zac clark: home

today, despite what sounds like buckets of rain being dumped from the heavens on the roof of the studio and a forecast of a slightly more frozen version of the same on my drive back to burlington tomorrow night, good things abound at strangeways recording.

1. we settled on a final mix of a new jam either called "enough" or "i am in love with you, tonight" or "you're ok i guess" (that one is probably not really in contention) or as itunes has decided to call it, "My Interior" by John Tallhat. i have never heard mr. tallhat's work, but that is a brilliant song title which can only belong to a song devoted to the description of some sort of invasive doctor's exam best not mentioned at the dinner table. my version of the song is much less about that and more about those times when you just need to jump out the window and superman off of the fire escape when you wake up in an apartment that is not your own. it's a lot of fun (the song, not the aforementioned act, which, on the contrary, can be very painful) and includes an incredible display of vulgar hooting and hollering provided by a raucous assortment of family and friends sometime around christmas last year.

2. in a somewhat irrelevant news piece, my cell phone, which has been the bane of my existence for the past year or so due to its penchant for running out of batteries 2 minutes after being unplugged from the wall, may be fixed. the key appears to have been the high velocity with which i hurled it to the ground last night. the battery has remained full since i put its various pieces back together! great news!

3. casey prestwood is the man and has contributed some incredible pedal steel to the song we're mixing right now, which is called "tiger mending" (i think...)

things are sounding great and we seem to be getting into the final stretch of getting this record done, which will put us that much closer to getting it in your hands.

but first, i'll be playing almost all of it at higher ground on march 26th, 3 weeks from tomorrow. tickets are onsale at www.highergroundmusic.com and can also be purchased through me if you want to get in touch.. they're 2 dollars cheaper in advance and this should be a great time, so make sure you get in touch and come out to hang out with me, my good friend syd and his amazing band, and james kinne.

hope all is well, and hopefully i'll see you all soon

zac

today i was shredding on my melodica here in the studio when i was interrupted by jer coons, who showed up unannounced and rudely dumped his roughly 73 guitars down on the studio floor. as penance for his completely inappropriate interruption of my shredding, i have enslaved jer and he is currently playing one of his 73 guitars on a few of the new songs.

earlier today we also recorded what will surely go down in history as the best mellotron brass solo ever recorded (and subsequently buried in the mix so that you have to scratch your head and wonder where it is.)

i think i may have also named the record as well.. more on that later.

zc

mike is mixing "devil on your shoulder" as we speak. it sounds incredible, and i'm just sitting here on the big red strangeways recording couch taking it all in.

it's ridiculous to think about the last time i heard a potentially finished version of a new song, and the more i think about it, the more i realize perhaps it's never really happened quite to this degree. this record has been on its way into the world since as early as january 2006, and the past year has been almost entirely devoted to events that will, ultimately, be responsible for bringing it to life.

there is a great deal of love in each of these songs, and a great deal of care has been taken to make sure that they come out right. not "right" as in "sterile, surgical perfection", but that kind of "right" that knocks the wind out of you when you first hear it or feel it. the kind of "right" that is an indicator that, somehow, every step i took writing this record, and every step mike and i (and the countless other friends who've been a part of the process) have taken recording it, was the right step we needed to take.

finally, i am hearing exactly what i intended to play, in exactly the way it was meant to be heard. i can't wait to share it with you.

zc