Transmissions from Möbius Street

Mixing done

2008-07-11T01:04:18Z

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 .

Möbius Street project status

2008-06-20T22:14:37Z

So, it looks like the end is in sight on our new album. If you're interested

Most of the tracking is done, although we do plan to rerecord the lead vocal on Mother of Exiles tomorrow. Maya sang it with a nasally delivery that isn't wearing well for me. She did it on purpose, and since it's her song, I told her I'd live with it if it's what she wants, but now she insists she want to do it again.

It looks like the CD will have 15 tracks. We're pretty settled on a running order, although we may tweak it a little:

1. Empty Man
2. Möbius Street
3. Between
4. Candles in the Sand
5. Moth
6. Radio Free Luna
7. High Desert
8. Divide by Zero
9. Love Touches Everyone
10. Remover of Difficulties
11. Who Can Explain (the Hurricane)?
12. Mother of Exiles
13. Falling
14. Seven Cities
15. Ghost Light

I've been doing rough mixes pretty much as I track, which is typical when doing computer based recording, so I don't have anything that needs to be completely mixed from scratch. I've been doing a first pass of final candidate mixes over the past couple of weeks. I'm taking a different approach than I have in the past. Rather than keep on a song until I'm sure I'm completely done, I'm doing a thorough pass, and then moving on to the next one. I'm taking the songs in running order. Once I've done a first candidate for each, I'll listen to them carefully and make any changes needed. I did Divide by Zero last night, so I'm over half way through the first round. It seems like the mixing is going more easily than on past projects. My mic technique has gotten better, so I'm spending less time working to make the vocals and acoustic guitars sound right. There's really no substitute for good raw tracks. It also helps that I've got professional bass players on all but one song. I just did a bit of bass on last section of Remover of Difficulties. The vocals of course are amazing - but you all know what to expect from Maya - plus we have Vixy singing backups on 12 of the songs. She and Maya blend so well, it will make you cry.

I booked a mastering session with John McCaig at panicStudios in Seattle for July 11, so I have to be done mixing by then. Without a deadline, I'll just keep going and going. I never really finish mixing I song, at some point I just decide to stop :-).

We have a cover for the album. I'm very pleased with it. The image was created by David O'Leary, whom I work with, and I did the titling. I've been assembling all the song credits and text, which is another change for us. Historically, we've left all that to the last minute, with the predictable chaos. We plan to do a photo shoot in early July, and than Maya and I will lay out the interior and tray card. We're going to do something different with the CD packaging this time. Rather than doing a 12 or 16 page booklet with all the lyrics, we're going to do a 3 panel enviro-pack that will have all the song and album credits. We'll probably do a PDF online with the lyrics, for those who want them.

The current plan is to have an "official" release at OVFF in October, although we should have CDs from the duplicator before that.

Anniversary!

2008-06-20T20:47:03Z

As of today, kaath9 and I have been married for 27 years. I hope we can get out and do something tonight. Depends on whether we can get one of the older kids to watch Amanda.

Duckon Report

2008-06-19T17:26:53Z

Maya and I are recently home from Duckon. We had a fabulous time. Many thanks to Jan, Sue and the entire Con Com. I'm back to mixing the album (more on that in a later post). Full con report

Wednesday:

Our trip to the con was relatively uneventful. We flew out of San Jose as usual. The flight was slightly delayed. I think we left the gate around 3:50 PM rather than the scheduled 3:25. We flew to LAX, and the flight continued on to Chicago from there. We made up the delay and then some between LA and Chicago. janmagic picked us up at Midway around 11:15 and we took a nice nighttime drive around downtown Chicago before heading back to her place.

Thursday:

Thursday was a busy day. Our plan was to go see the Cubs play at Wrigley Field and then visit the North American Bahá'í Temple in Wilmette. We slept in just a little, and then piled into Jan's trusty Honda Civic for a nice drive along the lakefront. We parked the car near Howard and took the El to Addison, near Wrigley. We got there about an hour before Sue Len was due to meet us with the tickets, so we bought baseball caps and had a cool drink to kill some time. We wandered out in front of the stadium about 15 minutes before Sue showed up to soak up the ambience. The game was fun. The Cubs were behind 0-2 for most of it, but they managed to tie it in the 9th. They finally won it in the bottom of the 11th, when the Braves pitcher hit a batter with the bases loaded. I've never seen a game end with a hit batsman. I'm sure it's happened before, but it must be rare.

After the game, the four of us took the El back to Jan's car, and we went to the temple. It was just beautiful. I've been a member of the Bahá'í Faith since 1982, and this was my first chance to visit in person. It's architecturally fascinating, surrounded by nine beautiful gardens, and just radiates a sense of peace and spirituality. Jan and Sue both enjoyed it too. We wandered around the gardens after sitting inside for a while, and were tickled to see lots little bay rabbits and squirrels all over the grounds.

As we were walking back to the car, Jan called billroper to see if he and daisy_knotwise might be available to meet us for dinner. Bill called back within minutes. They were already at a barbeque place called Sugar Ray's with fleetfootmike in tow. 30 minutes later we pulled in to find Bill, Mike and the newest Roper, Julie finishing desert. Ok, Julie was not sharing in the desert, she was holding down the all-important lying in the stroller and looking adorable position. Gretchen had gone home with Katie a bit earlier. Mike had just flown in from England and was looking suitably bleary-eyed, although he seemed quite happy to be here. We chatted for a bit, before Bill and Mike decided to go home, where we would meet them after we had eaten.

