beautiful, funny, sad & true

This week is going to be completely crazy. Here’s what’s going on:

Monday: Work (one hour early), then first rehearsal with Steph and the new band members. Hip hop/jazz drummer and upright bass player. Frickin’ amazing, and it takes the band in a completely new and exciting direction.

Tuesday: Work (one hour early), then second rehearsal with the new band members. Came home, did a load of laundry, and practiced the cello while I watched a PBS show about synchronized swimming.

Wednesday: Work (probably an hour early), then leaving at 4:00 to come home, load up the car, and go to the first gig as this new incarnation of Steph’s band. We’re playing at Jimmy Mak’s, a very swanky jazz club, and we’re probably the only rock band who plays there. Oh, and my new glasses should be ready, too. I’ll post a picture as soon as I have a chance.

Thursday: Work, then I’m going to FlutistSusan’s to play cello at another sight-reading/rehearsal evening with her, myself, another cellist, and hopefully a handful of other people.

Friday: Daytime gig in Salem, Oregon with Steph and the band. Driving home, then going to work for a while. Yikes.

Saturday: Driving to Clarkston, Washington with Steph and the band to play the Rockin’ On The River Festival, and we’re driving back to Portland after we’re done with the gig. What? There are four of us; we can split the driving. It’s only four hours each way.

Sunday: Getting up early and going to work, if there’s anything left to do. Then meeting LittleBrother for lunch and a quick visit. After that, I’m packing up the car again and going to a third gig with Steph and the band at a private fund-raiser for autism research.

Monday: Work, then rehearsal with Breanna Paletta and BassistChris for our show in Salem, Oregon on the 28th.

Oh, by the way, I have two other gigs that weekend. I’m playing cello with Sarah Castro in Portland on the 27th, and accordion with Susie Blue in Gleneden Beach, Oregon on the 29th. After that gig, I’m driving to Cannon Beach, Oregon to meet Mom, Stepdad, LittleBrother, SisterInLaw, Niece, and Nephew. After they go to bed, I’m driving back to Portland to go to sleep and start the week of work.

I need to clone myself. Maybe my clone could go to work my job for me, and then I could go do all the gigs, but I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps I should consider TWO clones.

As part of my plan to help elevate my music career to the so-called ‘next’ level, I started doing a bunch of research into upgrading my recording software. Everything I looked at told me that my current computer either wasn’t compatible, or wasn’t supported, or was ‘not recommended’ for the upgrades of the software that I’ve been using. I couldn’t even load the software onto my old computer, because a DVD drive was required. If I went and got a DVD drive, I still wouldn’t be able to run the software because the computer was too slow.

Yeesh.

So I bit the bullet and headed down to Fry’s to get a new iMac today. I got the one with the Intel DuoCore chip and the 20-inch monitor. It’s really incredible, the way everything’s so self-contained, linked and even wireless. Computers–especially Macs–have come a long way in the last four years.

Summer’s the best time for biting metaphorical bullets, since there are more gigs (and more money), so I figured the time was right. Part Two of this process will involve taking advantage of Digidesign’s hardware trade-up policy to get new software and a new recording interface thingy.

Oh, and I should mention that the iMacs are SILENT. The G4 PowerMacs have notoriously loud fans. There are tons of web sites about how to replace or modify them. Mac users raised enough of a stink about them that eventually Apple sold these replacement fan kits that you could buy for twenty dollars and install yourself. At the time, however, I wasn’t in that kind of financial league, so I’ve been living with the loud fans this whole time. It’s funny to think about how much life can be improved by the systematic removal of annoyances.

Here’s to the removal of more!

Yesterday I scored big time at the record store. I originally went there because I somehow lost my copy of “Neon Golden” by The Notwist. Well, they had it, and for only six dollars. So I scrounged throught the DVD’s, and came across the second season of Da Ali G Show. I already have the first season, so I grabbed that too.

I also found the special edition of This is Spinal Tap, not for myself–I’ve seen it a zillion times–but for Stephanie and her long-time guy Tony, who have both been professional musicians forever, and who have both somehow gone their whole lives without ever seeing the movie. So I told Steph that was unacceptable, and that I was going to get them the DVD as a housewarming present.

But the ultimate score was the soundtrack CD to Goodbye Lenin, by Yann Tiersen. Surprisingly difficult to find, I’d been looking for it for ages, but somehow it turned up yesterday. Yay! I think I have all of Yann Tiersen’s recordings now.

Yeah, I’d say it was a successful trip.

After months of hard work, I have two new songs to share with you. Turn up your speakers, click on the links, and enjoy.

The first is one you’ve seen me mention here in my blog before. It’s by Crystin Byrd, and it’s called “Blue Angel,” from the upcoming independent film of the same name. She wrote the song, sang, and played acoustic guitar, her cellist Scott Allen played the cello parts (that I wrote), and I played drums, bass, electric guitar, and keyboards. The weird sound effects that show up occasionally were all done with electric guitar pedals. Believe it or not, we recorded it entirely in her basement.

The second is by the Young Immortals, and it’s called “The Fever.” It’s not the same version that’s on the Starbucks CD, which is me and Jake playing everything. This version is from the band’s album “When History Meets Fiction,” which just came out on Wednesday. On this song, I played piano, organ, keyboards, and the electric guitar solo.

I hope you enjoy these songs. I’m glad to finally be able to share them with you.

Crystin, Aram and baby Lyric at Crystin’s parents’ house in Woodland, Washington.

trip to Sisters, Oregon for a gig with Stephanie Schneiderman and CellistSkip

I thought we agreed that it was going to be ‘Stephanie Schneiderman’ and THEN ‘Elk Meat’.  Sheesh!