The 11, 426 mile sessions. Day 100+ and it is in the can!

Wow! 100+ days.... separate two musicians by a couple of continents, 12 timezones and add full time jobs, and things take a while. But finally we have a song.

In total time spent it's been two weeks but that's included remembering the song, working guide tracks backwards and forwards, recording the track properly (in two rooms on different continents ), learning how to use a DAW, learning how to mix with compression, eq, reverb and how to fatten vocals, warm guitars and programme drums.

It's a shame that we never got to use a live drummer, but it was one thing less to learn.

So here is the  journey by sound.

I can say that I am a better musician than I was six months ago and Ed never ceases to amaze me as a songwriter, producer and bass player.  And there's a lot to be said for the excitement of getting up in the morning and finding the next version of a new song waiting for you on Dropbox.

And now we have got an album in our sights.... but we know how to work it now so a song a month is the target we've set ourselves.

More soon

Guitar gods - Mark Knopfler

I watched Dire Straits Alchemy Live on Sky Arts 1HD yesterday. Sweet mother of Eric, Mark Knopfler was incredible then (and still is).

I can remember rushing home from the shops with my brand new copy of Brothers In Arms in May 1985, and listening to the whole thing end-to-end multiple times that afternoon until my Mum told me to play something else.  The introduction of Money For Nothing reminded me of Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

I'd been playing my brother's copies of Making Movies and Love Over Gold for months, astounded by the cinematic scale of the songs. Playing guitar for a couple of years I had gravitated towards Knopfler's fingerstyle to escape the NWOBHM on one side and hair rock on the other. He was like nothing else. I got to see Dire Straits three times on the Brothers In Arms tour and it was completely awesome.

One of Nick Hornsby's book dscribes Mr Knopfler's ability to make a guitar sing like an angel after a hard night out on the piss (or something like that). Exactly that.  Mixing rhythmn and blues, melodic pop, rock and somehow using lightning fast Chet Atkins picking licks to glue it all together. It shouldn't work. But then the gods make the rules.


My favourite tracks

• Telegraph Road
• Romeo and Juliet
• Sultans of Swing