Yesterday our little band had the opportunity to record at the Institute of Production and Recording in Minneapolis, MN (Across the street from this place). A friend of a friend is going to school there and needed a guinea pig for his project. Well we were it! It meant four hours of FREE studio time for us to crank out some songs.
They recorded us on this great big 36-channel Digidesign system.
I pretended to know what I was doing, but...
Really it was these guys who were the masterminds.
I had no idea that recording involved so much time sitting around, waiting for the techs to get the levels right.
Eventually we got to play.
While they were setting up to do the vocal tracks, I took some photos of the guitars.
Here are some shots of the singers setting up in the isolation booth:
This is a poor-quality video I shot of the singers laying down a vocal track. You cannot hear the instrument playback that they were singing along to.
And when we exited the studio, the Minneapolis skyline greeted us!
Stay tuned for when we get our songs back from production.
Ellas McDaniel, aka Bo Diddley December 30, 1928 - June 2, 2008
I had a chance to see Bo Diddley play at the Columbia Arena in Fridley (of all places) back in 1987. It was some sort of back to the 50's show with a bunch of other legends most of whom I cannot recall. Freddie Cannon and the Coasters and some others. Really all I was there for was to see Bo. All of the performers were backed by the Rockin Hollywoods. The show was general admission with cheapie seats up in the stands and the premo spots down on the main floor.
Bo was the last artist to perform. A lot of the people left after "their" artist was finished, so it was during the confusion between sets I was able to sneak my way down to the main floor and get up close to the stage. I cannot tell you how many people ended up seeing that show, because once Diddley took the stage I never looked behind me. What I do know is that the dude played his heart out for us - It was all the Hollywoods to do to keep up with him. By the end of the set their clothes were soaked through with sweat.
I was less than 10 feet from the guy and we made eye contact many times while he played. I can only imagine what he must of thought of me, some long-haired teenager, dancing unrestrained to his music in front of all those forty-something classic car owners.
You hear a lot about performers who play their best, even when it is to an empty room. I have never forgotten how this Rock & Roll hall of famer played such a big show, even in a half-empty hockey rink. Easily the best show I have ever seen.
My sister is selling me my dad's old Lund S-16 fishing boat
My lawn came up approx. 33% dandelions this year
Oh yeah, and there is this matter of the wife's tight-fitting clothes and her inexplicable craving for bizarre foods including pickles (Honestly thought that one was a myth)... Yes, we are pregnant again with our second child. We are at 14 weeks as of today. We kept the first trimester mum due to a blood clot that we could see in the early ultrasounds. With a lot of prayer and taking it easy, as of last week the clot is gone and everything looks good for a late November (Thanksgiving) baby.
We are going to an all-inclusive place in Cancun for all of next week to lay in the sun and do... NOTHING!
Am I boring you? For those of you looking for better content I suggest you look no further:
Today I paid a visit to my son's classroom, where they are preparing for the big "Kinderconcert" field trip tomorrow at Orchestra hall. I brought in the 12-string and gave a small presentation to a captive audience of 4 and 5-year-olds.
I played "Twinkle Twinkle" on the low strings, then on the high. And then on both finishing with a flourish (basically just an open E chord but it seemed to impress them). Then we all sang together while I played.
We talked about how different instruments work together to make music sound better and I answered questions like if it's harder to play 12 strings, what the tuning pegs do, etc.
I told them that music is for everyone, and that anybody can learn to play an instrument - It just takes practice.
At the end they all clapped and practiced the two new words they learned this week - "Bravo!" , "Encore!" You can laugh at me if you want but that is the only time I have heard those words spoken aloud while I had a guitar strapped to me.
My son capped it all off with "Thanks for coming! See you tomorrow!"
The other night I dreamed that we were playing an extended set in some auditorium. For some inexplicable reason we began playing "Going to California." Even more bizarre was that I was singing it, hitting every note and even ad-libbing in a convincing fashion.
It all came crashing down when I reached those "Seems that the wrath of the gods Got a punch on the nose..." lines when suddenly I realized it was my normal voice, the one that I would probably sound like if I were to attempt to sing the song during my waking hours. I stopped the song and asked for the house lights.
As they came up to my horror I saw that there were only six people left in the auditorium, and they were people that I knew. I began to apologize profusely for my singing but somebody called out that it was OK because nobody had been able to hear anything for the last hour anyway.
I then looked down and realized that my "Microphone" was actually the 4-D-Cell mag Light flashlight that I keep by my bed. The dream jumped ahead to after the show when we were packing up our gear and I was stopping a stage manager from walking off with our hi-hat.
I woke up with a sense of anxiousness as though there were actually music gear nearby that I was supposed to be packing.
If life were a performance I would be part of a church band, playing on some Saturday morning in a gymnasium, tucked into a corner in front of a fire exit. Oh wait, I guess that's what I did last weekend.
