My blog has moved...

I'm no longer keeping a separate blog here. If you wish to see my current postings, go here.

Easier to read than to blog

Getting ready for the busiest four weeks of my life. Next week, the day job has me visiting six customers in four days crossing the continent from Portland-Denver-Houston-New Jersey-Pennsylvania-Portland. We'll be on a listening tour to let customers how they feel about our quality and to try to gather information so that when we get back we can figure out what to do about it. It's a good thing to listen to your customers. Six of them over four days? Perhaps not so grand an idea. But it's a living. The good news is that I'm going to spend a couple days over the weekend in Atlantic City with my son.

Two weeks later I'm back to Illinois for the last two gigs with my college band. We'll be setting up on Tuesday to rehearse on Wednesday and Thursday for Friday and Saturday performances in the other band members' home town - Abingdon, IL. Since the American Legion Hall only has space for about 100 people (if I recall correctly) and there are a few hundred that want to see us, we might move the last night outdoors. Even so, flying back to IL, etc. is a pain in the butt. It will probably be the last time I play with these guys (unless we do a Labor Day benefit for my brother's campaign - he's running for Circuit Judge), though, so 't'sall good.

This week and week after next, we're rehearsing the local band. We've found a guitar player and a singer, so our final lineup is as follows: Dave Wakeling - Drums, Vocals; Frank Adrian - Bass, Vocals; Gary Weber - Guitar; Phil Koehn - Guitar; Madeline Jaross - Vocals. If all goes as planned, we should have enough material together by the end of July to start playing again. Of course, now is all rehearsal and figuring out which songs to do, etc. We still have to come up with a band name. I'm currently partial to "This, Not This".

So that's life. Too busy, but better than the alternative.

PDX Band News

We did much better at rehearsal yesterday than I expected. I sang about 80% of the songs and played bass relatively well for the limited amount of practice I had done. In addition, Jim and Gary working together helped them. We sort of knew the songs and I think that we could actually get everyone paying the same arrangements and this thing sounding good. That's the first step. Tight is the second step. I can see us playing by June. Anyway, I hope Jim and Gary do some more work while I'm in Michigan. I'm looking forward to coming back and working with these guys.

Now we only have to come up with a name. I still like Cannibal Cow.

Ready for Michigan!

The PDX band is having another rehearsal tonight. It turns out that I'm singing about half the songs. I'm not really used to that and I'm hoping we can pick up a full-time singer. But until then, I'm a singer. Woot. The last rehearsal didn't go particularly well, mainly because I didn't know I was expected to sing all of these songs and I didn't do particularly well. In addition, the ex-pro hadn't been able to get the lead sheets we sent him, so he was unprepared. Gary came over on Monday night and we worked together with me showing him what guitar parts I played on the different songs and then Gary went over to Jim's house last night to work with him. I've actually sung the songs and have gone over the lyrics, so I think that this rehearsal should go much better.

As for the Midwest trip,the equipment has been shipped and I'm looking forward to getting into Kalamazoo and getting started rehearsing. I'll be flying into Detroit on a Monday morning red-eye, driving up to Troy to pick up a speaker cab, then driving over to Kalamazoo. Then I'll take a nap and start setting up Monday evening so we'll all be ready to go Tuesday morning.

Also, back in PDX, I'm getting things squared away at the day job for the week off. I've finished up the quarterly performance reviews for thirteen people (fourteen counting myself). Of course, when I get back, I have annual reviews for twelve employees to do (again, not to mention my own). Tons o'fun. Life in the big city, huh?

Kalamazoo, here I come!!!

Retards

This:

Blogger Michael B. Vanderboegh of Pinson, Alabama, said Monday that in a Friday blog, he called for people to break windows at Democratic headquarters at the city and county level. He said he didn't call for the damages to congressional offices because, "I didn't want to be responsible for anybody breaking a federal law."

However, "I can understand how someone can be frustrated enough to throw a brick through a congresswoman's window," Vanderboegh said. He said he feels the health care bill is "unconstitutional and tyrannical."

"My answer is violence, by getting their attention," he said, adding, "If we can get across to the other side that they are within inches of provoking a civil war in this country, then that's a good thing."

from here.

