Today’s post comes courtesy of DailyCandy.com. We share their enthusiasm for the impending smoking ban.

December 31, 2007
Thank You for Not Smoking
Chicago Goes Smoke Free
There is lots to look forward to in 2008. Namely, the smoking ban in Chicago. Here are the top ten reasons this law rules:

10. No need for a full body scrubdown after a Friday night out.

9. If you’re not holding a cig, you can hold another beer.

8. You can stop looking for a fine piece of ash at the local bar.

7. You won’t have to worry about the black lung.

6. The only hot butt in the room will be yours.

5. Febreeze will no longer be your signature scent.

4. Guys will be forced to actually ask for your number, rather than bum a cig then hang around ’til last call being awkward.

3. You can take that $8 and buy something nice for yourself. Like three bottles of Listerine.

2. Manicurists for miles will be thankful for the demise of the yellow nail.

1. Clearer skin + healthier heart = totally smokin’.

We had a remarkably productive session with Mike at King Size yesterday. We cut six (!) tunes, far more than we had expected. In all, we have basic tracks for 15 tunes. We’ll take stock of what we have over the next few weeks and see what will work for our still-untitled 3rd CD.

The songs we cut yesterday:

1. Sandy River Belle
2. Trishenku’s Heaven
3. British Army
4. Lay Down My Old Guitar
5. Dead Flowers
6. Pick Poor Robin Clean

All were recorded the same way: with the band in a circle in the live room. Normally we just mouth the vocals for a song to guide the band through the tune. This prevents the guide vocal from bleeding onto the backing tracks and clashing with the overdubbed vocal. We had problems, though, keeping our place on ‘Lay Down My Old Guitar’, so I did an audible guide vocal on that one. We did far more takes of that tune than we usually do, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of ten. Normally we get a keeper take much faster than that.

The last two songs of the day, the Rolling Stones classic ‘Dead Flowers’ and the old raggy blues ditty ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’ we pulled off in short order. We hadn’t necessarily planned to do either, but we plowed through the first four songs much faster than expected, so we took a crack at a couple more tunes. We may enlist some of our friends to augment those tunes when we get to the overdub phase next month.

More later.