new recording and "upper body injury"

NHL hockey players are not the only "tough guys" that battle through physical injuries during the grueling "second season" of the Stanley Cup Playoffs... it turns out that recording artists occasionally have to "take one for the team" as well...

Last week we began the recording sessions for my new CD (the 4th to be released on my SmallTall Music label), and I'm very excited about it! So excited that it seems I somehow injured my shoulder (was it the vigorous guitar playing all day Monday as Darren laid down those drum tracks...? Or the continuous tossing of various backpacks and instruments over my right shoulder while getting on and off buses to get back home after the session? Or perhaps it has something to do with my now 40-year-old body and all those tennis games over the weekend - the first of the spring...)

Anyway, I find myself nursing what the doctor calls (please pardon the melodramatic medical jargon) a "mild shoulder sprain"... trying my best to ice it regularly and down enough anti-inflammatories so that I can play through the injury and heroically head into tomorrow's recording session and fight through the pain to do a bunch of guitar tracks...

It's tough being a tough guy, but I'll do my best. Better watch some more playoff hockey, to draw inspiration from those that grind it out and give 110% and play it one game at a time and leave it all on the ice and don't let such minor things as broken bones and facial scarring get in the way of a good playoff run... and if I can avoid fisticuffs in the studio, that would be great too (so far so good), although Rick at CedarTree Studios has been telling stories of various bands (such as The Police) for whom such activities were all in a day's work and part of "the creative process." Maybe I should give it a try.

But then again, given my lack of success with such basic macho requirements as a "playoff beard," maybe not... I can only carry this "tough guy recording artist" image so far...

In fact, maybe I should go the other way and try getting in touch with my "sensitive side"...

Which reminds me, where did I put that ice pack?