F E E D I N G : the soul

If you've been reading this blog since the very begining... then these boys are no strangers to you! the Makepeace Brothers have been such incredible friends and an inspiration to me since we met. In moving to LA, I've been so blessed to get to see them perform all of the time. On there most recent album " Slow Down , Feel Love" - they wrap up the album with a beautiful song called " Thank You" It has become such an awesome song to wrap up shows in our community. One of the cool things about the song is that it has Dozens of verses and on the album it sung by so many wonderful folks. All 4 MakePeace Brothers, Bushwalla, Alysse Fischer, Tristan Prettyman, Jason Mraz - and more....

Live, whichever singers from our wonderful group of friends/singers who are around typically get asked to come on stage and join in the sangin!

We have so much fun turning this song into a straight up church whether it be at Aviator Nation - Hotel Cafe- or here, at the Feeding the Soul Foundation's event in San Diego! The event was at LinkSoul Labs to support the Super Food Drive and provide local charities and food missions with healthier supplements for those in need.

Again, it was such a wonderful honor to get to not only even be in the same place at so many wonderful but to get to sing for and with them as well. Check out the video above. It got sweaty and dancy real quick.

Congrats to Matty & Avasa Love, Jason Mraz, and of course Conor Gaffney & Finian and Ciaran Makepeace on an incredible show - and to the beautiful women of the Feeding the Soul Foundation for another Succesfull event.

Our soul's got nourished <3

S T U D I O : day seven

Today is day Seven. The Final day!

It is hard to beleieve we have been here this long, last night we slept here in the studio. ( literally) so the days are starting to all run together. when you sit in the same room for 12 or so hours a day ( and in this case.. over 24) it gets a little bit blurry. I didn't know that your ears and mind could get so tired until tonight.

Today we recorded the rest of the additional instrumentation, and then finally did the Piano recordings. Justin has a beautiful upright piano in his home that just had a ton of work done to it and was freshly tuned. He has cathedral cielings and hardwood floors that resonate the sound beautiful. We opened the guitar, and took the front panal off as well, placing 2 mics on top and 2 below. It has such a geniunly beautiful sound that in mind is so much more crisp and beautiful than some of the keyboard sounds people are using these days.

We are so unbelievably lucky to be working with Justin. He is a phenomenol Producer and Sound Engineer but also, musician. He picked up piano parts on a whim that I could never even dream of creating. It added such depth to the songs and where in some places added new melodies, also backed the guitar chords nicely as well for a very round sound.

S T U D I O : day six

I drove back fom South Carolina this morning, to head straight to the hotel, check out, grab Scott and get to the studio by 11:00. This meant a 8 a.m. wake up at my sisters lake house. Luckily, she is a mini-mom and packed me brakfeast! ( Doughnuts in a bag. Mmm) I called Scott when I was about 15 minutes away “ Are you all packed up and ready to get into the studio” … “ yup” …” ok cool” !

(My sister and soon.to.be brother in law!)

I walked into the room and the lights were off. He was still asleep. Unpacked. Unshowered. And the remaining m&m cookies had apparently all dissapeared. I tried not to be too frusturated. Its hard not to laugh, because Scott looks really silly when he gets woken out of a deep sleep.

Anyways, once we made it into the studio, we felt pretty great about where we were at. Finishing so much of the vocals was such a great feeling. Scott finished up the song he forgot about today as well – and now was the fun part. We began adding on to each song and building them up. Although we are an acoustic duo, it was beautiful to get to bring these songs to their full potentiol on this album.

Some of the instruments we used and used to build were:

Drums ( Snare, tom, kick)

Cymbals

Xylophone

Sleigh bells

Tambourines

Acoustic Guitar ( Taylor GS mini )

Electric Guitar ( 72 Gibson Hollow Body)

Shakers/ various hand percussion

Piano

Today had a lot of drums. Some of them are so rad it’s silly! Especially on the song “As happy as I am “ ( Title, still not official lol) Ugh it is so killer! Somehow though, with the HORRBILY loud banigng, scott, with headphones on that were pumping the drums into his ears slept through an hour of them recording. It was truly astonishing… he has a gift.

