Sean Donovan + mb, in the studio with Les Americains. Photo by Robert Erfurd.

It seems to happen every time I’m about to leave for a tour: work starts piling up, days seem to become shorter, and I find myself writing a lot of emails that say, “Sorry! It will be just a couple more days until your project is done.” Part of this is my own procrastination, part of is just bad timing. Either way, as stressful as it is, I’m getting to work on some pretty great projects these days, so I can’t complain.

The Tre Orsi LP is finally done. I can’t believe it, really, but I was able to knock out the last few overdubs and get the guys together to go over final mixes. No release date yet, but I’ll be using a day off from the David Bazan tour to master it with Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service.

I spent last weekend tracking 8 songs with the Dallas band, Les Americains. Sean Donovan, formerly of Calla, was along as producer. He helped out immensely, guiding the session and keeping an eye on performances, and allowing me to concentrate on the engineering. It was a ton of fun, and we’ll be back in a couple of weeks to mix.

Other stuff: I mixed two shows for the Swedish band, Dungen, in Austin and Dallas. I wasn’t too familiar with them before these shows, but they really blew me away. Incredible players, and very charming, warm-hearted folks. I would drop everything in a second to do a tour with them.

There’s also a backlog of mastering stuff waiting for free studio time: Little Birds (Justin from Fishboy’s band), three 7″s for The Uptown Bums, a new Polar record, a Daily Beat EP, and probably a few other things I’m forgetting.

Also, this Fall I will be running sound and tour managing for the excellent David Bazan, all over North America. I’ve toured with David a little bit in the past (The New Year played some West Coast shows with him a couple of years ago), but this will be his first shows with a band since the Pedro the Lion days. He’s an incredibly funny and generous fellow, and I’m excited as all get out about this tour. The dates are up on his site. Say Hi is support for the whole thing. Come say hello if you’re in the neighborhood(s).

Work at the studio has been steady, a nice combination of recording/mixing sessions (with Deep Snapper and Tre Orsi), mastering work (Last of the Interceptors, a solo record from Aryn Dalton, formerly of the Paper Chase), and studio upkeep and upgrades (a new rack, lots of re-arranging and fixing up of stuff). Along with all of that, I’ve been occasionally filling in at the House of Blues in Dallas. Most of the shows there aren’t exactly up my alley, but the equipment is top-notch and the crews that come through are generally easy to work with and pleasant to be around.

Upcoming sessions include more work with Shiny Around The Edges, White Drugs, The Angelus, and Les Americains, as well as (finally!) finishing up the Tre Orsi LP. After all of this studio time, I’m looking forward to hitting the road for a while this Fall.

Oh yes, about the pup: her name is Lomax. She’s a Heeler/American bulldog mix, about 15 weeks old, and of course, is the cutest thing in the world. We’re very happy to have her around. (Well, Katey and I are happy — the cat is less than thrilled. C’est la vie.)

This month, I spent a few days in the studio with The Angelus and their producer, Josh Pearson, tracking a new LP. They’ve been kicking around for a long time (I recorded their EP back in 2003), and after a few line-up changes have finally started working on a full-length. We tracked 8 songs in 3 days, and will return later this summer for overdubs and mixing.

Next up was a session, tracking and mixing 7 songs for the great White Drugs. They too have been around a while, and put out a fantastic album in 2007 that got some glowing reviews. Their previous recordings were 4-track, beautifully blown-out and overloaded, and I think we achieved a nice balance between that sound and a fuller studio recording.

The actual recording was pretty typical (close mics on the drums and ambient mics on the floor), but we added a distorted omni mic in the middle of kit, and used a mono overhead (Coles 4038 ribbon) through a Universal Audio 1176 compressor. Jeff and Christian, the guitarists, are obsessive about their tone (between them, there were probably 15 – 20 boutique fuzz pedals). Their rigs sounded incredible from the get-go, so I mic’ed the guitars with Royer R-121′s through John Hardy preamps. It sounded absolutely ripping through the studio monitors.

