We have been chipping away at this new album now for a week and things are really starting to come together.

We are still in the early stages of this process, which can be a bit grueling, but we are really having a blast.  Here’s what we’ve been up to:

Friday -

Chris and I went into the studio and tracked “scratch” tracks of acoustic and vocals.  Essentially, I sat down and recorded a basic, acoustic guitar track and then got up and sang it.  I did this for all 10 songs (11 actually as one was supposed to be on the cut list) and with that done, Dana and Chris will be able to record drums and bass with something to go by other than just a metronome.  We spent 4 or 5 hours in the studio laying these down and having Chris there was a big help.  He was able to remind me of things I was forgetting and so I think we laid a solid foundation for the next pieces.

Monday -

Dana, Chris, Tim and I went into the studio and worked out drum parts.  It was a fairly lengthy process in the sense that we went from 10 to 7, but it was way quick considering that tracking 10 drums (actually we did 11 before I realized that 1 was on the cut list) usually takes a couple of days.  We went in with an understanding of how the songs all work, but without specific drum parts laid out.  The process could not have been easier!  Joel (our producer/engineer) had some great ideas and with all of us in the room kicking things around we were able to get some very cool, distinct parts.  Dana deserves most of the credit, however, as he was really able to sit down and make these parts come to life.  Before tracking drums we all had a fear that all of the songs sounded the same and were pretty generic.  That is no longer a worry.  The drums sound great and feel great and lay a really solid foundation for all of the other parts.

Wednesday -

We did bass.  Chris, Tim and I went in and did the bass work.  Chris is flat-out brilliant!  He just has a great ear and understands how to give songs a pulse while staying out of the way for parts that aren’t there yet.  We went in at 6:30 and finished by midnight, which again, makes for a long night, but in comparison is really quick.

The foundation has been laid and now we should really start to see these songs come to life.  After a much needed break (5 days off while Joel does some shows down south and we do services here), we’ll go back in on Tuesday and start doing keys and guitars.  This process will take a few days and then we’ll do vocals.

I’m getting more and more excited about the final product and can’t wait to start sharing some songs with you guys!

Check back here for more updates soon!

Last night Tim, Jill and I went over to Dana’s to hash out more of these songs for our recording project.  We head into the studio on the 10th and with that date rapidly approaching, we want to make sure that we all know the basic structure of the songs.  It’s a fun process, but it is missing a key component; guitars!

Joel Piper will be engineering and producing this little project and will be doing a bulk of the guitar work.  Since he’s not in on these early sessions the songs are not exactly zesty.

It will be really interesting, and I think, refreshing to hear what the guitar lines add to these songs.  I’m excited for the final product and am now just getting antsy to begin.

We’ve got some trimming to do (13 songs to 10) and a lot of production to add to this stuff, but it is getting more and more fun as we go!

stay tuned…

On Tuesday of this week Tim, Jill, Chris and I all went over to Dana’s to hash out a few songs and prepare to record some demos.

We worked through 5 songs which was pretty surprising considering they were mostly new to Dana and Chris.  I suppose not having a guitarist in the room made it go quicker as those guitar parts tend to be the driving hook and developing those can take some time.  That can happen a bit later though.

For now, we’re plowing through.  We’ll get together on Sunday and work out the rest and then Tuesday night we’ll start laying down drum and bass tracks.  We’ll continue to build these rough demos of each song so that we have something to play to in the studio in February.

This process, though somewhat laborious (that’s right, I said it) is really fun for me.  I really like getting in a room with other musicians and thinking through where songs can go and what we can do with them.

I’ll try and get some video this week and post it here so that the 5 of you who read this (hi mom) can get a sense of what’s going on.

oh by the way, I think we have a name:

drum roll please…

The Avenue

What do you think?

So we are locked in and will start recording February 10th!

There’s a lot of work to do in the meantime demoing songs and making sure we know what we want to do, so while it’s going to be a lot of fun, it’ll also be a lot of work.

