Day 3 in the studio concludes. This evening we began at 6PM and finished at about 2:45AM. Oddly enough, still the shortest day we've had yet in the studio.

I was joined this evening by my two guest musicians, Glenn Koets and Bill Lechner. Both of them had worked independently with the scratch tracks we made last week, but I hadn't had a chance to hear their ideas before we all convened.

I was thrilled to find that they both had come up with some fantastic ideas, and they both had practiced a ton. We started with Glenn's piano on "The Ballad of Charles Lang", and he killed it. He worked so efficiently on the base track that we were able to get several different takes of the solo until we found the perfect one. And I think he really actually did it pretty perfectly. He was going so strong that we got him to do some organ on "Stuck In a Bar". Delmark has an old Hammond organ that was played in Chess Studios for decades. It's old and beat up but it sounds great and Glenn added some really nice texture to the song with it.

Next up was Bill from Life is Drama. He had not only worked out a solo for "I Knew I Should Have Stayed Home", but also some fills for the rest of the song. We were blown away. It is the kind of stuff that I would never have thought of. We all worked together- Bill, Eric the engineer, Popeye, and I- and fine-tuned it. And it sounds amazing. It's a very complete track now. It makes me sad for all the great shows I could have played over the last two years if I'd had someone as talented as Bill to pick up guitar duties.

But then Popeye wouldn't be the handsomest guy in the band anymore, and I'm not ready for that kind of tension.

Seeing Bill's ability, I quickly sprung into action and got him to do some quick arpeggios on "Stuck In a Bar". Normally, I would play them, but I surmised that Bill would do them flawlessly in a tenth of the takes, so I saved major dollars by installing him. He did great.

After that, it was rhythm guitar time. We coordinated the sounds we wanted, and I blew through the rest of the album.

It's really nearing completion now. I still need to do backing vocals, a little lead guitar, and Popeye needs to add a little percussion. Oh yeah, and there are two other complete songs that I haven't started recording yet.

"Envy" and "Barstow", two songs of which I am very proud, will be acoustic guitar songs. I'm sure they'll sound good when they're done, but given my inability to play anything correctly ever, I'm not looking forward to the marathon session when I see ever-congenial Eric look over the rims of his eyeglasses, a fine bead of sweat on his upper lip, and say, "Nick, after three hours you're starting to get the hang of it. Now why don't you start over again?"

But it's worth it, kids. This is going to be a seriously good album. And I'm not just saying that because my mother's favorite child wrote it.

Anyway, it's bed time now. I think I am going to dream of sore shoulders and feet.

Love,
Nick