Kevin visited his former home, Seattle, with his wife Kara this weekend and spent time with Cozzi working on bass tracks. He stayed in my basement apartment with Kara and the dogs ... 1 day after Reggie left the same apartment. Useful addition to the house. By the time you read this, Kev, you'll be back in sunny Phoenix!

Reggie is in town for a few days working with Cozzi on vocals and playing frisbee. He's fresh back from a theater performance called Transition at Portland's TBA. Last night when I stopped by the studio the vocals were sounding sweet. Almost as sweet as the drink Reggie introduced me to recently ... the Arnold Palmer. I love it. 50/50 ice tea and lemonaide, except Reggie orders his heavy on the iced tea.

Reggie on the cover of the Musician's Friend music gear catalog. I'm not sure where this is circulating as Vince Neil showed up on my MF catalog. I believe this is a photo from a gig in Minneapolis (recognize the sweater & mic) but can't recall the club name (Fineline, Sureline?).

Michael Cozzi outside his Capitol Hill studio

Thought we'd introduce folks to the man behind this latest Maktub recording, Michael Cozzi. Our Welsh-born buddy is an accomplished musician and producer. Some folks may know Michael from his guitar work with Sky Cries Mary and Shreikback or his collaborations with everyone from Gang of Four to Soundgarden ... just read his bio already.

More important, Cozzi has orchestrated this whole recording and is turning our 3 day jam session into some sweet ass music. He and Reggie get together for a week in September to vocal work. More to report soon ...

Overdubbing is more or less a horribly wonderful antichrist. That is, a necessarily unnecessary evil.

No matter your feelings for how music is made nowadays, Davis totally rocked it in today. I love his drumming so much!

Master Yoda at work ...

Paul Rucker @ Cozzi's studio July 5, 2008

Paul Rucker swung by the studio today to play cello on a tune - plenty of tasty cello noise and melodies. If you're not familiar, check out Paul's Youtube vid.

Call it nowld school, but the new album Mingle by Seattle's own Saturday Knights is fantastic!  Check it out:



The SK's rocked the house a couple summers ago (or was it last summer) at Havanah's and the album proves they can kick it live or Memorex.

Thaddeus laid some sweet guitar overdubs on Friday after lunch and I managed to record acoustic piano at Cozzi's on Karen's 6ft Yamaha grand that is conveniently located in the studio. Thad was late but his lovely sis Monica was braiding his hair so I had to forgive him.



Hello to Kent who stopped by the studio last week. Also bumped into Ishmael at Victrola (aka Butterfly from DP).  He's finishing recording a new Cherrywine album soon-ish. Looking forward to it, Ish!

That's not a typo ... but before we get to a fan's Rove/Maktub experience at last week's Minnesota State Republican Convention, can we pause a moment and give props to Barack Obama for winning the Democratic presidential nomination yesterday? Yes we can!

Okay, so here's the story straight from hot tipper Ellen Goode ...

May 31, 2008 @ 12:43 PM
SURREAL MINNESOTA MAKTUB EXPERIENCE: KARL ROVE'S THEME SONG?

We find ourselves living in this small south-eastern Minnesota town which happens to be hosting the Minnesota State Republican Convention this weekend. Guest speaker is that idiot Karl Rove, so we sit in the guest section to heckle and hear what the enemy has to say. After his lies and Obama-hating, the convention adjourns, and we hear "Everybody's got some devotion, hidden somewhere along the way...We stand our ground...You can't hide..."

How could this be? Is this Rove's new theme song? Have Republicans co-opted our beloved Maktub? Are they saying that Obama can't hide? Is this their version of Clinton using Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow" in 1992? Is Rove going to starting rapping again? Has Maktub given permission? What would Reggie et al think? What has the world come to?

We find our way to the AV section to learn that Republicans had nothing to do with this. The most excellent Jeff Taylor of Minneapolis had been hired as part of sound crew. So great to meet a fellow Maktub supporter (provided gear and support for Start It Over album) to reminisce about Seattle shows and the times the band has gotten to the midwest. Other songs from Khronos played on as the convention hall cleared.

So, many thanks to Jeff for bringing joy to an otherwise frightening event. Maktub continues to spread good vibes and bring people together wherever it is played. THANKS!

