Well, patient readers, Puzzlebox's first recording session (Sunday, July 26th) went well. Angie (Taunya's eldest daughter) and Beckett (the love of Paul's life and, not coincidentally, his wife) came along with us. Beck even went to get the pizza for dinner. Flowinglass Music was the location, which means the studio that is Kristoph Klover's converted garage. It got fairly hot in there during takes (when we had to close the outside door and turn off the fan). But we brought a cooler of drinks and snacks, and I'd say it was a fun experience overall. Despite the heat and the duration of the thing, people came away (I think) happy and with a sense of accomplishment, so that says a lot.

Personally, I was actually looking forward to the magic of recording a song one track at a time, so that I could hear myself very clearly and re-record until I got it right (since I'm generally pretty nervous about singing on-key and of course, on an album, you want it perfect). My fears about my voice were realized, to some extent: I believe my singing had more re-takes than any other track (although I certainly wasn't the only person who did re-takes), but the problems were eventually overcome reasonably well. We deliberately picked what we thought were our most solid songs to work on first, while we figured out the process, so I wasn't quite expecting the level of difficulty I had (mostly with Urban Legends). But the difficulty, itself, was actually heartening: it was reassuring that everybody didn't mind sitting through it, trying different methods to make it work, going over and over (even telling me I needed to do it over) until it was right. Nobody got heated or impatient. Yet another new test of the group's ability to accomplish things together, and I think we passed it brilliantly. :{)}

Kristoph (our engineer) was fun, flexible, and very helpful. He had good ideas on how to accomplish things AND he was willing to do things any way we wanted to, any way that worked better for us. And once he got the feel of the group and what we were after, he became a helpful set of ears, cutting us off on bad takes (saving time and money), and suggesting ways of fixing the problems (whether changing the mix so I could find my notes, or patching together bits to make a clean flute solo).

I had always said that if we got any usable material out of that first session, I'd consider it a bonus. Well, out of the five songs we had ready to work on, we got two songs (Urban Legends and The Dark Man) on tape in the 8 hours we spent on Sunday. And although we've since decided to re-do Urban Legends, there will only be a few touch-ups on The Dark Man. I'm sure we'll get more efficient with our recording time as we go along.

A tape of The Dark Man is also now in the hands of Urban Tapestry (in Toronto), for them to add their trademark contribution. :{)} Also expected to be making contributions to this album are Scott Snyder and Ookla the Mok. How about that, filk fans?

Frankly, I had a blast, and am really looking forward to our next session, which we're hoping to schedule very soon.