Just a couple of weeks before Christmas in 2000, I called Corey Miller and Jon Lauman to see if they would be interested in recording a song as a Christmas present for friends and family. To my surprise, they were open to the idea, and we started work on “Let the River Roll On (Without Me)” as quickly as we could.
A few things needed worked out before the project could be finished. I didn’t own a quality acoustic guitar then, so I borrowed one from Chris Trueblood. We also didn’t have enough time to create cover art for the CD, so I contacted my sister, Sue, to see if I could use one of her paintings. With the borrowed guitar in hand, and photographs of a great painting taken, we then set about recording the track and mixing it.
Corey took the tasks of engineering, recording, mixing and burning the CDs. Jon and I worked on printing, cutting, folding and assembling the packaging. Finally, we all signed them. All in all, it was a great experience with only minor hiccups, and our friends and family really seemed to enjoy the music.
I’d like to do another one someday. Until that day comes, I hope you enjoy “Let the River Roll On (Without Me)” as much as I enjoyed making it with a couple of my best friends those many years ago!
About 14 years ago, I spent one evening making some strange music with some friends. Almost 12 years ago, Corey and I cleaned up the recording the best we could and made a few CDs to hand out to friends and family. Around the same time, I posted the album on MP3.com, a website quickly becoming the hotspot for independent artists at the time. It made a quick rise on the website’s charts, but disappeared when the site went down. Now, the album returns to the internet for your listening pleasure or suffering–depending on your point of view.
Chris and I did get time to work on new music this evening. We are continuing our recent method of recording short pieces of music at a matched tempo to assemble and arrange it later. However, this time, we recorded all the pieces using FourTrack on my iPhone. The results were more than acceptable for writing purposes. We are looking forward to recording more music this way as it is a very relaxed way to write and document our work.
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