General Updates

Been in bed with the stomach flu for a couple of days.  Which is why I have time to blog, after months of silence.  Guess this post can be a general update on what's going on for me lateley (in the musical sense).

WORK:
Working on Winter Family Night performance for my ACAMM (Academy of Choral Arts and Modern Music) class, which will include full band and full choir performances of Bowie's "Changes", Corine Bailey Raye's "Put Your Records On", Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke", Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" and traditional folk songs "Shannondoa" and "Martine".

Also, designing and aquiring funds for uniforms for these 60 kids has been a pet effort as well.  Cool automotive-style work shirts w/ a logo printed on back and above the front left pocket.

Still teaching a guitar elective to 20 students and teaching private guitar lessons on the side.

BAND:
Trying to book shows through the winter is a chore.

Just signed a record deal and working hard at getting all the components in place for the label (album art, legal stuff, bio material, photo shoots, etc).  Exciting time, but a lot of work.  Febuary will see the release of a piece of work that took three years to create.

Spring looks exciting with shows to promote the new record.

PERSONAL:

listening to- Delta Spirit, Daniel Lanois, lots of 90s math rock (as usual), can't stop listening to Best Coast's "Boyfriend" song even though that band is not really my style, theology and philosphy podcasts dominate my iPod, though.

reading- Daniel Lanois' "Soul Mining".  This is the guy who produced U2 stuff and Dylan, Young, Harris.  I am a fan of his pedal steel instrumental stuff.  This autobiography is very engaging.  Also chipping away at my usual bookstack of spiritual lit.

singing- With the way my daughters go to bed now (hard to explain, but there'sa system since they share a room, but go to bed at different times), I can't play guitar to them like I used to with Lily.  Which I really miss.  Heven't gotten to sing to or play for the Lils in months and it creates a lack of intimacy with her that I can't explain.  Am forntunate enough to be able to sing to Magnolia as I rock her after giving her a bottle most nights.  "The Water is Wide" puts her out every time, but I need variation, so lately I've been doing Vic Chesnutt's "Rabbit Box" among many others.

making musical instruments- have one gourd shaker I haven't shown on this blog.  Installed a pick-up in my Alvarez "dove" copy acoustic guitar.  Making plans to make Jill a bamboo wind chime with a gourd resonator top.

Richard Buckner, will you be my boyfriend?

Listen to "Faithful Shooter"

I am a late-comer when it comes to this artist.  Richard Buckner is a contemporary of my favorite crush, Jay Farrar.  Not sure how I missed this 1998 record, but a friend had referred to this artist lateley... and I knew his name in the back of my head. 

It was a magical moment when I found his third (and best) album in the clearance bin at Amoeba for $1.99 and soon couldn't stop listening to it (even has some of the the "Trace Era" Son Volt members playing on it).  The following week I found almost his entire catalog right in a row in the clearance bin.  I had come to buy one record and left with five for the same price.

Listen to "Ariel Ramirez"

Listen to "Lil Wallet Picture"

Mandolin

My friend P. Dana loaned me this mandolin in hopes that I'd fix it up and use it.  The instrument was not in playing condition.  I cleaned it and polished it quite a bit, but the real problem was the tuning pegs.  They were not functioning.  Because they were manufactured either with metric increments or old-fashioned increments between the pegs, the new tuning machines would not fit in the existing holes.  I had to bore out the holes to accommodate the new pegs.  Also, the bridge was so humongous that the strings were over a half an inch above the fretboard.  This also makes the instrument unplayable.  With help from my brother, I removed the bottom part of the existing bridge.  I don't believe that this was part of the original instrument.  Now, with a little help from my brother, Keith, I know a few chords and I'm learning to play this instrument.

boring

old parts I removed

My next project is to restore the original canvas case.  This will mean hand sewing new piping and replacing clasps and handle.

Eco CD Packaging Project

My band, Winter's Fall, is has been promoting our show (tonight) by offering a free CD for the first 50 people through the door.  These CDs feature 3 songs from our upcoming album and is meant as a little appetizer for our fans as the wait for its release.  To make it both affordable and and fun (for us) we made the CD packaging from reclaimed materials: file folders and pictures found at the East Bay Center for Creative ReUse.  My project this week has been cutting and gluing the file folders into CD sleeves, applying the photos, and stamping the CDs.  Each CD is totally unique and individually numbered.

Here are the finish products.

Plain sleeves. 

Winter's Fall Show Tonight!

First Gourd Shaker FINISHED!!!

O.K., Here's the finished product!

Here's how I did it:

filling hole w/ tiny wooden beads

clamping lid

boring hole in a dowel

inserting hollow dowel to make bushing

wood burning

Lily stringing beads on strap

and it came from my yard!

Fixing Broken Key on Synth

Last week after practice, I knocked over my Roland JP-8000 by accident.  One of the keys shattered when it hit the drumset.

So I called the Roland manufacturer and ordered a new F key. Thought it would be easy to fix, but when I opened the back of the synthesizer up, it looked like this:

So I took it to my friend, Hans, and we pulled out all those computer boards and just snapped in the key.  Now everything's back to normal.

What I do for a Living

These videos show a little bit of what I do for a living.
The following are a couple vids of performances from my Modern Music class that I teach at Longfellow Middle School in Berkeley, CA.