RIP, Blue Cheer frontman Dickie Peterson

Blue Cheer were arguably one of the first "heavy metal" bands. They had a hit with their cover of "Summertime Blues". While their career was pretty short, they nonetheless played an important part in the birth of heavy music.

Metal Underground reports that singer Dickie Peterson passed away at the age of 61 Monday morning:

http://www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=49135

Dickie Peterson, the singer and bass player of Blue Cheer, who are considered another one of the first heavy metal bands, sadly passed away this morning in Germany at the age of sixty one. The cause of death has yet to be announced but he had been ill for some time.

Blue Cheer released their first album, "Vincebus Eruptum" in 1968 and released a further five albums until a hiatus. The band returned with a new album in 1984 and released two more albums in 1990 and 1991 before another break. The bands last record was a collection of re-recorded material entitled, "What Doesn't Kill You..." in 2007. Peterson himself had also recorded two solo albums entitled, "Child Of The Darkness" and "Tramp."

What? The world ins't ending in 2012?

Good to know, ans I'm deciding how extravagant to get with decorations for the new studio space:

2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist

In part:

MEXICO CITY – Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."

And the setup continues

Lots of activity _at_ the studio in the last week. Tree trimmers have been hard at work removing some of the silver maples that were threatening to fall on the house. Lots of activity _in_ the studio too, just not recording activity.
Spent most of my spare time this last week and weekend re-wiring everything for the Pro Tools rig. As mentioned previously, I'm also taking the time to improve some things. I'm re-wiring everything, which gives me an opportunity to re-think some things, and adding some new equipment - compressors mostly, but it means I've got more inputs and dynamics processing than before.

Above is a pic of one end of the room with the Pro Tools desk under construction.

And at this point, I'll mention how much I love and hate computers. I love the super efficient work flow of Pro Tools generally, and it's saved my butt (and some of my customers' butts) more than once. Ever had a band play something 5 times instead of 4, and look at you like you're a god when you delete the extra measure so they don't have to do another take because this was _the_ take?
At the same time, though, computers are fallible, and apparently they don't like being moved to new locations. My trusty old G4 decided it didn't want to mount one of its disk drives when I started it up again after ~2 weeks of inactivity. Phooey. Apple's Disk Utility sasys there's nothing wrong with the drive, but won't mount it. Disk Warrior (can't believe I found that disk) says it has problems but it can't fix them. Hmm. I can always erase the disk and re-format it, but I'd rather not do that. So, I order a copy of Data Rescue. It should get here this week, and I'll be sure and let everybody know whether it's worth the $60 plus shipping.

Setting up in the new space - or why a move can be good

I hate moving. I've always said there's no better way to find out how much crap you have than to try to move it. My initial advice to anyone would have been, if you've lived anywhere more than a couple years, do not move - ever.
That said, I'm actually finding this to be quite liberating. Most studios that have been around a while have patched stuff together as they got new stuff and made compromises to make it all work. One of the things a move does is give you a chance to re-do stuff, and do it right. So as much of a PITA as it is, I think it will turn out to be a plus.
More later.

Good For Dave Letterman - I Guess?

David Letterman revealed on his show last night that he'd had affairs with some of his staffers, and that someone who knew about it tried to extort $2 million from him to keep quiet about it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/business/media/03extort.html?hp

David Letterman said on his show on Thursday that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt over charges of sexual affairs with staff members, claims that he conceded were true.

I'm a little conflicted on this. I mean, good for Dave for not playing along with extortion and for admitting his wrong-doing, but I don't really want to congratulate him for the behavior that got him into this mess.

Here's a link to video of him discussing it last night. I'll make it embed later:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9_IipDTS_c&feature=player_embedded