Greetings all from the rainy, rainy, RAINY Northwest. This is the time of year that Seattle earns its reputation; for pretty much November through February, you can count on one thing around here: rain, and buckets of it. I think of the last thirty days or so, we've seen the sun TWICE. This really bugs a lot of people, but I'm one of those sick tickets who really LIKES rainy days. So, all is well with me.

I apologize for taking so long to post this news item, especially considering that the events described herein happened about a month ago now. What can I say but work and life intervene, and it takes me a while to get the updates posted. Ah, the Webmaster's Lament, eh? Anyway, I've just glanced over the last news entry, which was an exhaustive account of how I managed to persuade one Bryan Beller to venture north from LA to play on several tracks of my upcoming CD. Most of this entry will consist of a blow-by-blow of how things went while he was here, and I'm going to try to keep this one brief; anyone who actually slogged through that last story deserves a round of brevity from me this time. Also accompanying this entry is a slew of photos from the sessions. I'm sorry for the increased download times the pics will cause for those with slow connections, but I thought the pics were a necessary addition just this once. The lovely Amanda Wernert, AKA my long-suffering roomie, took all of the photos. So, here ya go, The Bryan Beller Sessions in a nutshell:

In the interim between Bryan Beller agreeing to play on my CD and his actual arrival, not much occurred of note. We ended up removing one song, "Do Not: Disturbed!" from the list of tunes for the session. I had to drop the song from the list because of trouble in synching my Finale software with my outboard sequencer, a Roland MC-50 MK II. Bryan's part would have been minimal anyway, so it's probably best that we didn't bother having him do it. I also prepared a few "cheat sheets" for Bryan; it would be sort of a stretch to call what I gave him "charts". In our initial conversations, it became clear that Bryan's schedule was filled nearly beyond the bursting point. In order to facilitate the most efficient possible learning curve for him, I prepared a Finale score that contained all of the "hot licks" residing throughout the material I'd given him to work on.

At last, the weekend of the Bryan Beller sessions arrived. Friday night, November 5, I drove down to Darin DiPietro's studio at about 9 PM to do some backups of the drum tracks we'd laid down in October. Leaving Dipietro Sound at 10:45, I proceeded directly to Sea-Tac Airport. Thanks to the wonderfully inaccurate routing systems of Alaska Airlines, I was sitting at the wrong gate at the appointed arrival time for Bryan's flight. By the time I became clued in to this situation, and finally found the right gate (after THREE tries), Bryan was nowhere to be found. Helluva way to make a first impression, huh? At last, I found Bryan at the baggage claim (again, UNMARKED BY ANY FLIGHT NUMBERS, thanks Alaska), just as he was collecting the last of his gear.

Impressions of the Bassboy? Bryan is a forceful personality, articulate and opinionated. He also has an extremely infectious, booming laugh, along with a great sense of humor. Here are some things we discovered in common during our initial in-person conversations:

• We both have big-ass feet.
• We both have nearly identical antique leather jackets.
• Bryan says our CD collections are unnervingly similar (though my King's X collection is more extensive).
• We both started at the Berklee College of Music at the same time, in the fall semester of 1989. Bryan just looked at me incredulously when I told him I left Berklee after only two weeks. I didn't have the guts to admit to him that I left for a girl. Ah, to be 19 and a complete idiot again.

Things started off Saturday morning with a morning breakfast attended by myself, Bryan, aforementioned roomie Amanda, and drummer Chris G at the Brown Bag in Kirkland. Much laughter and shenanigans ensued, and soon much awe was displayed at the immense size of the food portions at the Brown Bag. Over the course of our breakfast discussion, it came out that Amanda is a software tester at The Really Huge Redmond Software Company That Shall Remain Nameless. This revelation prompted Bryan to invent a new super heroine called Beta Girl: her hook is that she's always getting new and amazing super-powers... but she never knows if they're going to work or not. "Beta" Girl, get it? A little software humor for ya? Maybe you had to be there, but suffice it to say, roomie Amanda was re-christened Beta Girl at the breakfast, and she remains so until this day.