I’m really excited about this project and feeling more and more like this is something we should do.  And I think the end product is going to be something great!

I’ll be posting video and pictures during the process and letting you all see it as it unfolds.  And, of course, I’ll let you in on how and where to buy this thing!

So stay tuned and wish us luck!

I have been thinking through and sorta-kinda working on a recording project for a long time now.  It’s one of those things that I really want to do, but have never really believed that my stuff was good enough that people would want to listen to it.  I worry that I’ll put a lot of time, energy and money into a recording project and it just won’t be that good.  While I’m not sure any of those insecurities have left, I am sure that this is something I need to do and am going full steam ahead.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing as of late with Tim Douty (a phenomenal piano player and writer) and I think we have some good stuff.  I’m currently lining up studio time and am going to do this over the next few months.  I think what’s great about this project is that it won’t just be mine.  I’ll be sharing a lot of the vocals with Jill (Tim’s wife and a great singer) and the songs will almost all be co-written by Tim and I.  It takes the pressure off and makes it a lot more fun.

We’ll see how things materialize and, I’ve got to say, I’m a little nervous about writing about it this early as that means we have to do it, but I’m really excited to see what happens.

My boss has been out of the country lately as well as being involved in a lot of different things that keep her away from here and put the responsibility of the weekend services squarely on my shoulders.  I’ve got to say, I’m getting used to it.  Not that I enjoy when my boss is gone, mind you, a lot of times I think I’m doing it all wrong, but the feeling of knowing that services are impactful and that I’m not burning the place down is pretty great and is also forcing me to develop some organizational muscles that I’d prefer to keep hidden.  I’m being stretched and that’s a good feeling.

Of course, stretching all the time is no fun for anyone, which is why I’ve really loved getting to spend some time with other musicians writing music.  I’ve been going over to Dana and Tim’s pretty regularly for the last few months hashing out some basic ideas and writing some new stuff.  I’ve also been spending some of my down time cranking out songs that I really like and have decided to put together a 6-7 song ep.

Each of the past two weeks I’ve gotten to jam with some great musicians as we’ve been fleshing out some guitar and bass stuff.  We’re doing one of these songs at Clovis Hills in the next couple of weeks and I can’t wait!

I thought I’d share a little link love for two of the guys that I’ve been working with.

 Luke Mundy and Paul Carlson

This weekend is missions weekend at Clovis Hills and I am excited!  We’re sending out a team headed to the Philippines or Pilippines for you non-english speakers (there’s no f sound in the Philippino language, did you know that?), and we’re going to do my song, “Come Home.” 

It’s pretty cool that we’ll be doing the song here as this was always my hope for this song.  I wrote it in Africa and wanted to write a song that would help the folks at my church see a bit of what we saw; now, that can happen.

Hopefully I’ll have some clips next week, though we’re still without a video camera so I’ll have to borrow.

 In the meantime (cuz I’m feeling nostalgic) here’s a reposting of our trip to the studio to record this song.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Dana posted this video on his blog and I thought I’d share as well.  Dana’s wife, Michelle, with help from Frank’s wife, Vira, put on a Christmas party every year for families staying at the Fresno Rescue Mission.  They asked us to come down and play some Christmas carols for the kids and it was an awesome time!

The song at the end of this video is by Luke Mundy and is free here.

This is the second song Luke and I worked on a little while back and since he posted it on his blog, I figured it was ok for me to do the same.

It’s called “Savior of All.”  Luke is singing and came in with most of this song done, we just reworked the chorus a bit and added a bridge.

Hope you like it!

Here’s a little song I wrote.  You might want to sing it note for note.

Actually I co-wrote it with Luke and though I’m not totally sure he’s ready for me to throw it up here, I’m doing it anyway.  After all, trust isn’t really the backbone of a good partnership is it?

I hope you like it, and if not, Luke wrote most of it. 

If you do, it was all me!

Here it is.

What’d ya think?