Using a laptop to record some extra elements in various locations has been really fun. Tuesday evening, Greg, Steve, and I decided to give this a shot over at Greg’s place in downtown Holyoke. Greg’s place is great… A nice loft with lovely views of the awesome buildings in Holyoke. I really love my city.

So after some delicious mole, pupusas, and pork burritos at El Guanaco in South Hadley Falls, Steve, Greg, and I headed to Greg’s to put some finishing touches on The Spires. Steve had to download the driver for the Tascam US-144 interface we’re using, but we were up and running in no time.

Down the street at city hall, a chicken ordinance was being debated. There was quite a turnout! Parking on the street was a little busy.

The other thing that was happening was a lively service at the recent storefront church that opened down the street. What was great was that Greg’s amp was picking up some of the signal from it (maybe they had a wireless mic?). The person giving the sermon in Spanish can actually be heard towards the tail end of Greg’s guitar track on The Spires. It’s awesome.

I am getting really excited to start promoting the record, and am pleased to tell you that I’ve decided on a title!

More about that soon.

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”.

On February 29th and March 1st, I’m playing at P.A.C.E. for the 5th Anniversary Celebration Taste of P.A.C.E. I’ll be performing 2 songs each night. It should be a fun show– basically a ‘review’ of all the music, theater, dance, comedy, etc. that’s been on the P.A.C.E. stage for the past 5 years.

I remember walking around the Easthampton Fall Festival with my cousin Steve Biegner and meeting Sonia for the first time. She suggested that we stop in and soon after we booked ourselves a Smokejumpers show. In the very early days of P.A.C.E., the rooms weren’t separated and there were folding chairs only. There were three risers and that was about it. I think we played a few shows with me on piano, Steve Biegner on guitar, and Adam Bach on bass. We each had our own little 4′x5′ riser. It was fun times. We used to document these things in our livejournal, but I haven’t read that in years.

Between Smokejumpers shows, Northernly shows, Steve Biegner shows, and my own performances at P.A.C.E., I really feel like I’ve made a little dent in the P.A.C.E. stage. I’ve seen some really wonderful shows there too– Haunt, Stephen Brodsky, Mark Schwaber, The Low Anthem, David Berkeley, Swing Caravan. So I’m psyched that I’ve been asked to play this event, because I get in for free to see everyone else playing and performing on those nights.

Also, Steve Biegner and Julia Suriano are the leads in the upcoming production of West Side Story, so some sort of tidbit of that will be happening I imagine.

This week I headed down to the Advance Internet offices, which are in Journal Square in Jersey City, NJ. It was quite nice to meet people who I generally only talk to over IM or on the phone, since I’m sort of a satellite employee working from the MassLive office in Springfield. Jersey City is interesting, because it’s just across the river from NYC. It has its nice areas and its not so nice areas. Journal Square seems like it’s right in the middle of the two. My hotel wasn’t in an awesome area, but I eventually found it on Tuesday after driving around forever.

There were limited food options, but I wound up going to GoldenKrust, which is a very small chain of “Caribbean Bakery and Grill”s. Most of them are in NYC, Queens, Long Island, etc. It’s like a take-out joint. I had the jerk chicken. It was surprisingly delicious.

We wound up going Wednesday night into the city. It’s a pretty quick ride on the PATH train from Journal Square. Times Square is always nuts, and as a NYC tourist I’ve been there plenty of times, but it always seems to have its charm like anything else. We wound up going to Heartland Brewery. It was nice to share a meal with co-workers and get to know them more.

I was homesick of course, missing Kristen like nuts.

Every time I travel it’s bittersweet. I love exploring and seeing a whole different set of people and how they live. I love eating at different places and getting lost and stuff like that. But after about the second day from home I really yearn to be back in familiar surroundings. I never used to feel this way, but maybe it’s a reflection of realizing that I’m getting older. I may not be a spring chicken anymore, but I always strive to live in the moment and seize opportunities as they arise. I also realize that I can’t do everything, and it’s okay to just chill out once in awhile.

That said, I plan to relax a bit this weekend, and go see The Low Anthem and Steve Biegner at PACE on Saturday night probably.