Bloodspoint Studio - Cincinnati, OH

More Van Halen Rumours

2011-07-08T06:22:00.000-07:00

The rumours about Van Halen's new album and tour continue to pour out, and our friends over at MelodicRock.com have all the latest. In part:

What we know is that the album is done and mixed...John Shanks finishing production work on it earlier this year (with other producer names likely to appear inside the album credits.) The rumoured album title is VH '11, 2011 (or Two Zero One One to be precise) and all rumours point to a mid/late September release.
A single was again rumoured to hit airwaves this weekend, but failed to happen.
What I have previously stated is that I personally believe the new album will be released in October, after Van Halen return home from Australia and a single could likely appear late this month or in August.

Head on over to read the rest.

Look, I'm a Van Halen fan. Have been since day one. But the last 13 years of rumours and nothing but a couple of, at best, mediocre "oldies" tours - something Eddie Van Halen said he'd never do - have left me a little... cautious.

Is it wrong that I'm more excited about the upcoming release of Apple's Lion OS? At least I'm pretty sure that will actually happen.

Ding Dong, the Major Label is Dead

2011-06-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

When I was starting out as a musician almost thirty years ago, the ultimate goal everybody always had was to "get signed". That was what made you a rock star.
Over the years, I've had several friends who were "signed", only to find out that it was a bigger hindrance than help. In fact, getting signed to a label ended the careers of several people I know.

I've said for a long time now that there's no real benefit for an artist to be "signed" any more. Advances had to be paid back out of your end as an artist. Record an album? You pay. Tours? You pay. And with the advent of iTunes, Amazon, and services like BandCamp, CD Baby, and TuneCore, artists can have complete control not only of what they release, but how.

Michael Lefsetz has been on the same train of though as I have. In this latest article, he says in part:

"the Internet killed the major label distribution stranglehold. Anyone can sign up with Tunecore and get their music on iTunes. ANYBODY! Sure, the music won't sell, except to family and friends, but it's what this represents that's important. Access and the ability to get paid. The power has shifted.

As for terrestrial radio...it means ever less. Same with TV. You can thank technology, most especially the Internet, for that. People watch what they want when they want. The days of sitting in front of the TV seeing what's next are heading towards extinction, killed by the DVR and online access."

Read the rest here:

http://encore.celebrityaccess.com/index.php?encoreId=309&articleId=39571

I'll just add:

"...never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee" - John Donne

Ding dong.

Mark Tremonti Says He's Heard the New Van Halen Album

2011-06-17T05:04:00.001-07:00

Mark Tremonti, guitarist for Alter Bridge and Creed, and long a friend of Eddie Van Halen, says he's heard the rumoured new Van Halen album.

"...recently I was in Los Angeles and Wolfgang invited me to his Dad's house and I got to go to 5150 studios and watch Eddie and Alex [Van Halen] and Wolfgang play their new record from front to back. So I was one of the only people who have heard the new VAN HALEN. It was incredible."

Read the whole article here.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=159528

I'll be waiting anxiously. I remain skeptical, as VH have't released a new record in thirteen years, but if they do release one this Fall as seems to be the intention, I'll be first in line to pick it up. I hope it's good.

Hmm... Van Halen Tour Coming Up?

2011-05-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

Still nothing but rumours on the album front, but here's a site which suggests Van Halen are to head to Australia for Soundwave 2011.

http://www.undercover.fm/news/14716-van-halen-and-alice-cooper-for-soundwave-revolution

Could it be?

Michael Lefsetz tells us what we can learn from Rebecca Black

2011-04-01T04:48:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen Rebecca Black's Youtube hit, "Friday", you should do that first, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

After you've seen that, check out Michael Lefsetz' article about things we can learn from this phenomenon.
Here's a favourite:

14. Give the money away. Not only does it deflect criticism, it helps your bona fides. In other words, Rebecca Black is smarter than Beyonce. In the new world, you give back simultaneously with making it. Black is giving her profits to earthquake relief in Japan. How come she's smarter than all those stars who played for a dictator?

Read the rest:

http://encore.celebrityaccess.com/index.php?encoreId=297&articleId=38721

Van Halen Reported To Be Mixing a New Album?

2011-03-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

Well, Van Halen were recording a new album, I guess at some point they'd have to mix it.

Posted with my usual skepticism, but BlabberMouth reports:

Today, respected Metal Show host, Eddie Trunk, tweeted that he heard gossip from a “reliable source” that the “VH album is close to done and will come out this year. Label TBD” This matches up perfectly with what we heard from a trusted source at the beginning of March – that the recording process is going great and the band is starting to mix the new tracks. Also, from another reliable source of ours today, we hear that this Fall is the most probably time that the album will be released and a tour will begin.

I'd love to see some new material, especially if it's up to the quality of the six albums recorded previously with David Lee Roth.

Waiting patiently, as always...

Sammy Hagar's Autobiography

2011-03-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

Sammy Hagar, of Montrose, Van Halen, and solo fame, has an autobiography called "Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock". Available at Amazon and lots of other places, it's a must read if you love rock bios as much as I.

Michael Lefsetz has some things to say about it in his Encore Newsletter column.

Here's a bit of his column:

I don't believe every word in this book. Especially about Sam's early days, growing up in Fontana. And there are historical inaccuracies, stating that Sam's band played the cuts from "Who's Next" before it was released, and even John Kalodner's name is misspelled, but when it comes to the inside, Sam gives us his take, unvarnished, and it's like being backstage, the real dressing room where your heroes are spent and drugged-out and wasted and arguing after performing for ninety minutes and getting blow jobs under the stage.

I just got the book, and have just started reading it. I don't believe every word either, but some of the stuff about his time in Van Halen is compelling, and there have been too many similar tales about Eddie Van Halen in particular from different sources to write Sammy's account off entirely as sour grapes from an ousted band member.
If you have any interest in the soap opera that has been Van Halen, check it out.

Some NAMM News I Can Use

2011-01-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

Not everybody knows this, but I started my musical life as a guitarist, way before I got into the recording side of things. When I heard that Marshall were introducing an Yngwie Malmsteen Signature amp, I wondered what they could possibly add to the classic Marshall Super Lead that I've come to know and love. As it turns out, they came up with some pretty cool stuff. The attenuator and valve failure circuitry will especially appeal to anyone who has tried to use a Marshall live. Check here for the details:

http://www.guitarnoize.com/blog/comments/namm-2011-marshall-yjm100-yngwie-malmsteen-signature-valve-amplifier-head

Breakdown of the FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling

2010-12-30T04:48:00.000-08:00

Net neutrality is a concept that's very hard to make tangible for everyone, but it's important to you if you use the net. The FCC recently made an important ruling, and here's DVICE's breakdown:

http://dvice.com/archives/2010/12/what-you-need-t.php#more

In part:

The Good

Network management and packet discrimination must be reasonable

The FCC is trying to prevent companies from being able to pay more to have an Internet service provider (ISP) treat its data better than everyone else's. We're not talking about charging you and me for a faster connection (which is fine), we're talking about giving different types of data prioritization across the network, which would make things suck for everyone who didn't pay for that service. This is now a no-no.

Now for something completely different - Archaeology

2010-12-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

One of my hobbies outside the realm of music is history. That's actually what my first degree is in. My dream job would be something where I could spend all day going through dusty old books or researching on the internet.
So stuff like this really jazzes me.

Archaeology Magazine's Top Ten Discoveries of 2010.

These are all so cool, I can't even pick a favourite.

And back to the Van Halen Rumours...

2010-12-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

From the Van Halen News Desk, aka the VHND, some more rumours about what, if anything, the lads in Van Halen have been up to or may soon be up to:

Sources tell the Van Halen News Desk that the band is very eager to tour, and that they want to tour behind new material. Eddie Van Halen has been very busy during most of 2010 writing music. Alex and Wolfgang Van Halen often join Eddie in the 5150 studio and the three of them have been hard at work jamming and recording demos. The three Van Halens have been sending the music to David Lee Roth, who’s adding the lyrics. Two of our sources have heard some of the early versions of the tracks (without vocals) and were very pleased. The music is said to sound like straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll and “very Van Halen.”

Read the rest here:

http://www.vhnd.com/2010/12/09/huge-van-halen-update-van-halens-2011-plans-and-the-truth-behind-the-rumors/

As usual, I remain skeptical. My biggest worry at this point is not whether VH will put out any more material or whether they will tour. My biggest worry is whether anyone will care either way. Have VH simply waited themselves into irrelevance?

New Toad the Wet Sprocket Song

2010-12-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

Just in time for Christmas, one of my all-time favourite bands, Toad the Wet Sprocket, have released a new song.
It's called "It Doesn't Feel Like Christmas", and you can listen or download it here:

http://toadthewetsprocket.bandcamp.com/

Recorded some Christmas Songs

2010-12-08T04:36:00.000-08:00

A rare bit of studio activity to post. Had some really nice ladies in on November 27th to record some Christmas-y songs on piano and vocals. I had just gotten the Yamaha C7's tuning touched up the week before, so it was sounding great. First time recording it in the new room, and it sounded beautiful.

We did five songs in total - three with vocals and two just piano. I used the Neumann U87 for the vocals, and started out with a pair of Audio Technica AT3035's for the piano, but ended up switching to the Oktava MC-012's before we got going. They just seemed to be capturing the detail of the piano better.

Preamp for the U87 was my trusty Great River MP-2NV, and an ART TPS-II for the piano. The Great River is very precise sounding and a good match with the Neumann, while the ART is good for putting a little softer edge on the piano.

I didn't have anything else in the signal chain going in - just mics > preamps > Pro Tools. On the mixdown, I did add a little bright plate reverb to the vocals, but I left the piano pretty much alone, save for flipping the phase on one of the piano tracks.

The U87/MP-2NV pairing is my go-to for vocal tracking. The combination gives some really nice, crisp sounding vocals that are just so easy to fit into the mix. I've never once had a problem using that setup getting the vocal to sit right where I want it and still cut right through. I also can't say enough good things about Fletcher from Mercenary Audio, from whence I got both the Neumann and the Great River. He was great listening to what I was trying to do and giving me a recommendation that worked great for me.

More Van Halen "News"?