Ellen Goode and Dave Rider

Karl, please stop. The band is losing precious, hard-earned street cred. However, if someone would like to sneak You Can't Hide onto Obama's iPod, we'd be fine with that.

photo from the recording session - courtesy of Karen Moscowitz

Folks have been asking "how did recording go?". Here's my best wordy Daniel attempt at summarizing. I realized sometime this past Thursday that we weren't going to make it. Every album we've recorded up until this point we've slammed through the meat grinder ASAP or AMAMA (as much as money allowed). Well, that's not entirely true as we spent a good amount of time recording Say What You Mean, but in general we're a scrappy bunch and that is reflected in our recording efforts. This latest recording was no exception -- get our butts in there, record, overdub a bit, move on to vocals on day 4 and get it all done in under a week. Hup hup! Well, that didn't happen. It was part unrealistic schedule meets bandmates-as-best-frenemies. Love them to death, but it was a tug-of-war, which can prove both creatively frustrating and fruitful. More on that later ...

In the end we recorded 10 really cool songs. Reggie recorded vocals on 4 of those. Thaddeus and I have guitar and keyboard overdub work to do. Davis has a few boom/baps to overdub, but he's basically done. Kevin's bass work is very likely complete (go Kev!). The band recorded all live in one room. We didn't have a note written before we walked in and it didn't all come together under the wire as hoped. We tend to thrive musically under pressure, but this bareback bronco of a schedule threw even Maktub,  improv cowboys, prematurely from the saddle.

Where does this leave us? Actually, in an oddly interesting and creative spot. We're going to meticulously hammer away at these songs. Michael Cozzi (producer) is in no hurry and looking forward to spending a long time crafting everything just right. Cozzi is rummaging through tracks this week and running overdubs in the coming weeks -- all drums, guitar and keys.  At that point Reggie will be on deck for vocals and he'll have a much clearer picture of the compositions and his role within as vocal confabulator. But what began as a one week experiment is turning into a many months jazz oddysey, minus the jazz.

As for my best frenemies comment, it's no mystery to anyone in a band or collective creative endeavor (web company, dance company, restaurant, marriage, etc) that it gets crunchy at times. However, crunchy has been known to deliver the goods and that's where we hope this takes us. If the songs didn't sound so damn good I'd offer a different opinion, but we may have midwived a pineapple. Prickly on the outside; delicious on the in.

Another observation from fans that have written to us or written reviews of past albums,  there seems to be two divergent schools of thought: "run wild, be free" (ala Start It Over) or "craft songs for months before you even think of recording" (ala Khronos). Well, this may very well turn out to be a hybrid Prius version of those two. At times this past weekend we had a blast; at times we stumbled, fumbled and rumbled. And we still don't know where this is going but I for one am predicting awesomeness. Why? Because at some point this weekend (no shit) I learned to stop worrying about the individuals and simply love the band. To my ears, the rough tracks seem to bear this out.

Running home now to get my keyboards loaded up and over to the studio. Davis set up his drums today. Thaddeus probably tomorrow. Kevin arrives tomorrow and will set up his bass stuff in the afternoon. Reggie arrives early Friday morning ... then we're off to the races. This all came together quick so we're making it up as we go along.

Just bumped into Motionfix of Power of Coming Age at Value Village on Capitol Hill. Good luck with the CD release!



As it turns out, recording involves a bunch of computers (for those that haven't check in on the craft in, say, 10 years). That's a pic of Davis' drums all mic'd up. I wonder if the industry would be as far along without Apple computers? Prolly not.

We're considering recording again.  No specific plans or album titles or songs yet ... just the desire and will to make it happen.  Which brings up a few interesting questions for you, our kick ass fans ... 

    1) did you like MARC7?
    2) do you dig Start It Over?
    3) what's your dream Maktub recording senario?

I can't tell you that we'll follow your advice but it's fun to consider all of the above with the help of friends. One thing we've learned over the years is less planning is better for us. Well, maybe not less planning but fewer expectations about what's going to happen in the studio and what may come out of a given recording session. I used to use the over-used analogy of "hearding cats" as it relates to recording Maktub but anymore I think of it as juggling a dozen donuts while lying in bed. Pretty much impossible and if you just leave the donuts in the box on the counter it's much better for everyone involved. Unjuggled donuts are delicious in and of themselves.

Consider this: a box of unjuggled Maktub donuts in the recording studio with a MARC8 club yet-to-be-defined. Whet the appetite?