S T U D I O : day five

Sometimes these blog posts take the format of my middle school diary ( which is a very good read, and I recommend it, if you are ever – in my room. ) That is, “Today we, and then we, and I felt like this…” I will try to be more creative. I will try. If not, read scott’s blog again. He tries to be funny.

This morning, we were coming off a crappy nights sleep. We have been staying at a rather swanky hotel in Ballantyne. ( We got a very nice employee discount to make this possible) the problem with a hip hotel though is that they have parties in the lobby/ bar. Which happens to be about 15 feet from our room. We came back Friday to a Full band ( drums, amps, the whole shibang) playing some god awful covers so loud you could hear it through our walls crystal clear. This went on until 12:30 or so, and then the staff proceeded to drag the equipment along the floor down our hall for 30 minutes of clean up. WOMP WOMP.

The good news… this party had a food room. I sent scott on a secret mission, he blended in and stole us about 25 m&m cookies. He felt super 007 . and then he felt super full.

We needed the sleep, because it was an early Saturday morning session….Today we did things a little different then usual as we went to finish the last 2/3 of lead vocals between the two of us. I went first, but rather than doing one song at a time, we did one singer at a time. Scott quite a fair amount of nap time this morning, And I went through 6 songs. Many of them were much easier than yesterdays and I blew right through them.

Once I was done, I left for the rest of the day to see my Sister Jessica and her Fiance Neil. When I lived in DC I saw them 5 times a year at least, and now, never L I went down there to Columbia SC to take their engagement photos for the afternoon while Scott finished his lead vocals. Justin and him had tons of “ bro time” and proceeded to lay down some Ebow and such on Scott’s song “ Can I have this dance” …. All in all, even with little sleep- it was a VERY PRODUCTIVE day on all acounts.

S T U D I O : day four

Well today was a true test of patience. Day 4 was layering lead vocals for both Scott and Myself. Scott & I have a lot of vocal parts that layer eachother without being direct harmonies, so getting your take to be EXACT as far as timing goes was quite an interesting task. We also did a little bit of reconstruction in regards to trimming the fat off some phrases. Justin is really good at making sure you don’t have too many syllablls while still getting your point across.

There were very many a moments were one of us screamed out in frusturation. Once we changed things it was hard to get the new format or words into our mind and voices. This was especially true with the first date song.

We also wanted to make sure that we weren’t wearing our voices out since some parts of this song are especially demanding vocally. Oh grrr. We only got through 4/12 songs, but we got the hard ones out of the way :/

For your E N T E R T A I N M E N T

LAUGH WITH US

In the studio, there are a lot of silly moments. Naturally, when 3 people are stuck in a room 12 hours a day for 7 days straight.... those things happen. Frusturating moments happen to. But, most importantly silly.

Everytime I have been in the studio with Justin, there is always a song or video we watch everytime we need to giggle. It use to be the " taco bell pizza hut song" ( which weird coincience we JUST had taco bell for dinner ) ... this time it's this.

Now while I don't condone laughing at people most of the time... I assume this wound is old ( it's about 20 years old...) but on top of that... I am mainly laughing at myself because if my insides could talk sometimes on a lonely saturday night, this is what they would say.

When he rants at the end he says " I shouldn't have to rumuge through the dumpster looking for a Playboy" ... amazing.

Stay U P D A T E D

Little known fact. My blog is running through blooger.com ( Blogspot) Which is now tied to Gmail/Google. You can subscribe and get notified of updates through e-mail if you have a g-mail account without even having a blog. You can almost comment on any of these posts.

If you'd like to subscribe. go to the very bottom of this page and you will see an area that looks JUST LIKE THIS:

click the FOLLOW link. Also, FYI right now I am updating once a day, but in general only update every other week or so, so I can promise your inbox will not be flooded. :)

THANK YOU AS ALWAYS FOR THE SUPPORT.

S T U D I O : day three

Thursday March Tenth.

