"The Other Side of the Pillow" Recording Journal

February 13, 2012- It truly is amazing how time flies. We picked up working on "Pillow" again this Christmas season. Special guests Spiro of the Paper Crowns and Matt Coleman of Hobo Jazz came in and added their flavor to the tracks. I turned to good friend Derek Smith to come in and revitalize some of the tracks with his energetic drumming. Part of the reason the project was put on hold was that I just wasn't happy with how the tunes were turning out. We were rushing through, trying to force it and the vibe suffered. Now, the good vibes are back and we are scheduling several other guests to come in and lend their talents to the disc. Once we wrap up all the guest artists' tracks, we should be ready to start mixing and mastering this labor of love. Because we took such and extended break, several other songs have found their way onto the list, including the Beatles classic, "Here Comes the Sun."

In the meantime, the CTB will be playing a set of the older, rockin' material on Friday, February 24th at the Vibe in Riverside, CA. We are opening the night and are really looking forward to it..

As for the "whisper quiet fan," it is in and really helped.

September 6, 2010- The recording has been put on hold until we either install the whisper-quiet fan in the roof or it cools down a bit. It's just too hot to work in there as it is.

However, we did bring in Adam Elmore to do backing vocals on "Granola Girl" and Jeff Ellwood put down some sax tracks on "Lottery". More to come soon.

June 4th, 2010- Matt Coleman of Hobo Jazz, Ali Handal, Oso Rey and Mark Cummings have also agreed to play on the new disc.  I also wrote a new song for the disc called, "Revolution."

Next week I should begin working 100% on this disc. The goal is to have it finished before the 21st.

May 25, 2010- Started working on a new, very different disc last week. I was going through what I call "the collection" (a file with all of the songs I've recorded demos for over the past 10 years) and realized that it might be cool to do a primarily acoustic disc. There were lots of tunes that have never seen the light of day because they just didn't fit the vibe of the last couple discs. And there are tunes that I figured had been left for dead, that may find a home on this new disc.

Think Jack Johnson, Jeb Loy Nichols and John Mayer jamming with The Grateful Dead and James Taylor. A really different vibe for me.

Some of the "faves" from years past are on the list right now:

"Granola Girl"

(a tune my buddy Al has been bugging me about, once a month, for almost a decade now)

"Constant"

(originally a ska tune)

"Learning to Walk Again"

(also from the ska era)

"Sweet Vanilla"

(my answer to Marley's "Stir It Up," which I quote at the end)

"Home Soon"

(A road song written around the time I travelled to Phoenix for a show at Wrigley Mansion)

Also in the mix are some more recent tunes, from around 2005, that were written for just this type of disc. Then along came Big Papa and the TCB, and that all got put on the back burner.

In addition, I've written a few all new tunes.

One of the things I'm really looking forward to doing is bringing in a ton of musician friends to guest on the disc. My hope is that every tune has at least one guest artist, so it is less of a "Chris Thayer" disc, and more of a "Chris and Friends" disc.

I have been tracking all of the instruments at this point to get the ideas down, but will bring in the "pros" once I have a better idea of what is going on the disc.

I'm really excited about this project. It's been way too long since I've flexed these creative muscles, and even longer since I've had the chance to play with some of the people on my list of possible guests. So far confirmed are: Skeletones Keyboardist Paul Hampton, Saxophonist Jeff Ellwood, HR7 Vocalist and Guitarist Adam Elmore and vocalist/guitarist Kelly McGuire. More to come.