We are in the studio right now, recording our first full length album for RCA. We have spent the winter writing and rehearsing new songs (25 new ones!!), and searching for the perfect producer to record our album with - and we found the right guy to do the job. His name is Keith Cleversley (or Dr. Cleversley as he is known to us) and he produced the best album of the 90's, the flaming lips' "transmissions from the satelite heart", as well as the incredible hum album "you'd prefer an astronaut", among many many other gems, though these two speak for themselves. Oh yeah, and he even produced the wesley willis fiasco, as well as some wesley solo stuff, which is just icing on the cake as far as we are concerned.

Keith has his own studio in downtown chicago, called The Playground, which basically looks like alice in wonderland's studio, with bright colors, x-mas lights all over the place, a disco ball in the drum room, and even a smoke machine that he turns on for effect while recording, and even a john bonham kit. He is the coolest guy, has a total creative approach to life and recording, and is like a mad scientist when it comes to producing, and already feels like a fifth member of the band. We knew he was the right guy when he flew right in to nyc and spent a weekend with us after hearing a bunch of our demos. We gave him the full urchin test that weekend: a full day of rehearsing, a night of drinking and listening to sabbath, and then a drive to new hope to see us play a 3+ hour show of all our tunes, new and old. He walked up to us after the show and said "I get it!! I get it!!", we started making studio plans the next day. We are pretty damn honored to be working with him and will have a comfortable month and a half in his studio to make some great music.

You can see what Keith is all about by visiting his website at www.cleversley.com/playground/studio/index.html and be sure to check out the studio shots so you can see how cool this place is. We will be living at the studio, which allows for a more relaxed atmosphere and total immersion into the recording process. We plan on going in and making the best urchin album possible, and keith is bursting with ideas for our songs, which we can't even forsee how awesome they are gonna sound after time with the doctor. He is bringing in the guy who arranged music for the brian wilson pet sounds tour, strings, gospel singers, as well as a trunk fulla amps for the rock. This is it.

So we put together this studio diary page, so you can see what has been going on with us here in the studio...

May 10, 2001
here are some pics of the family urchin at the studio, not that you know any of these people, but they are the ones behind the scenes making shit happen for us, and they are good people...

the "crew"	the family
steve ralbovsky - the coach, the man	the tomato & the one & only rick smith - the management
in the control room	the doo doo & the ill
the art	the choc

-so, where are we at today? almost 7 weeks into the recording - well, the work has been intense but the fun and good vibes have still been running high. we have completed 14 songs and are almost finished with the 15th. then we have to go back and re-mix all of the tunes again. that sounds like a lot of work, which it is, but it is sort of the time when we add the sprinkles to the songs to make them perfect, which is a great thing to do. we have had some time to sit with the songs on our own, in our headphones, and been able to see how they are sounding on their own, and how they are coming together in the whole album picture. and then we get to add little things here and there to juice up the songs even more. we are really psyched with how the album is coming together, and are really proud of it. it is one diverse album!! there are songs for every urchin mood and vibe, and each song is taken to its limit, as far as production is concerned. there is so much to listen to, that you could sit there with headphones and check out all the goodness, or you can just pop it on and enjoy the music while doing things like cleaning your room, or doing push-ups, or washing your car, or tanning outside or whatever. the chicago weather has been really nice as well, warm, nice chicago breeze, and we have been spending some quality time bbq-ing on the roof - keith got these mesquite wood chips which really add some choice smokehouse flavor to the bbq. you got to soak 'em in water for a bit, then drain them, and then through them on the white coals, but it is well worth the time and energy, because once you drop them on the coals, this amazing waft of mesquite smoke comes over the grill and your food will taste most excellent. so anyway, once the nightly bbq's are over, it is time for us to get back downstairs and record. so our sessions and have been making their way all the way into the wee hours, like 5 - and then getting to sleep is a problem because we are all up from the rock. but, we manage to get to sleep eventually just to get up and repeat the day. oh yeah, the songs we have been working on finishing since we last checked in are "the millipede/who'll stop the beggar", "let it rain", "the alligator", "the clearing hole", "in between", and an old urchin fave called "happy". and for the alligator and the clearing hole, we had some strings come in and play some beautiful stuff on the tunes, real beautiful stuff. and for the song scary skull eyes, we had three horns come in and lay down some serious "grazing in the grass" type stuff on the song, which just wails. see ya.

May 3, 2001

- While recording the song "fireflies on the 4th of july", we have been getting way into the hedonism mood, and felt like saluting our favorite drink, parrot bay coconut rum, for those festive island times. check out this little tidbit of the island vibe we have created in the studio by downloading the beautiful quick time movie file above.

May 1, 2001

- We are way into this record by now and it is coming out awesome, can't wait for everyone to hear it.The weather has been pretty unbelievable these days in chicago, like 89 degrees today and a nice breeze. Keith, our producer, had to do some technical stuff with our song "Billy The Eagle", so we actually got a chance to hang on the studio roof and enjoy the day. RCA sent us this amazing new dv camera to document the recording session with, and we spent the day on the roof checking out the features on the camera. there are some excellent shots, like the old time movie shot, and the trails shot, that we found on the camera. we liked it so much we made a little vid of it above. check it out. i'm not really sure what will become of all the footage that we have taken, right now there is over 15 hours of footage, and some poor soul at rca is gonna have to watch it all to check out if there is anything worth while on it. actually, i don't feel too bad for whoever has to do it, because there are some classic moments, and maybe one day if people dig the album, we will be able to put together the footage into something. anyway, check out us hanging on the roof.

