Another Unfocused Post

This is a water-level shot of the Guadalupe River, where the whole family spent a relaxing extended weekend in August.
The house we rented was huge, and perfect.
I caught the first fish--a big Bluegill.

We ate well, drank a lot, fished and swam, played pool and Monopoly, and chilled.
There's a good chance we go back to the same place next year.

I rigged up my HD video camera on the end of a pole, with lights.
Was after underwated footage, but it just wasn't clear enough to see anything.
While taking the above photo, unbeknownst to me one of my better vaping devices rolled into the river.
After a few of us searched all over, I deduced what must have happened and found it. Still haven't gotten it to work.

Just found this shot from a few months ago.

I have been animated! 
The crew we have working on Televator's next video gave us a peek at an early step in their production process. Confidentially, out of everyone in the band, mine looks the most like me.
Don't know what the storyline is like, or really anything at all about the video.
It'll be for our song "Milk Run", which started with a bass riff I wrote while watching the Houston Rockets beat up on our Spurs a few years ago. For a VERY short time we had a TV in our practice space, but it wasn't conducive to best practices except for that one time.

The Visitor

And if you are interested, I have another review over at 'thew's: Halo charger

Mounting Apprehension

In my last post (long time ago) I described how overwhelmed I was learning enough new songs to play my first show with The HITMEN.
With only two rehearsals, the show went better than any of us expected.
This popular SA cover band quit playing seven years ago, and dates back something like 15 years, so it's now a nostalgia act appealing to our old fans who's kids are grown and finally have time to hit the clubs again.
Too bad our drummer is quitting.
Double too bad that he's also the drummer for Televators.

We have his last show coming next week, and the only replacement for the Hitmen tested so far was too young and loud and green. A Televator drummer is going to be MUCH harder to find.
This situation makes me very nervous.


Last week I finally started working on my dad's rifle which was returned to me in late 2011 after spending over 45 years in Tennesee, as a distraction.
Had good luck at Nagel's gun shop on San Pedro and scored a scope mount that's got me in a workable situation for only $5. This restoration project is working out well, and cheap so far.

I originally thought this was a post-WWII German Mauser 98 action based on the deeply blued finish and quality, but looking closer I found swastikas and a "42". Hmmmm.
At this point the rear scope mount needs a shim consisting of something 50% thicker than a beer can of the cheaper brands, so I'm on the hunt for stouter beer.

The nicely figured pine underneath is a bench I've been building this week for our porch.
After replacing busted legs on a picnic table bench for my inlaws, then leaving it near the front door, we got kinda used to having a nice elevated place to set stuff down while getting our keys out.
We missed the convenience right away.
Spent many hours every day this week on construction and sanding, and it'll probably take a few more days before I'm ready to seal the pieces individually and bolt it back together.

It's something to do between anxiety attacks.
On the other hand, two of my dearest friends are lucky to be alive after a drunkass wrong-way driver crash last night.
My problems aren't so bad after all.

Like A Bad Penny

Here's a screenshot I grabbed from a website I never heard of:


Here's the link: Play It Or Slay It

Humor me and visit the page, then play the audio--the video game review starts and ends with something you might have heard before.




Crazy!
Stuff like this keeps happening.

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.

Friends With Benefits

I love taking pictures of my new bass, even using my phone instead of a "real" camera:

This was taken in the "backstage" area where all the bands kept their gear right before and after playing a 30 minute set.
Televators took part in an all-day benefit show for a family whose house burned down in a suburb north of Ft. Worth TX.

We had a prime time slot, from 10:00-10:30, that gave us way more people than the earlier bands but still let us get home (and blog) before sunrise.
The drive up and back was relaxed with no major malfunctions, traffic through Austin didn't blow goats for a change, and we played a great set to a crowd that were digging what we do.

Sure was cold up there, though.
A couple degrees above freezing.


This was the first time I got to ...just play my damned bass!! for Televators without having to put any thought or labor into the sound and lights, and it made a huge difference in my mood and performance. Scambling around putting out other people's fires is fine if that's my job description, but now that I'm transitioning out of the soundman game I really hope to have more shows like this where I can concentrate on the music.