Much to our surprise, Mike came back in with Julie a few minutes later. Bill's car had decided to go Psycho - it wouldn't start, and every light on the dashboard was flashing insanely. Mike and I took turns trying to soothe a fussy baby while Bill dealt with the car and calling AAA for a tow to the dealership. Once arrangements for towing were made, Gretchen came back and picked them up. We enjoyed a nice meal of barbeque and then headed to the Ropers. We had a good visit that included a look at many of Bill's guitars. There was also much continuing drama over the towing of the crazy car. Bill has written about that in his journal, so I won't get into it here.

Friday:

First day of the con! I had learned the day before that I was scheduled to give a presentation on writing parody lyrics. I hadn't received any notification from the folks handling the writing track, so I spent the morning printing and collating materials for the session. Jan took us to the hotel around 1 PM. Our room was huge, and very comfortable. Duckon treats its guests very well.

We bumped into mofilker and his wife Jamie, who invited us to their room for a quick visit and some shrimp and cheese. We caught up for a bit, and then headed to the Green Room for a little party the Con Com put on for the guests. Rand and Adam were there, with their artist friend Art (really) :-). Art was doing a caricature of Adam when we arrived. Not to be outdone, Adam did one of him, and then did Maya and me.

Opening ceremonies was a blast. Each guest gave a little speech. For our part, Maya and I were asked to play a song. It's the first time I've seen a filk/musical GOH offered that opportunity, and it makes a lot of sense - it gives the attendees who don't normally pay any attention to the filk track a chance to hear what it's all about. We did Won't Get Fooled because it's very high energy, and the lyrics are accessible to pretty much anyone. After the opening ceremonies, Ookla the Mok staged a great series of skits that parodied the "Hi I'm a Mac, hi I'm a PC" ads. Their characters were "Acoustic" (played by Adam in stodgy John Hodgman persona) and "Electric" (played by Rand in the persona of hipster Justin Long). It was lots of fun, and they brought Maya and I up for the final skit. Afterwards, Rand and I went out to the parking lot to see the singing Tesla coils. They had set up two fairly large Tesla coils (probably about 6 feet tall), and had them "play" songs. I assume it was all computer controlled. It was amusing for a while, but eventually we wandered back inside for the open filk circle.

The filk that night was very low key, but great. For starters, we finally got to meet musicmutt and chirosinger. We missed seeing them at Consonance because of my kidney stone misadventure. Both are phenomenal singers and players. Graham plays solo, and Becca plays with her musical partner Chas (whose last name I never managed to catch). Gary Hanak was also there, who had been our liaison at Archon when we were guests there. Gary is very fine singer and guitarist. sexybass was there with his new wife sposter. They did some great stuff together. We stayed up far later than we should have, but it was worth it. Katie was a hoot dancing (in perfect time) to Bill's songs and saying "Daddy, Daddy!". I commented that it reminded me of the girls screaming on the Beatle's first Ed Sullivan Show appearance. janeg did a song by cadhla. Seanan will be next year's GOH, and everyone was very excited about it.

Saturday:
Saturday was pretty well booked. I was on a home recording panel at 11 AM. Tom and Mike were also there. This is one of my favorite subjects, and my last experience with a similar panel at Baycon was a huge disappointment. One of the panelists dominated that panel to an absurd degree, and most of the "information" shared was name dropping. Very little of use to a home based recordist was offered. Fortunately, this panel was far more civilized. If anything, I spoke a bit too much, but I think each of us said what we wanted to, and we took lots of questions from the audience. Bill Roper showed up about 30 seconds before the end, and added his wisdom to the pool.

Maya and I grabbed a quick lunch and then I went back to our room to review my notes for the Parody Lyric presentation. At this point in our story, Jeff makes his big blunder. One of the things I very much wanted to do was attend phillip2637's concert. It had been originaly scheduled for 2:30, but moved to 1:30. I complete spaced out on the change, and only ended up hearing the last couple of songs (which were wonderful). My presentation went pretty well. I've given it lots of times now, so I'm pretty comfortable with it.

mofilker played a concert at 3. I really admire Gary. He's a fine guitarist and singer, and writes some really funny songs. The audience wasn't huge (really should have been bigger, but the room was kind of off the beaten path), but they were appreciative. I'm trying to convince Gary and Jamie to come out to the west coast for Consonance, or some other conventions. He's kind of a midwest secret - he needs to get out more.

Ookla's concert was at 4:00. They were as great as ever - phenomenal song writing, fantastic humor and engaging stage presence. They were accompanied by their relatively new bass player Wolfram, who is a very talented musician. As seems to be so often the case (see my entry for the UK Filk Con), I wondered how Maya and could possibly follow them. After Ookla finished, it was a mad rush to get on the stage, get our guitars plugged in and do a quick check of levels. I really don't like having to do that - I'm very conscious of people waiting while we sort out the technical stuff, and it takes a song or so for me to get my head into performing mode. When possible, I prefer a private soundcheck in advance. We opened with Six Feet Under. My performance was pretty ragged on that one, but I settled down pretty well after that. We did a pretty standard set of mostly parodies (unlike Baycon where we did more originals). I did put several songs from our upcoming CD Möbius Street in the set. I think they were well received, although both Maya and I had trouble gauging the audience reaction at times, especially on the originals. If people are very quiet while you play, they may be enthralled, or they may be bored.

