Below is a slideshow (click the right arrow at the bottom of the slide) that describes the issues I'm having with my home studio - specifically the firewire driver compatibility between Mac OS 10.5.5, Logic Pro 8 and the Mackie Onyx 1200f. I'd love any tips or suggestions ... and, yes, I'm obsessed with making this work.
I can't write a review about my new Verellen AC30-style guitar amplifier (spoiler alert: it is AWESOME!) without talking a bit about Ben Verellen. I first met Ben at his home/workspace in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood. He was running off to class at UW where he's finishing a degree in electrical engineering. But before he hit the bizooks, we spent a good deal of time communing on the perfect amp that he would build for me. It was one of those rare meetings where I knew this fellow musician / ampsmith / future electrical engineer thought just like I did about everything that makes a tube guitar amp a modern wonder of vintage science. The amp I commissioned from Ben is as simple as the best amps get. It does one range of sound but it does that sound very, very well.
Amp Specs
* 40 watt
* volume knob
* on/off switch
* standby switch
* low, mid, high EQ
* 2 Celestion Vintage 30
G12 (8 ohm) speakers
The volume knob is the key feature of the Verellen amp. With my Telecaster in single-coil bridge position I get a gorgeous full clean tone around 25% volume, warm growl when I'm digging in to the strings at 50% volume, nice chunky classic rock at 75% volume and full-on sustainable single notes at 100% volume with just enough feedback to please but not enough to crash the party. Switching pickup positions and guitars does pretty much what you'd expect - it makes every guitar sound it's best and reveals it's most unique tonal qualities. This is an all tube amp, built entirely from the ground up. It has many of the qualities of the classic Vox AC30 but with it's own signature Verellenian sound. It's simple, solid, aesthetically pleasing ... and it's completely awesome.
If I were a professional amp reviewer (spoiler alert #2: I'M NOT!) I'd get into the detailed minutiae of gain structures, EQ charts and exactly how this thing works. Instead I'll try to get at why I love this amp through a story from my past.
The Brown Amp
When I was growing up in Anchorage, Alaska in the 1980s my mom and dad returned from a trip to the exotic land of Los Angeles, California with a 1976 Fender Lead II - my first guitar! A friend gave me their throw-away amp head and I somehow drummed up a free 2x12 cab. The amp was a 70s Fender Bassman head. I knew nothing about guitars or amps so I quickly tore off the tattered silver grill cloth and painted the amp head and speaker cab with the only paint we had in the garage: exterior brown house paint from our very own split level home.
The only sound I knew was that 70s Bassman amp through a 2x12 cabinet with a Fender guitar, more often than not with amp and guitar volumes dialed to ten. It was a pure and awesome sound. With little knowledge of how an electric guitar or amp should sound, I naively assumed that all guitars and amps sounded this great. The amazingly warm, rounded distortion and growl this amp and guitar produced set me on a lifelong path of tinkering with guitars and amps.
Fast forward to 2008. My new Verellen amp is easily that good and, coincidentally, it's stained brown walnut. It does what I learned at an early age an amp should do: one sound, but one sound very well. The brown amp is back, but this time designed and hand-built by ampsmith Ben Verellen of Seattle, Washington. No need to turn it to eleven, this amp already goes to Verellen.
Contact info
Verellen Amplifiers website
MySpace site
email Ben
A few more pics
I try to pay less than $200 for cheap guitars, but this one was around $220 because it’s a proper American made Fender Stratocaster w/ a fancy pickup and hardware. I think it would retail used for about $700? But this looks like a shop project for the last owner. It appears s/he tried to sand off the finish, got into trouble when they started gouging the wood and then applied some bondo to build it back up. The net result is a fugly guitar with bondo, but in great working condition. Sounds great, though.
I kind of like the messed up bondo job so I’m leaving it as is. I believe it’s of the late 90s or early 00s. Anyone know how to tell?
That’s what I learned yesterday making a couple loaves of banana bread with my mom (she’s visiting). If you toast good walnuts just right and chop them up a bit (I don’t like them too big in the bread), they taste wonderful.
