Kristy Hanson

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that you had a lovely holiday season surrounded by family and/or friends. Mike and I went down to Florida to visit my family for Christmas, which was amazing. Just to be able to spend time with my family is such gift, and then the bonus is that the weather was gorgeous. Not that I can complain about CA weather, but we actually have to use the heat at night a lot recently, and I couldn’t kick this cold I had. Florida cured me instantly, which may have to do with the fact that the air feels like it’s being pumped out of a humidifier. I found it delightful. It did rain on Christmas, but it was one of those cool Florida sun shower things. We spent a lot of time outside and went fishing…Mike caught a shark! No joke, check out his page.

Then New Year’s day came and went…Mike and I went hiking and made a pact to do it every Sunday from now on. We’ll see what the wind is like tomorrow – it may be movie day instead. :) Crazy Santa Ana winds! When will it end?

The most exciting thing the year has brought thus far is…my album! After months of being too booked to work on it, Patrick Warren added his magic to 4 of the tracks. If you don’t know or haven’t heard of Patrick, you’ve surely heard his playing on something you’ve heard on the radio. If you listen to what I listen to, you’ve definitely heard him with artists like Fiona Apple, Sam Phillips, Aimee Mann (oh, speaking of which, her Christmas album, which he’s on, is awesome!). And then you certainly know how amazing he is. We went over to his place on Wednesday to listen to the tracks and to let him know what we thought, and each one blew us away. It was all as beautiful as we expected, but each element was different and even better than I would have imagined. But at the same time it’s almost scary how perfect his parts are; they just capture the individual moods of the songs and lend more richness and character to all of them.

Just like everyone else we’ve worked with, Patrick is incredibly kind and humble. And funny. With fantastic decorating taste. His house should be a on TLC makeover show or something.

I’m just still amazed that Ryan, Jay, and Patrick were involved at all with MY record. A lot of it had to do with Mike and how much he believed in me – that I even deserved to work with such kick-ass people – and he might still believe it more than I do. But it DID happen! Soon Ryan will be mixing, then comes mastering, design in the meantime and finally the release. I certainly feel it’s been worth all of the wait, and I hope others will, too. :)