A new Cd Cover!
I did this Cd cover for New York Rap Artist Ismael Sankara
I did this Cd cover for New York Rap Artist Ismael Sankara
Our first time at the Taverneres Hill Hotel.
463 Parramatta Rd, Leichhardt, May 19th from 8:30.
Come on down! We still have T-Shirts! :-)
Howdy Folks.
Well, sometimes you have a big night and we had one last night. Cheers to Colleen, Helen, Josh, Rory, Jan, Sean,Kylie, Derek and all the folks who came out and got down on a cold night.
There was a fashion explosion last night as our t-shirts went flying off the shelves (wow). Thankyou to our human bill boards. We appreciate the advertising space, dont worry if the t-shirt art changes from time to time, I've syndicated it with Readers Digest.
The boys were in particularly good form last night and some monstrous playing was heard.
I noticed that the signage otuside the pub had spelled our band name in the alternative manner... Storm Celler - like a salt celler, I guess. Peter Sellars? :-)
Next to it was this sign for the Wests, and as I looked more closely, I realised it was hand painted, remarkable.
And in completely reverse order, here's Rosie setting up at the beginning of the night.
Well that all makes sense! Caption this photo and win a date with our Roadie!
Paul quoted Quincy Jones today - Some ideas are like flared jeans - they seemed good at the time.
It was Vocal stuff and track assessment today. We have a few more vocal sessions next week, hopefully the last of the main vox, and it was time to try out lyrics for South of the border so that I can take the weekend to review the first approach.
We also did some spoken word stuff for Texas Rosie, which could prove Super Brilliant or Amazingly Tragic. It's hard to tell.
Right now we have a lot of different layers of ideas on the songs and we have more to come - with additional percussion, backing and harmony vocals and then some guest musicians to follow. Mixing this stuff is going to be a challenge and I think we may need a few different mixes of the songs and a little bit of distance to try and make the right call.
Part of our process has always been to send the mixes out to our 'Ears' for comments, before we collate our collective responses and do the final mix., so our regular 'Ears' can expect an email from me in the next few weeks asking if they want to do the usual review thing. If you're interested in being an 'Ear', drop me a line via the contact page and I'll keep you in mind. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Right now, we have another five sessions lined up and according to our rough calculations, that should conclude the recording part of the process. I say should conclude it. We hope. Yikes.
I try to adhere to a simple rule of blogging, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything defamatory, legally actionable at all.
There is some good logic behind this way of thinking, including allowing for the possibility of being wrong.
As a result, I have kept pretty quiet during my recent struggles to get a crucial piece of technology repaired.
As you, Dear Reader, may recall, our TASCAM US1800 died during our location recording sessions at Bawley Point (horror! The Horror!).
So instead of complaining about the Distributor being a tad slow (2 months) on dealing with the issue and/or coming across as a grumpy person (Hulk SMASH bad customer service!!), I'd instead, like to give fair praise to the diligence and follow up of the retailer who sold us the gear.
Bravo Nick Bava, bravo Bava's Music City -
If I limit myself to minimal ranting about poor performance, I can at least sing the praises of folks that give a sh care about customers.
Nick and his guys were on the case for months getting our stuff squared away and we're grateful. Thanks guys.
That doesn't make me a happy chappy about the whole process, but my theory of trying to purchase from local retailers was borne out.
I could have bought the unit online more cheaply and I agree that sometimes the web represents a reality price, as opposed to a 'retail' price. But this is where your risk profile comes into play.
When buying gear that might go wrong, is a large(ish) investment or may require future support, buying from the other side of the planet could prove tricky. That said, you can have the same problems with the shop down the street.
In our case, I chose to buy from a local retailer precisely because I wanted to be able to increase my personal participation in resolving any issues. The price differential was worth the reduction in risk.
I didn't expect the gear to blow up and from my googling, the TASCAM US1800 has the occasional USB interface problem (the chip goes bung) but on the whole, i still think it's a grand piece of kit.
However, when the unit went Kaplooey (under less than ideal circumstances) I was lucky to get such good help from my local retailer, bolstering my opinion that maintaining local connections to your supply chain is a good thing.
Paying for stuff from bricks and mortar stores can prove more expensive and I am not adverse to a good ebay bargain, but when I look at a purchase like the recording system, I also try and think of what might go wrong and who will I need to stalk chase up to get issues resolved.
So in short, the distributor could lift their game but the retailer went into bat for us with alacrity. Bravo Bava's.
Editors Note: Anoher moment from the production of the current album, as Mr Wizard and Pete started looking at the interplay of instruments on Light In The Distance...
Hey Sliders.
The Dobro was out of tune? No, must be the bass. Pete checked the notes on the Upright Bass (double bass) that Mike Rix played on the location recording and check out his tuning.
This is #G
That line is the note and you can see that Rixie is scary accurate esp. considering how variable the DBass is.
Mike u r a legend.
Bugger. that means it's the dobro. I'll have to fix.