August 30, 2013 The man burns tomorrow. I will probably be parked in front of the stream, which is now live, with a soundtrack from Soma FM. It's the next best thing to being there!

August 27, 2013 I appear to be using both hands to play, but let me assure you that there are fewer than 5 fingers actually pressing down keys at any given moment.

August 25, 2013 Scenes from the Binn's Park gig yesterday. Our pal J.C. hanging out with Gary and Kenny before the show. Mr. Shade arrives in a timely fashion. Willie, Ezra, and the Marblettes. Having some fun now! There may be some live audio of this...

August 23, 2013 It's here! This CD... ...will hit the streets this Saturday around 4 PM at Binns Park in Lancaster. This crew... ...will be among those playing.

August 18, 2013 We had a session last Friday with this man. Jamie brought in a crew, including Henry, a guy I've heard about for years but never met. That's some instrument he's playing. I accused it of being a bouzouki, but it's actually a mandocello. My apologies. Here's the rhythm section, LJ and Bruce. As you can see, the new gobo came in handy, mainly to keep the guitar from leaking into the bass mic. Bruce suggested using this side for a white board for charts- great idea! They recorded the first song multitracked, but for this one they performed live. I was scrambling like mad to set mics while they rehearsed the arrangement- we all finished doing what we needed to do at about the same moment. Hope to have them back for more.

August 13, 2013 Misc news: We've had a good vocal session for the Brethren project- next we will get together and mix It's No Use. I think you'll like it... There's a session coming up on Friday with everyone's favorite upright bass player, Bruce Campbell! Also includes uke, but oddly enough, does NOT include anyone named Hummingbird, (or any guitars of that name, either). Strange! Summer Thieves are now playing out as Perfect Fit. I enjoyed seeing them a week ago at the Symposium, and seeing Linzi onstage onect again. The next Sporting Hill Ramblers gig will sport only two Ramblers. I suspect we will be doing songs about the Norden bombsight or something...

August 06, 2013 Some of that synchronicity that 'ol Sting used to sing about back when we recorded these tunes- the next song on my list to be added to the list was one with a chorus that repeats the phrase "I got a job". This morning, that actually came true. So here's something written and recorded in 1981 for this day in 2013. Retail Market Boys.mp3 Was Blair King the Nostradamus of New Wave? You decide...

August 05, 2013 Here's a remix of a song by the Blame from one of those old reels- Lights Out.mp3 Yeah, it's a dark one...

August 04, 2013 Rumor has it that the Willy Marble CD Songs in the Key of Marble will be released in a few weeks. You may recall sessions involving choruses of people and trombones and other wacky things- soon you'll get to hear it! Tonight I'm adding some songs to the list, a list which I have been keeping of the songs recorded and released through this humble audio workshop. These particular songs are long overdue, seeing as I recorded them more than 30 years ago. They were by the Blame, from a cassette recorded at the Cat Ranch out in Paradise, long enough ago I didn't remember doing it. But it must have happened, because I found the tapes! Here's a recent photo of the house where Cat Ranch studio was located... ...the studio consisting of the first-floor room on the left and a couple of tiny rooms in back, behind the kitchen. The "big" room was where the band set up, and the tiny rooms were for vocals and the mixing board. All this happened within 30' of heavily traveled route 30 east, and it's somewhat amazing that the sounds of truck traffic are not more evident in the recordings. I suppose the band was recorded by bouncing from stereo reel to reel to stereo reel to reel, because that's the way we did it back then. I would have been using two Sony machines, a 350 which I still own, and a 777 which was a big piece of iron I regret having parted with. It had "soft touch" servo controls, three motors, and when it heated up it smelled great! The songs might have been recorded in this order- drums and bass to stereo, then keyboards/rhythm guitars over top of that, then vocals/leads over that. Only two bounces, and if you made a mistake you just tracked it again. You'd be stuck with whatever effects and eq you had used on the early tracks once you'd bounced, but by this time I was pretty much aware of what the sound would be like in the end. There was no compression, other than tape saturation, and the only effects at this time would have been the spring reverb in the Peavey board and an analog delay unit- maybe. All things considered, we did alright.

August 03, 2013 My profile has been included in the Music Makers of Lancaster series. Thanks to Linda and Bob and everyone who makes this happen. Now get crackin'- if you've seen the Local Bands page lately, you know you've got your work cut out for ya! I have a trustworthy new spokesperson.

August 02, 2013 Sorry for the brief outage this morning- gotta renew those domain registrations!