01/24/2025, Planets in the Ocean at the Sunset

First show of the new year, with a nice line up and venue to kick things off... until one of the bands dropped out day of show.

even AI generated posters are weird

We had set up a show with Guest Directors (with Gary T on guitar from the Navins) and Patrons of Husbandry (with Rusty W on guitar/vox). Having the show at the Sunset was an added bonus. About the only thing we had issues with was the order, which had us headlining. Overall, not a big deal for me, but sort of a nitpicky thing for others in the band.

On the day of the show, I had the day off and soon heard that one of the members of Guest Directors was having a medical issue and as a result, they couldn't play. GD was offering up their bass rig and drums before dropping out, so some pivoting was needed. I ended up bringing the Orange and the Avatar 212.

We tried to get a last-minute replacement band and they were willing to play, but I was vetoed, which was sort of a bummer. We thought the other band might not bring people, but my thought was that's at least 4 more people and possibly more, but whatever, it was all good.

Come gig time, I drove out to Ballard and right in front of the Sunset, there was a spot! However, the car in front of me took it! But then the car right next to it backed out and your boy got the best parking spot he's ever gotten at the club. I loaded in and was gonna get ready for soundcheck...

Only to find out that the Patrons of Husbandry had already setup and bounced for dinner, meaning there was no way to get our stuff up there and we would get no soundcheck. No big deal, I suppose; PoH didn't get a soundcheck either.

Once PoH got started, there was a nice crowd. I had two people from work, who brought 4 additional people. Plus we had Mike and Amy (nice to see them twice this week!), Ted, Derrick and Monica, Nick, Jeff B, the Guest Directors (minus their bassist), Ben and Roger from Coool Babies, Jimmy C, Phil, and others. Those were just the regulars.

I've known Rusty from PoH for a long time, despite not knowing him hardly at all. Musician relationships are like that, unless you're in bands with them. You see them a few times a year at shows and the like, and that's about it. But it was really cool to reconnect with Rusty. He was in Seattle bands like Flop, Llama, the Fastbacks and I'm sure several others I'm forgetting. When I was in the Lund Bros in the 2000s, we played with Llama quite a few times and had all sorts of fun.

With PoH, they were a 4 piece, with both Rusty and Scott playing guitars and trading off on lead vocals. I met Ethan, their bassist, who had a killer P and Ampeg setup. He was solid and provided a great bottom end to the churning washy guitars that Rusty and Scott put out.

Patrons of Husbandry

Once PoH finished, we took the stage to a decent crowd, especially considering we had only two bands on the bill. My work friends, especially the young one (23 years old!), were quite appreciative. The young crew was energetic and noisy for both bands, and we enjoyed having them.

For this evening, I played the butter P and the aforementioned Orange and Avatar combo. Robb played his new Les Paul and had that amp cranked! He was stage left and wow, he was loud. I thought I was loud, but I had to be to hear it over that guitar.

We started off with a new set, one that Cass drafted, which was pretty cool. Nice to start off with different tunes, even though we have been playing the same 10-11 for the past few years. We could have done a few more tonight, but we haven't been practicing some of the original PITO songs from the COVID days.

Overall, the set had nice energy and the crowd seemed to like it a lot. I felt like I was pretty sloppy, missing notes here and there, forgetting that my long hair gets in my way and sometimes I simply can't see the frets and markers. On "Nomenclature," I took a huge dump at the end and missed out on about 2-4 bars where I just couldn't see what I was doing.

I set my phone off to the side and recorded our gig and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. It also caught all the goofy banter between songs. Robb gave me a nice shout out about being a Rush fan and the people also seemed to like that.

Sound-wise, after having nice sounds in the studio, the Orange did fine work at the Sunset. After listening back, I probably could've dialed in some more bottom end (was heavy on the mids for some reason), but overall, it worked pretty well. I should be seeing some FOH videos soon, as my camera was on the floor next to my feet, so bass was pretty up-front.

Nice night all the way around, made about $175 for the band, which is going into the song mixing budget.

Mike Mitch, who else?

Ted Laabs with the pic

Another Mike Mitch pic

pic by Brian Hughes

2025-01-20 Planets in the Ocean at London Bridge Studios

We had booked time last July to go back up to London Bridge to polish off 3 more songs. With the other 9 that we've recorded, we figured 12 would be a great number to put out on vinyl. We've been talking about it over two bands for years, but now we are finally getting close.

