Sitting and waiting and waiting and sitting. That’s my usual experience with being the recordee, not usually my experience with being the recorder.
For the last couple of months I’ve been doing a lot of time being Ash’s engineer and it’s been kind of an exciting thing – I’ve gotten to really experiment, try new things – learn new things about software – but now we’re in the studio for ourselves. Steve Steckler of Asparagus Media appears to be our engineer for at least part of the new project (I place conditionals here simply because we’ve been looking at trying out a couple of other places as well) and so far we’re just setting up microphones for Heather’s voice. I’ve seen Heather working with Steve for a couple of other peoples’ projects (most recently David Pott-Dupre’s new CD) and he mixed and mastered Heather’s solo disc – so I know that he and she work well together – but I know I’m kind of opinionated and I get frustrated when I feel like I could navigate the board faster.
This was next to 50 Man Machine’s stage at the H Street Festival. I would’ve liked some sort of explanation. Other than tall zombies. 
This isn’t just about shooting Collier (lead singer, guitarist, bagpiper and MIND behind 50 Man Machine) in the back – it’s about showing you his guitar. He built that. Yeah. He’s that cool. 
of course any festival in DC is going to have a lot of food… 
Meep. I think this was either an Art Car or a Kinetic Sculpture. All I know for sure was that this was a crazy-ass disco angler fish on the streets of the H Street Festival in Washington DC. 
We truly Live in the future. By the end of my day at the festival this had been crossed off and scrawled “paternity testing”. Whether in jest or not I’ve no idea but I think it’s crazy that this is something that’s… easy for us now. I also wonder what kind of results they were giving and who was funding it. 
– food at the H Street Festival cont’d 
Food trucks are a cultural phenomenon that I’m only recently getting on board with. I’ve never encountered the Cajunator before and failed to sample its wares, but I DID find Maine Lobster Rolls for Kristen! This had been a major source of contention with our last New England trip as this is ALL that Kristen wanted out of Life and we never found an OPEN restaurant that fit into our travel plans and travel budget. I gleaned major points by greeting her with one when she got off stage with 50 Man. 
SO far so good – I’m not frustrated, Life’s rolling well – and now I get to lay down some guitar tracks. I’m sure THAT part will go smooth (+/- the click track) – what I’m DREADING is doing vocals…
And sure enough – the guitar went smooth. I had a couple of speed up / slow down issues but we were able to punch them in easily enough. I dread click tracks, but I know they’re good for me – and especially since this is the first CD we won’t be recording pretty much 100% Live and full band, it’s imperative that I don’t fudge up the rhythm for when Rowan comes and lays his percussion tracks down. Not to mention dance remixes.
Oh yes – dance remixes.
Holy crap! So in celebration of our 9 year anniversary our friend and fan Ari got me a lightsaber. Yeahg. A fucking LIGHTSABER. It was so awesome to be greeted with this at our show and then have the kind of fanbase that meant from the back of the room I hear “LIGHT’ER UP!!!!” 
Okay – so Heather DOES look better with my lightsaber. But… I’ve got a fucking LIGHTSABER!
