Winter Came.

Happy Valentine's Day. In spite of the fact that I spend this holiday alone (in the "Valentine" sense of the word) I feel at this moment that my heart is full and my mind is a bit overwhelmed. My Dad just left after spending almost two weeks helping me build up my new studio. When I say "helping me," I really mean discussing with me certain ideas and fantasies about how we could make the studio great, and then him doing it while I do other things. By the end I couldn't handle the amount of effort he had put into helping me out. It really looks amazing and I can't thank him enough.

The aforementioned "other things" I have been doing entail almost exclusively working on the Tyler James record. We are about 2 weeks into it and have 2 more to go. I've been able to fulfill a few of my dreams with this record. One of which is taking a great band and being able to record them live (which we did the first week at Sputnik). The Biv guys were able to help out with the live tracking which made for a relaxed and creative working environment. We trucked through 11-ish tracks in 5 nights (bass drums, organ, piano, and vox on most) with the help of whiskey, cigarettes, and coffee. It was a great time and I am grateful to have been a part of it. Now we're working at my new place doing random overdubs.



I've been throwing around some possible names for the studio. Some tentatives include: Ivy Road Studios, The Ivy, Beard Studios, Big Beard Recording...still working on it.

That's all for now.

Love and Respect. Happy Valentine's Day to all.

-Mike