days 2 & 3

Well its certainly been intense.

I am having trouble grasping it all. Basically I walked into the studio with four other guys that I trust with an unhealthy amount of courage… and my faith in them has proved itself worthy.

These men took one song at a time over 23 hours and now stand on the other side of a record with 12 songs in the bag for all of the instruments other than 3 or 4 acoustic guitar tracks and 6 vocal tracks. It is me that is responsible for the rest of these parts… so they have been released.

I don’t think we made an album in the way that most would consider ‘the best’ way… but we jammed… and it was a little bit magical. This is a fresh album. A series of songs that tell a story and further a band that offers plenty of sub-plots.

We were also graced with the dear Christina Roushey for some background vocals. She was the 5th person involved that was entrusted with this absolute trust that I had applied to the other four.

This was a session where I hit play and joel and joel would do their bits and phil would re-invent rhythm as we know it. Mike would hit record and throw down some gorgeous guitar phrasing at the same time. Christy could 1 or 2 take anything we threw at her and in sum everybody had ideas and they fleshed them out very well.

I miss fresh records and that may be the reason I’m making one… but without my friends it would have been a drum machine and a synth… and that is way too 2005… but the music is good and the grammy committee are into it.

I am blessed to have worked with such incredible players, and while I was the common thread for all of these characters the sense of community and team work was phenomenal. There was not a single argument, it was all about the music being first… and as I was the one who wrote the songs it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.

I must also mention a very special thank you to scott austin for letting me steal all of his equipment and also the tone he has been working on for the last 2 years and finally perfected. Also Eli Vasquez who has built the most beautiful sounding guitar I’ve ever heard and let me play it. Dorman’s honesty, Josh’s house and Nate for housing the canadians. Couldn’t have done it without any of you.

day 1...

so today was a good day.

we got out to belly of the whale and mike told us that the only people the studio was open to was friends and it was compliment of sorts... but here is the breakdown.

i've been waiting for years to make an album with joel morehouse. he makes music seem easier than finding a great sandwich in wegmans or a new york city deli. its like it falls out of him. phil johnston is not far behind, if any behind, and joel dawson is to the bass what pino is to the bass.

we started today with drum sounds and mike at the helm made it as easy as any studio pro to get an amazing sound out of the kit in under 20 minutes. keys joel (morehouse) was understandably late because of a rehearsal and bass joel (dawson) and i told jokes in the mean time. we cut a few tracks very loosely and got a good feel for the vibe of the studio.

today was a day to flush out errors and there were none... so we kept cutting. i guess my time of obsessing over notes is, at least temporarily, beneath me and so we focused on the more important elements of a good groove.

with a pocket the size of jokerman we did a gentle acoustic number and mike with us in the spirit of the electric guitar. truth be told, i thought this was a time for me to shine, but i'm enjoying the songs coming to life so much that i don't care much for my own guitar work... rather... in the spirit of keys joel... its the capturing of an essence. good music knows no bounds and i'd rather catch the energy off the floor than trying to craft the perfect lead.

time is of the essence and tomorrow is the real teller, but as of tonight the music is very much alive. i'm excited to see what tomorrow brings. my goal is very high and mike's is much lower, together i'm hoping we find ourselves in the middle of a brilliant record.

i've waited a long time for musicians like these and i'm understandably excited. tommy hawkins music is alive, but it has little to do with him... just a few chords, a lot of editing in the writing process and very very good friends. there is an aura, and that is what i am more concerned with than the perfections. no click... no scores... just simple charts and whole lot of heart.

your ears are in for a real treat.

oh how things have changed...

i don't know where it was, i'd like to believe its some college town in georgia but it was the fall of 2008 and we were on tour and it was gameday. we'd lined up a gig and were bound to play to a packed house for four hours and change and i had some songs to learn. so i tucked myself into the back room of the bus and learned a handful of songs and then emerged completely drenched in sweat. it was probably 98 degrees inside that bus.

as the game was winding down we headed to the venue and unpacked the bus. 13 guitars, an army of effects pedals, more amps than musicians and an orange drumset with the band logo on the front. we were fact & fiction, and we were about to have our way with the ears of a few hundred people. and so we did.

but here i am now, i live in new york city and have been working on the writing of this record for over a year. i'd originally planned to cut it in the hamptons last spring, but it wasn't ready. but almost a full year after the originally planned session here i am about to mount a different form of tour bus.

yes folks, i'm about to join the megabus generation. the main differences are as follows:

1. no guitars. no amps. and only a handful of pedals.
2. no 42 inch flat screen or incredibly loud home stereo system.
3. no shower.
4. not two lounges, not even one lounge!
5. its probably going to be air conditioned.
6. i'm told it has wifi
7. i don't have to sleep on it.
8. if we run out of fuel on the freeway i won't have to be the one to get out and prime the engine in the dark.

i'm not sure what to make of the experience, but i'm honestly pretty excited. i'll have details and photos for the session as we go but its going to be 3 days of live off the floor tracking trying to catch the magic that made time out of mind better than any of the rest of the author's work.

with a guitar i haven't touched in a year being shipped down to the studio and a handful of other ones i've never played and further with a couple of amps i've never played and lastly any number of guitar effects i've never tweaked... the impression i'm getting from all this is 'fresh'... but i like fresh.

tangled up in blue

about a year ago my dear sister came into the city to spend a few days with me. denise and i can sit for hours and do nothing other than listen to music and talk about unimportant stuff for hours... this was pretty much the entire weekend.

anyways, at one point during the weekend i played mississippi by bob dylan. When the song was finished she simply asked, "do you think he even has to try anymore"? i thought about this for awhile and turned it over and over again in my mind over the last year. but then today i was walking down the block listening to tangled up in blue... when i couldn't help but ask the even more important question, "do you think he ever had to try"?

a friend of mine said to me a few weeks back, and i agreed with him at the time, that no matter how hard i try. no matter how good i am. no matter who i co-write with. i will never write a song as good as tangled up in blue. today i celebrated this. if we can reach the ceiling, we stop growing.

