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Oh dear Sweet Mama.

When the papers intrude I still read about all the tragic stuff that goes on round us. Sometimes you feel slightly worried that observing a moments happiness diminishes your respect for current events. Ok maybe that's just me.

Another way of looking at it is to continue to see each enjoyed moment as a victory.

Sometimes it's nice to be on this side of the screen. I'm allowed to hear the new stuff before it gets its final mastering, so i constantly apologize for not being able to share mainly because i am digging the living heck out of this song. yes I say that every time. how blessed indeed.

Except for that one song. Oh and come to think of it...well..now that I 've started i'll stop.

Great work Mr Cripps, great bass Mr Williams, great tune Mr Teamer. 

My harp take was one single shot where there was more right than wrong. Adorable little errors you.

I am going to switch the track back on and listen to on headphones.The space. the sound. ah yes thank you indeed.

Boy these guys are putting out some fabulous work right now, wish you could hear it. come to a gig, we're playing it live, otherwise hang out and the track should be clear for release...in...a..err..um.

bugger.

Oh well. I'm turning it back on. Night.

Off to the studio today to mix Sweet Mama. I put it in the calendar marked 'optional' but was pretty much quickly informed that all stormies will be present. I mean, really it's not like I'm gonna add Mongolian Polyharmonies and yak fiddle to this one.

i already did that.  No, in fact, I think it's Mr Wizard who wants to add the weird today.

Jeff C has been solo cleaning on the track, now we descend upon him and see what's what. This is where i mention the Up Side of Multiple Studios.

We took this track to Jeff because we wanted his input, we wanted the unconscious choices that he makes. I could best describe it as seeking a 'tougher' sound.

 At a Meta Level, these are Producer choices. Not each individual dial or setting, but knowing that blue and yellow make green. ish.

So I guess my producing analogy is akin to Musical finger painting. We're not dealing with an inner child here, that sucker is out and roaming in search of large scale Fisher Price and brightly coloured plastic with non sharp edges.

Meanwhile, I know that Mr Wizard is in search of an accidental effect that occurred when a reverb and two mikes were set up, made the vocals sound truly odd. Will this simply be one step too far. probably not.

I'm quite looking forward to this. We like to listen to the stuff were making, because we're making the sort of stuff we want to hear. yes it's a circular reference but it's also accurate in one of those 'oh wow, yeah like it feeds back on itself whoah' type zen deals.

Stay tuned.

I'm sure I mentioned that we're not making an album.

We're just recording a lot of songs.

Recording The Curious Assembly didn't deter us from a multi-studio approach.

However, add in Christmas time and the start of the new year and it's Traffic Chaos (sigh) I gotta wait a whole month to work on my Yeti mix. Bummer.

That's fair enough, but trying to schedule the last three songs/studios for this batch is proving equally tough.

We're mixing Sweet Mama this weekend, in between shows, but stil to come are 'Dont take it so hard on me', 'Bloomington' and 'Rock River Variation 1'.

Oh and maybe one or two others. But that pretty much completes the bunch that are linked by time and theme.

Whilst we've been busy with instrumentals Mr Wizard has been in his mountaintop cave bringing forth yet more wonders, some even weirder than the weird stuff we've done. Prog rock anyone? How about a wrestling theme song a la AC/DC (ok, fair call, that was me). 

Face it - there are no rules anymore. We can run, musically, amok. 

Meanhwile, I gotta try and find the right spots and right dates to get this current crop harvested. Arr.

Whilst doing some calcs we just added up our show count, and even given some statistical error, we're registering 412 shows, so we can definitely say we crossed the 400 show threshold.

Woot.

Such milestones should be noted.

BTW - according to our rough count, our 400th show was either The Muddy Waters in Bettendorf, Iowa or The Town Hall Hotel, Newtown, New South Wales.

This Friday night, late, free, Town Hall Hotel Newtown with special guests 2 Girls Will.

Ah yes we're also at Shady Pines on Sunday night from 6pm - Palmer Lane, just off Crown St Darlinghurst.