The Full-length Debut Album

The full-length debut CD is finally complete, having recently been mastered by Chris Bently at the Bunker Recording Studio in Cockeysville, MD. Chris has worked with The Bridge, as well as funk allstar, Karl Denson, and we are excited to have had him put the final touches on the project. We started recording this thing in August, 2008, on Pro Logic 8 in a studio I've been slowly building in the basement of my house. I recorded to a Macbook Pro, with Logic software, and a decent vocal mic, which currently is a tube-powered Rode. We borrowed a few Shure drum mics and stands from Everlove bassist, Matt Thomas, and tracked all of the instruments separately starting with the drums and scratch tracks. This project sort of worked backwards for me. Usually, I start with really ambitious designs, like wanting to write a 700 page novel with interwoven plots and a cast of characters that sweeps across several continents and works on multiple levels of meaning, and then I wind up writing a short story instead. Or maybe just sending a few emails. But this time we started out small, aiming only to showcase the trio (which we were at the time) and to get our name out there so people could hear the music. After we had arrived at a solid structure for each of the ten songs we were recording, I figured we might start adding other elements to the arrangement and see how far we could push the tracks before they got out of control. I was torn between trying to accurately represent the trio and embracing the many post-production possibilities of recording with Logic. We've come a long way since August, '08, and so have the songs. It's now March, 2009, and in that time we have been playing out a lot more with Russell McCray, who really shines on alto sax on many of these tracks, especially Switchback, which he co-wrote. Russell has been joining us at gigs since December, which we hope marks the beginning of a long relationship. I've also had the extreme pleasure of mixing Pat McAvinue's outstanding violin performances on more than a couple of these tracks. Pat, who is in high demand and currently plays with a number of top notch bluegrass outfits, including Baltimore's own, Smooth Kentucky, has begun to play live with us as as well. As usual, my dad lent his chops on the trumpet and helped write some of the horn lines that really help define these songs. He has been one of my closest musical collaborators for over ten years. One really cool thing about the online music community is the way it closes the geographical gap and makes collaborating possible no matter where you are. The cello you hear on Lighthouse was played by Adam Kahn in his Ventura home, three thousand miles from my studio, and sent as a 24bit logic session that was simply added into the mix. Adam really helped me get on track with my guitar playing and music theory when we were both film students at RISD. He also gave me the chords for the song, Andy Roam, which I hope I did justice to lyrically. Thanks to all of those who supported my first effort with Banana-Apple Records in Brooklyn in 2007, especially Brian Zimmerman, Kai Wei Hsu, Baptiste Ibar, JT Poe, Karla Chisholm, and all my friends and family who lent and ear and an opinion while I was working on the current mix. These songs will most definitely change and grow as we continue to perform them with different combinations of talented musicians who enjoy jamming and expanding the possibilities of song. Music keeps moving. So I guess it's onto the next thing... Thanks for listening! ~John

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