DOT

I got this at Guitar Center in Winter Park for $425 new. I've been looking for a few months for a semi-hollow body, and was going to get an Epiphone Sheraton II, but went for this one because of the price. The Dot is $200 less than the Sheraton, and not much different. All cosmetic... I played them side by side, and actually liked this one better because of the way it was setup. Really low action, and perfect intonation. I'm really impressed.

We recorded again last week. Drums, Bass, and vocals. Going to try to do the Guitar tracks tonight, and practice on Wednesday. I think everything sounds better on this one. Found a really nice compression setting for the drums, and another vocal preset that Matt is happy with. We also played with the settings on the condenser mic that I think played a major role in the sound. Another thing that we did this time that helped is that Bryan and I did the Bass and Drums together without anything else. Doing the Guitar and vocals later is the best bet. On the last recording, there's a strange over tone that I cant get rid of. I think it's becuase the Drum mics were picking up the Guitar in the backround. Anyway, I'll post it to our myspace as soon as I'm done mixing it...

We recorded again last week. Drums, Bass, and vocals. Going to try to do the Guitar tracks tonight, and practice on Wednesday. I think everything sounds better on this one. Found a really nice compression setting for the drums, and another vocal preset that Matt is happy with. We also played with the settings on the condenser mic that I think played a major role in the sound. Another thing that we did this time that helped is that Bryan and I did the Bass and Drums together without anything else. Doing the Guitar and vocals later is the best bet. On the last recording, there's a strange overtone that I cant get rid of. I think it's because the Drum mics were picking up the Guitar in the background. Anyway, I'll post it to our myspace as soon as I'm done mixing it...

Got the new Mastodon, and the new Mars Volta. Both are excellent!!

It's been a long time

Man, lots of things have happened since my last post. The band has a new name, new songs, and a new myspace site

Finally got the VS880 working, and got a couple of good recordings. The first song on our myspace site is the latest song that we finished. I have another one that I'll put up there once I'm done mixing down. The big problem with recording is the room... oh and the noise from the other bands playing while we're trying to record. It's loud at times.. Not the worst situation I guess. At least we are able to get a half way decent recordings now.

New truck

Actually used, but new to me... My truck was pretty much falling apart, so it was time to get something else. I've been looking for 3 or 4 months without any luck until now. I was taking a drive through Sanford on Saturday morning checking out all the car lots from the road. I spotted a silver Jeep Cherokee at Gibson’s that looked real clean. Took it for a test drive, and decided that I better jump on it... They wanted $8000 for it, and wanted to give me $3000 for my Tahoe as a trade in. I ended up talking them down to $7600 for the Jeep and giving me $3200 for the Tahoe. I though that was a good deal. The Jeep is a 2001 with 80k, 2 wheel drive, okay stereo it, cd player no mp3's though, but I can always change it out later... Much better on gas!

Merle Haggard – Bob Dylan

Bill and I went to see Bob Dylan at the TD Waterhouse Center last night. Before the show we eat at the Roadhouse in Altamonte, had a few beers… Bill got the Rodie, and was very impressed as I though he would be. I got a burger with the works. Very good as well… We were a little late for the show. Merle was already on stage when we got there. His band was very good... awesome Guitar player… Lots of red necks on the audience!! We must have missed Okie From Muskogee. More Beer, walked around the arena during intermission.

Old Bob Dylan takes the stage. He opens with Maggie’s Farm. Could not even recognize it. He’s change the old stuff so much that they just sound like different songs. If he’s tried of playing the old stuff, just write new songs, and let us know that you wont be playing the old stuff anymore… Mr. Tambourine Man was equally bad. William Shatners version sounds more like the original than this one... This was one of the worst shows I have ever seen… His voice was way to loud in the mix, he didn’t play guitar at all. He sat in the middle of the band and pretended to play the keyboard.

Overall, not a bad night. We had a good dinner, and drink lots of Beer. Oh, and lots of hot chicks at the show…

New recordings

I was able to do a couple of test recordings with the new mic. It did make a huge difference. I would love to post them to our myspace site, we just made too many mistakes while playing. We will do some real recording next week... multi track and all. I think I'm going to use the new mixer for the drums - two SM57's, one 58, and the condenser should work. And thankfully the board is equipped with phantom power for the new mic. I'll use a 57 for the Bass, and the condenser for the Guitars and vocals. I really hope it works out. It should be a good demo at the least...

