The blog has been quiet for the past few days (and will continue to be for the next few) because the motherboard on my PC fried on Tuesday night. I’m writing this from Angel’s PC (which I hate) for now just to let you know what’s up. I should have the new mobo tomorrow or Monday. If you’ve been trying to get in touch with me (via email or MySpace) and I haven’t responded yet please be patient.

This entry was supposed to be posted last night but there was some server maintenance going on so it had to wait until today.

Riley told us today that he wanted his hair to look like daddy’s. I assume his motivation was similar to mine: keeping the girls as far away as possible. He’ll be getting his first tattoo tomorrow.

Open-mouthed-gum-chewing + haircut = a great idea.

The reveal.

The pile.

Thanks a lot to everyone who came out to Colossus last night to hear me play. I had a great time. I had a all-star cast of backing vocalists on and off throughout the night. They included Josh and John on Liberty, Mike and John on Home, and Dave on Wanted Dead or Alive. John requested Short Pants (which can be found on this page) by Maxtone Four as my closing song. Of course I had never played Short Pants before, but since it happens to be one of my all time favorite songs I figured I’d at least give it a shot. Luckily there are only three chords in the song (Dave claims there are four though I have yet to find the fourth) so I was able to get through it without too much bloodshed.

Today marked a milestone in my life. I attended my first baseball game at the new Busch stadium. It’s amazing but I’m a bit torn over whether or not it was completely enjoyable being that we got skunked…and by the Cubs no less. Here are a few pictures from the day.

I’m not sure what they’re putting in the cotton candy these days but from the look on Riley’s face it would appear that it’s more than just sugar.

Last night we recorded the background vocals for Home. Tracy did an absolutely amazing job. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I had never heard or even met her before. A few weeks ago Nate recommended her to us saying that she was an excellent singer. He was right. She didn’t sound anything like I expected. In fact she sang the parts exactly the opposite of how I wanted them and it was totally perfect. She kinda reminded me of Alison Krause believe it or not. Great stuff. Very pleased.

Yesterday was also the anniversary of my knee surgery. Thank the Lord that mess is over. Here’s the picture I posted of my knee right after the surgery. Gross out warning! It looks a little better these days.

I’m working on a new demo for this thing I’m doing with Brian McClelland. OK wait. I know you’re probably thinking “Enough with the side project talk man.” I know. I know. So here’s what’s going on with The Formula Kid first. I think we’ll probably be done tracking phase 1 of the album either this week or next week. When that happens we’ll try to find all the overdubs we’ve done in the last few weeks and get them sent to Hughes. Then the mixing can begin. The songs that will be done are: You Devil You, Dog and Pony Show, Outta Sight Shake, On Martyrdom, Home, To Mother from Her Son, and maybe Cutout Bin.

The next thing we need to do is to make a decision about what songs are going to be in the next batch. I know Songbirds will be in there and I strongly think that Going to Memphis will be too but there is still room for one or two more. We’ll see who makes the cut.

So as I was saying about this new demo…it kinda reminds me of White Wedding. Yes THAT White Wedding. Anyway, the chorus is kind of a stomp type thing. So I put this bass part on there that really sounded familiar to me for some reason. I played it over and over trying to place where I’d heard it before. No luck. So Angel gets home and I said “What’s that song that goes…” and I sang the bass part. She said “It’s that ‘I like to move it move it’ song from Madagascar”. Yep. That’s the one. Woops.

I’ve been pretty busy these past few days. Thus my absence from blogging. Yesterday I wrote the greatest song in the history of music. Today was a day of rest for it was good. The song is for this project with Brian McClelland I’ve been talking about. It sounds like Pet Sounds would have sounded had Rufus Wainright been the singer with Jon Brion producing. I’m very proud of it. I sent Brian the demo and the first line of his response was “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!”. Yes it’s THAT good…but whatever.

Wednesday night we did some more tracking. I did the vocal for “To Mother from Her Son” and we put some percussion in “On Martyrdom”. The percussion part of the night was pretty interesting. We thought we’d just put a bunch of random noises on there so we set up one mic in a big room and just set out everything we had that made a cool noise: Dino’s gigantic kick drum, about 4 snare drums, a conga, a used drum head, a half empty (not half full) bottle of water, some shakers, a tambourine, a PVC pipe, the list goes on and on. Then we just hit record and walked around the room tapping and banging on stuff. I don’t know if any of it will make the record but we had a good laugh doing it.

Our female vocalist who was supposed to stop in and do the backing vocals on “Home” stood us up. Fuckin’ chicks man. We’ve rescheduled her for this week because we’ve heard great things about her voice. Hopefully they’re all true.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been contacted through MySpace (do you really need a link) by two awesome musicians that I went to college with. One was Matt Murdick, who played piano on my junior recital. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen Matt since that day. The other was Dan Eubanks, who played bass on my junior recital. Dan played bass for years in a phenomenal band called Dangerous Kitchen. The Drew Johnson Band played a gig with Dangerous Kitchen a few years ago but I don’t think I’ve talked to Dan since then. Say what you will about MySpace but it’s these kinds of “reunions” that make it so cool. Oh yeah and Tom is not my friend.