Today we started really getting into the fun stuff. For those of you who don't know, or who haven't been able to hear a lot of the "story" from our album, We wrap it up with a song I sing alone. Right now it is very stripped down plucking guitar and myself almost speaking, it is short and very direct. This was the one song that we didn't scratch yet. Our goal however with this song, and my personal dream for it while writing it - was to have the song grow and grow and grow instrumentally after the singing was over. Similar to songs like "Transatlanticism" By Death Cab for Cutie or " The first Day of Spring" by Noah and the whale. It is such an epic and beautiful song structure and grows stylistically to create sounds similar to that of Sigur Ros. We listened to a lot of exmaples of songs like this. They are typically in the 6 to 7 minute range and build slowly, we paid attention to what rhythms & instruments can give a driving motion to a build- it is SO EXCITING to actually create a song like this. If you haven't heard some of these examples, i highly recommend you listening to them right this minute. right now. go. I'll even paste links:

Death Cab: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNqQC7R_Me4

Noah & The whale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szbB-vLVnoQ

Ok are you back ? So yah, get excited, cus we certainly are! We started to build this song with acoustic tracking, electric guitar harmonies, and drums. ( mainly Kick Drums and a little on the snare/ tom/ cymbals )

Once we had the Drums mic'd up we went back and added percussion to " The first date song" & " As happy as I am "....Speaking of " The first date song " we WILL be giving these songs real titles one day..... one day.

We took a quick break for dinner and Scott & I of course got gyros. I feeling SUPER glutenous even got Ben & Jerrys. Yup. One scoop of cookie dough vanilla in a cake cone please. I'm a rock star. Once we got back to the studio we power housed through some more drums and Scott some how, fell asleep 3 feet away from a FULL DRUM SET being played for about 50 minutes. Waking him up from a deep sleep was truly hillarious. Priceless.

We wrapped around 11:20 and got some good sleeps in. :)

TONS OF VIDEO & PHOTOS FROM TODAY TO BE POSTED ASAP

S T U D I O : day two

Wednesday March 9th .

Boy am I glad i suck at playing guitar to a click. Once your BPM tempo has been established you place a click ( electronic metronome) to each song and lay down the acoustic guitar tracks while the click literally clicks into your headphones. Playing PERFECTLY in rhythm is both important and challenging. ESPECIALLY if you aren't typically a studio musician who is use to that.

Thank goodness for little ol' me... I am sitting in a studio with two brilliant guitarists. Scott played guitar for literally about 11 hours straight today. I tried to lay down the plucking songs which guitar parts I have actually written, but we quickly realized it would be better & more accurate if I taught them to Scott & laid them down for me.

I got to relax a lot today. I gave lots of thumbs up & words of encouragement - and went out to get food for scott - but overall i won't be important until vocal day... The boys also let me run away for an hour to see one of my best friends Ivey while she was in town just for the night. UGH . i have the greatest peoples in my life.

S T U D I O : day one

Monday March Seventh.

After a beautiful ( rainy) weekend in Washington D.C. , we spent Monday driving down the East Coast. We had a great lunch before hitting 95 South with my mom and younger sister Mariah. Scott certainly got a full dose of Rollins girls. We went through Maryland, Washington D.C. Virginia, and North Carolina ( All firsts for Scootch.) We arrived at the Ballantyne aloft hotel & caught up on some sleeps. We have seperate beds and a very spacious accomidating room (thanks to Jessica Rollins & Trisha Dobson).

We had originally planned on starting to record on Monday, but had to change plans because our Producer Justin Huey's band " Steel Train" got asked to be the musical guest on Lopez Tonight monday, which meant he had to fly to LA & Back that day. (WHAT A TROOPER) you can get a taste of that here:

Impressed? Yup. They are wonderful. Now you all can stop saying " Why did you fly to NC to record when you live in Los Angeles" ... cus he's great.

Tuesday March eighth.

