Jude sent some basic tracks this weekend for me to start playing with. I busted out the Variax and started the very arduous task of recording the guitar on this one. Truth: I’m not a good enough guitar player to play this, but I am going to play it anyway with some digital assistance. I will come clean when the song is out, which will hopefully be by the middle of next month.

People always ask “What’s the next one?” and I never want to say. I mean, come on — that’s part of the fun. If you can guess the punchlines before we even tell the joke, it’s not very funny — and what if your ideas are funnier than ours? It sets everybody up for disappointment. But I will offer another clue: Stratocaster, neck pickup. Good luck with that.

Jude and I are now both working in GarageBand, though we were only in the same version of GarageBand for about two days before I upgraded to ’09. I am used to programs like SoundForge and, to a lesser extent, Pro Tools, but I ditched both so I could go with something friendlier. It makes some of the stuff easier and some of it harder, but again, it’s all friendlier. I can figure it out with a web search or two, if not simply mucking about with the menus. I think I’d eventually like to get Logic Express, since it’s the big brother of GarageBand and can import all the projects natively. Yes, please.