my demo is done!

It's finally here! After oh so many years of dreaming and wishing, and oh so many hours of practicing and writing, I've turned some of my dreams into realities. I've posted the songs here and hope that somebody, somewhere, likes them.

I've already given the musicians some props on the Myspace page, but I want to do it again here. It was so amazing to work with most of them (well, all of them except for someone who shall remain nameless). I know it's part and parcel of being a real professional musician, but it was so cool to watch how quickly they'd pick the songs up and how they could make them come to life. Just about everyone gave me the feeling that they had really thought and cared about these songs, and that's really I could have asked for. I hope I get to work with them again sometime in the not so distant future.

So close

Yep, it's almost here. I was in the studio last night and we've now got the electric guitar parts laid down. Davy brought the guitarist from his band in to play and the guy was great. It's so refreshing to work with real professional musicians. Not only did the guy learn the parts on the fly, but he handled all the bizarre directorial challenges we threw at him with aplomb. I went home tired but totally stoked about how the tracks were sounding. Now all that's left before mixing are the vocals for the final song.

I can't wait to share these songs with the world.

In the studio

Thanks for the comments, guys. It's so discouraging to feel like my words and time have gone straight out into an empty void, with nary an echo coming back.

But on to the subject of this post: after long, long, last, I'm in the studio! Yep, I bit the bullet and decided that this was the year to professionally record some of my stuff. I decided not to care that I don't have a band, and to pay people to play for me. Needless to say it's all setting me back quite a bit, but it's worth it given how the tracks sound so far. I can't wait for them to be finished so that I can share the songs with the world.

I'm only recording three songs, but it's taking longer than expected. Blame it on the difficulty of getting other people to come in and play - even though they're getting paid. One of the things I hate most about being this age is that everyone has so many things that are set in stone in their lives. It's almost impossible to get more than two people together at a time because person x has salsa lessons with his girlfriend that night, or person y has their own band practice to get to. I look back to being a kid and it's amazing how much time there seemed to be.

In response

Hey, sorry for the lapse. I stopped writing because of the lack of comments. I was starting to wonder who I was writing for and why, since most of my posts felt like I was screaming into the void.

Every so often I think that I ought to log back in and write a post, or take the page down. So far indecision or laziness has kept me from doing so. I dunno. Things look like they might take a busy turn soon, so perhaps I'll find myself with a lot to say in the near future.

Drummer auditions

Another new episode of Veronica Mars tonight - yay! Not that it'll do me any good until tomorrow, but at least I remembered to set my VCR today. Tonight is my first night of drummer auditions. After many, many emails, phone calls and changes of plan, Michael and I are set to meet with a drummer this evening. It's my first time ever auditioning a drummer. I hope it goes smoothly and that I learn some stuff which I can take in to my next set of auditions (this weekend).

Never having chosen a drummer before, and not being a drummer myself, I'm wondering what to look for. Besides a sense of rhythm that is. I'm assuming that most drummers have that. But what seperates a really good drummer from the pack? That's a tougher question. I guess a lot of it will come down to personality, and how they'll operate in our group dynamic. Whatever that is.

On another note, tonight will be the first time that I truly have to haul a bunch of shit over to the practice space. Because it's where Michael teaches, it's not a good place to leave stuff. And we haven't had to play amplified until now. But since there are going to be drums involved, I'll have to bring over microphones, cords, my DI box, my guitar, my mic stand etc etc, and then contend with the hideous Marina parking. Life's a lot easier when you're just a singer and only need to rock up to the club with a microphone. Still, it could be worse. I could be a drummer.

Baby on board

The day flew past so fast I forgot to update my blog earlier. Anyway, the weekend was notable because I now own my first ever electric guitar! I went to Rocker Guitars to check out Italia's Mondial. That's such a sweet looking guitar, but for some reason the strings felt weird under my fingers. I'm not sure if it was because they were old, dirty, or the action was high. Unfortunately, I didn't fall in love with it at first strum.

What I did find though, was a Reverend guitar. I think it's a Slingshot Custom, although I haven't been able to find any photos that have exactly the same finish as mine. Mine is finished in what they call bug-eye chrome. I figure you can't see mine on the current website since it's an older version. There are some pictures of guitars with bug-eye chrome here though. There are also some guitars in turned aluminium. Pity that wasn't available in the store because that's good-looking too.

Anyway, I could tell it was a special guitar from the beginning, because as soon as we took it down, the sales people started walking over and telling me things about it. Like, it's a strange looking guitar (I think it's attractive rather than strange) but it's a real sweet one. And also, that Reverend used to make their guitars in the US, but it became too expensive for them. This was the last US made Reverend for sale (in this shop?). Apparently the newer, Korean-made guitars don't have the same neck feel. (I confess: I'm totally in love with the neck of this guitar.) Other tasty facts I learnt were that the pickups were high end, and that it had Grover locking tuners. (These facts don't mean that much to me at this stage of my ignorance.)

Now that I've bought my baby and brought it home though, I'm faced with the plethora of accessories that a new child requires. Like, another guitar strap, some effects pedals, a tuner that I can plug in to the guitar, different strings etc. Huh. It never ends, but hopefully it will add to all the fun we can have together.

Quick recap

Thank God it's Friday. Did I rant already about being so overwhelmed with stuff that I forgot about Veronica Mars on Wednesday night? Now I'm hanging on until Sunday, when I can catch up on the new episode. Before then, I'm hoping that there'll be some chance of catching up on significant amounts of sleep.

At work this week I've been feverishly been preparing a presentation about Te Genero's drug trial. It was definitely interesting stuff, and sparked a lot of discussion at today's meeting. Unfortunately there was a lot of information missing from the public domain. I'm really curious to see their biophysical characterisation of the antibody they eventually put into humans.