Miga is a singer/songwriter I was referred to by Rick Barnes at Rax Trax. He was getting ready to make a record, and was auditioning drummers. I threw my hat in the ring, and wound up playing on six songs on the CD, despite tearing a ligament in my knee during the process. The result is called Polar Rose, which I believe you can get from Miga's website.

This was technically the second time someone actually paid me to play in the studio for them, but the first time was for a sample and loop project, so there isn't that same sense of satisfaction as getting a pressed CD with your name in the credits. The downside is that it's still the only time the latter has happened. I initially thought the recording would lead to some regular gigging with Miga, but that turned out to not be the case.

I'm very happy with what I did on the tracks I had to work with. One challenge was the fact that several of them contained the same rhythmic motif in the acoustic guitar part, so I had to find a way to play along with that without drawing too much attention to it, otherwise the songs would sound too similar. I took a very Vinnie Colaiuta-esque tack, for the most part, which ended up sounding very "slick," in Miga's words. If I had heard the tracks drummer Tom Sorich did on the same record, I might have tried to loosen it up a bit, but given the tunes, I'm not sure whether or not that would have worked. I don't think the "slickness" is a bad thing, mind you, but there's a noticeable difference when the drummers change, and more consistency might have been better for the overall project. I also would have punched up the drums and the bass in the final mix, but I'll ALWAYS want to punch up the drums and the bass. On a singer/songwriter recording, I'll begrudgingly concede that the vocals are probably more important.