NEW!!! AudioTechnica AT3035 Condenser Mic

It's on its way according to UPS: OUT FOR DELIVERY... I should be able to check it out tonight. I really hope this improves the quality of our recordings on the 8track. Also, my friend Bill is coming out tonight to take some pictures of us, so that should be fun. I grabbed a myspace site for Heavy High. I figured that I would call the band that until we find something else which probably won’t happen. I hate not having a name... Anyway, I'll make it a band account once we get a good recording and some pictures.

New Yamaha mixer

Matt bought the mixer that we were looking at last week. So we are finally replacing the Entertainer. The Entertainer has actually been pretty good to us. We've had it for over 10 years, and have not really had many problems with it except that it's just not powerful enough at 100 watts. The Yamaha is 600 watts which is plenty for vocals and acoustic guitars.

Matt and I worked on some really cool acoustic stuff on Sunday. We'll try to finish em up on Wednesday…

I'm looking at getting a condenser mic. This one seems to be versatile. It can be used for room recording, cabinets, and vocals: Condenser Mic

I'm hoping to start recording this week. A band name is needed... I still like Heavy High.

Ice Age II

The meltdown wasn’t really that great. I had its funny moments though. The Squirrel was hysterical. Not one that you have to catch on the big screen unless you have kids. We took our kids and one of our neighbors kids to see it Sunday. It cost me around $70 for a trip to the movies. That's ridiculous! What a rip off...

New Mixer?
I think we may own a new mixer for the warehouse. Matt was looking at a Yamaha powered mixer on Saturday. We really need a new one. The Entertainer is not cutting it. for real that is the name of our current mixer. EV's The Entertainer. I'm guessing 1980's with that name. So I'm hoping that it's on its way out the door. We really need something more dependable now since Eric bought a new Breedlove acoustic last week. We want to do some acoustic stuff, but need the PA to handle it well. And the Entertainer doesn't cut it.

WBreakneck

In front of the old warehouse on Parramore and Amelia downtown. Those were the days.... I really miss our old room in that place. The owner (Dave) was a pretty strange, and sometimes funny dude. He would yell WHERES MY MONEY whenever he saw Doug. He would have Doug do work for him to pay off backrent. We would show up for practice and Doug would be mopping the floors or cleaning the bathrooms... The owner purchased this place for a really decent price, then rented it out to bands, and made porno's there with pregnant chicks.... There were some very interesting characters there. Fat Jay was this huge black dude that liked to rap. He sold smokes and candy out of the room that he rented from Dave. He was like 400 lbs or something… He talked Bryan, Bob, Dale and I into jamming with him a couple of times. He would get so out of breath while rapping that we thought he was going to have a heart attack. And there was the guy with the short arms that could play the guitar like Yngwie... Very fond memories indeed :)

Doug, Jeff, Eric, Bryan


And inside:

Sea Monkey's and stuff

Sea Monkey update:
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that we only had 1 Sea monkey left. Now out of nowhere, there are 5 or so small ones in the tank along with the one gigantic mother of the sea monkey or the queen. These things are real survivors…

Band:
We finally finished up Untitled song, started another one and almost finished it. I wrote an Ian Hill style Bass line to it that everyone really likes… The songs are definitely getting better. I’m going to try to get a really good recording on the 8 track soon. We’ll have to do it when we’re going through a slump or something… give us something to do when we don’t have anything good to work on. Hope that never happens... I’d like to use it as a demo for getting shows for this summer… hopefully.

I’ll have to get a real Myspace site going once we find a name and start posting this stuff. Wow, coming up with a name is really hard, we haven’t found many that we like yet.

Heavy High (cycle on Matt’s clothes dryer)
Villain (too 80’s metal sounding) I still like it.
The Drag Delirium or just Drag Delirium (the word Drag can be misleading)

And many others that I can’t remember right now.

New cabinet

I picked up this Trace Elliot cabinet this weekend. I originally bought a Hartke 2x15 cab, but had to return it due to some weird cackling sound it was making. I wanted to exchange it, but they didn't have anymore in stock, so they had me try this one. I blows the Hartke away... Great low end, and clear... Sounds great with the GK. Can't wait to try it along with the 4x10 Hartke.

My Space

Just testing it out. I posted a couple of tunes... bad recordings, but you can get an idea of what we sound like.

http://www.myspace.com/junkmusic

Update

We went from not having enough ideas to having too many. We have quite a few unfinished songs right now... Not bringing anymore new stuff to the warehouse until we finish this stuff up. The hardest part now is just putting stuff together, making smooth transitions...not very easy. I feel that this is the best material that we've come up with yet. Although it does seem a lot harder than it used to be back in the old days. Life is a lot different now then it was 10 years ago...

