spending money is addictive

congratulations to my checkbook. it survived. so did my plastic.
today i stepped foot in new jersey. hoboken to be exact. it was actually kind of cute. quaint. but looked like it would get boring fast. so of course it made me homesick.
the studio is SO nice. that live room is HUGE. the gear is impressive. the control room is spacious. the bedrooms are big. big enough for 2 twin beds. big kitchen/dining area and living room. plus, it's right across the street from a supermarket. so in short, it seems like a chill place that's going to be very conducive to the creative process. to bad i can't afford to do the whole project there.

before i did that, i fell in love with my new guitar amp. it's so simple that i can't mess it up. just plug my guitar into it, turn the volume knob until it reaches just the right saturation, and voila, the tone i've been trying to dial in forever is born. when i first stepped into the studio to try it out, i thought there was no way i would pick it. the other amp, which was $300 more, had more of the standard controls plus and extra gain knob wired to a separate tube in the preamp section. i thought for sure this amp, with its versatility, would give me what i want. but it just sounded like a little amp. a very expensive little amp that needed a bigger speaker cabinet. the "z" though, sounded good despite its size.

i dropped my guitar off to be setup, so when i got the amp home i had to "borrow" kelly's Strat to put the amp through more paces. still sounded great. it seems like the amp just "amplifies" your guitar. every guitar sounds different, and this amp just lets that sound come through. LOUD, for 5 watts anyway. so that fact makes me think i should start collecting guitars. [it never ends]. first will be a vintage Jaguar, an obvious choice thanks to dear old dad. then i think i will try an SG, the only gibson i've ever even considered playing.

tonight i also worked out the pipes some more. i'm actually looking forward to tracking the vocals. i wouldn't say i have confidence in my voice, but something somewhat similar is creeping into my consciousness. i think it's called acceptance.

before i leave you, this week i gave money to a subway performer for only the 3rd time in my 15 month NY habitation. happened at the Union Square Q train platform, where i wait probably 7 days out of 7 during the week at some point in the day. it was a one arm jazz keyboardist. he had a right arm, but it was a stub just below the elbow, not much good for tinkling the ivories. but it wasn't pity that led me to give him the last dollar in my wallet [literally]. this guy had chops, and most importantly, some creative ideas. really fluid.

music?*** dead kennedys-fresh fruit for rotting vegetables

what did i put into my stomach last night?

Imo salad [sorta Japanese potato salad]
Squid pan seared in butter [that's right, tentacles and all]
1 glass ube-shu [plum shochu]
1 glass tengumai [my favorite sake]
1 glass peach smoothie
4 smores
more than a few words

okay, so this has nothing to do with the album, but it was some damn fine cuisine.

music: weezer-pinkerton

does a cop at my train station make me feel safer?

no. does 2 commuter bombings in London make me feel less safe? no.

so......great news. the studio situation has been solved, and decidedly in my favor. i was really looking forward to working at the original spot but where we've been moved is even better. even if it is in New Jersey. amazing live room [big enough i think for a roller rink], great gear all around, and it's residential. meaning no PATH train back to Manhattan for a connection to the Q back to Brooklyn late at night after a long day in the studio. it's more expensive, but here's a quote to take with you, "you pay peanuts...you get monkeys."

needless to say [but not so needless that i'm not blogging], i'm on a high right now. so much so that i decided to finally practice singing tonight. the one thing for the record that needed the most attention has been getting the least. but not anymore. linda's belt of moses is really making a difference. [i won't explain what that means]

since the NY [metro] studio is set, i might as well pass on the info for the texas studios. i'm not sure what will be done where.

nomad *** last beat *** the pAper house

so basically, the only thing left is to do the damn thing. and do it i will. [well, i guess i have to decide what to wear while doing it]

music heard whilst typing: the beatles-let it be...naked

doors are for closing

major things happened this week. the funding for the album is finally a reality. there goes my dream of financing a debut album on my credit card. some of you, i'm sure, know my source of the funds...what can i say? i'm extremely fortunate and i'm going to make the most i can out of this opportunity.

