Brian Bergeron

Today I began my first concerted effort to start pre-production for the album, which will begin recording on or around August 19th. The big thing at this point is to choose about 15 songs to tune up and work to a fine point and ultimately around 10 to record. Unfortunately, i have too many songs that have been kicking around and I often look to others to either validate or dislike the tracks and I started off with a list of about 35. I plan on demoing most of them and sending them to Will (Dailey, who will be the producer for this CD). We plan on tracking during a whirlwind 6 days at 14 hours/day. This is the cheapest way that we can record at Q Division, which is like the ultimate studio in the area.

A short list of awesome people who have recorded at Q Division: Guster, James Taylor, Josh Ritter, Will Dailey (of course), and Howie Day among others…

Anyways, I’m going to be stressed once it comes down to recording and the 14-hour days but that’s the most succinct way of laying it all down and the band will definitely be rehearsed enough to knock it out.

I’m getting hopelessly per usual…I’m having trouble weeding it down to 15 songs. That’s not to say that I currently have 25 songs (I’ve narrowed 35 down to 25) that are awesome…I just don’t know what to think. I plan on demoing all of the songs by tomorrow and then giving them to people I trust to see what they think. I’ll give the most amount of weight to Will and the band and then give copies to my brother Tim (who is actually really level-headed when it comes to recordings and song quality) and maybe James and Tara, Marie, and a few other people in my inner circle. I know for sure what I’ve been doing for recordings hasn’t been working…I haven’t made the splash that I want to make but I know I plan on re-recording a few songs from the EPs from last year. I think what it’ll end up being is pretty much a 50/50 split from songs being re-recorded and new songs. As it stands, here’s what we have:

Songs For the Record (Definites)
Anna
Tell My Story (Steve) (Max)
Let Me In
Missing

Maybe? (Songs All Ready Demoed/Recorded)
Gracie (Steve) (Max)
On My Mind (Steve) (Max)
Wreck
Sisters (Max)
Cavity (Max)
Strangers (Max)
Have Heart
Glory
Eventually
Peaks and Valleys
Loud

Ready to Demo
Hanging Around
“I Promise You Relief”
“A Kiss Before You Leave”
“Reach Out When You Get a Chance”
Sweet Summer Days

Not Ready To Demo
“Somewhere a Boy is Weeping”
“Is That Your Ghost That Follows me Around”
“When I Wake Up”
“If You’re True You Never Know”
Time Is On Our Side

I know a lot of this means nothing to anyone but there are a few people who are familiar with some of my older material and some of my more recent material so we’ll see how this gets trimmed down.

Just figured I’d throw it out there. I’m not so sure that my process last year (recording 3 EPs) was the right way to do things but I do think it made me a better artist in this situation to record…I have to knock this one out of the park so we’ll see how it goes.

I’ll keep you all updated with everything studio related. Once we get the songs picked, it’s practice, practice, practice!

And away I go back into my bedroom ’studio’

BB