1984-2003 - Songwriting (it took almost 20
years to write 10 songs).
Don't Explain,
Silverado,
Universal Welfare Line and
Fatal Desire were all
pretty much finished in their present form
during the 80's while Brian was living in
Silverado Canyon.
All In Your Mind and
Loser
were written concurrently in 1989 or 1990 and
haven't changed much since (although the feel of
Loser
has changed several times during the recording process).
Last Goodbye came to Brian in the early 90's as an
inexpensive substitute for thousands of dollars' worth of
therapy to deal with the significant loss of family and friends.
Try Too Hard was written in Bryce Canyon over New Years
of 2001-2002. In July 2002 Chris gave Brian his Martin
Backpacker® which inspired Brian to write
31 Days
which, for the record, is not about Chris (who had the courage
to change his life), but rather about people who talk a lot but
do nothing to crawl out of the hole.
Sortin' It Out
was written in October 2002 during a Colorado/South Dakota/Wyoming
road trip.
January-May 2003 - Brian and Bob Harrington laid
down the basic guide tracks for the 10 original tunes.
All of the engineering was done by Bob and most of the
tracks were performed by Brian except the slide guitar
tracks for
Last Goodbye and Chris's acoustic guitar
on
Don't Explain. We also used Bob's drum machine
to provide the cheesy "boom-tap" guide drum tracks. We'll
NEVER do that again! We didn't leave enough
space in front and Brian just
could not groove
with the fake drummer which caused endless trouble while recoding
the real drum tracks later on (it's a wonder and a blessing that
Jon and Brian are still friends).
March-May 2003 - Janis and Brian were in Jackson Hole,
Wyoming on March 8th and 9th to see their friends
the Young Dubliners
at the Mangy Moose. Janis took a photograph of Brian in his
Russian hat outside the Moose Visitor Center at the south
entrance of Grand Teton National Park (they were on a subfreezing
moose and buffalo photo safari at the time). Brian was reviewing
the photos the following April and selected this shot for the
cover of the CD. Turns out that (along with the endless list of
other talents she possesses) Janis is a
really good
photographer. Later in May Brian cropped and captioned the
photo which was mocked up by Jon (he's better with Adobe
Photoshop® than the rest of us).
May 2003 - Drum Tracks at Bright Orange on 5/21. Jon Mattox
played 9 of the 10 tracks which were engineered by Sebastian,
then Sebastian recorded
Sortin' It Out which was engineered
by Brian. Brian also recorded the bass line to
Universal
Welfare Line concurrently with Jon's drum track. Due to hardware
issues (the breaker kept blowing because of air conditioning) and
some timing issues in the guide tracks, the drum tracks for
Last
Goodbye,
31 Days and
All In Your Mind had to be
scrapped and recorded later. Back to Guinea Pig Sound on 5/25 where
Brian did bass tracks to
Don't Explain,
Sortin' It Out
(later scrapped),
31 Days (later scrapped) and
Last Goodbye
(later scrapped).
June 2003 - Big month at Guinea Pig Sound with engineering done by
Bob Harrington. On 6/1 Brian did the bass tracks for
All In Your Mind,
Try Too Hard and
Silverado as well as the bass solos for
Universal Welfare Line (later replaced) and
31 Days which was
later accidentally recorded over by brush snare (Brian's fault). On 6/4 Brian
did the dulcimer and acoustic 12-string tracks for
Silverado. Steve Long
did a piano part for
31 Days (later scrapped). 6/5 Brian recorded and
engineered the bass track for 31 days. 6/10 Brian did the acoustic guitar part for
Try Too Hard and Bob Harrington did a strat comp track for
Try
Too Hard which was later scrapped.