After the concert, Mike, Rand, Maya and I had dinner together. We spent most of it talking about music (of course). Much time was spent extolling the virtues of The Who, and especially the genius of Pete Townsend. Our waiter overheard us, and got into the conversation a little. It's fun, but a little intimidating discussing music with Rand. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of rock and pop music, and I inevitably feel a bit under educated. He's also very articulate, where I often find myself less than effective at conveying my thoughts in conversation. I think that's why I write songs :-). Mike also is a big Who fan, and had lots of interesting trivia to add to the mix. Judging from that evening, I think we owns DVDs documenting every television of film appearance The Who has ever made.

Mike, Maya and I met Becca to discuss and rehearse for the Instaband performance Jan had requested for the closing ceremonies. We tossed around some song ideas, when it occurred to me that '39 by Queen would be ideal. Maya and I perform it occasionally, and it's perfect for science fiction conventions, because everyone has heard it, and it has a science fiction theme. We worked out a nice three way vocal arrangement that gave all three of the others a nice showcase, plus lots of harmonies.

Stone Dragon (Tom and Sue) had a concert that evening. They were wonderful, the love between them was very visible as they sang together. I'm always entranced by Tom's guitar playing. He plays a twelve string in an alternate tuning (DADGAD?), that's just haunting and gorgeous. I left just as they were starting their last song, theoretically to do a sound check with Toy Boat. Toy Boat is a filk rock band that rearranges standard filk songs as thrash/punk/metal extravaganzas. They asked Mike and I to join them for the finale of their set. As it turned out, I could have easily stayed for Tom and Sue's last song. The art auction went way long, and it was almost another hour before the sound check (which Mike and I did not end up participating in). I spent the hour hanging with Daniel Glasser and Mike, trading songs and talking. The Toy Boat concert was fun. On the finale, Mike and I traded blues solos with their regular guitarist. I couldn't hear much up on stage, but I'm told we sounded good :-).

There were two filk circles in smaller conference rooms. Maya and I settled in at first in a room with Ookla, Lukeski, and Phil Mills. Rand was on the verge of losing his voice, but Ookla did several of our favorites from O OK LA. I know many long time Ookla fans prefer their older albums, but I think O OK LA is brilliant. The songwriting is mature, both poignant and funny; and the production is great. I've probably listened to it hundreds of times. After a while we decided to see what was going on in the other conference room, but when we got there, the filk had broken up. We did bump into Bill, who suggested we just sit and have a talk. We ended up chatting about computers and programming for about an hour. When it was time to go, I realized that I had left my guitar case in the first conference room, which was now locked. Someone told me Jan was in the main ballroom, where I was surprised to find a third filk circle in full swing. No matter how hard you try, you just can't be everywhere. Jan called someone on the hotel staff, and within minutes my guitar case was retrieved.

Sunday:

Sunday was a pretty light day in terms of responsibility. Other than some friends' concerts, our only scheduled event was the Instaband performance for the closing ceremonies. First up was Mike's concert. He did some great English folk, including a couple of really nice originals based on a British comic book, that I think is called "AD 2008". After Mike, Riverfolk (Becca and Chas) did their set. It was so good. Both are really solid guitarists, and the harmonies were perfect. After their set, the Instaband had another quick rehearsal, before we played '39 during the closing ceremonies. It went over quite well, several people made a point of telling us how much they love that song.

Jan organized a pizza party/Dead Duck circle in the filk suite. I think we must have had 35 or 40 people in there. Lots of great music, including very touching song about Susan from Narnia by almeda. Graham, Becca and Chas did lots of great folk music, and later, a friend of theirs named David showed up and played some songs that I liked a lot. For our part, we mostly did original songs. Because of the people there, it was more of a folk circle than a normal (whatever that is!) filk circle, which was fine. We finally packed it in about 11:00, after lots of hugs and goodbyes.

Monday:

Pretty typical travel day. Maya and I had a quiet breakfast at the hotel and checked out. We spent a while hanging out in the lobby waiting for our ride, and got to say goodbye (again) to Tom, Sue, Graham, Becca, Chas, Phil and janeg. Nothing particularly interesting happened on the flights home, which overall is a good thing.

If I've forgotten anything important, I apologize.

A Looong Overdue Report

2008-03-28T04:39:38Z

In the spirit of "better late than never", I'm finally posting a con report for 2t0nic. I know I'm a lazy good-for-nothing, but in my defense I've been trying to:

Finish our next album

Get started on cadhla's album.

Work on the remasters and bonus tracks for the rerelease of both Duras Sisters albums

OK, enough lame excuses. Con report

Getting to the UK was relatively uneventful. The only glitch was losing our ride to the airport the night before. The friend who was supposed to take had the death-flu. I ended up hiring transport to SFO from our place in San Jose and it worked out fine. We flew through check-in and security. I was a little worried about Amanda on a long flight. As it turned out, she was an angel. Maya put some kid's movies on an iPod for her, and she had a few books and games that kept her happily entertained. Our flight put us in Heathrow at 7:00 AM on Thursday. We got through immigration and customs with no trouble, although it felt like we walked five miles to get there from baggage claim. When we emerged into the terminal, Martin GK was waiting for us. We piled all the instruments, suitcases and children into his trusty Honda Accord estate car (station wagon for those of you keeping score in the US), and we headed off to Oakham. A short way into the journey, Amanda got sick in the back seat, so we pulled off for quick clean up and to get something for her to drink. I imagine that Martin was wondering what he'd gotten himself into, but he was cheerful and gracious as could be. After a leisurely breakfast we continued on toward home. We decided to just stay up the rest of day, and spent the afternoon wandering around Martin and Andy's home town, which was lovely.

