The Music Biz Sucks

I called a place that does CD duplication and printing to see about getting our demo duped. We have a contact there, so that got us a decent discount. I downloaded the template to put the artwork on and the sales guy sent me a quote for 100 of them. Great price. I also downloaded another form that says what content is on the disc, whose owns it, etc. In the table for the track listing, there's a column named "own" and another named "license". I asked the guy what these were for and he told me all about getting licensing for the songs we recorded and sent me to another site. They won't even touch the job if they songs aren't licensed because they can get sued by the greedy music fucktards. To license 4 songs at 100 copies is just over $150. A license fee to record somebody else's song is that much? And we aren't selling the CDs? That even $20 more than the cost of having 100 discs burned and printed! Goddamn greedy music industry cokehead bastards. My response to that is "fuck you." We'll find another way to dupe them. Hell, I'll burn them myself and write on them with a Sharpie, which is what I said we should do in the first place, because no bar owner were I want to play cares about shit like that.

Fanboys

We watched Fanboys this weekend, expecting a very funny movie. What we got was a mildly funny movie whose jokes seemed to have been phoned tweeted emailed in by 10–year old geeks whose sense of humor hinges entirely around Star Wars, rather than jokes written by comedy writers who get the geeky fanboy thing. Even the mighty Seth Rogen—a man who only needs to stand there and look at somebody and he's hilarious—was painful to watch, and he even played 2 characters! The fat guy was way too Jack Black (only Jack Black should be Jack Black) and annoyingly loved to scream like that unfunny dead fucker with the stupid hair and stupid hat, um, Sam Kinison. The guy whose character was dumbly named "Windows" was pretty OK. He was also in Tropic Thunder and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. The blonde guy who played the son of the religious mom in Detroit Rock City was OK. At least supercute gorgeous hot spunky Kristen Bell was there to ease the pain. Ah, all better.

Killer Klowns (Not from Outer Space)

Here's a really cool short film created for Phillips' new 21:9 TV. The best part? Clowns with guns. More info and way too many photos at If It's Hip, It's Here.

Scare Kids Straight

If they still showed beer commercials on TV that looked like this one, there'd be a lot less underage drinking going on, because they'd all be freaked out that they'll end up looking like the whacked out people with moveable mustaches and stuff.

Pile o' Lambos

I was doing the one Lamborghini–only race today at Laguna Seca. On the 2nd lap, at the bottom of the corkscrew, I noticed a pile of spare parts all over the place. I made a point to watch the replay from some of the other cars' POV. Sure enough, the cranberry Gallardo or whatever it is drove straight off the right–hander, and the dark green one of the same type tried to drive through his driver side door, so they both hit the wall. As they both backed onto the track, the rest of the field all piled into them. It's the biggest computer–driven crash I've seen so far. Forza cars lose front and rear fascias about as easily as a CORR truck sheds plastic body panels.

Hose Reel Hosed

We got a really nice hose reel to attach to the back of the house a couple years ago I think. It's like cast aluminum or some pot metal—very heavy duty, has no problem holding the heavy black Goodyear hose we have on it. It must be on bearings too, because it reels so smoothly and without a squeak. Anyhoo, the handle broke last year. It too was cast in some light spongy metal. I kept meaning to fix it some how, but knew I couldn't put the broken arm back together. Today I decided to just replace it with galvanized pipe parts. Thankfully the crank is on the correct side so it will always tighten any joints when reeling the hose back in. The sucky part was trying to enlarge the inside of the 1st piece, whose ID was about 1/64" too small, according to my calipers. Lots of filing by hand and grinding with a small grinding bit on a drill. My horse for a milling machine.

330 P4

I got around to the Legends Rivalry race a week or 2 ago, choosing to go with the Ferrari 330 P4 instead of the Ford GT40. I test drove both beforehand and felt the 330 was less of a handful. Painted 'er up with a '60s racing feel and went at it. I've been using the DX sticker I made for the Sunoco Porsche livery on a lot of cars, cuz I've liked their logo since I was a kid. Here I am leading the pack at Sebring.