So idiot teabagger (OK, it's redundant) bloggers are pissed off enough that they want to start another Civil War, huh? Well Mikeeee, since you're off in Alabama, why don't you and your Johnny Reb ilk go ahead and start. This time we'll be happy to let you retards secede.

However, I doubt these little pussies have the balls to actually do anything like that. If they did, Alabama, being one of the biggest recipient of Federal funds vs. taxes paid, would have to pay their own way, and God forbid that these Southern retards would ever want to get their sorry-assed states off my ever more sore blue state taxpaying teats.

On the other hand, if they did secede, they could always try to bring back slavery. It would make me so happy to contribute to a fund that's raising money to send AK-47s to rebellious slaves. Just the thing to get rid of idiot teabagging bloggers.

I can't believe it's been almost two months...

... since I last posted. Oddly enough, there's been quite a bit of activity on both the Portland and Midwest front, as well as on the day job side of things.

On the day job, my old product has gone into extended hiatus. However, I am now software development manager for the company's second largest revenue producing product (second only to the consumer offering of this same product). This product is running on literally tens of millions of machines in the US and around the world. As such, it's a big deal, higher visibility, and slightly longer hours. Luckily, I can do most of that work hour extension in the morning, so I can still (if I have the energy) work on music at night.

On the Portland front, we worked with a couple of guitar players from Vancouver last month. In the end, one of them quit and Dave and I thought better of hiring the other guy, so we were again looking for a guitarist. I brought in a guy from my day job (who actually writes pretty good instrumental material) and Dave's talking to this ex-pro from the eighties. Actually, we're in pretty good shape for a May or June re-launch, though we need a new name. I like "Cannibal Cow", but I think I'll get overruled.

I've gotten my travelling gear back together for the Shiver gig in Kalamazoo, MI in April. Everything is neatly situated in a nice rack-mount case waiting for the other three pedals and a tuner to go in. I'll also toss in the percussion tray that I use to hold my tuner along with my microphones and their holders. With that all packed away and ready to go, I'll just need to pack my amp head (I'm picking up a speaker cab in Troy, MI the day after I fly into Detroit) and my guitars and I'll be ready. Most of the equipment will be staying with Jay, waiting for the June gig in Abingdon, IL.

That's really about it. I'm writing some new songs (especially to the new guitarist's tunes), needing to finish my own when I have a moment. Busy, busy, busy...

New version of song on the website...

I should be effusive, but I'm so tired, I don't feel like updating the rest of the page. It's close, but not yet a cigar (the echoes are too gaudy and a few phrases need some gain magic). But, it's still pretty good for a rough listen.

Not enough time to blog lately...

... as usual. Beyond the day job, last Friday I played bass on Dave from AMA's next solo effort. I practiced for about two weeks before hand, so we were able to get through eight songs in three and a half hours (with about three hours of actual recording). No, I'm not a pro - I couldn't hack them out in a hour. But for a semi-pro, I think I did a fairly good job on the tracks, and I think the studio time was not excessive. So that's over and Dave has posted an ad on Craigslist for a new guitarist. I've been answering ads looking for bassists. We'll see which band is up sooner.

Also, I've decided to use the J-Station for the Shiver gigs in April and June rather than the Pod - it just sounds better (and it's a shame that Johnson Amplification was bought out for their market share). It's a bit bigger to ship, but I'm shipping so much crap, it doesn't matter all that much. I will have the Midwest guys store and transport my equipment between the April and June gigs (and do whatever else I have to do through practice amps back home) to minimize shipping costs. I'll probably buy a 4x12 cab and have it shipped to Jay's office in Kalamazoo and keep it in the Midwest until after the June gig.

Anyhow, back to the J-Station... I'm downloading/adjusting/creating settings and setting up banks of them for the Midwest gigs. It's time consuming, but not that entertaining. I'll use an old Fujitsu Lifebook P20 with a blazing 600MHz Transmeta (remember them?) Crusoe CPU that I have sitting around to control it. The nice thing is that each bank on the J-Station holds enough settings that I won't need to switch banks other than in between each set. That will be good. I'm hoping that the M-Audio USB Midi interface I have has drivers for Win2K (the OS on the laptop). Otherwise, I'll have to buy a new laptop (Yes, something I would dread).

