You may remember the fine name of Daniel Armstrong from this… Well he’s returned the shout-out love in his own particular idiom:
Sketch Action!
Daniel does great work with his fine company Stringthink, and his equally-amazingly-talented wife Arian creates wonderfulness here. Thank you friends… 
Creepy!
This may be the best (and funniest) fan-mail ever:
“dear tasha and justin:
“last night, i saw you at newport after you saw a movie. while i recognize that that statement appears completely stalkerish, i am feeling the need to purge my pent-up desire to interact with you. I struggle with the moral debate regarding the “cult of the celebrity,” and debated whether talking to you would be an action of worship or adoration. After careful consideration, I decided that i was actually a first-rate member of the cult by not talking to you- maybe i was buying into the idea that you are better than i am, and therefore too worthy of my presence. therefore, i’d like to share with you the transcription of the conversation that should have gone down last night:
“(AR will be me. TJ will be you.)
“AR) Tasha! Justin! OMG I’m your biggest fan!
TJ) o. umm. hello?
AR) dude! i first heard your single “Anna” on Paste and then i saw every concert you played in cincinnati from junior year until i went to college! I love you!
TJ) o. well, thanks, i guess.
AR) odeargoodness-do you remember me? I met you a couple times- I used to have long dreadlocks (for the record, my head is shaved now.) You were at my mom’s art show in december- i was so bummed i couldn’t be there- but she sent me a picture of you!
TJ) wow. security?!
AR) so how did the recording go? I totally pre-ordered my CD.
TJ) (i can’t predict the response to this one)
AR) you know, i just wanted to tell you that your lyrics have helped me a lot this year. I had a pretty low first year of college, and plastering my dorm walls with lyrics from “It’s alright” and “Anna” really helped me get through stuff.
TJ) well gee, thanks.
AR) yea! so i’ll see you at the next concert i can make it to! make sure you tour your new album up in cleveland so i can come see you!”
(Special thanks to Anna Risch. You rule.)
Ummmm...
Fan Love Song Number Four:
Thanks everyone, we’re so grateful!!
I'm sure Jack White and his band love to stay at Bed & Breakfasts...
On Sunday we pulled ourselves away from Harvard Square and back toward Kingston. We listened to the final mixes and packed up our things, taking off for Pennsylvania.
I had noticed that Bellefonte PA was right along our route home (on I-80), and that we’d be approaching the town at about the time we’d be ready to get some sleep. So I contacted The Queen, a Victorian bed and breakfast. Oh wow. We’re so glad they had a room available.
This place is stunning, and after the whirlwind of the last several days, I couldn’t have asked for a lovelier place to wake up. (Again, far too early.) :) We’re on the third floor, and our room includes the turret — which is making the seven-year-old in me as happy as she could be. Little windows all around, a shelf full of books, a fireplace… A reader’s heaven.
These guys had a crazy weekend with the Central Pennsylvania Arts Festival, so we’re indebted to them for making a room available to us so last-minute. And we’re amazing by the attention to detail here… We got in at 1am so we haven’t had a true look around, but our room is a work of art.
More importantly, like The Irving House, the whole place has a sense of kindness to it, a sense of being home. Which is what we’ve needed — and wouldn’t have thought to ask for. So home found us these last few nights… Thank you guys so much.
The next time you’re traveling across PA, stay here. Simply lovely.
We’ll get some pictures–
The Irving House = super peaceful. Ahhhhh...
Okay. So by the time Friday July 10th arrived, we were exhausted, emotionally wrecked. (Excited, but also crazy/sad/tired/irrational/happy/panicked/pleased/lonely/scared excited.)
Kingston is a fine town, but we didn’t get much interaction with people while there, and to be honest the town as a whole left us rather lonely and longing for home.
Listening to final mixes is exciting but it’s also nerve-wracking, because this is your last opportunity to make changes, to make sure the songs are what you want them to be. So on top of our questionable emotional state on Friday, we had suddenly found ourselves doing this final-stage work that we hadn’t been expecting until the next week. Two crazy Goldens.
Which is why we’re absolutely in love now with The Irving House in Cambridge MA. (We’d heard about this inn through a kind Ellery listener who happens to manage it (thanks so much Rachel!). They’re really supportive of touring musicians, which allowed us to have our stay there. And we can’t thank them enough.)
We drove through Harvard Square Friday night and then along Irving Street. The lights were on and welcoming, the outdoor air felt amazing, a couple was on the porch having a late-night chat… (People!)
