Transmissions from Möbius Street
Jun. 23rd, 2009
05:58 pm - 28 Years and counting, and other good things
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kaath9 and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary on Saturday. Okay, "celebrated" may be stretching it - a dear friend who loves our music asked us to participate in an open mic night, because his sister was in town, and would also be performing, so we spent the evening at the San Jose Bahá'í Center, mostly listening to kids less than half our age perform. It was fun, but not exactly a conventional anniversary night out. We did manage to sneak out for dinner on Sunday at one of our favorite Indian places - sort of a combination anniversary/father's day celebration. It's hard to believe Maya and I have been married for so long (and making music together for even longer, almost 30 years now). I can honestly say I love her more than ever (and that's saying a lot), and getting to hear her sing the songs I write is an amazing experience to this day. We have three amazing, brilliant children, who above all else are nice people. If I could get them to pick up after themselves, life would be almost perfect... :-).
Other good things - I had a phone conversation with harmonyheifer on Saturday. Chris is like a sister, and it always makes me smile to talk to her. We've had a deep friendship since 1998, when Maya and I attended our first Leprecon, and Chris hosted us before the con. Within 10 minutes, it was like we had been close friends for ages. It doesn't matter how long we go without talking, when we do, it's like no time has passed.
I'm in the middle of several interesting recording projects, which always makes me happy, and there are more to come.
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gratefulJun. 22nd, 2009
08:20 pm - And for our next musical trick
I've started working on our next project. The hour hand is pointing to filk o'clock, so I guess it's time for us to do another album of parodies. ( more behind the cut )
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creativeMar. 19th, 2009
06:01 pm - And who will review the reviewers?
I have a favor to ask. If anyone is aware of any reviews of Möbius Street, could you post links here? Several people have posted nice reviews on our CDBaby page, which I'm very grateful for, but I'd like to know if there are any other reviews floating around on the webz.
Jan. 14th, 2009
09:31 pm - Crimes against a friend
I don't usually write parodies of filk songs. When Maya and I first discovered filk, we weren't all that familiar with the repertoire, so in the interest of getting some stuff we could play in circles quickly, I gravitated to writing parodies of rock and pop songs. Although we're far from the only ones who do parodies of rock songs, it's something Maya and I have become known for. I've probably only written half a dozen parodies of other filk songs, but as it so happens, several of my filk song parodies have victimized one friend in particular. I'm not sure why. One reason is probably because her songs are so good. Some people mistakenly assume that a bad song is a good target for parody. I think the opposite is true - good songs are much easier to parody.
Another thing I don't usually do is post new song lyrics. It's a selfish thing - funny songs are funniest if they take you by surprise, so I like to save them for filk circles of concerts where I can see the reaction (or lack of reaction if things don't go well). Also, I find reading song lyrics without the music less effective than hearing them. However, I've had a few complaints from people who've heard about some of these songs, so I'm breaking my usual rule.
So, to see my collected crimes against vixyish( click here... )
cheerfulJan. 7th, 2009
09:09 pm - Our new music site
Maya and I have a new web site for our music jeffandmaya.com. If you're interested, have a look. I'm going to try to do some blogging there. We also have streaming music, pictures and a bio. Almost like a real web site. Who'd have thought?
cheerfulDec. 17th, 2008
09:29 pm - Red Roses and Dead Things is done
I've been working for many months with cadhla on her album Red Roses and Dead Things. Seanan hired me to produce, engineer and arrange the album. We started working on it in Nov 2006, although things really got rolling in early 2007. For the two or three of you who don't know, this is Seanan's collection of songs about Mad Science and horror.
We started out with Seanan coming in to do a-cappella scratch vocals of all the songs. I used those to create arrangements and backing tracks. As I was creating the arrangements, I settled on a few "rules" to work by. I wanted to work in various styles of music, but I also wanted to maintain a sense of unity for the project. That was easy in one sense, because the album has such a strong theme lyrically. However, because of the similar theme of many of the songs, I wanted to be sure to make them as unique as I could, while staying true to spirit of the lyrics. In terms of instrumentation, I tried to imagine it was a band with a particular set of instruments available. I have the sound of almost any instrument available to me, so I decided consciously to limit the palette a bit. For the most part, I used guitar/bass/organ/piano/drums, with a bit of synthesizer on just a few songs. I avoided lush pads and orchestral sounds. The songs range from sultry jazz to full out heavy metal, but I think you can imagine them all having been played by the same band. I guess they were, if you consider me to be a band :-). ( Here's a song by song breakdown )
accomplished08:16 pm - Finally getting serious about promoting our music
After years (decades really) of haphazard and mostly non-existent self promotion, Maya and I are now working with a record label. This label is not based on the traditional record industry paradigm, and we're very comfortable with the people. The owner is friend and producer I've worked with before. The company is Prosoul. They will be helping us coordinate promotion across the many online networking sites, etc. One of the things they've asked us for is our mailing list. Being the great promoters we are, we of course have no mailing list. Here's where we could use some help. If anyone is interested in being added to our mailing list, please send a note to email[insert "at" sign here]jeffandmaya.com.
Dec. 11th, 2008
03:20 pm - Kris' play and an observation about stupid product design
Kris is heavily involved in drama at her high school. She's in a special International Baccalaureate program, and drama is a large emphasis. Last night I attended a performance of their production of the play Good'n'Plenty. It's set in an Ohio high school in 1976. The protagonist is a young teacher who had attended the school, and is now entering his first year teaching civics/history. His character spends a great deal of time talking directly to the audience, which is a difficult thing for even an experienced actor to pull off well. The young man playing the part last night did it brilliantly. I was really impressed - he managed to convince me he was a thirty year old teacher, not a high school kid acting in a play. Likewise, Kris was fantastic as his nemesis on the faculty - an older history teacher who had despised him when he was a student.