Our once a week practice needs to be fun, after all it is getting us out of the house, but at the same time it needs to be productive because it is only once a week. Satisfaction needs to replace fun, and that's ok. We still sit around drink beer and BS when we're done playing for the night...

Goal:
10 to 12 songs
Record 5 best for a demo

Then I guess we can start playing out a bit. That'll be weird. I cant wait to here what this stuff is going to sound like in the studio!

Ok, enough of that crap. I'm looking at getting rid of the Tahoe, and replacing it with a Cherokee. Been looking around. Went to a few car lots, not fun at all. I really hate car salesman... They're so full of shit!! So I've decided that I'll look for a private seller. There are quite a few on http://www.autotrader.com/ for very reasonable prices. I'm going to buy one first, then sell my truck to pay myself back. I just want to make sure it's really what I want before getting rid of the Tahoe. The big problem with the Tahoe is that it's a 2 door. A big pain in the ass if you have kids. Dropping them off to school is not fun at all...

Rain this weekend

We really need it, but I was supposed to take Tera and a friend to the Lil' 500 go-kart track on Saturday. She'll be pissed if we end up not going... I'll have to make a backup plan in case it does end up raining all weekend. Movies or something.

Looking for a Hamer Daytona Strat copy for Eric. He's been wanting a Strat for a while, and heard some really good things about these guitars. I found a few on Ebay, watching one now, and may bid on it if it stays under $600. Sunburst with seymour duncan pickups. Cant have enough guitars! This would be a nice addition to his collection. I think it's good for the band as well. We need change every now and then.

Catching up

SEAMONKEYS
We got the kids Sea Monkeys for Christmas this year, and they're still kicking... I don't really know how long they'll last, but they seem like they're doing great... They're huge! I'm in charge of feeding them because the kids would forget and I'm sure Tracy doesn't want anything to do with them. I think she's secretly afraid of them. They are kind of creepy...

NEW KORN
Driving into work this morning I heard the new Korn song, not sure how new, but it's the latest one that they've been playing on the radio. What happened to them? I was never a huge fan, haven't really heard a whole lot of their stuff. The new stuff is way over produce, and has a real pop element to it. Man it really sucks!

BAND UPDATE:
Working our asses off the last few weeks. Two new songs that need vocals - Matt is sick and hasn't been able to work on anything due to a really sore throat. He showed up last night to tape the new stuff, but still couldn't sing. I'm pretty happy with our progress. I really need to change the strings on the J bass this weekend. Starting to sound like crap. Nothing like a new set of strings...

Weekend

Started off Friday moving the PS2 into the living room, and moved the DVD player from my bedroom into the kids playroom\living room. The kids really dent use the PS2, and I wanted to start playing games more. Worked out pretty good. I rented Burnout III, and bought a used copy of Final Fantasy X.

I was supposed to wash the cars and rake the leaves in the yard on Saturday, but it was really cold and windy. Like 50 mph gusts... Sunday was warmer, but I was busy watching the kids while Tracy went shopping with her friend. She Ended up getting something for every one including me! She surprised me God of War for the PS2. What an awesome game! Everything about it is great... looks great on the big screen, better than the others that I own... cant wait to play it again.

Oh, and I got to watch my favorite team, the Magic get beat by portlend on the road. Now they're talking about a trade again. Francis to the Timberwolves for Wally Szczerbiak and Trent Hassell. That may not be bad. Stats on Wally S are better than Frances. I dont the Timberwolves would go for that... I would be a good move for us though.

Practice last night

Finished another song. That's still only 6, but getting there. Our goal is 8 before we start picking them apart and really practicing them a lot. We'll get there sooner or later. It's slow going... only getting one day a week. We're going to try to pick up a Saturday night once a month. The good news is that the songs are getting better! We should be able to play out sometime this spring\summer.

Making Bread

I plan on trying a Challah Recipe compliments of Josh. I'm going to get the kids to help me to give them something to do. Tracy's going to some art exhibit tonight in Orlando. Perfect way to entertain the kids.

Wow, I made some beef short ribs with tomato sauce the other day. Browned them, then let them cook for 4 hours in the sauce, and served them with pasta. I came out great... very tender.

New Years: I don't really remember anything after doing a shot of 160 proof bourbon with Eric, Rob and Bryan... I was glad to hear that I wasn't the only one that doesn't remember much after that. There are some other interesting stories that I shouldn't share:) Overall a good time.