04.10.03
Well,
it's been a few weeks since my last diary entry and most of the people
who frequent the band's website know why. I have been swamped with other
commitments, and the fan club and diary entries have been kind of pushed
on the back burner as of late. So this week I am trying to catch up on
everything so the fans can do the same.
With the first track from the album "With these hands" completely
written and Sorrell getting the unfortunate news that his job will be
taking him away to New Mexico for a few weeks, our goal was simple: lay
the guitar tracks as soon as possible so we can record the bass lines
and keyboard parts while he is away. We put that plan into motion immediately
and within three sessions we were very happy with the guitar tones, Sorrell's
perforamce and the much desired "starting point" with which
the rest of the band can work with.
I began laying the keyboard parts immediately after Steve's sessions and
right now they are probably 70% finished. It helped that Eric had come
in and laid a temporary drum track with some electric drum pads. That
mixed with the guitar tracks made my job fairly easy.
With Donovan being re-eactivated to the military the week before our country
went to war, we knew his availability was going to be little to none,
so we also laid some scratc "one take" vocal tracks so we could
use the entire recording as a tool for Donovan to write and learn his
bass lines. When he gives me the green light in a few days (or weeks)
we will schedule a recording session to lay his bass parts and round out
the missing parts. I wrote the entire choris of the song around Donovan's
funk-style and even without his part in there right now it sounds great!
I can't wait to hear what it sounds like with his parts included.
Sorrell's leave was pushed back by two weeks and now he's not departing
until April 14th, so the probability of our tentative radio debut of "With
These Hands" on Dementia Radio in late May has been somewhat damperes.
As it stands now we have a drum session booked for May 24th at Route 44
Studios in Rohnert Park with former bass player Paul Lamb. The drum tracks
we were most satisfied with on the last album "Diary of a Lost Soul"
were recorded at this studio, and I firmly believe in the old saying "If
it's not broke, don't fix it".
Our immediate hopes are have to all of the bass, drum and vocal tracks
recorded by June 1st, upon which time we will hook up with Dave Hatlee
over at DementiaRadio and plan the listening debut. At this same time
the band will begin our grueling rehearsal schedule and begin to look
at some live dates for July or August. Unfortunately, along with the unexpected
obstacles causing a few goals to be pushed back, the release date for
the album could be effected as well. Since "With these hands"
totals over 14 minutes, we are hopeful that the hardest part is behind
us and June, Jly and August will see us recording as much as possible.
The schedules release of October/November is not out of reach yet, but
we refuse to get our hopes up.
Until next time,
Steve Koelling