Today I recorded the bass part for a demo I’ve been working on for the last couple of days. I don’t usually put a bass part on my demos because I’m a shit bass player but this song is pretty simple so I said fuck it—I’ll give it a go. I got about half way through the first chorus before my hands started cramping. Those string are fucking gigantic! Have you seen ‘em? Seriously. Ridiculous! I soldiered through the pain and came up with a bass line that sounds exactly like a guitar player playing the bass—with a pick no less. Pussy!

I’ve had the privilege of playing with some phenomenal bass players over the years: Sam Tucker, Steve Nowels, and now Mike Gregory. I’ve developed a whole new respect for their abilities. Now go fuck yourselves and give me my .011″ diameter strings back.

Angel and I are about to watch last night’s baseball game that I taped. How desperate is that? We know how it ends. It’s like sex. I know exactly how it’s going to end every single time but still Angel pleads for it.

I just read Rich Foster’s super hilarious comment on Angel’s blog. I’ve got some awesome bed-pooping stories too. I’m going to sleep on whether or not I should share them here on my tough and cool blog.

Last night I got together with Brian McClelland (he’s the guy on the right) to do some more writing for this project that is his brainchild. We worked up two songs that he had started writing. That makes the current score Brian – 4, Drew – 1. The last time we got together I was supposed to meet him at 6:30 to do some writing and go over some ideas that we were supposed to have come up with in advance. At 3:00 I decided that I’d better not go in empty handed so I picked up my guitar and actually wrote a verse and chorus in about 45 minutes. I was impressed. I never ever sit down with the intention of writing a song but it actually works. Go figure.

It’s been really good for me to work with Brian. He is a much more prolific writer than me and that has spurred me to write more often. Brian isn’t as precious about his writing as I am. I mean that in a good way. He isn’t as scared of it as I am. He just writes a bunch of songs and some of them he likes, some of them he doesn’t. That’s going to be my approach from now on. It sure beats the hell out of spending three months on one fucking song only to learn six months later that you hate it.

Last night he was playing me some demos of songs that (for one reason or another) were rejected as Maxtone Four songs. This is some great shit. This is some great shit that he just threw together and thought was OK. I’m getting more and more excited about this thing. I’ll be very glad when we’ve got something to show you.

My current goal is to go back and finish these songs that I’ve been working on for The Formula Kid. I’ve got three or four songs that are about half way done. I gotta get those finished before I can move on to new things but then the song barfing can begin in full.

Yes we’re still recording the album. Here’s how we stand.

You Devil You – Done
Dog and Pony Show – Done
Outta Sight Shake – Done
Home – Basically done, we just need to find a girl to sing the background vocal parts. Nate thinks he’s got a line on somebody.
To Mother from Her Son – Needs lead vocal.
On Martyrdom – We’re going to play around with this one this week. It’s basically just an acoustic guitar and vocal song (which are done) but we’re going to try and add some ambient sounds to it. This’ll probably involve percussion and keys.
Cutout Bin – I kinda want to re-track this one and try a little different approach on the verses. If we decide against recording it again all it needs is a lead vocal.
Twenty Miles from Waterloo – We’re still debating over whether or not this song is going to make the album.
Admiration Day Parade – Same as Waterloo.
Songbirds – We’re definitely going to re-track this one.

We’ve got quite a few options for songs that could replace Waterloo and Admiration. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I’ve found that recording my vocals at the warehouse has proven to be much less stressful and much more productive than doing them here at home. It also keeps me from roaching out my pipes. My voice is back to 100% and I’d like to keep it that way.

We went to Blockbuster tonight to rent Brokeback Mounatin. I half expected them not to even carry it here in Granite City. Making a movie about “fuckin’ fags” available to Granitians is pointless. We’re still pissed about all the “goddam niggers” and now you want us to suck dick too?!? Between beatin’ my old lady and screamin’ at my kids I’ve barely got time to watch WWE much less a queer-ass-western. The day I watch a movie about pole smokers will be the day I vote for a Commie-Democrat. I’ll just download it from the Innerwebs and rub one out to it before wifey gets home from Weight Watchers.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that all of the copies of Brokeback were rented out. I almost ran to Wal-Mart to see if 50 Cent’s record was sold out too. This must be the first sign of the apocalypse: Granitians abandon their bigotry and embrace diversity. What’s next? Naked Lunch is required reading at GCHS? Happy hour at the union hall with your favorite Liberace tunes? Welcome to the 21st century Granite City.