Sometime in late May I was finishing up recordings for Come, Now and toying with the idea of mastering it myself. My old friend Dan Romer, accomplished producer/songwriter/film scorer, raced to the horn in a frenzy upon hearing this news and, after getting hold of me in upstate New York, encouraged me to accept his mastering help instead. I gratefully handed over the tracks, still somewhat fuzzy on the exact definition of a pre-amp.
Long story short, I hadn't seen Dan in a while. During the talks we had about the album mastering and generally catching up with our lives, he threw out the idea that I meet him, Saul Simon-MacWilliams, and a few other musicians in Vermont sometime that Fall for a week or two of recording - no pressure, let's just write songs.
At that point it was an abstract idea. It sounded great, but Fall was SO FAR away! Well, September arrived and it actually went down. Dan and Saul organized Doug Schadt (engineer), Mike Tuccillo (bassist/Jenny Owen Youngs) and Jesse Kristin (drummer/Jukebox the Ghost) to join us for a mountain retreat focused on songwriting, band arrangements, and amazing food. We made a few demos, and it'll be a while before they surface in any capacity. But the experience was so inspiring, I wanted to share it with you.
Here are some shots from the time:
Check out the whole photo set in the Facebook album 'Makin'.
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