Continuing the recap of 2007 to date...

Shortly after New Year's festivities (once the hangovers subsided), we set to work on the debut from Boston's Black Tie Affair. Their EP "Burning Down The Library" is available now.

Seekonk convened to begin tracking a new record.

Pushing Zero came by for a few day to touch up some songs we had in the can, and begin work on some new material.

Boston's Butterknife came up for a spell... the drummer from Butterknife, Jim Theodore, is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and is a hell of an engineer in his own right, so once the drums were tracked, I threw him the keys and let him finish overdubbing. They're just starting to play out in the Boston / Cambridge area.

Headstart was in to track a (no joke) TV show theme song. The producer of the show wrote the song, and handed the boys a rough sketch of it, featuring only voice and acoustic guitar. The boys basically kicked the crap out of it, and we had a blast, knocking out the song in its entirety in a day. In fact, it was the same sort of maniacal, unapologetic pop that made doing their first record so much fun, and Kevin and I both agreed that doing some more pop songs was definitely in the future.

In February, I produced the debut EP for Hiss and Chambers. I'm pretty excited with how tis one came out, and I think it exceeded everyone's expectations. I've worked with Shawn for a while now, and i can safely say that he sounds like he's comfortable in his own skin in this project... this is the music he was meant to do.

Gateway Mastering hooked me up with a pop artist from Chennai, India named Sajjid Manuel, and i mixed the record that he tracked on the other side of the globe. Time differences made for some logistical bumps, but the record came out great. I recently learned that one of my heroes, the might Tchad Blake, has been working like this recently as well, mixing for artists from his studio in England, sending files and revisions back and forth over the internet.

Next came Jason Spooner's record. I have known Jason since i first arrived in Portland in 1997, and have been an admirer of his work. I was really thrilled when he, Andy, and Reed asked me to jump on board for their new full-length. Its a really great record with some beautiful songs and some awesome guests: Kim Taylor (kick ass songwriter from Cincinatti), Tim Carbone (from Railroad Earth), Andy Happel (formerly of Thanks to Gravity, now with his own band), Karl Anderson (from The Wrecking). It was fun, because a bunch of these guest spots were done by the artists in other cities, so i'd send of a protools file, and in a day or tow, would get an e-mail with new tracks in it. How bout it, technology?

Lost on Liftoff convened one more time to put the finishing touches on what's going to be a full-length (13 songs! yow!) record. We tracked a handful of new songs, and put to bed a few that still needed work.

I tracked and mixed a new EP for El Grande. It was a blast. We fired up the hammond, and i always love tracking horns.

Loki recorded one song to promote themselves in the WTOS battle of the bands... it came out fantastically well, and there's talks of a full length soon,

New Hampshire's Vegas Temper came in and we did three songs. It was a long time coming, as we had talked and hinted at working together a few times over the past year or so. It was great to finally get together and make some songs.

Cult Maze came in, and we had a lovely few days filled with frost brewed lining and michael mcdonald jokes.Oh yeah, and we tracked a kick ass full-length album, as well. Look for it soon!

Dean Ford finished up work on his EP, "The Silent Pages." This time he enlisted the sercives of the ever-so-dapper Dan Capaldi and my failthful assistant (and kick ass musician) Micah Davis. Dean's a talented guy, and as much as the acoustic stuff is great, I think it would rock with a band as well!

Jeff Kral, formerly of Goud's Thumb, tracked some solo songs that look like they're going to become the making of a solo record.

Trent Gay's new band has a name (All Night Chemist) and new songs (awesome). The new lineup features Dan Paulsen and Shawn Maines, of Lowlife and EFS fame.

And that get's us more or less up to date. I'm gonna post a separate blog about my most recent project, which i'm sure everyone will be tickled pink about....

cheers,

jon