April 26, 2001
- Wow, time is really flying by here in chicago. we are so into the recording of this album that i can't believe that it has been11 days since i last wrote anything here. the album is sounding better and better every day and we are getting closer to finishing this thing, but we still have tons of work to do. last night we were up until 5am recording, which makes 15 hours of non stop recording. and that's pretty much what every day has been like. we get up, have some eats and then we start recording until keith falls asleep at the recording console. everyone has been asking us what chicago is like, and if we get to see the town at all, and i always tell them that we haven't really seen much of it. we have had two days off since we have been here, and on one day me and choc went to wrigleyville to hang and it was real cool. the weather has been awesome so people have the spring fever going on. hey, don't take any of my words as complaints, there is nothing to complain about as far as getting to record all day and all night, our first big album - i mean, the worst part is really just when you have trouble getting a take down, and that's a bit frustrating, but other than that, there is not much i would rather be doing.

as far as songs go, we have recorded some pretty amazing versions of "alligator swamp", "let it rain", "scary skull eyes", "the millipede/who'll stop the beggar", and "the clearing hole", since i last wrote anything here. and we recorded, in two hours time, a pretty smoking version of "the heater", which we grabbed our friend seahag, who was in town at the time, to lay down some sick lead guitar onto. Other than that, our label, rca, all flew out last weekend to come and get a preview of how things are sounding at this stage, and we had a blast with them. we had meetings on what direction the cd cover art should be going in, cd titles, as well as what should be included in the enhanced video portion of the cd. we then had a happy hour type party here at the studio, and our manager, and the nine label people all got to listen to us debut four newly recorded songs in the control room of the studio. the response was real good, in fact, it couldn't have gone any better, which is a great thing - i can't imagine what it might be like for the label to not really dig how the album is coming along. so, we all went out for a nice big italian dinner, ala vesuvios type shit, and moved on to a local bar for some intense drinking with the label. it was a really great night.

well, i guess that's pretty much what has been going on here, in a nutshell. we can't wait for people to get a load of this album. it's got everything that is urchin, but i don't want to spoil anything right now. oh, if anyone has any ideas for album titles, feel free to send them to us, we have already received some and would like to see what other ideas you people got.

April 15, 2001

- Today, on easter Sunday, our hero, the good Reverend B. ILL laid down to tape the most kick ass guitar solo we have heard in like 20 years. It was for a new song called "cross the cloud" and we were all blown away when he was recording it. we had our digital camera right there in the control room capturing the event and we felt we should share it with you. so, in your minds picture the fact that the reverend is down in the guitar room with the mesa boogie triple rectifier up at around 10, shaking the floor, doing this solo live on the spot, and we are sitting in the control room witnessing it through the control room speakers - this is the real deal, the money solo. download this shit and check it out.

April 13, 2001

- We're really getting into this quick time video update thing, it's pretty easy to do on my new mac, so, here's three new mov's for ya. the one on the top left is of tomato recording vocals for a new song called "zen magic marker", so you can get a preview of how the new music is sounding - this tune has become one of our new favorite urchin tunes, and we are throwing around the idea of calling the album "zen magic marker" as well, but who knows. the footage on the top right is of doo doo brown just surfing the web, it's just funny as it is, that's all, maybe cause it shows what downtime is like in the studio. there are five computers set up here, so everyone gets a chance to have one and surf or whatever. we have actually been getting our stress out during downtime by playing tons of half-life, keith has networked all the computers with it, so we just sit at a station and kill each other until we can't stand it any more. spekaing of keith, the bottom left movie is a movie made by him and starring him, mr. grunt, and john lennon - it's called dumb, has some pretty cool animation effects that keith did, and you will get to see exactly what he is like from it and learn that this "indie big-wig genius producer" is just like any other average joe. The session is going great and it is pretty damn amazing to be working on trying to record 14 songs all day for a month and a half. it sounds like a lot of time, but you would be surprised how the time flies by. we are working over 14 hour days and then end up doing a little late night half-life session, which goes until we can't stay up anymore. it is really cool stuff. we have just finished the tune "zen magic marker" and have made our way into the recording of our new rock anthem "cross the cloud".

April 11, 2001

- Well, our studio update today is a little quick time movie above which shows some of the fun we have been having here in chicago at The Playground. Tomato & DooDoo spent one night trying to steam an apple, some pizza and a potato with the studio's cappucino maker. It is a small file (only 7 mb) and is worth the download. Other than steaming apples, we have managed to finish up a couple of new recordings here - we have finished the songs "Laying On Your Zeets", "Carbondale", and "Rock N' Roll Jubilee"!! They are all coming out great and today we are going to start working on a brand new song called "Zen Magic Marker", which is our new favorite URCHIN song. You guys are gonna dig this album. Oh, in other studio news, the label (RCA) came over to hear how things have been going and they gave us the big thumbs up so far, which is a real good thing - cause if they weren't happy, most likely we wouldn't be so happy. Anyway, go and download the apple movie and learn somethin'.

March 30, 2001
- We have been in the studio for the past four days and things are going incredible. We are almost finished with our first track, "Billy The Eagle", and it is sounding better than we could have ever imagined. I won't spoil it you, but we are all blown away with the quality of rock that Keith is getting us. We have also started recording drum tracks for "Rock n' Roll Jubilee", "Carbondale", "In Between", "The Heater", and "Cross The Cloud". Here are some pics we captured from our digital camcorder, I think they give you a better picture of what the vibe is like here, than I could describe in words, sorry for the quality, it is mostly dark in the studio so the pics are grainy...