Well, I love a rainy night. Especially when there is music-making going on. Last night I picked up Greg Saulmon and Mark Schwaber in Easthampton. After a stop at Local Burger for a quick meal, we headed up to Sackamusic in Conway, MA in order to Schwaberize and Saulmonize two songs, Flowers On The Fire Escape and Fight Or Flight.

I recorded a scratch piano track and some vocals. Then for Flowers On The Fire Escape, Greg added some pretty eerie guitars and Mark added some harmony melody guitar too. For Fight or Flight, they both worked out various guitar parts, culminating with a wall-of-sound noisy guitar finish that blew me away. Greg wound up using a bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale for part of the scratchy slide guitar stuff. Mark also played bass on both tunes.

I’m taking a little break for the next couple weeks while I celebrate my wedding anniversary, head to Cape Cod for a week’s vacation, and sit with these songs for awhile to come up with vocal arrangements.

The second session with my Northernly bandmates, Rebekah Dutkiewicz and Aric Bieganek, yielded some pretty amazing results. Between Aric’s glockenspiel parts and Rebekah’s multiple layered cello sections, Pulverized and Fourth Floor are sounding downright orchestral. They each even put down some backing vocal tracks, and Aric had some time to do some acoustic guitar things also.

With how grand and crazy the end of Pulverized is sounding, we joked that it was the Layla of the album, but with its darker chord structure, maybe it’s more like the Let It Grow of the album.

Mark Schwaber‘s skill on the guitar is evident by listening to the great records he’s put out. But I didn’t know until recently that Mr. Schwaber is also a spectacular drummer. I had spoken to him earlier this year about making the record, and about how none of these songs had been arranged with drums yet. As someone who is not a drummer, I had few ideas. We got together sometime in March and he worked out some drum parts to Fight Or Flight, Flowers On The Fire Escape, and Other States…. AND THEY SOUND AWESOME.

Mark and I stopped at Antonio’s in Easthampton for a slice of pizza before heading up to Conway Rock City to put down the drum tracks for the three aforementioned songs.

Mr. Dave Chalfant is one class act. He packed up his van full of Nields-era recording equipment and hauled it to my house in Holyoke for session #5. Our mission was to lay down some sweet piano tracks using the Marantz piano in my dining room. In recent years, my wife had it moved up here from her hometown of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, as it was her childhood piano. After the tuning efforts of Sean Mallari, Registered Piano Technician, it’s been sounding great ever since.

We recorded over fake scratch piano tracks with real piano tracks on a bunch of songs: Committed To Tape, Mirror, Storm Of The Century, Fourth Floor, and Pulverized. I also recorded a piano track for The Gatekeeper.

Northernly was a band I was very involved in during 2005 and 2006 with Aric Bieganek and Rebekah Dutkiewicz. We played a large number of house concerts and at venues all over the northeast, and a ton of songs came out of that timeframe as well.

We got together for a bite at Local Burger in Northampton, then carpooled it up to Conway Rock City. Rebekah, Aric and I hadn’t played music together in almost a year, but you’d never know it listening to the two songs we worked on: Pulverized and Fourth Floor. Aric tracked drums and glockenspiel and Rebekah did some cello parts that sound fantastic. I’m sure the future Northernly incarnation sessions will yield similiarly great results.

For night number three, Greg and I headed up to Conway Rock City after a brief stop at Bueno Y Sano in Northampton for a quick bite. I recorded some scratch piano and vocals for all three songs we worked on this week: Committed To Tape, Storm Of The Century, and Mirror. Greg added some kick ass guitar parts. That along with Dave and Greg’s bass playing makes the songs sound fantastic.

Actually, none of these songs have any arrangements for acoustic guitars yet, only electric.  The result is a a bigger rock sound than I’ve had on previous recordings, which I’m pretty jazzed about.

It was a beautiful day to head up to Conway Rock City for our second night of recording. Greg, Steve and I recorded some drums for Mirror after a bunch of takes. It’s a waltzy little number that I wrote many years ago. Greg saw Steve and I perform it way back when we were doing Smokejumpers shows, and now he’s playing on it. Fun times. Steve, Greg, and Dave Chalfant worked out some fantastic bass parts for Committed To Tape and Storm Of The Century, I sang a scratch vocal for Committed To Tape, and Greg added some guitar shit too. Oh, and we even had time to rehearse Kindred a bit. All in all it was a really productive evening.

Greg and I took some pictures of the goingson…

Our first night up in Conway Rock City! Myself, Greg Saulmon, and Steve Biegner got a really good start on two songs: Committed To Tape and Storm Of The Century. We head back up to Dave Chalfant’s studio again this evening.

Kristen Beam was nice enough to come up and take some pictures:

photo by Kristen Beam

Tonight I’m heading up to Sackamusic in Conway, MA to start recording with Dave Chalfant. I’m taking Steve Biegner and Greg Saulmon and we’re going to be working on a few songs. It marks the first real (not reel) recording for the forthcoming album.

It somehow seems fitting to be starting this a day after my birthday and opening yet another new chapter in my crazy life. In a phone call yesterday, my dad and I discussed whether or not I thought I was “cured”. I told him I try not to think about it, which is true. Actually, I probably won’t ever be able to answer this question. This fact tends to insert itself into almost every one of my songs in one way or another.

It’s been about 8 or 9 years since I made the last record. I am reminded of how I got to this point, and if I pile up all those circumstances it’s a little overwhelming. But with that, it’s exhilerating too.

I intend to have a lot of fun. To use a Massachusettsism, I’m “wicked excited”.