back in austin

Hey everyone

Back in Austin after that wonderful 14 hour drive from nashvegas. Next time, we're taking the Learjet.

The cold Fall air is finally rolling into Austin and it's making me think back on this past summer. We got around a good bit and played in a lot of new places. The Carolinas, Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana, Connecticut, NYC, Colorado. And we've got pictures from all of that, so I thought I'd post some of our favorites. Enjoy!



The Music Camp - Spartanburg SC

The Music Camp...the morning after. We're a little crusty.

Corndog in CT

Rob, Phoebe, Marshall - central park NYC

moo moo and phoebe in NC

With our new rig back in june. We named her "Miss Chunky Butt". Before this, we toured in 2 cars with the bass strapped to the roof!!

Dinner with JB in North Carolina after the Evening Muse show

He's a maniac!!

In the studio, Austin TX - photo by Nicola Gell
Kerrville Folk Festival

Saturday-Sunday (mixing)

Hey everyone

We finished recording, and yesterday afternoon we began the mixing process at Bil's home studio. Mixing doesn't really involve the band beyond listening back to a track once in a while and making adjustments - the bulk of the work is done by the engineer. So, we have a lot of time to hang around and we're making it into a relaxing day of reading and taking care of business to get this CD released. We've decided to do a presale sometime in the next weeks for those of you who'd like to reserve your copy.

We're going to be making the 14 hour drive back to Austin tonight - it seems like driving through the night helps make the trip go by quicker. We've had an interesting experience staying here in Nashville this past week. Being the young, poor band that we are, Connor, Marshall and myself have been staying in a hotel off of I-65, which we have managed to get lost on the way to every single night we've been here. It is also directly adjacent to a very dangerous looking nightclub. The kind of place where you get patted down and walk through a metal detector to enter! I'm even pretty sure I heard a gunshot or two last night. We don't really mind this kind of thing to be honest - we like to think of it as life experience! (Don't tell our parents that!)

So gunshots and the ever-confusing highway system aside, we've had a positive experience here in Nashville these 8 days. We're all very much pleased with the way the tracks sound, and we can't wait for everyone out there to hear it. The record includes a nice mix of styles - a little country, swing, gypsy, R&B, New Orleans groove, and there's even something for all you folky's out there. It's Americana music, by anyone’s standards.

On a side note, this past Friday we left the studio early to go and see an incredible band by the name of The Infamous Stringdusters perform here at the Station Inn. They're a bluegrass group based out of Nashville who have been making big waves recently all over the country. We highly recommend them - you can check them out at http://www.infamousstringdusters.com/if you're interested. Their banjo player, Chris Pandolfi, and dobro man Andy Hall came and played on our record. Their new CD, "Fork in the Road", is in heavy rotation in the Belleville van on long road trips.

Here are some pictures of the last day or so at Bil's. Enjoy

-Jonathan

Thurs - Friday

Howdy all

Thursday we moved to our engineer Bil's studio located west of Nashville. He built it into the bottom of his house, which was originally a Moose Lodge set up in the hills. It's set on a large piece property, with trails to hike and even a 150 foot firetower to climb, if you dare. It's a very peaceful place, and a lot of great records have been done here. I'll include some photos of it in this post.

We started off this morning laying down some percussion parts - I put down some tambourine, guiro, and shaker parts on a few tunes. Just adding a little spice to the pot, if you will. We're quickly nearing the completion of this record, and seeing it all come to life has been a great experience. We play these songs so much live, and to hear them recorded in such a professional way is really something special.

For those of you who have been wondering, here is a track list for the CD. This may change in order but these are the songs we have recorded:

1.Somebody Like You
2.Wanderin'
3.Caroline
4.Wonder Why
5.Ease My Mind
6.Take It For Granted
7.Houston Town
8.Good Day
9.Been Here Before
10.Warm Summer's Evening
11.Tell Her For Me When I'm Gone
12.Too Far To Fall

"Somebody Like You" is a song we added at the last minute, and it rounds the CD out to 12 tracks. It's a song of Rob's that we hadn't ever played live, and have rehearsed only once or twice. Kind of an uplifting gospel style of tune. The story is this - at the end of the session on Wednesday, the very last hour we had at that studio, we decided we wanted one more song on the record. So we scrambled, rehearsed it once or twice, and then recorded it. It took us a few takes, but eventually we got a version that felt good. It's a groove and feel we haven't done too much of, and it's a nice change of pace for us. So look forward to that one!

The rest of today will go to singing harmony vocals and some more guitar parts. I'm all finished with drums and percussion, so I'll be writing here and taking photos, and maybe I'll even go for a hike. The life of a drummer!


Here are some photos from where we are now.


-Jonathan

Wednesday

Well, we're almost finished recording all of the instruments now. Marshall is laying down some guitar parts at the moment. We've been lucky to have great instruments to record on - Connor had a 9 foot Yamaha grand piano and a B3, Jonathan used a 1955 Leedy Ludwig drumkit, and Marshall had some great rented guitars.

Tommorow we move to another studio to start on vocals.

Here are some pictures - and a video of connor playing a b3 hammond organ today, on which he recorded parts for rob's waltz "Ease My Mind".

There is also a video of Connor playing B3. (Sorry its sideways haha)

More tommorow!

Tuesday

Today we got a lot done. We finished drums, bass, rhythm guitars and piano on all of the songs for the CD. We also started in on some over-dubs and added parts.

Tommorow finds us doing more over-dubs and guest spots.

WOOHOO!!!

Here are some pictures and one video from the day - enjoy!

The Latest from Nashville

Hey everyone. It's noon time Monday and we're almost done tracking the rhythm (drums, guitars, piano, bass) parts to the first song on our record, a tune called "Houston Town." We're really excited to be back here finishing our record and everything is sounding great so far.

We made the 14 hour drive from Austin up here yesterday and immediately went to bed for our 8am wake up call. They like to start recording sessions bright and early here in Nashville (or as Marshall calles it - "Nah-Ville").

We'll be updating this page with lots of fresh pictures and videos later today, and then every day this week. Kind of a by the minute deal. So keep checking back!!