2010-11-16T05:02:00.000-08:00

From MelodicRock.com

As always, I wait, and remain sceptical, but hopeful. Interesting that Eddie may be playing most or all of the bass on the album, though there were rumours that he had done the same on some of VH's previous releases.
Sounds like things remain tense between Eddie and Dave Roth.
Hopefully they can hold it together long enough to get the album out and tour.

VAN HALEN - 2011 STILL SHAPING UP FOR A BIG YEAR:
Let's great straight to it - it's been quiet in the Van Halen camp since a wave of expectation and excitement broke following news leaks a few months back regarding a possible new album and tour for 2011.
The Tour: The band will tour extensively in 2011, taking in North America, likely European dates and even some Australian dates, which local newspaper the Herald Sun stated Sunday - [VH] "...are very close to confirming an Oz visit next year..."
The line-up will remain as it was for the 2007 tour - Eddie, Alex, Wolfgang and David Lee Roth.

The New Album: Numerous reports about new music coming from the band are true. There is new music recorded with the expectation of an all-new studio album featuring David Lee Roth to be released in 2011. What is not known right now is the time frame for this.
Here is what I was told. It seems DLR's vocals are being recorded away from the 5150 studio, with Eddie receiving various vocal tracks from the singer, but not always to the guitarist's satisfaction. I'm told that it's work in progress between Eddie and Dave.
I also heard, but cannot confirm, that Eddie has recorded most of the bass parts for the album.

There is a deal in place between Warner Bros. and the band for a new album (as announced a few months back). However, I'm told there is a genuine fear from the label that the album may now not be ready before tour commitments begin. The album was definitely expected to be released in early 2011, but there has been so much going back and forth and re-arranging, so if the recordings are not turned in by early 2011, the label have developed a contingency plan.
That is preparing re-masters of the Sammy Hagar era catalogue (curious decision perhaps, but the only albums left to do), as well as preparing Blue-Ray releases of Live Without a Net and Live Right Here Right Now so at least there is something on the market when the band tours.
Additionally they are preparing limited edition Vinyl releases, which have just appeared on the Rhino/Warner schedule. 1984, Women And Children First and Van Halen II will be released on LP December 13.

And to close - the band apparently tested a few different producers, but the man at the helm for this album is one Ross Hogarth. Go look him up. His website makes no mention of any work with Van Halen, but in July he did make one reference to a new record he was starting. He stated: "The record I just started ROCKS!!! [it] will be amazing...that is all I will say..."

Stay tuned as always...more soon.

Michae Anthony talks about why he's not in VH

2010-10-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

Nothing really new here or that we didn't know, but a very frank telling of why he's no longer Van Halen's bass player, from Blabbermouth.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=148124

Anthony explained, "Some VAN HALEN fans say I left the band to hook up with Sammy, but I never said, 'I quit.' There was nothing going on in the VAN HALEN camp, but Eddie kinda backed me up against a wall. . . Eddie felt that I was a traitor.

He went on to say, "The major reason why I'm not in VAN HALEN (now) is because I became friends with Sammy again. The Van Halen brothers never got over that. If they hold a grudge, they hold it forever."

Well, not forever maybe, but they can definitely hold a grudge for a long time.

Van Halen to Tour in 2011?

2010-10-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

So says Irving Azoff, who owns or manages the entire music industry. Of course, Van Halen's official site says nothing, but it's not exactly known for breaking news.
Here's what the Rolling Stone article says, in part:

Van Halen will return to the road in 2011 — or so said Live Nation Ticketmaster chairman Irving Azoff, in a meeting with analysts meant to show that the outlook for next year's concert circuit will brighten. Van Halen, with David Lee Roth, last toured together in June 2008. According to USA Today , Azoff, who is also Van Halen's manager, named Van Halen, Christina Aguilera, Fleetwood Mac and the cast of Glee as some of the artists that are expected to pack stadium and arenas when they embark on tours next year. Van Halen's 2008 tour grossed $93 million for Live Nation.

We'll see. And if they are going to tour again, does that mean new music could be on the way? Finally? Please??

Four Chords is All You Need

2010-09-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

I think everyone who's ever really studied pop music kind of know this, but this is pretty cool anyway.

http://wimp.com/songchords

Marshall USA?

2010-09-16T19:49:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure if this is a good thing, a bad thing, or neither, but Marshall is apparently splitting off its US operations:

Marshall Amplification announced today the formation of Marshall USA. This new business unit will begin operation on October 1st, and shipments to dealers will begin October 18th. Jon Ellery, Marshall UK Co-managing Director announced that Marc Lee Shannon will assume the position of VP Sales for Marshall USA on October 1st. Marc Lee is a long term industry veteran, who spent the last 17 years heading sales with Audio Technica. Jon Ellery also announced that Ryan Rhodes has been named the Brand Director for Marshall USA and will lead the product direction and work closely with Marshall UK to insure a coordinated worldwide effort. Ryan is very familiar with the Marshall heritage, having worked in past Marshall distribution in the US for 15 years. More Marshall dedicated management will be added shortly, with announcements to follow.

The rest is here:

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/Daily/News/Marshall_Announces_Formation_of_Marshall_USA.aspx

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Re-mixing China Grove

2010-09-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

I've always thought it would be cool to have the chance to re-mix a classic recording. Not that I think I could necessarily do better (though sometimes...), but it would be cool just to be able to hear the tracks in their raw form.

Chris Baseford gets to do just that, re-mixing them for an iPhone app called Jammit.

Here's his take on "China Grove", one of the Doobie Brothers' most famous tracks, originally engineered and produced by Ted Templeman and Donn Landee, one of my favorite production teams of the 70's.

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Jul/Secrets_of_the_Masters_The_Doobie_Brothers_China_Grove.aspx

This bit here pretty much spells out my whole philosophy when it comes to recording - get the sound at the source, rather than trying to "fix it in the mix".

I wasn’t all that surprised to see (and hear) everything laid-out and organized nicely, and immediately sounding familiar with the faders at zero and without EQ or effects.

The Triple Decker Record?

2010-09-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

If you thought there was nothing new going on in the world of vinyl records, behold the Triple Decker Record - a 12" with a 7" inside! From those clever folks at United Record Pressing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ3c3WZ-3UU

A classical voice teacher rates classic metal singers

2010-08-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Hasn't been much going on recently, but I thought this was interesting. Claudia Friedlander, a NYC based voice teacher, rates classic metal singers including Bruce Dickinson and Ronnie James Dio.

http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2010/07/ask-a-real-musician-5-classic-male-metal-singers/

Interesting piece that basically confirms what I already knew - Bruce and Rob Halford (among others) can sing! I could have told you that after seeing Priest and Maiden on tour together in '82.

New Van Halen Album in 2011?

2010-08-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

As usual, I preface this with my normal "believe it when I see it disclaimer", but this snippet from Blabbermouth.net quotes Warner/Chappell as saying that Van Halen is working on a new album with David Lee Roth, due out in 2011.

Warner/Chappell Music has extended its administration agreements with two original members of the legendary rock band VAN HALEN, Eddie and Alex Van Halen. Under the agreement, Warner/Chappell will continue to administer their catalog of works...
Most recently, the band toured with founding brothers, Eddie and Alex Van Halen, its original lead singer, David Lee Roth, and Eddie's son, Wolfgang, playing bass. The group is currently in the studio recording an album with Roth that is due for release in 2011.

As I said, time will tell. I'll buy it if they put it out. I'd like to see the band live one more time with Roth, too. I missed the 2008 tour, so the last time I saw Van Halen with David Lee Roth was 1984. Now, if they could just get Mike Anthony back...

The History of the Music Industry - 1960's to Present

2010-08-06T05:13:00.000-07:00

Bob Lefsetz has an interesting short history of the music industry - including its recent floundering - over on the Encore site. It explains pretty nicely the changes over the last 45 years or so, including the phase we're in now, which I argue is a return to the "single driven" market that existed before groups like the Beatles ushered in the age of the album. He also tells it like it is with regard to the industry's failure to adapt and realize that their "goldrush" of the 70's and 80's was over. If the IT market had been similarly inflexible, I wouldn't be typing this now.

Read the article here:

http://encore.celebrityaccess.com/index.php?encoreId=260&articleId=36040

Here's a nice little snippet:

2000-2010

The major labels bitched themselves into irrelevancy. They own radio and TV, which is like owning the "Perry Como Show" when everybody's tuned into FM. And since the "Como Show"'s ratings are declining, they make everybody who appears sign a contract coughing up a percentage of all their revenue. It's unfair. And who wants to watch the "Como Show" anyway?

Yep, that pretty much says it.

Could Music Videos Be Coming to MTV Once Again?

2010-07-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

First, Beavis and Butt-head return to MTV. What's next, videos?

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/they_re_back_PZVN8lcKHQYVIYx3xAJRtM?sms_ss=facebook

They're back!
Heh heh, it's 1995 all over again, dude

By MICHAEL STARR

'Beavis and Butt-head" -- the show that celebrated the slacker way of life and helped make MTV into a network that did more than just play music videos -- is coming back.

The move to resurrect the hugely popular 1990s animated anti-heroes has been rumored for several days. But yesterday, sources at MTV confirmed that a new batch of "Beavis and Butt-head" episodes are in the works.

It would certainly be ironic, since the success of shows like Beavis and Butt-head is what steered MTV away from videos and into "other" programming to start with.

Rik Emmett says Van Halen is Booking a Tour?

2010-07-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Sure, sure. I'll hold my breath:

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Rik-Emmett-713/

According to Rik Emmett in an interview with Gibson Lifestyle:

We’re scheduled to go for a dinner tonight with a couple of guys from Live Nation that have flown into town and want to take us to dinner. I’m sure there’s going to be some sort of a pitch. The rumors that have been sort of blowing in the wind are that Van Halen want to go back out yet again next year, but they’re going to need some sort of support to make the packaging a little more interesting. Because Triumph hasn’t really ever toured in any kind of a nostalgia way, I think Live Nation kind of goes, “Oh, yeah, you guys would be perfect for that.” So, we’ll see sort of the size and the shape and the glitter of the golden carrots that they have.