Friday morning, I helped Martin pack the car and trailer with the sound equipment for the convention, then he and I headed to Grantham. At the hotel, we sat down for a quick drink at the bar (fruit juice for me), and chatted with several people before we drafted many able-bodied fen into unloading and setting up the sound system. Andy arrived shortly with Maya and the kids, and soon the con was in full swing.

After two months, I probably can't recreate the chronology of the weekend with any great precision, so here are some particular highlights, not necessarily in the order they occurred:

Meeting fleetfootmike. People have been telling me for years that I need to meet him, and the were absolutely right. Mike is an absolute delight, and one of the finest guitarists in the filk community. He generously loaned me one of his prized electric guitars for Baba McDonald's (our parody of Baba O'Riley).
bardling's set on Saturday night. I first met Rika at Concertino near Boston in 2003. She did a solo performance set, accompanying herself with an acoustic guitar. I expected her set at 2t0nic to be much the same. Wrong. Rika enlisted an all-star UK filk backing band that included fleetfootmike, demoneyes, Tim Walker,vaurien, and many others. They sounded fabulous. Maya and I were scheduled to play our set immediately afterwards, and I have to confess to a bit of nervousness. I really didn't know if a couple of people with acoustic guitars would hold the audience's interest after Rika and her band's awesome set.

Getting to hear unclechristo. I met Chris briefly at Consonance in 2006, but did not get to hear his set at that time. Chris is a consummate musician, with a wonderful easy-going stage presence and a self-deprecating sense of humor.

Martin and Andy GK's set on Friday night. Their song selection leaned heavily towards rock, and was lots of fun. A particular highlight was Baby with a Snooze Button.
Hanging out with bedlamhouse and Brenda.

A nice chat on Sunday with Talis. She's another person I met ever so briefly at Consonance. Rika did a nice cover of Paper Worlds in her set, It won a Sammie, so Talis joined Rika on stage for the Sammie concert.

The post con dinner with the Con Committee on Sunday night. We went to lovely Indian restaurant in Grantham. Had a chance to chat with catalana, bardling and the rest of the committee.

There are a thousand other things I could single out. If I've forgotten anyone, I apologize in advance.

We stayed over for about 10 days after the con, with Martin and Andy acting as our hosts. I cannot possibly thank them enough for their hospitality. Not only did they offer their home for our entire visit, but they drove us all over England sight-seeing. I won't get into a detailed description of that portion of our trip here, but there are pictures on flickr and at dotMac.

7 Things

2008-02-15T02:44:48Z

fleetfootmike tagged me for the "7 Things" meme. It involves listing 7 surprising or obscure facts about myself and then tagging seven other LJ users.

1. This is my first meme. I'm not a frequent poster at the best of times, and when confronted with coming up with a list of interesting facts about myself, I usually get blocked.
2. I may (or may not) have been an extra in the film Jaws. In he summer of 1974, some friends and I biked down the coast of Massachusetts to Wood's Hole, and took the ferry across to Martha's Vineyard. Another friend had gotten into some pretty serious trouble, and was staying with his grandparents for the summer. We spent about a week camping in their yard and hanging out on the island. I'm pretty sure the grand parents had no idea we were there. They were filming outdoor location shots for Jaws, and of course we spent some time watching. Mostly, they seemed to be struggling with a mechanical shark fin mounted to two air tanks that was towed behind a motorboat. The second unit director seemed to spend most of his time screaming at no one in particular. For one scene they needed a crowd of people to run along the beach while pointing at the shark. We got drafted. I think he scene may have ended up in the film as a bunch feet running by the camera.
3. I once drowned a car. My first car was a powder-blue 1964 Dodge Dart. I paid $165 for it. My folks' house at the time was out in the country. There was a small creek across the gravel road that led to the house. When my parents bought the property, a concrete culvert bridge was built. When they poured the bridge, the surface in the center sagged a bit, so the bridge had a pretty pronounced dip in the middle. In 1977, we had an extrodiarily wet winter, following 3 or 4 years of serious drought. During one particularly heavy downpour, I needed to get onto town to give some guitar lessons. When I got to the bridge, there was a large pool of water over the top, and extending out about 10 feet into the road on either side. A bunch of dead branches and brush from the drought had washed downstream and blocked the culvert. It looked pretty shallow, if a bit wide, so I tried to cross. As soon as I hit the dip in the center, the engine submerged, and the car stalled. Within seconds, there was water building up to the driver side windows. I scrambled out the passenger side, grabbed my guitar, and waded back toward the house. It was really scary, I'm a good swimmer, but I doubt I could have handled the current. Fortunately, the car blocked most of the flow as I made my escape. When I got to he house, I called my Mom to warn her the bridge was blocked. Just as I started to tell her about it, the car floated off downstream. It ended up several hundred yards away, with it's rear butter up against a pine tree and the nose in the creek bed. I used to have a snapshot, but I haven't seen it in years. I ended up selling it for $125 "as is" to a mechanic who (barely) got it running and drove it off. In a weird postscript, I later learned that a good friend and coworker at Emagic had once owned it. We were talking about cars we had owned one day, and he mentioned a slightly moldy smelling Dodge Dart he had once haed. We soon determined it was the same car. He told me it finally met it's end when a water tower collapsed on it.
4. I majored in Anhropology in college.
5. I had zero interest n computers until I started using one for music. I'm still far less interested in computers for their own sake than in what I can do with them.
6. For several years I hosted an early morning radio show "Wake Up and Smell the Radio" on KVMR, a community radio station in Nevada City, California.
7. I didn't take up the guitar to get girls, I just really wanted to play guitar. Good thing, as far as I could tell, girls were no more interested in me after I started playing than before :-).