The Randall head is great! I won a Top Boost Module on eBay for a reasonable price. I now need to get an XTC and a Blackface module and , together with the Plexi module I have) I should have most of my tonal needs met. I'm also looking at Lexicon reverbs to give me a delay for the head.

I'm taking voice lessons. They're going well. There's a lot that I didn't know about singing. But, I'm getting better. My range has improved (more on the low end than the high, but I'll take what I can get) and I'm beginning to understand how to use my voice better. I figure about a year of this and I'll get to a point where I can feel comfortable about singing.

Also, I'm writing songs again. I've got about a half-dozen ready to record. I hope to get up to around a dozen and then start recording the best four to six of them. This time, I want to go into the studio to get drums as well as vocals. However, I've decided to take the audio takes and bring them home to mix and master myself. I figured that with the last CD, I didn't like the compromises I had to make because of the time limitations. At least, at home, I don't have that issue.


Finally, I've also started learning a few more tools on the DAW. I obtained the Waves Mercury package, as well as Izotope Ozone, so I'm playing around with them (I really like the matching EQ in Ozone). I'm thinking of getting SIR to see if I can get some better reverb sounds. I also need to do more with Renoise. But the big question is whether or not I upgrade my version of Sonar or switch to something else. It's a tough decision. I know I have to upgrade my computer. I know that, if I stick with the PC, the system is likely to come with Win7. My current audio interface doesn't have drivers for Win7. This means I can either dual boot the system and do the file transfer dance (one OS and file system for tracking and one for mixing/mastering). Or, I could buy a new audio interface and switch to Mac. Or, I could buy a new audio interface and switch to some other program. Or... In any case, I need to make a decision before I really get started on recording the new EP CD, because switching in the middle would be a real PITA.

New mix of new song on website...

... here. Per some audience feedback, the instrumental has come up a bit with respect to the vocals.

Damn, I've been busy...

The last post was almost a month ago when I had gotten back from Virginia on my Thankgiving break. First of all, the trip was good and my son (the accountant) is doing well. He made it through the snowstorm this week (the way NPR described it, it sounded like people were resorting to cannibalism. And God knows what's happened to that network - they're Twittering, too) and doing well at his first job. He's a good kid and the rest of the family back here in PDX is doing fine.

So musically...

Right before we left for Virginia, I bought a Godin Freeway Five Active bass from someone on Craigslist. It's a killer bass with a nice tone. However, the action was set up a bit higher than I normally liked. I did not have time to reset the action before...

The last performance of AMA took place on 4 December at Macadam's Bar and Grill (and thanks to all of you who showed up). We had a two-hour first set and came back after a twenty-minute break for another fort-five minutes. We played most of the songs we knew, including eight from the AMA repertoire and two of my songs. I'm actually amazed that I could get through a two-hour set without a break! All was not, though, as they say, "all beer and skittles". First of all, the PA system was completely torn down and it took us (as usual) about forty-five minutes to figure out the cabling to actually get sound out of the main speakers, let alone the monitors. The stage was small enough that my amp had to go behind the drummer and keyboard player and there was no room to get back to it easily after they had set up. Since after we got our equipment set up and the PA working, my bass rig wasn't working, I had to crawl back behind them to figure out what was wrong. I finally figured out what it was (not in the main amp at all, but an accidentally displaced plug on my pedal setup) about two minutes before the scheduled start.

That would be bad enough, but remember that 4 December was a Friday. That means I went directly from my day job to the gig. And that means I didn't have time to (as I normally do) set up the parts of the rig I'll be using that night at home, make sure the settings were right, tear it down, and repack it to make sure I have everything and that everything is working right. So, I just took the parts Friday morning, loaded them into my car, and went to the gig. While I was playing, I noticed that my low-end was ultra-loud, but my high-end, even with the pedals' and bass' tone setting maxed out was weak and wimpy. About halfway through the second set, I figured it out. At home, I was using the head I carted away as the low-frequency half of a bi-amped setup and, as such, because I did not take the time to set up the amp for testing before the gig, the tone controls were set for high low-frequency response and low high-frequency response. And, although I'd twiddled the volume knobs on the amp while crawling behind the drummer and keyboard player to figure out what was wrong with not having sound, I did not take time to look at the tone control setup. And, given that, in the middle of a set, crawling behind them to get to the amp was not an option, I just played it the way it was, boomy bass and all.

