April 29, 2011 I once heard a song in a movie- Raggedy Man- and then I never heard it again. It had been a huge hit in 1945, the time the movie was set. The song made enough of an impression on me that it sort of popped into my head again after these 30 years... That's Sissy Spacek dancing to the song- with a broom. I've been to weddings where the dancing-with-brooms thing happens, and now I've learned how closely related the song (Drinkin' Rum and Coca Cola) is to the dancing. Thanks mostly to this website The song has a great story behind it. It has both a trio of women and a guy called Lord Invader in it, so it covers both the yin and the yang. I love it when people get obsessed with things like this and make websites! April 06, 2011 More gear. Saturday was busy here- I re-ran a bunch of the extension cords that power my semi-mobile racks which reduced the number of wires hanging from the ceiling. Now the whole place seems bigger. I also started using these salvaged Furman SP-20A power amps (the white boxes in this rack) to power my monitor speakers. These will save me the embarassment of having channels crackling and not working because of bad contacts in the old Pioneer receiver I had been using to power them. They also give me room in this rack to mount the DA-88 8-track recorder and the Alesis drum-brain. And moving the Alesis gave me room in my recorder cart to mount this newly purchased TC Electronics M-One effects unit (the one at the top). It sounds sweet- one can never have enough flavors of microphones and reverbs in the studio. It took most of an afternoon to do this rewiring and the associated cleaning up after that goes with this sort of thing- one of the reasons for the light posting here lately.

April 27, 2011 There sometimes gets to be a little too much yin around the studio and then I have to get the guys over. Summer Thieves were back last night and without really trying laid down basic tracks for a new song. (we're all getting better at this) And also messed the place up good and made it all yangy again. April 17, 2011 Another Woggi Noggi weekend. Overdubbing from around 2PM Saturday til 1:30 AM Sunday, then up again at 8 to start mixing, which continued (with a nice long break for brunch) until 5 PM. We've got it narrowed down to about 18 songs. I didn't get many photos this weekend, but this is the last note of an overdubbed conga part on the song Octopi. It's a beaut! Features little horse-hair squeekers and coconut shells and pots of water played with paintbrushes. (this is Ruby in her good luck spiderweb top) April 12, 2011 I did another live recording for the Divas of Jazz benefit for the Second Mile last Sunday. This one worked out significantly better as a recording. For one thing the musicians weren't all cramed into a small alcove. For another I kenw enough not to send inputs to busses when recording more than 8 channels! It helped that I had that nice stereo mic to dangle way over the drummer. That went into a submix of drums, and that formed the basis for the whole soundscape. Rather than fight the liveness, I just tried to capture it. Thanks, Mr Bobby! April 09, 2011 This is a frame from the video of Woggi Noggi highlights that our sponsors are enjoying right now! Here you see Ruby and Ruthie teaming up on a big pot as they add percussion to the song Dishes.. Further developments have led to something that I consider one of the Holy Grails of recording- an intro to a song that has never been heard before. Something like harp- crockery- tin pot, accordion, bass and silverware... Thanks, sponsors, for making this possible.

April 23, 2011 OK, I'm slow. I just found out about the 5.6.7.8.s last night. They rock.