2 days before the studio

Luckily we finished writing on Saturday. We've been tweaking things since then, but the basics were done Saturday night. We finished "Big Al" and spent time with a song Brent wrote, bringing us to a total of 11 songs. At first I was very skeptical of Brent's song because it didn't really fit with the rest of the songs. After we worked on it I found that all it really needed was time to sit and input from everyone before it started sounding more like IDW. We got all of the tempos down and got the click tracks made. On Sunday Chris and I began recording the scratch tracks for Ryan. We spent a bit of time on each one going over the riffs and adding/changing notes and harmonies. I put all of the songs together and it's looking like the album will clock in right around 40 minutes. Not too short, not too long.

Here's the tentative tracklisting for the album. Of course most of these titles will change and you probably haven't heard 9 of these songs, so this will mean nothing to you anyway! I've also blocked out the album title...not quite ready to release that yet:
Last night was the final night of practice at our practice space in the Jam Box. It's great that we won't be spending $300/month there anymore, but I'm really going to miss it. I've spent the entire time I've been in Seattle there and we wrote both of our albums there. It's a few blocks from the Key Arena in Queen Anne and right by some restaurants, including our Taco Bell, Pagliacci, Taco Del Mar, and the occasional Subway. The room was tiny and it was totally nasty and run-down, but it was definitely our home. As we packed up, Brent wrote on the wall "The heaviest band ever once practiced here!" Kind of a bold statement, but I guarantee there won't be any bands heavier in there, considering some indie girls came by to look at it while we were jamming one night. The Jam Box definitely fueled IDW for the past 4.5 years, even before Jon and I were in the band.

Next update will be from the studio! Pictures and videos to come!