Most places I’ve been to or lived in like the rain less than Tucson does. But I’m going to wager half of my M&Ms and guess that it’s because Tucson has well over 300 sunny days a year. So, here, a cloudy day is a scarce resource. And what is scarce is usually very valuable.

Tomorrow we return to Los Angeles. Monday we set up. Tuesday, we begin, finally begin, cutting a record. I don’t say ‘making a record,’ because Ryan and I have been ‘making this record’ for a long time. Insomuch as weve been writing these songs and testing them out live, and then going into Woolly Mammoth Studios in Boston to record 30 demos, and then going to LA to play them for our producer (Grammy winner Ross Hogarth (can you say SWEEEEEEEETTTT!!!!!)), and then going back to Allusion Studios in Tucson to rerecord a bunch of the songs with the changes Ross suggested, and then sending many demos across the internet with many miniscule changes, waiting for Ross’s subsequent suggestions, then repeating the process, and then going again to LA on several occasions to rehearse the songs with our little band of studio musicians… insomuch as we’ve done that, we’ve been making this record for a long time.

But Tuesday we actually begin to lay it down permanently, for posterity.

Bob Glaub is playing Bass. A fantastic and appropriate bass player who’s worked with a jillion amazing people, including Tracy Chapman, Jackson Browne, and Leonard Cohen, and who, on top of that, is a perfect gentlemen. We were working with Brian MacLeod on drums. But opportunity knocked, or rang, as it were, when he got a phone call from Michael Jackson’s people asking him to fly to the Middle East to write and record for the King of Pop’s new record. As a result we’ve been rehearsing with Joey Waronker. Please do as we did, and resist the urge to feel like he’s a replacement drummer. Mr. Waronker has recorded with R.E.M., Beck, Elliot Smith, Tonic, and seventy-five million other outstanding musicians, and brings a very unique, very appropriate feel and groove to our songs. I think you, and we, are going to be very pleased with the results. He’s a fantastic guy, and I want to tell you that I’ve enjoyed Mexican food with him on several occasions. All occasions were tasty, and conversations were fun and flowing.

So, let’s go make a record. I believe in these songs. A lot of you guys have shared with us what they mean to you, and Ryan and I are both beginning to believe that this recording is going to have something very, very, special, very unpronounceable about it. May it be so.