By Chris Moore:

At the behest of fellow singer/songwriter Mike Fusco (www.MikeFusco.com), I finally took the time this weekend — or, rather, wrenched it out of the cold, dead hands of my academic productivity — to continue the recording sessions for The 2010 Project.

The results are electric.

I’m not commenting on the quality or energy of the recordings; I mean that I literally began recording electric guitar for the first time since I began committing these songs to tape (or, to be more precise, file).

My electric setup... doesn't look like much, but boy is it fun!

This development is a long time coming.  It all began when I re-strung and polished my two guitars at the latter part of this past winter.  Then, after finding my Zoom guitar pedal destroyed by battery acid, I purchased a new and improved version.  I played around with it quite a bit this summer and even wrote down configurations that I thought might work on the songs I knew I’d be recording.  A month or so ago, I stopped in at my local Radio Shack to purchase the parts I would need to hook my pedal directly into my laptop.

Finally, yesterday, I put all the pieces together.

My electric setup... ten minutes digging through old parts and two Radio Shack purchases later, I can finally rock out!

The song I chose to work on first was “Socrates’ Gulps.”  This seemed a good choice, as I wanted one reverby guitar on the intro and outro, and another crunchier attack on the lead guitar.  I ended up messing around with the different effects available for quite a long time — I definitely checked off more items in the enjoyment column than the productivity column — but I finally recorded the electric tracks for “Socrates’ Gulps.”

Unfortunately, I’m back to school work on two fronts (classes I teach and the class that I take), so it may be another week before I get to record again.  Still, having the setup and knowing that it works is at least half the battle in recording an album, as anyone who has ever tried will tell you.

Soon, I’ll be adding bass tracks to the songs that are almost complete, and at that point, I’ll share a preview or two.  Until then, thanks for checking in, and I’ll keep you posted!