things have been busy 'round here. quickly trying to get things together for the june 3rd show. trying to figure out which songs to perform, and which ones to wait on. simultaneously, we are trying to get some recordings done for the album.
on the music side, things are going so well - - we really have made progress on the new album. not to mention, that we are adding quite a repetoire of covers that we can just pull out for certain occassions. at pride, we plan to do some of our "sassier" covers - as well as when we have to play for like 3 hours or something...

it's amazing how jazzy the material is getting - and i absolutely love it. somehow our styles have morphed into different directions and then somehow met up somewhere in the middle. starting with state4 as a basic electronic rock project with a drummer, then going to endless blue (stage one) which was mellow, moody without much punch. now we are sort of going somewhere in the middle there. our stuff is jazzy, loungey and sometimes bordering a bit on rock. this next album is kind of going to be all over the place. some of our songs, vocally, i can say that i have drawn influences from artists like: evanessence, wolfsheim, sinead o'connor, massive attack - - the list goes on...a very exciting time for us to see how this will all turn out.

everything is busy in a good way. between the two new businesses (GrandCare and 7 bit Sound , the band, the fall tour we are planning and our summer leisure travel plans, we don't have too much time for other things!!)
this weekend, we head up mpls for the loring show and hanging with friends. the following weekend, we have some plans with my sister and her husband, then the next weekend, we're driving to maine for erin's wedding - and finally the last weekend it's back to mpls for pride! what a month! July it's to New Mexico for high school reunion and performing a show and then in August, we begin our 2-3 week tour to Salt Lake City and back. If you have any ideas of places we can play between here and there, please feel free to contact me

anyways - this past weekend...wow! - it was just as expected - a total rockstar weekend. it was a freiburg reunion in madison and it just reminds us all how much older we've gotten since we studied (drank) in germany 6 years ago. we were pretty wild there - and there were several 4 or 5 nights in a row - ragers...that was then...

now - none of us were capable of doing more than one night. friday night was pretty chill. lina and mark drove me to madison and we checked into the doubletree. we went over to a bbq at gregg's house (josh's roommate from 525 w wash house). we ended up drinking some beers, grilling some brats and jamming upstairs in gregg's studio. 3 people were playing guitar and keys and we just sang some fun covers. it was a blast! that night, we headed out to the irish pub (nate, eric, patrick and dan met up with us there). it was pretty much a night of heavy smoking and buying pitcher after pitcher. pretty typical when this group gets together! the night ended with eric, patrick and me sitting in the hallway of the hotel and drinking sangria out of coffee cups until 430am. yeah, the next morning, we remarked how that was possibly not the best choice after the bars. oh well - - what can ya do?

the next day was chill as well. we headed out to brats on state street to watch the soccer game. had a few pitchers and popcorn during, heidi, angela and her boy (lee) met up with us. good times. he's a swell chap. that night - was the rockstar part - - ESSEN HAUS. man, when the boot starts getting passed around - there's just no turning back. nick, annie and her boy, dan met up with us there - it was truly a fun reunion. really remiscent of germany - except that the staff at the essen haus really cannot correctly pronounce any of the german dishes or beer -- but details. after that, we headed to gennas for some martinis *ya know, cuz it's a super good idea to mix every kind of alcohol possible, just to maximize that hangover the next day* :) after genna's, we all headed to - yep, you guessed it! karaokee kid! man, i remember exactly why i love this place!!! everyone - even nick - got up and sang something. it was so much fun! the next day was a different story. it was bizarre, but i actually didn't drink too much on sat night - later. i was a bit tipsy in the beginning, but sort of tapered off, so i felt great on sunday. nick stayed in bed at the hotel room all day!! :((( we just can't bounce back like we used to. most of the crew went home early instead of staying in town, as planned, until monday.

sunday night consisted of ordering pokey sticks (yum), drinking mike's hard lemonade and watching movies. very much of a 'i drank too much last night' sort of a night. good times.

today - the work week starts again. speaking of work, things are actually really starting to happen for the business. it's a little risky going into an entreprenurial position, because you just don't know what's going to happen, but most of all - it's difficult to project WHEN...now, it appears that the investors are actually writing out the checks, the product is being installed into the pilot homes and 7-bit Sound has also gotten a few sales from the newspaper ads..Our first sale reel-to-reel transfer to CD - - seriously, check out nick's beautiful website work: www.7bitsound.com whatta man!

