Cart

Recording Journals: The Making of the No Schedule Man CD

Recording Journal, Vol. 7: “The Grind”

By July 18, 2009No Comments

Considering the fact that I’m totally burnt from all the challenges of the last few months, this wasn’t a bad week. In golf, they call it “grinding”; it’s what you do to keep yourself in the game even though you don’t have your best stuff. That’s been me over the last few weeks.  It’s cool when people ask me, “How do you manage to do all those things?!” But it also takes its toll. I’m always searching for balance, finding it sometimes more than others.

This was a week spent searching while trying to move the machinery forward at the same time.

Music wise, we carved out a little time to work on a song called “South Carolina” and I like where it’s headed. The choice of that song was ironic this week, given that it is an autobiographical plea for peace of mind (“For just a moment’s peace, I hope South Carolina can help heal my mind …”).

We also re-addressed the work we’d done previously on four other tunes, and took a little time to discuss what we felt was working and what was not. Interestingly, I’m finding that coming back to songs with fresh ears (i.e., leaving our work alone for a week and then listening to it again rather than hearing the same thing over again and again) has given me some fresh perspective on some arrangements and approaches. I’m anxious to keep the project moving, but I can also see the benefits of giving the task some room to breathe so the songs can flesh themselves out at their own pace.

We soon will be ghost tracking a few new songs. Already, we’ve worked at five of the eleven tunes I’ve got targeted for this project. Not bad when you consider making the CD is way down the list of immediate priorities.

In “real world” news, our CPT Entertainment crew finished our most ambitious video production project yet earlier this week, and began post production on another. We’ve continued to “spin a lot of plates” while getting into full gear for our upcoming trade shows, which loom ever closer on the horizon.

None of this takes into account that I’m on the radio six days a week. It can be difficult to keep a clear head. But I prefer those kinds of challenges, as opposed to your biggest decision of the day being what lottery numbers you’re going to play.

So things move ahead, though I continue to be the antithesis of the character in “No Schedule Man.” I’ll try and tap into that persona this week, with a day as MC of a golf tournament on Monday and a couple of precious days off scheduled for later in the week.

– Kevin

Leave a Reply