Over this past weekend I recorded April May June in our practice space. I set up the mics, stands, cables and ProTools rig. I checked levels as soon as the others got there and we were rolling in about an hour. I haven’t recorded a band in over 4 years and I was surprised that it went so smoothly. Not having paying customers and rock star egos to deal with made it less stressful as well.

Because I’m currently limited to 8 inputs until I can somehow get digital ADAT/lightpipe (8 more) into the 002r, we played to click and recorded 5 tracks of drums (kick, snare, hihat and stereo overheads) and 3 scratch tracks: vox, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar or bass. After we got a good drum take we would go back and overdub the acoustic guitar and electric guitars.

It was a lot of hard work but I enjoyed it immensely. That is what I went to school for and it is still what I want to do when I grow up. This week I have to lay down bass, my guitar and other little bits of salt and pepper.

C’mon Cards!

Get your heads out of your asses. You’re down 0-3. So what. You can do it. Lord knows it has happened to the Red Sox often enough. What’s one more year added onto a supposed 80+ year curse? That curse is BS. They lose cuz they suck. Do it, do it.

Updated Thursday Oct 28th, 8:00: nevermind….grumble, grumble…

I just got back from seeing Kante at Vamos here in Lüneburg. Kante is one of my favorite German bands. The members are all very talented, the tracks are produced well and the lyrics are understandable and thought provoking. Tonight’s show was the first on their national tour. I could tell they were still a little soft and still needed to get their “tour feet” wet. The best song was of course “Die Summe der einzelnen Teile”. It rocked. They also had a few songs with some Spiritualized/Velvet Underground -like noisy freak outs. Not the best concert because I didn’t get rocked like I wanted, but still good.

Often when I meet a new German acquaintance I am often asked what I don’t like about Germany. Now there are things that bother me but the problem is that I can almost never remember what they are when asked. It is kind of like how you might keep a mental list of CDs you want to buy and then the next time you are in a music store you can’t remember what it was you wanted to buy. But there are 2 things I can remember right now so I’ll let you all know what they are.

1. Bureaucracy: Germany has it down to a science, an art form even. Every piece of paper has to be stamped, signed in triplicate, photocopied and filed away. Any foreigner that has ever tried to get a driver’s license here knows what I’m talking about. If all stamps and ink pads in Germany were to disappear over night the country would flip the fuck out. Absolute standstill.

2. Street signs or the lack thereof: They do exist but they always seem to be sporadic especially when you are lost or in a hurry to get somewhere. They also have problems deciding on what to name a street. A road could be a kilometer long and have 5 different names. Forget Mapquest. That will just confuse you even more. Just swallow your pride and ask at the gas station. You’ll get there quicker.

I’m sure there are other things that really bother me about Germany but they are not so bad that I constantly bitch about them. All in all I can’t complain. I got a job and roof over my head and food to eat. I’m lucky.

Oh I almost forgot, the weather sucks. Often.

This past Friday I had a private drum lesson with Angelo Kelly. It cost 50€ but it was for a good cause. It went to support some sort of Childrens Music Program (anything for the children). He is a really good drummer and I learned a couple interesting things pertaining to jazz drumming technique. It’s all about the French style of holding the sticks.

On Saturday the Rhythmus-Total percussion festival was where it was at. It was very interesting but I don’t want to hear another drum for a long time.

The first newspaper I ever read (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) has endorsed Kerry:

Based on his own record, President George W. Bush has not earned re-election. He has mishandled the war on terrorism, shut his eyes to disagreeable facts, left the next generation in hock and presided over a sharp loss in jobs, health insurance and prosperity for millions of Americans.

It is the Show-Me State after all.

St. Louis is my real hometown which is why, although I am not a huge baseball fan, my heart bleeds Cardinal red. So I am naturally chuffed that the Cards are in the NL Championship Series. I had my 7th birthday at a Cards game at Busch Stadium. Whenever I would visit my Dad’s office in downtown St. Louis the highlights were to see the Stan Musial statue in front of the stadium and to look out of the windows of the PW offices into Busch Stadium. I also remember Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith doing backflips. That was so cool.

I went to see the Blues Explosion last night at the Fabrik in Hamburg. I was thoroughly rocked. Jon Spencer has some of the best stage presence I ever seen. It’s like a mixture of James Brown, Elvis Presley and a gospel preacher rolled into one. Good stuff.