We put in that master work...

Whew, what a trip. Honestly, there's nothing like the feeling you get from looking at a to-do list with everything checked off, and that's exactly where 5G is at right now. Well, at least for this week's list! The goal was to create all the final mixdown bounces we would need for mastering, including all the core album tracks, promo cuts and clean and instrumental versions of tracks that will appear on singles, before heading for Masterwork in Philly early Thursday morning. We also had to prepare all the props, clothing and "manscaping" needed to knock out our photo shoot with the genius that is Mike Whitson Thursday night. Mission accomplished on all counts, and we arrived back in New York late Friday night with two discs worth of mastered tracks (thanks to our mastering engineer, the legendary Pete Humphreys who worked two days straight without so much as a lunch break!) and an incredible four-setup album insert photo shoot under our belt.

Those of you following me on Twitter know that the updates were plenty over the last few days. And those of you who aren't, follow along and join in the fun! Or you can always get caught up on the tweets you missed along the right hand side of this blog. Either way, I thought I'd recap with some behind the scenes pics from our trip, some of which were tweeted and some that weren't...

My man D, who was excited to find a quick
breakfast spot in Philly after leaving NYC at 6:30am!


Danny and Pete hard at work in Studio B


Dan and yours truly gearing up for the
Whitson shoot... ILL CONCEPT, YOU'LL SEE!


Maybe if you don't ask
no one will have to get hurt...


Big Luis Valbuena writing Jonny October and Craig G
about the success of mastering day one. Loews hotel lobby...


Big Lu and I ran over to Jim's Steaks on South Street
to grab some grub for the fellas during mastering day two!


The look of love...
final mastered tracks all in a row

So there you have it, the Philly trip as told to you by the man himself. Big shouts to my homie home homeboys Adliberal and Killah Kev who stopped by the studio to say wadup on Friday. And crazy extra special thanks to my friend (and the best hotel manager on the east coast) Jared at the Marriott for the star treatment. I won't forget it my dude!

We're just gettin' warmed up,
J.J.
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