I hope they'll add the 312PB to Forza3. I had a blast racing my G+Plus around and around, oiling it, replacing and shaping the pickup shoes, drilling the chassis and wheels to make it lighter, and adding a finned chrome valve cover from a 1/24 scale model with one end cut off as an air scoop on the top, beside the driver, helping to bring cooling air to the motor. OK, so that probably added more weight than it did sucking in air, but I thought it was a good idea.

Ward, Don't Spank the Beaver

OK, it's too small for the Cleavers, but check out this house from 1955 that has never been lived in. It's pristine—the furniture, the kitchen, the bathroom. The mind boggles at why the owners would live in the basement. Nuts? Vampires? The pink bathroom is fucking amazing.

Then there's this '60s house in Des Moines. It's truly far out—very Mad Men. It was built for one of the Dahl's food guys.

Lotsa Work

That wedding gig at the zoo was sort of a bitch. Load the crap in through a door, "up this ramp" (use Spicoli accent), into a big slow elevator, down a hall, and into the big room. Luckily there were some heavy duty carts we could load up. It actually took us longer to load in than it did to set up. The big room was rectangular with flat, smooth walls. Yep, pretty much the worse room for sound. Did a quick sound check before they brought in a little penguin and put it in a little fenced–off area. I guess the couple liked penguins; they had a pair of Emperors holding hands on the front of their program. This one was about duck/goose sized. Cute little thing. We got to eat. Food was decent. Then had a long wait while they did a slideshow that went on and on and on for 4 or 5 songs. Fer christ fuckin' sake, a 1–song slideshow is plenty long. Then the best man made a long speech. Then the bride's maid. Then some other chick made a really boring speech. Then we could finally start.

We played their favorite song, Happy Together, then stopped so they could have a mother/son dance to some song on an iPod. Then we went back on. It ended up being a pretty good crowd and they had a lot of fun having a live band. I thought we'd probably be done after the 2nd set, but they were all still in party mode for the 3rd set, then even made us do an encore. And then we had to load all the shit out the same way. Blargh. I don't wanna play there ever again.

Our grass grew like greased ape shit after the rain last week, and I was too tired to even attempt mowing on Sunday. Today was 95° and all humid–like, but since the forecast shows more rain, I at least did the front yard tonight at about 9:00. Seems weird to go out and mow that late, but Geoff was also doing the same thing, and it was still really light out.

Jet Powered Turntable

Had Apple been around in 1957, this turntable surely could've been the grandfather of the iMac and the iPod. It's just too far out for words. Like yowza, dad.

Wedding Gig

We're playing a wedding tonight over in St. Paul in the Como Zoo Conservatory. Gotta set up at 4 and then not make any noise while they eat at 6, then play at 8. Makes for a long day. Loading in requires the user of an elevator. Blargh. But I shouldn't complain, because it's not some rickety, rattly iron fire escape that was built around 1920, goes up at a 50–60° angle, and is about as wide as me. Already tried that once.

Quick Farm Truck

It looks like just another beat to shit farm truck, until you notice the racing slicks on the back, complete with OEM Chevy hub caps. It makes me smile. And watch the movie to see what some folks do when there isn't a real drag strip near by. Looks like they get the cops to close of a stretch of road going right through town. There's even some sort of concrete plant or something, if you'll notice the tops of 3 conveyors behind a concrete block wall. And no guard rails down the "track". Um, I'd keep everybody behind the, say, 10' mark. Drags have ways of going awry real quick like.

Custom Stroller

Most kids will grow up and go on to be boring adults. Not this little girl. Dig the stroller her dad made.

"Are you a hooker?!"

"Just when I thought I was doing great with you!" —Arthur


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He Can See His House from There

Cirque Berzerk. I don't think I need to say much besides it looks really cool. Watch the videos for a taste of their tasty sense of humor.

Funny Funny Hippos

While googling for the Remington, painter of horses and stuff, I found this painter's blog. The truck painting at the top caught my eye—you don't see a lot of oil paintings of trucks beneath a loading hopper. And then I scrolled down to the hippos. I think they're amazing. Absurdly funny.

Cranky Weather Professor

Dr. Rick Monday, a Bemidji State University professor, was on the radio the other morning to talk about what to expect this Summer. Instead, he got pissed off about Joe Bastardi from accuweather.com. His funny tirade is very impressive.