July 2003 - Still at Guinea Pig Sound with Bob engineering. 7/5 Brian did
both acoustic tracks for
Fatal Desire which will end up as guide tracks
for Chris. 7/8 Brian did two simultaneously recorded acoustic guitar tracks
(one direct, one mic'd), the bass track, the vocal track and the Dobro solo for
Sortin' It Out (basically that makes Brian and Sebastian a duo). 7/17 Brian
redid the vocal track for
Sortin' It Out. Back to Bright Orange on 7/22 for
drum tracks. Engineered by Jon, Shawn did trap for
Last Goodbye, brush
snare on
Last Goodbye and
31 Days (over the top of Brian's bass solo).
Then Shawn laid a second trap track against Jon's first trap track to
Try
Too Hard (Jon and Shawn are the only two drummers Brian has ever known who are
both talented and "brotherly" enough to pull off a feat like that).
August 2003 - Back at Guinea Pig Sound under the caring engineering hands
of Bob Harrington. 8/9 Brian did the first of the two guitar solos in
Silverado.
8/24 Brian bought a
new Martin
and couldn't wait to try it out, so he did the capo'd
acoustic guitar track on
Don't Explain.
September 2003 - Not much going on, birthdays and all. The only thing that made it to
tape (or disk) this month were Adam's conga/bongo track and Bob Harrington's guiro
track on
Fatal Desire, both engineered by Bob on 9/19.
October 2003 - 10/1 Bob Harrington got a new mic pre for Guinea Pig Sound, so there's a
lot of vocal and instrument retracking that's going to happen. 10/9 In a very neighborly
gesture, F volunteered his fine, vintage Sho-Bud single-neck 10-string pedal steel guitar
for Marc's use on
31 Days, so Marc and Brian took a trip to LA to pick it up.
November 2003 - 11/8 After a month of "woodshedding" on the pedal steel,
Marc comes down to Guinea Pig Sound to do his steel tracks for
31 days
(ask him later about the bar foley). We had such a good time, he added some
comp steel on
Silverado. Brian also redid the bass solo for
31 Days.
December 2003 - We did absolutely
nothing! (well, we did order a
bigger hard drive for the Yamaha, should get that near the end of January).
January 2004 - The hard drive is still backordered (lame excuse). Let's see
if February is more productive. Marc Cram's wife Leslie is still on strike from
Albertson's, and when she goes back to work Marc is going to start coming down on
Sundays to do some serious mixing.
February 2004 - The hard drive just came in late this month, so Februay is
pretty much shot. Marc Cram's wife Leslie is back to work at Albertson's, so
Marc is should start coming down on Sundays as previously mentioned.
March 2004 - The new hard drive is in the Yamaha. We're back on track.
April 2004 - Brian's been doing some maintenance to facilitate track
consistency, drum mixdown and more room for solos. It's back to work on basic
tracks for Brian and Bob Harrington. Bob Boulding came down on the 24th and
laid a beautiful guitar intro/outro track for
Don't Explain. He also laid
some great groundwork for the guitar solo for
Loser. Note to self: have a
guitar specifically set up for drop-tuned songs.
May 2004 - Big day on the 1st. Bob Boulding and his dad came down to
Guinea Pig Sound to lay violin and guitar solos for
Don't Explain. It was
really nice to hear Bobby G play the violin again after so long. Probably the
last time we jammed was in the 90's at Panama Joe's. Anyway, some very good
groundwork was laid for the violin solos, and they'll be finished up sometime in
June or July. Bob the younger also took a few more passes at the
Loser
guitar solo. Really good stuff, but he wants another crack at it. On the 30th and
31st, Brian came in and laid the final primary rhythm guitar tracks for
All
In Your Mind and
Loser as well as a guide lead track for
All In
Your Mind for Cousin Marc to use as a reference. June's gonna be huge.
June 2004 - Okay, so June wasn't squat. Maybe July...
July 2004 - Back on track (sorry, bad pun). July 4th weekend we redid
the second rhythm track for
Loser using a special three-string tuning on
Steve Valladares's Strat. We also redid the dobro solo on
Sortin' It Out
which was (we believed) previously recorded with way too much chorus at the input level
(which, if true, means we couldn't get rid of it). Turns out it was a routing problem,
and after recording the new solo, we recovered the old solo. Amazingly the two solos are
virtually identical except for the tone. We kept the new one. The next day we redid
the two acoustic guitar parts for
Last Goodbye. On Saturday the 17th we redid
the clean Gretsch track for
All In Your Mind and relistened to and accepted as
final the acoustic guitar tracks on
Sortin' It Out and
Try Too Hard.