It's a major PITA to run these multi-band productions and the soundman was a total pro all night. A nice kid with a future in this business. Turns out he's also a bassist--in two minutes of conversation we were best friends.

In two weeks Televators are joining a big multi-band tour for one night in Houston and with any luck it'll be as smooth and satisfying as tonight.
Details as soon as I get them.

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!!!

What Are These?

Spotted these things on the underside of a margarita sweet potato leaf:



A closer view:
The must be eggs from some weird insect, but those stalk deals they are suspended upon is a new one on me.
Never seen or heard of such a thing.
Any ideas?



This was taken at the end of my birthday party last weekend:
That's Pinnacle Atomic Hots cinnamon vodka in them there shot glasses. Good stuff.

Our monkey collection grew to eight today, but I can assure you that they aren't all drunks like these two.


********************************

Have you bought a copy of my song Milk Run by Televators from iTunes yet?
99 cents is a good deal since it's like 7 minutes long.
At least 17 people from around the world LOVE my bass playing on this song--you will, too.

(It's also available from just about every other similar music site)

I need your pennies to feed my family and buy beer, so please download your copy today.
Thank you.

Good Show

I have no idea who this guy is: He came up to the stage and asked for a birthday song, so I called him up and I think everyone in the club expected Becky to sing to him.
Nope.
She handed him the mic and went to the bar, then the ladies room.
Birthday boy was stunned for all of 3 seconds, then started singing some old song--Janis Joplin maybe?--and then David, Jaime and I figured it out on the fly.
Hilarious!



Probably my favorite pic of me in a long time, holding down the groove with our giant robot of drums, Jaime Flores: It was a great show, from all reports.

I know that in terms of bass tone and playing, it was by far my favorite.
Having new strings, a new tuner, new main cable, and an amp rig that I could trust and tweak for two weeks prior all made a huge difference in my comfort level.
Exhausted, sweaty, dirty, but fairly happy right now.
Too bad I have to get up in 5 hours and do an early outdoor show with A Beautiful Mess at Trader's Village Flea Market...

"The New Phonebooks Are Here!"

Actually, this is even better:

Televators first release is now available world-wide on iTunes.


I haven't heard this final mastering of Milk Run yet, but am confident that it sounds great based on earlier mixes--I mean, how bad can someone screw up my masterpiece?
(Don't answer that)


If you hate Apple or just don't have an iTunes account we'll be releasing our stuff on several other online outlets soon, or you could just show up at our next show:



Televators will hit the stage around 11:30pm to perform all of our original songs plus a few select covers.
We'll also play the official release of Milk Run nice and loud over the PA system during the intermission between bands.



It's a funny thing--in your head you picture some kind of dramatic setting when important news arrives, just like in the movies.
Nope.

Got the call to join Televators while browsing kitchen utensils and picture frames at a local ROSS store.
The text re: producer Lee Popa wanting to make us famous came while running sound at a flea market on a cold Sunday morning.
Found out about iTunes in a text while buying crappy spare batteries and a shortass roll of duct tape from Dollar Tree.

I mean, it's such an incredible feeling when a song you wrote is suddenly rubbing shoulders with the greats (and not-greats) in the best-known online music marketplace...tingles and tears describes it nicely...but there's no lucky coincidental fireworks when you walk into HEB afterwards, or then go home to do the dishes and clean the stove.

Maybe IF I ever get to hear my music on the radio or TV, it'll happen in some kind of Hollywood universe where I'm surrounded by people who give a shit?

Again...Nope.

Nothing ever happens in real-life the way it's portrayed in the movies.
Except for Spinal Tap.

Trailers And Amps

Ever have one of those weeks when it seems like everything is a little off?