Square American Cars

Over at Square America is a gallery of car related images from the '40s and '50s, including some blueprints and specs for a couple Nash badges. Those are the kind of things that I'd frame and hang on the wall if I had the originals. The text on the main page says (including way too many capitalized words in the title):

We Cast Our Dreams In Chrome And Steel: Photographs & Ephemera From The Golden Age Of American Automobiles From The Files Of Banthrico- A slideshow of over 30 photos, blueprints, and ads from the files of Banthrico, a company that manufactured toy banks for the auto industry. A reminder that once there was a time when American car manufacturers got it right.

They have other recent galleries too, including Polaroids. One snapshot in that collection is of some old lady in a casket, like deadsville. Weird. I never thought about taking a camera to a funeral. Maybe her husband took it to capture the moment he finally had some peace and quiet for the first time in 70 years. Thank you! Try the shrimp!

Retro Binary Clock

Greg will appreciate this, having programmed his own binary clock. But even he might have trouble reading this one at first glance. Good thing they have the base 10 equivalent above. Seen in the August 1973 Playboy.

Demo Done

I think. Now I'll need to find something else to do. The final product can be found over on our Audio page. Lemme know wotcha think.

Cable Free

I was doing a little mixing today and realized how much of a mess it would've been had all the patches and buses actually been run to outboard boxes via cables, like before digital recording. And all the sheets of paper with notes on when something should be turned up or down when making the final mix–down to stereo. That was kind of a dance you'd do with your fingers. Now you can get enormously complex and not move from your chair. I love it.

My left monitor with the mixer, and the very cool KingDubby old school Echoplex/Space Echo tape–based delay simulator, which is on the vox at the end:


And the right with the tracks:


My desktop images are some that I made, based on the paper drinking cups that were around during the '70s. They had about half a dozen different color combinations. I loved those cups—fantastic design.

Settle Down

Our Peoria office has some dress code Nazis. You know the type; no fun at parties because their clothes fit too tightly, have never owned a T–shift with anything printed on it, wear khakis and a Polo to mow the yard (I have a neighbor like this), etc. One of our huge clients, well, huge—a national bank/credit/loan company that everybody knows, whose initials are the same as my favorite southern rock band. They visit once in a while to discuss services we do for them. When they do, Miss Frigid sends out an email telling people they can't wear jeans or other casual clothes while the client is here. This time around, somebody else (one who will actually be meeting with the client) sent out a message saying it's OK to dress as usual while the client is here, because the client will also be wearing jeans because they'll be spending a lot of time in the warehouse. A few minutes later, Miss Frigid sent out a message as follows (the caps are hers):

…jeans WILL NOT BE ALLOWED on either day. [client] is a VERY important client to us and it is VERY important that we all make good impressions on these days.

Wow. She really needs to settle down. If she's married, I bet her husband drinks heavily.

Band of Pansies

Here's another one of those sites created by someone whose brain is leaking. It's funny to make fun of people, but after a couple pages, you start to get the feeling he's 100% serious. Just the little things like using the shift key on his goddamned PC while caps lock is already on, so it lower–cases the letter instead (stupid feature) and leaving the copyright notice that way on dozens of photos that I doubt he really took. Anyhoo, the band in the middle of this page is really beyond words. Such a weird mix. The rest of the photos are pretty much fatties, D&D nerds with long hair and swords, goths, and just plain dorks. AAAAA! Don't look at the bottom–right of this page. I think my optic nerves have exploded.

Cellar Dweller

It took most of Saturday to get my drums hauled down, set up, miked up, tuned up, and muffled up. When I heard the first test take back, I felt like all that work was not at all worth it. But I soldiered on, made some muffling adjustments, and after a lot of creative work with separate gate, EQ, and compressor tweaks on each of the 9 tracks, I think I got something I can live with. I really wish we didn't have gigs the next 2 weekends so I could leave everything set up and perfect it. The snare was over–muffled on the first song (Middle of the Road), but it took me many takes to get a good one that I didn't want to try to fix it. The toms just sound weird. I'm thinking I had the mics way too close, but when they were further away the gates on neighboring drums would open, so the drum would be heard in multiple tracks. At least the overheads picked up the cymbals nicely. I used my headset mics for those, the only condensers I have, hung from the ceiling joists by spring clamps. And at least the kick was easy; that was just a MIDI track with a canned sample, cuz that's what I use instead of an acoustic. I'll spend some time trying different things to see what I can get out of the tracks. Hopefully it is something I won't hate.