The FACC praise & worship team played Easterfest last weekend at St John Vianney school in South St. Paul. We played a short set of 4 or 5 songs while people ate. I couldn't hear the 'big picture' very well but reliable sources claim that we sounded OK, even without a bass.
The roster did not contain the 'usual suspects' - without our fleet of more than capable backup vocalists, Roberto set aside the instruments to front the band. We got some help from Ron Basuil (one of the better guitarists I have ever played with) on six-string acoustic. Malou, who has only been playing with us for a short while, joined us on keyboards. We even had the elusive Kim Vadayos grace us with a solid drum performance. Hard rocker Brian Rourke capped it off with some lead guitar. As always, I felt privileged just to be there and add to the noise.
Here is some footage of us playing "Fields of Grace" - I am off camera to the left (That's Ron's guitar neck poking in)
And here is some footage of the same song courtesy of Ron, from a different angle:
I don't know if finding out Jeff Healey was dead was more shocking than finding out that he was only two years older than me when I first saw him in that "Confidence Man" video back in 1988.
In an egregious breach of protocol, I am going to blog about something work-related, although this could actually happen to anyone, anytime.
While waiting on hold for the customer support of a soon-to-be-former vendor, I was subjected to an endless loop of "Touch of Grey" by the Grateful Dead. The song never started and never ended. It was ENDLESS.
The worst part was that I was subjected to multiple transfers in the hunt for the elusive "Right guy" to talk to, and Jerry Garcia was still waiting for me, like he had never stopped singing, because in reality he hadn't.
Perhaps they were overconfident in their ability to get a rep assigned to me in four minutes or less. If so, they failed miserably. I suspect that it was all part of a master plan to break my will, which if so it was orchestrated with astonishing effectiveness. Eventually I was babbling incoherently, waving a lighter over my head and begging them to play Free Bird or Wayward Son. My brain was short-circuited. I cannot remember what I called them about or if they even helped me.
There was lots of music to listen to in the 80's. If you veered away from the crowd once in a while you could find some really good bands. Bands that played music that is not currently being heralded as "80's Classics." Bands that played the music that you can actually remember listening to - You can even remember where you were or what you were doing, even if it was nothing you thought was important at the time. That is really what mainstream culture is trying to cash in on, every time you hear a radio station play some awful tripe and attempt to market it as the 'music of your youth.'
It's the bands that never made it big, who were at right place at the right time, exactly when you were ready to listen, whose music means the most. When you listen you can be sure that your memories are your own, and not some marketing plan that was uploaded to your brain by the mothership.
Kee-ripes... look at their hair! They had the whole flock of seagulls thing going on, plus the turned-up collars. Yet even though this video is hopelessly time stamped as an '80's song, I still enjoy watching these clowns pretend to jam in the woods, among the fall colors.
I'm not sure what all the bullfight footage was supposed to represent, though.
This song has been 'eating at my brain' for a while now:
Song: re: your brains Artist: Jonathan Coulton
Song Premise (From jonathancoulton.com): "If Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that being trapped in a mall surrounded by a million zombies would be really troublesome. But how much more annoying would it be if the head zombie used to be your co-worker, and he was kind of a prick even before he got infected? And now he's right outside and he just keeps talking and talking - still the same jackass, only now he wants to eat your brains?"
Hope you all like the new navigation and the rotating header images. The navigation is all CSS and works in IE 6, IE 7 and Firefox. Haven't tested in Safari. If any Ginkgo biloba Tofu eating, soy chai latte drinking, VW Jetta driving Mac users stumble across this web site, please drop a line and let me know if it looks OK.
Home grown music Friday - "Rain on the Trailer" by the Glenrustles. These guys don't have a video to post.
I did a quick search on youtube this morning, really stoked to hear that there was a new Loch Ness Monster video. Well, I watched it and I'm sorry to say that it pretty much sucked.
But I did find this extremely cool Jose Feliciano video. Watch the whole thing: The dude goes completely off the fretboard!
A blast from college days. This Husker Du song is from the Flip your wig album (which I had in vinyl). I had a 90 minute tape with Flip your wig on one side and Elvis Costello's King of America on the other. The labels have fallen off of it but I still have that tape. It gets moved into whatever vehicle I am driving.
Walking around with your head in the clouds Makes no sense at all Sell yourself short, but you're walking so tall Makes no sense at all Is it important? You're yelling so loud Makes no sense at all Walking around with your head in the clouds Makes no sense at all Makes no difference at all
I don't know why you want to tell me When I'm right or when you're wrong It's the same thing, in your mind, the only time I'm right is when I play along
You concern yourself with evidence It's evident to me Well you say you've got the tiger by the tail But I don't see these things that way
On the way in to work this morning I heard something I liked on the current:
Patty Griffin - No Bad News
"Why don't you burn it all down, burn your own house down, burn your own house down Try to kill your own disease And leave the rest of us, there's a lot of us, leave the rest of us Who wanna live in peace to live in peace."
