Update the damn thing already!

I know, I know, no updates in a while. Here's the scoop:

Melissa and I left Annabel with Grandma D on Saturday so that we could go out with Doris and Chris. We took in a showing of Iron Man (AWESOME!) and then went off to the most unfortunately-named place in America (well, besides Bunghole Liquors in Boston,)the Beveridge Place Pub. Try explaining where you are going to someone over the phone. They will frantically be googling "beverage place pub", and ending up with nada. Anywho, it was a blast to get out of the house without the little one in tow.

Speaking of the little one, Annabel is just shy of 8 months, and she is displaying super-genius powers already. She's been crawling for a long while now, pulling herself up on furniture, and has identified me repeatedly as "Da Da". Next week, she's probably going to balance my checkbook. Here is a shot of her conducting static experiments while smartly wearing protective gear.


Other than that, I heard the demos from Brian Wilson's next song-cycle, That Lucky Old Sun. It is quite good. It reminds me of Orange Crate Art, which was a great song, but a terrible album (thanks Van Dyke!) It should be released in September, and will no doubt be compared to sMiLe for its content and style.

The Curtains record is moving along. We are hoping to drop it sometime around the end of July.

Sony GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Let's start this post by saying that there are two companies that I have an all-consuming white-hot hatred of. Apple is one, and Sony is the other. I'll leave Apple alone, namely because they owe me $500 right now, and I don't want to get iScrewed out of my refund. They already iScrewed me for an extra $130 plus $8 in fees this week. Once they sort out the financial hoo-hah, then I'll proceed to rip on them. For now, let's turn our focus on Sony...

Sony has built a reputation on making over-priced gear that only plays nice with other Sony equipment/software. Going back to the days of Beta vs. VHS, Sony has been trying to make the world see that Sony alone will solve all of our technical problems/needs. I've owned TVs, Discmans (should I put a copyright on that... I'm sure Sony would want that,) gaming platforms, and countless other little doodads. They have usually been over-priced compared to other similar products, but there was always some kind of implied quality to a Sony product. For some reason, Sony products break down more for me than any other brand, so the quality may not be so great. Granted, I'm a little bitter because I own an HDDVD player, but that is not shading my opinion too much. I understand that Sony was angry over losing Beta (still,) and that they basically just paid the movie studios MONDO amounts of money to make themselves successful. I admit that "buying friends" sucks in real life, but it sure works in business. I digress...

I am the proud owner of a great little HD camcorder from Sony. It was a very generous gift to Melissa and I shortly before the birth of our daughter. I have spent countless hours of my life with video camera in hand, coupled with a good amount of time with both linear and non-linear editing systems from broadcast tapes to DV. I don't do it for a living, but I'm the guy that often gets tapped to assemble and edit things when people around me have footage. That said, I fell in love with our camera because the video looked so fantastic. When hooked up to ye olde HDTV, this camera rocks! Unfortunately, it comes with some serious caveats.

The first thing that I noticed about shooting in HD was that if the lighting was perfect, the shot was perfect. Daytime light means good HD footage. Conversely, "poor" light (anything less than a bright sunlit day) means that the footage is so noisy that it is almost unusable. I would love to have a film crew setting up lights around me as I document the everyday awesomeness of having a child, but that isn't practical. Having a camera to catch the first time that one's child does this hugely random and monumental leap in development is great. Having to have a professional lighting setup to come out with decent looking footage is impossible. I shot our proceedings last weekend in the studio in pretty low-light conditions. Studios are dark places. The footage shot looks grainier than if we had shot it on 8mm. Now that seems like a great effect, but when it's not intentional, I get angry. Grr.. Hulk no like camera noise!

The straw that broke this camel's back is the fact that Sony wants to shoot video in its own format which is incompatible with EVERYTHING except for the piece of shit software that comes with the camera. I have thousands of dollars worth of editing software, and I have to use something that looks like it was designed for Windows 95 . All that it allows is looking at the footage... not editing it. Also, I have a pretty beefy rig to watch the video on, and the included software cannot even run the video from an internal hard-drive without choppiness and audio mis-matches. When I found a plugin for other media players, they did just fine. Even Windows Media Player can do a better job than the software made for the camera. Put that aside, and you're stuck with footage in some Sony-only format called m2ts. They will allow you to convert it all to Mpeg2, but the audio is still in some exotic Sony-only style, so all that can be done is to watch the footage (hopefully) and not edit it. Thank you, Sony!

Having a mountain of footage means that I need some kind of slick workflow to get it ready to be edited or archived. Having to convert each file (thereby doubling the space it takes on the hard-drive) means countless hours wasted waiting for the footage to be "ready" to use. Sony refuses to let go once again, and the consumer suffers. I feel sorry for the people who bought cameras similar to this and have no clue as to what to do with the footage. Even backing it up to a DVD to watch on the TV requires hours of internet research, experimentation, and technical know-how. Mom and Pop America are not going to have the patience for that. They suggest that you plunk down big bucks for Vegas, their own editing suite. Of course, they fail to mention that Vegas does not work with the format particularly well. Sony drops the ball just to be totally in control once again. Whether it is their penchant for making goofy Sony-only batteries (that are impossible to find,) or their love of walling themselves off from the rest of technology land, it is time for Sony Corporation to stop being cocky assholes about their proprietary hardware/software. Even Apple, obsessed with locking down every piece of hardware and software it makes, still bows to the public now and again. Sony just doesn't get it.