But then life got in the way and Robb lost both his dad and father-in-law within a few weeks of each other and the recording understandably got put on a hiatus. We decided to finish the summer and fall with some gigs, then go into hibernation for the end of the year, with a new date booked for January 2025, which happened to be today.

(Un)fortunate for us, it was MLK day, which meant days off for all of us (except Jonathan, but he's doing what he loves, so he gets a pass). The unfortunate part was that it was also frickin' inauguration day, with a new madman taking the place of the American presidency. However, this blog is not about that, so on with the studio recap.

Nice touch by JP!

For the day, I brought Goldie with rounds, and the Butter bass with flats. I grabbed my Orange Terror Bass, along with my pedal board. I also brought my Avatar 212 just in case. I packed a lunch (studio days are notorious for no eating) and made my way north.

Avatar used as a table and nothing more.

After complaining about politics and how cold it was (like 40°F outside, and barely 65°F in the studio), we got setup and then got to work. We went in with the plan to record songs we'd recorded already, albeit in Robb's basement: The Loud Silence (titled as such for now, it may change), Holiday Daydream and Panic Attack.

We got our tones dialed in and we started with TLS. I played the Butter bass via the Orange and got a nice tone. I had my tone dial about 50% with volume dimed. I did use the Tone Hammer for some EQ, but other than compression, it was all bass and the Orange. We had some trouble with a weird overtone sounding like an octave pedal on the 7th fret (E) on the A string. After some troubleshooting, I lowered the gain on my Spark Boost and increased its level and that seemed to smooth it out.

We ran TLS a few times and, as usual, Cass had his parts dialed. He was able to get a great take after one or two tries. Me and Robb had some different challenges, but we were able to make pretty good time. I had a few punches I had to do, but otherwise pleased with the performance. Tone-wise, the flats were cool sounding, the Orange added appropriate dirt and grit, and in the mix (and especially on the studio monitors), the bass sounded fat and full and gnarly. The only thing I would change (but didn't really know how) was how clicky my pick attack sounded. When soloed, it's pretty obnoxious, but on the rough mixes JP provided, with the full band, it sounds fine.

And did I mention the drums? As always, LBS makes drums sound so good. I'm sure JP has something to do with it as well, but man, Cass' drums sound epic. All good stuff.

Cass on the drumzzzz

Pic by Mike Mitchell

On my way up, I reached out to Mike Mitchell and he and Amy agreed to come by for a bit to hang and listen and take some pix. So that was cool! I say this because I didn't take many pix, but did take some vids for IG stories. Mike, however, came in clutch and got shots, including a few of Robb with his new Les Paul, which was cool. Both the pictures and the guitar.

Robb and his new Les Paul (Mike Mitchell picture)

Speaking of that guitar, man, it sounded great! Robb usually plays Teles and they are a little twangy for my tastes. However, this LP had some girth and thickness to it and on TLS, it really worked well.

We finished up that song and then moved onto Holiday Daydream. I thought this one might be challenging because it's pretty sparse and there's not a lot of fireworks, except for at the end. I try to keep my part really simple and lock in with what Cass is doing. I do build with some melodic lines in the second verse and then we all open it up at the end. I played the Butter bass again and played fingerstyle as well, to mellow the sound a little. I kept the tone overdriven, though, and still loved how it all sounded.

Listening back while Robb was doing some guitar overdubs, I mentioned to JP how I'd love to hear a second guitar doing some chord stabs on beat 4 of the 6/8 measures. He brought it up to Robb and Robb was able to pull it off. I also told him to emphasize a double snare/bass hit that Cass and I do and he did it as well, which all sounded great.

As usual, Robb tore through his vocals and this tune turned out really nice as well. When that was done, we started up with Panic Attack. As recent as our last rehearsal, Robb decided he wanted to cut out a little guitar run in the middle of this song. He sometimes stumbles on it and it had gotten in his head a little. So we decided to skip it and pass the responsibility to Cass to throw in a great drum fill, which he did.

For this song, I switched over to Goldie with the rounds for an even more aggressive sound. We did a few takes before JP realized I forgot to mention something and due to the hotter output of the G&L, the bass levels were all out of wack. He got me dialed in and we did a few more takes. Of course, Cass got his takes done and so Robb and I were doing vocals and bass respectively. He had guitar done enough, but this way, we multitask and JP is good enough to handle it all.

As Robb finished up his guitars, I mentioned we should have hand claps and/or tambourine during the solo section, so of course, JP dialed it up and we all jumped in to do the claps. JP did tambo though, as Cass isn't great at it (his words, not mine).