In addition, the late setup had me in no mood to play, so it took about twenty minutes of the first set for me to get warmed up. This was enough time to make several errors in the first few songs. Finally, I was still getting used to the five-string and, since the action was higher than I normally like, I mispicked quite a few notes and one song I actually started on the wrong string (Note that I recovered once the guitar came in and I noticed the mistake - I have good relative pitch, not perfect pitch. Also note that the day after the gig, I took the bass in to have it set up properly - I have it back now and it plays like a dream).

In any case, modulo those issues, the band did fairly well. A few of the new songs (yes, I learned five new - to me at least - songs for the performance) were actually quite brilliant. And the crowd had a good time. It was a good send off for AMA.

What is left of AMA will be auditioning guitarists - we'll be trying one out on 30 December. I'd like to find one before mid-January so we can start lining up gigs again by March. We'll probably be changing the band name, since the medical tie in is so attenuated and so few of the founding members are left. We'll see.

So, in the meantime, it's back to the studio - Dave (AMA's drummer) is tracking a solo album with his songs 13-15 January and he's asked me to play bass. I've agreed to do that.

In my home studio, I've also started tracking my next CD. This one is going to be an EP with only four or five songs. The working title is of the CD "The Next Opus Brevius" and the song is called "Four Kinds". I cut and rough mixed the instrumental tracks for the first song this past weekend. I'm hoping to have working vocals for in the next couple of days. The family is going to the beach this weekend, so I won't be able to do a final mix before we get back. However, with any luck, I'll have a rough mix of the song up on the Adrian web site before New Years Eve, so you can all play it at your parties!

I've bought a new live microphone. It's a Blue Encore-200. What I like about it is that it doesn't have as great of a distance drop-off as the Shure SM-58 I was using. On the SM-58, you had to eat the mike to get any sound and, as often as not, once I did that, I was distorting (because I have a relatively loud voice). As such, I had to be very aware of where, with respect to the microphone, my mouth was. The Blue is much more forgiving in that regard. You get approximately the same level within six-inch increments of distance and the drop-off is much less pronounced. As such, I can move about a lot more easily and mouth placement is a lot less fiddly. Also, the Blue seems to have more "sparkle" than the Shure has. I'm really happy with it.

Also, as those of you who read this blog are aware, I also play guitar. I've been playing through practice amps at home and because Shiver (the midwest band) is playing a gig in April, I need an actual performance head (I figure I'll use the cabinet with the four eight-inch speaker, but if I can pick up a half stack with twelve's cheap enough, I may buy that, too). I wanted three switchable channels with individual tone and level settings for each. I had a price limit of $1500, so I narrowed down the suspects to:

Egnator Tour Master 4100
Randall V2H
Peavey 3120
Bugera 333XL
Marshall TSL100
Carvin V3
Ampeg VL-503/-1003
Traynor YCS100H2

Also on the list (but above my price range) was the Randall RM100. However, I stumbled across one of these on eBay and won an auction at a price that was well below my limit. The head should be arriving this week. It's a system with modular preamps, so I'll have to pick up a couple of those to flesh it out to it's full three-channel configuration. However, even if I buy those new, I'm still waybelow my price limit.

So, that's about it for now. The voice lessons continue. I'm looking forward to the beach trip and to playing with Shiver in April. More next week.

Back from Virginia

I had a good time visiting my son. Back, jet-lagged and exhausted, to go through a grueling week of work, two AMA rehearsals, a voice lesson, and an AMA performance. I'll probably post some more tomorrow.

Wow! It's been

Have I been busy? Not really. I just got over a cold and I've been looking for a band.

To recap, last week I had a cold or the flu or some other virus. It's the second time this season. Yes, it sucked. But I'm over it now.

AMA practiced on Monday. I thought it would be the last one until the Macadam's performance on 4 December (9pm - be there!), but we're all able to get together on 1 and 2 December. So we'll be practicing those evenings. I've had to learn four songs I didn't know before, so there will be new (to me) material being played that evening. This will be AMA's farewell or, as Dave puts it, our DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) performance. An end of an era. Dave wants to find another guitarist. I'd be happy to play with him if we can find one. However, I'm definitely going to record with Dave and I'm not letting the moss grow on me in the meantime.