immediately after receiving the good news about the dough, i received rather disconcerting news about the studio. big fish/little fish. or in other words, my ass got bumped from the studio. the owner took on a month long project which both overlapped and superseded my measly 4 days. they are helping us [sweetmeat and i] to procure another suitable studio. which may unfortunately land us in hipster land aka williamsburg, brooklyn. at least i will angst fuel when i look out the window and see all of the cool kids looking so hard to look so dirty. i'm not going to mention any names or give url's until it is set in stone. no jinxing will occur.

but on the good news front, the lineup for the string quartet is complete. the first rehearsal is next saturday. i feel pretty confident and optimistic about this aspect of the record. it's been a while since i've run a rehearsal, but i'm sure i'll remember how to dole out praise and criticism in thinly veiled sarcasm. here's info on the quartet.
vi0lin- cody geil
vi0la - pinky weitzman
cell0 - lenae harris
cell0 - csilla lakatos, who wins the award for greenest member.
so as promised, the quartet remains tied to the mission statement, "all girls all the time," which also happens to be my mission statement. [sorry george]

yesterday i practiced [notice a friday routine?]. after warming up, i always play the c major foursome to get the pounding out of the way. i must say, it was the most fun i've possibly ever had playing the drums. a shame i was alone. that's probably an excellent commentary on personality type. at least there is a rather large mirror covering up the wall facing the drums so i could admire my greatness. also a nugget of insight on my personality.

basically things are falling into place and time is counting down. less than 3 weeks to go. i guess i should relearn all of the lyrics i've forgotten. okay. my eyes are tired. i need glasses.

music heard while typing: a perfect circle - eMotive
[on my "new" iPod. finally.]

i might just quit this music stuff...

and become a theoretical physicist. really. since i'm still waiting for the replacement iPod to ship, the pages are flying. just turning over and over. this week was A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. i can't claim to have understood everything in it, but it definitely revived that side of my brain. i mean, 4 dimensional space-time, a finite universe with no boundary, the big bang and the big crunch, what more could one ask of a book?

okay, onto the real purpose of this blog. things are still progressing with the album. did my friday afternoon album run through on the drums [not to mention the fundamentals i've been forcing myself to do during the week], it went well. maybe it's not completely realistic to think this, but i really believe i could track the drums in one take.

the last big step to complete [pre-studio anyway] is cementing the lineup for the string quartet, which is inching ever so close to the tape. as it stands now, the quartet will be an X chromosome only type of thing. i've had the sexes mixed in the group before, but figure there's going to be enough testosterone in my snare drum alone to give the album balance. plus, an all girl quartet is much more aesthetically pleasing in terms of liner photos. but really, the females i've worked with just seem to have less of an ego about things. i almost think women are a little higher up the life ladder than men. ALMOST. one thing holds me back from publishing the names of my future cohorts, unifying quantum mechanics and gravity is easier than coordinating the schedules of 4 working musicians.

in the meantime, i've been working a lot on producing the antenna lodge album. i decided to have a moment in the album that would quite subtly [the addition of the adjective quite to subtly yields a firmer stance of the word, or very subtle] destroy your speakers. you'll want to turn the music up to figure out what's going on, and therein lies the rub: turning up this part will push your speakers to their limit, but you still probably won't know what's happening. i also managed to turn a buzz roll into a synth keeyboard loop. thank you mooger fooger.

also this week, [this is what happens when i put off writing i guess, posts get longer and longer and i start over using transitional phrases such as also], i secured a piece of gear that may come in quite handy for the future. i traded a sushi dinner and dessert for a slightly !@#$%^ laptop. it wasn't liking Win XP so well, so restoring ME with the factory CD has it up and running. don't really see much need for it now, but if i can save up for the digidesign 002, it will probably get a lot of use live, furnishing the drums or strings depending on how i decide to perform live with majnun. but this will mean I will need to eventually install XP on it, so i'm just hoping adding some memory will help it handle it.

so that's enough. my brother made a slight mention to my apparent lack of blogging skills, i can't have that. you'll notice i have added a few links, customized the titles of some sections, and added text in a place that wasn't that easy to find. so to allen, showing pictures of your shaved legs pedaling a bicycle doesn't translate into having blogging skills.

music listened to while typing: the Pixies-surfer rosa/come on pilgrim

your words don't match your words don't match your words

Yesterday saw more work on the antenna lodge album. kelly and i decided it was time to get realistic about the thing. i have grand ideas and we have no budget. if i don't finish a song requiring a chamber orchestra soon, that will mean the album will probably be complete in a few months. but if i do finish it, we'll need about 1000 USD to hire the players needed, and that's paying them WAY under NYC union scale. thank god-allah-jehovah for digital editing. [i didn't say that]. we did some nice guitar work for the album and mapped out everything needed to be done. mainly, it means getting my piano tuned and a lot of keyboard-midi recording.

