Category Archives: Upcoming

In loving memory

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A happy place

A happy place

I was very close with my maternal grandparents. They were a big part of inspiring and enabling my love of art and music, as briefly described here.

My grandmother was an artist: a painter, penciler, seamstress, creative cook. I spent my summers with she and my grandfather, and she and I often went to the lake with sketchpads and fishing poles to spend the day drawing and trying to catch the teensy fish in the lake.

It’s been ten years today since she passed away. I miss her every day. I wrote this song (“Painting Pictures”) shortly after she died. It’s not as hard to listen to it now as it was when I recorded it, but it still makes me sad. I’m hoping to get some friends together and record a live version of it this year, if I can perform it all the way through.

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Lubricating lyrical gears (part 2)

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After coming up with the lyrics for the chorus of an upcoming song, I brought it up on studio night. Mike, Kenny, Jeff and I all suggested ideas for words, phrasing and melody.  I had old lyrics from another song that were unused and seemed to fit the concept of minute by minute change, so we used those as a starting point:

seconds pass into unseen places
can’t outlast it, and can’t outrace it
one way trip, might as well just face it
step right up, the next minute is here

The issue I had with those words was that, with all those syllables, the lines didn’t contrast with the lines in the verses at all. And it made it more difficult to fit the music and have a distinctive melody. The one thing that did work was part of the last line: the next minute is here. It fit perfectly with these rhythmic stabs at the end of the chorus music.

So we whittled down syllables and tried out some melody ideas and harmonies. Less syllables meant longer notes, and we came up with some harmonies that took me by surprise (reminiscent of King’s X) as you can see in the vid below:

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The working chorus lyric at that point was:

Seconds
Passing
Can’t out race the fear
The next minute is here
One way
Ticket
Might as well just face it
The next minute is here

As we let that stew for a couple days, Jeff asked me to post a rough mix of the song. Before I did that, I wanted to fix a couple details. As it sometimes happens, while I was fixing some things I came up with some changes that I liked a lot better than what we were using.

That was the feeling that’s been eluding me for a long time: the sudden rush of inspiration, like you’ve finally gotten a big, cool drink after working all day in the sun. It felt just as refreshing. I think I’m addicted to that feeling because I always want more.

So as of right now Jeff Beam and I have fleshed out the chorus harmonies, and Jeff Endemann and I have worked on guitar solos and some harmonies for the bridge. I’m still trying to find the words for the bridge, but once those are finalized, the songwriting is done. And once we track the vocals and some assorted noises and the like, the tracking will be done as well.

And we finally have the title: “(The) Next Minute”.

More to come…

Out On Your Own

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The disc design for "Out On Your Own"

After many years of on-and-off work, the Thomas Reed Smith Band’s album “Out On Your Own” is finished. As I type this, the mastered album is on its way here via the good old U.S. mail.

This album is a follow-up to Tom’s first record “I Need A Change” which we released around 2000. Yep, your math is correct – it’s been over 10 years. Why did we go up against “Chinese Democracy” for the longest time taken to make an album?

Well, in a nutshell, shit happens. After we finished “I Need A Change”, we continued to play out and promote the album for about a year. At the same time I had gotten involved in playing with another Cleveland band, and of course I was working my day gig as well.

We started work on the new songs, and did a fair amount of tracking, including some sessions at Closer Look studios with Jim Evans on drums and Mike Holloran on percussion. Work stopped in 2001 when I had family issues to deal with. Then I lost my job, moved across town, and holed up for a while. Mike Adams went back to school for a couple years, Jim moved to Nashville, and Tom started his own business.

Time goes by fast, sometimes. For several years I hardly worked on any music – my head was just somewhere else. In 2006 or thereabouts, we started a regular studio night here, which we continue to this day. We initially worked on finishing the languishing drunkdude69 album “Funk Out With Your Junk Out“, which we finally completed in 2008.

Through 2009 we worked on the DD69 follow-up record “Wigs & Liquor“, which we recently completed. At the beginning of 2010 I decided Tom’s project had been on the shelf for way too long, and I somehow coaxed him into coming here and doing the final guitar tracks last February.

I finished the mixes in November, and we sent the songs off for mastering in December. As of today, the design is finished, and once the production CDs arrive, we’ll get the manufacturing process started. It’s a very good feeling to finally have it done, and we’re looking forward to making it publicly available after all this time.

Work picks up on Thomas Reed Smith’s next album

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We’re excited to return to work on the Thomas Reed Smith follow-up to his first release I Need A Change.  It’s definitely been a while since we picked up on the project, but it’s good to know that we’ve got much of the work done as far as tracking and instrumentation.

New sessions will be taking place soon, and we’re planning to finish both this record and the new drunkdude69 record in 2010.