Tag to ohiblather vixyish bedlamhouse jodimuse catalana porpentine nimuejohn

Packed my bags last night, pre-flight...

2008-01-29T17:26:58Z

Tomorrow we leave for the UK. Today will be spent making sure everything at work is covered. We packed our bags last night, so with luck, we can relax tonight and get ready for the great time zone change boogie. The most stressful part of packing for us is making sure our bags are under the 50 lb weight limit. On our way to GaFilk, we had one bag that was 4 lbs over, and so in addition to all the other drama associated with boarding that flight, I had to redistribute our stuff. Surprisingly, the people in line behind us didn't seem terribly amused. Go figure. The main source of weight is carrying 4 different CD titles. Anyway, in hopes of averting a repeat of that experience, I bought a digital bathroom scale on my way home last night. Each of the three suitcases weighed in at a svelte 46 lbs, fully packed. If we manage to sell at least a few CDs, there'll even be room to bring back a few souvenirs :-).

We're hoping Amanda is ok on the flight. I know she won't be scared, but she's a very energetic and talkative 5 year old, and I'm not sure how she'll do on an 11 hour flight. We're taking her Leapster game system, and we've loaded up an iPod with kids movies. Should be interesting.

If only....

2008-01-28T15:49:14Z

I've been reading with great sadness about Greg McMullan's passing. I wish I'd had a chance to meet him. I saw him at the My Filk contest at GaFilk, and thought he'd be a fun person to get to know. My deepest sympathies to his family and friends.

GaFilk Report

2008-01-18T07:13:18Z

GaFilk report

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything. Maya and I just got home from GaFilk. We had an absolute blast. I can’t thank the concom enough for inviting us, and for their warmth and kindness while we were there.

We decided not to bring the girls with us, because we’re taking them to the UK in a couple of weeks, and we didn’t want Kris to miss any more school than she’s already going to. My Mom and Dad came down to San Jose ton Wednesday to stay with them. Our house has no guest room, and my folks stayed in our bedroom, so we decided to book a room at a hotel near the airport Wednesday night. Our flight was scheduled to leave before 7 AM, so we figured it would be easiest all around. It also meant we could leave our car at the hotel, which saved the cost of five days of airport parking.

We got up bright and early (as in 4 AM) on Thursday, and took the shuttle to the airport. At the ticket counter, we hit our first snag. I gave the agent our names, and after a few minutes of furious typing and frowning on his part, I began to suspect that something was wrong. Finally he looked up and asked what our connecting city was supposed to be. My itinerary said we had a non-stop to Atlanta. He told me there was no non-stop – hmmm. A few more minutes of typing revealed we were scheduled for an 11:50 flight with one stop. Apparently all the schedules had changed at the beginning of the year, and we didn’t get the memo. We weren’t too keen on hanging out at the airport for 5 hours waiting, but yet another round of keyboard bashing got us onto a 6 AM flight to Salt Lake City, with a connection to Atlanta. By now it was after 5:30, so we made a mad dash through security (well, okay, more of a mad crawl, but we got through). Once we got to Salt Lake, we had a bit of a layover. I went to the special room for guys, and on my way back to our gate, I saw a tall woman with long curly dark hair who was holding a guitar case. I was pretty sure it was Char McKay, whom I had met at Consonance this past year. She had her back to me, so I wasn’t completely sure. I stepped in front or her, but she was wearing wrap-around dark glasses, so I still had some doubts. Throwing my natural reticence to the wind I said “Hi Char?” She peered down at me (I’m not very tall), took off her glasses and looked extremely puzzled. “Um, I’m Jeff, we met at Consonance…” At this point, I figured either she wasn’t Char at all, or was but had no recollection of ever having met me. “Oh, hi! I can barely see, I just had laser surgery on my eyes, and my vision is pretty blurry right now.” As you’ve probably guessed, she was also on her way to Atlanta. We chatted for a few minutes and then boarded the plane. We arrived in Atlanta about an hour later than our original itinerary indicated. I wasn’t too concerned, because our plan was to take a shuttle from the airport to the hotel. Once we got to the baggage collection area (after a looong train ride – Hartsfield is huge), we camped out at the carousel to play the luggage lottery. I’m pretty relaxed about flying with our guitars, but I do get a little nervous waiting for them to appear at the end of a flight. One variable from airport to airport is whether they’ll show up with the rest of the luggage, or in the oversize area, so you have to keep an eye on both. While Char and Maya and I waited, Bill Sutton showed up looking really relieved. Like us, he had not been notified of our flight change, and had been waiting for over an hour for a non-existent flight. He told us that the guitars would show up in the oversize area, so he and Maya went over there, while I waited for the suitcases. Once everything was safely collected, we hopped onto the shuttle and headed for the hotel. I love arriving at a con hotel, and meeting dear friends I hardly get to see. Brenda was there, and so were ohiblather and autographedcat. I also met Mark Bernstein. The requisite hugs were exchanged, and after we dropped our stuff off in our room, we went to dinner with Bill, Brenda, Char, Debbie, Rob and Mark. We had a great time catching up, and getting to know bedlamhouse, Brenda, Mark and Char better. They’re all delightful people.

