I got a bit of a surprise earlier this week when I got an email from an Amy Eisinger, who wanted to interview me about the rise of home studios and the difficulties in producing music in small urban settings. She's a freelance writer from NYC and she plans pitching it to Wired. How cool what that be? I don't know how long it will be before the article will come out or even if she'll use any of my quotes but it got me thinking that I don't do enough with the blog because that was the way she contacted me. I've got to put some contact info on the website in case someone else wants to do the same. She's going to get back with me to let me know when the article is going to be published and I'm going to put out a press release to coincide with that. I'm hoping this will take me to the next level.
Ok, let me bring you up to speed. It's been nearly 9 months since I posted - (I know, I know) and I forgot how much fun it had been going through the years and remembering the great songs and albums of the past. I'll get back to doing that with the next post but for now, let me tell you what's happened since the last one. Let's see - my daughter moved to Tiger, Georgia for a Lifeteen internship in August. She's there for a year so maybe by then, she'll be able to decide exactly what she's going do or at least have some direction. Joel's written two songs since he's been gone and I'm working on producing one of them to include on an EP that I hope have finished by the time he gets back in April. Then I'm going to promote it to some college stations and via the indie network. I'll keep working on producing the rest of the record so that we can either release another EP (preferable) or a whole CD's worth of material. Jen gave up trying learn drums because her wrists just can't handle it. I wish she had stayed with it a bit more. I'm trying to keep her involved in the production of the record so she engineers when I record guitar or vocal parts and I'm trying to get some background vocals out of her. She has a decent voice and would probably benefit from ear training. My wife and I started making wine and our first batch of merlot is going in the bottle this coming weekend. I took a little bit out this evening to make sure it was clear and the color was gorgeous. The taste was a bit oakey and slightly carbonated. I had to remind myself that it's going to get better after it's been bottled and had some time to develop. The next batch is going to be a chardonnay. I'll keep you posted on how it comes out.
Radiohead released "In Rainbows" for download on December 10th. I placed my order in advance and I couldn't wait to get it. I think I was expecting it to me a bit of a throwback to OK Computer with some Amnesiac thrown in for good measure but it turned out to be an extremely organic sounding record. The drums, most cases, sound huge as though they were recorded in a cathedral. Thom's vocals are a bit more out front and more intelligible than either Kid A or Amnesiac. The guitar work in a lot of places is kind of sparse but it really works. The thing I like about it most is that it pays homage to a few different styles of music that I really didn't think influenced them. One song has a bit of a rhythm and blues feel to it while another is downright funky. A couple of tunes are straight up Radiohead but they still maintain their distance from previous efforts. (Can you tell I really liked this record?)
I got my wife Feist's new CD for Christmas and I only heard a couple of tracks from it prior to that. I love her voice and the fact that it makes you move. I read somewhere that she was a punk rocker until she had problems with her voice and had to take 6 months off. You know, sometimes things happen for a reason. There's no way she would have developed into the artist she is without having gone through that.
For quite some time now, I've thought that it would be really cool for there to be a TV channel for musicians. Some of the programming would be about musicians and some of it would be music lessons. There's tons of instructional videos out there that you could use so you wouldn't have to produce a lot. It would kind of be along the same lines as the Ovation channel in the respect that it's just recycled. Ovation just takes programming from BBC, repackages it a bit and then runs it on American cable and satellite networks. Anyway, since so much is going the Youtube way, I thought that might be the way to do it. I'm going to develop that idea a bit more and see if it goes anyway. I may start by including somethings I find useful in this blog and take it from there.
On one of those occasions, I ended up falling off of a scaffolding rig and breaking both arms at the elbow along with my left wrist. Fortunately, the break on the right arm was a hairline, so I only had to keep it in a sling but they put my left arm in a cast.
I had ditched the graveyard shift job and had gone to work as a bouncer for 12 year olds at the video arcade at the mall. The first manager I worked for there was a flaming queer and was very open about it. He and I got along fine because he knew what side of the fence I was on and that there was no chance I was going to open the gate to cross over to his side.
I've asked my wife over the years if she was scared at all about making such a leap and she assures me that she was absolutely confident that she was making the right decision. That's what makes us work so well together - I never know if I've made the right decision and if she's sure of her direction, there's no turning back.
Best 50 Albums not to be on the top 100 of all time
This is a really interesting list as I would have assumed that quite a few of these would surely have been on the top 100 (especially Queen's "Night at the Opera" and SRV's "Texas Flood". Click Here I can't say I have heard all these but of the ones I have heard, I think I would have to concur with the author
I think my favorite one is probably the Rickenbacker double neck. I kick myself regularly for not buying a 5string "Rick" a few years back for $700. I've never seen one since then and as far as I can tell they don't make them anymore.
Here's another unknown tidbit (at least to me). Click Here Who knew? Looks like John could have sent 'is old man to the dentist with al the money he was making.