We stepped inside and the front-desk clerk was so kind. (We found this to be true of all their staff– Exceptional people.) We got our key and headed to our room…
When we opened the door we felt our whole beings relax. It was the epitome of Cozy, and it was perfect.
Basically, we felt more at home at The Irving House in our first few minutes than we’d felt during our entire stay in Kingston. Which we credit both to the fact that The Irving House is absolutely lovely… And that it wasn’t where we were frenetically making a record.
We played Club Passim Saturday night with Lucy Kaplansky. Between her genuine kindness and artistry, and the great great audience, we were beginning to feel like people again. Lucy sounded beautiful as always, and Passim was great. Thanks so much to our Boston friends & fans for such a lovely evening… We so needed that.
My only regret at The Irving House is that my recent inability to sleep kept me from enjoying that amazing bed. :) We fell asleep at 2am on Sunday and I was wide awake at 6, putting on my running shoes and heading for the river. But I have no complaints. (My body does, but I don’t.) The Charles River at sunrise was a gift to the soul.
The planned final day of our studio work was Wednesday, July 15th. Today is Monday July 12th, and we’ve woken in the charming town of Bellefonte, PA, headed west toward Cincinnati. We barely thought it possible to finish 11 songs in 18 days. We’ve finished in 13. (-ish.)
Here’s what happened since we last wrote:
We left for last weekend with a set of rough mixes in-hand for all 11 songs. Malcolm’s recording process is rather unique (more on that later), and the songs came together quickly. Not only did they come together quickly, but Malcolm is a great mixing engineer. The actual mixes of each song sounded pretty fantastic almost from the beginning.
So we took these 11 mixes with us and spent most of July 5th listening and taking notes on what we wanted to add, change, etc.
On Monday, we listened to some parts that had been sent to us from a musician in Norway. (So lovely; I think you’ll like them!) Then we spent the first half of the day working on vocals. I had re-written the bridge to one song, so I had to re-sing it of course… And I wanted to give another try with a couple others. We spent the latter half of that day finishing background vocal parts, etc…
On Tuesday, we did the last of our instrumental work: Malcolm and I both played some keys, Justin played some guitar… And then we spent a few hours on two songs that just weren’t quite feeling right yet. We left the studio fried but reasonably convinced we had ironed out the arrangements.
Pedal steel greatness.
Justin drove to Manhattan on Wednesday morning to retrieve Jon Graboff, who played some beautiful pedal steel and guitar parts. What he added gave those songs the feel of complete-ness…. There was really nothing more to do on any of them but let Malcolm work his magic.
By the time Justin returned from NYC on Thursday, Malcolm had finished three mixes. And they were beautiful. We knew he was great but we were floored.
[As a quick aside, this is why the Fan Love Song didn't happen this week. With Jon in the studio on Wednesday there were no opportunities to shoot a video, and on Thursday we discovered we were, as Malcolm said, "off the hook" -- No more to do on our end (!!) but leave Malcolm to work on the final mixes.
Which was amazing. But we needed to leave the studio to give him quiet, so we were instrument-less.]
We came back at regular intervals on Thursday and Friday to listen to what Malcolm had worked on.
(In case you’re interested: It’s generally best to leave the mixing engineer (if he’s a good one) to do his work on his own. As the artist if you stay and listen you can be counter-productive, and/or a nuisance… :) After working so hard on the songs, your ears no longer respond to them rationally, and you can start asking for “more of this” or “less of that” when it doesn’t work as well for the song. So in our experience, it’s been much better to leave the engineer to it (which they also prefer) and then come back to hear his finished product, and then give our impressions.)
Everything sounded great immediately. We only had a few tweaks, and a couple overarching suggestions. But he had nailed it.
We left Friday night to drive to Boston, and we had final mixes in-hand. We listened in the van and in our room, and sent some final questions/suggestions. We began to realize that not only would we not need to stay in Kingston until July 15th; we could reasonably leave on Monday. Nay, Sunday. Unbelievable.
(What was the hurry? We could have stayed in town another night but we’re exhausted. More to the point, we’re lonely. Emotionally drained insomniacs who need to see our loved ones. Once we got a hint that maybe we could head home on Sunday, there was no way you could have kept us in town.)
Yay I did it!
On Sunday we drove from Boston to Malcolm’s studio and listened to his final work on the few songs he had changed since Friday. We loved them.
And that was it.
