Back from Eugene

I'm back from Eugene, where the men of the Company and I converged to finish up our album, Not Made of Stone.

Four inches of snow fell on Eugene on Thursday. It was beautiful. Temperatures stayed and the 20s and 30s the next few days, which kept a lot of the snow from melting. It was colder than this Californian is used to. I've visited Eugene several times over the past 6 years, and that was the coldest it's been while I have been there.

It's so exciting to have it all wrapped up, all ten tracks. We recorded three songs this past week, and Jeff mixed and mastered everything. Jim arrived on Friday and recorded all three of his bass lines -- the original bass line for Duran Duran's "Save A Prayer", a new one for "Test Pilot's Lament", and big scary cathedral bells for "Death and the Maiden" -- which he made by putting the bass through a ring modulator. Jeff created drum tracks for "Save a Prayer" and "Test Pilot's Lament".

John arrived on Saturday and made short work of his rhythm and lead guitar for "Save a Prayer". He was psyched to see the snow still on the ground. I had hoped it wouldn't melt before he arrived, since he hadn't seen much of any snow before now.

Jim dug the autoharp percussion in "Test Pilot's Lament". I told him that was me banging on the autoharp with the tuning crank, but he said that's not what we should tell everyone. "You should say you flew in a Sufi high priestess and her three disciples to do the percussion," he said.

John and I took the same train back to the Bay Area. I read Bruce Sterling's "The Artificial Kid" and Rudy Rucker's "Spaceland". John read "The Stranger" by Albert Camus and "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. He also fended off the advances of a five-year-old future heartbreaker who drew him several crayon pictures.

Next will be to nail down the album artwork. I'm expecting it to be green, overall.