When you need something done right, do it yourself.

It also helps to have some really good friends.

It helps even more if one of said friends is a super genius.

For the past four weeks, Josh, George and I have been involved in a rather huge construction project. We've spent pretty much every waking moment building a live-in recording studio in Brooklyn. When all is said and done, the place will be U-Melt Central. it will house our office, it will be where our next couple albums will be recorded, and G and I will be living there too. The design (by Josh -- it's all Josh) is amazing. The centerpiece of the place is a large soundproof room which we built (floor, walls, ceiling and all) to rest on two inches of sound-absorbent neoprine rubber on a wooden frame. Once it's sealed up, it will be virtually airtight, and virtually silent. the vast majority of sound that's made in there will stay in there, so we'll be able to play night and day without disturbing our neighbors. Equally important though is that external sound won't be able to get in, so we can have sensitive microphones recording something as quiet as an acoustic guitar without having to worry about capturing any sounds we don't want.

Essentially, what this means is that (once it's done) we'll be able to spend as much time recording and mixing a ton of material for our next couple albums. We have lofty ambitions for this next album (or two) and we realized that the only way we'll be able to make it right is if we can as much time as we need. The music is complex and detailed, and in order to give all those details the attention they deserve, we're gonna require a lot of time. Studio time is very expensive, and there's no way we'd be able to do this the way we want to while worrying about an hourly studio rental rate. We expect that this will afford us a level of creative freedom that should allow some very exciting things to happen.

it's all pretty exciting.

When i was a kid, i always imagined living somewhere in NYC where i could make music. It's pretty great seeing that dream become a reality thanks to some very talented friends and a lot of very hard work on everyone's part.

See ya down the road...
z