[np - Not Listening to Mix: Propellerheads]

Yeah, so been a while. Just about every spare second I've had has been spent on myspace... Yikes, what a tide to deal with there. I predict we'll break the 1000 mark this weekend, which has been my goal the last two weeks. But, my stars, the work it takes... :P

Anyhow. Music is progressing quite quickly all things considered. Not quite as fast as it did with Smoke Through It, but pretty fast none-the-less. I have five or six tunes fleshed out pretty well that I'll be turning over to Laura to stomp on soon. One track has lyrics already, turning into a decent track. The big change in the way we're writing is that I'm spending very, very little time on make a track studio ready before fully fleshing it out. I'm also getting very picky and anal about variations and not making the tracks too busy. This one's gonna be a bit more on the minimal side, I'm feeling.

I've been hanging out with the KVR Audio geeks lately, just kind of lurking in the shadows and listening to the chatter. I've discovered a huge number of cool synths and effects to use in my production. The problem is that having this much choice can quickly become overwhelming... So last night I performed a huge purge of the VST folder, dumping everything but the most useful and specific effects and synths. I must have had at least 10 reverb units, most of which I dumped in favor of the most useful and musical. At the end, I was left with the "kit" I'm going to use on the next album.

Now to get philisophical. There's a certain zen a musician gets with his/her gear, namely when they know it really, really well. I feel like I was starting to bloat a bit with a little too much gear. Rather than use the tools I had in hand, I was always looking for the solutions elsewhere to get a particular sound. Rather than getting to know the tools I own very well, I was just getting more tools... It was starting to slow me down. Now I feel free to create again, and I can focus again.

Well, back to myspace. Someone just added us since I started writing... :)

It's just another dark and rainy day. I am sitting at work listening to my "chill mix" - which consists of a lot of triphop and bristol beats.

We just listened to some portishead and Dido is playing right now. A good playlist for a grumpy, rainy day.

I don't mind being at work today, though, at least I don't even want to be outside. I must say that I did just want to stay in bed and listen to the rain this morning with my puppy. She looked very warm and cozy sleeping under the covers while it was dark and dreary outside. When the weather is like this, she gets very drowsy and yawny.

Anyhoo - not much news to report. The past few nights have been pretty productive. On Wednesday night, Steve came over and we layed down some vocal tracks for SomeGirl. It's so interesting to record Synthpop music. I have decided that I need to work a little more on getting a good vocal timbre for the tracks. I am so used to doing Endless Blue stuff - triphop, jazzy, sultry, smokey kinds of vocals. Not so much poppy. Sometimes I don't even know how I want my voice to sound for tracks like that. It's a growing experience, definitely.

Last night, Nick and I got together and worked on some new EB tracks. We have about 6 or 7 "in the making". I am getting very stoked about writing to some of these. We are taking a different approach this album, we'll see how it works out. We're going to try and minimize the backing track on some of the songs - - give a different feel. A lot of our tracks in the past have had very layered backing instruments that have been a driving force. We're going to see what happens when we put the vocals up front to drive the track on some of the songs. We'll let you know how it goes.

So - I have this issue with American Idol. I just don't like the show. I know it's super big and everyone loves it, but I just cannot seem to get into it. I think I'd like it better if they actually had any interesting voices on there. All of them sound like the current manufactured pop stars that we already have. Let's get an Alanis Morisette or Sade or Beth Gibbons or Natalie Merchant on there...then we're talking. Someone who has some character to their voice. You should be able to listen to song and say - that's so and so - and I can tell because they have an individual sound to their voice. To me, AI singers are like Abercrombie models...are they good/attractive? Yes - do they have any redeeming characteristics that I find interesting?

Most likely...not.

So - that's my beef with this phenomenon. Plus, the public voting? It's just a popularity contest. And let's be honest...do we really give clout to the popular vote? Look who we have representing us in the White House!!

Well - I guess I should get some work done now.

I promise new snippets of trax coming on the site soon - please stay tuned!!!

L

Well I'm at a bit of a stand-still at the moment at work. I have to update all of the bugs that need to be worked out on the system, but until we have our next staff meeting (this afternoon) I cannot mark the severity of the problems. So, what a perfect time to jot down some thoughts.

Things are going well. I hear Nick in the studio pumping out some great song ideas and it's inspiring me to get back on track with endless blue. Things have been crazy and busy the last 10 months and finally, it seems like we are starting to ease back into the groove of things. It's difficult, because I am also writing an album with the synthpop group, SomeGirl. I must admit that a lot of my creative attention has been flowing in that direction. We have already roughly finished 4 songs for SG and working on the 5th. We plan to release our album with A Different Drum in early 2007.

As far as endless blue goes, it has been helpful to let things sink in and really take our time with the new songs. We do have one really great track done and several others "in the works". I am getting the itch to play live again. This hiatus, although very much needed and deserved, has been feeling long as of late. We aim to get back into playing at least some local live shows late fall or early winter this year. We'll see how things go. We'll probably start booking in August when we have a better idea of how things are going.

We are aching to get into the Minneapolis area again. We have gotten some requests to play in wine bars and some jazz spots in the MN area, so we'll have to make a weekend out of it sometime late this year or in 2007.

Work has been pretty consuming as of late. We're trying to roll out the product commercially this summer and there's so many things to tie up before we can do this. It's been trying, but so rewarding.

This has limited our personal time a bit, but I think we'll all find it was well worth it in the end.

Tonight Steve and Rebecca are coming to the studio. We are going to lay out some tracks for SG and then grab some dinner together. It should be a nice relaxing night.

So, we saw the movie "A History of Violence" the other night. I didn't really know what to think. I really loved the whole idea behind the movie. I thought it was an excellent premise and very well acted. The only things I found a bit annoying about the movie:

The ending sort of sucked. I felt like it was not at all resolved, which may have been the point, but I still didn't love it.

There were some pretty gratuitous sex scenes that were a bit awkward in my humble opinion.

I also rented "Shop Girl". I thought it was a very well-done flick. Not too much happened, but the character development was very good. I was very impressed. Steve Martin - it's about time he did something worthwhile.

Well - it's about time for staff meeting, so I best be getting on my way.

I promise, we'll talk later.

L