David is recording an album even though he shouldn’t be.

NYU has an audio booth for its film majors. It’s usually a vehicle for recording sound effects and voiceovers, but today it was serving a higher purpose – music, and lots of it.

I deftly ferried my banjo from Harlem to the outskirts of Greenwich Village, and what I gather to be the fringe of the NYU campus. It was up the stairs and down the hall to the site of this project of questionable legitimacy. David set everything up and we recorded several banjo tracks. Soon enough a violin player arrived. Her name is Patti and she has nimble fingers. She plays like babies dream, which is to say effortlessly.

David played everything back for us. It’s beautiful, full of character and little audio delights. More importantly, it sounded like it had been put together on purpose. Sure, Patti and I were important, but not nearly as important as the foundation that David had already laid by himself. I’m anxious to hear the finalized versions of these songs.

What still strikes me about the whole day is that our use of the booth was technically against the rules. David’s got some confidence, man. If I had that kind of audacity, I’d be building a spaceship in JMU’s wood shop, assembling a human being in the Health Building.