So Yummy: June 2022

Saturday, June 25, 2022

Studio Day

Today was studio day for Planets in the Ocean. Robb, Cass and I have been working the past several weeks on some songs to play at a free recording day at Robert Lang Studios. They are an actual studio, but they also teach recording classes there and in exchange for our time playing a song or two, they would record us for free.

Last Saturday was the original date, but due to band member illness, we postponed to today. We got a chance to play through the songs on Thursday and headed over this morning. Joining us was our friend Jeff Barlow, aka @drawitinone over on Instagram. His schtick is to draw a band in the span of one song. He and I have become friends over the last year or so and I invited him to join and capture the moments.

As with any studio day, it's a lot of show up and wait. As we had students in the house (all adults, but new to recording), we had to wait for them to get set up. We showed up around 11, they started setting up, we probably started playing at 12:30.

Today was my third time recording at Bob Lang Studios. The place is super unique. It's like the Bat Cave. Picture a large home on a hill. You enter at the bottom of the hill, in what looks like a standard door. However, behind that door, about 20-30 feet, lies a professional recording studio. Real bands have recorded there. Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Presidents of the USA, Soundgarden, AIC, etc, etc. I recorded some instrumental tracks there in the mid-90s with While Away, and then again a few years with Stereo Embers. This time, though, with PITO, the songs will see the light of day and we will put some effort behind promoting it.

Anyway, we were slated to play one song today, called "Splinter." Couldn't tell you what it was about but apparently the lyrics were written by Robb's friend Jake Uitti, a local writer that Robb's been in bands with through the years. It's a cool little indie tune and I played my Thunderbird on it, pick style.

Not only are these songs new to us/me, I'm still working on figuring out my parts and what I'll be playing. Luckily, the song isn't terribly difficult, but still, trying to see what works and what doesn't.

Cass started the song with a tribal tom beat, Robb singing indie lyrics and playing guitar, and I was playing fifths, D to G. Very basic. Nice woolly sound on my T-bird, but after playing a few times and getting a drum take, I ended up switching to the L1k because I wanted to use the Hipshot to drop to a low D at the end of the tune.

I did a take on the L1K in the control room and it ended up being great. Fat and full, even with the rough mix. Robb did a few vocal passes and within a couple hours of starting, we had captured what we wanted for "Splinter."

The engineer, Kevin, and his student, Chris, then asked if we wanted to do another song, as we had all day in the studio, so we jumped back in the main room and dialed up a song called "Decisions." Similar situation for me as on the first song. Still feeling my way and trying to remember changes, etc. We played through a few times while they were recording and ended up keeping most of one of the takes. Robb called my name at one point to call out a change and we left that in the recording. I really dug in with the pick on the T-bird this time and really REALLY dug the tone I got. Pretty aggressive and angular and will work well in the mix.

I ended up being pretty busy on the take, removing whatever handcuffs I put on myself when I was in Embers. Tim was always saying "less is more," and stuff like that, but sometimes, I took it too literally and really neutered a lot of what I played to fit what he thought we should sound like. For this project though, I'm trying to play for the song. "Splinter" was chill and basic at the beginning. For "Decisions," I just played. I didn't over think it and we ended up using a take that had some cool runs and a few weird moments on it as well.

After getting the music done, we did quick mixdowns and I think we are all pretty pleased. The previous sessions at Lang's was fun, but there was some drama. Tim was having some issues with something and just had a weird time at the studio. Musically, we were trying to figure things out as the songs weren't quite ready and it was just weird energy the whole time. And then we booked a show to put the music out and it ended up being canceled due to COVID. So those songs never got a real chance to grow.

Now that we have the PITO project, new and improved energy, and no worry about the "brand" of the band or any reputations to protect, we are feeling good. The studio was so FUN today. We were handing out suggestions to each other, really talking and listening and just being a band. Really looking forward to playing some more tunes and going to another studio (London Bridge/Sangster's/Bob Lang again) in the future.

Got to play through the Ampeg mini-fridge...

until it was deemed too noisy. But still big sounding.

Cool touch on the mixer console.

The studio is under this house.

