2008-04-07 - 11:28 p.m.
It’s been quite a winter for me. While the band was not working (large parts of November and December) I busied myself producing a record for a band from Phillie called Boris Garcia. It was a huge amount of work squeezed into 15 days. I got to work with a couple of great engineers, Frank Moore and Phil Nicolo. Phil mixed the record. He’s a 3 time grammy winner and trust me when I tell you, you’ve heard his work many times. The bands music is a great cross between the Beatles, the Byrds and the Grateful Dead so I got to wear a few different hats while still trying to make the record cohesive. I love the results so keep your eyes open for “Once More Into The Bliss” by Boris Garcia when it comes out.
I also got to finish up production on the, as yet untitled, new album by David Gans. I used all the Shockenaw Mountain Boys and then some on it. Not sure when this one’s coming out but hopefully sooner than later.
I bought a weird little toy camera from China called a Diana. I remember them from when I was kid. They used to give them away at gas stations with a tank of gas (which cost under $5!!). It’s made of plastic, including the lens and takes grainy, dreamy and unpredictable pictures. I’ll put some up on my Myspace site soon. They’re square format and very moody. I’ve been having a blast with it!
The rest of the winter has been spent working on the new Railroad Earth record, “Amen Corner”. We took a different approach to recording this time; piling our recording gear into a house and pretty much recording what came out and refining that. Good fun and a very creative way to work. Can’t wait for it’s release in June.
Festival season started early for us. We played Langerado down in south Florida on the Seminole Indian reservation. It was a wind blown set for us but there was an absolute ton of people who seemed to really enjoy us. Or perhaps I was having so much fun myself it seemed everyone else was too! I saw some great music... Medeski, Martin, Woods and Scofield, Of Montreal (theatrical, dance pop.. but I liked it!), Steel Train (they’ve been listening to the Flaming Lips... which is good thing!) and the Beastie Boys (fantastic... just great!). The highlight of the weekend for me, besides our set, was doing a Relix podcast with Backyard Tire Fire. We did 2 great songs that I think came out rather well. And the best band and something totally new for me was Thievery Corporation. They were flat out unbelievable! Best thing I saw all weekend.
Last week we played Springfest at the Suwanee Music Park in Live Oak,FL. Each time I play there I feel renewed. It’s like hanging out with family. Played a lot of music. With the help of Aaron and Zach from HBRSB, I got to duplicate the strings we put on Boris Garcia’s record. They made their first Springfest appearance. We read the parts like a string trio. It was the first time in Springfest history that 3 fiddle players were on stage and not one solo was played! The Boris boys did well and made a bunch of new fans. The Shockenaw Mountain Boys played with David Gans on the amphitheater stage. It was a blast and the David Gans and friends jam on the meadow stage the night before was the best David Gans and friends I’ve ever been involved with. The Greencards were great as were the Waybacks. My fav of the weekend was Acoustic Syndicate. They stopped playing for awhile but are back doing some dates and man were they fantastic.
