a sneak peak at rachael's journal:

wake up. drink coffee. skip shower. get dressed. eat breakfast. drink more coffee...already we have a morning routine here in cincinnati. ten a.m. and time to record.

today we begin with steph recording the acoustic guitar parts to the seven songs we've chosen. how is she awake enough? it's a good thing we aren't singing yet because i sound like marge simpson this morning. steph is alone in the small room we record in so i'm not sure she can feel me sending her all of my good energy. i wish i could be in there to be her cheerleader and show her how awesome she's doing.

in no time at all it's time for a lunch break. eddie izzard offers some comic relief as we eat and just relax together for a few minutes and soon it's time to sing. "this is the fun part" says steph. i'm not so sure.....

i find it incredibly difficult to record vocals all alone in a room without my sister there right next to me. we have a way of reading each other and inherently knowing what the other is going to do without saying it. steph records her vocals first and then i go in and try to match up with her. in a way it almost seems harder because i have to pay extremely close attention to her timing so that my harmony is right on. i know it's not easy for her either though. it's one thing to play for a live audience and know that if you mess up its okay and its not being recorded for everyone to listen to over and over and over again. we want everything to be perfect. although, i keep reminding myself that "better isn't always better".

four o'clock comes and it's time to wrap it up for the day. we will start tomorrow by finishing up the vocals for four more songs.

taking advantage of the little bit of daylight left, we venture out into a part of the city where there's some cute little shops and restuarants :ludlow ave. in the gaslight district. after walking around and shopping a little bit we make plans to meet up with kylie (from the over the rhine message board) and her boyfriend. we have a blast over dinner getting to know them and talking about music, life and love. good people seem to be all around us here in Ohio.

now it's time for bed again. how is it that it feels so so late but in reality it's early for me if i'm still feeling west coast time?

if you were here you might have overheard:

"do you like gold or silver sparkles" (rach) "how can you choose?" (ric)
"there was a time i was addicted to dotted eighth delays" - steven
"it helps to make ugly faces while your singing " - rach
"i need a beer" - steph (sarcastically from the sound booth at a difficult moment during vocal recording)