Howdy Folks.

Boy was I looking forward to this session. Fettler (Michael Kerin) came down from the mountains to add some Fiddle to a few songs. Fettler is without a doubt the scariest Yoda Like musician I've played with and we're honored to have him do some stuff on the album. Of course, with Rosie, Fettler and me, that meant there were three 'Michaels' in the studio, no wonder we all use nick names :-)

One of the songs we wrote around the time of our first Tamworth adventure (Texas Rosie, courtesy of...well..Rosie) had a spot where we thought Fiddle would be grand, so we asked Fettler to come down and add some...but while he was here we thought we'd try a few other ideas.

Now I have to caution you, Dear Reader, what you hear in these excerpts from the recording sessions, are all the ideas (most of the ideas, some i am keeping as a surprise! There will be cake!).

The final product may be completely different, that's what the mixing process is all about.

After we had done the stuff we thought we should do, we gave Fettler a run at anything he felt inclined to try. Whilst listening to even In A Lifetime, Fettler opined that it could use some more mandolin and proceeded to demonstrate by playing his Violin like a Ukulele. Great! Let's do that! So we sent him into the recording booth to try it.

The guy is just a monster player. 

With those ideas recorded, we're pretty much at the end of Principal Recording. The only main component left to do is the additional Percussion that Theo wants to add. So now, we start mixing and adding any last minute fixes (was that solo quite right? Should those vocals be tweaked? Is that Harp out of tune?), plus we're waiting on some added keyboard ideas from Charlie and Mitch.

The mixing has started and will take...as long as it takes (good grief) but the results we're hearing are worth the wait. As always, I will keep you posted on progress over the next sessions.