It is finished
Well last mix today as well as mastering. Final
assembly tomorrow and than c'est finis. And it's not half bad either. Easily
the best album we've ever done. I feel a thousand pounds off my shoulders as
well as a little post olympic let down... creative post partum maybe.. I've
heard that young olympic athletes have a hard time of it after they win, their
whole life has been focused on a single moment that is now past and most of them
haven't planned for after it. Fortunately for me, 2 more albums beckon,
although I have resolved to make many changes in my lifestyle and put more life
back into it... although I can't say I have a lot of style either... heh.. in
that regards, off to Tahoe this weekend to snowboard my brains
out.
This has been an amazing process.
This was the hardest album I've ever done, the most honest and the most painful.
In many ways I felt like I was in the battle for my life. The creative process
was incredibly difficult, with moments of amazing inspiration punctuating long
tedious days of editing, logistics and just not having any great ideas. Some
days, it was all I could do to just drag myself down into the basement, somedays
I just lost the battle and found myself researching something obscure on the web
for 4 hours. I tried to outsource a lot this record, but discovered it took
just as much time to manage all the people working for me as it did to just do
it. I learned a lot and hope to streamline my workflow and lose the habits
leftover from starting in a basement and move on to more efficient and less
painful ways of creating. I'm still not sure why this one was so hard, but all
I know about creativity, is sometimes it just comes and sometimes it doesn't.
Ironically, I think if I had taken more breaks and lived more, I would have had
an easier time, but that's hard to reconcile with my guilt complex and work
ethic. I know this album is truly a superchick album with everyone contributing
more of themselves to this album than we've ever had, making it our best ever.
I was truly amazed to see how many of my
friends went above and beyond the call of duty to help me bring this one in,
kicking and screaming. I've worked with some of them for so long, they feel
like extensions of my body.. Brian Gocher is my partner in the thump monks and I
look forward to starting on a record with him and unleashing his creative
genius. For years, a lot of the really cool moments in my records are his
programming touches, his icing on the cake. I've also been blessed to make
friends out of the people I've worked with, Reid, Lee and Travis have all
extended their friendships to me and I was particularly touched when travis
called me from working on the P.O.D. record to wish me a happy christmas. I
could go on for quite a while about the people who got me through this and it
would also include many of you who read this blog and send me encouraging
e-mails.
Towards the end of the record,
I felt a sense of God coming alongside me in the hardest times and this verse
unbidden kept springing into my
head:
THEY WILL SOAR ON
WINGS LIKE
EAGLES ;
THEY WILL RUN AND NOT GROW
WEARY
, THEY WILL WALK AND
NOT BE FAINT
....ISAIAH 40:31. ...
Posted: Tue - January 18, 2005 at 01:04 AM
