Recording With Tom Again

Tom and Lisa live out at Queens, and I probably chose the longest route there that it was possible to choose. I got the Subway to Flushing, which is a fascinating Korean suburb, and then caught a slow local bus from there to the area where they live.
There was a minor hiccup: Tom had arranged to borrow a Spanish guitar and a solid-body from a local music shop, but there was no-one to be seen when we went to pick them up. We hovered and hoped and peered through the shuttered window, but in the end Tom had to try to find someone else who would hire instruments to us- you'd think that would be easy in New York but it's not. After a lot of searching, we managed to find somewhere and we were just setting off, when the original guy phoned and said he'd opened up and was waiting there for us.
The first solid body had gravelly pots and sticky strings but the second one had a nice strong sound- Seymour Duncan pickups- and we went back and made a start. I'd decided to do electric and acoustic versions of each song, but the songs soon dictated what they wanted and two were recorded on the Spanish guitar and two on the electric. Tom has become so swift at editing and although he now works mainly as a mix engineer, he had put together a really great recording set-up for this session. We recorded the four songs on guitar, and  then because my voice was rough at the bottom end and I had no head-room (jet lag), we stopped for the day and chatted to his wife Lisa and their lovely little baby who was all smiles and who is a ball of fun and energy.
Next day was vocal day and it didn't take long to put the vocals on the songs.
I had realised the day before that coming to Queens to record with Tom again was a really good decision. Time has passed- almost ten years- and we have both got better at what we are doing, but it was as easy as anything to slot right back into working together again. If you have recorded two and a half albums with the same engineer (plus a Christmas EP with a scratch choir on it, which Lisa says they still play every year), at the end of that process you will either be great friends or great enemies, and thankfully we became the first of those.
I can't wait to hear how they sound.
Afterwards we went to a Japanese restaurant and ate ourselves silly.
It is extremely tempting to go back and do next year's album there too; let's see how the next lot of songs develop...
It felt as though no time had passed at all; I was so pleased to see him- and Lisa, who managed to survive the Harrow household where they all lived; and of course, to meet their baby. How often do we get to meet babies? Never! Everyone should have at least one baby in their life just to keep their feet on the ground; this trip, I met two: but more of that in another posting.
I have such fiendish headweirdnessfuckery because of the time zone thing that I can only manage one posting at a time. Can you imagine a night flight, a red-eye, then having to do marking? A whole day of it tomoz, then the fifth rewrite of an article that I'm trying to get published.
Oh, but New York: what a city.