I used the Cook’s Illustrated recipe and it worked nicely.
I’m boarding an early flight tomorrow for Anchorage. I plan to head down to Alyeska the following day for 3 days of skiing with my brother and his family. I can hardly wait. I understand there is a lot of new snow and the weather is warm. Glorious skiing awaits.
Before this week I’d never been to a chiropractor and quite frankly I felt there was a strong likliehood it was a bunch of bullshit. But late last week I pinched a nerve in my neck, it got all tight and was hard to sleep comfortably. I’ve had worse in the past, but my days were filled with robotic full-torso head turning when people called my name. I bumped into a chiropractor while at the gym and he said “come on down, I’ll have you in and out in 15 minutes”. Well, it took about 45 with paperwork but I had my first neck-cracking session two days ago with an x-ray followed yesterday by an x-ray review and 2nd neck cracking. The popping of the joints , particularly the neck, freaked me out. But I exhaled and let him do his thing.
So, I have to say that it worked. I wanted to be a disbeliever (and I don’t know that I’m a convert) but it really did seem to alleviate the pinching altogether. It’s a bit tender as the area of my left shoulder was pretty well seized up and it may take a couple days to come down. But the pinching is effectively gone and everything feels loosened up. Is this coincidence (would my body have arrived here on it’s own these past 3 days) or did it really work? It feels like the adjustments really did the trick but I don’t fully understand what’s going on.
This wikipedia article is an interesting read on the history of chiropractic care. I didn’t realize until reading it that it’s largely a Canadian/US form of health care. I’m thankful I’m out of pain and the gent I went to is suggesting 2 months of adjustments to fully address the curve of my neck (I’ll give him credit for a low pressure pitch). I’m probably like most people—the pain is gone and I’m fine going about my business without further adjustments but who knows.
Has anybody had any good or bad experiences with chiropractic care in the past? Is it a bunch of hooey or do you think it’s the real deal? Has anyone done a full set of adjustments like the 2 months I’m being offered?
It took me a week in my spare time to piece it all together. My music reading skills are poor at best so I learned it by ear which was made easy by this wonderful website. I decoded the notes on that little mp3 many times over. It was like working a crossword or Scrabble word combo. Loved it.
Robot Laurel called my bluff on this one and we drove early this morning to Snoqualmie pass and went on a nice climb up the mountain on skis. Eventually we had to come down which was interesting on rental skis. My legs are tingly and devastated from all the snowplowing down.
A beautiful winter day.
Thought I’d pass along a link to Bald Girls Do Lunch, a non-profit for women with alopecia based in the NY area.
Bald Girls Do Lunch provides new and valuable opportunities for women with alopecia areata – an auto-immune skin condition which causes the partial or total loss of hair on the scalp, brows, lashes and body. We are a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the self-confidence of women who share the challenges of this condition.
Go BGDL!
Like most folks I started using a Sonicare toothbrush at the behest of my dentist. Actually, three seperate dentists over the years asked me to use it. And sure enough, less plaque on my teeth come cleaning time. However, over time my dentist began telling me that my gums were receding faster than made sense. I have clean teeth and floss twice daily. So, I was told to focus brushing the gums to stimulate the tissue. Long story short, I underwent a tissue transplant to replace my gums below my lower front teeth. Not a trivial thing.
The oral surgeon who performed the procedure said that 80% of his clients have receded gums from Sonicare. The other 20% is split between older patients and those that have chewed tobacco. The moral of this story: Beware The Sonicare!
Today I baked a round loaf of rustic breadh. I feel like I’ve finally worked out a few of the kinks with Jim Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery no-knead recipe. Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks. I gave it to Josh for his family dinner tonight. My 7th loaf was delicious so I’m predicting good times for the Petersens tonight.
I plan to bake a couple more loafs tonight to give to people.
That’s a 60% chance that we can revive this vending machine found abandoned in a parking lot down the street. Eric is going to help out. Our goal is to get it cleaned up and working so we can donate it to McLeod for the member’s room.
Buster is giving us until New Years Eve to get it going. If anyone else is interested in helping and knows something about refrigeration or old vending machines jump on in. It’s currently in my garage.