Inside the studio room.

Inside the control room.

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Summer 2022, the time of travel

Ok, just spent 2 hours figuring out hotel and flights for work. I will be traveling to Boston in mid-July. That will be fun. The days before traveling will be fun, as I'll have 2 gigs back-to-back, one with Kathy Moore, one debuting PITO.

Only spending 3.5 days in Boston. Event is Tues-Wed, and I'm flying back home on Wed night. Maybe I can catch a Red Sox game? Toronto and then Cleveland are in town while I'm there. At the very least, I can get a run from the hotel to Fenway, about 3 miles each way.

We've also been planning on traveling for the kids to get them back to school. I will be road tripping with Haley again, driving the Escape mid-August to Ashland, then to Fresno, then to San Clemente, then flying home. Marci will be flying with Riley to Grand Junction, staying for a few days to get him situated, and then flying home. All the logistics and stuff is do-able, but the money spent is painful.

Can we afford it? Yes. Is it easy? Meh. I just don't have travel budgeted and as we're sort of up against it timewise, we're just doing it. I've ballparked about $3000 to do it this way, vs a long road trip where we'd all drive to GJ, drop off Riley, then drive to Irvine by way of Indio. Cost-wise, that was about the same, so I figured driving/flying and dividing and conquering would be a better use of our time and money.

As much of a pain as it can be to set up travel, at least with work it's reimbursed, so I put it on the card, and in about a month, I have $$ to pay it off. With the personal travel, it's a struggle. Do I card it or do I pay for it via bank account? At least putting it on the card gets us some benefits, so....

Friday, June 03, 2022

The Jetta: almost 6 years later

I wrote about my beloved GLI several years ago: So Yummy: The Jetta: one week later (gwonchang.blogspot.com). I figure it's time for an update.

The Jetta is still serving me well and I still love it. In the time I've had it I have:

backed through our garage door, which shaved off the antenna.
gotten multiple dents
cracked the windshield (not my fault)
headliner is now sagging
door sill trim is loose and needs reattaching

I did recently replace the radio and now I have bluetooth and Android Auto and it's pretty awesome. I just bought oil change stuff to try to change the oil myself this weekend. The oil is dry and beeps because it's so low. Not driving it until I can fill the oil tank.

Thursday, June 02, 2022

Back from DC and CA

I left home on Saturday, May 21st and got back home yesterday, June 1st. How did it go? Truthfully, not bad.

DC was cool. The town was clean, the homeless were contained and there was a lot to see and do. Unfortunately, I was cooped up in the convention center for most of the time. BUT, when I was out, we ate, ate, and ate some more.

One night, apparently the Who (or is it The Who?) was in town and some work-related colleagues went. Had I known, I may have gone too, just to rub Cass' nose in it. Too bad I didn't know. Instead, I went to dinner with Amanda and the rest of our team to an Italian joint near Chinatown.

Come to think of it, the first night I was there, I hit an Italian joint (Sfogalina) by the hotel. Then the last night we were there, we all hit an... Italian joint named RPM nearby. In-between the Italian joints, I had sushi by myself one night (skipping out on an invite to see Primus play A Farewell to Kings nearby), and then a Chinese/American fusion type place called Farmers & Catchers, or something. My French dip wasn't that great.

Other places I ate included the Yardbird (or Yard House, I can't remember) and then a few times at the convention center. I got one run in, saw the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, reflecting pool, among other things. Good to get out, for sure.

Come Thursday, I flew to Phoenix (had breakfast for lunch) and then headed to Palm Springs (Indio) to hang with Judy.

Indio wasn't bad, other than it was SUPER HOT as usual. Judy actually made dinner a few nights and we had poke one day also. She was actually pretty self-sufficient and capable, considering the circumstances. We went out one day and hit up some local Goodwills, where I found a great new handcart for my band stuff. Also bought a cheap pair of sunglasses to wear around.

On Saturday I drove to Irvine to pick up the fam. I stopped at the Spectrum for a delicious ramen lunch (Silverlake Ramen or something) and literally as soon as they brought the meal by, Marci texted and said they just landed. Dumb plane was 30 minutes early, so I pounded my lunch and headed to the airport. We drove to San Clemente from there and got ready for Ted's memorial.

