The Gravedigging Has Started!

Today is the day!

All ten songs for my upcoming album are recorded!  All tweaks have been done, all arrangements completed.

In 2 hours I'll be heading over to Soundhouse Studios and giving John Jamieson a USB key with 300ish individual tracks.  Then we'll start the sonic jigsaw puzzle of putting them together and mixing Gravedigging For Two.

I'm very excited.
This album started in 2012 when I wrote 6 or 7 solid songs within a month or so.  I added one song that I actually wrote in 1999 but was never truly happy with (until 2012), and another couple of songs showed up while I was working on the initial 6 or 7.
The project was pretty discombobulated - there was a country song, a punk rock song, and the sounds didn't seem to fit together well.  I wanted to keep them as one project, since the lyrics and melodies hinted that they should be one family.  So I tried, and tried, and tried a little more.
I took time out in 2014 to record The Scars That I've Earned, a collection of songs I had written since Gravedigging started, and were recorded over a span of 2 weekends.
Focusing on Scars let Gravedigging have some breathing room.  Slowly, through lots of edits, trial and error, and rearrangements, the true soul of the project came to light.
One song actually went from being a Depeche Mode-like electropop track, through slow blues, klezmer, reggae, and then to it's final form (which is none of the above)!  I loved every version, but the final cut is the one we'll keep.

John did a fantastic job mixing Scars, his creativity drew him into playing keys on about 1/2 the album, and totally re-shaped at least one of the songs.  He took the project from the "decent" level that I had it, and pushed it far above what I would have ever expected.
So he's got some tall expectations to fill today, as we start our second project.  But I'm sure he'll wow me again, he always does.

Alright, time for me to put on my Rock N Roll face and head over to the studio.  See you soon!