After the ungodly huge breakfast (complete with Loozie-Anna Hot Links), Bryan and I headed to Seattle's Bass Northwest before the session. Bryan works by day at SWR Engineering, and thus knows the fellows at Bass Northwest (who sell SWR gear) well. We had initially planned to borrow gear for the session from the store, but it turned out that the studio had an acceptable SWR rig on site, so we were just stopping by for a quick hello. Bryan introduced me to the two owners, Chad Beeler and Evan Sheeley, who were very fine chaps indeed. Bryan gave me a quick overview of the SWR product line, most of which was on display at Bass NW; it's clear that Bryan is very proud of his work with that company. I admire the fact that while having a "day job" at SWR perhaps wouldn't have been his first choice career-wise (say, in lieu of a world-wide tour with some hugely famous artist), he still takes what he does there seriously and gives the company his absolute best work. This was in fact the single strongest impression I got about Bryan overall: he does things 115% at all times, or he doesn't bother. And he expects a similar effort from those around him.

We arrived at Dipietro Sound at about 1:30 PM. After quickly exchanged hellos between Darin and Bryan, Bryan got right to work setting up his rig. We set up two rigs, actually, side-by-side, one consisting of Darin's SWR SM-400 head into a SWR 4x10 cabinet, the other using Bryan's SWR Interstellar Overdrive preamp into the power section of a GK head (I think) for the "fuzz" tone. Both rigs were mic'ed, and combined with a direct signal in varying ways, depending on the tone Bryan was going for in each song. Things were going swimmingly until we were unceremoniously faced with what henceforth shall be referred to as Beller Session Trial Number One.

Beller Session Trial Number One

While futzing around with the clean sound, Bryan noticed a weird, somewhat random sound coming from the "clean" rig. It sort of sounded like crumpling paper, and it came and went at random. After hunting for all possible problem sources, including testing cables, etc., the problem was traced to the SM-400 head itself. Not good. Bryan and Darin had the amp out of the rack and opened up within minutes, and it quickly became clear that this amp could not be used in the session. Oops. It was now 3:30, the clock was ticking, now what do we do? In a heartbeat, Bryan was on the phone with Chad and Evan at Bass NW, trying to secure from them a loaner SWR amp of any kind. Lucky for us, they had a used SWR "studio model" (I think it was an SM-200, don't quote me). So, back in the car Bryan and I went, and back to Bass Northwest we did go. We tried not grumble at Cruel Fate for having let us stop by Bass Northwest on the way to the session, without mentioning that we'd need to come back only hours later. I want to stop here and thank Chad and Evan again for helping us out; though I know full well that if the person asking hadn't been Bryan Beller, it probably wouldn't have happened. Still, they saved the session with their generosity, and I very, VERY much appreciate it.

We got back to the studio at right about 5:00 PM. We jumped right back into action. Even though we had lost quite a bit of time, I never felt worried that we'd not get all the songs tracked. I think that the 19-year-old version of me would have completely flipped his lid at this point; through all the bizarre happenings that occurred during the session (you didn't think there was only ONE Beller Session Trial, did you?), I felt completely calm. I can't explain it, but I never lost my composure; I'm a little proud of myself, actually. You'll pardon me as I pat myself on the back, won't you?

The loaner amp sounded great, a little more sonic tweaking and Bryan and Darin had dialed up a pretty gloriously huge bass tone. We dove right in, attacking a song called "I've Got A Bad Feeling About This". Bryan wanted to do it first, as he felt it would be among the most difficult of the songs to play. It definitely has a couple of tricky licks in it, and the whole song is a Drop D song played on guitar tuned down a half step to D Flat. Rather than tune his bass down, Bryan just played it in standard tuning, which made for some pretty awkward fingerings. He blew through it in about an hour, of course. It was fun to watch the process, with both Bryan and Darin sizing the other up, establishing a working relationship. I can barely say the words "Darin DiPietro" without also saying the words "unbelievably good puncher". For those not steeped in recording studio lingo, "punching" is the act of selectively recording sections of a performance, rather than recording an entire unbroken take. Punching is also done to fix goof-ups in a part, like incorrect or rushed notes. The player plays along with the previously recorded part, and the engineer starts the recorder at just the moment of the error, and then stops it again, so that all the player records at the moment of the "punch" are the wrong notes. If done well, you can't even tell there was ever an error; it sounds like one seamless take. Darin is a GOD at this, and by the time the sessions were over, Bryan too was bowing to the D-Man's preeminent punching abilities.

Next on the agenda was "Throw Me A Bone", which is sort of the "King's X" tribute song of the whole record. I even used the so-called "magic Ty Tabor amp" (a Gibson Lab Series L5) for my guitar tracks. Compared to some of the others, the song is pretty straightforward, and Bryan nailed it pretty quickly. It was around this time that Beta Girl arrived at the studio. It had been her intention to meet us for dinner, but due to Session Trial Number One, we'd gotten a late start. At this point, Bryan was pretty warmed up, and he wanted to push ahead, so Beta Girl had a seat on the sofa and pretended with all of her might that she wasn't bored out of her gourd.

The next song to be tackled was "What Have We Here?" which is the epic closer tune of the CD. Bryan mentioned to me before the session that this was his favorite track, and I was excited to see what he'd come up with. The song is long and goes through a wide variety of dynamic shifts, and Bryan thought it would be a good idea to play with combining different bass sounds to fit the mood of each section. To facilitate this, we decided that bass OVERDUBS were necessary. Heaven forbid, right? After laying down a "subdued, yet somehow foreboding" tone for the quieter parts of the song, Bryan cranked the Interstellar Overdrive to full on "fuzz death" for the more ornery sections. What a glorious noise! My favorite moment of the entire weekend occurred while we tracked this song. Bryan played all of the last chorus and the ride-out ending in one take, and it was MAGICAL. Since we'd had no time to sit down and talk much about what he'd be playing before we were actually in the studio tracking it, I was hearing Bryan's spin on the tunes for the first time as we recorded them. I pretty much held my breath for the last two and a half minutes of that song, absolutely stunned at what I was seeing and hearing. As the song ended, there was a pause in the room. Finally Bryan said, "We ain't changing ANY of THAT!" Oh, and lest I forget the other landmark event that occurred during this particular tune: BRYAN BELLER PLAYED WITH A PICK! Yep, you read that correctly, and there's certainly no plainer sign that the coming of the apocalypse is at hand. There are some loud hits during the bridges, and Bryan thought they required the use of a plectrum to get them to sound right. He mentioned that Steve Vai had given him about a ten-minute lesson on how to hold a pick when he'd done the session for The Ultra Zone. It was very entertaining watching Bryan struggle with a pick, and hey, it could never happen again, so I'm glad I was there to see it!

After finishing off "What Have We Here?" it was decided that dinner had been put off as long as possible, and feeding was now a priority. We all adjourned to the nearby Olive Garden, and consumed an embarrassing amount of faux-Italian cuisine. Upon our return to the studio, we managed to track one more song, "Truth", before deciding to call it a night. "Truth" featured an interesting effect Bryan brought with him called "Bass Balls", which created a sound that's pretty much indescribable, except for the fact that it was, uh, really cool sounding. By the time "Truth" was on tape, it had gotten very late, and we were still feeling full to bursting from dinner, so we decided that we'd resume Sunday afternoon at 12:00. All told, we only had one more song to do, even with the unexpected pleasure of Beller Session Trial Number One. We left feeling pretty danged good.

Beller Session Trial Number Two

We arrived at the studio right on time at noon on Sunday, Bryan and myself once again accompanied by Beta Girl. We had until about 4:30 or so to get the last tune, "No More Evil" done before we absolutely had to stop in order to get Bryan to the airport on time. I was completely confident we'd do so, regardless of the fact that the tune was somewhat of a bear. There's a very fast synth bass line that runs through the majority of the song, and Bryan had elected to dupe it most of the way through. Even so, I was sure we'd finish with time to spare.

Bryan was warming up, we were all of us joking around, and the mood was jovial. Suddenly I looked to my left, and I saw Darin, frowning, gingerly removing one of the ADAT tapes from the recorder - with the tape extending from the cassette, and into the machine. Ever have a VCR eat one of your videotapes? Essentially, ADAT's are glorified VCR's, and I was watching one of them munch the very cassette on which Bryan had recorded on all the previous day. If the tape had been munched to the breaking point, Bryan's work from the day before would be essentially gone forever. This is why one religiously backs up the work they do after a session with ADAT's: something we had neglected to do the night before. Bryan looked at me; I looked at him, attempting to keep up a brave face. Thoughts that went through my head included: "Well, we can keep going today and track "No More Evil", and maybe Bryan could quickly re-track some of the easier tunes; regardless, SOMETHING usable would come out of this session." I refused to give into panic; this was helped by the fact that Darin was all business. He quickly extracted the ADAT from the rack, and removed the top of the box. As Darin began the ADAT brain surgery, the tension was thick enough that Bryan had to leave the room; he went out into the main studio and banged away on Darin's six-string fretless bass to blow off steam. He told me later that had it been he in my shoes, his head would probably have exploded, "Scanners"-style. I was very afraid, no question, but at that moment, I refused to assume the worst.

Carefully, Darin extricated the wounded tape from the ADAT, and I helped him re-spool it on the cassette. Darin said that the tape had not broken, and it hadn't gotten twisted, so we were likely in luck. Thankfully, the munching point was prior to the tracks Bryan had done the day before, so nothing was lost. We were able to back the contents of the tape to a new cassette, and we were good as new again. PHEEEEEEEW.

We launched into the recording of "No More Evil", and it proved to be the most difficult track for Bryan, just for the sheer brute physical difficulty of it. Bryan played the main track with an octave divider, and then overdubbed another melodic part with a fuzz-tone sound. At about this time came my most embarrassing moment of the session. There's a little line in the guitar part I wanted Bryan to dupe, and I quickly told him what the notes were. I didn't realize it at that moment, but I had inadvertently told him the melody in the wrong key. I should have been clued in as Bryan looked at me with a puzzled expression as he worked out what I had told him. "A natural? Are you sure?" Oblivious, I nodded in the affirmative. While we tracked the part we had the guitars pulled out of the mix; once Bryan had finished we cranked them back up as we sat back and listened. The melody line as I told it to Bryan was exactly one half step too high, so you can imagine the calamity that ensued when we heard the playback. Luckily, Darin is the Punch-In King, and he was able to zip Bryan in and out on just those wrong notes, and you'd never be able to tell I'd been such a doofus. In my defense, I originally wrote the song a half step higher, and later transposed it; I still think of it in terms of the original key. Still, I felt like quite the goon. Regardless, Bryan's playing on "No More Evil" is absolutely astounding. He used the "Bass Balls" once again on the guitar solo section, and it sounds so amazing that I'm considering pulling the underlying synth pad out at that point, in order not to distract from Bryan's audio splendor. The effect kind of makes Bryan's bass sound like a synth anyhow, which is in keeping with the spirit of the song.

And so we were done! Due to Beller Session Trial Number Two, we didn't finish as early as we'd have liked. However Bryan, Beta Girl and I still had enough time to enjoy a few games of Cutthroat at a local pool hall before we had to take Bryan back to the airport. Goodbyes were said, compliments and thank yous flowed freely, contact info was exchanged, pictures were taken, and Bryan was on his way back to California.

I am pleased as punch to report that Bryan is singularly pleased with what we got on tape during his whirlwind stay here. I've heard a great deal of Bryan's recorded work, and I think I can say with some accuracy that the tones we got are unique compared to the rest of his recorded output at this point. It was very important to me that Bryan get something out of the experience, that it be at least a little more than "just another session". After watching his enthusiasm as we worked in the studio, and hearing his excited comments upon hearing the rough mix, I think that I just may have pulled it off. Working with Bryan was a dream come true for me, and despite the little hiccups we ran into during the sessions, the experience was a complete pleasure from start to finish. I can't wait for the CD to be finished, so that everyone who wants to can hear it. I can honestly say that the CD is exceeding the hopes I had for it in terms of quality; it's going to be something special.

And the work continues! This past Saturday, Tobe Ramsey and I were back in the studio, laying down bass for the last tune that needed it, "You Fell". It came out wonderfully, with Tobe using three different basses and three different tones for one song. It's nutty, folks. Unfortunately, last weekend's session will be the last for this calendar year, as the holidays approach with frightening speed, and I'm traveling back east this year, so no more time will be had for recording until January. I still think I'm on pace for a late March/early April release date for the CD. Keep your fingers crossed.

In other Yogi music news (and I know you never tire of THAT), it looks like next year assuming the world doesn't end in a couple of weeks, I'll be continuing to play with the Joey Furlan band in the local area. I'm glad of that, I had lots of fun this year backing up Joey. The band is GOOD, too, and that's always a plus. As always, upcoming gigs of any kind that I'll be a participant of will be listed right here at the site.

Lastly, if you are at all interested in the upcoming CD, Any Raw Flesh?, please let me know by filling out the CD Info Signup Form I've just added to the site. If you give me your name and email addy at least, I will let you know for sure when the CD is released. Thanks very much for your interest. Click HERE to go to the CD Info Signup page.

If you have read through this whole thing, I thank you. I wonder what in the world is wrong with you, but I thank you just the same.

There has not been a film like Being John Malkovich, and I think that's a damned amazing thing. Tally ho!

Was that me earlier, saying this was going to be brief? Nah. Couldn't have been.

OK, so for the last couple of months, I've been alluding to something really special happening in Yogi-ville. Something related to the continuing work being done on my new CD project. I've been really coy about it, but now the "special event" has come and gone, and I feel ready to talk about it. Or to be more exact, celebrate it. This is a LONG STORY, so be forewarned.

This past weekend (November 6-7), Bryan Beller, bassist extraordinaire known for his work with Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, and Dweezil Zappa among others, flew from LA and recorded bass guitar for six tracks on my upcoming album, Any Raw Flesh?

So, now that I feel I can talk about this, I should start at the very beginning. The number one question I get asked by those who know of this already is - how? How did this occur? I have to laugh as I recall the look of surprise and bewilderment on the face of Evan Sheeler (co-owner of Bass Northwest in downtown Seattle) after he asked Bryan how he knew me (and thus, would be willing to be a part of my project). Before Bryan could reply, I smiled and said, "He didn't know me from Adam." Nothing against Evan at all, in fact you'll see in the NEXT news update that Evan and Chad Beeler at Bass Northwest saved my ass on the day that Bryan was here to record, and thus have my undying gratitude. But the reaction is typical. How did a guy like me who has no professional resume to speak of (aside from working in the local Seattle area) get someone like Bryan Beller to come to Seattle and play on my project? The short answer is: I asked Bryan to do it and he said, "OK". In essence, it all comes down to three things: good timing, luck (A LOT of luck), and a little dash of somewhat interesting and challenging music written by me that piqued the interest of Mr. Beller.

Honestly, I can't remember the first time the thought of involving Bryan, or in fact ANYONE outside of my close circle of musician friends occurred to me, but it was certainly some months ago. I've been a huge fan of Bryan's playing since I first heard him on the Mike Keneally CDs he's played on (Boil That Dust Speck, Half Alive in Hollywood, and Sluggo!). In fact, the release of Sluggo! in early December of 1997 was the catalyst that kicked me out of a months-long musical funk. Without revisiting a lot of ancient self-pity (and boring you to tears in the process), I can say that, at that time, I was really grappling with several life decisions I had made (many of which were frightfully BAD), and trying to get a sense of what I should do both musically and in "the real world". Circa late '97, I wasn't doing much of ANYTHING creatively (except maybe working on the web site, which is sort of ironic since the site is supposed to be dedicated to documenting and trumpeting my creative pursuits, of which there were almost none back then). Instead, I had just begun my ill-conceived tenure playing in a cover band AND working a daytime job that would essentially prevent me from doing anything worthwhile for all of 1998, aside from being tired and grumpy and gaining fifty pounds. Ugh.

So Sluggo!, which to me is one of the great records of the 1990's, hit me like a Mack truck, and in one titanic musical statement, addressed basically ALL of the various concerns I had at the time. To wit: I found myself alienated from what is called "popular music". I had come to believe that the kind of music I liked to hear wasn't necessarily DESIRED by the masses, which doomed me and my music to obscurity. Sluggo!'s answer to that? QUIT YER CRYIN' YOU BIG BABY AND GET TO WORK. Mike Keneally wasn't then and isn't now a household name, but he continues to crank out startlingly beautiful music regardless. No artist truly wants to work in a vacuum, and I think even the most esoteric of creative folk secretly desire mass acceptance. However, to really receive joy from the creative process, YOU HAVE TO BE INVOLVED IN IT. You can't just sit around moaning about how nobody cares. The other thing that really hit me about Sluggo! is that it is still possible for a record to be made and released in this day and age that flies wildly all over the musical map, yet remains a cohesive and focused musical message. Mike Keneally, at least in an artistic sense, is FEARLESS. He makes the records he wants to, consequences be damned. He constantly challenges "what is allowed" on a rock record and defies all expectations that others may have for him. It's that aspect of his work that really galvanized me, got me rolling again, and got me BELIEVING again. In the years immediately prior to and including 1997, I had submerged certain aspects of my creative inclinations in favor of the side of myself that writes music I hoped was "palatable" on a large scale. Sluggo! was a joyful call to that long-buried whimsical, goofy, and frankly, WEIRD side of me that I didn't let out anymore, at least in my music. I knew that all of this had to change. I know I promised that I wouldn't delve too much into this part of the story (oops, too late), but I can't stress enough how important that one record was to me.