Rumors About New Van Halen Album Just That - Rumors

2010-07-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I did say I'd believe it when I saw it, and Rolling Stone quotes the recently minted Mrs. Eddie Van Halen, who also happens to be Eddie's spokesperson, as saying that to her knowledge, nothing is going on.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/17386/152865

The web was abuzz with rumors that Van Halen had completed a new album — the first with David Lee Roth back as lead singer — over July Fourth weekend, with a "source" even telling MelodicRock.com that a first single is due at the end of the year. The report also claimed that the new album, the classic Van Halen lineup's first since 1984, was nearly halfway complete and that it would be released in the first half of 2011. However, Eddie Van Halen's wife and spokesperson Janie Van Halen has denied the report to Rolling Stone. "What is going around is exactly that, rumors. I don't have any updates at this time," Janie Van Halen said.

Bummer.

So, I continue to wait and hope...

And wait, and hope...

Van Halen - "Light at the end of the tunnel"?

2010-06-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Posted today at melodicrock.com

VAN HALEN - POSSIBLE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?:
It's been a while since I reached out to one of my best sources of Van
Halen info over the years, but it had to be done. And I got the
information I was hoping for - independent confirmation from a long
time source I trust that Van Halen are indeed working towards finishing
recording of a long awaited new studio album with David Lee Roth, set
for release sometime in the first half of 2011. A single is slated for
release before the end of this year, but exact timing still remains
very much up in the air. I'm told the relationship between Eddie and
Dave remains as complex as ever, but there is a definite desire to get
a new record completed.

We've heard similar before, so I remain skeptical. Still, fingers crossed. If nothing else, Eddie might be interested in touring to drum up interest in his guitar gear line.

Some of WOXY Survives

2010-06-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

No, not the station, unfortunately. WOXY.com is still off the air, maybe for good. But one of the things that made WOXY so valuable to me and countless others was all the great new music it brought to our attention.
To that end, here's a little ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak situation. Mike Taylor, the Program Director of WOXY.com and a DJ from WOXY's FM days going way back now has his own blog. Check it out:

http://thisisthebigbeat.blogspot.com/

He's hit the ground running already with some great new music recommendations. So, even if we can't hear the best new music on WOXY right now, at least we've still got Mike pointing us in the right direction.

Will Major Labels be Extinct by Year's End?

2010-06-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

That's what Radiohead's Thom Yorke thinks:

http://blogs.chron.com/celebritybuzz/2010/06/radiohead_frontman_music_indus.html

I've been saying for a long time I think the big labels are irrelevant in today's "do it yourself" music market. I mean, why do you need them?

To pay for expensive recording studios? Nope. Artists can record their own material affordably these days.

The expense of producing CD's? Really? Does anybody even press CD's any more? I don't think I've walked into a "record store" and bought a CD in the last five years. Even for gifts, I send people electronic gift certificates to iTunes or Amazon.

To handle distribution? Hardly. Anybody can distribute his own material on the two biggest online markets, Amazon.com and iTunes, through services like TuneCore.

Here's the relevant portion of the article:

In an interview for a new high school textbook called The Rax Active Citizen Toolkit, which aims to inspire youngsters to become more politically literate, Yorke claims the music industry is on the verge of a major crisis and could collapse completely within "months".

He says, "It will be only a matter of time - months rather than years - before the music business establishment completely folds. (It will be) no great loss to the world."

Do I believe the labels and record companies will be out of business by Christmas? No, but I do think their time is short, and I blame them for their own demise, for refusing to see and adapt to the changing market. And now arguably, it's too late. They're headed straight for the iceberg.
They're sinking, that much is certain. The only question is how long they've got.

Bets, anyone?

More News on New Van Halen Material?

2010-05-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

More to file under "I'll believe it when I hear it", but the Van Halen News Desk posted this snippet from John 5, aka John Lowry, former DLR guitarist:

http://www.vhnd.com/2010/05/28/john-5-on-van-halen-they-are-writing-right-now-at-5150-eddie-is-on-fire/

Shredding mastermind John 5 recently joined the Hard Rock Nights radio program to talk about his new solo record, The Art Of Malice, and working with Rob Zombie, David Lee Roth, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rob Halford, Lita Ford, etc.

John talks about working with David Lee Roth on his DLR Band CD at 1:59 into the interview. Then at 5:06 they ask him about Eddie…

Q: “Now Dave, of course, is back in Van Halen, last we heard…”

A: “Yes.”

Q: “Have you met Eddie? Have you gotten to sit down and talk with him any?”

A: “Oh yeah me and Eddie are good friends. He’s a great guy, you know, he’s doing great, playing great and looks great. He’s on fire right now. They’re writing right now, at Eddie’s place - at 5150 - and he is on fire right now.”

A "new Van Halen record"? I'll believe it when I hear it

2010-05-25T04:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a quote from Dweezil Zappa on current Van Halen activity - which for those of you who don't follow the VH saga, is kind of linke getting news on the progress of the third Boston album.

The whole article is here:

http://www.glidemagazine.com/articles/55956/dweezil-zappa-the-next-phase-of-zappa-plays-zappa.html

And here's the quote that VH fans will be interested in:

"It’s
kind of funny, because I’ve recently been spending some time with Eddie
Van Halen after being out of touch for a while. He was playing me some
new stuff from his record..."

Well, as I said, I'll believe it when I hear it. Do I hope we really are close to the first VH record in 12 years? Absolutely, but Eddie's been "working on new stuff" for at least ten years - they were in the middle of cutting the follow up to "3" when Warner Bros. pulled the plug in '99, and though Eddie has, by his own estimation about ten albums' worth of music queued up, none of it has hit the light of day.
Not that there haven't been positive signs. The '08 tour with David Lee Roth back at the VH helm went a lot better than the previous tour with Sammy Hagar, and Eddie is reported to be as clean as Eddie gets. Still, if there were Vegas odds on the release of a new record in 2010, they'd be pretty long.
I guess I'll just continue to wait and see.

Axl Rose Sues Irving Azoff - for trying to get GnR back together?

2010-05-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

The drama that is/was Guns 'n' Roses apparently will never end. The latest is Axl Rose suing Irving Azoff for $5 million, for among other things, trying to orchestrate a reunion of the "band", which for the past decade or so has basically just been Axl.

Read the whole story here: http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/05/guns-n-roses-reunion-.html#more

In part:

Axl Rose says his former manager tried to implement a scheme to force him to reunite with the original Guns N' Roses band members and, as part of the plot, failed to properly promote the "Chinese Democracy" album, lied about a prospective Van Halen super tour and mishandled the band's tour dates.
The claims are part of a bombshell countersuit filed yesterday against Irving Azoff's Front Line Management. In March, Azoff sued Rose, claiming the rocker violated an oral agreement to pay 15% of earnings, or nearly $2 million, from a lucrative concert tour.

We've Moved!

2010-05-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

After over ten years in our previous location, Bloodspoint Studio has moved. We're fully functional. Not everything is pretty enough for pictures yet, but here are a couple:

Well, this is about 10 years too late...

2010-04-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Universal announces test of new pricing structure for CD's.

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i56ed42b9a46f8554e2671afccecca01b

The Universal Music Group could rewrite U.S. music pricing when it tests a new frontline pricing structure, which is designed to get single CDs in stores at $10, or below.

Beginning in the second quarter and continuing through most of the year, the company's Velocity program will test lower CD prices. Single CDs will have the suggested list prices of $10, $9, $8, $7 and $6.

If they'd done this about ten years ago, it might actually have helped to save CD's. As it is now, CD's have been too pricey for too long, and online music from iTunes and Amazon just has too strong a foothold. Plus, they still don't entirely get it:

To accommodate the lower pricing, UMG labels also plan to step up deluxe versions of albums that can sell at higher prices for the more devout music fans and collectors. UMG is also banking that the lower price points will at the least be offset by increasing CD sales volume.

It's not like they're losing money on CD's now. They've been overpriced since they came out, initially because it supposedly cost so much to produce them. And selling stripped down versions for what should be the price of the full album just misses the point altogether.

More on WOXY's Shutdown

2010-03-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

An excellent article on the latest situation and some words from Mike Taylor here:

http://prod1.cmj.com/articles/display_article.php?id=169548183

As someone said on woxy.com's discussion board, "I was ready (for them to go off the air) in 2004 and 2006. I wasn't ready today". The difference of course being that there was warning both on both previous occasions - sometimes months. Not so with today's abrupt silence.

Well Crap - WOXY is Silenced - Again

2010-03-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

In the latest in a series ups and downs since they ended their terrestrial reign at 97.7 FM here in Cincinnati in 2004, WOXY (Bam! The future of rock and roll!) is off the air (internet) again, just six months after they moved to Austin, to be "closer to the music":

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100323/ENT03/100323004/1055/NEWS/WOXY.com+shutting+down

I'd like to say I was shocked, but as I said, things have been rocky for WOXY for the last six years. It seems it's very difficult to be a viable commercial concern at the cutting edge of music, sad as it is to say that.
I hope this isn't the really real final farewell this time.

RIP, Alex Chilton

2010-03-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Alex Chilton, the most influential musician whose name nobody recognized, passed away last night.
Chilton scored his first hit (at 16!) with the Boxtops' "The Letter", and later went on to further acclaim, if not much fame, with Big Star. Never heard of Big Star? If you ever watched "That 70's Show", their song "In the Street" was re-made for the theme of that show, and those of you who are long time alterna pop fans will know that the Replacements immortalized Alex Chilton in their song of the same name.
Alex and a reformed Big Star, now featuring Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow from The Posies, had been gigging recently, and were supposed to play at this year's SXSW festival in Austin, TX.
Here's a link to a report from SXSW which discusses the impact of Alex's life, and death. Lots of good clips and info here:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2010/03/rip-alex-chilton/1

To quote Paul Westerberg, "I never travel far without a little Big Star".

The State of A&R Today

2010-02-24T12:05:00.000-08:00

It's not just the recording studios that are feeling the crunch of the "record it yourself, sell it yourself" model the music business works on these days. I admire the DIY ethic, if not always the results, for recording, but certainly, record companies had too much power for too long. Here's a bit excerpted from an article at LA Weekly.

When, at the turn of the millennium, the record industry fumbled the digital-distribution opportunity presented by the budding Internet, its profits plummeted, as the public lost interest in the suddenly clumsy compact disc (U.S. album sales shrank from 785 million in 2000 to 428 million in 2008, according to Nielsen Soundscan). Drastic layoffs followed — more than 5,000 industrywide between 2000 and 2007 — as buyouts and mergers reduced the major labels to a "Big 4" and significant brands like Arista, V2 and DreamWorks vanished altogether. A&R ranks withered accordingly: 127 A&R executives were let go or chose to leave their jobs during 2007 alone, according to business-contact source The A&R Registry.

