Dog days

So you may be wondering about the curious title of this post.  You may be wondering what's happening with my album, when I'll be playing live again, and of course, why quiet air conditioners haven't been invented yet.  But dogs?  Yes, I know this is a new topic altogether.

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to head up to Defiant Recording with my engineer, Meredith McCandless, where we sat on in a masterfully masterminded mastering session with Michael Tudor. It was really exciting to hear the final gloss and sparkle go onto the album, and I was super psyched to be there, since most musicians don't get to sit in on mastering.  (I promised to be absolutely quiet the whole time.  I think I made it to about the last three hours, at which point the jokes started flying.  I tried.) 

But dogs, Julia, dogs.  Michael Tudor has one of the coolest dogs I've ever met, named Cosmo.  He's some sort of hound/lab/who-knows-what mutt, and has the chillest, sweetest, slobberiest temperament of any dog I've met.  Despite his snoring through my mastering session (I sure hope my album gets a better human response--), he was a seriously great presence at the session.

But the thing is Cosmo proved his mettle before we even got started mastering--while out on his morning walk in the beautiful countryside of Woodstock, NY, Cosmo got attacked and bitten by two other dogs! (duhn duhn duuuhn--)  He was so stoic that at first we didn't even know, and mastered a whole bunch of the record before realizing a trip to the vet was in order.  He did get his painkillers and was proclaimed fine in the end, but it was quite a scare.  He can be my mascot any day. 

Perhaps I'll write a song about him.