Brian Bergeron

I’ve been enjoying music a lot more lately. One of my goals is to not snap judge so much on first listen, to be more open, and less cynical. Being pretentious is real tiring let me tell you, and and it’s not too good for your spirit. I’m sitting in Darwin’s LTD. coffeehouse in Somerville chilling out because my apartment is a MESS. I moved on Monday and it’s crazy. I really want to live in a neat apartment (unlike the last four months which has been like living back in a dorm room) but my girlfriend has so much stuff, that’s going to be really difficult…Anyhow, this entry is not about my living entry.

We’re done bass and drums in the studio. It was eye-opening for me and I hope was equally as mind-blowing for Max and Steve. it was a struggle for them I’m sure because they’ve done studio work before but not under the type of scrutiny that they were under…They were struggling and I’ve never seem them struggle with music before. I do believe it was worth it, however, because what we got was AWESOME. I got to go out that last night with Will too and grab a couple of drinks and listen to him rant about music and everything else and I am once again blessed that he has chosen me to help out and has let me latch onto him the last few years. Things are ramping up for him…He’s playing Farm Aid in a couple weeks with Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, and his hero Neil Young, so bravo.

We’ll be back in the studio probably a week from Sunday. We hope to wrap up tracking by October 1st, which is right around when I thought we’d be done but if it extends beyond that, no worries. I need to get my head back in the album sponsorship game. We’re doing great at $500+ but I’d like to try and double that by the time this is all said and done. Thanks everyone!

I also had a singing lesson with Mark Baxter earlier in the week who is a renowned vocal coach. He basically kicked my ass for an hour but I got a lot of great information from it. He focuses a lot on the psychology and what a listener looks for from a singer. It’s not so much technical proficiency that they’re looking for but genuineness and it’s quite the process learning how to override your muscle memory and tendencies to make your singing for lack of a better term ‘more human’ and ‘more natural’ and something that people can relate to and that they can connect with. At the end of my lesson he gave me a CD of the lesson on it so I’m going to listen to it every day leading up to the vocal session. I’m going to keep working on everything and lay myself bare in the studio.

Another interesting point he made was that the best singers weren’t afraid to ‘walk the tightrope’ and fail as long as their singing was ‘risky’ and challenging. Most singers sing safe or well within their bounds and to a listener that’s OK but not something they want to connect with. I’m still digesting the information so everything above was probably a jumbled mess but come on, that’s what you’ve come to expect from me!

More on that later. For now, let’s once again marvel at how awesome Josh Ritter is: