Creating the Perfect World

Philbillie says I should blog about Bill. Okay.  Here’s what happened. 

We decided to use as a part of the new record an older recording of one of our favorite songs “Head of Fire, Feet of Clay” that we tracked some years ago with super-producer Bill Bottrell (Michael Jackson, Sheryl Crow,  Tom Petty, Shelby Lynne, the list goes on) at his studio in Mendocino.  

We had high hopes of him recording the entire album, and we took home a CD of a rough mix, thinking we might finish it someday with Bill. But as it turned out, after the first sessions, Bill was lured back to the bright lights of Tinseltown.

We thought about re-recording it from scratch 

but realized that his version had really become the definitive one for us.  But we only had (what we thought) was a rough mix. 

When we recently talked to Bill about doing a final mix for this song, for various reasons, it wasn’t feasible to remix, and in any case upon re-listening Bill thought it was excellent as it was and gave us his blessing to release it.  However, we wrote that "in a perfect world 'Head of Fire' would have one more element, sustaining, like either steel or strings," but added that the mix sounded blankety-blank awesome.

So we gave a holler to our first-call pedal steel guy, Dave Zirbel who did a gorgeously executed track.  Here’s a glimpse of Dave at work on the tune:

http://tinyurl.com/4pe53qn

 And so I guess it’s done now, at last.  But isn’t the perfect world always a work in progress?

Train to Salvation recorded at Okey Doke

Philbillie is really proud of this record; he recorded and co-produced it with Eric and of course worked his hiney off on the mix .  I got to play harmonica and banjo sing a little on it (I'm part of the 'Drunk and Dirty Angel Choir').  I think it's gorgeous.  The title track is epic.


In the press: 

WWW.BLUESMATTERS.COM
Eric McFadden is an American guitarist but this album – his first for French label Bad Reputation – has a decidedly French feel to it, albeit French on the Mexican border. If you are after ‘normal’ Blues this won’t float your boat but if your tastes are more to the seedy side of life and death and you enjoy polka and accordion then he has it all and in spades. McFadden’s guitar work is a delight and his voice is gruff and dense, world-worn and full of life’s experiences. The titles tell part of the story – ‘Last Day Of My Life’ or ‘Stealing From The Dead’ – but his songs are exquisitely painworn and felt

PARIS-MOVE.COM
Véritable ‘coup de cœur’, cet album de McFadden mérite la note maximale, ‘Indispensable’, car dès la première écoute cet opus vous deviendra indispensable tant il est géant. Monumental.

New CD in the works at Okey Doke Studio

Live in the studio at Okey Doke records with producer/engineer Philbillie Milner and drummer Anthony Vito as they set up to record tracks on the upcoming Jenny Kerr release tentatively titled "The Good Life" Here they demonstrate the "Glynn Johns" drum miking technique for that massive John Bonham sound.