Circumstance having granted us a month-long reprieve, it was satisfying to return to the studio on Friday, May 28.  The producer Mr. Joe McMahan and I met at the House of David with a clear set of objectives – to finish any overdubs which could only be captured in that space, as it would soon be occupied indefinitely by other recording artists.  Primarily, this meant we had to finish the few remaining vocal tracks, since the vintage Neumann tube microphone (cmv-536) – which had been an integral part of my vocal sound – was property of the studio.  Also, if any additional piano parts were called-for, we knew it wise to make use of the beautiful-sounding Baldwin grand piano while it was still at our disposal.  Once this was all finished, and if there was still time, I had also hoped to lay down the basic tracks for a new song entitled ‘The Golden Age’, which had not been ready to record during the initial sessions.  I am pleased to announce that we did all of this and still had time to consolidate and copy the entire album’s files (with the help of an engineer named Mr. Adam Bednarik) to a hard drive to be transferred to Wow & Flutter – Mr. McMahan’s studio – where we will mix and render them to be mastered.

‘The Golden Age’ needed a sparse arrangement – or else it would not have been feasible to track it this late in the process, as the logistics of setting up and conducting a full-band session would be too time-consuming and expensive to justify doing so for only one song.  This session was merely my-self on guitar and vocal, Mr. Ryan Norris on piano, and the aforementioned Mr. Bednarik on upright bass.  In the end, – due to the pure creativity of these instrumentalists and Mr. McMahan’s clear vision and respectful guidance – the song became everything I had hoped it would be, and more!  With that, it pleases me to exclaim that we have moved into the next stage of this album project, and thereby a huge step closer to its release!  I am so eager to reveal it to you that I can scarcely contain my glee!

Also, I would like to make mention of my recent efforts to improve upon this web-site, particularly this Journal.  It had been my intention all along to blur the lines between reality and imagination – as cosmically-speaking, I find that there is no such distinction.  But, it eventually occurred to me that this was creating a chore for the reader, to decipher real-world information from the smatterings of my creative mind.  Therefore, I have created two categories – ‘News’ and ‘Musings’ – one being Non-Fiction, or a place to garner ‘facts’; and the other being Fiction, or ‘the free realm of my imagination’.  I do hope this will clear up any confusion and/or concerns with regard to my mental health.  Just so you know, this post has been categorized under ‘News’.

Good Day!
Mr. Hazelwood

Photo by: Amy Hall