The whole article is here:

http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/music/a-r-star-makers-the-vanishing-gatekeepers/1

Gibson Accused of Price Fixing

2010-02-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

Gibson, who made the news a few months ago regarding a controversy about the source of their wood, and then more recently because if a layoff sparked by "slow sales", makes the headlines again, this time for price fixing. I can't say this would be a huge surprise if it's true. They have narrowed their retailer base quite a bit in recent years, and forced those that did remain to stop advertising prices on the internet, mostly to stop price wars. How is this much different/worse if it's true?

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100218/BUSINESS01/2180331/Gibson+Guitar+faces+price-fixing+lawsuits

Gibson Guitar Corp., which laid off about 50 people a year ago, may be subjected to even more financial pain this year, but the blame can't be pinned all on the recession.

The Nashville-based manufacturer is being hammered in a number of class action lawsuits accusing Gibson and other groups of fixing the retail prices on guitars.
The litigation comes on the heels of Gibson being investigated by federal authorities on whether it uses wood protected under U.S. law at its manufacturing facility in Nashville.
Gibson has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

Abby Road for Sale?

2010-02-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

I'd buy it if I had the $$.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8519706.stm

Apparently, it's not a profitable use of prime London real estate any more:

"It is an extensive piece of real estate and it must cost a lot to run," said Dave Robinson of Pro Sound News Europe magazine.
"There are easier ways to make records these days, with a laptop and a microphone. You don't need these big places."

So much for Plan A

2010-02-13T15:03:00.001-08:00

The plan for today was to head to Guitar Center and play around with the '65 Princeton Reverb Reissue. They had one all right, but the entire time I was there, it was in use. There was a woman there trying out what seemed like every single variant of Strat and Tele in the entire place - into that amp. To be fair, she played well, so it wasn't like some hack was feeding it with a Metal Zone and butchering Metallica riffs. She was playing cool sounding bluesy and jazzy riffs which sounded pretty good, confirming that the amp will do the "Fender Clean" sound. What I want to know is if it will replicate the sound I once got out of a borrowed silverface Princeton Reverb. This particular amp got nice and grindy about halfway up, and sounded great with my humbucker equipped Strat. A subsequent silverface PR I got in a trade, while it was minty clean, just didn't do that sound. It went from quiet, to too loud, to farty sounding.
I'm looking for a replacement for the '73 Twin Reverb I have now. Nothing wrong with the Twin - it's just bigger than I need right now, and I'm trying to save some space. I think I can be confident that it will do "clean". Question is, will it do that nice dirty sound I remember?
Guess I'll have to see if I can get back down there tomorrow (or maybe lunch time Monday or Tuesday) to find out.
Of course, it's all academic unless I can find a buyer for the Twin, or find someone who'll trade me a silverface Deluxe Reverb or Princeton Reverb.

So, I realized that I had some glaring omissions yesterday - more pedal comparos

2010-02-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

So, I realized that I had some glaring omissions yesterday in my overdrive shootout. I forgot the Danelectro Transparent Overdrive and the BOSS SD-1. Since the Ibanez TS5 won yesterday's shootout, today I'm going to pit it against the Danelectro Transparent Overdrive and the BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive. And I switched 2nd and 3rd places from yesterday's results. The Bad Monkey will get exactly the sound of the Sparkle if I tweak the highs a little, and it doesn't have the audible lag when switched on that the Sparkle does. Inexcusable for a boutique pedal.

Today's results:

Wow. What is the Transparent Overdrive supposed to be a clone of? Whatever it is, it's a hell of a pedal. Today's contest was the Ibanez TS-5 (yesterday's winner) against the TOD and the BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive.

Third place - yesterday's winner, the TS5. This one sounded the dullest of the three I tested today, with the least harmonic detail, and less sparkle when cleaned up. Still an okay pedal, but not the best today.

Second Place - the SD-1. This pedal kept up very well with the TOD, but seemed to cut more bass off, and didn't have the same harmonic overtone that the TOD did. Cleaned up better than the TS5, but less individual string definition in chords.

The winner - the Danelectro Transparent Overdrive. This pedal has more gain on tap by about 10% than either of the others, and sounded best when cleaned up. It's also got more tone tailoring capability than the other two, with its 2-band EQ. What really pushed this one over the top, though, was how harmonically rich the sound was even with the volume at full. I could hear every note and harmonic right through the overdrive. The fact that it's $39 doesn't hurt any either, but I was judging solely on what sounded good to me.

Coming up next - small tube amp shootouts.

Overdrive Pedal Shootout

2010-02-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

I've been finding myself liking the sound of my Strats lately, but they always end up sounding thin in a band context, so I end up falling back on my humbucker equipped guitars. They don't have as much colour or detail, but they fill out the sound. Single coils seem to need a little help, especially in one-guitar bands. In that spirit, I decided to try out some of my overdrive pedals - the TS-5, Sparkle, Bad Monkey, as well as the DOD YJM308 overdrive, to see which, if any of them, could make my Strats beefy enough to play live with.

A couple of notes: I am not a fan of the super muted lead sound. I like some brightness and cut to my tone, as I'm used to competing against a pretty aggressive bass player and drummer.
Also, these are all pedals that I own. Nobody has ever sent me anything for free - well, I got some free strings once for answering a survey.

I also generally do not believe in spending several hundred dollars each for pedals - especially dirt boxes. Part of that is philosophical - there's maybe $15 in parts in a dirt box. I don't see what would make one worth $300 new. No offense to guys who make boutique pedals. It's a rough business. I have a friend who makes his living that way, and I've told him his pedals are too expensive for me. Part of it is economical - as I said, I buy all my own pedals, and as many as I buy, I'd go broke at boutique prices. So, I tend to stick with stuff I can get for under $100 - well under $100 in most cases. Some of these pedals have been in my collection for more than 25 years, and some are newer. As my wife would tell you, I'm always buying pedals. I'm only able to test pedals I own though, so if you're wondering "what about the ___?", it means I don't own one, probably because it is too expensive for me.
All that said, on to the shootout.

I have to say, I'm a little surprised at the results, which were the same for both Strats, though they are electrically quite different.

One guitar is a bone stock Fender Yngwie signature Strat (DiMarzio YJM/YJM/HS3 in Neck/Middle/Bridge) - the other is a custom Strat with alder body, maple/maple neck, and combination of GFS vintage alnico pickups in the neck and bridge and a DiMarzio FS-1 in the bridge position. Amp was my typical gigging setup - my '78 Marshall 2203 head with the preamp volume at about 6 - a good spot for humbucker guitars, but it sounds thin and clean with a Strat - into my Avatar 2x12 with two Celestion Vintage 30's. I play 95% of the time guitar -> amp, unless I specifically need a delay or flanging effect or something. I also wire all my Strats to have a Tone attached to the bridge pickup, but I only use it if I really have to cut highs for some reason. Most of my testing was done in the bridge position, because that's where I spend most of my time. I'm a rock player for the most part, who likes pretty aggressive tones, though not "metal" by today's standards, by a long shot. To me, the perfect guitar tone is 70's era Thin Lizzy.
If you're a blues player who plays on the neck pickup all the time through clean amps, your mileage may vary.

First off, the YJM308 is right out, unless you're trying to ape the Yngwie tone. It does that in spades, but that's about it. Cuts way too much low and mid to be generally useful for my tastes.
So, it was down to the following:

In third place, the Bad Monkey. This pedal has a little more gain than the other two and sounded okay on single note stuff, but also sounded the most "diffuse" and "weakest" in terms of cut, which was especially noticeable on power chords and double stop stuff. It also got dull sounding when I turned down the guitar's volume to clean up a little.

Runner up, the Sparkle Tone. This was a close race, and the Sparkle did have the best harmonics, but still sounded a little more diffuse than I'd like. I want a Strat to slice like a hammer. It also has the clean add in thing, which I hate and never use. I could live with this pedal, but I'd sure hate to have paid full price for it.

And today's winner, the lowly Ibanez Sound Tank TS-5. Had the best cut of all, most focused sound, and stayed sparkly when cleaned up. When it came down to it, this is the pedal I was playing most when I realized I'd been playing for ten minutes, and was supposed to be switching around to compare pedals.

All the pedals above were set for unity volume with the gain cranked and tone knobs at neutral. I did eventually add a little low on the BM to embolden its sound a little.

More on the Van Halen Mike Anthony Saga

2009-12-18T12:52:00.000-08:00

As reported by Blabbermouth:

MICHAEL ANTHONY Says Friendship With SAMMY HAGAR Got Him Booted From VAN HALEN - Dec. 17, 2009

"The major reason why I'm not in VAN HALEN (now) is because I became friends with Sammy again. The Van Halen brothers never got over that. If they hold a grudge, they hold it forever."

Jeez, talk about holding a grudge.

See the rest here.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=132177

Are Band Members Consumable Goods?

2009-11-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

Is one drummer (or singer, guitar player, etc.) as good as any other, or are some musicians so special, they just can't be replaced. Bob Lefsetz thinks the latter, and I agree in some cases. Maybe you can replace the bass player in Bon Jovi, but nobody has ever really replaced John Bonham.

'Flying High Again'
Posted: November 19, 2009
Conventional wisdom is musicians are fungible. If one dies or quits, you just get another. But players are not like cars, which you crash and then replace, they're not like workers on an assembly line, in the best cases they're unique, which is why we love them so, which is why their legends live on long past their deaths, which is why when bands pick up and go on without them, they're oftentimes missing a crucial element.

See the rest of Lefsetz' article here:

http://encore.celebrityaccess.com/index.php?encoreId=223&articleId=33157

Chickenfoot Live Video - Where's Van Halen's??

2009-11-19T05:51:00.000-08:00

So Chickenfoot, which has had one album and one tour, has a live concert film coming out:

http://www.sonyclubdates.com/chickenfoot.html

World Premiere Theatrical Event on Tuesday December 1st, 2009

Come experience the very first filmed live show of the new rock collaboration Chickenfoot. Yes, Chickenfoot! In Theatres on December 1st.

CHICKENFOOT LIVE the concert film features Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony formerly of Van Halen, world-class guitarist and band founder Joe Satriani, and the “funk/alternative” drummer Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Don’t miss one of the greatest rock music collaborations of all-time live in Full HD and 5.1 Surround Sound coming to select theatres on December 1st, 2009!