Brian turned the Les Paul back into a six-string, and Bob Harrington used it to loosen up
his blues chops for
Try Too Hard in preparation for Marc's arrival the following
weekend. Marc arrived on the 24th and laid down a really good solo for
All In Your
Mind, but in the process we discovered that the Gretsch track was recorded too muddy,
so it's due for re-do, probably with the Tele. Marc also started work on the solo for
Loser, but handed it off to Bob Harrington when he got the "where the hell are you"
phone call from Leslie. If Marc ever gets to come out to play again, we'll turn him loose
on his parts for
Try Too Hard. He left his guitars and everything else at the
studio, so we believe he'll be back.
August 2004 - Dave Cram came in on the 15th and did his guitar part for
Don't
Explain which sounded pretty good. Unfortunately, there was some high-pitched
distortion in the signal chain somewhere, and Brian couldn't here it, so the track
had to be scrapped. For those of you considering your own project, it's a good idea
to leave the engineering to people with at least half way decent hearing. Dave came
in again on the 28th and nailed the part, so all is well. And about that Gretsch track
in
All In Your Mind, turns out it was just EQ'd really poorly. We fixed that and
decided to keep it.
September 2004 - Marc Cram came down to Guinea Pig Sound on the 12th and did some
solo and comp work on
Try Too Hard, then handed his 335 and a slide to Bob Harrington
who then laid some bitchen slide work on the same song. All of the stuff is really good,
and it's a shame there's not room for all of it (maybe an outtakes track...).
October 2004 - No tangible results, but a lot of "crouching to leap"
on singing (in reality, played golf instead of music). Back on track in November.
November 2004 - Okay, maybe December.
December 2004 - Well, for sure in January (Bob Harrington called Brian to light a
fire under his butt, so did Mattox, and Brother Chris is scheduled for the 9th).
January 2005 - Finally, back to work. Brother Chris was unable to come in on
the 9th as planned, so Brian and Bob Harrington worked on some of the guitar stuff while
the Packers were getting their ass kicked by the Vikings. This work continued through
the month. On the 25th Brian sent Yamaha backups of
Don't Explain,
Sortin' It Out and
31 Days up to Mattox at Bright Orange for import into
ProTools for vocal finishing and violin solo massaging. These have a chance to be on a
movie soundtrack Jon's working on (cross your fingers). Brian also made rough "guitar
kareoke" mixes of
All In Your Mind and
Fatal Desire for Chris to work on
for later.
February 2005 - Up to Jon's on the 11th and 12th.
Sortin' It Out is
finished!!! except for mixing. So is
31 Days unless Marc wants
another crack at the pedal steel work now that he's got a brand new axe. We'll see.
We also did the violin work, redid the vocals and rough mixing on
Don't Explain.
Sounds good, and it's in the hands of Bob Boulding who needs to finish guitar solos.
We also need to redo the vocals on account of they suck, plus Janis and Janice have
mandated a lyric change (go to
Songs then
Don't Explain). Let's see how
it goes.
March 2005 - Nothing done on this project, mostly because Brian, Bob Harrington and
Cousin Marc were busy doing tracks for Jon Mattox's Jason Whitton project. Well, what
can you do. Other guys need mandolin, pedal steel and bass as much as we do. April is
going to see a lot of guitar tracks from the boys.
April 2005 - Did we say April? Excuse me, we meant May... (actually, Bob Harrington
made some pretty cool progress on his
Last Goodbye and
Silverado
solos).
