Cahoots, 2018
By the summer of 2017, Cahoots had been gigging for more than a decade. Over the years the band evolved to include some of the finest Americana players in Sonoma County, a veritable hotbed of musical talent. I wanted to bottle some of the spirit we had been making as a musical family before leaping into the unknown on a one year sabbatical. We bounced four miles up a dirt road to an off the grid house and recorded a dozen songs both familiar and brand new. Matt Wright brought a portable recording studio and dialed in a live and spontaneous and mostly unplugged vibe in a room of salvaged redwood and Douglas fir. In addition to Craig Anderson, Eric Backman, Andy Dru Rodgers, Andy Tester and me, we were joined by some well loved collaborators. Alison Harris added her soprano to the singers standing around a single microphone backing every song with lush Cahootian harmonies. Ashley Holmberg graced a number of tracks with overdubs on her violin. Photographer Roman Cho, a percussionist and tabla player by education, sat in on drums when Eric Backman was called away. Much fun was had by all.