TRAILERS

Coming home from a show in Kerrville in the wee hours of last Saturday morning, everything was fine.
Just two band brothers yapping about The Spurs and music and such while dragging a heavy trailer up those damned hills on IH10.
I pulled up in front of our house, unloaded my personal gear, and bid my boss good night.
Some time later he called with the news that the trailer's axle had parted company with the suspension in a most catastrophic fashion and asked my advice on what he might do about it:
Being late, I was tired and a bit in my cups, so I wasn't particularly helpful.
He was only a mile from his house, but had to call a tow truck to get the trailer the rest of the way.


The tire grabbed the fender and folded it up rather well while also shredding.



Somehow, the other fender sustained damage as well.
I'm just glad it didn't happen while I was driving in the middle of Nowhere, Texas.
We had to split the gear between our pickups for the next gig, which luckily was a private party that didn't require all of it.

He bought a new (used) trailer today that's a bit bigger in every dimension but height (to fit his garage) so the good news is more space for more stuff.
Bad news is I'm still going to hit my head at least twice a week for the next few years.


AMPS

By my count I have used at least six different amp/speaker combinations since I started playing bass a couple years ago, first with Loud Nine and now for Televators. It gets old pretty fast, borrowing stuff and never getting the chance to settle on ONE amp rig that you can get used-to and fine-tune over time.
If I wasn't a sound expert I think I would have gone insane, but luckily it's fairly easy for me to get wildly different products to do what I need them to do.
Doesn't mean I like this situation--it really blows and I hate it.

A big step forward was buying a Peavey bass speaker cabinet from my friend Buz.
It was part of the rig I used with great success in the studio two months ago.
Still need to pay him for it...

While working up amp situation #7 this week I took a peek in the rear port of the cabinet and spotted this:
WTF???
Never seen such a thing--a bottle of something was neatly wedged between the frame and cone of a speaker.


Mickey Mouse Shampoo & Conditioner.
The kind you find in your hotel room at Epcot Center or Disneyland I suppose.
Buz had zero idea where it came from or how it got there.
And yes, it's location will have an effect on the sound but with the other 3 speakers involved it would be hard to notice, even for an "expert" like myself.


It took a while for me to take a hard look at the bass amp that's been sitting in Bex Televator's practice room, rather than treating it like a carpet-covered nuisance that's only good for banging my knees and holding up my soda and camera bag. When I finally had no choice but to use the thing there were issues with random volume drops, so I brought the sucker home and took it apart.
As I suspected there were some cracked solder joints on the input jack, and a couple more on one of the power transistors.
Fixed in mere minutes thanks to the best invention in recent years--the cordless drill/screwdriver. (Mine is a 24-volt Black & Decker we got at Target for a mere $36 with many accessories).

As it turns out, for a basic "practice" combo amp it has WAY more features than usual.
In fact, it's preamp section is a near clone of the one Buz let me use in the studio minus the tube section--it's all solid-state circuitry. Good thing I have a tube preamp/direct box to put in front of it for some old-school tone through the amp and also sent to the PA system.
I did a bunch of stuff to the 4x10" cabinet, including the addition of a big metal 1970's vintage Peavey logo and removing the casters so it'll stack nicely. Not done yet, but getting close.

Used this rig at practice tonight and we all agreed is sounded fine.
I'll be using it for the next Televator's show, June 23rd at Charlie Brown's on Starcrest. Hope to see some of you there.

This doesn't change anything. I still NEED a complete bass amp system of my own.
I've selected the specific items I want, and it's going to sound way better than rigs costing 3x as much.

Televators Live

Looks like everyone was busy on the 18th
All the people who've asked us "When's the next show?" were absent, but at least I had Sylvia and some of MY friends show up.
A nice reality check for all concerned, highlighting the need to utilize social networks a bit more on the band side (I may be the only one who remembered...) and from the audience perspective it's advisable to NOT miss the show right after we've been playing our asses off in the studio and are smoking hot.

Special thanks to my darling Sylvia for taking some great pictures.



Jaime and his blue Yamahas.



David and his ESP/LTD.



Televators singer Bex shared the mic with Scot Taylor so we could do some Beastie Boys and pay respect.