Quarantine

Whoa. We watched Quarantine tonight and we were very impressed. It's shot from the cameraman character's POV, like Cloverfield, and they really figured out how to use that style of shooting to totally involve the audience. I found myself moving my head to look around people who were right in front of the camera. The Blair Witch Project was probably the first really popular movie to use this technique—too bad the movie sucked. I just didn't find that one entertaining or scary at all. But I highly recommend Quarantine if you want a truly kick–ass zombie horror movie.

Near-Done Demo

Here, take a listen and see what you think. I tend to start ignoring obvious things after I've listened to them dozens of times during mixing, so there's probably something way too loud or whatever in these. Keep in mind the drums suck and will be totally replaced. I just want to get opinions on the mix and stuff.

Come Together

Middle of the Road

Stray Cat Strut

The Letter

Sticky Tape and Rust

I really don't miss waiting for tapes to rewind when recording, nor do I miss tape hiss. I think we have all the tracks recorded now, except for one vocal part for Kim. And then I plan on spending this weekend locked in the basement with my real drums, mics, gaffer's tape, blankets, and all the other shit it takes to get drums to sound perfect when recording. I don't know if I'll succeed, but they've got to sound better than what I have down now, especially the toms on Come Together. They should be subtle and human. Instead, they're harsh and robotic.

I noticed the sampler included in Logic can have a ridiculous number of samples per instrument. Like some of the snares have a couple dozen individual samples for various volume levels. Back in the early '90s when I sampled my old drums, I used 3 per tom and cross–faded them across different volume ranges, which I though sounded good back in those days. But the more level ranges there are, the more real it will sound with all the different attacks, harmonics, and resonances of each one. It'd be nice to put together a really good full drum set of samples that way, including cymbals, so that way I wouldn't have to go through the long miking process again the next time we do this. Although that too would be a really long process.

Blaas of Glory

In America we have Hayseed Dixie, a very competent group of bluegrass/country/hick musicians performing their own versions of popular metal and hard rock songs. In Holland they have Blaas of Glory, a sort of oompah band wearing wigs, Spandex, and cucumbers, also performing their own versions of some of those same songs. When you take into account the odd sense of humor Europeans seem to have when compared to ours, I'd say the two are just about equal in their balance of musical prowess and overall weirdness. But being a Midwesterner, I'll eagerly take, listen to, and buy the bluegrass over the polka/oompah stuff.

Lotus Evora

Even if the writing isn't all that great over at Winding Road, at least the photos are nice. And what better subject to point a camera at than the new Lotus Evora. That's a good lookin' car. Dig the subtle helmet bubbles in the roof. Even the name is sexy, like a jammed together version of Eva Longoria. I find myself loving everything Lotus makes these days. Man I wish I had $73k just lying around.

Gasser Is a Gas

The words to describe the awesomeness of this car have not been invented yet. The paint. The straight front axle. The headers. The whitewall cheater slicks. The chromed stealies. The "Colored Waiting Room" sign on the tranny tunnel (that's a funny piece of vintage signage, wonder where he found that). The antenna through the fin. It all fucking rules. It's what Satan would drive. He'd drive up to a bunch of little pussies with their ugly too–big mags and low profile tires and beat the shit outa them, then take their chicks.

Stu-Stu-Studio

I guess I couldn't resist making a reference to that annoying Phil Collins song. I'm sorry. Hopefully it's not looping in your head now. Stephen King called them ear worms in a recent Entertainment Weekly column—those damn songs that get stuck in your head for hours, days, or even months.

We did a bit of low key recording today. Emily couldn't make it, so we just laid down the instrument tracks for The Letter (Cocker) and Lies (Knickerbockers). Last night it was the movie projector that broke. Today Logic couldn't get the playback audio into the firewire interface. A reboot of the Mac and the interface finally did the trick. Then when I made a new project to record the first song today, it would only record the analog audio track from my drums, not the MIDI track. It took about 5 minutes before I realized the MIDI cable was still plugged into the keyboard instead of the drums from when Emily added the Rhodes part for Come Together last week. BTW, I named the preset I came up with Abbey Rhodes when I saved it. Yes, I'm damned proud of that.