A bunch of people I've met over the years were there, some I remember, some I don't. But was good to connect with cousin Maxine, her daughter Kelly and husband Brian, their kids Simone and Clark, as well as neighbors Peggy and Neville, Todd's old friend Jim and his wife Tracey. Of course Judy and Ray were there, as well as Sooner and Marty and other members of the family. Most fun was had with nieces Ella and Chandler, and watching them with Riley and Haley. So glad to see them all together and having fun.

Todd put together a great slideshow video of Ted over the years and both he and Alison had nice memories and comments about it all. We all hung out late into the early evening, before me, Marci and Judy headed over to the Volare hotel, which sounds nicer than it was.

We had a two room suite, with the main door opening into a bedroom, which had a door on the other side, which led into the other bedroom with attached bathroom. The floors felt uneven and the hotel itself needed some updating, but it was what it was.

Next morning I took a run around San Clemente and got in some miles. I sure love the vibe of that area. Not an ocean guy, but the place is beautiful. And they have a great donut shop, the Donut House, that took care of my breakfast needs for the two days I was there.

After meeting at Todd and Ali's, we all went down to the beach again and walked around, good to be out in the sun. That night after dinner, we headed to Dana Point where two kids named Ethan and Stephan took us out on their sailboat. We took it out about 20 minutes and had a few words about Ted, before we dropped his ashes into the Pacific. A bit of humor as his box didn't sink, so Todd had to take Judy's cane and smack it a few times to get it to go under the surface.

The next morning, Haley and I took her car and headed north. We drove about 5-6 hours to Angel's Camp, CA, where we stopped at the WorldMark resort there. On the way, we stopped in Bakersfield and had sandwiches in a ghost town. Yeah, it was Memorial Day, but man, it was dead. The sandwiches were good, though.

We had dinner at a place called Rob's Place in a small town called Murphys, about 10 miles from the resort. Our waiter, Gabriel, was cool and cracked me up when he said the ghost pepper cheese was so spicy it was as if his African ancestors came up and slapped his face. Next morning, we grabbed coffee in Murphys again and headed north to Bend, OR.

The Bend drive was about 8 hours and it felt that way. Because Angel's Camp is so out of the way, the drive to there and from there were on some backwoods highways and roads and it was pretty fun and scenic. We stopped for lunch in some town, I can't remember which, but the food was good at a place called The Foodie Cafe.

When we finally made it to the Bend WorldMark, we got in the room and Haley had deja vu. She insisted she'd been there but I couldn't remember if we had or not. After a bit, I realized we had, it was one winter when we were traveling with Ted and Judy and we had stayed there. Anyway, we went back into Bend (which is a cool-ass hip town) and had dinner at a Thai restaurant.

Later that night, we found our room was infested with gnats, there were probably a few hundred circling the lights in the kitchen. Haley was gonna sleep in the front room, but because of the bugs, we ended up sharing the king bed, where there were no bugs, thankfully.

The last morning, we got coffee in Bend at a lousy coffee shop, hit a tasty donut shop, then hit Dutch Bros on the way out of town. We figured we'd stop in Portland for lunch, about 1/2 way through the drive. But, since the drive was out of the way, we ended up crossing into Washington and pretty much bypassing Portland altogether. Then we passed through Vancouver and before long, Hay was a little hangry and bratty. We got through some grumpiness as she found a little teriyaki joint in Ridgefield. We had lunch and she drove the rest of the way home.

The Escape did well on the drive. Was comfortable enough and did what we needed it to do. The brakes are still a little not as responsive as I'd like, but overall, I was happy with it. Gas prices were crazy, but luckily, the Escape only takes regular unleaded, so the most we paid was $82 for a tank. In my car, that would have been closer to $100. Crazy.

Anyway, I'm glad to be home and ready to not eat out every day and night. Need to build back the reserves. Here are some pictures.

By the way, thanks Blogger for putting the pictures in reverse chronological order. Too many to sort them so scroll to the bottom and work your way up.