Football, Friends and Finishing...Not

I am having a total blast today. I am recording and mixing tracks for the new (and final) CD of the year, while l; listening to the Green Bay Packer football game live on my iPhone. I've never done that before.

I have no idea who that kid is with the Packer shirt and guitar, but it's a cool pic, right?

As I am listening to vocal after vocal that was sent to me I've been getting goosebumps! Really, just blown away. Getting to mix all you these wonderful singers, my friends and family, I feel like this is the best Christmas present anyone could ever get!

BTW-SHUT THE FRONT DOOR - Packers are kicking butt.

I love having the radio on while recording and blogging, I might do this all the time!

Have you heard of  The Sugar Free All Stars? Of course you have (just go with it, if you really have no idea what I'm talking about click here). Chris sang and also play some excellent organ parts, plus he just looks so darn cool on the cover! OH, what a voice! Sugar...wow. It's getting so hard to mix this, I can only use very small parts of each vocal, right now I just want to release like 7 or 8 different versions with different lead singers and BTW, I haven't sung a note yet...maybe I shouldn't? 

As I work on this CD, a project that I am driven to get other people to "shine" I am beginning to realize that my recently departed mother was right, perhaps my real destiny is to be a great producer, like Phil Spector (without the guns) or Sir George Martin (without EMI and Apple studios...maybe someday). I have always loved being a director, facilitator, mover and shaker...mmmmmm.... 

A great big THANK YOU to China White and Forest Field guitarist, mutli instrumentalist and all round great guy from the Netherlands Peter Cox. He did ALL the basic music tracks for this song...drums, bass, guitars and various keyboards. I could never have done this without him. I plan to do a lot of recording for him in 2013. 

OH, just took a cookie break because right when I was done and doing some mixing on this song I think I pushed my poor little OLD MacBook to the limit. It just kinda sat there, staring at me, not playing, not restarting...BAD. So I took a break and just turned it off, now I'm re-booting. Let's see what happens next, shall we? IT WORKED! Sounds great, just needs hand claps...I really do feel like Phil Spector! MORE DRUMS, MORE SINGERS, MORE REVERB, MORE RONNIE SPECTOR, MORE EVERYTHING!!!

 Adding shout outs to everyone who played and sang on the CD, tearing up here. Missing people that aren't with us any more that would have loved to hear this. It's been a long day, this is pretty much all I got done. I don't think the CD will be done by Christmas eve, but here it is for you and your loved ones to share. Please share it, happy holiday. Love Billy.

Record, Sleep, Record, Sleep, Sleep, Sleep...

I have no idea what is wrong with me. As hard as I try to do anything, all I want to do is sit and stare or sleep. My body feels like it went on vacation and forgot to tell my brain!

I did manage to push through it a bit yesterday before I passed out around 3 pm for a few hours.

I was going through all the songs I wanted to record, but nothing sounded interesting or exciting so I went though a bunch of submissions I received and found a song that got me going by Will Hale called' "I Love My Mother". It's awesome, lots of fun and in his live version the kids really scream out the chorus  I can't wait to try it for myself.

I also made some more progress yesterday and today on my new multi-lingual version of "Happy and You Know It". We are clapping in several different languages including Danish, Dutch, Afrikaan, French and Hebrew. Oh yeah, and plain ol' English too. I really wanted a Spanish so once again my big brother from another mother Dave Kinnoin is bailing me out...we really need to give this guy and award or something.

I hope to have that one in the can by late tomorrow, I'll keep working on other songs while I do this one.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a really cool day, my son in recording with me so I hope to knock out about 4-6 basic tracks with him before i take my daughter to rollerskating (that is when I usually do my graphic design  on my iPad while she skates!).

OK, I think that's it...working a a cool tune with Dave Kinnoin and Jimmy Hammer right now called "Funky Hu"...you're gonna love it. Here is "I Love My Mother"...enjoy!