All of this is great for Chickenfoot and for Chickenfoot fans. What's vexing about this is that Anthony and Hagar's former band still hasn't put out the video they paid a ton of money to shoot of the 2007 tour with David Lee Roth.
This isn't the first time they've done this, either. They had some shows filmed back in the Fair Warning days that have never seen the light of day, save for three videos long out of print that used to air on MTv.

C'mon, Eddie and Alex, release some of this stuff, already. Why shoot it and not put it out? The interest is there, but who knows for how much longer? Are you waiting for someone to offer you more money? What is it?

You guys are rock legends, and your fans would love to buy live videos.
Look at the Cult. They were selling just-shot video of their live shows on thumb drives.

Get on the ball while somebody still cares.

Is he in, or is he out?

2009-11-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

First, I heard that Steven Tyler had quit Aerosmith and the band were considering breaking up.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1225927/The-end-Aerosmith-Steven-Tyler-quits-band.html

Hard Rock band Aerosmith are on the verge of splitting up after members revealed they are tossing up whether to call it a day or replace front man Steven Tyler.
The singer signalled he is ready to work on solo material, and the rest of the band are considering their options.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1225927/The-end-Aerosmith-Steven-Tyler-quits-band.html#ixzz0XAMJcRT7

Then a couple days later, an announcement that he hadn't quit after all.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXi1MQ8581IwUXTZ7Uc4Wdsao4ZQD9BTHAU00

Which is it? My guess is the boys had some kind of spat that unfortunately went public, but they've made up now.

There was also a pretty ludicrous sounding rumour floating around that he might be touring as the singer of Led Zeppelin next summer. Huh??

Steven Tyler: Aerosmith not breaking up

(AP) – 6 days ago

NEW YORK — Relax, Aerosmith fans: Steven Tyler says he isn't leaving the band.
Tyler made a surprise appearance with guitarist Joe Perry and his band Tuesday night at a New York City venue. Tyler told the crowd: "I am not leaving Aerosmith."
Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines report the two then launched into their song "Walk This Way."
The appearance seemed to put an end to speculation about the band's future.
Perry recently tweeted that Aerosmith was "looking for a new singer to work with" and told the Las Vegas Sun that Tyler had quit, at as far as he could tell.

Musicians - jeesh!

Gibson Raided?

2009-11-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

Apparently a Gibson plant near Nashville has been raided in order to investigate whether they're using illegal rosewood.

http://www.musicincmag.com/News/2009/091117/091117_gibson.html

I can't imagine how much longer these materials will be available. Rosewood only grows in rain forests, and export from a lot of the locations where it grows has already been shut down. Maybe it's time to look for an alternative?

RIP, Blue Cheer frontman Dickie Peterson

2009-10-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-10-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-10-02T07:41:00.000-07:00

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

And the move continues - how to shoehorn a C7

2009-09-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago, we bought a 7'6" Yamaha concert grand without measuring the staircase we thought we were going to use to get it into the studio. Hauer music included delivery and setup with the piano, and A-1 Piano and Organ Movers were the company they sent to deliver the piano. They looked at the back stairs first, because there's an outside door, but quickly rejected that, because there's also a wall in the way about 36" inside the door. We had built the entrance into a kind of box - not our choice, but it's the way the basement was set up.
Next, they looked at the inside stairs, which were a straight shot. Unfortunately, there was an overhang, which meant the keyboard end or "head" of the piano wouldn't clear. Oops. At that point, I thought I was returning a piano.
They went back and looked at the other stairs, and after measuring, determind that there was enough room to squeeze it in - by about 1/4". No, I'm not kidding. It took 4 guys and about 45 minutes of jockeying and see-sawing to get it in, but get it in they did.
After they set it up, I warned them not to go out of business, because when I wanted to move it, I was calling them back out, because hey - they got it in, they could get it out.
Today, I made good on that threat, and get it out they did, although it was not easy. Up was harder than down, but they got it out, and got it relocated into its new home, which was a much easier entry.
If you're in the Cincinnati or Dayton area and need a piano moved, especially into or out of a spot where it doesn't look like it will go, call A-1. I can't recommend them highly enough.

A Gibson Hendrix guitar?

2009-09-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

This just seems wrong, somehow. A Fender Hendrix Strat, sure. Maybe even a Gibson Hendrix V, but how can you put Jimi's name on something that didn't even exist while he was alive, let alone that he ever played one, even once.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/is-this-the-high-end-gibson-usa-hendrix-model-221114

Amidst one of the most controversial product launches of all time, Gibson has posted a blog entitled Live From The Production Line At Gibson USA that seems to indicate that a high-end Jimi Hendrix model is set to join the Authentic Hendrix electric guitar packages announced earlier this week.
The pictures show unfinished instruments awaiting hardware and electronics but it is apparent that they are set neck in construction and appear to be routed for a large locking vibrato system and three single-coil sized pickups.
In addition, the headstock - sporting an Authentic Hendrix logo around the back - sees Gibson's famous 'open book' outline integrated into a reverse Stratocaster-style six-a-side peghead.

Ugh. I know it's the music _business_, and I realize Jimi's sister has no other skills or assets on which to draw, but doesn't this cross some kind of line?

Eddie Van Halen Makes a Guest Appearance

2009-09-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

Last night on Two and a Half Men on CBS. A short appearance, but good to see Eddie looking healthy, and I think it went over better than his much weirder appearance as a drifter on Cafe Americain:

And We're Off

2009-09-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

Bloodspoint Studio is in the process of moving. Got all the racs torn down and most of the stuff moved to the new location, but that's only part of the process. Putting it all together in the new space will take some time, because I'm not just re-creating the space. I'm going to take the opportunity to re-think some things. I'll take some pics today of everything all piled up, and more as things go back together.
Stay tuned.

Dokken Wants to Destroy Your Chicken!

2009-09-15T04:39:00.001-07:00

Somebody sent me a link to a Norton Internet Security commercial in which 80's metal band Dokken portrays malware, and a chicken plays the role of your hard drive.

A description of the commercial reads as follows: "Imagine that your hard drive is a chicken. '80s heavy metal band DOKKEN is a computer virus that wants to blow up your chicken. Don't allow heavy metal bands to have their way with your chicken. Get PC protection with Norton Internet Security 2010."

As a long time fan of Dokken, I love it. Among other things, Don Dokken seems to have a sense of humor, which a lot of his contemporaries lacked.
See the rest of the article here:

http://www.cmsradio.net/

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOsgqG5OOlM

Phil Collins Drums No More

2009-09-12T05:38:00.000-07:00

This is kind of sad. Apparently, Phil Collins can't drum any more. The article doesn't get too specific, but it sounds like a degenerative disease of the spine.
As a guitar player, I know it's likely that my hands will slow me down at some point, but I'd hate to think I wouldn't always be able to play at some level.

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/spinal-injury-kills-collins-drumming-career_1115573

Here's an excerpt:

SPINAL INJURY KILLS COLLINS' DRUMMING CAREER

Former Genesis rocker PHIL COLLINS will never play the drums again - after years of performing left him with an agonising spinal injury.
The 58 year old made a name for himself due to his skills on the drums, playing the instrument during his years with Genesis, before releasing solo material, including percussion-heavy hit In The Air Tonight.
But due to his talents, the star has slowly been causing devastating damage to his spinal cord - and admits it is too painful to even pick up the sticks now.

New George Lynch

2009-09-11T16:50:00.001-07:00

I loved Dokken back in the day, and bought their latest album last year, but as good as Jon Levin is, I still love George Lynch's playing. Here's a clip from his latest. Hear more at http://georgelynch.ning.com/.

Ellen DeGeneres Sued by Record Labels

2009-09-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

As a performer and composer myself, I understand the legalities of licenses. Still, I think this is a bit much. I wouldn't mind if Ellen danced to one of my songs, and I gotta love her response. In part:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Four of the world's biggest recording companies have sued the producers of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," accusing them of using songs without permission.

On the popular daytime program, which averages about 3 million viewers daily, newly named "American Idol" judge and show host DeGeneres dances to popular tunes selected by a deejay.

In the lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, the labels said that when they asked why licenses were not obtained for use of the songs, representatives for the show said they "did not roll that way.

See the whole article here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090911/en_nm/us_ellen

Van Halen To Tour in 2010?

2009-09-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

Fresh on the heels of the allegations that VH colluded with ticket scalpers on their 2007 tour:

http://www.gibson.com/en%2Dus/Lifestyle/News/van%2Dhalen%2Daccused%2D902/

...comes word that the band will be touring again in 2010.

http://www.pollstar.com/blogs/news/archive/2009/09/09/688238.aspx

In part:

Van Halen will hit the road in 2010, Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving
Azoff announced during the 2009 Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media,
Communications and Entertainment Conference Sept. 9.

Say, does anybody notice that Irving Azoff, CEO of TicketMaster, is also VH's manager? That's gotta be a coincidence, right?

Right?

I hope it's a good show, 'cause chances are it won't be cheap if you want decent seats. Whatever happened to sleeping outside the box office for two days and getting front row? Any more, all the good seats are in the hands of "ticket brokers" long before they even go on sale.

The Record Industry is Dead! Long Live the Music!

2009-09-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me know that I am not a big fan of the way the "old system" worked. Memo deals, exclusive contracts, album options, and huge bills, recoupable, of course, out of the artists' pockets.

These days, it's easier and cheaper for artists to record their own music, and charge for it what they want. Bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have given entire albums away, or asked that people pay what they think they're worth.

The big advantages of the record companies - the distribution network and airplay - have both been supplanted by internet technologies. Distribution is as easy as offering downloads from your site, or sending your music off to places like TuneCore and CDBaby, and anybody can stream music off their own site or places like MySpace.

I've often felt for a while too, that the album is dead. Who killed it? Napster may have started the ball rolling. Certainly, iTunes and Amazon and Rhapsody share part of the credit/blame, but the record companies helped by charging $18.99 for a CD. Weren't they supposed to be cheaper to make than LP's and cassettes?

The music buying public has returned to a "singles" market, which is the way it was until the mid sixties, when bands like the Beatles and the Stones came along and brought with them the concept of an album.
When was the last time you bought an album and liked all of it. At best, I might dig 40% of what's on a 10-12 song album. Sometimes, I like one song - one. That's a lot of money for one tune.