Justin packed up all our instruments, Malcolm readied our hard drive, we loaded the van, and we spent a moment in the driveway just feeling floored and deeply thankful. It had happened too quickly to see it coming and feel ready for it. But we were finished.
We got the last of our things, said our goodbyes, and pulled down the drive. We made our last jaunt down Broadway St in Kingston, packed up our apartment (you should have seen us excitedly scurrying!) and took off (”Goodbye Kingston!!”) westward.
Record in-hand.
Dear friends,
The new record is finished!
Good times.
We were very lucky to be visited by good friends this past weekend! (Shoutout to the Vances, who came to the studio on Fri and then spent their holiday weekend with us in NY.)
Kingston’s a great town, and we’re mostly too busy to feel terribly lonely… But there have definitely been several moments when we’ve just really wanted to see the people we love. So this was a welcome gift, for sure.
So Saturday was of course the Fourth of July, and we had ourselves a little unintended adventure… I (Tasha) have some strange food allergies, which have sometimes brought me a little gift my allergist calls “exercise-induced anaphylaxis.” (Not a good time; I don’t recommend it.) So– we’re not sure what I ate on Saturday that set it all off, but my afternoon jog came to a pretty scary end. Thankfully, since this has happened before, we knew how to avert a total crisis. Mostly there was the seriously-crazed waiting for the hives, etc to die down, and then a good bit of time knocked out from Benadryl. Happy Fourth!
But actually, it wound up being a really great day. I have a great husband who took amazing (and patient) care of me, and our friends were awesome. Totally understanding and helpful. We were all able later to get out for some serious MiniGolf. (Okay, it wasn’t at all serious. And fireworks overhead.) And we had a great meal around our little dining table; made the apartment feel so like a home.
"Near, far, wherEEeever you are..."
After sending off our visitors, we got in some rest on Sunday, and spent a lot of time listening back to rough mixes from our studio work. This was the time to determine what we wanted to change, redo, or add to any of our songs. We made our notes and headed in yesterday (Monday) –
We spent Monday finishing up all our vocal work, and seriously: It’s crazy to be finished. (And by “crazy” I mean “awesome.”) :) After we finalized all the lead vocals, we added some more background vocals (thanks to Justin and Malcolm), and then spent the rest of the evening with instrumental parts.
Today (Tuesday) we’ll see what else needs work… We’ll fill in any musical gaps, make some corrections and decisions about parts… And then tomorrow we’ll have Jon Graboff in the studio with us, working on guitar and pedal steel. We’ve been looking forward to seeing what he adds!
So: Off to a great start so far today. Had some great conversation and we’re spending quality time with Xing the cat.
More pictures coming soon… And another Fan Love song!
Rain.
The two great things about the town of Hurley NY are that it’s just plain lovely, and it’s only seven minutes from our Kingston apartment.
So we’ve gone running a couple times on a beautiful, paved roadside trail in Hurley - where we get to take in the rolling fields and the deep green mountains to the West.
Today as we drove toward the trail, we spotted a place where the trail meandered back into the forest, and became an unpaved hiking trail. Naturally, we couldn’t resist… (Remember our foiled attempts at hiking last weekend?)
This trail didn’t require a permit, and the map at its beginning said the loop was 3.1 miles. Perfect! We had just enough time to jog the trail, beat the coming rainstorm, and get some work in at the apartment before heading into the studio.
This wooded portion of The Rail Trail, as it’s called, was gorgeous: Its colors were deep and rich from last night’s rain, and it’s way off the road, quiet, and spotted with tiny orange lizards.
We were feeling good as we neared our 3.1 mile marker. “Awesome! Here we are!”
But um — the trail entrance that spilled out onto that state route looked nothing like where we had started.
We looked at this entrance’s map, and it was the same as the other one. No “You Are Here” indicator, and that same nice, circular line that wound around from Rte 209 (where we’d started) and, seemingly, back again.
But here we were. (We *knew* the trail didn’t seem to be curving enough to loop us back!)
A friendly man working near this (wrong) trail entrance informed us that the quickest way back to where we started was - yes - the same trail that had brought us here.
So, we turned around and set off again — our nice, comfy 3.1 miles turning into a more challenging 6.2.
More troublesome than the double distance was the rainstorm we were going to miss with our nice short jog…
It found us somewhere around mile 4 on the way back. We kicked up the mud and water like champions (or maybe more like two city kids)… and two drenched Goldens eventually arrived back in Hurley.
A little late getting into the studio today.
Feeling in love with hot showers and dry clothes. And coffee.