Pimp My Band

TELEVATORS have a lot of cool things happening soon that I'll be sure to let you know about in a timely manner.
Shows (including at least one here in SA) and our CD release top the list, and in conjunction with the release we're scheduled to do some internet radio station interviews. Following that will be actual physical product for sale on Amazon and other sites, so start saving your beer cans for the recycling $$$.

The photo shoot we participated in up near Austin a few weeks ago yielded a lot of fun pics of my bass for me to play with, but we recently got some of the content from the photographer they had hired.
Here's my favorite:


I was a little worried, but looks like us old farts still remember how to look like a band.
Don't get me started on the colors and exposure choices, though.
Kid photographers these days with their Instagrams and chlamydia and Photoshop dyslexia...


Saturday before last my phone went screwy and all my contacts disappeared.
WTF?!? is an understatement.

Turns out they had vanished from our carrier's online backup and everywhere else.
As I went to my texts to copy the most important ones down, the names of my peeps disappeared before my eyes, leaving only their numbers!
Weird.

We both had the original Galaxy S Fascinate and Sylvia's had been powering-down or locking-up randomly for several months already so we said screw it and went to Best Buy on Sunday and bought a pair of Samsung Galaxy S IIIs for $50 each.
Just...WOW!!
What a great device.

Among other things (meaning everything) the camera is a huge improvement, with a much smarter flash system, true macro capability, and many more megapickles.

I decided that my new phone needed a new custom wallpaper, and coincidentally remembering how my infrared camera "sees through" some guitar finishes I decided to do a quick and dirty IR of...what else?...my bass.
Sorry.



We were about to leave the house for the rest of the day so I didn't bother doing a proper session with lights and a dark background, etc, just shot it on the beige carpet and threw some ham-handed Photoshop at it much like the first photo above received.

I'm fascinated by the fact that the black stain around the edges of the bass is invisible to IR. I first discovered this with my Ibanez Artist guitar with a nearly identical "Antique Violin" finish, but when you consider that it was made in Japan in 1977 while the bass is 2004 Korean, plus the advances in finish materials, it's really quite remarkable.

More guitars need to be shot in infrared so I can get a handle on this phenomena.

Iceman On Location

On Sunday, Televators went east of Austin (Yay Toll Road 130!) to visit Austin Music Ranch for a photo shoot.
We're working with a promoter up there and the shoot pulled together several of their artists, models, and the ranch itself.

It was an interesting afternoon.
When I got bored and my bass got heavy it seemed like a good idea to put it down, so I did.
A lot.

Austin Again & Again

Last Wednesday Televators played with three other bands at Red Eyed Fly in downtown Austin.
Hooka Hey from Paris France was really good. (Their video is NSFW, in case you look it up)


We played well, and debuted our new song 'Sonetto' which features acoustic guitar, a more melodic bassline than usual, and Led Zep-ish vocals and drums.


My favorite moment was when we finished our set with the driving 'My Paradigm'. After the thunderous ending there was 3 seconds of silence, then a member of another band on the bill yelled "How the hell do you follow THAT?!?!"
Exactly how it should be done, my friend. Take no prisoners--go out and kill.
We cracked up.


Still deeply in love with my new-ish Ibanez Iceman bass and Peavey MAX tube pramp. Great tone inspires me to play better.


Just two days later we were back in the State Capital to return to Wire Recording studio and get down to work mixing the 3 unfinished songs recorded last April.



Our producer Lee Popa spent too much time and called-in all his favors mixing 'Milk Run' on his own, delivering a fine final product. Then he dropped the rest of the project, violating our contract and exposing himself to a nice lawsuit, but instead we chalked it up to lessons learned and we're still going to attach his name to the final results since that's all we have left of any value.


We used Wire engineer Joey B for mixing last Friday, in a marathon 7pm to 7am session.
Joey really knows his way around the studio, and is a cool relaxed cat to hang with.


It's interesting that we get to combine the convenience and speed of recording digitally with ProTools, but get to enhance and warm up the sound with piles and piles of vintage tube audio gear culled from famous studios world-wide. My bass might get run through a compressor used by The WHO while Bex's vocals are catching a vibe from something that the Beatles or Stones once used.


The rest of the band went back to re-do vocals and stuff on Sunday, but I missed that trip.


Not to fear, because I just went back up to Austin for the third time in a week for more mixing this Wednesday.
10pm-7am this time, and we finished 'The Visitor', our next release. The other two should be done in a few days, hopefully without my help.


Mixing is a tedious and exacting process, and we found the perfect engineer for us. Joey and Televators plan to work together from now on. But man, after hearing the same song again and again and again all night long, I'm so burned out on it that listening to the results is the last thing I want to do.
No wonder many artists never listen to their own recordings.