Friday morning we hooked up with Sandy and Gerry Tyra for breakfast. They broke the big news that they’ll be coming back to California from Texas in a few weeks. Yay!! After breakfast, I sat down for a visit with ohiblather, Jodi Krangle and runnerwolf. Debbie pulled out a piece of paper and begged me to draw a picture. I have the drawing ability of the average three year old, so I was a little reluctant (and suspicious). I tried to get out of it but she kept wheedling “But it’s for Interfilk!” She drew a 2” x 2” square in one corner of the paper, and a I drew a pathetic little cat face. I assumed that the rest of the paper would be filled with drawings from other guests, and then auctioned off. Sadly, I was mistaken, but more on that later. Maya and I then ran out with the Tyras to pick up some things that Maya and Sandy had forgotten to bring. Gerry also decided to get an LCD display for the computer on his sound system. What should have been a 45 minute errand turned into a 3 hour detour as we vainly searched for a Costco, Best Buy, or any other electronics retailer that might have what he needed. We finally found joy at a Staples and got back to the hotel in plenty of time for Opening Ceremonies. We grabbed a quick dinner with Rand and erinwrites. It was nice to meet and get to know her a little bit. Rand is incredibly bright and articulate, and Erin is a perfect match for him. We chatted about music and song writing for a while and then headed back for the opening ceremonies. The concom really did a nice job decorating the main performance room – it looked like a New Year’s Eve party. I had a quick chat with Teresa Powell and her daughter Carly. Brenda had arranged for me to borrow Carly’s Les Paul guitar for our set, and I think Carly wanted to check out the guy who was going to borrow her baby. We had a nice chat about the bands we like (surprisingly very much the same), and agreed to meet Saturday morning so I could get used to the guitar and amp. After the ceremony, Tom Smith did a set to his customary rousing response. On my way out of the main room, I had a look at the auction table for Interfilk. One item from ohiblather in particular caught my eye. She had created an “Unauthorized Biography of Jeff Bohnhoff”, complete with pictures from our infamous Photoshop war of a few years back and a refrigerator magnet. The text was, um interesting, to say the least. It included a certificate of authenticity signed by Debbie, and another certificate authenticating the first certificate, signed by Maya, the traitor ☺. Our intent was to get to bed at a fairly reasonable hour, so we’d be fresh for our concert the next evening, but of course the filking was so good that fun overrode reason, and we stayed up until about 2 AM.

Saturday morning we decided that a trip to the South would not be complete unless we had breakfast at the Waffle House at least once. The only problem was deciding which one to go to. There were two Waffle House restaurants, each about 3 blocks from the hotel on either side. I think there’s a state law mandating Waffle House density. We randomly decided to turn right, and walked over to the restaurant. Just after we seated ourselves at a cozy table for two, Char and Dave Rood showed up. There were no larger tables available, so we did what good fen do, we squeezed in. We had a nice visit, and firmed up our arteries – who could ask for more? When we got back to the hotel, we hit the dealer room. I picked up some CDs I’ve been meaning to get for a while, including Ookla’s Less Than Art 10th Anniversary reissue, and Carla Ulbrich’s Sick Humor. I also bought Mary Crowell’s Courting My Muse. After that I hooked up with Carly and got the guitar and amp. I ran up to our room with them, and did a quick check, so I could back downstairs for the afternoon concerts. Brian Richardson, our Toastmaster, gave a presentation on the Dragon Con video projects he’s involved with. He showed a bunch of short films and clips. Most of them were absolutely hilarious, and his commentary was incredibly witty. After Brian the Interfilk guests, Brobdingnagian Bards did their set. They were a lot of fun, lots of fun Celtic stuff with a large dollop of schtick. Particular highlights included two different Jedi drinking songs. After the Bards, there were a series of 2 x 10 (2 songs by 10 minutes) concerts. There was tons of really good stuff, including the likes of filkerdave, nimuejohn, markbernstein and many others. After the concerts, we did a thorough sound check with Gerry. With everything tweaked and set, we got dressed for the GaFilk banquet. The banquet was fantastic. The food was really good, everyone got dressed up, and the house band was awesome. They could easily have played a top jazz club. Jody Krangle, Mary Crowell and Teresa Powell shared the vocals. Their three part harmonies were astonishing. Their blend was perfect and the delivery was smooth as silk. The rest of the band was just as good, with Mary on keyboards, Dave Rood on trumpet, two sax players, Carly on guitar, and Brian Richardson playing solid drums. Maya and I were the first ones on the dance floor, and I also danced with ohiblather, Char and Brenda. Fortunately, I didn’t step on anyone’s toes, and Debbie even managed the hard to land quadruple spin. About a half hour before the end of the banquet, we slipped back to our room to change into something a little less formal for our concert. We opened with Baba McDonalds. It’s the song where I needed Carly’s electric rig. Normally, Maya and I try to recreate the songs we parody with just acoustic guitar and percussion, but Baba O”Riley just didn’t work. I pre-recorded a backing track with the synthesizer, piano, bass and drums, and it’s the one song where I play electric on stage. After that, we stuck with our usual acoustic setup. I do a couple of songs in open G tuning, and Brenda loaned me a very nice Martin so I could avoid retuning in the middle of our set. At dinner Thursday night, Bill and I talked about the Martin vs. Taylor debate among some players. Maya and I both play Taylor’s, but I like Martins just fine too. Bill called me a “guitar Unitarian” ☺. At any rate, the universe didn’t turn itself inside out when I used both on stage. Our concert went pretty well- no decaying vegetation was hurled in our direction. After our set, the Interfilk auction got started. It was the usual Interfilk madness, with wenching, triumph, defeat, laughter, tears and lots of money raised for Interfilk. Maya and I contributed a CD with a recording of Wil’s Song, my parody of vixyish’s Mal’s Song. I actually used the backing tracks for Vixy and tfabris’s upcoming recording of the song, with Maya’s vocals. Taunya Huff ended up with the winning bid, which was cool. After that, lots more great filking with Rand, Erin, Bill and Brenda, and lots of others. Maya got Rand to sing Hollywood Ending from Ookla’s o ok la album. We got to bed about 3:30.

