My Favorite Beatle

I heard on the radio this morning that my favorite Beatle, George Harrison passed away yesterday. I didn't even know he had throat cancer and a brain tumor and all that. I'm sure he's in a better place now...

mp3.com

Uploaded two new side projects onto mp3.com. The projects are both electronic in nature and are called 33deep and Sectional. The songs will post later this week. It usually takes mp3.com a few days after you upload to have the songs available. I also uploaded a few tunes for Jennifer Hope at mp3.com from two of her ambient-ethereal CD's that we carry in the iSTORE.

A New Puppy!

Got a new addition to our family that already includes two adults, two kids and 5 cats (3 of which are sisters named after famous jazz singers). It's a Siberian Husky puppy! Everybody loves a puppy. Except the cats. They've all taken to hanging out in my recording studio and hissing alot. I hope everybody settles in quickly. Back to the pup- her name is Whisper and my wife got her from an animal rescue place down in Shelton, Washington. She's not a pure bred, but who really cares about all that. While my wife was getting the puppy, I did some guitar tracking for the Flathand 5 sessions. Worked on two jazzy type songs in particular. I added some minimal slide guitar to both. Seems to work in a strange way. Maybe I'll get this CD done by next year.

Happy Thanksgiving...

to all 'o ya!

Majestic Bay Theater

"Harry Potter Rocks!" says my 6 year old son. I would have to agree. Went and saw it today. The place (Majestic Bay Theater in Ballard) was packed. Kids in wizard costumes galore. Speaking of Ballard, I think Ballard is fast becoming the new "it" spot of Seattle. Best clubs, best theaters, best food. Strange how that happens. It used to be Pioneer Square, then Belltown. Now it's Ballard's turn in the spotlight.

Kompressor

Did some tracking for the Kompressor CD. Using Cubase VST and Reason software is an extremely fast way to work for me. I've never had this kind of flexibility with my musical tools before. I can't say enough about the Reason software. For years I relied on my trusty Roland S-550 sampler and Atari Mega ST4 computer. I would sample little bits of sound and layer the part together using the Atari as my main sequencer. The biggest limitation in that set-up was the limited sampling time (28.8 seconds total!) and the samplers low-fi sampling rate (30khz). Still it was state of the art back in 1988 and I made more than 6 albums worth of music with it. People used to come over to my home studio and couldn't believe that I actually still made albums with my archaic gear. My upgrade was a long time coming. The other thing computer based systems do, is simplify your mixer and outboard gear connections. I used to have to patch and re patch my way through all my recording sessions. Then struggle with mixer and sub-mixer settings. When it's all in your computer you can reconfigure your entire "virtual" patch bay in seconds and save it as part of the songs file. Anyway the skinny of this new way of working is increased output. That's what we all crave anyway...isn't it. INCREASED OUTPUT. I output mine, you output yours. Everybody's happy.

Teen Feeding Frenzy!

Putin' pantyhose on the girls for the new Teen Feeding Frenzy! CD cover artwork. It's a minor detail but on several of the photos of the girls, their legs didn't have enough contrast to the back ground, etc. So I darkened them. Ahh the wonders of Photoshop. I also reddened the meat and adjusted some of the background colors. Here's some examples...

Taxes

Been working on my taxes for the last 2 weeks. The IRS is auditing my wife and I for the 1999 tax year, so we've been going through boxes and boxes of receipts and tax documents trying to get it all in order. To be audited by Uncle Sam is the All-American nightmare. Anyways I also started laying out 3 new songs for the Kill Switch...Klick - Kompressor CD and working a bit on the old Flathand 5 tracks. There's always something going on around here...