to work on re-doing his bass part. It turned out to be another arduous tone hunt. Today in general was just a bitch.

Dave got into the chorus guitars around 9:30pm. Things started loosening up, and we started to have a some fun. We closed up shop around midnight.