Some of you might wonder why I didn't mix it myself, given my 25 years of experience mixing live shows.
Well, the studio is a totally different animal and the results will be heard for years on all different kinds of sound systems from iPods to car stereos, home theaters to REAL theaters (SHHH--it's a secret for now).
I just don't have the gear or experience to do it justice, and that's cool.
Besides, live sound is more like playing an instrument.
It can be creative, spontaneous, and fun.
Plus, if you make a mistake people often blame it on the band and forget about it two seconds later.


Once 'The Visitor' gets mastered (yet another engineer performs final tweaks to make it fully compatible with all playback environments and CD pressing) I will post links so y'all can hear it for free (before you buy it on iTunes).
Once the final two songs are mixed and mastered, we'll be approaching record labels to try for a recording contract as well as looking for opening slots on major tours.

Again I ask: "Why didn't all this happen when I was younger?"
But hell, if bands that I grew up listening to can still do it...

Guitar Nostalgia

First thing this morning I stumbled across this post on Facebook:
What a totally unexpected gift to see this great picture of one of my favorite guitars from way back when.

Bob mostly played rhythm guitar in Dirty Art, but only because I was really into the kind of metal popular in the early '80s. When we played Stones songs and other bluesier fare, he was the man on lead.
A few years older than I was, he went on to have a solid career and I'll always appreciate what he taught me.

I had completely forgotten about his being the only other person to play my doubleneck onstage, but the memory came right back when I saw this--I'm just astonished that he had a photo of the moment.
That guitar was amazing and got me a lot of attention.
I miss it dearly but now that the rest of the world knows what I knew way back then about 1970s Ibanez guitars, they are priced out of my reach. Last one I saw on Craigslist was priced at $1100, which is fair but too much for nostalgia's sake.

On the other hand...
Because it only saw limited use the 6-side got new strings every other week and the 12 once a month. My main guitars and basses have always gotten new strings weekly (or more often) when playing live or recording.
On those days when I had to change eighteen strings, it was a major blow to my wallet and spare time--don't miss that at all!


I have a set of new GHS Boomers for my bass, to be installed this coming Tuesday night:

After playing in Ft. Worth and Houston this year, Austin seems like a local gig.
Hooka Hey is a really cool band from Paris France, and the other acts on the bill are probably flattering non-specific comment because I haven't done my research.

Heavy Metal

TELEVATORS played our 2nd out-of-town show in the last two weeks.

This time we hooked up with WINTOUR 2013 presented by Exposed Music Festival.
Buc-ee's was a great place to stop on our way to BFE in Houston Friday afternoon, and pretty soon we were checked-in with the promoter and killing time until the show. Me and Jaime bought books at a little shop nearby, and admired our passes:

The Host and MC was Big Brother contestant and famous metal bassist Jennifer "JennCity" Arroyo, who spent our entire set right in front of me. If you know who she is, you know she must have been digging our music and not yours truly.
She couldn't have been nicer (without losing her metal edge) and I only wish we didn't have to head home so fast 'cuz she would have been fun to hang with.
At least I got a pic:

Our set was short and sweet.
Not to slag other bands--mucho respect to anyone trying to make it with original music--but it turned into a completely different scene when Televators hit the stage.
Everything got serious and very professional.

I had more fun onstage than ever, but suddenly it was over and time to strike the stage.
By the time ZYNC started their set we were already loaded into our trucks and saying our goodbyes, which took longer than expected because it seemed like every guitard and bassist on the bill wanted details on my new preamp and Iceman bass, or just kiss all of our butts and beg to be FB friends.
Guess we're on the right track...


Today's news is that we've just been included in a very cool compilation of new progressive rock over at ProgSphere.
Haven't listened to all 31 tracks yet, but found quite a few already that are killer.
If you like RUSH, YES, Dream Theater, ELP, King Krimson, etc, you might want to check this stuff out.
Especially like how you get to name your price, should you decide to buy any of our music.



Speaking of heavy metal, on Saturday I spotted the biggest pickup truck in the world in front of Northern Tools:

Google "International MXT".
To give you an idea of the size, I had to jump pretty high just to see that there was a fancy retractable deal covering the bed.
Makes Hummers look Tonka.

Set My Alarm For Christmas

I could definitely sleep for a few weeks at least.

The Televators show went well enough. Played my new bass the whole night, and loved it. I had been afraid that it's big body would overwhelm me in my emaciated condition, but it doesn't look too bad:

But jeez--I'm swimming in that shirt and my jeans are baggy, too. Need a tailor badly.

Early Voting is a wonderful thing. No crowds, and you can choose the most convenient location. Highly recommended!

This post is coming from my old computer while the new one is in the shop. Hopefully it's just the video card that needs replacing--if it's the motherboard going bad I'll be building a new machine and it won't be cheap.

