Update

things have been kind of exploding in my life - all very exciting... i feel like i'm on a rollercoaster. this week has been pretty amazing - i did an interview with Men's Fitness Magazine, then wrote and recorded a piano score for my friend Brett Berg's new film. It's an independent short - very disturbing - borderline horror - weird shit. But it was so much fun - i've never scored a movie before and i was kind of nervous going into it b/c i had no idea whether i could do it right ;) lol. anyway - i went in and decided that writing horror music is too much fun. minor keys and tritones - my favorite ;)

so, i haven't really written about the solo record i'm recording b/c i've been afraid that people were going to think i was not dedicated to Valeze or something... but i realized that is ridiculous - i am so excited about this record and dying to talk about it... so fyi: i am more dedicated to Valeze than i ever have been - the guys are my family and i fucking looooove my band... However, music is my life and i'm an obsessive compulsive workaholic - now that that is cleared up...

I've been working on this record since August. i had all these songs that i love that don't fit Valeze. they're definitely softer. i've been compiling them for a while and just putting them on the backburner for "someday"... It hit me last June that i just needed to get them recorded and stop making excuses for not getting it done - ie. money... people thinking i wasn't dedicated to valeze... etc.. so i recorded some basic piano/voice demos of the songs and started looking for someone to produce the songs for me - then my next excuse - "its not possible for me to do it myself - i need someone else to produce it"... Then my next excuse - "i can't afford to work with these producers"... the cycle's never ends;)

my friend mikki james(also one of my favorite songwriters/bass players) was self producing his record all summer and it was pretty inspiring for me to watch him do it... last july i was asking him for advice on getting my record done and he said - "produce your own record - you know how to engineer and you have good songs. just do it..." i don't know what about that made it hit home - i've heard it before - but i guess the combination of admiration i have for him as an artist and watching him produce his record pushed me to it. i had this idea that my record had to be some big production that was impossible for me to do... then i realized i was just making it up and creating more excuses to not get it done. self sabotage... why do i love it so? ;) anyway - i decided that i had to just get it done...

ive had no plans for this record. no "vision" if you will. take that how you want to, but i think its pretty beautiful... there's been no plan - i started with the piano/voice demos and have added piece by piece - percussion, synths, electronic drums, beatboxing (yes i did, and no its not what you think it is...). i've never produced before, so i have no idea what im doing. i figured the music would just create itself and i'd be surprised at the end. it definitely feels very "free" - nothing is contrived in the least since i have no idea what's coming next! not that there's anything wrong with having a plan either - its just that its been really fun for me to do this record like this - very spontaneous.

i started getting a little more ambitious along the way and decided to stereo track live drums in our studio - which was a blast - miles tracked some of the drums, i played on a couple tracks as well - of course, not as good as miles ;) he's such a great drummer - banged them out in one take! i love the drum sound and love that its just a stereo track. (i'm a geek)... so the drums led to guitars, lap steel and it started to grow into something bigger than i thought it would. I've had some incredible friends record on this record and everyone who's been a part of it has really brought a piece of themselves to it. i keep finding myself surprised everytime something new is recorded - which makes it even more fun.

Two weeks ago i had spent the entire weekend recording bass with Mikki, who came in from CT, and trumpet with my friend Joe Bennett. As I was about to back up the record my hard drive crashed and i lost all the bass, trumpets, and a drum track.. thankfully i had backed everything else up - but regardless, it was a weeks worth of work and I felt awful that Mikki and Joe's work got destroyed... i was kind of a mess, but i realized i couldn't do anything except retrack and do it better than before. honestly it ended up being a blessing in disguise. Last weekend I re-recorded the bass in CT w/Mikki and it completely breathed new life into everything... Also rerecorded trumpets with Joe - they sound insane... we ended up doing some very "grand" trumpet arrangements, added some more lapsteel too. ;) and yesterday i tracked some guitars with my buddy RJ as well. gogogo

In any case, its finally coming to the final stages. Gotta go edit and track some more guitars so i can start recording vocals this week.

love,

tiff

oh - other great news - we got Valeze up on itunes this week - very excited about that as well. download it and show some love!