TWO DAYS OF RECORDING IN THE BOOKS

Friday January 16th, 2026: Mike Sabatini (drums/producer/engineer), CJ Scioscia (assistant engineer) and I communed at Bandmother Recording to begin laying down drum tracks for the tenth magnum opus. Despite the weather being super cold, we were surrounded by warm gear and sheltered from the high winds.

Started tracking drums for the first song, so far so good, some hiccups but nothing we couldn’t overcome. That happens in the studio. You can practice and rehearse your brains out but as soon as CJ says “You ready for a take?”, anything can happen. And some things did happen such as the kick drum not tracking properly on a couple of songs. Faulty cables, as to be expected.

But again, breathe deep, we got this.

Tracked drums for six of the eight songs in three hours. You read that right. Mike and I have always been efficient musicians, and we are in tune with how things operate. Go over the songs until you’re bored of them. THEN you know you’re doing them right. We do leave things to chance, such as the kick drum incident. Yeah, we did a few takes, but who doesn’t? One song out of eight was done straight through, one take, thank you and good night.

You read that right too.

After six songs, we engorged ourselves at Vinnie’s Pizza (SO DAMN GOOD) and then called it a day. A great first day, very productive and fun.

Saturday, January 17, 2026: Day two of getting the last two drum tracks done. No computer snafus, but of course human errors to be expected. No sweat, do another take. And another. Nailed the last two songs in about two hours. Played with tempos to get the best feel. Some songs require a more militant structure; a few rely on natural groove and swing so sometimes we plowed through them. Listened back to the tracks to make sure we were all pleased with the results, and we are! Mike did a fantastic job, really stepped up, dialed in what was needed. As I told him at lunch today, “Sometimes you lead the dance, sometimes you know when to sit back.”

So that’s eight songs in two days. Pretty damn good.

We are taking a week off to recharge and save gas money. Might go back on January 30th and/or 31st to start work on rhythm guitar parts. I have lots of hair-brained ideas, such as adding clean parts where you wouldn’t expect them, or using an effect to make you say WTF?!

Then again, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t throw you off 🙂

All told, things were great! Props BIG TIME to CJ for taking time out of his schedule to help Mike with recording drums. Many hands make light work for sure.

Think I’ll sleep til Thursday.