Today, I'm talking with the Owen Brothers. They're a couple of brothers who moved up from Ashland to try to take the Oregon Rock'n'Roll world by storm. They need a bass player. I have a bass. We'll see how it goes...

And speaking of having a bass, I found a used Godin Freeway5 Active on Craigslist. I bought it. It came with both a hard and soft case, which made the price really good. I can now give Zig his bass back. Last pieces of gear I need are a good guitar amp head (the Egnater Rebel 30 looks really nice) and a 4x12 cab. I'll probably have Jay buy one for me in Kalamazoo for the April gig with Shiver and then I'll ship it home.

I've quit the jazz guitar lessons. They were fighting for time with my songwriting and actually playing. I didn't have time to practice another style, which I probably would never use. The good news is that I've got a lot of music theory under my belt, and it's given me a lot of good information on chord substitution and voice leading that comes in handy even in the pop/rock world. To replace these lessons, I've started taking some voice training. I do have time to sing in the car on the way to and from work. So the week after I get back from Virginia (the family is going there to visit my son who works and lives there - yes, I'm looking forward to it, too), I have practice Tuesday and Wednesday, a voice lesson Thursday, and a performance with AMA on Friday. Then, nothing definite until April.

Finally, I'm learning the Google Web Toolkit and the Google App Toolkit. I've had an idea that would make me fabulously wealthy and I still have enough programming chops to code it. So I'm giving it a shot. We'll see if I can figure it out. I had basic GWT and AT apps running yesterday, but when I tried to combine them, things broke. It was late at night, so I went to bed. I'm back to it after this.

So, that's about it for what's going on with me. I keep on keepin' on. We'll see what happens...

Future of AMA

As the readers here know, I'm playing bass for a Portland band, Against Musical Advice (AMA).

First of all, we had a really good gig at the Sellwood Public House last Saturday evening. Things went really well, there were people that we didn't drag in who seemed to like us, and there were only a couple of "obvious" mistakes.

However, over the past couple of weeks, the band has been debating future direction. We've been doing OK playing a mix of covers and original material, but the drummer (and one of our main songwriters) seems to be in a more acoustic mode these days. I want to push into a more "punk-pop" realm, while the guitarist, although interested in moving in a "hard rocking" direction is seeming to "not feel the magic" and is wanting to get out entirely (even admitting that he's been phoning it in during the last couple of gigs). Put this together with a female singer who doesn't want to become the front person and just wants to sing a third of the songs and this isn't a good formula for longevity. As such, the December 4 performance of AMA at Macadam's Bar and Grill is likely to be the last. This is disappointing on a variety of levels. First, AMA was coming together as a band and playing good stuff. Second, as the band that got me playing live again (at least in the Portland area) I feel a debt to the guys. Finally, as I've gotten to know the folks, they've become friends.

I'm going to talk to Dave about whether or not we go on without Anil. If so, I may take over guitar and we'll look for a bass player. I don't know if we can bridge the punk/acoustic chasm, though. We might be able to do a hybrid - open hard, take a break for slow material, work in Chrissy's stuff, and finish strong. I doubt we'll continue under the name AMA, though - I think that "Love Jack" is a good name for a band.

Getting ready to start recording again

Next one will be an EP. Working title: The Next Brevis Opus. I'm going to go more towards a punk-pop sound on this one.

Finished practicing pre-rehearsal

Learned Little Bones by The Tragically Hip and a new song Dave wrote. Everything else is in my head. I'll probably have to buy a mike cable as my other ones won't be in town until Friday and we practice on Thursday.

A few loose ends

Ok. I've scanned the last few postings and I've gotten a good night's sleep. Here are some things I've talked about lately, but haven't entirely closed on:

1) The CD's arrived. I delivered pre-release copies of them to members of Shiver and friends in Bloomington, Illinois. I will be sending a copy (along with payment for the artwork) to Maren at Linea Forma Design. I will give copies to the members of AMA at rehearsal on Thursday.

2) My fingers are healing fine. I should be in (relatively) good shape for rehearsal on Thursday and performing on Saturday with AMA. Come see us at the Sellwood Public House at 9 pm.

3) I haven't got around to looking at amps yet.