I put 9 pictures on Flickr as it’s best described in pictures. The greatest part about this Rhodes is it’s been overhauled by David Ell one of the prominent Rhodes technicians living today.
In addition, I’d love to sell off the entire tour rig that supports this rhodes. Namely …
It’s been one week and the pigeons have not returned. The hole they were accessing has been closed up with chicken wire. The attic is still full of pigeon shit and feathers, but at least they’re gone. It was driving me completely nuts.
A big clean-up job awaits.
I’ve had my 88 key Rhodes suitcase model (bottom pic) for many years. I don’t even know where I originally purchased it. Maybe the Trading Musician? But I didn’t pay much. However, over the years I’ve had a lot of restorative work done on it. And the restoration and tuning holds a lot of meaning for me.
Let me back up. A while back I went on a major purge of gear. I kept everything that I thought was essential or at least highly enjoyable and pleasing. I have a thing for fixing up old instruments—in the past I’ve owned as many as 5 Fender Rhodes at one time, not to mention 2 Hammond B3s, 3 Leslie speakers, lots of synths, guitars, etc. I’m done with that game, but I do like having a few nice instruments that I use.
That’s kind of where this Rhodes teeters: between something I use less and less but enjoy as a physical object—and something that I think might just be taking up space in my house.
The first major overhaul on this Rhodes was performed by a locally-famous piano tuner named Bill Nye (not to be confused with Bill Nye the Science Guy). He was meticulous beyond measure and went to the trouble of counterbalancing every one of the 88 keys with keyleads so they were properly balanced and weighted. Nobody ever does this to a Rhodes. This impressive feat was performed out of love—because Bill hated the Rhodes as a “crude” instrument but loved me and my brother. So, we struck a deal and traded him 1,100 bottles of Diet Peach Snapple to counterbalance, regulate and generally overhaul the guts of this Rhodes. Why? Because that summer Bill drank 2 or 3 Diet Peach Snapples a day—OCD. We didn’t have much money, but Greg (my bro) was working on a Snapple campaign handing out free samples of Snapple around Seattle. Which means that “free” Snapple samples paid for a big part of my Rhodes overhaul.
A few years later I met who I consider to be one of the premier Rhodes technicians in the world today, David Ell. David was kind enough to refinish the tolex and regulate my 88-key Rhodes in Kennewick, WA. He gave me a hell of a deal as we were both kind of kick-starting each other’s music careers. He was helping repair and enhance all my Fender Rhodes for tour and studio use while I spread the word about Dave’s incredible Rhodes technician prowess. Honestly, this guy is a bit of a genius as it relates to understanding the physics and repair of the Rhodes mechanism.
And here I am today seriously considering selling off this Rhodes with all my memories attached. From Snapple to Kennewick and back—rooming with my brother in Wallingford and dragging my crazy gear around to find crazy people to work on it for next to nothing. But loving all the bartering and comraderie involved.
I think it’s time to let go of the Rhodes, but I had to type through it.
P.S. RIP Bill Nye (death by spider bite of all things). I truly hope you enjoyed the Diet Peach Snapple. Your workmanship lives on in this Rhodes.
My mother was the first Jesuit Volunteer …
Modest beginning in the Last Frontier: Five women came to Alaska in 1956 as volunteer teachers. Fifty years later, their work here is seen as the beginning of an international Catholic service organization.
By Effie Caldarola
Anchor Writer
Marge Spils didn’t know she was making history when she headed north in 1956 to teach as a volunteer at Copper Valley School near Glennallen. The young Massachusetts college graduate — then Marge Mannix — just believed that it was another adventure, and for a good cause. She was joined by four other young women from Catholic colleges in Massachusetts, all of them persuaded by a warm-hearted Sister of St. Ann to come north to the missions. For the first couple of months, the women had to cross a stream to use an outhouse, and they learned how to plaster walls and glaze windows before the classrooms were ready for them to start their work of teaching. A friendly lodge owner let them take a weekly shower.
Fifty years later, that small group of women is heralded as the beginning of what was to become the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, now a national and international organization celebrating its 50th year.
