The album’s coming out on Wednesday night, and I wanted to tell everyone a little about it from my perspective before your first listen.

My goal was to do what I did on Adjustment, only ‘more better’. But the more I worked on what would become ‘Paper’ the more I realized that Adjustment pt. II just wasn’t possible, or even desirable. I’d been exposed to too much new, good music not to change my tune a little. Between the Summer of ’09 and now I’ve seen performances by, and had the privlidge of playing alongside, some unbelieveably talented musicians. When you hear music that good, you don’t really have a choice but to try to integrate some of it into what you’re doing. So, if while listening, you find yourself wondering ‘Hey, did they steal that from X?’ the answer is probably ‘Yes, indeed.’

About the sound quality . . . I’m not going to lecture anyone about the loudness war or transient preservation or any of that stuff. Sometimes it makes sense to really compress a tune, sometimes it doesn’t. I’d initially planned on squeezing it pretty hard, but a lot of the things I did on this album did not respond very well to getting smashed to pieces. It’s as hot as I could get it wihtout compromising the sound, but probably not as hot as other records in your collection, so turn it up if you want it loud. Also, it may not sound right on your laptop speakers or factory earbuds. Ugh, I never thought I’d be that guy, but there it is.

Finally, this album tells a story, so there are ups and downs, louds and softs. It is linear and unbalanced and ideas make more than one appearance. All my favorite albums are like that, so I wanted to do the same. I’ve probably told you the story in question, and yes that’s this album; but I’m going to keep it to myself from here on out (at least for awhile). I’d like to let everyone discover things for themselves.

Hope you enjoy it,

- Phil

We had a wonderful show on the 6th and everyone had a blast.  It felt great to be back at the RBar and I couldn’t have felt better about where we did Scott and Tony’s last show.

About that. . .

Mark and I are in the thick of rebuilding the live show for the two of us, so I spend a lot of time doing that directly and in the back of my brain while I’m doing other things.  Every time that happens, I find a different way in which Scott and Tony shaped the band and live show. ‘Oh yeah, Scott made up a part to play over X, so we won’t really have that anymore. . . Oh, Tony would play this during Y because . . . Why does this sound a little empty at Z? Oh, Scott and Tony would just go back and forth here at Z . . . so I guess we’ll have to . . .’  Each little revelation will seem like maybe it was the last, that I’d completed the list of things to cover or adjust on account of their absence. But as soon as I start working on anything again, I find some mark they made that I’d previously missed. That’s how it goes when you work with people like Scott and Tony: They’re just pros. There’s all the obvious contributions and feats of musicianship that are easy to recognize, but those are just the tip of the iceberg.

Restructuring our live show for a duo is time-consuming and a little daunting. But I think it’s a hell of a lot less daunting than the idea of finding a bassist as great as Scott, a guitarist as great as Tony, or a set of musicians that have the kind of chemistry they had as a pair and with Mark and I.

Scott, Tony, thank you for everything.

- Phil

P.S. I got a sneak peak at the new music video, and it looks amazing, and it was only a rough cut. Very excited to share this with everyone soon.