The beautiful and brilliant Trina Shoemaker has finished mixing my record, the equally beautiful and brilliant Steve Rizzo having joined her down in Nashville for the last few days. They had never met before, but got along famously by both accounts. They have a lot in common: beauty, brilliance, engineering skills, lots of hair.
The mixing session began with a phone call between Trina and myself. We talked a bit about production approach and what to ask of these mixes, but mostly we talked about speakers, babies, trucks and bumping into stuff which we both do a lot. She had just dropped a two by four on her toe and I had shut the trunk of the car on my head (Trina: “How do you even do that?” Me: “I don’t remember”).
Truth be told, when it comes to the nuts and bolts of a mix, we barely have to say anything to each other; I know how she thinks, she knows how I play. When you hear these songs, I’m sure you’ll hear that, too. You’ll also hear Rizzo’s beautiful room and recording technique. Great musicians like Dave Narcizo and the McCarricks seem to pull everyone up to their level. We don’t want to leave a single beat or note uncelebrated.
Soon, our beloved Joe Gastwirt will master the record (Joe: “By now it’s not work, it’s family”) which is now tentatively titled, “Learn to Sing Like a Star” after a piece of spam we got recently (Billy: “Why don’t you learn to do that?” Me: “I don’t remember.”). I am absolutely in love with this project. I don’t think I’ve ever cared what anybody else thought of a record, but I’m so happy to be in love with this one.
So, the mixes done, yesterday we moved out of our house (Cleveland does rock, as it turns out; I don’t care what anybody says) and today we’re in a Comfort Inn somewhere in Iowa. Nice. It’s all worth it, though, when you come across a note like this on the bedstand:
Love,
Kristin
p.s. Billy totally is a fairy king, too.