Does Kirk Live?

Today, Kim asked if I wanted to go out and see Star Trek. We haven't been to a theater in a long, long time, perhaps over a year. I just don't see the point these days with home theater being a much better picture and sound, way more comfortable, eat/drink what you want at any time, no loud annoying dumbasses, etc. But I said OK, we'll go. Wow, was that a mistake. First, it's cold and rainy. I'd've much rather stayed in the house. The theater was tiny, but we went in when the last 2 people were leaving from the previous show, so we got the center seats right behind a railing (no people could block our view). They showed crappy local ads for about 10 minutes, then the previews began. Kim likes them, but the sound sucked—mono. We hoped the movie would be in full surround. Nope, no difference. Not only did it seem to only be coming out of the center channels below the screen, but the there was no low end and way too much mids. And there were at least 3 pair of speakers on the side walls. I didn't hear one peep out of them.

The movie was OK. Coulda done without the initial young Kirk scene with the stupid music. But then right after Scotty beamed into the thing, the power went out. Not the entire theater, block, or even city power; just the power that runs the projectors it seemed. The audio didn't die because you could hear the audio track slow down as the film slowed to a halt. And the emergency lights didn't come on. They told us "the power went out" and then after about 10 minutes said they couldn't get it back, and we could get refunds out front. While in line to get our money back, I noticed a big professionally printed plastic sign on the wall. It said "ATM Machine". It's the downfall of Western Civilization I tell you.

So, do they all live and go on to have long careers in Star Fleet? I guess we'll never know. At least until it comes out on Blu–ray and we see and hear the movie in a non–sucky way. And if anyone wants to tell me what happened, that'd be cool. I'm not one of those who gets his panties all in a bunch if somebody spoils the ending.

I didn't like the actor playing Spock. Too much of a pussy, like he should be an officer in a Star Trek fan club, in charge of writing name tags in Klingon before their next meeting. The Kirk guy was OK—hard to believe it was the same guy from Bottle Shock. Uhura was pretty, but a bit too interactive. Sulu and Chekov were fine, although I would've hired somebody without that goofy curly hair for Chekov. The Bones actor kept flip–flopping between a nice version of Bones and an actor trying too hard to "be" the character. We didn't really get enough time with Scotty, but I imagine Simon Pegg did a great job, as always. Nero the Romulan bad guy… ugh. Like a bad mix of Tom Cruise and Robert Di Nero. Fucking shave.

There you have it—Steve's crappy movie review.

Crash Lids

I wish I had Coop's collection of old helmets. J.C. Whitney carried those for years. The tool chest is pretty wicked too.

Robot Parts

This guy builds some amazing looking robots out of old hardware and fixtures. On the one hand, I hate that he's destroying vintage appliances and things. On the other hand, the results are cool.

Panoz, Meet Viper

That's me in the Panoz being a pest. Note my front wheel on the pavement. In Forza 3, we'd see tire deformation instead. Maybe they'll also add the ability for tires to shred. No matter how much you abuse them in F2, you never end up driving on the rims.



My butt fell off.

Electricity Is His Friend Too

This guy built some mongo cool electronic doohickies. I wish there was an audio/video of the drum machine. The synth is a lot of fun. Toward the end there he almost gets some R2D2 type sounds. Great looking designs though. Love the orange peel paint. I have some in blue that I painted my drill bit index with.

Everybody on the Truck

What's cooler than a group of vintage Scarabs? A group of vintage Scarabs on an equally vintage Scarab hauler. The purpose–built race car transports of the '60s were extremely cool. And by gum, they're probably rare as hell these days.

Experiments in Physics

Velocity - traction = AAAAUUGGHH!!!

I'd already smooshed the Esprit when I hit the grass. The throttle was mashed to the floor, so suddenly it all broke loose.



Luckily this photographer was there to put out the grass fire that started after those sparks ignited the dry weeds.



On the last lap, I thought an airplane or pterodactyl flew over. The replay shows it was the shadow from the car below me. I was on an overpass. Oops. They have a rendering logic bug there.