4) The MP3 player works fine.

5) I'll be dropping off copies of the CD to the folks at CD Baby in person rather than via mail (it's about a 15 minute drive from my house, as opposed to a ten minute drive to someplace to get packing materials and a ten minute wait at the PO to have the CD's weighed and shipped. Plus I may get a chance to talk shop with the geeks.

6) I've gotten mixed reports about the streaming audio on the HSR website. Some people seem to be able to play the music, some report they can't. I'm wondering if it's an impatience issue (since it does take a while to initially download the streaming audio flash app) or if some folks don't have flash installed (or the wrong version installed, or...). I still need to look into this.

7) I need to start sending out review/begging for radio play copies of the CD this week.

8) Still waiting for my equipment to get back from Illinois so I can start recording again.

9) Need to start forming Adrian.

10) Probably a "come to Jesus" (no, not literally) meeting with AMA after rehearsal to discuss band direction. Joy...

Still a bit tired from trip. Day job is heating up a bit. That's about it.

Back from Illinois

With only two cuts on my fingers from the 28 hours of practice over three days. I'm also tired because I probably averaged about five hours of sleep per night over the four nights I was there (don't ask me why I have problems getting to sleep in hotel rooms). I also forgot to send Maren a check for the graphics work before I left (I'll be sending it and a copy of the CD tomorrow, Maren). Anyhow, I'm going to get some rest. More later...

Ready to head out to Illinois

According to Al, my equipment arrived. That is good. All my things are packed and I'm ready to go. I picked up a cheap little sleazy 8GB MP3 player at Fry's. I'm downloading tunes now. With any luck the thing will work and last me to Illinois. I'm actually looking forward to this trip, a bit.

Put the CD up on CDBaby. Now I need to send them stock when I get back. A very simple process.

AMA's putative leader wants an eMail discussion on the direction of the band. I told them where I stand. I want to do more punk-pop stuff. We also need to practice as a band more. I let them know that, too. I may not be popular next week.

CDs will be here tomorrow!!!

Oooohhh! I'm excited. My equipment is on schedule to be in Bloomington on Tuesday and I'm on schedule to be there on Thursday afternoon. I'll have dinner with Sandy, Kathy, and Tom that evening and, afterward if it's not too late, I'll go over to Al's and set up my equipment. Otherwise, I'll get up early Friday and set up my equipment.

I went to a music store last Thursday to check on 5-string basses and there was an old Gibson SG in there. I plugged it into a Marshall half stack and got the best "metal" tone I've heard in a while. Since all of my equipment is being shipped, I went home and tried to duplicate the sound with my Johnson J-Station and my bass rig. It turns out that my bass rig is pretty good at clean amplification, so by using the J-Station to distort and tone shape, I can get a pretty decent tone. Given the fact that I have a 2x15 and a 4x8 cab hooked to the biamped heads I don't have to worry about scooping the mids too much. I get a combination of (relatively) tight bass and a nice crunchy distortion up top. I'd ship this rig to use in April, but it would cost me an arm and a leg to do so (two 45 lb. heads, a 80 lb. 2x15 cab, and a 40 lb. 4x8). For what this would cost me to and from, I could buy a 2x12 combo.

And, speaking of which, I'm looking at the various options out there. I know I don't want a Fender - Anil in AMA uses one and they have the most limited tonal qualities I've ever heard. Steve in Shiver plays a Line6 modeling amp of one sort or another and I'm not necessarily impressed with that (nor do I actually like the company). That leaves me, in my price range, Peavey. I understand why techs don't like them (Peavey puts all their electronics on tight PCBs, so they're hard to mod/repair), but there's also an undercurrent of guitar players not liking them. And I'm not sure why that is. In any case, the Windsor 212 looks like a good buy to me. I'm going to check it out this evening.

Got streaming audio up on my site...

Actually, I got streaming audio up on the label site and I redirect to the page with my CD release info. If I ever get another out the door, I'll probably re-org a bit, but until then, all is good. I got my hard drive back from the guys at the studio, so I have all of the project files and MP3s. So, all is done until I get the CDs, look at what the UPC code is and set up CD Baby. Then I'll start sending out mailers to my targeted distribution. So that should keep me busy next week until I leave for Illinois.