Don't get me wrong, I dearly love the camera when it works. It takes breathtakingly great HD video. It has outstanding battery life, a HUGE hard-drive, and hooks up to my television with ease. Even the built in mic sounds good. It's just that when I shoot some footage, I would like to know that it can exist outside of the camera it was shot on. I would like to load up my copy of Adobe Premiere, and be able to use said footage.


Aside form the doom and gloom, I've edited together about 20 minutes of "making of" from the sessions. I'm intending to get about 50 minutes of footage into some kind of cohesive film about this new album that we are doing. The eventual plan is that we are going to rent out the Jewel Box Theater to show the film and then play a private show for friends and family. I would love it if we did some sort of formal dress-up affair. Sounds fun, right?

Here's a peek behind the curtain(s)...

Tired... ZzzzZZzZZ

Well, the lads and I are in the studio this weekend recording our next LP. That means that anyone wishing to get in contact with me should just wait until Monday. Our first day in the studio was uber-productive. We laid down 6(!) tracks today. That's darn good for a a day in the studio. We are recording at London Bridge here in Seattle. My favorite thing about this record so far is that we are recording old-school. That means live in the studio. That means if one of us screws up a take, we can't use it. That's how records were made before the days of digital. We're laying it down to 2 inch tape as well. How sweet is that? It all feels very '60s right now. Other than Oasis, I cannot think of one modern band that still records live in studio... well, except for Mudcrutch, but that's a record review for anbother day! All in all we are all very tired but very pleased with how this monster is turning out.

I'm trying to document as much as possible on the old DV camera, but studios don't make for sexy TV. In fact, recording studios are pretty much the most boring place to be for 90% of one's time there. It's the 10% when the red light is on that counts...

Dates Set for new Curtains Record

Howdy all,
After some debate, we are most likely scrapping the earlier sessions for the latest Curtains disc. We went into the studio last year (and recorded for a week in Ocean Shores) in preparation for this album, but we want to start over. It's not that we disliked the tracks or the direction that we were headed in, we just want to get a different sound for this record than when we started. It's just fodder for the next installment of Bootlegs For You. Anywho, we are set to head into the studio the first week of May. Hopefully this means the record will be released in the summer. Speaking of the Bootlegs series, there's enough material now for another disc, so stay tuned for that.


We will be playing The Sunset this Saturday, so head on up to Ballard. Also, don't forget about the Tractor show at the end of the month (the 27th.)

It's finished!

Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the center ring!



I've finished the album, and here is the cover. It has been an insane month, but ten tracks were finished. I would have loved to do more (and I just may sneak one more on,) but the challenge is over. I'm pressing up a super limited run of these, which will be signed and numbered (steady boy... keep that ego in check) for distribution to friends and family. May I also add that the RPM community is fantastic. I've learned tons from their forums. Every participant that I came into contact with was amazingly constructive and friendly. I cannot wait to hear some of the other albums that were completed.

In other news, Curtains For You will be playing on the 8th of March at Sunset up in Ballard. We will also be headlining the Tractor on the 27th. If you are on the fence about which show to go to, head to the Tractor, as we would love to have a huge turnout for that show. It's been a while since a Tractor gig, and this time it will be more that Matt, Nick, and I bashing away at guitar, accordion, and ukulele. God, that was a weird show. Do-be-do, progress is continuing on our next record. We are rehearsing to just go in and record the record in a couple of days in the studio. Not that there won't be monstrous over-dubs, but not as many as last time. This record will be louder, faster, and more raucous than the last. Here is a track-list (not in order) as of last night:

Dead World
Licorice Skies
Roadtrip to Disaster
Red Red Rose
Catacombs
Small Change
The Clanging of the Masses
An as-of-yet untitled slinky pop number by Matt (Everly Bros. vs. Buddy Holly vs. Kodachrome by Paul Simon) on which I get to play bass!
Dumb Angel
Just Like That, She's Gone
An untitled song by Matt that sounds like Surf's Up by the Beach Boys

Other contenders:

Longest Day
Too Late In The Game (I think that's the title?!)
Caspar & Evelyn
Hester & Alison

It's gonna be vastly different than the last record, and will better represent what we do on stage these days. If you want a preview, there are some of these tracks up on our myspace page , which we recorded live on KEXP. Other than that, my version of Roadtrip to Disaster, Dumb Angel and Just Like That, She's Gone are on my RPM page.

Sorry I have not posted in a while, I promise that now that Feb. is over, I will be more frequent with my rambles.