Work on the studio

Our studio is on Bill’s property in the Santa Cruz mountains. It is an old artist’s shack / crank lab (we think).  Basically, one of the charms is that it really is not more a “studio” than it is a shack with power in the middle of the mountains. On La Guitarra, occasionally you can hear frogs, dogs, and the occasional goat — all of which ads to the charm. (Listen to Solitude and Bookend #2 for good examples.)  However, there were times that we would be recording and I would do the perfect vocal take, and right as I was hitting the last note, we’d hear his neighbor (who doesn’t live that close to him) start some sort of power tool and we’d have to wait for him to stop and re-do everything (I don’t like to cut and paste too much in pro-tools… I’d rather get the whole song in a take or two).   Well, because the artist studio / crank lab was not really built for recording in mind, we have started to rebuild it.  Yesterday, we replaced the frame on one wall. When it is done, we should have a more soundproof experience. Don’t worry though, we can always open the door if we want more frogs in the mix.

Absinthe Glow in Santa Cruz…

The show last night was fun… very small turnout (not unexpected for a Wednesday).   We played pretty well.  We were down one cellist (Steve).  That’s cool though.  Ruth more than handled her own, including having to deal with me saying “hey, by the way, can you play Steve’s cello part on this song?” 3 seconds before we started L’enterrment.  Tom, Bill and Joe sounded great, as always.  We played the Muchachos again, which is probably my favorite part of the set right now.

Our next show is December 20th at the Make-Out Room in San Francisco.  I hope to have some new materiel to play by then.

LA Guitarra release show ruled

Thanks to everybody for coming out as well as to the Bye Bye Blackbirds for playing with us.  Alanna took some photos of the event (I’ll post more soon).  The Make-Out Room was quite filled.  I hope we get to play there again sometime.  Awesome venue.

We did 9 songs, 8 from the new record (Matchbook was the only track we did from the first disk).   I was quite nervous beforehand as the sound guy didn’t show up until about 15 minutes before the door opened, leaving us with no option for a  sound check.  In a normal rock band situation, this is normally fine, but when you have 2 cellos (celli), 2 guitars, bass, keyboards, accordion, glockenspiel and drums, it can be a little more tricky.  Regardless, the sound guy did a great job and I really had nothing to worry about.  The strange thing was that the Make Out Room’s stage has two levels.  Right behind my head was my guitar amp, which meant, I was able to hear my guitar drums and that’s about it.  According to those that were in the crowd, it sounded fine, so I am satisfied.

Next show: July 13th at Don Quixotes in Felton, CA.

Joe Finlaw, a man I have not posted about in a while

Joe Finlaw (former South Jersey resident) got married to Alicia Peterson (former Lookout! employee) a month or so ago at the Madonna Inn in beautiful San Luis Obispo, California.   I went to the wedding and it was rad.  I got to meet most of the Finlaw clan (who had flown out from South Jersey) and they were great.  Here is a photo of Joe on his honeymoon cruise, which was taken right after Alicia told a funny joke, and right before he had another sip of his refreshing beverage:

Yesterday at work, Joe was wearing a red sweatshirt.  More updates on Joe later…

Joe Finlaw has a blog.

Joe Finlaw (Mr. Isota Records) has another label called American Dust.  Sr. Finlaw recently started a blog highlighting some of the label’s activity.  Check it out (they have signed some really great bands).

In other Joe Finlaw-related news, Joe’s promotion picture (featured here) has been removed from the promotion wall at work.  Don’t worry though… next time he gets a promotion, I’ll be sure to put his new picture up here.