May 2005 - On the 11th Brian checked out the work Bob Harrington did on his
Last Goodbye and
Silverado solos and did some prep work for the
Universal Welfare Line rhythm guitar tracks which he has now decided to
do himself (Chris & Bob better get over to Guinea Pig Sound and defend their turf
before Brian grabs the solos too). The first rough
UWL guitar and vocal
tracks were laid on the 17th along with an acoustic rhythm guitar track for
Loser (the other two guitar parts are pretty harsh and we needed the acoustic
to "soften it up" a little). Bob Harrington did some
killer guitar harmony
solos for
Silverado on or about the 29th, so it's ready to sing.
June 2005 - On the 7th Brian checked out the work Bob Harrington did on his
Silverado solos, declared them finished and sent
Silverado up to
Bright Orange for later recording of vocals. Same story for the slide solo for
Last Goodbye, completed on or about the 27th and sent to Mattox later that
week. On the 7th Bob Boulding put down a really nice guitar solo and guitar
half of the guitar-violin harmony for
Don't Explain.
July 2005 - Up to Jon Mattox's
Bright Orange Studios on the 15th and 16th.
Don't Explain and
Silverado are now in the can and ready for mixing (well, oaky,
Silverado
might need to be re-sung ... Brian and Jon kind of got into the Southern Comfort,
so we'll see).
August 2005 - Up to Bright Orange on the 19th and 20th.
Silverado got
resung to correct the Southern Comfort fiasco, it's all better now and in the can.
September 2005 - Bob Harrington's Guinea Pig Sound on the 5th.
Fatal Desire
got some very fine acoustic guitar tracks from Chris, so it's been sent to Bright Orange
for vocals and lap steel guitar. On the 8th Bob Boulding did guitar tracks for
Try Too
Hard and
Fatal Desire at Bright Orange.
October 2005 - The big news for this month is that Guinea Pig Sound is going mobile,
which is to say that it's homeless (Bob Harrington sold his house). Also, Chris gave Janis an
upright acoustic bass for her birthday, which she turned around and gave to Brian who has
played it every day since. Brian rewrote the bass solo for
Universal Welfare Line and
did it on the upright on the 15th. Marc Cram came down to Guinea Pig Sound on the 15th and
redid his solo for
All In Your Mind. Dave Schilling came down on the 15th as well. He
recorded the bass track for
Loser. The track is now ready for vocals and guitar solo.
Marc took another crack at the solo, but Brian's probably going to end up doing it himself
(it'll have a lot fewer notes and less whammy bar).
November 2005 - Nothing done. Maybe December.
December 2005 - Nothing done. Maybe January.
January 2006 - Nothing done. Maybe February.
February 2006 - Nothing done, but Brian is scheduled to work with Jon on the 12th of
March. Maybe some momentum will be built.
March 2006 - All of the remaining tracks were transferred from the Yamaha to ProTools.
Other than that, nothing to report.
April 2006 - Brian finally bought a small ProTools rig for his laptop and will be better
able to send tracks back and forth with Jon. We'll see how this speeds up the process.
May 2006 - Well, the process did not get sped up. Brian did use his new rig to do an
upright bass track for one of Jon's
Bright Orange
artists, so we know the process works. Trying to schedule some time in June.
June 2006 - Tried to schedule some time in June. Actually,
DID schedule some
time in June, but spent it rehearsing with Jason Whitton for his Genghis Cohen show, so it
was time well spent. Scheduled for July 1st, for
sure this time!
July 2006 -
Finally!! Brian and Jon got a lot of work done on the 1st.
All In Your Mind got an acoustic guitar track and a guitar solo, both done by Brian
(sorry, Marc), as well as all three of Brian's vocal tracks. This song is now in the can and
ready for Jon to mix. Brian did three guitar tracks for
Universal Welfare Line, all of
them performed using Jon's Telecaster. Brian also laid two vocal tracks, but they're not good
enough to keep. All in all, a good day at
Bright
Orange. Then on the 29th Brian and Jon got another big chunk of work done. After doing
some upright for one Jason and electric bass for the other Jason, Brian laid the upright solo for
Universal Welfare Line and the upright track for
Last Goodbye. They also laid an
upright track for a bonus tune called
Mort. This is about Beth's dog and may or may not
make the CD. Another good day at
Bright Orange.
