Monday 27 January 2014

Week 1 in the studio & in Nashville

Well we've been here a week & done so much!! Appologies for not updating our adventures sooner, but we've simply been flat out in the studio working on our songs and also making the most out of the amazing musical entertainment going on in Tennessee every night...

But I'll recap all we've been doing for those interested...

After seeing the great 'Time Jumpers' on Monday night, we decided to take it easy Tuesday & Wednesday and we just focused on the studio and our own tunes.. Wednesday evening we hung out with Willie's good friend Daniel Hyberger who lives here & is an outstanding bass/double bass session musician in town..  This ended up turning into a singsong at his house..

Thursday: Another early start in the studio. The album starting to take shape at this stage & there's a general sense of confidence mixed with relief that it's all working out... Producer Brad Jones has been great with us & totally put us at ease in his studio... He's getting the best out of us & totally gets that we are a live band and has captured that!!
Thursday night we went to the famous "Station Inn" to see a band called "Town Mountain" & they were great. A bluegrass band from North Carolina. The pub "The Station Inn" is an amazing venue & is one of the oldest surviving venues in town. This is also the place Old Crow Medicine Show cut their teeth & were discovered. 

Friday:  Early start in the studio. 
At lunch a TV producer out here, who we'd met during the week, asked us to do an interview for his entertainment show. We'll share the link when it airs this week. 
Friday night we couldn't resist going to see another band this time  a Chicken Pickin' Country Rock band.. And these guys were just great!! Loads of classic songs from Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Merle Haggard & Willie Nelson!!
 Saturday: This was our mid album day-off. And a friend of Willie had asked us to go to Franklin a small town south of Nashville. We were asked to perform on an Internet TV music show called "Viva Nashvegas" this was great fun. I'll include a link to the video.
www.facecook.com/vivanashvegasradioshow

Saturday afternoon we visited Carter Vintage  Guitars a shop that specialises in beautiful vintage instruments... 
Les topped the 'strum the most expensive instrument competition' we had when he sat down with a mandolin valued at $170,000.
Then Saturday night we were previliged to be on the guest list of a gig by the "Long Players" who play/recreate an entire classic album live once a month  and on this occasion it was After the Goldrush!! That was Leon ecstatic!! 
Our producer Brad Jones is a member of the band & we got to see him perform with Maura O'Connell, Kathy Mattea & Mary Gauchet who were guest singers on the night. Such a gig!!! 

Sunday: back in the studio where we started & finished our eight song on the album... And we are really cookin at this stage!! And the album sounds great!!

Sunday afternoon we were invited to play a live set in Carter Vintage Guitars which was video'd for their webpage..
https://www.facebook.com/catervintage

Over a week here and it's going great, we've all settle into the recording session & really enjoying the craic/fun in the band and with Brad, Colin & Mark (producer, film-maker &engineer)....
Big thanks to Colin Gillen who has been capturing the entire time & adventure here on film and is making a movie documentary about our first Nashville experience. 
More to come, we'll keep the posts coming!!!