Sunday was pretty low key. We got up too late for breakfast, so we had lunch at Ruby Tuesday with Char. The closing ceremonies were nice, Bill was given a standing ovation for his 10 years of service chairing GaFilk, and the torch was officially passed to autographedcat. A bunch of us went out to dinner at the Steak & Ale, and then we did the Dead Dog. Some highlights included erinwrites singing a song, filking with Taunya Huff, and just generally soaking in the atmosphere. We also had a nice chat with filker0 out in the hall for awhile.

Monday we pretty much spent the day hanging out with Bill and Brenda. They gave us lots of great tips for our UK visit, and we chatted about music and lots of other stuff. We had lunch at the Barbecue Kitchen (everyone had the barbecue pork platter, (although I was the rebel in the group and had biscuits instead of corn bread). Maya was thrilled to get some good barbecue. We wandered back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby until it was time to catch our flights. After our experience with schedule changes on the way to Atlanta, I checked the schedule online several times to make sure our flight still existed. It was a good thing I did, because it was now almost an hour earlier than my itinerary said. When we got to the airport, I decided to try a self-help kiosk to check in. I put in a credit card, and it came up empty. Not to worry, I had the confirmation number on my phone. I entered that – still no joy. Uh oh. I went to the service desk, where I was told that our return trip to San Jose had been canceled by the travel agent, and we’d have to buy tickets. Major sinking feeling at this point – a one way ticket the day of the flight was bound to be expensive. We schlepped over to the main ticket counter, where a very friendly lady did her typing mojo. She figured out what had happened. When the agent way back in San Jose had changed our flight (you do remember back that far right?), he disconnected our return. She managed to reconnect us. While she was pulling off this feat of customer service magic, Bill and Brenda showed up. They had been dropping off their rental car. We went through security, and spend a last few minutes hanging out over a snack in the terminal. We finally tore ourselves away and went to our gate. There was a really long line of people waiting to speak to an agent – definitely a bad sign. Just as we got into line, they announced that there was a “mechanical” with our scheduled plane. Apparently the word “problem” is off limits. He said they were bringing another plane from the hangar, but it would take a little extra time. The catch was, it was a sold out flight, but the new plane had 10 fewer seats. Because of our cancellation snafu, Maya and I didn’t have seat assignments yet, so I knew we’d be first on the chopping block if they didn’t get 10 volunteers to take a flight the next day. We sweated for about 45 minutes, until they announced that they had enough volunteers. Another bullet dodged ☺.
Anyway, GaFilk was wonderful! Now it’s time to start packing for the UK!

Question for filkers in the UK

2007-12-04T16:55:07Z

Maya and I have the great privilege of performing at the UK Filk Con this coming February. I'm starting to think about a concert set, and I'd like to get some feedback from those of you familiar with the UK filk community about what sorts of songs may, or may not translate well culturally. Maya and I have two basic types of songs. We do parodies of (mostly) classic rock songs. The subjects range from media (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Buffy, LotR, Harry Potter), to computers, filking, general culture etc. We also perform original songs, that are really not filk, but are rock or folk/rock songs that we also perform for general audiences. For those of you who are familiar with our material, and either are from the UK, or have attended filk events there, are there any songs that we should avoid performing? I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what works for an American audience, but I'd like to make sure our set is as entertaining as we can make it for the British fen.

The State of My Backbone

2007-08-16T04:12:08Z

I've been having chronic back trouble for the past year or so. I'll spare you all the gory details, but basically I've been through a string of treatments and therapies, and ultimately was completely misdiagnosed by the first orthopedist I consulted with. A few weeks ago, I changed doctors, and miracle of miracles, he actually took some time to go over the MRI that the first doctor sort of waved under my nose. He showed me exactly why the initial diagnosis was wrong, and what was really going on. The upshot was that on Monday, I had an epidural to try to calm down the nerve irritation that we think is the problem. It wasn't the most pleasant experience, but I'm fairly optimistic this will make a huge difference. I can get up after sitting for more than ten minutes, and straighten all the way up. I had to stay flat on my back all day Monday after the procedure, and I took yesterday off to be safe. I took the opportunity to write lyrics for a couple of the songs we're planning for the next album. For those keeping score at home, the titles are "A Perfect Moment" and "Divide by Zero".

Finer than better

2007-08-06T04:22:06Z

I had a good day in the studio today. I added several guitar parts to the as yet unnamed song I started yesterday. I got a pretty good acoustic, 12 string acoustic and crunchy electric track done. I guess I need to write some lyrics.
Normally I would probably have recorded a bass line before adding all these guitar parts, but on this album I'll be playing very little (if any) bass. I have the good fortune of access to a couple of extremely good bass players at the moment. One of them is Tony Levin, who has always been a musical hero of mine. A while back I spoke with him to help out with some technical problems he was having, and he offered to record a few tracks for me. A few months ago he did two bass tracks (High Desert and Falling) and a Stick track for Möbius Street. I can't even begin to describe the feeling the first time I heard the utterly distinctive sound of Tony's playing on my songs. Tony is probably best known for playing with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, but his discography is a mile long, and includes some of the most popular artists and albums of all time. If you have a lot of time check it out here.

