Our new record titled Wake up Sleeper is finished and will be available
for pay-what-you-want download on March 1 at our website HTTP://WWW.GOODSHEPHERDBAND.COM



Track Listing:

1. Wake Up Sleeper

2. Where Are the Persecuted?

3. Hiding Place

4. Rock of Ages

5. God of Abraham

6. The Son of God Goes Forth to War



Also, mark your calendars for March 27th which is the release concert
right here in Bloomington at Church of the Good Shepherd. Make sure to
check back for more info. Please continue to pray for us as in many
ways the work is only now beginning.

Beards have been growing longer, hair has been getting shaggier, eyes have sunken in and gotten bleary and some rather embarrassing wardrobe choices have been made over the last couple of weeks. Needless to day we've been keeping busy both in the studio and out—we've managed to finish 5 rhythm tracks (Drums, Bass, Rhythm Guitar, Piano and Organ...all recorded live) while preparing for a slamming two-hour long Christmas concert and trying to keep up with our classes (those of us still in school, at least) and jobs (all of us... except me).

The decision not to multi-track the rhythm section has been a very time consuming one, but I think we're convinced the finished product is going to sound much better because of it. Having a piano has been great and certainly beats a keyboard (props to Hannah and Lucas)—it looks like we're going to take advantage of having it in the studio and try to get one or two more tracks recorded before they cart it away. Then we'll be on to overdubs. Pray that things would go smoothly (and quickly)! After that we might have some rough mixes we can share with you all while you're anxiously waiting for the goods to return from Hollywood, as well as some video of the recording process.

There are also some wonderful photos by our good friend Luke Trout that make us look much more professional than we actually are, and we'll try to post some up here soon.

And while I'm at it, now is as good a time as any to prep you for the second annual Good Shepherd Band Christmas Sing-a-long. It's going to be a blast. Many of you made it to last year's and can testify to how much fun it was. Be sure to mark the date (December 12th @ 7 p.m.) and bring all your friends (take a road trip if you have to, it will be worth it).

-Mick (On behalf of the entire GSB)

Things are getting busy over here at Mick's Basement but we are making real progress. Yesterday evening we got a take of "The Son of God goes forth to War" that is almost certainly a keeper. Getting a good drum sound, then a good guitar sound, then a figuring out all sorts of little glitches and problems has taken the better part of the last month and has been frustrating for all of us. Despite being a bit wearied from all this knob-twiddling and mic adjustment we are all excited that we've got a good recorded sound and are actually going to get to lay down some more tracks. Another provision has been the acquisition of a good piano, up until this point, we've had no idea how we were going to get one, borrowing pianos is an easy way to damage friendships so please pray that it would be kept safe and sound both in transporting and playing. We all give thanks to God for all your prayers and please don't forget our dear brother Darius who is mixing our project at Schnee Studios Hollywood. His attention to detail, insight and patience have already made this a much better recording than it would have otherwise been. Check back for more updates!

With much Love,
Mick (on behalf of the entire GSB)

Ya, so after several weeks of tinkering, three expensive ebay purchases, a trip to Menards, many phone calls to Darius out in Hollywood, and over 80 man hours in the studio, Ladies and Gentlemen...I think we've got ourselves a drum sound!

What do I mean? Well, drums are hard to record. Recording the guitar takes only one mic. Recording the organ, one mic. Recording the drums? Eight mics. And moving any one of those eight only a few inches this way or that completely changes the sound. In other words, there's a reason they refer to this as "Recording Arts and Sciences". If we didn't have Phil's good ears, and Darius' patient advice over the phone, we'd have never gotten this far.

So how far along are we?

Well, we've now got one track "God of Abraham" nearing completion, praise God! We just need to overdub the vocals, kazoo, and shakers/tambourines. And now that we've got the drum sound we want, we should be able to make more steady progress on other songs over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for your encouragement and prayers.

Stay tuned for further updates...

Just a quick update. We've not been able to get much work done on the EP over the past week—some weeks are crazy like that. BUT we'll be back in the studio tonight with some new equipment and some new things to try out. We'll let you know how it goes.

Well, first I guess we should introduce you to what exactly we mean when we say that we're recording a new EP.

Our studio is a basement.

Our recording gear is primarily a Korg D3200 multi-track console.

Our drummer is our engineer.

It's homespun. But it's well-done homespun, we promise. Probably (hopefully) the best homespun recording you could hope for, thanks to the oversight, feedback, and instruction we're getting from Hollywood.

So far this week, we laid down the rhythm section for the first song for the EP, and it's absolutely beautiful (if we don't say so ourselves). There's one little glitch that we're confident can be edited out by the masterful Chinese kung-fu recording genius, but that's what you get when you do your own engineering.

If Darius approves of the recording quality, we'll come back later and do some vocal overdubbing and maybe record an additional guitar track or two.

That's about as far as we've gone so far. It's a learning process. And we'll keep you up to date as best as we can. We'll be posting new pictures, some video, and maybe even some early cuts for your listening pleasure.

We've just been approved by ClearNote Records to record a new 5-6 song EP!

Sweetening the deal is the fact that Darius Fong will be working with us handling mixing, mastering, and co-production. Darius works at Schnee Studios in West Hollywood and most recently worked on the new Cold War Kids album, Loyalty to Loyalty. If you haven't heard it, check it out.

We're already working through pre-production and we'll keep you posted as things progress. Stay tuned for pictures, video, and new music!