My truck had been acting up for the past month--stalling at red lights and sometimes in the middle of rush hour traffic, which tends to add stress to your life as it flashes before your eyes. Took it to Bring Your Own Parts on Bandera and they drove it around town for two days and never could get it to act up, which is the way these things always go. After checking for water in the gas tank, fuel pressure, spark, and a few other things they apologized profusely for not fixing it and charged me $80. So far I'm happy with the deal, because in 3 days of heavy driving it hasn't acted up once--not even a hint. Feels like it used to, so it looks like they fixed it much like I fix sound gear. Open things up, push and prod, then re-tighten the nuts. Crossing my fingers...

Did I mention the new camera? Since dropping my Alpha 300 it was never the same. The sensor shifted so far that composing a shot was mostly guesswork and the sharper center of the lens was sending it's info way off to one corner. I got fed-up and ordered a used Alpha 200 body from KEH and it's been great, at a price that's lower than repairing mine would have cost. I'm having some doubts about how the exposure looks on the LCD, but will get it ironed out soon.

Can't believe that the new NBA season starts for the SPURS in less than 24 hours. Going to sit quietly in a dark house and watch the game. Unplugging the doorbell. Yes--I'm bailing on Halloween this year. As much as I love scaring the kids (and parents) there's just no way I can put up the show in time tomorrow. The above list of things plus working 6 days/7 shifts a week killed any chance of it. Despite amazing early tests, I never was able to finalize the design and implementation of my newest scene, either. Oh well, there's always next year... GO SPURS GO!!!

Nostalgia Night

I try to NEVER get involved with booking shows, especially when it involves throwing together a group of people that aren't already used to playing together.
Tonight I made an exception, and hopefully nobody will depend on me to create another night as magic as this again. Lightning struck once, and that's enough.



It all started with a loving husband trying to make his special wife's birthday unforgettable.
The phone calls and texts finally reached down the chain to me, and the only thing that made sense on all levels was using the Sea Monkeys plus Mike G to almost re-create the legendary Hitmen.
We had the sound and lights, Steve (drums) and me (sound) are former Hitmen, and Mike was THE singer everyone remembers.

All I had to do was brush-up on some bass parts so nobody else would have to learn new (to them) songs, and suddenly a good approximation of circa 2002 Hitmen was possible.
I loved getting to play bass with Mike and Steve again--just wish I could have remembered to suck in my gut for the photos...


Mike's an entertainer in a way that a lot of "musicians" aren't. He's got the Dean chops plus the Jerry ring-a-ding-ding:
Mike will act the fool if it means people have a great time.
That's brave and comes from the heart.

Rikk on bass is the heart and soul of the Sea Monkeys as well as our country band A Beautiful Mess, so major props to him for playing along and letting us turn back the clock. He's actually a closet Hitmen fan, so that probably made it easier.


I had to play bass on a mini-set of the very best Stone Temple Pilots tunes like Plush, Interstate, and Vasoline:
No rehearsals, so theoretically my quick onstage schooling on tempos and keys and such saved untold amounts of precious time and gasoline in the days prior.



Sea Monkey's Chris Cortez is our gifted guitarist and lead vocalist, and I already try to make him sound rather similar to original Hitmen/Televators guitarist David McCall, so again we made a good go of it without wasting too much of anyone's time having to practice. As usual he carried most of the show with skill and passion yet didn't have an ego problem with Mike coming in and getting all the attention.
A true pro.



The bonus tonight was that Mike's children finally got to see their daddy sing in a rock band, now that they are old enough to "get it".
That might be my favorite thing, but it's hard to choose with so many people getting so much joy from a single night of stupid old rock music.


Happy Birthday, AmyDawg!
Glad you had a good time but to tell the truth, we ALL did!

View's "Week In Review"

Lots of stuff going on but no time or ability to pursue my "art", such as it is.

Here are some snapshots of my busy life:
Got to play bass for half of a song with The Quickies on Saturday--Rikk is laughing because I'm cramming-in as many notes as possible in my allotted time, and some of them are pretty funny.
(One of SylCan2's best photos ever, to me).

The Sylvester Strange Experience played at VFW Post #76 on Sunday, and I took the opportunity to explore using high iso (1600) with my new fast prime lens and in-body stabilisation in order to impress Matthew.
As Sylvia said: "Would have been great without the gutter pipe".
But there were lessons learned for the future.

Tonight I started out just trying to get a mouse for my snake to eat. (And some shoes...)
Then I thought that it was about time to replace her shredded aspen bedding after cleaning up the poops.
And if I'm going to do all that, I might as well scrub the tank with diluted bleach, then run the hose on it.

Long story short, it's about damn time I got a nice commercial background product so my snake's tank isn't throwing light in all directions, looking all white-painted-walls-bland.
Atmosphere rocks.

Work = Play

I got called onstage to play with Bliss again tonight, and it's always a fun surprise.
Glad I have a friend who knew where my camera was hidden and also knew that I would like a shot of this.

I have great affection for Rikk's Ibanez bass.