You might wonder what this has to do with product design. Something struck me last night that I've noticed and wondered about before. As the play got started, several people realized their cell phones were on, and either turned them off, or muted them. How did I know this? Because with many (if not most) cell phones, the act of "silencing" them causes them to play a cute little goodbye song. This seems irrational to me. Most of the time you mute or turn off your phone because it's currently completely inappropriate to make noise. Why don't the product designers realize this? Just wondering....
Dec. 2nd, 2008
02:37 pm - I think it's a plot
I heard about this on NPR last night. It makes me wonder, is ohiblather up to something?
Oct. 7th, 2008
08:04 am - The bad, the good and the awesome ...
Yesterday was a mixed bag. On the not so good side, my car needed about $1200 in unexpected repairs. The bright side on that story is that I initially thought I might need a transmission rebuild, which would have been infinitely worse.
On the good side, I had my annual performance review at work, and it was quite positive. I guess I'm still employed.
On the awesome side, Maya and I finally can publicly announce that we've been asked to be the Guests of Honor at FilkContinental 2009, Oct 9-11 in Germany. We can't wait!
And for dessert, cadhla and I finished primary vocal tracking for Red Roses and Dead Things last night.
cheerfulSep. 17th, 2008
01:58 pm - Möbius Street is on iTunes now
I just found Möbius Street on iTunes. It's an iTunes "plus" album, which means it's encoded at 256 kb AAC, and has no DRM. Most music players can play AAC, so even if you don't use an iPod, it should work.
goodSep. 13th, 2008
11:07 am - For those of you who don't like discs...
When I submitted Möbius Street to CDBaby, I signed up for the direct MP3 download option, but it didn't appear on the page when they put it up. I assumed there was some sort of normal lag. As it turns out, they just forgot to flip the switch. I contacted them, and they've now done so. If you're interested in buying the album, but don't want the physical package, you can buy high bit rate DRM-free MP3s on our CDBaby page. It should also start showing up on other digital music sites (iTunes, Amazon, etc.) soon.
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productiveSep. 11th, 2008
10:01 am - Update from Grass Valley
Thanks to everyone for your support yesterday. We're all doing OK here. Dad had not been well for quite some time, and things had gotten pretty severe over the past couple of months. We didn't expect that he would pass away quite so soon, but it wasn't a huge shock all the same. Over the past couple of months he suddenly became very confused, in addition to the physical problems, and it made it awfully difficult for Mom. In a sense, Dad has been gone for quite some time, it's just now final. The local Hospice was amazing. They helped Mom during last couple of weeks, and when he died, they sent someone out to be with her. Janet called the mortuary and arranged for Dad to be picked up, and was so supportive.
Mom and Julie and I went to the mortuary yesterday and made the arrangements. Dad was a Navy veteran, so the Navy will scatter his ashes at sea. Today we're going to take care of some other details with Mom.
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okaySep. 10th, 2008
06:21 pm - My Dad passed away this morning
My Mom called this morning - my Dad passed away a bit after 7 this morning. I rushed to Grass Valley to be with her. My sister is here too. We're helping Mom make arrangements. I'll post a bit more later, when I get home.
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sadAug. 29th, 2008
02:11 pm - This really shows how different our community is
I saw this yesterday. It's a long essay on how impossible most bands find selling their music to be. I have quite few nits to pick (especially his dismissal of Jonathan Coulton's relative success), but on the whole I think this reflects the reality most independent musicians face. It makes me all the more appreciative of our community, where the vast majority of us are willing to actually support the music we like by gasp supporting the artists by buying their albums. Will any of us "make it big" or get rich? Probably not, but we do have the satisfaction of performing for, and selling our music to an audience that supports us. This is special.
gratefulAug. 28th, 2008
04:34 pm - Möbius Street available now at CD Baby
While I was in Grass Valley helping my Mom, CD Baby notified me that Möbius Street is up and available there. The direct link is http://cdbaby.com/cd/bohnhoff4. If any of you have heard the album, and would be comfortable posting reviews there, Maya and I would be grateful.
accomplishedAug. 20th, 2008
06:04 pm - Speechless
I'm posting this from my iPhone on a Caltrain somewhere between Milbrae and San Francisco. We came to a screeching halt about 30 minutes ago after apparently striking and killing someone on the tracks. Kris and I are on our way into the city to see a Giants baseball game. There are police everywhere outside and lots of commotion. The train just started moving. Seems kind of shallow to be going to a ball game, but I guess there's nothing else for us to do.
sadAug. 12th, 2008
06:31 pm - It's coming...
I got a call from the duplicators this afternoon. Möbius Street is done and many boxes are on their way to me. They should arrive on Thursday. I set it up at CDBaby, and I'll be contacting the filk dealers tonight to let them know it's available. End of shameless self-promoting announcement. :-)
accomplishedJul. 10th, 2008
06:01 pm - Mixing done
I finished mixing the album last night (well actually at 5:30 this morning). As soon as Maya is done giving Amanda her bath, she'll be driving me to the airport so I can fly to Seattle for the mastering session tomorrow. I'm happy with the it, although it's been a real roller coaster getting it done. I haven't slept in about 36 hours. I'll post more later for whoever cares to hear more
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relievedJun. 20th, 2008
03:05 pm - Möbius Street project status
So, it looks like the end is in sight on our new album. If you're interested ( look behind the curtain... )
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