(written by josh)

Well, it has been around nine years since the birth of Riverdale and what an amazing nine years they have been. Randy, Jason, Matt, and I have had the most amazing time traveling around the south eastern part of the United States playing shows, meeting many awesome people, and most of all serving the Lord through this ministry. Now we have come to a new chapter in life and we believe that God is calling each of us in separate directions. Even though it hurts to leave something all of us love dearly, we live to bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ and we must be obedient to His call. God has called me (Josh) to Orlando to serve as a worship leader in a church called C3 church (www.c3orlando.com).  I am so excited about the movement of this church. They are a church with one purpose, "being the relevant church tirelessly devoted to changing lives for the glory of God" and I am so happy to be a part of it. As for now, Randy, Jason, and Matt will still be in the Albany area serving the Lord in various ways. We are all extremely excited about what the Lord has in store for our futures but we are even more excited about how He will use us to bring glory to His name. We will be having a Riverdale farewell show in late September, not sure on the specifics yet but we'll post them in the next few days, but you should definitely make plans to come. We are selling all our merch at half off!!! We will start the night off with all your favorite Riverdale songs… I guess we'll just play all of them since there aren't that many, and then we will end the night with a worship set. Thank you all for your support and encouragement over the years and we love each one of you.

Your Friends,

Josh, Matt, Randy, and Jason

So....we finished mixing this past weekend with Matt Malpass.  He is so good at what he does. It's ridiculous!!  He made us sound so pretty!! I can speak for all of us when I say that I was pretty blown away at how much of a difference it made.  Dan Shikes from Tone and Volume Mastering got the mixes Monday and began listening to them getting ready to begin the mastering process.  He is such a nice guy and really seems to know what he is doing.  We began conversation today with a graphic artist, so that will be underway within the next week.  All in all, we are pretty on schedule.  Dan said that we should have the final mastered mixes by friday.  As far as the rest of this month goes....we have decided to take a break from playing shows and start practicing up for not only the CD release show in Feb., but also for whatever else 2007 holds for us.  We have a lot of work to do in deciding what parts on the record are the most important to perform live and there were also a lot of changes done to all songs while we were in the studio.  We tried one show last weekend, but was not too happy with how we sounded.  We've had to cancel one show because of this.  We're sorry Valdosta! We can't play shows if we don't know our songs.....   

We love you guys!!

Pray for us and our success, so we will be able to spread our message of Hope to the world!!

-Randy

So...i just typed a whole heck of a lot and it all got deleted...so you're about to get the "in a nutshell version."

So Matt Goldman is super cool! He is really nice and knows more than I'll probably ever know about music. 

The first two days were solely devoted to making sure the songs made sense.  We would track them out and listen to them back in the control room.  We would change structure and add/take away parts. 

The third day was the time to record the drums.  The guys were able to leave and Me and Goldman were left there to lay down the drums. He would come out and tune after every song.  I played on a set of Pacific drums.  They sounded amazing!! He said that he has heard so many custom kits like Truth, C & C, DW, and hasn't really found any that he likes like his set of Pacific.  He would suggest that i change fills and beats and was really good at conveying to me what he was hearing in his head. There were times in a couple of songs where we sped the click track up to give different parts certain effects. 

The fourth day was Jason's day to play the bass.  I wasn't there.  Me and Josh and Matt went to a sweet guitar store and the Lenox Square Mall.  Goldman and Jason said the bass took all day, but we all know that it only took about an hour and the rest of the time was spent with them going on a romantic picnic at the park!!

The fifth-ninth days were spent on guitar and vocals.  They were recorded song by song, guitars first and then vocals next.  So Josh and Matt have been pretty busy with recording while me and Jason, Drew Mullins and Mark Ryals were busy with Halo!!!  When they got to Obituary, Goldman decided that the vocal melodies could be much better.  So we pretty much have to rewrite that song vocally...but don't be upset because it's gonna rock so much harder!!!

Today and tomorrow we'll be writing new parts and adding in little things like strings, percussion, bells, and harmonies.  I guess it's sort of Post-production. 

It's been so amazing!! We've had the opportunity to go to Buckhead Church, The Living Room, and 722 at Northpoint!  I wish you could have been able to read the first blog that got deleted.  It had a little bit more information and details...

Oh...i shaved my head completely bald!! It's josh's fault.  He's really good with peer pressure.  Matt Goldman shaved it for me!!

I love you guys!  We miss you and we'll be home soon!!

Happy Thanksgiving!! Be thankful!

-Randy