Nearly hurricane-strength winds and heavy rain and fog couldn’t keep me from heading up to Conway Rock City to work on a couple songs for the new record.  I sang some vocals on Fight or Flight and The Spires and did some organ tracks also. And of course, like a good New Englander, I had a “how about this crazy weather” discussion with Dave.

It was some of the weirdest weather we’ve experienced in awhile around here. By most accounts, it felt like a late summer storm, except we’re in the heart of winter. Driving up to Conway in the dense fog was a little challenging, since Sackamusic is in the middle of the woods on narrow country roads.

I’m looking forward to heading back up to the studio again really soon. Working with Dave Chalfant has been a great experience.

Oh! – We were doing some brainstorming, and I think I may wind up using some components of “Salt”, the ‘prepared piano’ song I recently recorded last week. Really excited.

This past Friday, my old friend Ethan Tufts was in town. After having some good lunch at Local Burger in Northampton, we headed up to Sackamusic in Conway Rock City. Ethan added some great guitar parts to Fourth Floor and Pulverized.

Me, Ethan, and our friend Bill Belina started our first band back in 1989 when we were in middle school. All we had at the time were two keyboards and drums. I aspired to be the next ‘guy from Tears For Fears’ or maybe Phil Collins with a mullet. We played music in Bill’s dad’s basement, which was lined with polka records and wood paneling. We wrote tons of songs and learned how to be a band. Gradually Bill and Ethan learned other instruments and I learned how to play keys. A couple decades have gone by, and we’ve all played in various bands, grew up, etc.

Now Ethan lives in Los Angeles, has a record label, and makes awesome music asState Shirt. He manages to come home a few times a year to visit with family and friends, and we seem to get together and collaborate on music things all these years later. It’s nice to have him be a part of this record.

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.