Drummer Mike Portnoy (ADRENALINE MOB, FLYING COLORS, ex-DREAM THEATER) has checked in with a new update on his project with bassist Billy Sheehan (MR. BIG, TALAS) and guitarist Richie Kotzen (ex-POISON, ex-Mr. Big):

Day 9:

"We start off by going out for some Chinese food for lunch (the three of us, our engineer Alex and Richie's daughter August), fuel up with some Starbucks and then head over to the studio.

Getting to work, we jump into the remaining of Richie's new bits that we hadn't worked on yet: a funky rocker with a lot of cool riffing. No real working title for this guy yet, so it's simply called 'F#' for now.

We do a little surgery changing the key of the chorus and re-arranging some of the instrumental bits and then I dive in and get some drum tracks going.

Lay down four takes and then comp 'em. There were a lot of cool little fills and things going on with the guitar and bass that I needed to hone-in on a make tight.

Wrapping this one makes 11 done and we have three left from the original Jan/Feb sessions to record. We purposely left the three existing ones for last as Billy is away tomorrow and Tuesday doing clinics, so we figured we'd use those days to track the songs we already wrote together. Being he'll be gone for a couple days while me and Richie work, today's pic is of the Bass God himself, the one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Billy Sheehan:

BTW, I've been praising RK all throughout these diaries, but I need to point out for those who are unaware: Billy is hands down, my favorite bass player of all time! I used to go see Talas back in the early/mid 80's (before DT even existed and before he got the DAVID LEE ROTH gig) and have been following and supporting him ever since.

We've been friends ever since we first worked together on the RUSH tribute album (Working Man) together back in the mid 90's and we worked together again in 2006 in my Amazing Journey Who tribute (as well as touring together on many G3's while he was playing with STEVE VAI and I was was playing with JP). It is an honor and a privilege to be now playing with him in not one, but TWO new bands... and two bands that are stylistically very different worlds...giving us both the chance to work together in very different vibes and approaches.

OK, that's all for tonight... c-ya tomorrow."