And Brent, here's one of the woodies. Had I cared more, I would've trimmed the wheel arches.

Mixing Lessons

I spent last night mixing Stray Cat Strut, fixing errant notes, a little cut & paste here and there, deciding on reverbs, and trying to figure out what compression to use on various tracks. That's the hard part. Compression is an art. Too much and it sounds like a shitty radio station. Not enough it it's hard to listen to on all but really good stereos. I also learned that I should probably copy the projects up to the office when all tracks have been recorded and do the final mix there. The large Infinity's and the basement environment just don't make for good playback. What I thought sounded good had way too much bass guitar and kick when I listened to it on the Mac in the den, which is the system I'm most used to listening to music on these days. It used to be my car stereo, back when we did that one Missing Link/Crossfire recording at the skating rink and Hotel Hell. I'd do a mixdown, then take it out to my car to see what was right and what was wrong. Too bad we didn't have the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside.

Tonight we plan on doing The Letter and Come Together. CT should be a lot of fun, as it was such a "studio" type song. I doubt I'll get the same magic they got at Abbey Road Studios. Maybe if we all speak British. Plus we'll get to try the cool Rhodes plugin I have. Listen to the sample they have. Note the tiny bit of overdrive it can do when hammered. So sweet.

More Fun with Paint

For the helluvit, a Mustang in the old gaudy black gold Cobra II paint. Not even that can make this generation of Mustang look good.



I don't have any good cars to paint like this, but the Pierson Brothers Coupe is one of the most famous of the land speed cars, and I've always loved the simple paint job they had on it.



The Mark Donohue Sunoco paint that was on his Porsche 917 CanAm racer first caught my eye when I saw it on an R/C car when I was a kid. I stuck it on my 944, to keep it in the family.



I can't make it do wheelies and I can't move the engine to the back, but it still makes this early 'Cuda look cool going around a track.

Video Thingy

I think I forgot to tell y'all about this. A friend of Emily's went handheld with John's camera and got some neat footage of everyone a few weeks ago. I managed to chop it up and blend it with another gig and make a really crappy video. I could've gone all '80s and used various video f/x, but that would be even dopier. Other than it being a different bar and me playing different fills each time, it blended together fairly well. Although I did have to vary the speed of the handheld shots because we played the song a tiny bit slower or faster that night. It was pretty easy to do in iMovie. iMovie did manage to fuck up the audio when it rendered the version for YouTube. I'm finding it obvious that Apple throws a lot more R&D at the pro level products that they charge a lot more money for. Logic Express has been rock solid, whereas Garage Band, iMovie, and iDVD always seem to produce little spots of puke on the carpet.

Backup Chicks

Kim & I added our backup vocal parts to the 2 songs we have down on disk. For the "ladies' cat/man, that's that" part in SCS, we're doing harmonies instead of just the hollerin' the Stray Cats do. I laid down the lower one first, then when Kim was trying to find her part, she inadvertently found a higher note which was a note I was going to add later, which made it into a cool jazz type chord. So we left that in and she added the other one. Kinda gives it that Andrew Sisters thing. She also worked out some really cool walking bass parts for that, following all the augmented minor 17th chords or whatever they are, because she was bored with the basic walks she'd been doing. I'm glad I bought her that first bass 8.5 years ago. Wow, it's been that long?

Pencils Galore

Neighbor Geoff just called from a job site and said he'd scored a bunch of carpenter pencils. The guy cracks me up, how excited he got over that and had to call just to say he'd give me some. I'll be amazed if I ever use up the 2 I've been using since around '96, much less the ones he'll give me.

Chartreuse Day

The new Green Day album is really good, and I've only heard it once in passing while working. Once again, they pull out some amazing chord changes and melodies which, when put together, make some incredible songs. Peacemaker has a sort of minor key Middle–Eastern/Spanish flavor, and I love the way the solo starts with the totally off tempo whole notes.

They also did a side project a while back called Foxboro Hot Tubs, releasing an album called Stop Drop and Roll!!!. It takes them back to their more raw punk roots, but also sounds like a nod to any number of British influences, kinda like Rush's album of covers they did of all the stuff that influenced them in their early days, Feedback.

Buy 'em all! Get some for your friends!