The funny thing, Jesuit Father Tom Gallagher told the Anchor last week, is that even though the corps bears the name “Jesuit” now, a St. Ann Sister really came up with the whole idea. Sister George Edmond traveled to the East Coast to Catholic women’s schools who had lay apostolate programs, Father Gallagher explained. With slide shows and lectures, she recruited young women for Copper Valley, a boarding school serving mostly Native students that was operated jointly by the Jesuits and St. Ann Sisters. The Jesuits, who brought young men from Jesuit universities to help out during the summers at the school, knew a good thing when they saw it, and by the 1960s, they too were inviting young college graduates to join the newly named “Jesuit Volunteer Corps.”
The JFK connection
Anniversaries are a good time to ask some questions. Was the Jesuit Volunteer Corps really the model for President John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps, as rumor has it? And what exactly does it mean to be, as the corps’ informal motto promises, “ruined for life?”. Spils, now a member of Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage, said President Kennedy definitely paid a visit to her alma mater, Regis College, and asked the sister who directed the lay apostolate program, ” ‘If people will do this for the church, do you think they’d do it for the country?’”. As for being “ruined for life,” ask a former volunteer about it and they’ll probably smile and proceed to tell you how the corps changed everything. Marti Pausback was part of Anchorage’s first Jesuit Volunteer Corps community in 1985. A Colorado State University graduate, Pausback grew up in Aspen — a place she describes, along with her parish, as “rich, happy and white.” The Jesuit Volunteer Corps showed her “things I wouldn’t have seen”. “It shaped how I feel about the church,” Pausback said, giving her a “new image of the church which included social justice” as well as inclusiveness — “a join-us-at-the-table kind of thing”. Cathy Miller of Anchorage, a teacher, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parishioner and mother of five grown children, was a Jesuit Volunteer in St. Marys, Alaska, from 1971 to ’73. “It set my life going in a new direction,” said Miller, a native of San Francisco. “I thought it would be a good adventure, but I never thought I’d be so influenced to live a life of service”. Like many Jesuit volunteers, Miller found her life partner, Tom, in the corps.
The Millers emphasized social justice in their family, Cathy said; their daughter Colleen, 24, became a second-generation Jesuit Volunteer in Birmingham, Ala., last year. Another daughter served in the Peace Corps. Jesuit Volunteers continue to serve in Alaska.
Heather Coulehan spent 1992-93 as a Jesuit Volunteer in Anchorage at Abused Women’s Aid in Crisis (AWAIC) and later spent two years, 2002 and 2003, teaching with Jesuit Volunteer International in South Africa. She remembers longingly the liturgies in South Africa: Masses full of rhythm and movement. Even the gifts were “danced” to the altar, she said. Retreats were also an important part of her corps life, she said. Volunteers are provided with three or four spiritual retreats during their volunteer year.
Ruined
So what is this “ruined for life” business? It’s a value thing, Cathy Miller said. Most former volunteers she knows are not wealthy — they don’t value “success” in the classic American way.
Coulehan agrees that the corps produces a counter-cultural effect in people, a way of looking at materialism, spirituality and the vulnerable that’s different from the norm. “I think it’s all about connections,” she said. “Connecting with people and your community on a different level. You see connections on a spiritual basis.”
According to a recent survey conducted by Fairfield University, the corps is acknowledged by most volunteers to be a touchstone experience of their lives. The survey of 5,000 former volunteers found that 98 percent feel that volunteer activity is important to citizenship, versus 74 percent of other Americans. It also found that 96 percent to 98 percent of former Jesuit volunteers donate to charity, regardless of income, and donate 25 percent more money than the average American household. The survey also found that of the four core values of the corps — spirituality, community, simple living and social justice — all remained important to the majority of respondents, with 86 percent saying social justice was important or very important in their current lives.
James Noonan, 24, is a Jesuit Volunteer this year at Covenant House in Anchorage. He graduated from a Jesuit school, Boston College, where he said he learned about “putting social justice talk into action” through a program called “Four Boston” — four hours of community service a week plus one hour of group reflection.
He joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps hoping “to root myself” in the Ignatian concept of “contemplation in action,” and he hopes to carry that value on to a career in medicine (St. Ignatius of Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits). Pausback, who spent two years at McAuley Manor, a home for girls operated by Catholic Social Services, was a biology major in college. But she’s continued in the social service field — not unusual, according to the Fairfield University survey, which found 18 percent of former Jesuit volunteers work in the nonprofit sector, versus 7.4 percent of the general population. According to Jeanne Haster, executive director of Jesuit Volunteer Corps: Northwest, about 350 Jesuit Volunteers serve nationally each year, with about 40 international placements.
More than 85 volunteers will serve in the Northwest region next year, a larger number than the previous year but considerably lower than earlier years. The growing debt burden on college graduates is a factor, said Haster. Also, she said, in a sense the corps has been a victim of its own success. Volunteer organizations, both secular and religious, have mushroomed in the 50 years since five women made history at an isolated boarding school in Alaska.
If someone came along and invented cash money today (with credit and debit cards being in such wide use) it would probably seem like a crazy thing. How to instill a sense of value in hand-exchanged notes and coins? But I've really been enjoying cash more than ever recently. A lot of it has to do with being able to better track my spending emotionally -- parting with paper money still means something to me. And I've been talking with Ivan, Josh and others about the problem with Wal-Mart and the benefits of local economy and local joints. Nothing too new here, but I do notice that a few of my favorite local joints prefer cash as they don't get hit with credit/debit card processing fees. It does a small part in evening the playing field between the big and small players. Staying more local-focused in my activities feels right when I walk to a place, spend cash and feel good about immediately supporting my local hangouts without burdening them with processing fees. Example: some coffee stands near my house either don't take credit cards or add on an additional fee for charges under, say, $5. It's expensive to process those cards when people are buying a $2 drink from you! Also, the other night at Town Hall I handed over a $5 bill and the line moved right along -- no credit cards makes for an efficient line. One fella was insulted that they don't take credit cards. I say keep it that way! It's easier for Town Hall to count the money at the end of the night, the line moves fast and the price point can remain at a comfortable $5.
I don't know if tracking all my small, local purchases online is really that helpful to me as much as seeing the money in my pocket and feeling the value as I hand it over. Long live green.
I walked here with friends after a pancake breakfast. Overwhelmed by carbs and the design of this place, I had one of those “moments” where I just loved every minute of being in the new de Young museum. The observation tower offers stunning, unobstructed views of the city and park. The rain started while we were in the tower and we walked out to the damp smell of concrete and eucalyptus trees. Amazing.
This wet poster on Pike Street reminded me that simply having dinner with Davis (drummer) or talking on the phone a couple times a week with Kevin (bass) or Reggie (vocals) does not a rehearsal make! Time to pull out the axes and get ready for New Years Eve. If there's one thing we're good at it's pulling a show together with limited rehearsals -- sometimes we even play better because of it.
Anyone want on the guest list for New Years? Let me know.
(note to self: don't forget to call Thaddeus)
Is it nuts that people pay $200 for designer jeans? Perhaps. But it seems insane that people buy jeans with manufactured holes. I’ve seen plenty of designer jeans in the last couple years as they’ve permeated the ranks of everyday fashion. And wear marks have been around for a long time (acid wash the predescessor to all of this). But today I saw something that made me stop and wonder.
Three coifed pretty-ish women walking down one side of the street with pre-holed, distressed designer jeans while a gruff indie-ish dude walked the other way with his (actually his designer’s) own take on pre-holed jeans. It seemed beyond silly as the maintenance guy for our building passed by all of this obliviously wearing standard issue Levi 501s with holes and wear courtesy of his profession. I’m not trying to frame a class war via jeans. It’s probably impossible as I see people across the spectrum wearing designer jeans. I do wonder how we arrived at a world where we pay people to make glamorous holes in our jeans.
If I went back in time I’d actually enjoy explaining to my dead relatives how and why the internet or electric guitars or rowing machines would evolve. I’d want to leave the room when I came to the bit about intentionally making and paying for holes in jeans.