I really liked having an assload of speakers behind me--looks pretty cool.
Only the 4x10" cabinet on top was connected, but that close to ear-level it's WAY easier to hear what's really going on tone-wise without turning up the volume too far.
Over the last few years with Loud Nine and Televators I've never used the same bass amp system twice, and it's been an education.
I'll go on the record now and say that I finally know for sure exactly what my dream system might look like for both live shows and recording, but I'm also confident that whatever might be available can be made to work.

Milk Run

For some silly reason I expected to have a few days of my normal life before any new unbelievable stuff happened.
I was wrong.
Stay tuned...


Anyway, here are my favorite photos from last Wednesday through Sunday in Austin Texas, in and around Wire Recording Studio.

Phone pic of the rack of snare drums etc in the "kitchen":



Another phone pic of my friend Steve's bass amplifier system, which he graciously loaned me for our recent live shows and the recording sessions:
Over the last few weeks I built some custom cables to hook it all up in various ways, and he gets to keep most of them. Thanks, my brother!
I was "Bi-Amped" which means that the bottom speaker box (4x10" drivers) only had to deal with deeper bass frequencies while the smaller 2x10" top cab handled everything above 220hz, each with their own power amp channel. This is a much more complicated but also more efficient way to handle the full range of tones needed, and gives you way more clarity.
In addition to the 2 microphones on my speakers, I also sent a signal directly to the mixing board which got pumped into whatever vintage gear Stuart Sullivan felt was necessary. The 3+ resulting signals then get stirred back into a cocktail of bass guitar.
When I tore the bass rig down on Sunday I noticed that ALL of my original settings were still intact, meaning that none of the engineers or producer felt the need to sneak into the "Piano Room" where they were isolated to change what I felt was the right sound for Televators.
That was a huge compliment, but we shall see how much of my preferred sound ends up in the finished product.


Becky's vocals were done in this small room just off the main one.
The drawers are full of microphones and spare parts.
The round "Popper Stopper" keeps spit and percussive consonants from hitting the giant vocal mic.
We all had the "Private Q" units seen here. They are headphone amps that have knobs for everyone's instruments, so for example I can choose to have very loud kickdrum and quiet vocals in my ears while recording some parts, then turn up the guitar when I need more.
An incredible time saver, not having to ask the engineers in the control room for personal headphone mixes all the time.
Whoever invented this system deserves free BJs every day.



Taking infrared pics while on break got old pretty quick because it interfered with true rest, but there were some pretty skies early on.



Yes, pianos have lots of strings.
I lit this shot with an LED flashlight while killing time in the bass amp/piano room:
Spent a ton of my spare time in there because of the cool shit to photograph plus a little more private space for chilling out while still having a view of the main control room where all the action was. The AC seemed about 5 degrees cooler, which was nice.
Kept my camera gear and snacks out of everyone's way, too.


Kick drum is the heart and soul of heavy rock. Stuart and Lee made sure we had enough kick to do our music justice.



Some old microphones remind me of embalming tools:



New studio mics are suspended in elastic shock mounts, yet are still photogenic:



In the low-light studio conditions my 50mm-F1.8 lens proved it's worth:
Shallow depth-of-field is fine so long as you pick your focus point with care.


Becky's friend Erin came by on Friday and I'm SO glad she did.
A true pro photographer, she covered all the stuff I wasn't able to shoot due to my bass workload:


IF I can get permission, Erin's photos will complete the story of our experience in the studio.


Rough mixes are done and I hope to hear them tomorrow.
Apparently Paul Barker (bassist during the best years of Ministry) is going to do an extended re-mix of one song, which is eventually destined to be released on vinyl and also become a big part of a movie about fast cars...but I don't know what to believe anymore.
The rest of the album will get recorded in Europe for some reason, even though Austin served us well?


Going on the record, all I can say for sure is that my initial reservations re: promises made and grandiose plans laid have been dashed.
So far, everyone making wild claims has backed them up.

It's getting increasingly difficult to be a skeptic, but that's my nature and I think my responsibility at this point.