LESS than a week to go ’til I take my tracks into Chem19 for mixing….so I’m straight into the studio to try and move things forward.

The morning is spent tweaking what may – or may not – be called Walk the Walk and editing some beats I carelessly added yesterday. Once I’ve sorted out some timing of ‘the hits’ it sounds quite good. Margaret agrees. Whether they’ll stay in the final mix or not I don’t know. At least they’re there if I do want them!

Late morning I take some of the sourdough starter I fed last night and mix some dough to make rolls. I sit the tub outside and leave it to prove.

After a quick lunch in garden it’s back into the studio to get some more guitar tracks down. Normally I record everything live – guitar and vocal at the same time – but for this album I need to keep things separate as there’s some folks contributing drums, blues harp, cajun accordion and stuff. Plus I want to have a bit more creative control over the mix.

There’s a few songs that were released digitally during lockdown that have never been album tracks or featured on a physical product. Folks have been asking for them on CD and/or vinyl so I need to work out if I just wanna remix…or re-record.

Being tight for time, I’d like to just remix but I think it would be better, time permitting, to re-record as much as I can and give us more options later in the process. I might play them better…or they might be crap. Who knows!

It’s quite stressful recording some of the guitar…a lot to do and stay on top of when you’re on your tod and then I have a few broken strings to deal with too!

By 6pm I’ve had enough, shut up the studio and make the sourdough into rolls, cover with clingfilm and leave for an hour for final proofing.

Meantime, I go for a quick paddle and when i get back Margaret’s got the rolls in the oven. They turn out pretty good for a first attempt!