Anne Loo Tracking

Eric Jarvis, Anne Loo and I ensconced ourselves in SugarHill's Studio A with Steve Christensen at the helm. We laid down drums and bass and scratch vocals and guitar.

Anne hung out like a pro, and kept us all on task. Eric found the time to keep us laughing while churning out some solid drums and bass. The whole day went super smooth and has reinforced my decision to work with Eric. Here's what our day looked like:

Anne created the vibe by staying busy writing and keeping her head in a difficult game: Staying focused on what the song would sound like while we tracked the songs piecemeal.

Steve and Robbie Parrish got us a really incredible drum sound. We needed something that was based on a 70's drum sound without being too dead. We got a lot more ambience than I thought we could while still tracking a fairly 'up front' sound. (thanks to John Griffin for the loan of the Vintech mic pre for the snare----snarling goodness!)

Steve kept his head in the game. Not only did he make good sonic choices for the project, but he helped me out a lot in getting the drum edits right. For some reason it was tough for me to hear through the excitement of the great sounds to find the details that weren't serving the song, but Steve kept me on point, way above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks Steve! At the end of the day, we were all quite happy with our progress. The skeletons of the songs sounded great, and I'm going to vet the tracks this morning.

We are going to be tracking Anne's third song next Tuesday with an all star jazz ensemble. I'll post pictures and comments on that for sure.

Maggie Walters and I play on KPFT.

Click, HERE to listen to our interview and live performance on today's Radio Active show.

(Right click to download on PC -- Cntrl+click to download on a MAC).

We had a great time even if we 'screwed the pooch' on Watersigns!!!

Songs placed in new CNBC series: American Made

From the "so cool that I can barely write about" department:

Long time readers will remember my friend, and production client Sarah Sharp. Besides her career as a touring singer songwriter of international note, she also works as an independent music director for TV and Film.

She just placed 5 songs on the new CNBC series, American Made. That is cool all by itself, (Go Sarah!), BUT it get's better:

The songs were all recorded at SugarHill Studios, and were all produced by me. Even cooler is that I co-wrote two of them with my good friend and musical collaborator, Christine Wu.

Here's the line up:

The Southern Backtones: "Lanugo"
Maggie Walters: "Cowboy" instrumental
Winter Wallace: "Holiday" instrumental
and then Christine Wu and I: "Afternoon" and "Darkest Night" which are instrumentals from the performance art piece entitled "String Theory" (to be performed in January, 2007).

I'm humbled and VERY thankful to Sarah.

On a related note, Maggie Walters is driving through Texas Spring time storms to perform with me on KPFT, 90.1 this afternoon. We'll be on the Radio Active Show at 2pm CST. If you can, check us out.

FUNNY NOTE ADDED LATER:
Maggie and I had THE most uneven performances and interview today. HUBRIS TIME FOR SURE. We did have a blast, though. It's always great playing live on the radio. You can check out just how we clunked out way through our tunes at this link.

Gotta run fill out those copyright and ASCAP forms!

OH, I haven't had a picture up for a while, so I'm including shots that are cool, but have nothing to do with the post. The one at the top is of my friend, Thomas Glass. Thomas is a badass painter. Christi and I had dinner with him at Heather Wagner's tres chic house last night.

Finally, here's a super cool fally-down house that I spied while on a motorcycle ride in the Texas Hill Country:

'A Trip Through the Mind of a Crazy Mexican'

Here is a cool play that you will want to see. I can't be there, so you should!

Here's what Alvaro Saar Rios (the playwright) has to say about the opening:

The Royal Mexican Players will present this hilarious world premiere. "We are going to put on a show about you, the audience members. Everyone has a story and we promise to use our wit, humor, and satirical powers to entertain with a cultural Latino twist."

My friend, Randy McKinney, says this is not to be missed and that's quite a recommendation. For times and tickets, click on the title of this post.