(the garoffice during SPP4 mixing. I’m finishing the mix on the machine I started it on, my laptop. To facilitate multi-tasking, and avoid moving my crappy speakers from machine to machine, the laptop is setup in front of the desktop. I right hand mouse the desktop and left hand mouse the laptop. I keep notes on the desktop, as well. It’s kind of ludicrous. For my upcoming mixes on other records [oRSo9 and orso9rmx, MSP, MD8ME, SleepWalks, Kenton Camerata, Brother X, My Special Porpoise, ect] I am sticking with the desktop. To that end I just re-installed Live on it. I am abandoning ProTools for mixing. I can’t see launching it unless I need Pitch n Time, at this point. Mixing with Ableton is faboo.)

I’m pleased to say that we’re closing in on the final mixes of the fourth Stowe-Pembleton Project record. A few more good days, like I’ve had this past week, will get it in the can. And then it’s off to Soul Note. We’re pretty confident they’ll pick it up for release as our third release on their label.
But the third SPP record, embarrassingly, is still not mixed. D’oh! Heaven only knows if the label it was originally recorded for will still be interested. Rest assured getting SPP3 mixed is high on my spreadsheet of things to do. Well, item 13 of ~59, anyway. But since some activities exist in overlapping states, it’s higher than 13 might seem to suggest.

Research for Vile Dead continues. Which is to say I’m watching zombie related tv and film, as well as horror and supernatural flicks. I’ve been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. This weekend I watched The Hunger (the first 2/3 is awesome. Then it’s downhill into complete, “quick, wrap it up, we’ve used our allotted 70 minutes! Screw linearity, comprehensibility, plot, characters and everything that’s happened in the film thus far, we need a quick ending. Oh hey, could you throw in a twist! Don’t worry about it making sense, this a vampire movie with David Bowie and lesbians, we can’t lose!”) and Hellboy II (Lots of fun to watch with absolutely no promise or pretension to being anything else.) I must admit, I always love the research phase of projects, but VD is particularly enjoyable.

Yesterday 23E Studios hosted a little tea party in the front courtyard of the garoffice. Our overlords, the Nightmare City City Council, were in town and wanted to check up on us. I think we passed the spot inspection. They declared the garoffice very nice, and expressed a strong faith in our ability to be productive in the 23E complex. While here they picked up their tribute for the year, the Nightmare City arcade from the Disembody installation/set. And their outfits from that film for use in future NC ventures.

(This is the courtyard. In the pic it is setup for mixing SPP4. It looked much nicer for the NC3: no computer paraphernalia, just my blue teapot and white cups and saucers.)

You’ll note from this post that the rebuilt desktop is performing fine thus far. I yanked out two internal drives, and hope to replace them soon with much larger drives for the logging and editing of Disembody. That’s one of the first things that came up in my logging strategy session with my father. The other big thing at this stage is establishing the best possible naming system for the clips. And defining parameters based on future uses of the footage. To that end I’ve begun a catalogue and timeline for the footage.

In other Disembody news, the NC3 think they spotted the dumpster from Disembody still residing in an alley in Chinatown where we filled it. The dumpster company has still not carried it away. Why not?
In sad Disembody news, 20th Century Props, where 23E rented theater seats for the Morgellon, is selling off its props and closing its doors. Oh, if only we could buy those seats for future projects! They’re being auctioned off, but A) I’ll be on tour and B) I have no money. So…

Above is some of the messy Copy Lake/My Daddy Ate My Eyes setup for our coming shows (and hopefully tour) in July. I’m mixing a MD8ME demo today. And rehearsing for the shows every day for the next many weeks. Also working on new material for Forever What?. We hope to rehearse in August in preparation for shows in Fall. With luck we’ll start gigging out semi-reguarly here in LA starting in September.

The garoffice came together today. It is more or less complete. Hoorah!

It features two music spaces. The first is for my Arp Odyssey and X-Station. The X-Station will run Live, as it has for the past couple years. The laptop will fit on the upper shelf between the mixer and Kaoss pad. So awesome. This will probably be my primary composition and rehearsal space. This is where I will work on the SPP and oRSo and My Special Porpoise and SleepWalks and FW? and Kenton Camerata stuff.