Anyway, here's some interesting analysis from Rolling Stone a couple of years ago that I think covers it pretty well.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_industrys_decline

So, what do you think? Are albums and record companies dead, or just waiting for the next Beatles? And what really did kill the record industry? Napster? iTunes? The industry itself?

Auto-Tune App for iPhone?

2009-09-04T03:37:00.001-07:00

I use Auto-Tune in the studio all the time (well, when I have to) for correcting vocal pitch, and sometimes as an effect, ala artists like T-Pain. Usually, you'll find Auto-Tune only in recording studios. Now Smule, the company responsible for such iPhone apps as Leaf Trombone and Ocarina, bring you "I Am T-Pain" for iPhone.
The idea? You rap into the iPhone, and it applies the Auto-Tune effect to your voice. Check it out. They have some demo videos that are pretty cool.

I Am T-Pain is HERE

Introducing the first iPhone app to give you Auto-Tune in the palm of your hand. You can sing along to T-Pain's hits or create your own. You can record and share your genius with the world. You'll never look at your iPhone the same way again.

What will they come up with next?
I have to admit, as un-hip as it probably makes me, I don't yet own an iPhone. I'm pretty happy with my Blackberry, and hey - I've got like, eight months left on my contract. No way am I paying full fare for one. Still, with all these cool apps, it gets harder and harder for a gadget freak like me to resist.

Van Halen Jamming in the Studio

2009-09-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

From Eddie Van Halen's Twitter page:

"Wolfie , Alex and I rehearsed today and had a blast. We played a bunch of songs that we didn't play on the last tour, like 'Drop Dead Legs', 'Girl Gone Bad' and 'Outta Love Again'! And just jammed a bit. Haven't played these songs for a long time but they sound f'ing amazing!"

Hopefully, this means that Eddie is recovering from his recent hand surgery, and sooner or later, we might get some music out of them from the ten albums' worth of music Eddie claims they have sitting around.

As a VH fan for thirty years, I'm always hopeful, but skeptical.

Shades of Gilmour

2009-08-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

Pretty quiet news day today, but I spent some time on a guitar re-wiring project. Anybody who's a guitar player can tell you that the tonal possibilites with a Strat are just about endless. Three pickups, a 5-way switch, and three control knobs? Come on. What Leo Fender came up with is just the start.
One of the weaknesses in the original design (IMO) is that the brightest of the three pickups has no tone control. I never use the tone on the neck pickup, so every one of my Strats has been re-wired so that the first tone controls the middle pickup, and the second one is hooked up to the bridge pickup.
What I did on this guitar goes farther, though. Another weakness of the Strat design is you can't turn all three pickups on at the same time. There are some "super switches" that will allow all kind of crazy combinations, but you can also do it utilizing the stock components. I got this idea from the April, 1995 issue of the now defunct magazine Guitar Shop. It turns the first tone control into a master tone, and uses the second as a blend for the bridge pickup, with just a couple of switched wires. Brilliant!
I recently bought a DiMarzio FS-1 pickup - as used by David Gilmour in his main Black Strat up through the recording of The Wall, and decided this would be the perfect time to try out the blend wiring.
I installed the new pickup with the stock wiring, then followed the diagram above, and bolted it all back together. The result? Sonic bliss, and a lot of tonal possibilities not possible with the stock setup.
Try it if you get the chance. I think you'll like it.
P.S. Sorry for the poor image quality. I scanned it from the original article over ten years ago.

Awful Albums by Awesome Artists

2009-08-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

Even the greats stumble once in a while. Here's a list at a site called funnycrave.com. See if you agree with their choices, and if you can think of any more, let me know.

http://funnycrave.com/12-ungodly-awful-albums-by-otherwise-awesome-artists/1290/

This one hurt, as I've been a Van Halen fan for years. Even I have to admit, though, I bought III mostly so I wouldn't have a hole in my collection.

8. Van Halen – Van Halen III
After Sammy Hagar quit or got fired or whatever the hell happened to that frizzy headed douche, Van Halen was left searching for a new lead singer. Inconceivably, they settled on former Extreme frontman Gary Cherone.

It gets worse from there. Ouch.

Chinese Guitar Counterfeiters

2009-08-27T03:58:00.000-07:00

As a guitar player, this story is near and dear to my heart. The eBay and Craigslist markets have been over-run for the last several years by fake guitars, mostly made in China. For the most part, they seem to have been targeting Gibson and Epiphone and models that appeal to younger players, such as Zakk Wylde Les Pauls.

I saw stores full of these when I was in Beijng in 2006. Gibsons and Fenders, though the Fender copies seemed to be poorer copies. I remember picking up an obviously fake "Les Paul Elite" and when I flipped it over, it very clearly read "MADE IN USA" on the back.
"These are made here, in China, aren't they?", I asked the clerk. "Oh, yes", he replied. "Made in China." The one I was holding was selling for the equivalent of about $300 US, which is less than 10% of the price of an actual Gibson.
It used to be that the fakes were pretty easy to spot, with shady finishes, and incorrect details that were obvious to someone familiar with the real thing, but lately, it seems like the copies have been harder to spot.

I don't necessarily have a problem with copies of guitars, as long as they aren't being sold as the real thing and are clearly marked as such. Players who can afford real Gibsons will buy them, and these cheapies give kids a chance to play a guitar that looks like the real thing, but costs a lot less, and while these guitars are certainly not up to Gibson (or even Epiphone) standards, they beat the hell out of the Hondo II and Teisco stuff that beginners were stuck with when I started playing.

What really bugs me is people selling them as real, genuine US guitars to kids who don't know any better. No legit retailer would touch these guitars, but I see a couple a month on Craigslist, and they pop up on eBay all the time.

Clearly, any real effort to stop the counterfeiting would have to come from the Chinese.
I was delighted to find this on the Music, Inc. Magazine site, in the June 19th issue. MI is a magazine aimed at music retailers, who obviously have a lot at stake in this.

Guitar Counterfeiters Sentenced

Following more than a year of coordination and investigation by Chinese legal authorities, the efforts of the Electric Guitar Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (EGACC) have resulted in a criminal sentence for a major distributor of counterfeit guitars.

Read the whole article here:

http://www.musicincmag.com/News/2009/090617/090617_legal.html

Alice in Chains is back!

2009-08-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

AiC were one of may favourite bands back in the early nineties. They were labelled "grunge" because they wore flannel and had long hair, but I always thought that was an unfair label. They went through a rough spot when grunge fell out of favour, and especially when frontman Layne Staley died.
I have to admit, I was skeptical a few years ago to hear they were touring with a new frontman - Layne's vocals seemed to be so integral to the sound - but I gotta say, the new guy, William DuVall, and the new single, "Check My Brain" from the upcoming Back Gives Way To Blue sound excellent. I'm looking forward to it when it hits the stores on September 29th.

Listen to it here:

http://www.aliceinchains.com/

Oh, Come on, Ritchie - Lighten Up

2009-08-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

I love Ritchie Blackmore's playing. His style has always seemed to me to be a perfect mix of classical and rock, and often more appropriate for the song than some other "Neo Classical" guitar players.
I've also heard he can be a... challenging person to deal with. He quit Deep Purple - twice - because he couldn't get along with other band members, and Eddie Van Halen has recounted the tale several times of trying to introduce himself to Ritchie after VH's first album came out and being ignored.
Apparently, he doesn't always get along so well with family, either. Here's a bit of an interview with Joe Lynn Turner (one time Rainbow vocalist) in Classic Rock Magazine, about Over the Rainbow, a band he's currently fronting which plays Rainbow material, and which features Ritchie's son, Jurgen Richard Blackmore, on guitars:

"...Ritchie suddenly became very antagonistic. Things got so bad that he insisted Jurgen – his own son – couldn’t use the name ‘Blackmore’. Jurgen’s full name is Jurgen Richard Blackmore – it says so on his birth cerificate."

See the full article here:

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/ritchie-tried-to-ban-son-jurgen-from-using-the-blackmore-name/

A Touchstone of Indie Music Slated for Demolition

2009-08-26T04:15:00.000-07:00

For fans of 80's and 90's indie rock, the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis was a special place. It was a place where bands were formed, where local musicians hung out, and where, at one point, you could go and be served food by the mother of Bob and Tommy Stinson of the Replacements.

Now, it has come to my attention that not only is the current owner selling, apparently the new owners think the space would be better used for... retail? I don't think anything has made me this sad since WOXY (BAM! 97x, the future of rock and roll!) left the terrestrial airwaves in 2004, after their owners, Doug and Linda Ballogh, decided they'd had enough. And more recently, they announced the studios for their now web-only station, woxy.com were relocating to Austin, TX.

Anyway, here's a link to a story on the Uptown:

http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2009/08/uptown_bar_one.php

More on Record Labels

2009-08-21T16:04:00.000-07:00

Here's an excellent article on NPR's site that backs up what I was saying in my last post pretty nicely:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111172341&ps=cprs

Without wanting to get into too much trouble with NPR, I thought this summed it up:

The Posies left Geffen in the late 1990s — not over money, but a lack of promotion. They went back to PopLlama, the small independent label where they'd first recorded an album called Failure, and released one called Success. It was made very cheaply, and Auer estimates it sold about 25,000 copies.
"I actually saw a check for that record that went in my pocket," Auer says. "I never saw a check from the sales of any of the records I've made on the major labels."

Do we Need Record Labels any more?

2009-08-19T04:24:00.001-07:00

No, and we haven't for a while.

We are at the dawn of a great age for musicians. An age in which musicians aren't going to be hindered any more by the constraints of how much it costs to record and distribute their music.
Or by the demands of record labels.

What record labels brought to the table was the infrastructure that was needed to record the music, press it, ship it, distribute it, and get it played on the radio. And it was a lopsided and unfair system. Google search for "deal memo", or click here, and you'll find Steve Albini's excellent write up on this terrible system.

Now that recording isn't (or doesn't need to be) as expensive a process, "pressing and distributing it' involves sending a few copies to CD Baby or Tune Core so you can get it on Amazon and iTunes, or just letting people download it from your website, and to the extent that airplay is even necessary, you can do that yourself as well, streaming on places like MySpace, the record companies really don't have a viable business model.

It's not like I invented this idea, either. Artists like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead have been doing their thing for several years now. What's new is that the wave is starting to pick up speed as smaller artists get on the bandwagon.

