More Cowbell

Whenever it gets over 90 in Seattle, I'm reminded of that stupid Foreigner song:

I'm hot blooded
Check it and see
I've got a fever of
A hundred and three

...which makes me think of that sketch on Saturday Night Live with Christopher Walken:

"I've got a fever. And the only prescription... is MORE COWBELL."

Friday afternoon, Caleb and Kayleigh and I were in Target getting a new dog collar for Wiley, and we saw they had a bunch of those Best of [Whoever] SNL DVDs. So I picked up the Will Ferrell, and Caleb got the Walken. Turns out that sketch is so bloody popular, it's on both discs.

Saturday was crammed full. At 8:30AM, my friend Sharon Stone (her real name) came over and helped me attack the pig sty I've been calling a house. We made huge progress, and I can probably get the rest handled before we leave on Friday. Sharon's awesome - even took my old health glider to Goodwill.

Directly afterward, the kids and I went over to Brian Chase's place. The kids played slip 'n' slide and Brian and I went into the studio to lay down some preliminary tracks for Sam's tribute CD. It was baking in there, but I pretty much did everything in one take each, so it wasn't too bad. It was two tracks of my guitar playing to a click track, and then he had me lay down a track of vocals as a placeholder. Considering it was the first time I'd done any singing for recording purposes in over a decade, I don't think I did too badly. Brian has a good engineering technique and a damn fine vocal mic. So I left with a CD of the acoustic songs for Muriel to listen to, as she will be covering the vocal duties. Even though these particular mixes won't ever be put on the album, they're cool to have. I might just put together a disc of these acoustic prelims with my vocals - kind of an unplugged And Tears Fell compilation. Give it to friends.

Today I have to do some badly needed pruning in the front yard. It's no good having Andrew come to stay with us if he has to hack his way in with a machete. Then rehearsal tonight. And on we go.