A piece of poop dipped in gold, and other tales.

Viva Las Vegas. Or so Elvis says. I was able to take a little trip to Las Vegas starting last Thursday, and we drove home Monday. Inbetween that time, I got to spend some good old fashioned Vegas time with my old pal Jake, his wife Ashley, their baby Will, Tim, and Ashley's friend Chrissy and her friend Owen. We hotel jumped like Johnny Depp and Bencio Del Toro from our first night on Fremont St at Binnion's (which had wonderful curtains that looked as if they had been shot at with a shotgun more than once), to the Palms west of the strip for two, and last and pretty much least (not counting the curtians at Binnion's) the Tropicana, which we are convinced will be demolished by next Christmas. The highlight of the trip was either being solicited by a young lady who we flatly turned down at 4 am the first night, or the giant faces of Donnie and Marie plastered on the side the Flamingo after walking from the entire end of the strip to the next, all in the name of the half off with your player's card buffet at the Sahara.

So now its two days before Christmas, and I'm hoping I don't get the old "stomach flu on the 23rd" that I've had in years past. I'm feeling good about halfway through the day so I think I should be alright.

The real reason I wanted to post was to talk about how recording is going to go better now that I am not in school, and that at least one song, New Mexico, after several hourse of dinking around on the keyboard, is pretty much done, at least we know what we want. Let's hope luck is truly a lady as we head into 2009.

Open Mic this Friday

Playing at an open mic this friday, at L'Astelier Cafe at 57 West 200 South. Probably around 7 PM. Come on down if you like the downtown and being cool.

Uh, good job?

Earlier in the week we worked on Trophy Wives vs. The Homeless. I was able to lay down a dummy and Brent got some great drums down for it. Also worked a little on New Mexico, adding a bass part, so it is coming along nicely. In other news, I need someone who can paint to do album artwork sooner or later.

Brent gets song stuck in head over weekend, improves the song by at least tenfold

I came over last (Monday) night to the studio to work on stuff. I originally decided it would be a good idea to lay down as much vocal/guitar base stuff as possible. Brent said he had thought about some ideas for Visit the Zoo, to which I agreed we should work on. So we did. Drums were on the top of the list, realizing after playing them for a while that it was sounding pretty good, I tried to play the backing guitar to the metronome, which was of course, as fustrating as spending six dollars on a 75 cent hamburger at a football game only to have it fall open-faced on the dirty concrete as soon as you sit back down in your seat at the stadium.

So I eventually overcame my inability to keep a steady beat while playing a guitar and singing vaguely into a microphone, and then we jammed out a bit more figuring out the drums. So eventually we'll get back to that, and it will probably turn out pretty great.

The Disney Corporation, Weird Al, Pearl Jam, and Mississippi John Hurt

Last friday we gathered together a group of people much like the days of yore when people gathered together to design new rides at Disneyworld's EPCOT Center. Only the group that gathered together was not a team of engineers employed by the Disney Corporation, it was a team of non musicians making music. Or so they said. It was RMac, the old second half of Egg & Dart, wearing a Weird Al tshirt that I was fondly jealous of. I told him that I had been listening to the album "Even Worse" late the night before, thinking in my mind that there couldn't be a better band to emulate in terms of the album we were trying to brainstorm about.

And there was Cameron, that not quite as tall dude who I asked to come play bass and guitar with us. And of course there was Brent, who mocked RMac when Brent asked him to lay down a guitar lick for Turnin' Red by saying, "Yeah, except professional musicians don't go into the studio like a goofballs saying, "Huh huh! I'm gonna be a professional musician! Neato!"", all while doing a pretty bad Goofy the Disney character guffaw. I added to the mockery by saying, "Yeah RMac! Cool! A professional musician just like Mississippi John Hurt!" This was of course after we listened to the "Brentisized" version of Turnin' Red, and RMac asked the group, "This reminds me of something...." to which Brent replied, "Smashing Pumpkins?". RMac enthusiastically agreed and we were also able to realize it sounded a lot like a Pearl Jam song as well.

So after RMac laid down his old noodling for Turnin' Red, Brent thought it would be a good idea to have RMac, myself, and Cameron go into the tracking room and just jam of the albums songs out. I wanted to work on Laser Tag Lovers, mostly because RMac used to play a pretty cool Interpol ripoff riff, which during playback, Brent quickly picked it out as exactly that, a poor excuse for a Daniel Kessler run down the neck.

We continued to jam out some stuff, interjecting a less than stellar cover of Beck's "Golden Age", which, unfortunately, we only made about halfway through before going into an awkward version of Ain't Nothin' But Trouble, which featured Cam on lead guitar, RMac on drums, and Brent on tamborine.

All in all it made me remember way I like these people, because they all know how to laugh, they all love music, and at least one of them spent a buttload of money on a recording studio in their basement.

Recording is happening

Brent and I started recording the new album last night. After Michelle's photo shoot(s) and testing the drums, we laid down the vocals and guitar for New Mexico. It went well. Except that I can't play the guitar at all. I'll probably need to work on that.

Some of my favorite album covers

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/partial/favorite_album_covers

I've made a list of some of my favorite album art. You can check it out at the website above.

I'm just glad it's not Suge Knight...

I've joined P.S. Records, started by Tucker and Stuart, friends on the label include Adam Dorius and Chris Bjornn. Working on new songs, might make a e.p., and might start recording the comedy album soon.

So two or so weeks ago Nate Eye interviewed me on the Salt Lake Community College's internet radio show. It was early in the morning, and I'm not morning person, but I was still at least 60% coherent. You can eventually download the interview at globeradio.slcc.edu. Nate also hosts the open mic show at High Point Coffee out in West Jordan.

This blog is dumb

I don't know if Iliked what I wrote the first time around. The main point is that the purpose of the blog is more to keep my thoughts on the process of recording this album, because I can honestly assume no one else reads except Michelle, and blogs are, in my opinion, pretty stupid. I highly doubt any real interest in the details of my mundane life.