This is all probably pretty scary stuff if your job is tied to a record label or an ancillary industry, but as a recording engineer and a musician myself, I find it all pretty exciting, and I know I'll be watching to see what happens next.

God I Hate Snow

2007-02-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

Just had to say that, after shoveling 6" of the crap off my driveway and sidewalk just now.
I grew up with plenty of it in northern Illinois; but here in southwest Ohio, we don't get much. One good snow per year is about all. Hopefully, this is it.
I was home from work today, so the one bright spot is I didn't have to drive in it - well not much, anyway.

In other news, I had two job interviews today. Another thing I really hate is looking for a job. If I cfind one I like okay, I tend to stay until they kick me out. Which is what happened at my last job. I went on vacation to China, and when I came back, I found out that my office had been closed while I was gone! On 9/11, of all days. So typical for that company.

So, I put out the old resume, and found work; but it's a contract position, and while the job was pretty cool at the beginning (read: they let me do whatever I wanted as long as the job got done). Then in December, I got re-orged, and the job has become progressively less cool (read: they're starting to tell me what to do).
All I really want, if I have to work, is to find a job I don't hate where they won't close my office.

Is that so much

This has to be a record

2007-02-01T19:57:00.000-08:00

First post in a freaking year and a half. I actually am not a "writer". I like e-mail okay, but I've never had a diary, or anything like that. I actually couldn't find this page again initially. I didn't even really want to post to my own blog; I just wanted to log in so I could post a comment on my brother's.
Oh well. It'll probably be another year before I post again - if I can remember where it is.

Mower Drama

2005-08-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I haven't posted anything in over two months. I guess there is stuff I could write about, and probably will, but for now, here's what I was up to last night:

[WARNING: the following mower drama is rated Y-14. Some scenes of mower abuse may be too intense for younger or more sensitive viewers. Parental caution is advised.]

Last week, while I was mowing happily along, the 10-year old MTD suddenly started running really crappy unless I pulled the choke out, and then it died on me altogether, and wouldn't restart, which meant I had to do the rest with the ancient, 20", non-self-propelled push mower. Not cool.

I resisted the strong urge to set it aflame and push it into the busy street, and instead, rolled it around back till I could mess with it, which was last night.

It would run for about two seconds, and stop. Pulling out the choke didn't help. I knew it had to be a fuel delivery problem, because pulling the choke out had bought me a little time, and it would start, but only run a few seconds.

I replaced the spark plug anyway, just because, though when I pulled the old one, it was still in great shape.
Next, I replaced the fuel filter, because I could see it had some dirt in it, though I had verified that fuel was still running through the line (and all over everything) when I had it disconnected.
So, I had verified that fuel was getting _to_ the carb.

A shot of starting fluid yielded a start, and if I kept spraying, the mower kept running. So now, I knew the problem lay somehwere between the fuel getting into the carb, and getting srayed out into the throat. Probably a stuck needle or gummed up jet.

Sure, a carb rebuild would have solved the problem; but if I had to invest that kind of time and effort into a 10-year old mower, it was going to be time for me and Mr. MTD to part ways. I already had eyes on my next concubine: one of those sweet, sexy, zero-turn mowers.

I tried one last thing: I dumped about half a container of STP fuel system cleaner straight into the carb throat, and hit the starter. It blew smoke out the exhaust, and STP out the throat. I dumped a little more in, put the rest into the tank, and let it sit for half an hour.

I came back, fired it up... and it died in two seconds. I shot some more starter fluid into the carb, hit the key again. It sputtered to life, then started to die. I cranked the throttle back and forth to confuse it, and voila; it was running on its own. I let it run for a few minutes to run some of the stuff inthe tank through, and the stuff in the carb out.
Then I hopped on, dropped the blade, and made a few passes around the back yard, just to make sure it was going to keep running, and not quit like a little b7tch as soon as I dropped the blade, or tried to move forward.

Success.

Plus, I have killed every mosquito for blocks.

The End

Two Posts in Less than a Month!

2005-05-03T06:08:00.000-07:00

Well, lookie that. I lied. Here I am posting, mere days after my last post.
I'm mostly just posting to vent my frustration at my job...
When I signed on, I was told that "every few weeks or so", we had to work on Friday night at around 10PM, for about an hour, to update software on our site.
Now, I wasn't thrilled by that, being someone who values my free time highly; but it was the first serious "bite" I'd had in a few months, and the job seemed otherwise pretty cool. And my boss is cool; which goes a long way, sometimes.

Well, you guessed it: "every few weeks" is usually at least every other week, and sometimes is as often as twice a week. Oh, and it's not usually at 10 for about an hour - it's occasionally as late as 2 AM (hell, one time it was 8:30 AM Saturday!), and has yet to take less than two hours. And that's if everything is working right.
I was here last Thrusday for 12 hours, and I just found out I have to work this Saturday morning at 2 freaking AM.
This is just insane. I have to get out of here.
If they'd fix their process, I'd gladly stay. But they won't. Someone somewhere up high enough seems to believe this is the right way to run things, and I can't change that.
My résumé is out. We'll see what happens.

In happier news, I played with my "new" band, Cataplexy (me, drummer Jeff from Synergism, and "super-bassist" Joe) last Saturday for the first time in months, and we wrote pretty good chunks of three songs. Pretty productive. There are still some scheduling issues with that band, but I think it's going to be worth it if we can get it off the ground.

Okay, that's it for now.

I'm not dead...

2005-04-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

Man. Do I suck as a blog writer, or what? This is why I never stuck with being a writer, although it's always been one of those things I keep imagining I'd be good at (despite the grammar in that sentence).

Well, let's see. Since I last wrote, we had a nice Christmas, I got a job at Zix Corp - http://www.zixcorp.com/ working on their Pocketscript product, and as a result, I've had exactly zero spare time.
I also forgot what the password was to this blog, and it took me a while to figure that out, and then my computer went down. I'm typing this from a brand new Sony Vaio, which I am really digging.
So, I'll try to post a _little_ more regularly, but I'm not promising anything.

Things have been pretty dead in the studio, too. Nobody too exciting, though I did record a band called 4 Foot Fall that is pretty good. Other than that, mostly my normal rap customers, all squeezed in on the weekends now, since I'm working during the week.
Ugh...

Well, that's it for now.

Wanna take bets on how long till the next entry?

Finally - a Rock Band

2004-11-29T01:05:00.000-08:00

Well, had a pretty peaceful Thanksgiving weekend. Ate too much, laxed around and did nothing mostly, but I finished it off with a session today - a 4 piece "modern rock" band. Their name is Silhouette, and they're a bunch of young kids, but they're really good. Their sound to me is reminiscent of Uncle Tupelo or Wilco, with some Soul Asylum thrown in. Good stuff.
I hope to be able to say I knew them before they were famous.

Little Funny Things

2004-11-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, not much happening at the studio this week. I've got bookings later in the week. Meanwhile, here's a couple of funny things I saw:

Looking at a job listing, and next to "salary/wage", it said, and I'm not kidding, "Comiserate with experience [sic]". Seriously. I couldn't make that up.

Today, driving around running errands, I saw one of those little SUV's that had been lowered, had fancy wheels installed, those wacky looking wipers, and in the windshield, it had visor that said "FIESTY [sic]". Kind of takes away some of the intended impact, don't you think?

More later in the week.

I Should Have Died, Epsiode 1, prelude

2004-11-17T22:04:00.000-08:00

In keeping with my idea of posting interesting stories from my past, here's the first of several in the "I Should Have Died" series:

When I was sixteen, I had a 1966 VW Beetle. At the time, it was about 17 or 18 years old, which isn't ancient, but it was old. Also, over the years, lots of redundancy and safety features have been added to cars - the 1966 VW Beetle had almost none of those. When I got it, it had lap belts, front seat only.
Now, in this car, the engine is in the back, so all that's in front of you is a trunk; and the windshield is literally like, 6" in front of your face. And 2" away from your chect is a pointy, non-collapsing steering column. In short, this is not a car you want to be driving if you get into an accident.
Another major safety improvement modern cars have is that they basically have two (some even have four!) braking systems - one for the front, and one for the back. The idea is that if you get a leak in one end, your car will still stop at least a little, so that you can get safely off the road, or to a shop. And this is also another safety feature missing from the '66 Volkswagen. If there's a problem anywhere in the brakes on a '66 VW, the whole system goes out. All of this intersects to create the interesting story in my next installment....

Wacky Anecdotes

2004-11-16T23:20:00.000-08:00

Slow week in the studio this week, so it occurred to me I could post some funny/interesting anecdotes from my past. Kind of give you a peek into the experiences athat combined to make me.
Here's the first one:

This story happened in the 8th grade, which, for me, is the '78 - '79 Timeframe.
In our neighborhood, the token thugs that everybody was frightened of were the Meltmars... Phillip, and his older brother, Chuck. If there was a cat killed, a
window broken, a bike stolen, you could be sure the Meltmars were
behind it. They were just bad news. For starters, their parents were
divorced, and they lived with their mom. Now, I know that today,
that's almost de rigueur; but in 1977, it was still pretty unusual. I
only knew two or three people whose parents were divorced back then.
Anyway, one wintery January morning, we were waiting at the bus stop,
going back to school after Christmas break. It was cold. So cold,
everything actually sounded crisp. Unless you've lived through a
Midwest winter, you probably can't comprehend exactly how cold it was,
so just imagine the coldest thing you can think of, and double it.
There was a big elm tree at the bus stop, and as we were all standing
around, a piece of the bark on the elm tree near me popped off, as if
it had exploded. I thought that was a little weird. A few seconds
later, another piece popped off, and then another.
The third time, I heard the small "crack" sound from about 200 yards
away, just a second before the bark popped off the tree. I looked
toward the sound, and saw Chuck Meltmar up in his window, but didn't
think a lot about it. Just then, the bus rolled up, and we all got on.
Later that day, when I got home from school, my Mom told me that Chuck
Meltmar had been arrested. His grandfather had apparently gotten him a
.22 caliber rifle for Christmas, and Chuck had apparently been taking
pot shots with it out his bedroom window.
Never was entirely sure if Chuck was shooting at the tree, or at me. I wasn't exactly his favorite person...

Today's Session

2004-11-13T23:18:00.000-08:00

Another Rap Session. Same guy who came in last Saturday. I hate rap, but I gotta say that this guy does have a work ethic. Gets the job done, and his songs are a litte more hummable than most.

