Monday, August 30^th

Having picked the half inch tapes up from Ed at RFI earlier this morning, Josh headed down to Bear Creek to remix "Kick."  With Brandon's help, Ryan started setting up the tape reels and patch cord routings needed to do the mix.  At 12:30 the mix was starting to take shape.  Going into a song with a fresh perspective usually yields good results.  This was no different.  By, 3:30 they were listening to the first mix.  After Ryan put the mix on 1/2 inch tape listened to it in the car, he made some notes, came back and immediately did a 2nd and 3rd mix, of which the 2nd mix proved to be the keeper mix.  At 6pm, satisfied with the outcome, the team said it's goodbyes and work on "No Shelter" wrapped at Bear Creek. 

Tuesday July 27

With all the rhythm and lead tracks done, the last five or six days would be spent getting backing vocals, keyboards, and "highlight" (small touches)
guitar overdubs.

Brandon and Josh got started at 10:30 putting backing vocals on the verses to No Shelter (which will be the first and the title track of the album). It took a little while to get the microphones (primarily the Neuman U47) dialed in, and for Josh's voice to warm up, but after a couple hours they had the the first layer of back up vocals down for the verses.

Patrick and Ryan each arrived after they got started. Janie Cribbs arrived at the studio around noon, and watched Josh finish up before making introductions with Brandon and Ryan.

Janie would try to get all her parts done in one day, so they got her in front of the U47, and dialed her in right away. Josh had traveled to Whidbey Island Thursday of the prior week to review the songs, and to drop off a CD for her to practice to. Janie is a professional, and true to her reputation, she came prepared. The first song she worked on was One Step Forward (aka "OSF"), the classic rock song. Her vocal parts brought the chorus alive, with the added texture making the crescendo huge. After OSF,
at about 3PM, Janie worked on the bringing a gospel feel to Half Empty. She put a number of layers of harmonies on top of Josh's vocals, giving it a blues feeling that really worked with the tone of the lead vocals and the rhythm and lead guitars. In mid-afternoon, the team brought up the rock ballad "I'm Still Waiting" (aka ISW), and began layering the extensive female vocal parts. ISW builds from the solitary lead vocal and simple guitar accompaniment, and slowly builds to a big ending with 6 vocals crying out the chorus at the end. Janie finished her work at about 5PM, after having more than delivering her part of the bargain.

After dinner, it was Patrick's turn. He had been in the studio all day for moral support, and was eager to do his part.

Patrick put his strong vocal to the verse of Shallow Shores (in the "call and answer" section), then to the chorus of No Shelter, and to the verses and chorus of Conflict Song.

It was a great first day back.

Friday July 16

Finished the vocals to Shallow Shores, working on the phrasing of the chorus, and putting together a comp vocal track.

Worked the vocals to Long Run. Spent a lot of time on the phrasing to the chorus. Got it done, which put us roughly where we wanted to be in the
session.

Brandon put together a CD of rough mixes that Josh could listen to while writing the back up vocal and keyboard parts.

We take next week off, and get back in the studio on July 26 to record the backup vocals, keyboards, and any guitar overdubs.

For Josh, Brandon and Ryan, it will be nice to take the week off from the project.


Thursday July 15

Brandon was sick, and didn't make it in today. He has been working long hours, and he knew he would have to go late on Friday, and had a session he was producing starting on Monday, and needed to get the rest.

Most of the day it was just Ryan and Josh. They worked on the phrasing of the verses to Shallow Shores for 5 hours, almost reaching the "point of doubt" (where you think you can't get it all done in the time left).

Wednesday July 14

Ryan came in with a little bullhorn he bought on eBay for $17. It had two buttons on it, one to turn it on and off and the other to switch between talking and playing synthetic sounding Christmas jingles. After lunch the team worked on overdubbing Conflict Song.

After Conflict Song, they loaded up No Shelter, bouncing it from 2 inch tape to hard disc to allow for ease in play back, and editing. Josh sat in the big room with his rig, and all the amps, and with the "Kenny Strat" began laying down big fat takes to the big fat intro.

No Shelter is an unabashed tribute to big guitar tone. From the unaccompanied chords that open the song, and joined with the bass and drums drives the song throughout, to the intro solo, the lead solo, and finally the "outro" guitar solo that ushers it to the final crescendo, it is an explosion of sound that you can get only with a lot of expertise, a bunch of skill, and fourteen great microphones.