August 2006 - On the 29th Brian laid the main vocal tracks for
Mort and
Universal Welfare Line and decided that the original scratch vocal for
Try
Too Hard is suitable for use. Three more tracks down and about twenty to go.
September 2006 - Back up to Jon's on the 15th, got a lot of work done for this project
and others. Finished the four vocal harmony tracks for
Universal Welfare Line and both
vocal tracks for
Last Goodbye. This may not sound like much, but they were very hard
for Brian to sing and represent a major hurdle jumped. On the 19th Brian took his Mbox up to
John Schilling's house and recorded John's guitar solos for
Fatal Desire and
Universal
Welfare Line, both of which were excellent. The light at the end of the tunnel is
big and bright now.
October 2006 - Bob Boulding went up to
Bright
Orange on the 17th to record his
Universal Welfare Line guitar solo. Brian went up
on the morning of the 19th, listened to it, loved it. Brian also re-recorded the previously lost
guitar intro/outro for
Fatal Desire, recorded a lap steel part for
Last Goodbye and
gave Jon the comp'd John Schilling guitar solo for
Universal Welfare Line. This puts both
Universal Welfare Line and
Last Goodbye "in the can" for fixing and mixing. A
great
day for Brian at <
Bright Orange (Brian also
got to meet Lee Sklar who was there for another session).
November 2006 - Brian went over to brother Chris's house on the 29th to get some guitar for
Try Too Hard. They got some good work done, but they need another crack at it, and they're
scheduled to try again on December 6th.
December 2006 - Brian went up to Jon's on the 2nd and did all the vocals and the bass track
for
Loser, which finishes that song. Never got together with Chris, so maybe next
month.
January 2007 - Brian went up to <
Bright
Orange on the 5th to take a pass at the unsingable vocals for
Fatal Desire. This
is something Brian's been dreading since the project started as his voice is not what it used
to be (getting old sucks). Bob Boulding stopped by to lend moral support, and it turned out that
he was essential to the success of the session. He helped Brian with quality assurance, which
basically means that he critically listened to the tracks and told Brian to "quit being a pussy,
go in there and sing it again" when Brian was about to give up. Friends like Bob are very hard
to find. The following Sunday Brian completed the guide guitar track and most of the three vocal
tracks for
I Ride An Old Paint and is waiting for his son Dave to free up time to record the
real guitar track which will be played on his grandfather's original Martin tenor guitar. Wild
night on the 8th at Guinea Pig Sound. Brian redid the three vocal tracks he did on the 7th and
added a fourth vocal track. They sound good now and are ready. Then Brian and his wife got a
wild hair and decided to have Janis record an upright bass track for
I Ride An Old Paint
which sounds remarkably good, considering she's not a musician and has never touched an upright
bass in her life. Vernon's going to laugh until he wets his pants and be very proud of her.
February 2007 - Brian worked hard on other parts of his life, but as far as this project
goes he pretty much sat on his ass for the entire month of February. He'd like to blame it on
Jasper Mattox, but he's only a kid.
March 2007 - The premier for Young, Single & Angry is the 26th, so Brian gets to hear
31 Days in a theatre. Maybe some work scheduled for the last half of the month, but we
don't know yet.
April 2007 - More ass-sitting. Maybe May.
May 2007 - Maybe not.
June 2007 - Tried once, didn't happen. Maybe July.
July 2007 - Tried again, didn't happen. Scheduled for August 18th.
August 2007 -
Finally!!! Brian and Jon got together on the 18th and got some
serious work done (well, not so much work as resolution). The only recording that went on was a
rough scratch track for a new song of Brian's called
My Horse is a Slut written for Brian's
friend Tom. But Jon and Brian went through all the tracks, did some patching and pitch correction
(yes, Brian's officially a pitch-correction whore now) and took inventory of what's ready to go. Turns
out that eight of the eleven songs are ready to mix. Brian's due back up for a short session the last
week of August, then for a good one in early September. We may finish this thing after all!