Is this poo poo talk or can I get a witness?
A nice surprise to have Cameron stop by the Co-op yesterday for a visit, some over-the-powerbook-screen chatter during the 80F+ day in the office followed by an unexpected presentation of his thesis over beers at the Elysian. Hearing his results on frequency of post makes me think I should formalize my emerging Slow Blog Movement. That, or just join Slow Food and call it a day.
Pictured left to right: Josh Petersen, Michael Buffington, Lee LeFever, Cameron Marlow, Lilia Efimova, Erik Benson
Normally I get truffle fries as a side (delicious fries lightly doused with truffle oil) but broke with tradition today and opted for the beet salad ($3). Unbelievable! Sliced beets dressed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice with a sprinkle of salt.
Eric Banh (owner of Vietnamese restaurant, Monsoon) deserves big props for opening an adverturous sandwich joint overlooking Seattle’s downtown. I’m already planning my next trip to Baguette Box later this week!
Synth Club is a musical experiment. As lovers of synthesizers and synthesized music, the four of us originally came together to realize a lifelong dream: making 100% synthesizer music in real time. Sean plays "drums" on his apple laptop. Steve, Reggie and I play synthesizers (aka keyboards), trading off bass lines, lead lines, pads and various blips and noise scapes. Reggie also throws in vocals when so inspired. The end result is often dance music in nature, but we also allow room for ambient, pop, glitch -- whatever tickles the plastic ivories.
The past three days were spent recording Synth Club in Sean's living room using many of the same principles of our live peformances. Armed with beats he'd constructed prior to the sessions, Sean acted as engineer and producer. Reggie, Steve and I improvised on the beats and quickly whittled our way to core ideas which we then refined and committed to midi information. I'm pretty darn excited about these tracks.
Dave Ell has released The Rhodes Man website. I can't recommend Dave's work highly enough. He's an exceptionally talented Rhodes technician and maven.
If you're every near Twentynine Palms, CA be sure to stay at one of my favorite (perhaps favorite?) motels of all time, The Harmony Motel. Don't expect much and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I've been spending a lot of time relearning Maktub songs in acoustic form. It's refreshing to strip a song down to it's bones. Guitar strumming patterns are friggin important and endlessly fascinating! I never really noticed how I was strumming in patterns before as it always came as part of writing a song on acoustic guitar. But when I learn some of these tunes for the first time I get a whole new appreciation for patterns and how they interact with Thaddeus's lead lines and Reggie's vocals. Strumming chords behind those two makes me a bit of a drummer -- which doesn't come naturally.
Currently there are 6 songs we're actively translating from an electric band sound to a two acoustic guitar version with Reggie singing between Thaddeus and I. Depending on the strumming pattern, I can create a simple 2 beat pattern which works great for some tunes or a longer cycle that takes 2 measures to complete itself.
I had a guy over from Speedy Glass today to fix a broken glass pane on my attic window -- it looked like somebody used a wrist rocket to break the window last week. Getting up to the window I had to go up a ladder through a small crawl hole to my attic. I realized that I really don't care to be in my attic much -- nor do I really care what's going on up there until something goes wrong. My basement, on the other hand, was the first thing I remodeled after I bought my house. Strumming patterns are somewhere in between those two for me -- never really thought about it, but now that I've been forced to it's all that I hear.
I'd like this to go to someone who will appreciate it and take care of it -- the buyer may even consider having Dave Ell refinish the tolex to make it a near-mint instrument in supreme working order. I could deliver it to him for after-purchase work as part of the deal. Let me know if you may be interested.
Patrick Abe has owned and run Seventh Avenue Service at 7th & Jackson in Seattle's International District for 20+ years (could be 30+ years ... not sure). SAS is one of my all-time favorite places in Seattle. Pat, his son David and the other 7th Ave mechanics have worked on my vehicles for about 15 years. My brother Greg recently bought an '84 GMC S-15 pickup from Pat. Pat had given the truck to his nephew who neglected to change the oil. The truck's exterior is pretty beat up but has a new engine that Pat and David installed before selling it to the Spils brothers. David sold me the tires off his wrecked Cadillac a couple years later as the truck tires were wearing out. He didn't tell his dad -- but he threw in a set of used rims that had been sitting in the back of the shop for a while.
