The album is finished!

Hello,

I haven't posted a blog for some time as I've been posting updates on the recording of our new album on the talkboard. Brian suggested that I post on this blogger site and I thought it was a good idea, so here goes...
Yesterday was an exciting day for us because we sent the final "master" of our new album to the manufacturer and to our record label in New York. Although everyone in the band had been in the studio for parts of the recording process, Brian and I were there nearly every day. Thus, it was fitting that Brian, Tim (our producer) and I drove to Fedex together to send it off into the world. No matter how much time you have to record an album, in our experience it's always down to the wire. In order for it to be printed in time for the release it had to be at Fedex before they closed at 7:30 and we arrived at Fedex at.... 7:28! Let me explain why time was so tight:

We played a show at a place in Ithaca called "Castaways" on Sunday, January 25th, got to bed at a local hotel by about 2 am and got up at 7:30 am in order to get Mark to the Buffalo airport in time to catch a flight back home to Maine. Thank goodness our van has enough seats for each of us to sleep because I was more tired than I can remember being in a long time. We stopped at a Subway, which was located in a Walmart, at about 10:30, and I stumbled out of the van to get my fix. If you think eating Subway sandwiches is a sterile and soul-less experience, try doing it in a Walmart, staring off into an abyss of fluorescent lights. After dropping Mark off at the airport, we left our merchandise in Lewiston, NY, (as usual), then got back to James' place at about 2 pm. We had been in touch with our album's producer, Tim, and Brian and I figured we could make it to the mastering studio (Lacquer Channel), which is in the northeast part of Toronto, in time to be there for the song spacing. We arrived there at about 3:30 pm, and found that Tim had just arrived back from his studio with a new mix of one of the songs (Broken Line.) This was, apparently, the tenth remix that Tim had decided to do since the mastering process started. We appreciated the fact that Tim had been so obsessive about the mixes and that Phil had been so patient with him. Typically, once you hand over mixes to the mastering engineer you don't go back to the studio to do remixes if they don't sound good in the mastering room. When we had all of the songs together, we went through and set the spacing between the songs, which might seem like a minor thing but can be significant in my mind. The spacing is typically between one and three seconds and depends on the mood of each song. Once we had the spacing done, we printed a copy and went to listen to it on a stereo system that was set up in the front room of the mastering studio. When we were listening to track 5, entitled "Did You Call Me Albatross?", Brian heard a "pop" sound that wasn't supposed to be there. The sound could have been created during the recording process or during the mastering, but it needed to be eliminated so Phil had to digitally erase it. He printed another copy and we went to listen to it again in the front room. This time we found that the tracks weren't starting properly. Each song would start slightly late so the beginnings were cut off. At this point, we were starting to get a bit worried because it was about 6:30 and we had to burn yet another copy, listen to the whole thing (which runs over an hour) and get it to Fedex by 7:30! Phil suspected that it might be CD player so we went out to Tim's very cold car to listen to it on his very poor stereo system. Thankfully there was no issue on Tim's CD player, but Phil still recommended listening to it again to make sure there were no strange noises or anything. We listened to as much as we could, started the car, drove to Fedex and, as I mentioned earlier, got there at 7:28 and sent it off. Brian and I celebrated by having a pint and dinner at a restaurant that we'd played at about 7 years ago (we hadn't planned to go there but happened to notice it when we were looking for a place to eat.) It was the end to a long but interested process. I hope people enjoy it when it comes out but whatever the response is, I don't think that we could have recorded an album that everyone in the band is happier with.

Now we've got February off before doing some serious touring to promote the new record in March. To make sure the new songs will sound the best they can live, we'll be bringing Glenn Forrester on the road with us. Glenn was the sound engineer and bassist (after Nigel left) with Greenwich Meantime. He also used to play bass with a band called "Barstool Prophets" who had a hit song called "Paranoia" that James and I remember from high school.

Hope to see you in March!

- Trevor