We arrived at the Bear Cave studios in Charlotte / Matthews and were greated by Justin & Emily. Emily is Justin's girlfriend and creative partner as well. They have a great Duo group called Seahorses! and Emily is also in the band Fun. This is one of my favoritte songs by them. ( Jack, the lead singer from Steel Train is also in Fun. )

Moving right along, we started around 3:00 after Justin got back to the East coast around 11 am. Crazy. We started by tracking the acoustic guitar/vocals for 11/12 songs. ** Scratch Tracking is essentialy a one take rough version of each song to use as the frame work and establish the BPM. ( Beats per minute.) that all of the instruments will follow us a temp guideline. **

This was fairly easy since Scott & sing together so often, and since we had caught up on sleep & it was the middle of the day we were pretty warmed up, etc. We "trimmed the fat" on a lot of songs and organized song structure, etc.

We wrapped up the evening with mimosas provided by the gorgeous Emily Moore. Then back to the Aloft. Perfect.

** I'll add photos lata ! **

Stay Tuned for Daily Posts.

seed the S O U N D : sundays

Phillip Noss

Finally - Bloombars got to meet Me & Mr.Cassidy. Bloombars has helped and watched me grow through the last ( almost) three years. Which is incredible. Boy if those walls could talk they would tell quite embarrassing tales of me n my guitar. It was a very rainy and cold evening, which of course threw us california kids for a rutt, but we were so happy to see SO MANY beautiful and familiar faces as well as new ones that heard we was a comin' !

Also, the always wonderful Phillip Noss played before us coming in all the way from Boston. He certainly gained a handfull or two of new fans - including my mom ;)

This was the first time that we ever played all 12 songs from the album all the way through ( not even in practice!) and especially the first time that we ever did in front of an audience, some of them on their feet in front of ears for the firs time. It was important to me to feel the journey that the characters go on from beginning to end for the first time, and by the end, It was hard to keep from crying.

A huge thank you to all of our friends and family for coming out. This was actually the biggest audience we have ever had just for us before, which was incredible since it was our first show together outside of California! We are so happy to have fans on both coasts, and we promise to come back as often as possible!

It was especially special to have Joan & Terrence Limos in the audience who we wrote " the wedding song " for originally, since this was the first time I have been able to sing for them since their wedding last September.

Over all it was such a beautiful night, we got to stay after and have a chat with Terrence Cunninghman and John Chambers, both whose opinions i respect, which was wonderful and put some beautiful insight into our minds.

see you soon, bloombars!

The final N U M B E R S

I don't think there are words to describe how wonderful I feel. We set out a goal of $3,000 on Indie go-go in hopes of getting somewhere close to it- even half way would be nice! Along the way, extra costs came up ( hotel costs etc. ) and we were worried that even if we met our goal, we would still be cutting it very tight. and then YOU kept on giving! Through indie gogo we raised...

... $3,750 ...

and additionaly $425 in personal checks & Cash , bringing us to a beautiful $4,175 (incredible!) I've never thought of myself as particularly lucky, but i realized i am not only lucky but lucky to be loved by so many wonderful people. we are so grateful.

		A HUGE THANKS TO ALL OF OUR CONTRIBUTERS:
Slava Rubin
Bloom Bars
Emily Lowing
Elyse Angone
Lindsay Allen-Kosal
JUSTINE COMBEAUD
Amanda Smith
Don Michael Mendoza
Damian Irisarri
The Apron Theatre Co.
David Conison
Me & Mr.Cassidy
Scott Cassidy
Mariah Rollins
Bridget Garwood
Cassandra Favero
Stephanie Wooten
Jennie Pierce
Philly Brentnall
Liana Weiland
Austin Hickman
Eric Morgensen
Tomissa Huart
Kelly Cassidy
Derek Johndrow
Kimberly Schwarm
Lara Crosthwaite
Mike Mantione
Cheryl Filipek
Brian Murphy
Amy Cummins
Candice Day
Mrs Kaye F Meehan
Denise Evans
Lauren Weiniger
Nathalie Santiago
Jon Koch
Jennifer Pearlman
Lincoln Sevier
Christy Skalecki
Samantha Rexing
Jessica Bell
Emily Monus
Guy Trenary
Eric Zuckerman
Margaret McCleary
Bernie Cassidy
Irene Diongzon
Matthew Love
Jessica Rollins
Paige E Hopewell
Lisa Edmondson
Nyk Schmalz
Miklos Somogyi
Molly Bloom
Allan Lenhardt
Traci Anderson
Kevin Leahy