Meatballs

Day 4 holed up in the bunker; Giles the engineer has imploded and taken off to see a Boston Red Sox game. They’re playing Toronto this evening. James has taken over and we are now into guitars, big time. I think 8 vocal tracks are now complete and I have settled on a guitar rig consisting of 3 small combos linked together. There’s my trusty old 1974 original Mk I Mesa Boogie, my ancient ‘50s Fender Bassman and the studio’s Roland Jazz Chorus for the clean sounds. The pedal board is my stage rig featuring the King of Tone and Ibinez Tube Screamer with the Analogman silver mod, taking out some of the mid range. There’s a bunch of other boxes but I’m not really using ‘em. The guitar in favor at present is my cheapo Jimmy Vaughan model Strat, custom fitted with a mixture of Texas Specials and mini JBs. Oh yes, and it has an Easy Mute trem. mod for all you anoraks. Phew…

Dinner tonight was meatballs and linguine, my first carbs. in 2 weeks, since I’m dabbling with the Atkins diet, trying to cut down on the sugar/fat cycle. This was brutal after the 1st week since, being a child of the fifties, I’m mad for cakes, biscuits (cookies) and all that road food. I had withdrawal symptoms for a week - seriously. Anyway, I’m feeling much better now. By the way, I checked out of the Quality Inn I was using and took up a very kind offer from Fred and Andrea Renz to stay with them at their house, just across the border in New Hampshire which is what happened during the recording of Clan Destiny for part of the time.

Enough of that; new songs being approached are “The Power” and “In Crisis” which is a real driving song with almost a Burt Bacharach cum Number the Brave vibe. I’m having a lot of fun with this. Joe’s drums kick ass – I couldn’t get too deep into his takes up in Finland, but Miri did a great job recording him and the engineers on this side of the Atlantic are digging the drum sound. Muddy and Bob are excelling. As I told Muddy by e mail today; “ It doth rock”

Talking of e mails, I’m now getting loads of communications about people’s bird watching hobby. It seems that there are lot of folks, seriously checking out the comeback of the Red Kite and various other rare varieties. I’ve really triggered something here. It’s good to hear that people really value the nature around them in this day of disconnectedness and short attention spans.

Next time I’ll tell you about my encounters with the animal life in the great North East – there’s some funny stuff there.

Later Y’all.