Sleepless In Seattle

Sunday night/ Monday morning...1:00AM and I can't sleep. I drank too much coffee after 7 PM. Always makes it hard to sleep when the caffeine man comes a knockin'. Laid down some musical bits and beats for the film I'm working on. Just basic ideas, but film music doesn't have to be so pop oriented like vocal laden radio friendly songs. Sometimes just a simple sound or effect can go along way to push the film in a more coherent direction. My film is very music & sound based, as it should be, me being a musician and all.I was recently re-watching a VHS copy of the Thin Red Line. Man, what a great narration in that film. It's like in the midst of the worlds greatest war a common soldiers southern drawl ridden soul rises above the chaos to a pure spiritual realm. Every time I watch that film I feel there is hope in the human spirit even under the greatest duress. Apocalypse Now used to be my favorite war movie. I think the Thin Red Line is now.

Camera

Got my second Sony DV Camera so now I can get some video work done. Especially for the TV Show. I've also been doing character development for my first Multi-media Feature Film. I'm hoping to have finished some time in early 2003.

"Go-Kustom!"

Here's a picture of my kids yelling "Go-Kustom!" for the Go-Kustom TV Show Theme song...

Her Trembling Hands

Courtney Hudak came over to the studio to do some vocals for the remake of the Kill Switch...Klick song Her Trembling Hands. This song will be on the Almost Ambient disc coming out on Invisible Records later this year or early next. She laid down some very heavy bluesy goth styled tracks along with some spoken word effects and "in the distance" higher vocals. With the updated music and Courtney's excellent vocals, this is the best that Her Trembling Hands has ever sounded.

Video Shoot

Went to the beach with the kids to shoot some video footage for the video for Lost Like Innocence. It's like work and fun at the same time. I think we'll have it put on the Kill Switch...Klick- Almost Ambient CD as a Quicktime movie. Depends on if I can figure out how to run Final Cut Pro fast enough and if there's enough space for the movie on the CD. Jennifer Hope is going to film her singing on a beach down in California. Then I'll edit the whole thing on my system. I also worked on the Go-Kustom TV Show Theme song today. Had the kids yelling "Go-Kustom!" over and over. Also uploaded Customs from the OmBili sessions to mp3.com. Busy, busy Sunday...

Reason and Cubase

Laying out Jennifer Hope's vocals for Lost Like Innocence. I'm doing half of it in Reason and half in Cubase VST.The main verses are being laid out in Cubase with the chorus and filtered vocals being done as samples in Reason. This gives me more flexibility as to how I effect the vocals, as Reason has some very powerful effects and filters.

Lost Like Innocence

The music for Lost Like Innocence is completed (read 08/01/01 for more details). I used Propellerheads Reason music software for all the music which really opened my eyes to the potential of this software. It's very fast and intuitive and makes sketching out a complicated song fairly easy. If your into computer based music software you need this!

OmBili and Giant Radio

Finished tracking my wife's band- OmBili's demo. All the basic tracks are now complete and we will start mixing this week or weekend. Three of these songs (Customs, Kenkene & Salaam) will end up on the Flathand 5 disc coming out later this year on This World/ Go-Kustom.
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Giant Radio has picked up a few songs from the d.A. Sebasstian & Kill Switch...Klick - Organica CD's, for their internet radio show. Check them out.

Public Access Television Workshop

Went to a Public Access Television Workshop last night. Looks like it's going to be fairly uncomplicated to get our TV show (Go-Kustom TV) on air as a regular series. The class was full of people looking to get their own butts on the TV. I think Public Access is great, anybody can put on a TV show about anything they want to, from cooking to communism. It's all there baby...

Ricardo Acevedo

Slammin' through the tracks...got all the tracks with Ricardo Acevedo guesting on vocals laid out and rough mixed. I'm gonna move on to other songs to give my ears a rest on those ones. It's best to work a bit on tracks and then come back to them with a fresh perspective. If I work on the same songs for several days straight, my perspective seems to get overwhelmed. With my new Cubase VST/ G4 setup it's super-easy to switch between various projects. I've never had that kind of flexibility in the past. It used to be unplugging cables and drawing diagrams to record a new song. Now it klick and go...oh yea I also started writing the Go-Kustom Theme for the Go-Kustom TV show. It's got a sinister twangy guitar thing a goin' on. I've gotta get the drums sounding a bit less drum machine (I love that word) sounding though.

Go-Kustom TV

Got a basic logo done for Go-Kustom TV, a new TV show I'm doing for Public Access here in Seattle. I hope to have the first episode on air by Fall/Winter this year.

Almost Ambient

Working hard on assembling the Kill Switch...Klick Ambient CD. I'm still not sure about the title. It was Almost Ambient (and may yet still be) but I've had a few other ideas. The main concept behind this disc is for it to be a companion to Milkin' It For All It Worth The Best Of Kill Switch...Klick. Whereas Milkin' It...is a "best of" up-tempo type affair, Almost Ambient is a more somber offering, showing the darker & moodier side of my music. Tonight I've been mixing Object Of My Desire, a track originally off Beat It To Fit, Paint It To Match. I'm mixing it with another version of Object that appeared on a compilation called Genre-fest released back in '97 on Ivy Records. I actually layered the two different songs so the new version is a blend of the two distinct versions. The only reason this worked was because both Objects had exactly the same tempo. I'm currently four songs into the track sequence for Almost Ambient.

Lost Like Innocence

Started laying out Jennifer Hope's vocals for the song Lost Like Innocence. This is an all new song for the Ambient KsK CD. She sent her vocals on a CDR that she recorded down in a studio in California. Now I'm cutting and pasting them back onto the music. Strange to think how difficult this kind of recording would have been just 10 years ago. Shit- when I first started playing synthesisers in the early 80's, there wasn't even MIDI. You had to play it all by hand direct to tape...and we walked ten miles in the snow to the recording studio...and apples didn't grow on trees, they grew in the dirt like potatoes...and we had to peel them and boil out the worm puss just so we could have a decent breakfast...and yadda yaddaa yadadda.