With our instrumental parts all done, Robb finished up some vocals and then JP gave us some quick and dirty mixes. To my untrained ear, especially on his huge studio monitors, we sounded great! I told him in all my years of recording, I think the bass tones I got today were the best I've ever had. Last time we did it, they were OK, but we went a bit overboard with the distortion. I just did a quick listen to some of those songs and yeah, they're a bit distorted, but not bad and maybe with some mastering, it'll tame it a bit.

Anyway, overall, a great day and one that was able to take our minds off of real-world events, despite us seeking that info in-between takes and during down periods. Next up is for me to do my backing vocals, get Jonathan to mix the songs (and two others) and then find someone to put it on wax for us.

pic by Mike Mitchell

Pic by Mike Mitchell

Pic by Mike Mitchell

Bass Cover: Turn Off The News (Build A Garden) - Lukas Nelson

Copied and pasted from YouTube. Not sure why the color's all jacked up[. Frickin Blogger front end.

After work the other day, I got in the car and before my phone took over with a podcast, this song was on the radio. I forgot what part, but when the chorus hit with the female voice over the top, I was sold. That's my guilty pleasure, a pretty female harmony vocal. The song was pretty cool too; I had no idea what or who it was (I don't listen to the radio (other than XM) anymore).

A quick Google listen via the phone told me it was "Turn Off The News (Build a Garden)" by Lukas Nelson and his band. I did know Lukas is Willie's son, but that's the extent of that.

I'm also not a country music fan, but this isn't really country, right? It's rock? It's alt-country? I have no idea, but I sort of fell in love with it over the past few days.

During those few days, I discovered (thanks Wikipedia) that the female voice on this song is none other than Sheryl Crow, which makes total sense and makes me love it even more. I can't say I'm a super fan, but when her songs come on, I don't change the station.

Listening to the bass parts in this song, they are competent and fit the song but they are nothing that jumps out. Rather than learn the original bassist's lines note by note, I got enough of the flavor and got the song structure down pretty quickly. I did a quick run-through yesterday on a P bass and then figured, why not record as a bass cover?

I played through with my gold G&L also and got a great take, but not on video. I then grabbed the Hog and gave it a try and got a decent take. No major flubs, but more like "design choices" that, if I was in the studio, I'd want to punch in and refine. But for one take, I'll live with it.

Speaking of studio time, Planets is going back to the studio tomorrow, up to London Bridge. We're gonna get three more songs recorded, which will make something like 11 or 12, and hope to get a vinyl out within the next 3-5 years (jk). I figured getting some studio vibes in front of my home "studio" wouldn't be a bad thing and this here video is the result.

To record the bass, I went from my 84 G&L L-1000 with flats into my Focusrite, which went into Audacity. I downloaded the song via a YT to mp3 converter, then fed that into Moises.ai, which broke the stems out. Then I put those stems into Audacity and got to work. The bass tone has Audacity's built in "bass guitar" compression and "medium overdrive" via its distortion plugin. I bumped the bass up a little to put it up front, then married the Audacity mp3 to the phone video via Clipchamp on my PC.

All told, it took me about an hour or so. I hope you like the song as much as I do.  And, as the song says, "turn off the news," especially these days, especially tomorrow. I'll be in the recording studio, happily isolated.

I did CrossFit today

And it just about killed me.

Laurel put a post on her IG about having noobs join her at her CrossFit gym in Renton. I had talked to her earlier this week as she posted something else about self-harm and being sad from her brain injury. I realized that at the very least, I could listen and talk to her.

I was quite happy to hear that over the phone, she sounded normal, like I was talking to pre-injury Laurel. It really cheered her up to hear that as well, so it was a win/win for us. The last time I saw her was over the summer, and previous to that was for her birthday party in February, which was only about 4-5 months removed from her accident, so understandably, she was just starting to heal then.

Anyway, Marci and I headed to Renton this morning and showed up first at RCF, Renton CrossFit. New year, new us, I suppose! Laurel told us to dress for activities, bring a towel and water. All of it was clutch, for sure.

Pretty soon, others started showing up, including Josh and Laurel. Great to see them both and again, if I didn't know Lolo had an injury, I wouldn't have known. It's only physically that I can see anything is off with her and even that is slight.

We had a quick hug and catch up and before long, it was time to do the exercising.