They've never updated the garage structure so you're likely to dismiss it as a deserted, rusted shack if you drive by. Pat will offer you a donut from the brown cardboard box that I imagine he picks up every morning on his way to work. But the best parts about SAS are the customers (lots of older people who won't trust anyone else with their car repairs) and the folks who work there. Pat scratches on a piece of paper what needs repair, puts it under your car's windshield wiper and calls you later in the day telling you "Hey Spill, your truck is ready ... come pick it up!". He tells me that he lives in West Seattle now but grew up in Seattle's International District when it was actually a neighborhood with houses and family residents. His family owned the market across the street and at some point he purchased the garage where SAS now resides.
You can stop by early (Pat's there at 7:30am) -- it's better than calling first as he may tell he's too busy, but he'll always make time if you show up at the garage with your car.
Seventh Avenue Service
701 S Jackson St, Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 622-6511
Today the Robots and I launched Twinkler, the predecessor to 43things.com. Twinkler acts like a fish wheel randomly gathering wet, flopping goal statements from the big murky river of human aspiration. My favorite goal today, "finally get comfortable with my life partner (ie me)". Whoever wrote that one deserves a gold star.
In 43 days we'll release 43things.com in it's entirety and hopefully people will find it useful. In the meantime I'm enjoying the Twinkler current.
I witnessed Metric on Monday at Neumo's in Seattle. Great band; even greater live show. Lead singer Emily Haines may be the most impressive and vital rock star I've seen in years.
Pete Miser has a new album out this week. Pete is a Portland, OR transplant to Brooklyn a few years back. I love Pete -- and appreciate him writing Scent Of A Robot.
Do you dream of disconnecting like I do? I wonder how much more walking, talking and coherent reading I'd get in if I didn't spend so many precious hours online. I love this drug, but some day I plan to give it up for a long period. Which is scary ... sadly. When was the last time you were disconnected from the internet for more than 3 days?
There's nothing worse than musicians being off ... which is what's happening tonight. Why does this happen? In the case of me, Reggie, Steve and Sean (Synth Club) it's due to not playing simple. It takes a lot of collective focus to play simple. The key to sucking, though, is getting over it.
Growing up in Alaska we had two rabbits -- grey rabbit and white rabbit named after their fur color. One spring day they chewed their way out of the cage in our backyard and went exploring. We spent a couple days scouring the neighborhood and adjoining woods looking for our two rabbits. We eventually gave up. One evening my dad was biking by our neighbor's log cabin and saw white rabbit hiding under a bush -- frightened, but in good health. Our neighbor had three german shepards that ran free in the yard but white rabbit had somehow managed to successfully avoid them for a several long days and nights.
A couple days before this we found the bones of grey rabbit in our backyard just a few feet from his cage. Killed by dogs.
It's 12:23am and time for the second set.
St. Pattrick's Day (March 17) 1995 my father broke his neck while cross country skiing down a hill just a few hundred feet from our family home in Anchorage, Alaska. In May of the same year I remember sitting by my dad's bed on the 9th floor at University of Washington Medical Center watching TV reports of the actor Christopher Reeve's deabilitating spinal cord injury. At the time they (perhaps Reeve himself) were saying that he would surely walk again. I remember saying to my mom -- that poor bastard will have to come to terms with what's happened (exactly what my family was dealing with at the time). In 1995 my dad and Mr. Reeve experienced almost identical injuries -- fracture of the C4/C5 vertebrae that pinched their spinal cords and rendered them quadrapalegic (completely paralyzed from the neck down). I watched my dad decline in health over the course of 10 months. One day we sat in physical therapy together and he looked down at the body which had months ago been the picture of perfect health for a man in his 60s but which he no longer controlled. The once slender, muscular build from a lifetime of daily two hour workouts was now wasting away with muscular atrophy.
