Remember the Maine!

Ah, this is the first morning I've been able to sit out on my deck and have breakfast. Seems like spring is finally rolling around.

Been recording a lot but haven't had the chance to sort through it all. Recently did a violin session with Elizabeth Lindau of the band Canasta and a viola session with Maria McCullough who plays with Sones De Mexico and is currently in the House theater show Rose and the Rime. It's good stuff. We'll be doing a couple more sessions soon.

And, luckily, I may be having a real drummer play on some songs. One problem I've been having with this album is that I'm not a terribly good drum programmer and, as I'm planning on releasing this album for free, the idea of hiring a drummer and getting studio time to do it just doesn't make sense. So I've been cobbling together tracks from loops and added percussion. It's been OK, and in some cases works quite well, but I do miss having a real live drummer on some tunes. Luckily, my old drummer in the M.I.L.O. Collective ( a short-lived band of mine in Chicago who probably still has a myspace page though I haven't checked it or updated it in several years) who quit playing drums for a mysterious reason and who I lost touch with, has resurfaced and is playing drums again for some equally mysterious reason. Even better, he records in the same program I'm using and has a little studio set up so I can just send him tracks and he'll work his magic and send 'em back! Huzzah! (And if anyone out there does home recording and feels the urge to add tracks to a song, please do let me know and I'll send you stuff to add to. I can't promise I'll use it but I'm all for being surprised.)

Well, I suppose I should post some music this time around. Here's kind of an epic song about the Spanish American War which was written in response to us invading Iraq. There's quite a few similarities between the conflicts - the trumped up charges (evidence suggests that the Maine's boiler exploded, not that it was bombed), the complicity of the press in beating the war drum, the quick victory and the lengthy aftermath (though in the Spanish American War the aftermath largely played out in the Phillipines.)

This is one of those tracks that I cobbled together with drum loops both created and found. Some of it I like quite a bit and may keep in there in some form or another, but it does switch around in a confusing way. We'll see how Brad fares on replacing all/most this stuff with real drums.

Again, the usual disclaimers - not mixed, not final vocal probably, needs background vocals and some other stuff (like some real drums and real trumpets on there).