We started with some stretching, and then it was onto the circuit. For today's circuit, it was

• Burn 12 calories on the rowing machine
• Perform 9 weighted ball "clean and jerks" and squats
• Perform 6 burpees
• Perform as many weighted ball sit-ups as possible with the time remaining

It took a minute to understand how it worked, and once I did, it made sense but and it was challenging as we went on. Josh and I paired up and we would take turns rowing. Once we hit 12 calories (about 30 seconds?), it was doing the weighted ball stunt. That was hardest for me, coordination-wise. It took a bit to figure out how to get my body to do what the exercise required. Burpees were simple enough, but after about 3, my legs started burning the first few times through. Same with the sit-ups. Josh and I were facing each other. One of us would grab the ball, lay back and touch the ball to the ground over our heads, then swing it up in a sit-up motion, then pass to the other. For most of the time, I'd do another sit-up as Josh was doing his ball turn, and then repeat.

The circuit, I seem to remember, was 7 rounds, 3 minutes each, one minute rest in between. I think through the first 3-4 rounds, I felt pretty good. But then for the last few, I started to fade. Muscles getting tired, breathing getting rough. Despite running 9-12 miles a week for the past few years, this was another animal. The cardio aspect of working all my muscles, vs mainly my legs, was such a huge difference.

Towards the end, I could barely get off the ground on my burpee jumps. And the sit-up ball was brutal. But we powered through and got our score, which was based on the number of sit-ups we'd do at the end of each circuit. Basically, getting through the first 3 tasks meant we'd have more time to do sit-ups. Oh joy!

In the end, I simply lay on the floor. I couldn't move. I couldn't catch my breath. I could hear Marci and Laurel and Josh talking, as well as everyone else, but I was finished. I don't know if it was pushing myself to keep up with Josh, or if I'm super out of shape or what, but it was rough. I think I was flat on the floor for at least 15 minutes or so, and finally had to move when the next group came in.

I shuffled over to a bench by the entrance and tried to catch my breath. I was feeling a little nauseated, so put my head between my legs to try to offset that. Marci bought me a gross recovery drink, but I could barely get that or even water down. After another 10-15 of that, I finally made my way to the car (Marci drove home) and we headed back.

About 3/4 the way home I started feeling better. I had a couple sips of that drink and right past the Shell station, I told Marci to pull over, that I was feeling sick. I got on the median and next to a retaining wall and puked up the water, drink and coffee from the morning. A couple heaves and I felt better. Didn't get my shoes too much, so that was good.

Finally we got home and I was able to get cleaned up. Overall, aside from the breathing and puking, I fell pretty good. My muscles are definitely sore and I am tired. It was great to see Lolo and Josh and we hope to be seeing them for dinner soon.

Will I do CrossFit again? Maybe? I don't know. I don't want to pay for something that I may never go do. But it was good to try and I'm proud of Marci and I for doing so. She's feeling good and stayed under control. We'll both sleep well tonight and be sore tomorrow, that's for sure.

Before the workout

2024 health recap

Weight, good news is I was steady, within 1-2lbs all year round. Bad news is I'm about 5-7lbs more than I'd like. Holding steady at 160-161lbs all year.

BP is decent, assuming I'm on my meds. If I don't take them during the morning, I usually don't. Forgot to today and yesterday, but on New Year's Day, I was at 129/89 or so.

Trying to run every other day still, and for the most part, I did. I took a week off when I had covid in May. Since starting work, I've been trying to run after work and recently, I'll be running after dinner has settled, usually between 8-9pm. Not so bad, except for it's dark out.

According to Garmin, I ran 152 times with a total distance run of 506.11 miles, down from 599 the year before. These days, if I don't do it, I don't miss it, but I do feel like I need to do it. Once I get my gear on, it's fine.

Mental health wise, I think I'm good. I had a temper tantrum the other day with Marci about something. I think we both need to work on listening and then responding, vs responding and then listening. Still a work in progress, even after 30+ years.

2024 final recap?

I guess so, why not? In no particular order, here are memories, items consumed, experiences experienced during the dumpster fire of 2024.

Gigs played

According to my handy spreadsheet, I played 18 shows: 6 with PITO, 7 with SGs, and 5 as a sub. Spread out pretty well between the bands, I guess, but I would have liked more shows overall. Financially speaking, about $2300 for the year, but that's not counting PITO take, which we put into the band fund pot for whatever. I may need to cash that out just to have it in pocket.

I subbed with Greg Hoy, the Greenwood Music Collective, Del Vox and Lawnlife. I think those were the most lucrative, bringing in $1100 total. The gigs from Greg and GMC and $$ I had left over from 2023 also funded the butter bass, so that was coooool.