And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
Tangled up in blue

my uncle and his cursed house

my uncle seemed to have absorbed all the handyman skills ever to be bestowed to the family hawkins. my father and i, despite our best efforts, have never been capable of taking four evenly cut pieces of wood and putting them together and having a square emerge. at best, it turns inexplicably into a rectangle... or worse... an oddly shaped piece of modern art that is as destructible as a swan made of origami in a face off with a steamroller.

my uncle, however, could take the origami, the steam roller, and turn it into a remote control airplane that actually flies and is powered by wind.

no matter, his house was cursed. for nearly the entirety of my memories of my uncle he lived in the same house made of all wood and on a stunning lot outside of both orangeville and shelburn in ontario, canada. in that time it got hit by a few tornadoes. the advantage to him having all the handyman skills is that while this was a hassle to have his house torn apart, he was given a blank canvas to make improvements he'd likely sat awake at night thinking about long before the tornadoes would roll through.

anyways, last year he sold his cursed house and moved up closer to my folks just out side of flesherton*, ontario. i had more than expected another tornado to tear through and have its last affair with the old manor, however, i was more than surprised to see it succumb to fire. perhaps the new owners have the savvy to recreate this lovely abode, but my suspicions lead me to beleive it may have stood its last stand against nature. as the earth seemed determined to have her final victory over the structure just a few weeks ago. i hope the new owners are able to find a way to carry on living on this property as it seemed that only the house was cursed, not the property itself... and further that it was something of a wonderland when we would visit and play hockey on the pond and go for miles on snowmobiles**...

anyways, i'm rambling. check out the story here


*according to my sister, this is the town where no one flushes their toilet.
** as a child i thought cousin kris was surely to kill me time after time after time, but he proved rather skilled at operating these machines at racecar speeds.

A time for reviews

John Mayer impressed me!

the first track on his new record, battle studies, basically knocks it out of the park. The song is called heartbreak warfare and is a very forceful step into the direction mr. mayer seems to be going. He starts out at a distance where he's protecting himself with a reserved voice and stays hidden behind exceptional, but timid, guitar work.

i guess one of my criticisms of john boy in years past has been that he is a good enough guitar player that he needn't make himself vulnerable as a player. since he can marvel people without taking chances he really hasn't had a reason to take chances with his chops... for the same reasons, he has been able to keep his writing from having a personal touch.

that being said, something seems to have happened to him. coming out of an epic pause, he bursts forward with a chord, his voice, his passion, and all the music in him for the line, "I don't care if we don't sleep at all tonight Let's just fix this whole thing now" and this lays the ground work for the what the rest of this record is going to be.

there are moments on the record that i can do without. and there may be a little bit too much of an emphasis on his broken heart, however, he's broken through a pretty big wall to put a record like this out. this record is incredibly personal and I don't imagine it was easy for him to put on the old chopping block, but as far as what i can tell it seems to be the best record of his to date... and the guitar solos show a lot of nerve and really work throughout the disc*.

perhaps the most exciting thing about this album for me is that steve jordan doesn't annoy me to death with his heavy hand and constantly flat snare drum. the drums actually sound really good! i knew john had this in him, but the steve thing was a surprise.

while i'm hoping he keeps the personal touch and intensity of the guitar work i also hope he loses a little bit of the solitary perspective.

enjoy

*the one on edge of desire is absolutely brilliant!

self-destruction and the survival of the most fit

i have a little studio i'm very privileged to use. its up on 33rd st and its home to a few of my guitars, some effects, a laptop and an outboard digital zoom multi-track recorder. now, it seems, it is only home to a few of my guitars, some effects and a laptop.

in a panic to try and finish up the rough cuts for the record i rushed in and plugged in the zoom in hopes of getting straight to work, burning down some masters and touching up some of the vocals and guitar work. however, it is a 12V input and my laptop charger is a 19V output, so when i plugged it in, thinking it was the zoom power supply, it was, in fact, the laptop charger. for a brief moment the screen appeared as normal, and then it started blinking at me. realizing my error, i quickly switched the adapters only to be left with more blinking.

there are many things that blink that perplex me... the red stop lights atop a four way intersection, an open sign in a deli, the lights on a wireless router* and strobe lights**... this one just devastated me.

however, given my endless resolve, and the capabilities of my not so ipod mp3 player, i decided to record direct into the walkman. i suspect at this moment i'd thought i'd try my hand at the formula set forth by the jesus record, and since i don't own a jeep my battle with life seemed to indicate that michael w. smith would not be trying his hand at 'finishing' this disc for me. which is a blessing.

so now, as musicians will prepare to hear the ideas i've set forward, they are to be warned. its noisy, dirty, sloppy, weak at points, but it is honest. instead of going in with complete ideas, it seems that it has become an open book, with endless options for the musicians involved.

this album is becoming a sort of a living thing... lets hope it doesn't own a jeep.

*because they blink when it works and not when it doesn't
**because i always find myself staring into the light