The final 10 months of my dad's life were anything but poetic or pretty. I saw him check out mentally. I saw the body I had always admired detriorate. I saw my family torn apart by the loss of my father and the financial and emotional prospect of sustaining him in a paralyzed physical state for an unspecified period of time. But I was also able to spend precious time together talking about his fear of death, his desire to have it come sooner than later, his love of my mom and all of us kids. He was able to visit with a lot of old friends which was nice. That was definitely worth some of the pain of seeing him suffer over time.
Richard William Spils died on January 3, 1996. My brother Greg called me today when news of Christopher Reeve's death surfaced (about 8 years after Dad). I don't think Greg even knew why he was necessarily calling me, but over the years we've all silently watched Christopher Reeve and his family and understood from a distance what they must be going through. Mr. Reeve's death seemed sudden like my father's - and related to the peculiar ailments of paralysis. One of the last bits of news I remember hearing about Christopher Reeve was that he had developed Alopecia. I developed Alopecia Universalis 6 years ago but seeing Reeve with alopecia made me realize what an insignificant ailment it really is.
Christopher Reeve made larger leaps than I would have imagined for anyone with an injury as severe as his. He and his family deserve big props for their perserverance. I wish them the best as they deal with the related sense of loss and relief that my family felt when my dad died.
Goodbye Christopher Reeve. Goodbye Richard Spils.
Today I had the unique experience of working with two world class producers in one day. My morning began with keyboard and guitar overdub work with Joe Chiccarelli at Electrokitty Studio in Seattle's Wallingford district. I finished up by 1:30pm and headed to my Capital Hill basement studio to record keyboards with Bob Power. A great day if I consider how many great albums these two have made in their respective careers. Bob tells me that Joe is hands down one of the top three rock producers in the world today. Joe tells me that he loves the work Bob has done.
Joe hears tones and moods before actual notes. He says things like, "I'm thinking of something with less movement in the chorus ... kind of like a Sundays guitar bit with a 60s soul lead organ that just sits there". Bob, on the other hand, has a masters in Music and approaches the song more like a band leader. He throws out things like "get rid of the third and sixth and strip it down to the root and fifth for the first two bars ... except an octave down, DANIEL".
I've thoroughly enjoyed working with both these crazy dudes. What a trip it must be to wake up one day and realize that you've spent the last couple decades making great records for a living.
This rates as one of my favorite gigs of the last 2 years. Steve on keys, Reggie on keys, Daniel (me) on keys and Sean on laptop. And about 15 to 20 people in the audience. We played at 5pm after a 1 minute soundcheck. Soundcheck grew into the performance and it was nothing short of glorious.
Synth Club is a dream I've had since I was 14 years old and I hope it never ends.
I read a few chapters from Extreme Programming Explained. The concept of pair programming, where two programmers share one keyboard and computer, reminded me of an overdub session with Bob Power earlier this week. In this case I was the acting musician and Bob was running the Apple laptop with Logic. But we're both musicians and collaborate well together. Bob's role was stragegic -- conisdering overall song structure and how keyboard parts were relating to guitars, vocals, bass, drums and the song as a whole. My job was to play keys and be creative on a granular track level. A nice excerpt from the XP book:
"one partner, the one with the keyboard and mouse, is thinking about the best way to implement this method right here. The other partner is thinking more strategically:
* is this whole approach going to work?
* What are some other test cases that might not work yet?
* Is there some way to simplify the whole system so the current problem just disappears?"
Similarly, Bob and I assumed macro and micro roles. At the end of 6 hour session of XR (Extreme Recording) things began to devolve. Bob began projecting entire phrase ideas (could easily have been a programmer trying to wrestle the keyboard away from the other) while I resisted too much direct input. I was tired. Perhaps programming is the same -- after 6 hours you stop functioning well. Ideally musicians and programmers should work no more than 6 hours together.
My brother Greg talks about reaching a point where he can take a 30-hour a week job as a driver for Seattle's Metro bus system. He sees this as the ultimate job for a few reasons: 30 hours gets you full benefits, part-time work is better for humans, a bus driver is part of the lifeblood of the city, there is plenty of people interaction, driving a bus could be fun and it's an important job.
I think he may be on to something.