The night ended about 9PM, with a lot done, and a lot left to do.

Tuesday July 13

It was all vocals today, finishing the chorus vocals for One Step Forward (a particularly demanding section for Josh to sing) and the leads and doubles on Conflict Song. With the outdoor show on the weekend, and all the vocals he had been doing this week, Josh was beginning to lose his voice. We will have to work on guitar as much as possible tomorrow.

Monday July 12

The show over the weekend was a disappointment. The restaurant that the band played at was on the other side of the airport from where the main airshow was being held, and the crowds did not find their way over like the owner had hoped. He got a little bit squirelly when some of his regulars complained that they could not hear the airplanes over the music, and at the last minute delayed the band an hour. It was not the most memorable show, but the band made a couple new fans, sold a few CD's, and got paid.

The recording sequence that is being followed is to do all the rhythm tracks and then the guitar solos, then the lead vocals, so we had to get a couple more guitar solos done before we could do more lead vocals. The next couple of songs we chose to work on were One Step Forward, and Kick. One Step Forward is more of a classic rock song, with three verses, and three big choruses, and a short melodic lead. Kick is one of the songs written in the last year. It comes in with rapid kick triplets, and holds a hard rhythm throughout, with a hard, bitter lead in the middle.

Josh used the "Kenny Strat" for solos on both tracks.

In the afternoon, Josh sang the lead vocals for Kick and for the verses of One Step Forward and, with Ryan working with him to get phrasing and timing just right.

Friday July 9

Patrick came in early and did some work adjusting the action on the JWB strat.

Josh started by doing the guitar solos to Blinded Eyes & I'm Still Waiting. The solo for I'm Still Waiting was searing. "Waiting" is a song Josh has been working on and playing live for literally more than four years. Written for a friend, it is a ballad about loyalty and hope, and the lead guitar screams the sadness and the optimism that define the song.

In the afternoon, they stayed with the vibe that was created on the lead to "Waiting", and continued on with the lead vocals.

An artist came by to drop off a copy of the mastered recordings he had done with Ryan and Brandon a month earlier, and dropped off a bottle of Hienekin
for Ryan. Ryan is know for liking the oversized green bottles after a longnight of work.

The band plays tomorrow at a flight festival in Arlington.


Thursday July 8

We started guitar solos today, and everyone was pretty excited. Tracking and comping rhythm tracks, although especially critical, can be pretty tedious after while. With the lead guitar, it all started to sound likemusic.

Josh had spent months, and in a couple cases years, putting together the leads for these song, and there was a lot of suspense as he set-up to play
the first run through of the solo for Long Run.

Brandon queued the 2 inch tape for Long Run, and Ryan got a rough mix through the Neve console, and with Josh sitting between the rack consoles, they ran the tape from about 20 seconds before the break, and on cue, and the anticipation was rewarded when Josh ripped into the oversized strings on his relic Strat, attacking and bending and, gripping and ripping, and sending a wall of sound into the big tracking room and through the microphones back through the console.

It was big and fat and rich, and what everyone was waiting and hoping for.

After lunch we worked on the solo to Half Empty, with Josh using the "JWB Strat" (his 21st birthday gift from the JWB team). The Seymour Duncan Hotrail pickups added the right bite to the laid back track, and by mid-afternoon we had two solos done.

In early evening Ryan and Brandon set up the vocal booth in the middle of the big room (complete with tapestries and candles) and in front of a
vintage Neuman U47, and two U67's, Josh began piping vocal tracks.

Wednesday July 7

We started at 10:30AM and finished the rhythm tracks to No Shelter by lunch. This was the original song we recorded in our first session on April 27, when we were just doing two demos, but wanted to redo. There was some disagreement on whether we should take the time to redo it, but the entire band wanted to. The bass and drums were clearly better the second time through, and after we got the guitars done, we were all pretty sure that it was the right thing to do. We are planning to use No Shelter as the first and the title song, so we all wanted it to be as good as it could be. After lunch we put down the first and seconded tracks to Shallow Shores, a song that everyone has a lot of hope for.

Tuesday July 6

Back in the studio after nine days off. Patrick came in early with Josh and helped set up the guitars that had to be torn down for the week off. Jim Roth came in with a number of Amplifiers, including a Marshall head and cabinet, a Fender Bassman cabinet with 3 heads to choose from, a Fender Super Reverb, and a vintage, tweed-cabinet Fender Deluxe.