-- and i just wrote a short novel here, and i think i'm supposed to be doing some work...not sure..but i think..lemme check...oh..oops...shit yeah, i gotta go

bis naechstes mal!

L

What a weekend. Dear lord. I am getting a little too long in the tooth to do this kind of stuff anymore...

Friday night was the shoot of the notorious "zombie fight scene" for Six Bullets. As time has passed, I've become more and more a part of this film -- now I'm a stage hand as well as audio and music guy. It's a good time -- it's nice to be part of a "big thing" and not have to run it. Quite refreshing, actually, if a bit tough to bust ass for 7 hours straight. It's just such odd work that it's really fun. Friday night had me planting a dead tree, working out a wireless video monitoring system, gathering firewood, sitting in the bucket of a Bobcat while we dragged a covered wagon behind us, and stringing together decroded extension cords in very hazardous ways to get power to stage lighting. Yowzah. Well, I got there at 7:00pm and got home at 3:30am, so it was a long night. We were getting a little loopy by the end there...

The very next night found me in Madison with the Friebergers, Laura's posse that all studied in Germany together. Lord. Starting up at the Essen Haus at 7:30pm with a boot is simply a collision course for disaster, and disasterous it was indeed. The quintessential moment was when I found myself standing across the street from Parthenon Gyros, smoking a cigarette, trying to make my eyes focus on anything at all while two guys get in a fistfight in the middle of State Street. Ah, fond memories. A not so fond memory was getting quite ill at about 3:00am, and wanting to die when I woke up the next morning. Blegah... Not really my style -- I can count the times I've gotten sick from drinking on one hand -- but it was in the cards Saturday night.

So, music. Yeah. The album is shaping up more and more every day. Laura and I finally worked out the lyrics for one of our new songs, and by God, I think we've struck gold. I had been savoring this one for a few months now, knowing that we had to be in just the right frame of mind to make it work... This one was especially in this category -- I could feel just a certain magic to it, and I wanted to make sure we did it right. And did it right we did. IMHO, this could easily be the best song we've ever written -- well, at least my favorite song we've ever written. It just has that vibe that makes me love Lisa Gerrard's work so much -- beautiful melody, beautiful vocals, and a tragically sad overtone.

Well, back to preparing for next week's show. Almost there.

Well, go figure. I wander into Games earlier this week, and Blue Lines is playing again. I have entered the Twilight Zone...

Work has been taking a bit of a toll on music lately -- been really busy on that front. Installing servers, network cables, hubs, and then making it all work tends to chew up one's time. I've also been spending a lot of time on my on-again-off-again audio/video company, 7-bit Sound. This time around I'm looking to do format transfers (VHS->DVD and whatnot) and mastering. We'll see how it all pans out.

With all that's going on, having an album's worth of recording plus a reworked live set tends to cast a bit of a shadow on me. I'm always feeling constant pressure to get work done, even on a nice chill day like today. It gets to you, after a while, this little mouse of worry constantly gnawing at the back of your mind... Heh, that's pretty strange...

Anyway, I have a slowly growing blister on my right index finger from playing a bit too much bass this morning. I was recording the part for our track "History", and must have put in 2 solid hours on the bass. It turned out well, though -- this song is really starting to shine. I initially tracked it out in ACID, recording a bunch of my own loops and using some premade drum loops. It was pretty bland and didn't feel quite right...

Something that's really stood out to me in doing my production for this album has been what a huge difference variation and recording parts live has on the feel of a song. It's gotten to the point that I can't even just drop a loop into a song anymore -- I have to chop it up and resequence it in Fruity Loops. Overall, it's for the best. People tune out repetitive music -- making a lot of variation keeps their interest. On the other hand, you can't be too complex, because then you start losing people, as they can't connect with the music anymore. That's why I prefer Aphex Twin to Squarepusher -- Richard D. James is very abstarct without losing that very important human touch. Squarepusher just gets too random and choppy...

Er, yeah. My brain has left the building. Guess I should follow.

Today has been rainy and glummy(is that a word?) outside..It pretty much rained all night and all morning. I absolutely love sleeping when the window is open, and a nice rainy breeze is floating through the room. You can hear the rain pattering on the windows and the tinny sound from the side and the roof. This morning, I woke up around 530am for the first time (my precious little puppy, Sydney has instilled this internal alarm clock in me)and I just laid awake in bed, listening to the rain, letting myself drift in and out of short dreams. It was perfection.

