Last day in the studio with sessioneer Fred Argir in Minneapolis today, a week has gone so fast but I suppose 12-hour recording days will do that. Wake up, record, sleep, eat, and shower somewhere in the middle. Producing and playing guitar on Fred’s record has been a pleasure and we are looking forward to bringing it to you at some point in the future. There’s still a way to go. We have the backing tracks, that is drums, bass, guitars, keys, piano, and percussion (I played some tambourine today) but we only have guide vocals, so that’s next. We fly back to Dallas tomorrow to continue working on the mystery album for two days before we start with sessioneer Jed on Saturday and Space Summit 2.

Before we went to the studio today we stopped off at the famous Electric Fetus. This record store was one of the first places to support the ex-band in America and that led to Minneapolis being a place where we would play two shows when we played one everywhere else. (We made the Reptile video here at The Guthrie Theater.) I spoke to Dawn from the shop who has been there for 30 years. These are the treasured people that make all the difference in the tricky world of selling records, dedicated tastemakers, true music lovers. Thank you, Dawn and everyone in every record store around the world that makes a difference to musicians because of their passion and enthusiasm for the music.

Back at the studio, we didn’t have so much to do today, we knew we had one song to look at and nine to listen to to check that we had all the guitars and violins down before we left town. I knew I had some nylon string to play which I did successfully and then we moved on to listening. We got through about five songs and on the sixth realised that something was missing. Olivia suggested EBow on the track which I tried and it worked out perfectly, wait till you hear it. On the ninth song, I heard a tambourine that wasn’t there and found about ten tambourines in the drum room, chose one and we were done.

Whilst Fred, Todd, and Gerri Ann packed up, Olivia and I went outside to take some photos in some key interesting spots. It’s America, there are a lot of interesting cultural observations to be made, one of which you’ll notice on today’s pics. So we got home earlier than usual, got some take away and now we’re off to bed and preparing for tomorrow’s flight to Dallas. By the way, I have a horrible sore throat and I’m hoping that $26 jar of manuka honey I bought at the grocery store near the studio is going to help me sort it out.

Music today has been Rob Dickinson from the Catherine Wheel’s solo album, Fresh Wine For The Horses (2005). It’s a limited edition of 2000 copies and I play a succinct guitar solo on one track, Oceans, check it out.

Music Of The Daze