Books read

Finished the year at 36.5 books read, with Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest completed on 1/2/24. My most read author was Catherine Ryan Howard, with five of her books. For the most part, I liked her books, but I think I got burnt out. I read three more of Alexander McCall Smith and they were all meh. I need more Inspector Varg; those are good books.

Guilty reads continued with CJ Box and Lincoln/Child. Robert Galbraith entered the list again, with another long, drawn out book. She just needs to get on with the will they/won't they angle and get it over with.

Don Winslow concluded his career with City in Ruins and that is a bummer. Richard Osman with a new set of characters in We Solve Murders, which was perfectly entertaining, but I rushed through it because I had several books on hold that were hitting at the same time.

Best choice of the year was re-reading the Millenium series, featuring Lisbeth Salander. I found a hardback copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo at a nearby Little Free Library and grabbed it. Of course, I grabbed a Kindle copy and started reading it. I know I had read the trilogy sometime before (spreadsheet shows prior to 2020, likely way earlier than that), but it had been long enough that I recalled hardly any of the details. I blew through that and the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, before moving onto some other books. As mentioned, I finished the last book yesterday and have moved onto the series continued after Larsson's death. We'll see how these books go.

Games played

I have no spreadsheet for this but basically I played Division 2 this year, reaching 1k SHD finally. I revisited (again) the original Division, and got to level 30, where the enemies are easier to kill, mainly because I'm leveled up now. It still holds up and I love it, but do wish it had the QOL updates that D2 has.

I tried Dying Light, an FPS zombie type game with Division style leveling. It's cool and runs great on my computer, but I need to dedicate more time to it. I end up rolling back to D2 most times.

I picked up Jedi Survivor and it's cool, but man, something is different from the first one, that I loved so much. Maybe I got burned out on it?

I finally finished RDR2's main story. Good stuff, though I'm still working on the epilogue. I need to go back and do side quests and random stories. Too good to not do, but just a big time sink.

For Christmas, I got Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and despite the horrible title, this game is the best game I've played in years! It is so much fun! It is beautiful, it ticks all my boxes (exploration, light action, killer story). The sound effects (punches and guns, esp) are straight out of the movies. The voice acting is top notch and though Indy doesn't look and sound *exactly* like Indiana Jones, when you are immersed in it, he is Indiana Jones. It is quite awesome and I can't wait to see how it plays out. I think I'm about 75% done with the main story now and all the side quests will be killer.

Shows watched

Hard to remember earlier in the year but most recently, it's been Schitt's Creek. My second watch, Marci's first and we both love it. It's nice to revisit and we should be finishing it in the next few nights.

We also started all these female detective shows. Elsbeth is one. It's funny and charming and Elsbeth is a great character. Matlock is basically the same show, only with an overarching storyline, in addition to the mysteries of the week. And then there's High Potential, which I don't like as much, but the star is easy on the eyes, so there's that.

Sad to say, we watched another Golden Bachelor/ette, but this time, there was an Asian bachelor, who obviously had no chance, but they sort of turned him into a mascot. Plus, he reminded me of Dad a bunch, so there's that.

Music listened to

Not much new here. Mainly yacht rock and classic rock, as always. I didn't fall for anything new, nor did anything old catch my ear. What is music anymore?

Cool things in 2024

Oh, I got a job in late January. Back at the IEC. Loving it and they love me. Will see how that goes this year as the building is scheduled to close in July. Supposedly there are plans to move us all to EC1, but that's not concrete at the moment, hope to learn more as it happens.

Took a road trip with Riley in May to bring him back from CMU. Nothing special happened, but it's fun to spend time with the kids in that capacity when there's nothing to do but hang out. We missed Marci's birthday, but made it up to her when we got back.

Haley is motoring through WWU. She has/had? a new friend, Evan, that she met at the Y over the summer. Then the other night she brought home a friend (non-student, he's in the Navy) named Blake, who was polite enough. She was taking him to the airport. She will graduate this spring and is excited for it. Not sure what is going to happen after that, but I'm guessing she's moving back home.

Marci has been at her job doing her best. She's getting tired of it; they changed leadership this year and it's been a struggle. That and getting teacher pay and working teacher's hours has been a challenge for sure. Not sure what the plan is, but maybe a new school will be in the works for 2025?

Overall, things are fine. We are making things work and surviving. Mom says things will be even better for us this year. Not that things were bad in 2024, but any growth and improvement is great.

Let's get it!!