Whoa! A Metal Session...

2004-11-12T23:44:00.000-08:00

... for a change. It was kind of a train wreck, though. The guy was the guitarist from a metal band who recorded here before. He's since dumped his band, and got bored trying to find another band, so he decided he'd record on his own.
Incidentally, his former band is the source of one of my funnier studio anecdotes.
After about the 6th take of a song, this guy turns to the other guitarist, and asks,

Guitarist 1: "What chord are you playing there??"
Guitarist 2: "F#"
G1: "It's not F#, it's F!!
G2: "I've been playing F# for three f7cking years!
G1: "Well, then, you've been playing it wrong for three f7cking years!!"

I couldn't make that stuff up if I had to.

So, anyway, this guy came to the studio today, and obviously didn't know the song as well as he did. The guitar tracks are a punch-o-rama.
Then came the bass parts. Dude bought a bass one hour before the session, and wanted to use it. Nevermind that he didn't know how the controls on the bass worked. Nevermind that it already had light strings on it, and then he proceeded to tune it down a whole step...

Ugh...

Rap, Rap, Rap

2004-11-08T22:48:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday, another rap session. At least, this guy was moer talented than usual, and his "beatz" had some melody to them. I can actually hum these.

Today was guitar lesson day #1 for the week. 10 year-old girl. I was skeptical at first, but I gotta say, this little girl is driven. She was supposed to learn to tune using her tuner, and learn three chords. Well, I think she learned about a dozen. She's doing really well, and she's definitely got the enthusiasm. If she keeps it up, she'll be the next Yngwie.

My New Amp Got Here Today

2004-11-03T01:11:00.000-08:00

... and it is sweet! Once again, I have a Marshall in my stable, and all is well. That's about all that happened today. I voted. Other than that, pretty quiet day.

My Latest Nothing Post

2004-10-31T01:52:00.000-08:00

Yeah, still not much exciting happening around here. It's been dead in the studio, dead on the job front, dead all around.
Bought a new amp this week, which ought to be here Tuesday, so I'm excited about that. I've actually been without a Marshall for almost six months for the first time in over ten years. Before that, I didn't use Marhsalls, so that didn't count...
Anyway, I'm looking forward to that.
Around home, we're both still sick, and this weekend, we're tackling putting a tile backsplash up in the the kitchen, complete with custom cut decorative medallion design, so that's been keeping us busy. Hopefully, we'll finish that tomorrow, 'cause the tile saw has to go back.
I've been thinking about more covers to do. I've already got "He's a Whore" mostly done, and I've started "Oldest Story in the World" (though I need better drums for both).
I was thinking next of doing a Posies song, or maybe re-doing "It's My Life". Yes, I know No Doubt covered it; but that song deserves better than they gave it. They screwed up or completely omitted too many parts. I want to do a version that keeps the spirit of the original.
That's it for now.
Hopefully, next week when Lisa's back to work, I'll actually have some time to do some of my work...

Not Much New

2004-10-26T01:02:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I haven't posted in a few days. I'm not a religious blog keeper, and I'm not one of those guys who feels like I have to apologize if I don't make an entry every day. Just hasn't been a lot going on this week. I've been sick most of it, and I spent most of the week either in bed, or on the couch.
Maybe this week, there'll be more going on...

Have I Mentioned that PC's Suck??

2004-10-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I've got the PC back up and running, after resorting to a format and reinstall of Windows to get it to recognize the firewir drives again.
Guess what? It still doesn't recognize them...
I have no idea what to try next. It's driving me crazy.
Well, I'm sure my system is much claner than it was.
In addition to the firewire drives still not working, I think I also lost the card reader, which allowed me to plug Smart Media straight into a slot on the PC and read it, rather than using proprietary transfer software.
Crap.

PC's Suck, Part 2

2004-10-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this from my Mac, as I try yet another thing on my PC to fix my firewire problem. I'm re-installing Windows in repair mode. It's the last step before I wipe tje disk and start again...

Windows sucks...

2004-10-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

I am so done with the PC platform. I have a PC and a Mac in my studio. The Mac does all the tracking work with ProTools, and I use the PC for mastering and disc sequencing, because Sony/Sonic Foundry's tools are way better than any Mac equivalents.
Now, I started on the PC 14 years ago, so if anything, I should be biased in favor of them, but when I look at how much grief I get with crashing drivers, devices not being recognized, and so forth, I could never use a PC again, and be thrilled.
The latest is that Windows has stopped recognizing firewire drives plugged in to it. It sort of started happening about the same time that I installed XP service pack 2, so I backed that out, hoping to get my disks back - no luck.
I'm going to have to do a re-install yet, you watch.
I say again, PC's suck. If I had the $$ to do it, I'd dump this thing in a second in favor of a dual G5, and just get Virtual PC to run the couple of PC-only apps I need.
End of rant - for now...

Outdoor Party Gig

2004-10-17T01:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight was an outdoor party our bass player has every year and we play it every year. This year, though, he dedicated it to his newphew, who just got back from Iraq. So, his nephew was there, and his nephew's entire company of Marines. So, anyway, I had been requested to do a version of The Star Spangled Banner at the end of our second set. I was kind of worried that it might seem a little trite, but I said "okay". Now, really, it's a pretty boring song to play - making it interesting is all in the presentation. I took some ideas from Hendrix, and effected the hell out of it. So I go to play, and I'm expecting to do a little solo piece. What actually happened was that the entire company of Marines came up on stage, and started singing along.
Apparently, they liked it.

There was all kinds of other standard party action - keg stands, shots, a bonfire, fireworks, and the eventual appearance of the police. Wouldn't have been a party without them...

Went to a Metal Show

2004-10-16T01:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight was fun. I got roped into sponsoring a benefit for the local metal radio show. So, as sponsor, it was my duty to go down and see the bands, as well as be on hand for the plugs, in case someone wanted to ask me questions, and so forth.
Now, modern metal, of any kind, really isn't specifically my bag, but I can appreciate it when it's done well, and I saw five bands tonight ranging from pretty good to pretty damned good. The last band was more in the Pantera vein than what's considered "metal" these days, and they had the entire place moshing. I was even "moshed" at one point.

As much as I may not dig newer metal much, if I step back and realize that my "work" for tonight was to go to a bar and watch a bunch of bands play... I mean, come on. How bad is my life??

I Don't Charge Enough for This...

2004-10-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

Today's session was a real hoot. First off, this guy can't be held to an appointment time. We'll make an appointment for 2:00, and he'll show up at noon. I think he thinks the actual appointment time is like, some kind of limit, or something...

We first met a couple of weeks ago, because he wanted to record an eleven minute (!!!) R&B song he had written.

Now, right off, I expected trouble. Newbies tend to like to write waaay too many lyrics, and they tend to just sort of ramble in a street of consciousness sort of fashion, rather than have any kin d of structure to their songs, like verse, chorus, bridge, etc.

He needed a "beat" to sing to, so I created him one, and sent him off with it and told him to practice singing to it, and check the timing of his lyrics, to make sure they'd fit a beat. The other endemic symptom of these people is that they write lyrics that are impossible to squeeze into any meter.

Well, he came back today to try a take of the vocals, and not only had he taken none of my advice, he is without a doubt one of the worst singers I've ever heard. He makes William Hung look like Andrea Boccelli. One of the more excruciating hours I've ever spent. Hence the title of the post.

I Hate Rap...

2004-10-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. I just hate some rap, and I hate the generic "gangsta" rap that comprises most of what comes in to my studio. I loved the old school stuff by artists like Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash, Sugar Hill Gang, and Melle Mel. I even liked the first generation of gangsters - Public Enemy, NWA, even Snoop and Dre. But it's just all been so done....

How many "songs" can be written about the exact same subjects? I challenge a rapper to come in to my studio, and record a rap which does not include Escalades, Expeditions, Excursions, 20" (or any other size) wheels, "gettin' money", "caps", "2 to the dome", "spltting wigs", bitches, ho's, or playas.
Seriously.

Back to (mostly) Normal

2004-10-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

Spent part of the day taking _down_ the "missing cat" posters I spent most of yesterday putting _up_, and working on "anti cat escape" measures.

But, back to music, I cut a lead on a blues jam track. Something musically productive for a change. You can check it out here, if you want.

http://www.bloodspoint.com/edjam.mp3

Tomorrow, I have a job interview, and then some yard work to do. Tomorrow night, Synergism has a practice for the annual Neffstock gig - our only practice before the gig on Saturday... Oh, well, most of the audience on Saturday will be so ripped they won't care...

Sweet Joe, She's Back, Cousin!

2004-10-12T01:28:00.000-07:00

Whew!! My ass was up at the crack of 10:00 today, out and about in the neighborhood, sticking "Lost Cat" flyers in people's doors, looking all over for her, to no avail.
Tonight, we looked again in all the usual places. Again, nothing. I reall was starting to think she might be gone for good, that maybe something got a hold of her.

Well, I work at night, mostly. So, tonight, I was cutting some guitars, and every hour or so, I'd take a break, and make another circuit around the house, calling her, to see if she was back.
Finally, as I was 3/4 done with the "2:30 lap", my light caught something moving off well ahead of me, hauling ass toward my back patio. As I headed that way, I started hearing what I call the "Juice howl of doom". It's a noise she only makes when she's in trouble. I started to get hopeful. As I got to the patio, my light caught her familiar silhouette. Holy shit, it _was_ her!!
She was freaked, but good, but I snagged her, and got her in the door.
Man... I don't ever want to go through that again...

Now, I can concentrate on what this blog is _supposed_ to be about... More tomorrow.

Lost Cat... 8-(

2004-10-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

Well, the idea of this blog was to record thoughts on music, situations in my studio, in my life, etc. This is certainly an inauspicious way to start... Our cat, Juice, who's just about 1-1/2, raised from a 3-week old stray, disappeared.
She's an indoor-outdoor cat, but the yard is fenced, and she's always been very good about staying, or at least coming back.
Tonight, she went out and didn't come back in. Searched all over the neighborhood - nothing.
I've gone outside to find her and not been able to, but she'd turn up a couple of minutes later. This time, nothing.
Here's hoping she shows up on her own.

Is This Thing On??

2004-10-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

If I did that right, I just set up a blog. Now all I have to do is find something to put in it. Woohoo!!