For most of the other songs, I've got a friend from work, Victor Gonzalez, playing bass. Victor spent years touring with Santana and Tracy Chapman, and he's an awesome player. He's already recorded tracks for Radio Free Luna, Between (a gorgeous fretless part) and A Candle in Your Hand.

I'm also waiting for some drum tracks for High Desert from Jerry Marotta. He plays in Tony Levin's band, and also played on several Peter Gabriel albums. Having all these accomplished players on this project is really making me raise the standards of my own playing. I'd hate to look like a fool compared to the other players on my own project.

A fine end to a not so fine week

2007-08-05T06:25:28Z

I spent most of today working on a new song in the studio. I'd really like to have our new CD out by the beginning of next year, and quite honestly it has been a bit disjointed lately. I've got several songs pretty well along, and others that are either song fragments, or complete arrangements that need lyrics. The past week or so has been a series of disasters, so it was nice to be productive. If you dare, a lengthy description of

About ten days ago, we had a backup in our kitchen sink. Many hours of plunging, running the disposal and general futzing around got us exactly nowhere. The same thing happened months ago, and after a day or so I managed to get it to clear, but no luck this time. Sooo, I broke down and called a plumber. Surprisingly, he was able to come by later that afternoon. When I got home from work, he was on the roof, trying to snake out the line from the air vent on the roof. Unfortunately, the snake was caught on something in the pipe. After about an hour of fighting it, he sent his brother, who had shown up right after I got home, under the house to cut the drain line to free the snake. They had decided that some other plumber had broken a snake in the drain line, and it was what was causing our clog, and grabbing their snake. They managed to free their snake from below by cutting the end off, and the sink was draining, so we hoped that they had pulled the snake snarl above the level of the water outlet and into the air vent, where it would do little harm. I wrote them a check for $200, and off they went. The next day, the sink clogged again. The upshot was they had to cut the outside wall of the house the get at the drain pipe. This revealed a chamber of horrors from a previous remodel. I ended up paying another $700.00 to correct the problems. They did pull an unbelievable snarl of old metal snake out of the pipes. I'm also looking at another $650 to repair ans re-stucco the outside wall.

Another annoyance I've been dealing with is a problem with a guitar I bought last April. It's a Line 6 Variax 700 modeling guitar. It has electronics that allow it to simulate the sound of about 35 vintage electric guitars. It sounds amazing when it's working properly, but mine started exhibiting problems right after I bought it. After 10 minutes or so of plugging ot in, it would randomly cycle through sounds every second or so, which just sounds plain weird - not what you want your fancy-pants high tech instrument to do. I took it to the authorized service center in mid May. They were just about to leave for a month's vacation, but told me they'd look at it before they left. When I checked back, the tech said he couldn't reproduce the problem, but he reset the firmware, and thought that might take care of it. I took the guitar home, and sure enough, it immediately misbehaved again. By this time, the service center was closed for vacation, so I just had to wait. At the beginning of July, I took it back. I quite honestly forgot about it for a couple of weeks, but when I checked back, they again said they couldn't make it misbehave. I decided to leave work a bit early on Thursday to go there and show them what I was talking about. Just as I was pulling into the service center, my phone rang. It was Kristine calling to tell me that Maya's car had died, and they were stranded. They were at a book store, so I told them to go in, and I'd get there when I could. In the service center, I got the guitar to crap out in front of the tech, so he agreed to order a new main board for it, and I headed over to the book store to rescue the girls. Now, we just recently spent a fair amount of money repairing Maya's car. We did a major tune-up and replaced the computer. Kris seemed to think the transmission was dead, so I'm thinking we're going to be buying another car. With the last round of repairs we had come close to just getting another car, but we ultimately decided to invest a couple of thousand dollars into the old one. I'm seriously regretting that decision at this point. When I got to the book store, I realized the transmission was fine, but the car was exhibiting the same problems that had led us to replace the computer. When it gets too warm, it just stalls constantly. I couldn't put it into gear without killing the engine, which is pretty disturbing on an automatic. We went inside to have something to drink at the coffee shop while I waited for the car to cool down enough to drive. I managed to get it to the mechanic with only one stall. We're still waiting for the final verdict on that.

Friday, I get home from work, planning to start dinner for Seanan and Chris' visit. I go into Maya's office, and she gives me a wry grin and says, "so you want to hear about the latest catastrophe?" The girls had been watching our fairly new plasma TV just about a half hour earlier, and there was a loud pop and the picture died. Note that I said "fairly new". I dug out the sales receipt, and we're 60 days out of warranty on it. I didn't buy the extended warranty, so we're on the hook for the repair. We dropped it off at the Toshiba repair center this morning. I have no idea how much it's going to run.

I'm really hoping the rule of threes in effect here, because I really don't want any more household problems for a while.

My very first LJ post

2007-08-04T06:15:27Z

cadhla and I agreed that it would be a Good Thing ™ if I set up an LJ account to facilitate scheduling and communication for Red Roses & Dead Things, so I've been dragged kicking and screaming (well OK, maybe only whimpering slightly) into the blogosphere. I don't know whether I'll post very often here, and if I do whether it will be all that interesting, but here I am.

The kick-off meeting with Seanan went really well. Many logistical dragons were slain, and we have a Plan.