I took the day off from being chained to my cubicle in the MassLive.com office and headed up to Conway Rock City by myself to get together with Mr. Dave Chalfant. It was kind of a marathon day of tweaks and little things added to a bunch of songs.

Dave added bass to Little Black Boxes and I added a percussion part– a mallet on a tom basically. That song sounds spooky now, I love it. Dave also added some rocking bass to Pulverized and an in-your-face fuzzy bass part to The Spires which sounds amazing. We spent the remainder of the time listening and making some notes for mixing.

Really hoping to wrap all this up by the end of the summer, for either an August or October release. Why not September you may ask? It’s because I’m going to ITALY with the wife.

So after the end of June, I decided to take a little break from recording and sit with the songs for a little while. Kristen and I went on vacation to Provincetown, Massachusetts for the first week of July, which was much needed.  I was hoping to get back to music soon after, but the remainder of July and August was spent doing some renovations to the downstairs apartment in our building in order for us to be able to rent it out to our next tenant.

Then, at the end of August, my appendix ruptured while we were visiting with Kristen’s family in Pennsylvania. I needed emergency surgery and wound up spending a week at Hershey Medical Center. When I got home, I had some complications with my incision that weren’t so great. Needless to say it required me taking it easy, because abdomen surgery kinda hurts I discovered. I was out of work for about 5-6 weeks… So here we are the first week in November and I’m able to finally get back to the music, which is what I love to do.

I headed up to Conway Rock City in the afternoon, and Dave Chalfant and I snaked wires out a window, through the garage, and into the main house where his beautiful Baldwin upright piano lives. I recorded a few songs: The Spires, The Gatekeeper, and Whatever Happened. Later, Greg Saulmon and Mark Schwaber came up to record some guitar and drum parts for The Spires. That song in particular is sounding amazing.

I took some pictures with my cell phone of the setup madness. I also had an old Canon film camera with me and snapped some photes, but I haven’t gotten those pictures developed yet.

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.

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”.

I went up to meet with Dave Chalfant to discuss my forthcoming album a few weeks ago. Dave’s studio is in Conway, Massachusetts, on top of a hill, up a bunch of dirt roads and things. It’s in a place where you can see the stars at night.

I thought I’d have time to stop and get my headlight bulb replaced, except I got stuck in some traffic on I-91, so there wasn’t enough time. I wound up driving through the dark, hilly, woods to Conway with one headlight like that Wallflowers song. The snowbanks were so high I felt like my car was on a bobsled track.

I told Dave all my ideas for making a record… what I liked and didn’t like– why I wanted to do this. He calmly nodded and seemed to understand what I was going for. We both were pretty jazzed about the project. I told him about the grant I received from The SAMFund, and how it is somewhat bittersweet, and how I want to to my best to honor it.

The SamFUND is an organization that I learned more about when I played a benefit concert at PACE in Easthampton, Massachusetts. It was in honor of Andrea Coller, a local musician who passed away last April. I performed one of Andrea’s songs, “Call After Midnight”, and one of my own, “Kindred”. In between I talked about my own experience with cancer, and how heartbreaking it was to know that Andrea dealt with a lot of the same things– and worse, before she passed away. Even though we were only casual aquaintances at best, it was just really really difficult to process. But it reminded me how vastly important songwriting and music is– how it contributes to the world and how cathartic it is.

After I performed “Kindred”, I left the stage and pretty much lost it. Sam came backstage, introduced herself, and hugged me. We talked about how much cancer totally sucks. I told her about how much music meant to me, and how over the past number of years, between being sick, trying to restore my normal life again, and land on my feet financially, it wasn’t in the cards for me to make a record. She encouraged me to put a proposal together, write an essay, and apply for a SAMFund grant.

Initially, I felt enormously guilty about it. I kept thinking that there were more deserving people, that I’d be able to make a record one day down the line, I just had to make some sacrifices and save for a number of years first. Besides, I still had some other medical expenses I had to pay off– it was kind of silly to to make a record when I still had debts to pay. But I was encouraged by Sam, my wife Kristen, family and friends. And the more I thought about it, the more I began to see this as a responsibility to myself. I’m truly so tired of putting things off. I had to do that for a good portion of my twenties. Cancer can suck an egg, really. If I didn’t this now, then when?