I mixed the songs to an old reel of Quantegy 406 1/4″ tape, an older formulation that compresses and distorts wonderfully. We also sent the stereo mix through a pair of Distressors, adding additional grit to an already-overloaded mix. We even got done a few hours early, leaving me time to get home and play with my new puppy.

So much other stuff has happened, but this is already too long. I’m headed to Spain on Monday for a week of shows with The New Year. It also looks like I’ll also be out on the road with David Bazan later this year. But for now, I’m gonna go ride my bike before the weather gets worse.

I had planned on spending the rest of the month working on new Tre Orsi songs and getting to work on our garden, but as fate would have it, I was called on to mix a lot of shows all over Texas, including The Howling Hex at the Mohawk in Austin, Mogwai at Numbers in Houston, and then two shows with Josh T. Pearson (formerly of Lift to Experience), opening for My Bloody Valentine in Austin and Dallas. Josh’s backing band was Andy Young (also of Lift) and Bobby Weaver (of the Paper Chase), and despite some first-show jitters, they really slayed. The new songs are epic, even for Josh.

In the midst of this was Dallas for Tre Orsi for Good Records’ 9th birthday/Record Store Day celebration. We played early to a nice crowd of people, and avoided a lot of hassles that arrived later.

I’m really looking forward to May, which has sessions with The Angelus and White Drugs, then a week-long trip to Spain with The New Year. (Now I’m filling up with remorse for not learning Spanish, as I had promised myself I would.)

Anyhow, this week I’ll be sorting through my record purchases from the A.C. Newman tour (including some Live Skull, Corrupted, The Nerves LP, the Death LP on Drag City, and an original, single-LP issue of The Stooges’ Metallic K.O., complete with the original iron-on transfer) and catching up on a few zillion emails.

In the studio soon with Deep Snapper and Tre Orsi, and a few others that I still need to schedule. Doing a one-off for Mogwai in Houston on Apr 19, then a week-long tour in Spain with the New Year in May. For now, though, sleep!

I’ve been doing a lot of mastering this month, including the Fishboy vs. The Om Nom Noms LP, a Shiny Around the Edges/Sounds Are Active compilation, The Lazarus Blues, and another Daniel Folmer album.

In the studio: (finally) finished The Naptime Shake’s new one; mixing an album for Austinites Beautiful Supermachines; tracking a single for The Me-Thinks; recording a few new Tre Orsi songs with Bubba Kadane helping out, as usual.

Sean Kirkpatrick sent me the mixes for the new Nervous Curtains LP, which I tracked and John Congleton mixed. John did a great, insane-as-always job with the millions of overdubs the guys laid down. I can’t wait for people to hear this.

Also, Handbrake‘s Brillo’s Aftermath CD, which I recorded a few months ago (along with another EP’s worth of material, was reviewed over at Built On A Weak Spot. You can get a copy of this one at their MySpace page.

One last thing: you can follow me on Twitter, which is where my Id usually hangs out.

I spent the past two weekends recording a new EP (possibly half an album) with The Distant Seconds from Austin. I did an LP for them last year (Spectral Evidence), and we all got along famously.

The modus operandi for this session was “quick, almost dashed-off”, but as the saying goes, “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy”. Still, setup was relatively quick, and we were tracking by about 3pm on Saturday. I tried a few different microphones for the drum recording this time, all in the pursuit of something closer to The Blank Generation or Chairs Missing:

