I’m home from the retreat. As much as I love the country, San Francisco is my home and I love it here. Plus it was nice to crawl into my big and firm king size bed last night.

We culminated our rehearsal retreat with a concert at The Orchard Spotlight on Saturday night. The Orchard Spotlight is an old church building that is now a theater. Last summer I was the artist in residence there. The sanctuary, with its big beautiful stained glass windows and thick reverb, was my bedroom. It was the perfect place for me to develop this material that is going on the album. It was nice to bring the material back with an ensemble.

The show went incredibly well. The ensemble was subtle and nuanced. The theater was sold out and the crowd was so warm and receptive. We received two standing ovations. I was thrilled to be able to show my Sonoma County crowd what I’ve been up to. Most of them had never seen me with an ensemble.

This morning I woke up with butterflies. This will be my first studio album of songs in 8 years. I’ve released two live albums and I’ve recorded two film scores since then, but this is different. There’s a different feeling when recording songs in a studio. I think I put more weight on it.

I get nervous about my voice. I don’t want to get sick this week. But worrying about it does me no good. My job now is to relax and take good care of myself, warm my voice up every day, and stay in the moment.

I’m sitting alone in the rehearsal space. OAEC calls this the meeting room. We call it the rehearsal space.

I just built a fire in the wood stove and brewed some tea. I already brushed my teeth, read a little bit form an inspiring book, and prayed on my knees at the side of my bed. I pray every morning. I pray to life itself. My basic prayer is “Take me and use me as a servant of love, compassion, and transformation. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Sometimes I’ll list all the people, things and situations I’m grateful for. Today I listed each member of my ensemble, Alex Kelly, Seth Ford-Young, Jenya Chernoff, Chris Grady and Myles Boisen. They are such wonderful people and I am so grateful to be working with them. I’m also grateful to our executive producer Murray Jason who put the money up for us to come on this rehearsal intensive/retreat. This has been an incredible experience and I know that our intimacy with the material and each other will come through in the recording.

I hope that this album touches people in a deep way. I hope it inspires. I think it will. The material certainly moves me. That’s why I feel so called to make it. This work isn’t about my ambitions but about my calling. I have to make this work and get it out to the world. And everything I’ve needed to make it happen has been provided. That’s a good sign. I believe in what we’re doing.

I mentioned transformation early. That’s a word that has been used quite a lot in new age circles so it has some woo woo connotations. But transformation doesn’t look like unicorns and rainbows. Transformation hurts and is deep, dark and dirty. That is one of the primary themes of this work.

I’m sitting in the rehearsal room with our percussionist Jenya as we both check our email and such. There’s a rooster crowing in the valley behind us and the sun is casting long morning shadows.

The sky is perfectly clear.

I’m going to load the ensemble into Jenya’s van and we’re going to drive over Coleman Valley Road to the Ocean. This road is my favorite. Instead of following a creek or river to the ocean like most roads, it goes right over the hills. The view as you descend on the Western side is incredible. And along the way there are lots of beautiful spots, especially Coleman Valley. When I was focused on cycling I used to ride over Coleman Valley Road to the ocean on a regular basis. I also helped landscape a property out here 2 summers ago. I hope to buy a little piece of land with a cabin on it out here someday.

Today we will be going through all the material again, this time taking in all the notes and working through sections over and over if we need to.

We’ve decided that we don’t want to rehearse some of the material like “Been in the Storm So Long” and “Take Me to the Water” because we want them to be loose and raw.

Other songs like “Delilah” and “The Gates” call for refinement so we’ll spend a lot of time on those today.

We’ll work through the material til dinner with breaks for lunch and the Coleman Valley Rd. field trip. Then after dinner we are going to perform the material for the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center residents and staff. They are great people and I like being able to do this for them and its good for us to see how the music behaves in front of people.

Off to breakfast.

Everyone is here including our engineer and co-producer Oz Fritz.

We’ve been running the material, stopping after each song to share and
write down notes and ideas.

So Satisfying.

So far we’ve run Coyote, Saint Judas and Delilah.

So, I’ve never really blogged before. I do make regular updates on
twitter – https://twitter.com/markgrowden – and that kind of counts,
but I’ve been asked by a number of people to start. Especially
through the process of making my new album “Saint Judas”.

I’m accustomed to getting up early in the morning and writing three
pages in a journal. I got the idea from Julia Cameron’s book – The
Artist’s Way.
I figure I’ll get up and blog instead. I don’t intend to get into the
personal details so much though.

I’m currently sitting in a lodge at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
in Occidental, CA. http://www.oaec.org/
Its an amazing place. I’ve rented the facility for 4 days for me and
my ensemble. We are here to for a rehearsal intensive and retreat.
We’ll be rehearsing about 8 hours each day. The intention is to get
deep into the material and find what it wants, find the nuances. And
also to build the intimacy of the group. Most of us have been
together for over a decade but we’ve added Alex Kelly on cello
recently. We’ll all be closer after these few days.

After this retreat we play two shows in a 5 days span; one in Santa
Rosa at the theater where I had my residency last summer, and on in
San Francisco. Then we go in to the studio to record the album.

I feel good about this strategy and I think the hard work will show on
the new album.

We all slept in 2 giant yurts last night. They are actually quite
nice with floor heaters and bunks. I’m going to suggest that the
early risers sleep in one and the later risers in the other. That way
I won’t be bugging anyone when I get up early.

We are being fed fresh organic food for breakfast and dinner by OAEC’s
kitchen staff. Dinner last night was great.

I have a good relationship with OAEC. When they started a radio
station a little over a year ago I was one of their djs/programmers.
I had to stop last February when I broke my back and separated my
right shoulder in a cycling accident. I also played 3 shows here last
summer in their amphitheater.

That’s where I met Daidie Donnelly who has become a bit of a business
partner with my music. She’s been instrumental in helping me do all
the work I’ve been doing. She’s my #1 cheerleader. She’s the friend
I talk to every day.

The sun is beginning to peek through the trees.

I’ll write more later. I’m going to sit at the piano and do my
warmups and play some Satie.