Today, i practiced drums. played annoying [for anyone listening] stick control exercises over a simple latin foot pattern. it's a staple of mine. once i get locked into the metronome and get lost into the stickings, i completely forget everything going on around me. probably the only therapy i'll ever use seeing how the only therapist i'd ever see is a fictional character none to the real world through her dealings with a NJ mob boss.

Tonight, [what a sense of time i have in my writing] I will work on aforementioned song and probably add some markings to the last majnun arrangement, c major opus 4. perhaps i'll also update the website to include a link to this blog. so if you wanted to, you could loop endlessly from the blog to the site to the blog to the site.

I didn't want to mention it, but the Cubs won. 3 in a row. So after the break, this means they are due to lose 4 or 5 in a row.

music heard while typing: Xiu Xiu-knife play

once a day will not continue

Today I practiced drums. Here. I was curious to see if the odd sensation I experienced in my right wrist/forearm last Sunday would return today. It did, but only when using a certain grip. So, as long as I concentrated on how I was hitting the skins, I was fine. If I kept my hand turned over in a proper matched grip style, clear skies. But start to turn it over halfway between matched and French grip and instant tightness. Guess I shouldn't be applying a marching band tenors grip to rock and roll. Or maybe I shouldn't try to play every note as high and hard as I possibly can. Practice went well though, until the batteries ran out on my DAT walkman. 4 AA's lasted about 4 hours. Pretty crappy. Guess I'll be carrying the AC adapter with me until the iPod makes its way back from Apple.

Also today, I got my hair cut. Short. No more black hair. I decided 2 things this week: 1> I am too lazy to keep my face shaved and my roots dyed. 2> I don't want anything appearing on the album or its artwork that will, at some point, appear dated. So, natural we go. In recording philosophy and liner photos. This quest for timelessness has led me to conclude another detail. I will be posing for those liner photos in my birthday suit. That's that only way I can guarantee that what I will be wearing will not be out of style, because beauty is always IN.

Until I get me iPod back, I am reading like crazy. Not that I don't when I have access to portable music, but I don't attack books quite as aggressively. Here's a quote from David Sedaris, Naked, "Test eye shadow on all the rabbits you want. Strap electrodes to the skulls of rhesus monkeys and shock them into a stupor, but it is inhumane to place a nudist on horseback the day after a chili cook-off."

what I listened to while typing: the Cure- Greatest Hits

Oh sweet, nauseating public-private thinking

welcome to my first post. i swore on a hundred graves i would never do this, but here I am and here you are and perhaps nothing else need be said. don't get your hopes up though. i will not post personal details here. this will be all business. if i achieve my life-long dream of becoming a male escort, then we'll talk. besides, if i were to post about something personal, it would be about how much hope i lose for humanity every day i open my eyes. for now though, i will be posting about music. first, about my days leading up to recording the first majnun album, which will happen between august 10-21. then, [surprise] about recording said album. and finally about the inevitable bidding war the record company will wage against itself for the rights to distribute the album [tentively titled "i am greatness ***do you really think i'd name it that? you're right***]. i will post info about other projects to which i am hitched, namely the antenna lodge, who is also busy recording in a somewhat less structured and funded environment. so, without further pomp and circumstance:

put new heads on my "B" kit tonight. i decided it has more of the sound i'm after for this album. here's the breakdown: Remo coated Ambassador on the 13",15", and 16" toms and Aquarian Force 1 and Aquarian Regulator [black] with a small offset hole t for the bass drum batter and front side respectively. too bad i can't play them yet. i'll have to wait and hope everyone leaves the house tomorrow., which usually happens fridays. that also means i will get chance to dance through the house in my boxers and socks to an old beastie boys album. not bad for my first blog, huh?

album i listened to while typing: talking heads-more songs about buildings and food