Hello there.
It's been quite an adventurous last couple months. I stopped the blog in October and since then, the band has finished tracking the record, and there is alot of space to cover. I suppose as the days go on, I'll fill in more and more of the blanks left by my absence, but to try to do all of it right now would be nuts. There were some really great glorious days, and quite a few hard painful days, but the important part is that the recording is finished and it sounds great.

Today is a beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles, and I am... staying inside and tinkering away on the computer, but yesterday was interesting.

On Friday I got a call that mixer Chris Lord-Alge got some free time in his schedule and was going to mix our song "Why Cry". I went in yesterday at 11am to his studio in Burbank and delivered the mix notes from the band and watched him work as he tweaked a couple details and got the finished album version done.

So far, our album is finished, recording-wise. The next step is mixing: when someone (sometimes the same person who produced the record, usually not) takes all the tracks and makes the final judgement calls about how everything will sound. How loud should the snare sound be? Are the guitars being overpowered by the lead vocal?, etc. All these tracks require someone who is really good at the act of sonic juggling. When you make one part louder, some other part must suffer, so getting a balance that gets the most out of the song is really an art.

Chris Lord-Alge is one of the biggest names in the business. He has mixed so many huge records, it's ridiculous. Just last Thursday he was nominated for a Grammy for his work on Green Day's "American Idiot". He is super in demand, and has a really full schedule, so we were very happy that we could wedge in and at least get him to mix one song. "Why Cry" is the most radio-ey sounding song on the record, so the label really wanted him to do the mix.

His studio space is a really open, well decorated mix of bare wooden beams and futuristic furniture, and he is a refreshingly down-to-earth, funny, straight shooting Jersey guy. His actual mixing room was like walking into the cockpit of a futuristic spaceship, albeit decorated with Christmas lights, in keeping with the spirit of the season. We talked about music for a while; I found him to be a fellow fan of Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and The Who's "Tommy". We got into a conversation about concept records, and cross fading between songs. As you may know, I am a big fan of song cycles and concept records, and with Chris Lord-Alge's work on "American Idiot" we had plenty to chat about. Sadly, we agreed that cross fading between songs has been kind of killed in these days of digital music files. There is no real way to make sure songs seamlessly blend from one in to the other without a jarring gap in between until something technologically happens to remedy this. Every time I listen to The Mars Volta's "Frances The Mute" I want to pull my hair out when the mp3's force the gap in between tracks that should blend together. Chris and Green Day's fix was to just have certain songs all be joined together as "suites" on "Idiot".

Ok, now enough music talk - check out his bathrooms:
Both were appointed with modern Scandanavian-style fixtures, but in the first bathroom, directly in one's eye-line if one were to be in a.. well, seated position on the toilet, were 3 small LCD screens mounted into the wall playing back classic concert footage! So rad. Seems to completely eradicate the need for a copy of Entertainment Weekly altogether. In the other bathroom was a small table on wheels with a kid's 45 single record player on it. Scattered around the table were classic 45's, like "She Loves You" from The Beatles, etc.

As he worked on the final mix of our song, I was blown away by his skill at the console. As the music was playing, and he was moving the faders to imprint the final combination of sounds we spent the last 2 months recording, his hands danced around the levers like a concert pianist playing a concerto. It was really cool to see a big industry name really live up to the hype. I feel lucky to have gotten his addition to our music and hope that someday in the future, we can work together again.