Over lunchtime yesterday I heard the Go-go's on KQRS. Driving home I heard Led Zeppelin on Kool 108. A couple of minutes later Kool 108 played the same Go-go's song.
Today was Philippine day at the Landmark center in St. Paul. Our Praise & Worship team played an accoustic number and I played a few songs with a rondalla group. We didn't have a lot of practice under our belts and I could only hear the instruments on either side of me so I don't know how we sounded as an ensemble. Given the accoustics of the Landmark, if we did sound bad I doubt anyone noticed.
My sister Karen and my brother in law Dale brought my dad and they managed to catch both performances. They sampled the pinoy food and watched the folk dances. It was good to have dad in the crowd. I know that mom would have enjoyed herself too if she had been there. She never missed a chance to see me play.
Next Saturday is the celebration for Mama & Papa's 50th wedding anniversary. Their daughter Josephine had her tourist visa approved this past week. With her will come an octavina for me. I am excited about getting & learning a new instrument.
I got lots of pictures which I still need to unload & resize. I'll try to get those up later.
"Maligayang Bati Sa Iyong Kaarawan" (Happy Birthday) to Gonzalo ("Papa") Olojan Sr., who is 78 years young today. Actually in his Cebuano dialect it would be "Maayong pagsaulog sa adlaw nga natawhan."
Papa was born in 1928 on the Philipine island of Leyte. He was twelve years old when the Japanese invaded his country. Like so many of his generation, he witnessed firsthand the brutality that was inflicted on his fellow countrymen during the war. He witnessed some of the battles between Japanese and American forces on and around Leyte during the liberation.
As he grew into a man he became an accomplished pastor in the PI (Philipine Islands) and in his prime had a very successful radio broadcast that went out each day over the lunch hour to reach workers who hungered for spiritual food.
In 1991 he came to Minnesota along with his wife Anita ("Mama") and helped to found the Filipino-American Christian Church. To this day he serves there as pastor emetrius.
Papa & Mama have earned their affectionate titles by acting as surrogate parents for so many of the Filipino transplants in the greater Minnesota community. Indeed, it was Papa who walked my beautiful wife down the aisle when her parents were unable to make it to the U.S. to attend our american wedding. Papa and Mama both have taken it upon themselves to act as my son's maternal grandparents in the absence of my wife's parents, earning themselves the additional titles of "Lolo" and "Lola" respectively.
Papa is an accomplished musician, talented in the guitar, Bandurria, Laud, piano, trumpet and the accordian. There isn't an instrument that the man couldn't learn how to play.
Papa has touched the hearts of countless people with his gentle demeanor forged with a firm and convicted faith in the Lord, and he never tires of spreading the Gospel or doing the Lord's work.
So here is my birthday wishes to Papa Olojan, may the Lord bless you with many more years!
A rare weekend post. This afternoon I showed up early at church for P&W rehearsal. Actually I was right on the money at 3:00 but I forgot to take 'Filipino time' into account and went off to kill a half hour before my bandmates arrived.
I ended up at an estate sale up the street from the church, where I had been lured in by the sight of a 14' alumacraft fishing boat on a trailer. As it turns out that was about the most alluring thing to be found. There were a few power tools but they were borderline antique and genuinely frightening in the condition of their cords - mummified in electrician's tape, no original plugs.
All of the furniture and gadgetry was well-worn and not of any real value. That is to say there were no real treasures to be found there. The purpose of the sale was just the transfer of junk from one person to the next, the distillation of a lifetime's accumulation of crap. Whoever owned all of this stuff was either dead or as good as gone. Either way their stuff was on the block and it was runing out the door in 1 and 5 dollar increments.
I went out back and made my way to the tool shed. There was a nice lawn boy mower in there but there was no price on it. On my way back I looked the yard over - Overgrown and disrepair. Everything pointed to grandma in the nursing home or grandpa buried about three weeks ago. I'll never know the story behind all of that junk because I left without asking.
On my way down the driveway I saw the last thing which really drove it all home: A row of four suitcases, standing at meek attention, waiting for new owners. Whoever lived in this house was long gone, and wherever they went they didn't need their luggage. Death is that big trip we all have booked; and when we go we will all be travelling light.
I went back to the church and jammed with my friends. As we played my mind moved away from morbid thoughts as the music moved through us. Later I went outside and basked in the warmth of the sun. I closed my eyes and listened to the drone of insects and inhaled the sweet aroma of purple coneflowers. Life may be a finite thing, but it is nothing short of glorius.
They recorded us on this great big 36-channel Digidesign system. 
I pretended to know what I was doing, but...
Really it was these guys who were the masterminds.
And when we exited the studio,
6 Comments
Link
Save to del.icio.us
Digg This!
