Where the pi divides

The band is about three incriments from getting rough mixes of the studio tracks in our ears. I'm planning on spending some quality time deciding that all of it sounds terrible and that we should record it all one last time.

Actually, I only plan on deciding fades, pans and some effect bussing and that's about it.

Other than that, it's a matter of convincing Joe that the vocals are fine and if he were to redo them one more time, they would sound exactly the same and he should stop wasting all of our time.... well, that and figuring out if the bass is too far forward in the mix, and asking, "Where the hell is the kick drum?"

I hate mixing.

Folk Heros

*************************Travis Wrote**********************

hey fellas...may 10, club tav...well, i'll just let my good buddy M.A. tell you... "May 10th club tavern opening slot 1 hour four bucks. Thanks"

everyone'd better be able to do this (that $4 could be my ticket outta this hellhole)...that's why i called and told everyone about it and nobody called me back with any concerns or dissenting opinions; so i said "yes"...as i mentioned in my message; its a Saturday night, so that's all good...and i think the club tavern could be an excellent place for us...good exposure...

i should be to handle the flier issue for the 1st show...should we even hang fliers? opinions?

hit me back, dawgs (respectively)...

t

********************Joe's Reply****************************
Travis et al.

I'm sorry but i can't make it...i've got to watch saturday night live with the girlfriend that i haven't met yet...so find someone else to sing these stupid songs...in all honesty, i think i'm gonna quit this lame ass band anyways and dedicate my life to writing soap operas, and honing my bowling skills...i figure if i can marry some rich, mid 40's cougar, i can get all my soap opera mateial from our daily briefings, and then i can convince her to set up a lane (automatic scoring of course) in the basement...my plan is this...while she is asleep (by nine), i'll be a practicing so that i can one day make it on the pba tour...hopefully (i pray) i'll be good enough in a decade or so to make it on the tv finals...

strike!

(gutter ball)

Travis...nice work man...may 10 hey?...sweet!

we should mos def get an acoustic set on sate st. for that afternoon to advertise...best summer eva!!!

Joe

*********************Travis Replies********************

hey man!!! step off the "cougars"; that's my deal...(big cats are dangerous; but a little...). the bowling (so you wanna bowl, give the ball a roll), however, is all yours and you are to be commended for having a solid plan to get what it is that you want/need out of life...

i wouldn't mind trying curling...or being on Saturday night live...

well played, joe. well played. that lady with the cash and the "stories" is out there somewhere...

i look like hell today.

*****************And I Interjected***************

In the end, you know that only three people are going to show up for this show. Even the entire band won't make it. So yeah. Go for that unknown lady Joey Vochich! Chase that toboggin all the way down the hill even though winter's melted away.

Or we could all go out for some ice blocking? Eh? Am I right? No one does that around here.

A bottle of Southern Comfort, a block of ice, and a fine middle-aged lady with a fat wad of cash.

Sweet indeed.

Enjoy

Eco-newz

I don't really get why we need to use natural gas to power our vehicles.

But then again, I don't get a lot of things.

Is this my pre-Earth Day post? Probably. I'm not usually near a computer on the weekends.
There's a pizza place that put up posters in their window advertising the sale of "special brownies" for sale at 4:20 on 4/20. These people are "awesome!", whomever they are (did I use that right? I've noticed I never do and now I'm trying to figure out the proper time to use who and whom.)

Tipping over the wagon

Sliding down a hill...

Alright. I updated the layout of this stupid site... it needed a fresh shave.

Other than that, I've been pretty busy getting my drink on and working. I've actually had to work this week. Even the crossword isn't getting done on company time. What the hell is that?

If I can, I'll try to post something compelling in the next few days. No promises though.

In the meantime, check out "Shotgun Stories" if you can.

Why do I make these "promises"?

The band is in some sort of limbo state as usual.

We are still working on the "Acoustic Set" with the additional singer. The band decided that she wasn't going to work out for the electrified performances. It was nice to have that drama ironed out.

And then Danny said he couldn't play our upcoming show on May 1st at the Klinic at 9 P.M. because he has to work on Friday. He told me this on the phone last Friday afterknoon a few minutes after he told me he had stayed up late the night before playing Magic with his buddies. I finished off my second shift of the split in the afterknoon and called Joe and Travis to talk about eliminating dead weight from the band. I just get tired of explaining to him every time we have a potential show on a weeknight that we aren't going to be given weekend slots without first proving we can draw a crowd. We can't draw a crowd without performing for people in the first place... it's rather Catch-22. Joe said that I shouldn't talk to Danny and that he would discuss it with him and convince him to play this show. This will come up again. (The next weeknight show.)

I stumbled onto an Indie Band Survival Guide epublished by some band. I read through some of their advice and think I should make the effort to read rest of it. Any advice (good or bad) is still something to stimulate the mind.

Then there's also the idea I've been kicking around of a solo project EP. Last night I came up with a title that I thought would be awesome, but it's something I heard a little while ago that I had forgotten that I had heard about. So yeah... I'm gunna start working on that tonight. Writing a new batch songs that are slightly different from what Where the i Divides is doing. (less drama).