I submitted a proposal, toiled over and sent in my essay. I wasn’t really confident I would get picked. When I did, I was truly honored. I couldn’t believe it, really. This was really going to happen. I was elated. But I wasn’t prepared for what I would learn next.

From The SAMFund:

In honor of her life, the The SAMFund has established the Andrea Coller Memorial Award, to be given to individuals who share Andrea’s passion and strength of spirit. Andrea’s friends and family will be involved in the selection process.

Sam called me while I was at work to tell me that Andrea’s family and friends selected me to be the first recipient of the Andrea Coller Memorial Award. Even just typing that now, I still can’t quite believe it. When I found out, I was in absolute awe. I somehow had to return to work and finish the work day and process what this all meant.

I won’t ever be able to express my gratitude or how humbling it is to know that Andrea’s family and friends think that I’m deserving of this. All I can do is honor it, and pour my heart and soul into making this record. And everything is starting to come together. I’ve been working with other musicians to work out some arrangements. I’m sending things to Dave Chalfant at Sackamusic. I’m writing and re-writing things. I have all these ideas. And I’m so grateful that I get to do this.

This is all really happening.

Kristen and I get food from El Guanaco Salvadorian & Mexican Food quite often since it’s delicious and within a close proximity to our house in Holyoke. Over the past couple years, we’ve seen it grow and have enjoyed their food while doing so. Last night, Kristen noticed an “Under New Management” sign, and picked up their recently revised menu.

I never understood why restaurants want to advertise that they’re under new management. Those signs don’t really affect my decision either way. As long as you’re advertising, why not a banner that says “New Menu Items!” or something related to the delicious food that they make?

Anyway, it’s awesome that El Guanaco has been able to thrive despite its somewhat odd location in South Hadley Falls. It goes to show you that people ARE willing to seek you out if the food is good enough. With that in mind, I hope the same success formula rings true for La Casita Azteca in Easthampton, MA.

Last week, Kristen and I went with our friends to La Casita Azteca in Easthampton. The space was previously occupied by The Pirate’s Den and Mi Casa. Both of the previous places were mediocre at best, but I’m happy to report that La Casita Azteca is FANTASTIC. Here’s a copy of their menu!

Kristen and I have this big shindig coming up this weekend with family and friends in a park in my hometown. It’s going to be great. I’m really psyched about it. Being the non-traditional quiet types that we are, we decided that a traditional wedding wasn’t for us and semi-eloped to Martha’s Vineyard to get married. But we wanted to still be able to celebrate with family and friends, and that’s how this whole picnic idea came about.

My mom Judy was gracious enough to plan and procure and sort of take on a lot of the stress of putting this together. Our families and friends also helped my mom too. So we luckily got off pretty easy. We just have to shmooze and enjoy, for the most part. It’ll be nice to visit with everyone and have our families meet and get to know each other… and to celebrate with friends too.

BUT THERE’S LOTS TO DO!

We’re cleaning things, organizing things, figuring out who will be where at what time, what to drink, etc. It starts to get a little nutty. I hope we are able to make it a great weekend for everyone who is visiting.

WHAT IF SOMEONE DOESN’T HAVE A GOOD TIME?!

Most important is for Kristen and I to be able to look around us at this thing– recognize all the wonderful people in our lives, and move forward in our marriage knowing that we can count on their love and support.

I was looking at my site one day and began to realize how seemingly quickly things become out of date and never get updated. It happens to everyone, and I suppose I could tell you that it won’t happen here since I have a fancy new blog setup so it makes it easier for me to post things. I suppose I could pledge to keep this updated as frequently as possible, not acknowledging the inevitable slackage that will creep up from time to time.

Instead I’ll just post about how I’m kind of excited about the whole blog setup. Ever since I started working at MassLive, and since meeting my lovely fiancee Kristen, I’ve been keen to the idea of starting one, but just didn’t have the time to explore it. Finally, I did.

So here we are. As I get into the swing of things, I hope some of these posts aren’t total snoozers.