Tonight was the first opportunity I’d had to go to the new San Francisco location on Fillmore.

Béla Fleck & The Flecktones were playing in town this week and I went with a group of good friends for a birthday dinner and a show.

The Flecktones played a Christmas season set from their album Jingle All The Way. Everyone in my group was amazed at the group (‘natch!) and had never seen or heard the band before.  Going to the show I was really excited because I knew that my friends were going to be blown away.

After the show, a few of my friends bought the Flecktones Christmas album on vinyl (nice) and had the band sign the records.

I got a chance to Meet Vic Wooten and chat for a bit with Jeff Coffin about a friend of mine who played bass on two of his solo albums. An amazing group of gentlemen and musicians.  What a great night!

When I wake up tomorrow I’m gonna practice all day. It was an incredibly inspiring show and meeting with those guys.

Dave has been working very hard on sorting through the multi-tracks and all of the different parts and takes of the song ‘Confused‘. Originally, we were hoping to have the song finished and posted on the site at the end of January, but there were still many many edits that needed to be done. Nobody realized how big the job was until about a month ago. Dave has dug in and has gone through all eight takes that were recorded and cleaned them up. Each take took around 2~3 hours each of work just to get to the point that they may be considered for inclusion in the song. I might explain the process that was taken in another post, but in the meantime, let’s just say that we now have the ability to take the best pieces from each of the drum takes and build a single drum performance that maintains what André was playing and allows him to pick his favorite parts of each of the drum takes to make a final performance that gets his stamp of approval.

When Dmitri came in and tracked his guitar, he blazed through and gave us many many many different parts and styles that could be used and decided on at a later date. Virtually every single performance that he put down was fantastic and deciding what would stay and what would not has been very difficult. As I write this, most of the rhythm guitars have been chosen and put into place. Again, this involved a huge chunk of Dave’s time.

As far as the work that is still remaining? We still have to go through the guitar solos and decide which one(s) will be used. There is an organ part that has to be cleaned up. I have to re-record at least the first verse vocals and possibly the second verse as well. As far as I can recall right now, that should be the last of the tracking. After that we have to mix the whole bloody thing.

As far as mixing is concerned; we are most likely going to create a number of different mixes. One for CD, one for MP3, and maybe one for video.

Video?

We have been working with our friend and collaborator Brian Tasker on a video for ‘Confused‘. We have worked with Brian on a couple of soundtracks for his films in the past and he happened to have break in his schedule and was itching for a project. We took the opportunity to ask if he would work with us and he was very enthusiastic. Brian is part of the family and we’re very happy that we get to work with him again. The fact that now it’s up to us to have our part finished, locked, and delivered to him so that he can get to work puts a smile on our faces.

Almost done, Brian. Seriously. We’ll get it to you…soon.

Another project that has kept us busy lately has been writing. Dmitri, Dave and I sat down a few weeks ago and wrote a new song that we are pretty happy about. Last Thursday we all got together in the studio and banged out a demo so that we may start writing parts and arranging the song a little tighter. Everyone is excited about the potential of this song and are hoping that we may get start recording it soon.

Of course there are about eight more songs that still have to be worked on, so I don’t know where this one will get fit in. We’ll probably move this one up in the queue depending on how excited we are about the new parts/arrangement.

I could keep going on about other things that we have been doing as well. A marketing plan, more writing, designing artwork, etc. but I’m going to wrap it up for now. Don’t forget that you may download our music from this site for free and to visit last.fm to listen to our music there as well.