Not Gone Yet

First of all I'd just like to mention that Kristi and I just finished a new CD project. It is based on an idea that had long escaped us, recording ourselves just as we sound live in the studio. We learned recording and production from our friend Jim St. John back in the late 70s and early 80s. He had been in Nashville, and learned from pro recordists there.

What I distinctly remember from my very first recording session with Jim is that I sang off pitch, and the recording sounded like crap. Another thing I remember about that session is that it was a hot day, and I was having one of my very first heat exhaustion experiences. You know; the one where you have a fever, and are suffering from nausea. He wasn't at all worried because I didn't really feel that way until I got home. He wasn't worried about the first bad recording either (I guess), or maybe he just wanted to get paid. Jim explained to me that part of the off pitch thing might be a problem with using headphones. It turns out that headphones can be a large part of singing off pitch in the studio, and you're supposed to keep one cup off of an ear so you can hear yourself in the room. At that time you couldn't fix off pitch vocals any way except by re-recording them - singing them over. The next thing that happened was that he played my guitar parts over again in time, and with the guitar perfectly tuned. I did play some of the guitar on those first recordings, but most of the guitars that I played were replaced either by Jim, or someone else. We recorded some folk songs, some hard rock songs, a gospelly thing called "Pebbles in the Ocean", and quite a few country songs, all songs that I had written. Oh, and a couple of pop things too. It's still a pretty cool recording. What I learned was that recording is not live performance, and you can, and should make things sound as good as you can in the genre of music that you are recording . . . no matter what. If you have to use studio musicians, then use them. If you have to stand on your head to get your voice to sound the way it needs to sound, by all means, stand on your head while you sing.

So that's how I've been approaching the act of recording all these years with both good, and not so good results. Another thing that you learn in this do-it-yourself approach to recording is that your ears won't always tell you the truth. As my ears have developed through the years, and the tears, and a lot of beers, I've learned to listen very carefully, and plentifully, and don't make any excuses if you can avoid it. I didn't even seriously consider making a recording like this until Jimmy and Val Monteith-Towler suggested that we do this. You may have heard this story, but I'm telling it again nonetheless

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Jimmy

We were staying at the Monteith-Towler's home in Blyth, Northumberland when we had a discussion about a CD that they were recording. I was suggesting that they might want to use a stray guitar player, or some keys, or maybe some strings (perish the thought) somewhere on their project, and they were insisting that they were going to sound just like they sound live on their recording, which is pretty good, so I accepted that which wouldn't have made any difference if I hadn't because they definitely do things the way that they want to. Jimmy and Val then suggested that perhaps I should record a CD of US just like we sound. It's been a couple of years since then, and they have been here to visit, and we're going back there to visit. Further . . . we took their suggestion. I just got a proof back from my friend Thaddeus who makes our small runs of CDs here, and it looks pretty cool too with graphics designed by our friend Terry Fuller.

Val

I sent the CD to Jimmy and Val over a week ago. They are going to do the small run for the UK but I received an email from Jimmy yesterday saying the CD hadn't arrived. Uh oh! I got up this morning with the thought in mind that I would email him a

nd have him send his snail mail address once more, being careful to get the postal code correct, etc. and wouldn't ya know it? I had an email from Jimmy instructing me that the CD had arrived, and further, it's their favorite Steve and Kristi CD ever. Well, that's a relief. I guess even if they thought it sucked, I didn't, and I was going for it. It was the most inexpensive project we ever produced (the first cost over $10,000).

Last night we played our last gig in the United States until we return in October. The next time we play for an audience will be in the UK. Summer has finally kicked into high gear here. I'm not terribly fond of August here, so I'm glad to be going. There hasn't been enough rain this summer, and anyway, I've been such a nose to the grindstone kind of guy this summer that I haven't really enjoyed much except getting an air conditioner put in the studio. Now that's been nice. We had rehearsals with Kristi's band, Detour, and the air conditioner made them fun. I guess they would have been fun anyway. It's been fun being the lead guitar player, and not being such a bad lead guitar player either. I'm looking forward to being an even better lead guitar player in the future. I love my red stratocaster.

For the next few days we'll be entirely obsessed with getting ready to leave. There is a certain adrenaline element at work here for certain. Could someone please tell me what an "adrenaline element" is? I think it's part of a certain brand of Chinese motorcycle. It's the part that's bound to fail, but you don't know when, but when it does it sends you flying into space, and you hope that it's someplace with a soft landing.

FROM KRISTI

The bible is finished. I've spent roughly ten hours assembling it over the past six days and nights and it's ready to guide us through twenty-eight days. This is it's seventh year of holy duty taking us safely to our destinations in the U.K. Each day is carefully and sequentially prepared with a map, contacts for the gig, the accommodations, driving directions, and each page laboriously sized and punched to fit the small zipped bible and it's ring binder. The exercise served to remind me of each loose end needing to be tied; namely the forgotten connections for a night to stay here or there. I hate traveling without knowing well in advance where I'll be resting my head at night. The first pages include our travel documents and itinerary index. It ends with codes and phone numbers for our credit card emergencies, remote access to our home answering machine, and phone numbers of friends in the U.K. This little book is so important it never leaves the hire car, lest it be accidentally left behind. My new all-in-one wireless printer has been pumping away page after page these past days and it's all assembled at long last. I can now look the twenty-eight days directly in the face and sleep soundly until we leave on Tuesday.

Enough for now. We catch a plane on Tuesday.