September 2007 - As a birthday present to himself, Brian took the month off.
October 2007 - Brian went up to Jon's on Sunday the 14th, but didn't work on anything (did
some bass tracks for Heather Stewart from the Young, Single and Angry movie). Jon and he did discuss
mixing, which has now started.
November 2007 - Nothin'.
December 2007 - Still nothin'.
January 2008 - Nothin'.
February 2008 - Still nothin'.
March 2008 - Talked about it a litte, but still nothin'.
April 2008 - Take a guess.
May 2008 - Take another guess.
June 2008 - Zip. Zilch. Nada.
July 2008 -
Finally!! Jon and Brian got together on the 10th to
redo the backup vocals on
Loser and
Universal Welfare Line.
Getting closer, step by step.
August 2008 - Nothin'.
September 2008 - Had something scheduled, blew it, so still nothin'.
Did get some progress mixes out, though, so wrapping our heads around
editing and final mixing. That's something, I guess...
October 2008 - Huge payoff month. Bob Boulding came down on the 29th and did some
killer guitar on
Fatal Desire and
Try Too Hard. Now all that's
left is for Brian to sing 3 tracks on
I Ride An Old Paint,
then mixing, mastering and pressing.
November 2008 - You're never gonna believe this, but
THE RECORDING
PROCESS IS FINISHED!!! On the 8th, Jon recorded Brian's vocals on
I Ride
An Old Paint. They're flawed (Brian's intonation isn't what it used to be), but
authentic, which is what counts (feel trumps finish). Anyhow, the whole thing is
currently in Jon's highly capable mixing hands. He should be done by the end of
the month. If we get on it, maybe mastering will be done by then, which means the
whole thing could be pressed and ready to distribute before Christmas. Let's hope.
Anyone who has been following this will notice that the order of the songs
has changed. Janis mentioned to Brian that
Fatal Desire packs a little more
punch than
Don't Explain (thanks to Bob, who went nuts in the studio). In a
rare display of good sense, Brian listened to his wife and moved the order around.
Go figure.
December 2008 - Well, not so fast. Upon listening to the mixes, Brian decided that his
guitar solo in
All In Your Mind was too weak and that the rest of the track was a
little lack-luster. So, as always, if you're doing and album,
YOU NEED BOB!!
Mr. Boulding went into the studio on Monday the 8th in the evening to re-record the solo.
NOW we're done recording. Mixing and mastering come next, and then pressing.
Should be available by January (2009, this time).
January 2009 - Well, mastering did start on the 28th of January. Matt Forger got really
close on his first pass. Matt, Jon, Brian and a few others are giving it a good, critical
listen. We'll see.
February 2009 - Brian's a full-time Phoenix resident now, new job and all. Matt is
fixing the dual slide guitar solo in
Last Goodbye which was left a little weak in the
first pass. He is also shortening the gap between
Universal Welfare Line and
Try Too Hard on Brian's request (he wanted a dramatic transition between those
two pieces). We'll see how it turns out.
March 2009 - Second pass master sounds great! Thanks, Matt, you're done. For now,
a lot of time to be spent listening to the master and making sure.
April 2009 - Listening...
May 2009 - More listening...
June 2009 - Still more listening...
July 2009 - Ready to print. Rick Alonso is working on the rough art that Brian
provided him. Lot's of try this, try that and about four versions of each panel of the
artwork. Should be ready in August.
August 2009 - It finally happened. On the 18th (or thereabouts), Jon sent the Brian
Cram album and the UNI album to the duplicator to be produced and packaged. Brian picked
them up on the 28th, so they're on hand and available for sale. Jon also put them
up on iTunes and a few other online music stores. They'll be available for download by
sometime in September, so BUY BRIAN'S CD, PLEASE!!!!! He needs the money to buy Janis
bird food.
No more to follow - the project is done.