• Kick: Electro-voice RE20 on the full front head. Typically, I use an AKG D112 or a large diaphragm condensor in this application. I used the RE20 for a more direct, mid-rangey tone, rather than the slightly hyped sound of the D112 or overly warm tube condensors
• Snare: Beyer M201 on top, rather than Shure KSM141.
• Toms: Sennheiser MD421. Typically, I use two condensors, top and bottom, on each tom, but the MD421 is really useful in these situations. (I also used these for the Great Tyrant recordings.)
• Overheads: Coles 4038, close to the cymbals. Often, I use the overheads to get a full image of the kit, but this time I really wanted a lot of detail on the cymbals. The Coles, being ribbons. are much smoother than condensors typically used here, and also have excellent transient response.
• Ambience: Neumann CMV 563 w/ M7S capsule for Mid, Soundelux e49 for Side, 4′ in front of the kit. Been playing around with these a bit, previously on the Handbrake LP and the Tre Orsi tour EP. This setup provides a nice ambience that’s not as explosive as widely-spaced omnis on the floor. In our main room, though, I think the omnis work better more often.

We also did all of the vocals through a Shure SM7, Daking pre-amp, and Purple Audio MC77. I really love this setup, though I often use another pre-amp that’s less forward in mid-range.

We finished tracking everything (including quite a few keyboard a guitar overdubs) by Sunday evening, finishing early enough for the guys to drive home to Austin that night and get a few hours’ sleep before work Monday morning. The next weekend, Matt, Charlie, and Kirk trickled in, one-by-one. We re-cut a few vocals and then started tearing through the mixes. Things went very quickly from here on out, and the last mix was printed around 8pm on Sunday.

Next up for me: a lot of mastering this week (including a new Fishboy album), then sessions with Tre Orsi, Beautiful Supermachines, and The Me-Thinks in February. Then I head out with A.C. Newman for a couple of US tours.

Also, I just finished mastering Daniel Folmer’s new album, The Roaring Twenties. This is the third album I’ve done for him in a year or so. Very prolific! Great singer, and very insightful songs. He’s playing a record release show this week in Denton at The Hydrant Café, then another at Good Records.

I have managed to accomplish a few things: I spent four long days tracking with Nervous Curtains. The amount of overdubs and edited planned meant that we went straight into Cubase rather than to tape. Typically, when a band has an ambitious list of overdubs and very little time in the studio, I get worried, but the band was on top of things at all times, and tore through their to-do list like an army. Hats off to them.

Mixing for that album will be done by Sean’s Paper Chase band-mate, John Congleton. I’m really excited to hear the final album, especially their transcendent cover of “Jesus and Tequila”.

I’ve also been doing a lot of prep work for the A.C. Newman tours — creating itineraries, scheduling flights, arranging instrument rentals, etc. Most people would find this tedious at best, but I actually enjoy this kind of work. It looks like the band will be great, including Jon Wurster (of Superchunk and the Mountain Goats) on drums. I’ve never met Jon, but his Scharpling and Wurster comedy records (on Stereolaffs) get a lot of play in the Tre Orsi tour-wagon.

Next weekend I’m doing an EP for The Distant Seconds, which I’m very excited about. I really enjoyed making their full-length, Spectral Evidence, which just got a great review in the blog, Austin Sound. (I don’t particularly hear the Silkworm influence, but I’m a little biased.) Until then, I’m going to sit on the couch and watch Space Balls over and over again.

Vermont was gorgeous, of course. NY was fine and dandy. Montreal was all too brief of a trip. Lots of good food, good people, and almost no work. (I did sneak in a few hours here and there, advancing the upcoming tour for The New Year.)

I only did a few sessions in August: a couple of days with You and Me from Dallas, and another two days with Tre Orsi. Bubba Kadane of The New Year was co-producing again, and it was a much more productive session than our last attempt, in April. We did 5 songs, and I’ll be finishing up tracking and mixing for them next week. Most likely these will make their way onto a limited tour-only EP for our upcoming dates.

This Wednesday is my last day as an employing at the University of North Texas, where I’ve been working for four years. I’m now finally out of debt and can devote all my time to the studio and touring. To say I’m excited about this is an understatement.

This week: recording new Dallas band, Les Americains (former members of DARYL), finishing up the Naptime Shake and Tre Orsi recordings. After that, The New Year’s Western US tour starts. (I’ll be blogging about the tour here, on Twitter, and over at Food About Music.)