The second music station is more focused on My Daddy Ate My Eyes and Copy Lake, bands wherein I don’t use the computer. That station is super old school, with equipment that goes back to my early 90s music days in Carnival De Carnitas and Meow (and Suplex and Pale Ghost and DragKing and oRSo.) It’s all motors and toys and contact mics and bent tape players etc. I really look forward to playing with all that awesome goodness again. And working it into my other rig.

While on the topic ogf music, I worked on SPP4 a bit more today. Remixing Wich-i-tai-to twice. The way Nobu and I mix the SPP records (living on opposite coasts as we do) is a little bizarre. I mix and upload. He listens and calls. We debate, discuss and argue. I make a new mix based on our conversation. And upload it. And then he calls…

About the only other newsworthy 23E/MVM news is that the primary video editing computer, my desktop, was booted up today. It is imperfect. It was a great machine for many years. But ever since I was evicted in November 2007 from the Green Door Studio, it has been unreliable. It won’t run two monitors. It drops external drives. One of the RAID sets has disappeared now (but not one with any valuable data, fortunately.) This makes me sad as I obvs can’t replace this machine and have to log and edit Disembody on it.
Tomorrow, troubleshooting the dual monitors and RAID issues!

But now it’s time for more Vile Dead research. Buffy season 3, a zombie episode entitled, the Zeppo.

The garoffice is well on its way to being bigger and better than ever, I’m delighted to say. The big news is that the Torus Trooper arcade is up and running. So, now the 23E office has that most modern of corporate requirements, a rec room. Only it’s more of a rec corner, but whatevs.

In other arcade news, Nightmare City will be in LA this weekend and they are taking their arcade back home to the sweaty city council offices.

In SPP news, this evening I made a new mix of Wichi-tai-to. It is now off in the ether for my compatriots on the fourth record to sound check.

Other music news, plans for Copy Lake and My Daddy Ate My Eyes to tour this July are moving along. Though I haven’t done any of the FW? recording I need to do for the Copy Lake demo. FW? are guesting on the cassette being released by Nightmare City records.
On the tour I’ll being playing bass and cymbal and home-made tchaudiotchkes (pronounced cha-dee-oh-ch-kees). It will be a return to my pre-Ableton days. Weird. And super-exciting. The new garoffice will feature a rehearsal space with my Arp and tchaudiotchekes and X-Station to hang out in. The porch will function as the work space for building tchaudiotchkes.

And now to wind out the evening, I’m watching some Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Vile Dead research.

Gods!
It turns out blogging and group socializing are alike in my psyche - I can’t do either unless it’s my job.
Which points to, perhaps, one of the defining traits of my character, my infinite capacity and adaptability for work stands in stark contrast to my constant struggle to function in realms outside the definition of “work.”

I have no idea what that says about me.
Other than that it is a good thing I lead a life overextended.

So, yeah, the 122 Days trip. It was excellent. But hardly something I could bring myself to write about, apparently. Well, I microblogged the pants off it, of course…

I got back to San Francisco exactly 122 Days after I left San Francisco. That was maybe three weeks ago…
I’ve spent the past three weeks working to pay my May bills (I arrived here with nary a cent to my name, as planned), and writing the essay to finish my MA degree in VCS.

I also squoze in a rehearsal with my SF band, the Modern Jazz Duet.

I threw together the sequencing of the CD for Marcella Faustini’s MashUp Show at NOMA gallery. I have the nagging feeling the music will be revisited and remixed and resequenced, because I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked, and the many imperfections have really been nagging at me.

Today I’m returning to mixing the Stowe-Pembleton Project’s fourth CD, which we recorded in DC in January. I’m really happy with it.
Speaking of which, the second SPP CD, Confusion Bleue, which is AWESOME, is out this month on Black Saint/Soul Note/CAM. It will be distributed in the States by Rykodisc, I think. So, we may get some new US fans…

In April, SleepWalks, my new project with Andrea Williams, opened for The Parasitic Fantasy Band at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. It was fabulous. We were joined by Todd Shalom, whose vocal work really spread the SleepWalks sound out to new vistas. It was a great show. And then I had the pleasure of seeing The Parasitic Fantasy again at ATA in SF a few weeks ago. They are superb new friends. Totally inspirational film/sound performers.
At their SF shows they played with Metal Rouge, who are also superb artists and people. It was really great to be able to spend time with all of them.
Metal Rouge are LA based, so I’m really hoping to get a chance to see them again, once I’m finally back home.