With the help of the Mesa Engineering High Gain Amp Switch, we got 4 amps
playing simultaneously, and with 14 microphones over all (SM57's against the screen, Seinnheiser 421's an inch away, and AKG 414's a foot away - off axis
- and an RCA 77 DBX for the room) we were able to get a huge guitar sound that we could shape and modify for the guitar solos.

Ryan and Brandon dialed in the sound and with Josh sitting in the control room with his guitar by 2PM, they finished off the rhythm guitar tracks for I'm Still Waiting, getting a big open sound that fit well with the ballad. In the early afternoon, they worked on the rhythm guitar tracks for Kick, taking the time to get the original rhythm track locked in with the bass and drums, then doing the same for another ("doubled") rhythm track on top of that.

In the evening they dialed in the guitar tone for lead guitar and spent the evening putting together the guitar solo for Blinded Eyes. They would take
a number of takes, overdub weak spots, then compile together into one track.

After one day back, we were feeling good about where we were.


Friday June 25

More rhythm guitar tracks. We worked on the remaining parts to "Long Run," "Kick" and "Shallow Shores."

We will take a nine-day break, and come back on July 6, and finish the rhythm tracks to "No Shelter," "O.S.F." and the last parts to "Shallow Shores." After that, it will be lead guitar and lead vocals.

It'll be nice to take a break, and to play live together as a band (We have an acoustic gig on July 3rd that will be a lot of fun).

Thursday June 24

More guitar tracks. Josh and Ryan worked on getting the amps really clean, then spent the morning getting the rhythm tracks to "I'm Still Waiting" and the early afternoon getting "Blinded Eyes". Late afternoon, it was back to the big room to work on the amps and the microphones to get the perfect tone for "Long Run" - a song with a big fat blues riff at the beginning of each measure. We changed a tube in the Fender Twin, and got the Bassman and the Deluxe sounding great. Brandon joined us later in the evening – about 7:30PM - and we spent the rest of the evening doing rhythm tracks for “Long Run.”

With the need to constantly work on the amps to get the "right" sound, and with the intense focus on getting the rhythm guitar exactly "in the pocket" with the drums and bass, the days are long, and we are watching the clock and the calendar.

With nine days under our belts, we are basically still on schedule, but we are on the edge.

All drums, all day, with Patrick and Josh playing along the whole way, laying down tracks that will be thrown away and redone individually after the drums are done.

Matt is in a groove ("on fire" Ryan says) and the confidence is high that we'll get killer drum tracks that will provide a great foundation for the album.

By the end of the day, the only drum tracks left to do are "One Step Forward" and "No Shelter" (version #2).

After the sessions with Bear Creek in late April and early May, we decided to go with them for the entire JWB II album. Ryan Hadlock will be producing the album, and we will do all tracking and mixing at the Bear Creek studio, with Brandon Eggleston engineering.

Today we set up drums, and with the help of Gregg Keplinger, we got great drum sounds once again. We used 14 microphones, 2 for the kick, 2 for the snare, 2 for the toms, 2 overheads, and 6 room mic's. The band set up in the "big room," each with a mixer to tailor what they heard in their headphones. From the control room, a "click track” was sent to monitor mix (what the band
can hear in the headphones). A click track is a simulated percussion sound in a predetermined and consistent tempo - usually in the tone of a cow bell or a wood block. The band will use it to stay on tempo. The use of a click track is very common and makes editing, and "punching in" much easier along the way.

Beginning with a song that has the working title of "Shallow Shores," and with Matt in the hot seat, and Josh and Patrick playing along for reference, Gregg, Ryan and Brandon tried out different microphone placements, tuned the drum heads, strategically placed baffles in the room, pulled up rugs that were covering the cement floor, and even placed ceramic dinner plates
beneath the drums to get a more "live" sound. After about four hours of tweaking the sound, and listening to takes, we were ready to start recording for real.

For this album, we will be recording drums, bass and rhythm guitars to two-inch magnetic tape. We think the natural compression that you get with tape will give the album an "old time" feel. Lead guitar and vocal will most likely be recorded digitally, and we will back-up all tracks digitally after mixing and mastering so we will have the tracks on tape and digitally.

Ryan had to work a little to get the tape machine working to his satisfaction, but after he was happy with that we were ready to go, and even got a "keeper" take on the drums for "Shallow Shores". After one day, we feel we are a little ahead of schedule.

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Ryan, Brandon and Josh finished off the vocals for both "No Shelter" and "Reverie".