In reverse order of importance, we had our last practice before my first gig with the Atomic Love Bombs, and Darla is pretty sick. It was a rough practice at first, due to the studio time interrupting real band practices, but things came together pretty quickly. I am stoked. We’re playing First Street Billiards in San Jose on Friday the 14th. It would be nice if we could rehearse one more time, but I think we’ll do well enough without it.
We finished our three days in the studio, and man was it fantastic! All four of the songs we set out to record came together on Monday, and they sound great, even in a rough mix. Tim will be spending a time in the coming weeks doing some mix downs, and I can\’t wait to hear the final product. Tim and I laid down some great background vocals (I think) for \”High Again\” and \”100 Mile Freefall,\” and Joe was kind enough to let me play a GREAT guitar line he came up for \”High Again.\” I think it really Continue Reading →
Another day in the studio! Fortunately, I was feeling a bit healthier than yesterday, and I laid down two (mostly) good tracks for “I can’t see you lasting much longer.” I also laid down a track for “100 Mile Freefall,” and “High Again,” but we’re starting over on that one, so it doesn’t matter. One more day! Sure is cool to be able to do this stuff.
I have a few issues with Alanis Morissette — For one thing she had the misfortune of singing about giving blowjobs in a theatre at the same time that Poe was singing about blowing you…away. Frankly, Alanis just seemed lame in comparison, but is it really her fault that Poe is a goddess among mortals? Be that as it may, she then went on to list a score or two of things she labeled as "ironic," but ironically, none of them were really ironic. And, while she conceded this point herself when asked in an interview, I have found it Continue Reading →
Jamming With the All Stars It’s that time again. Macworld starts this week, and that means it’s another gig with the Macworld All Stars (we rehearse once a year, whether or not we need it…). Being able to play with these guys has been not only an amazing pleasure, it’s been a huge learning opportunity over the years, and I will forever be grateful to everyone in the band for letting me be a part of it. In the meanwhile, I think the rehearsal went pretty well, but not well enough to make the show night suck. We have a Continue Reading →
The Beatles have had a sort of weird place in mind when it comes to covering them. Early stuff like "You Can’t Do That" (etc.) is pretty straight forward, and the hard part of it comes in not from the complexity, but rather from the deceptively-simple sounding, but not at all straight forward (Think "Close Your Eyes"), chords they worked into those tunes. Their later stuff sounds so damned good — even after all these years — that I’ve had some kind of "I surely can’t play that because it must be hard" roadblock, even though much of it is Continue Reading →
The Beatles’ Anthology — how in the hell did I miss this collection? Dave Bonora played 30-40 tracks from this incredible collection during our drive to Vegas last week, and man-oh-man is it incredible. When it was released, I had thought it was nothing more than yet-another-greatest-hits collection, but as most likely everyone else on the planet knows, it’s a collection of outtakes, alternate versions, live tracks, and even a dozen or so unreleased songs. This is, of course, the kind of thing I enjoy more than just about anything else from the bands I love, but to hear this Continue Reading →
Top five favorite bands: The Who, Love & Rockets, The Church, David Bowie, The Beatles (not necessarily in that order at any given time). With that as a background, Darla and I went to see The Church (their MySpace site has more information and is more up to date) last night in San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. It was a great show. Absolutely fantastic. Steven Kilbey’s voice is as captivating, smooth, silky, and enrapturing (is that a word?) as ever — even if he does look more like Lemmy these days than the charismatic and removed figure of his Continue Reading →