I have been purchasing new CDs like crazy. On my recent trip to Vegas, Dan & Brie introduced me to Damian Rice, Keane and the Killers. All of which I listened to, immediately loved, came home and promptly put on the magic card. The only thing that sucks about that is when they expect you to pay for them...WTF...

Anyhoo - - today was the perfect day sitting here at my desk, working and listening to music. I definitely have a musical rotation each day depending on my mood. Today was definitely not an all rock day. On sunny days, sometimes I just throw in a little Buffett, a little Violent Femmes, some Bob Marley - you know the drill. Today needed to be handled differently. First of all, I woke up in a very dreamy state and needed to alter my morning playlist from the afternoon. You see, in the afternoon, I need to get ready to go and workout, so I have to get the pumpup music while I summon the energy to do so. This morning was a very ambient, dark, and ominous beginning - morning rotation:
Portishead, Massive Attack, Lamb, Baxter, Wolfsheim, Hooverphonic, Damian Rice Ultra Chilled 3.2, Karma Sutra, Halloween Alaska, Some Girl, Counting Crows

and now i have sped things up a bit, still keeping those darker songs spinning in and out of rotation-
afternoon rotation: Junior Boys, Keane, The Killers, Alias Soundtrack (highly recommended), BT Emotional Technology, Barenaked Ladies: Gordon, Postal Service, TLC, Goldfrapp


I am really impressed with the Junior Boys CD: Last Exit. Nick just passed along the CD today and I dig it. Very cool stuff. If you check out any CDs in the next week or two- here are some good ones to take a listen to:

Damian Rice (not signed to a record label- we love independent artists!!)
KEANE
Junior Boys
The Killers
the Postal Service
Lamb - beautiful female vox.

well now comes the time where i try and convince myself to go to the gym. i know that i have tons of work to do, and there's every reason why i should NOT go. however, i am going to be teaching kickboxing and some other core fitness/toning classes starting in july, and i really need to get my butt back in shape, here. actually, i am supposed to be attending all the fitness classes that i can, so i can see how each of the instructors teach and cue, but it's hard to keep to a schedule like that - - sometimes i just want to go and work out for 45 minutes when i happen to be on that energy buzz.....c'mon. thinking about it...seriously thinking about it...okay, dammit - i'll go - geez.

catch you all L8s

[np: Van Halen - Van Halen]

Oh, wait, one second, I must worship Eddie Van and the masterpiece that is Eruption... Ahhhhhhhh... Guitar Wankery at its best.

That's past. Well, hell must have frozen over last night. Yup, you are correct, we actually heard a Massive Attack song at Games, the local watering hole. Ah, Games, what can you say about it? For you Minneapolis people, cross Mortimer's with William's Peanut Bar, and you have Games. For the rest of the world... It's a bit on the rough side. The only fist-fight I have ever witnessed at a bar occurred outside Games, where Laura and her friend Shultzie almost got taken out by these two drunk idiots. On certain nights you can just feel a lot of angst thrown at you from around the room. You kind of have to do the "bad-mother-fucker" strut while you walk to the bathroom on those nights... But we go there primarily because it's about the only place we can go in our scrubby clothes and not care what the fellow patrons think.

Anyway, they usually blare 90's rock at 150dB, but last night we got a little dose of Blue Lines, "Safe From Harm" to be exact. It was very cool, Laura and I swilling beer and jamming out the lyrics...

At any rate, we're down to only one more arrangement for smoke through it. It's a track I've started from scratch twice now, and I think I'm going to scratch it again. The drum beat is extremely cool -- it's got offbeat snares and a 1/4 beat "gap" at the end, making it very very choppy and badass. The problem is that I haven't found a good synth or bass line for it yet. Everything so far has been so-so. Maybe I'll get it today...

We've added another song to the CD, the fourth (yes, fourth) incarnation of an old STATE4 song called Forever. It's always been a great song, and it's been recorded three times already (Laura's version didn't make the cut on Less than Happy). I didn't expect it to ever rear its head again... But this weekend I found the perfect main patch for it while playing around with Absynth 3, and made an awesome drumbeat for it, and the rest is history...

And so on. Back to work.