TJ Sherrill

So today started a little less early.  No alarm at 6 am, which was good because we hit the hay at like 1am.  Everything got going and we finished up the scratch tracks for the songs.   Scratch tracks are just basic guitar and vocals track that are laid down with a click track or a metronome to help all the players know where they are in the song.  Anyway, laid down the scratches and we moved onto more drum tracks, we’ve hammered out drums for Bones, Armor and Haunts the Road.  Next up are Hello, Soft Machine and Take it Easy.  We”ll wrap these up and get into the bass and other parts.  Here’’s a picture from up high in the loft: Matt’’s laying down most of the drums with the exception of some parts on Haunts where David and Matt pulled out a couple of floor toms and an old kick to lay down a beat for Haunts.  We got some cool tones and I think you all will really like it.  It was finally time for a dinner break so David, Matt and I walked 30 ft to a real mexican restaurant.  This place was crazy good tacos.  I ordered two beef, 1 chicken and we ate tacos till we were all full.  They don”t make food like that in Seattle anywhere, I”ve ever found.  So So good.  Now we are back at it, getting the rest of the drums down and then onto bass, vox, and the rest.  Its a short update but there’’s more tomorrow.

So I am in Los Angeles.  I flew down yesterday, got in around 10am… Hung out for most of the day while producer David Larring worked on micing drums, and some final setup for tracking.   Today my alarm woke me up at 6:oo am.  My alarm was set from last week and I am confused on what day it is so I had not set it right.  Rolled over, turned it off and drifted back to sleep only to dream about a crazy show where nothing went right.  Mic stand fell over, the house didn’t turn off the house music… oh man.  David left later this morning to get his friend Matt Erickson from the airport.   Matt is a writer, producer, player from Nashville that is working on the project with us.  Once everyone had Starbucks in our system we started getting drum tones.  The plan is to do scratch tracks then jump into drums.  Looking forward to hearing what comes of all this.  I am in good hands and this is going to be a great record.

So today we have tackled the rest of the drums, bass and more Rhodes… Tonight we are going to start on the acoustic guitar and maybe a vox or two.  Started out the morning a little late, going to bed at 3am will do that to you.  So 10 am rolled around and I was rolling around on my couch/bed.  My head was screaming at me that this was to late, that I had missed my chance to drink some coffee and stave off the headache that I had coming on.  Stumbled up, called Jess, and started getting ready for another day getting this record done.  Most of today has been spent wrapping up bass and Rhodes stuff.  The drums were all done yesterday except a new song called “Take it easy on me”.   So Matt wrapped up the drums on that one, and we jumped into bass and rhodes. Rhodes is a keyboard.organ style instrument. The songs are really starting to come together.  Each piece is finding its place.  And even with super crappy vocals and acoustic guitars, it sounds great.  Again dinner was at Taco La Fonda: Its been great to work with David and Matt.  We are making some crazy good music out of these songs.  It feels like for the past 2 years I only had a pencil and paper to work with, on top of the fact that I can”t draw if my life depends on it. Now I am surrounded by people who know how to use paints, and brushes and they know what I mean when I draw my little stick figure, take it and paint something great. Here’’s a couple of pics of Matt and David laying down tracks…