TITLE: SKIMMING

when i get out of jail
skimming
be your man
strawberry song
monday morning
grace
free
(not so) sad
breathe it in
underwater
coney island

DOWN TO PHILLY for mastering

Some key moves had occurred the night before we drove. For one, we switched "rebuild" and "(not so) sad" in the order. I've been scared of '(not so) sad' the entire time, but instead of worrying that it's somehow out of place in this collection of songs, we've decided it needs to be flaunted, and put in a strong place where it can cut against "free", bring humor and joy into that section of the disc, and set up "rebuild"...which we decided is not called "rebuild" anymore. The short version of the story is: I brought a song to the sessions called "rebuild", which I knew had problems, but had a theme and a message that I needed to present on the disc. Unlike other, much more realized songs that Blake found very easy to convince me away from recording, "Rebuild" was clearly an orphan that I found important enough to work on.

By slowly whittling away (and then trashing) traditional "song" structure, Blake coaxed the best parts forward: the beat, the acoustic figures, the concept of Neal playing a part, and the two best lyrics of the song. At first, I thought it wasn't enough musical information to even sustain a song...this from a guy who's put "Sex Machine" or War's "Galaxy" on endless, mental patient rotation in his lifetime. Literally, the song we ended up with is about 15 seconds of the 3:00 song I brought in, stretched out to, well, 3:00 again, with new ideas from both of us, plus Neal, plus Turner, plus Ellinghaus, and all resulting in a great, ecstatic celebration of EXACTLY the message that I walked in with. This is David Bowie's Recording Maxim: Turn the good shit up, and turn the bad shit down. Blake and I are a great combination, I think. And he's teaching me about Scotch.

Of course, after the smoke cleared, it was obvious the title "rebuild" made no sense. The whole chorus which would have explained that title was long gone. In its place, an obvious choice: Breathe It In. And then the thought of, "Wow. That'd be a pretty cool title for the disc, too." Hm.

NOW, OFF TO PHILLY

Phil Nicolo is so cool. Studio Four is so cool. There's more platinum on that wall than anyplace I've ever been. You'd never know it, from how down to earth Phil is. He fired up his kajillion dollar studio and gave us his time to focus all the mixes and nail down the musical portion of this project. (art will come later.) He was really impressed, which was hugely important to me and Blake, who has learned so much from watching him.

And then we ate lunch. And drank Crown Royal. And heard the new stuff he's been working on.

The disc is done. The disc is done. The disc is done. I keep repeating it to myself.