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THIS IS IT

this week... after so many false starts that i have lost count... we are sending off the wiseblood ep to be printed.

this project passed the retarded sign post several miles back. it has taken over 4 years from start to completion, although it is true that we finished recording / mixing / mastering toward the end of 2006. the last hold out was a complete remix and re-tracking of the drums and re-edits of the guitars on the song, hwy that is being mixed and mastered RIGHT NOW.

i also took over the december 2006 master in november 2007 to fix a few glitches. so basically... we recorded fast and furious during 2004 and 2005 and a little bit in 2006. at that point we decided that the ashes were dead and that we no longer wanted to make a rock record. the rest of the time has been just waiting around while i played in bands and got drunk at SXSW and ashby finished law school and bought his girl a ring.

we recorded some songs twice. we recorded about 25 songs... enough for two complete albums. there were happy mistakes, inspiring ideas (sound of silence) and some horrible losses... (lovers in antipodes).


i spent weeks editing songs that got dropped upon completion. but at least we have a ton of material. and we've already begun recording for a project that will most likely be released as ashby pate. here are the 8 tracks for this wiseblood release:

1. gasoline
2. hwy
3. there's a first time for everything (featuring those girls from that band)
4. dreams (featuring more of those girls from that band)
5. bad luck
6. blackout
7. goodbye
8. a perfect kingdom

in an effort to eventually purge this project from my decaying soul... a project i started when i was 29 years old... i wanna make a list. two lists. the songs that didn't make it, that were all being considered at some point. and ALL of the locales of production. hilarious. i'm ready to die now.

night
down
lovers in antipodes

in la puerta
midmorning
sophia
east 26th street somethin'
friday afternoon in the universe
gasoline (jam version)
endless light
na na na
lonely broom
beautiful
miss my girl
after the flood

here's the blog i posted back in november about the end of the record. i posted this as i was beginning to "tweek" the master. this was the end-of-the-line narrative that basically gave some history to the production of this tiny little monster.

and now... to the best of my memory... the production locales... the ones in bold are where the majority of the work was done. and ultimately the work was done on laptops, by myself. in the dark. with no friends. all the while, calling out in vain for my mum.

1. ashby pate's southside apartment - recording / mixing / editing
2. josh cooper's basement / garage - drum + percussion tracking
3. darlene stokes' den - recording / mixing / editing
4. instant karma entertainment - recording / mixing / editing
5. ashby pate's forest park apartment - recording / mixing / editing
6. my five points apartment - recording / mixing / editing
7. my highland park apartment - recording/ editing / mixing / mastering
8. paul scodova's mastering studio in nashville- mastering
9. red mountain studio - drum tracking for hwy
10.jenny king's southside apartment - editing / mixing
11.essex house hotel in new york - editing
12.alison hulsey's house - editing / mixing
13.jesse payne's house - recording

this doesn't include any of the artwork related work, which was handled mostly by carl ross.

PS: by contrast, the spots recorded an ep during two evenings in january. total tracking time, 5 hours. it will be released this summer or fall.

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