And I have a dentist appointment at 2:30... ha ha ha....

These things I think

I was watching television last night, or better put I was flipping through the programming guide hoping to find something with commercials that were worth sitting through, and caught a clip about how "Scientists" can predict hurricane seasons based on tree rings.

That's cool.

But that isn't what cause me to remember that tidbit. What got me was something that's been chewing me up for a few months now--the term "expert". I put up a quick post about experts last week or something like that but that didn't help get rid of the anger. (That's what this blog is all about, making you read my anger and thereby taking it from me and making it your own.)

What's the big deal with the tree rings, you ask? It was the way it was phrased on the tele. "Scientists can determine..." as if one has to be deemed a scientist in order to understand these sorts of things. Maybe it's a little of my philosophical training that's coming through here along with my "don't tell me what I can and can't do" attitude that 's making an ocean out of a fishbowl but the issue is still there--the notion that if someone has training and skill-sets, they are then able to be labeled with a term. For instance, since I play guitar, I'm a "musician". Since Travis plays bass, he's a "roadie". But then, am I really a "Musician" proper or am I just a hobbyist?

Transfer this back to "Scientist" and apply it to someone with little scientific training (read: blowing things up in a lab) but curiosity and base understanding of scientific concepts and allow or grant them the time to explore these curiosities and suddenly, you've got yourself a scientist. Or do you? It depends...

(Hmm, this idea is still in the oven.)

*************************************************************************

In other news, Cloud Cult is coming to Madison's own High Noon Saloon for a one-night performance.

AND

Yesterday was Travis' birthday. The jerk ditched me and our plans for sitting around to watch Nova's Deciphering Mayan Hieroglyphs so he could go have dinner with his ex. I told him that if he kept this sh&t up, he would have a new ex... his new Ex-Best Friend! So we'll see if he keeps ditching me to hang out with girls, let alone girls he's already run the entire relationship gamut with.

To spoil the surprise for him if he checks this while at his parents, I got him 4 clearance LPs.
-Pablo Cruz
-The Little River Band
-Berlin
-Boz Skaggs

Don't ask me which albums they are (except for Berlin. It's "Fashion Victim"[Correction the album is Pleasure Victim, not Fashion Victim". I own that but I don't know where it is... sort of like my Wang Chung "Mosaic" disc.)

I also got him a DVD of Hare Tokidoki Buta . The description on the back read as though it would either be entertaining to watch or entertaining to mock and quote in the company of the uninitiated. (or it will most likely fall into the category of "WOW, this is unfortunately neither entertaining nor mock-able... and really boring!") And the only serious present was a copy of Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm. He will like that one.

And Lastly,

Band news? Neh... I'll talk about that tomorrow. There really isn't that much going on right now in that department. Apparently there is a show scheduled on May 1st at the only place in town that will book us, the Klinic. 9PM is the slated start time. Most likely we'll get bumped to a different spot. enough... I talk about this tomorrow.

Phoning it in without the phone

I don't have much to post about. Those kids plotted about stabbing their teacher... you hear about that? I was going to post about it, but I figured everyone else already had.

Some college student was found dead in her apartment yesterday a few blocks from here. There's this whole paranoia angle the local news-rag (you know, the thing that old people used to read back in the day to get their daily information) is trying to work over... "A Killer Stalks Among Us!!!"

Instead of dealing with that (or anything, like always) I'll just e-publish part of a poem without the authors permission... (not really)

i was thinking
about "ozzie &
harriet" beds...

or maybe,
a couple of cities over... perhaps,
something we could
do by phone.

hand-held.

a night on the town...

a month.

King Cobra? No, King Consumer

You would think the amount of money I've dropped on new music as of late that I'm rolling in cash... but like I like to say, "Buy food or buy music? Music keeps you fed a lot longer."

I got my copy of Trent Reznor's Ghosts I-IV.

It's interesting... if you like listening to song ideas that never made it past the idea stage. It's sort of like buying Picasso sketches. They're Picasso, but they're no Guarnica. Not something that he spent a whole lot of time on.

What's interesting for me is the flashbacks I keep getting. When Furious Jones was recording in 2000, I was listening to a lot of The Fragile (almost exclusively, and almost exclusively the Left Disc.) This is when my ears started to really be able to pick apart recordings, tear up the layers, ignore the present layers and hear the sub-layers... so the work that Nine Inch Nails was doing, was engaging. This is also when I started drifting away from being a drummer and into the world of guitar.

After this last year of recording-work, it's nice to be able to have a fresh perspective on why I'm doing this thing with the band. Exploration, experimentation sort of got lost in the push to create an album that sounded like what we sounded like. I'm beginning to think that this idea needs to go away and I need to get back to exploring again. Set up some new directions with the new material... some extra layers... some hidden flavor. Seek out ways to slip these things in without driving up studio time costs. (I had a lot of fun adding the textures to "the Moment" but it took the better part of a day to lay it all down.)

And in re yesterday, Joe's come 'round to the realization that we are four members, not five, and he's let the idea of adding a female voice into the band go away. (That's a good thing. If he had stuck by that conviction, we may have come to blows.)