So it was that one night in December 1997 I was driving home from a gig (at Christie's in Fife, WA if you must know; round-trip distance from where I lived in Mill Creek: 94 miles) at about 2 AM, bathed in the audio splendor that is Sluggo! when a track called "Voyage to Manhood" grabbed my attention. It's one of my favorites on the record, and the aspect of it that sticks out most strongly in my mind is the bass playing of Bryan Beller. In fact, as I listened to it, I decided that I was going to have to send Bryan an email THAT VERY NIGHT informing him that I thought his playing on the album, and on that track in particular, was spectacular. At the time, Bryan had his email address posted on the Keneally web site and encouraged email discourse with Keneally fans. So when I got home, I wrote that email message to Bryan, jokingly compared his playing on "Voyage to Manhood" to Michael Anthony (a wildly under appreciated and too oft-maligned player in my book), and made a brief inquiry into the working relationship between himself and Mike. I was curious to know how Mike communicated to Bryan some of the overwhelmingly complex material that ended up on the Keneally recordings. Much to my surprise and delight, Bryan replied the very next day with a fairly detailed track-by-track breakdown of his initial learning phase of the material on Sluggo!. For some reason, I thought it would be a really great idea if I PRINTED OUT Bryan's reply message. Looking back, this seems like a weird thing to do, and weirder still that as of today, I STILL HAVE IT. As the story continues, you will see me thank my lucky stars that I saved it.

Bryan is the author of a column that appears on the Mike Keneally web site called "The Life of Bryan". I have been reading this column since the early months of 1997. It is extraordinarily well written, full of fascinating insights into "life as an LA musician in the latter part of the 20th Century". Those of you who either have been coming to MY site since then, or perhaps have actually bothered to go back and read some of the old listings on this "News/Items" page, have probably noticed a not-so-gradual shift from short, giddy little "news" items like, "Yippee! I played a show last week! Boy, was it ever fun!" to longer, more journal-like and in-depth (sometimes nauseatingly so) "articles". This is no accident, and that transformation coincides exactly with my discovering, and COMPLETELY falling under the spell of, "The Life of Bryan". No ifs, ands, or buts, I TOTALLY co-opted the format of this news page from Bryan's column. I felt it important to note that Bryan has had his own influence on me, apart from just playing on the Keneally records.

Here I'm going to hop on the pro-Internet soapbox for a moment and ask you to consider what an amazing opportunity email and web sites offer artists and their fans to interact. Maybe, because it happened a while ago, it's easy for me to shrug off the fact that I sent messages to musicians (Bryan Beller and Mike Keneally) who I admire, who then REPLIED THEMSELVES DIRECTLY TO ME, SOMETIMES ANSWERING QUESTIONS I ASKED IN GREAT DETAIL. I didn't get some "autographed promo pic" (likely signed by some marketing stooge) with a form letter response. I got actual comments directly from the artists themselves. As a young musician, in the pre-Internet days, the best you could hope for was that some interviewer who worked for a guitar magazine would ask the cool "Rock God of the Moment" just the very questions you had in mind; most times, they didn't and all you could do was wonder and dream of what you'd say if you ever had the chance to meet your heroes. The chances of actually meeting these folks hasn't gotten any greater, but having Mike Keneally explain in an email how to count difficult polyrhythms is, to me, A WHOLE LOT BETTER. Artists who don't take advantage of this are missing out on a great thing. OK, off the soapbox now.

Bryan writes his accounts in such a way that you start to feel over time that you "know" him; this is a dangerous assumption to make of anyone you've never met, but it's a hard feeling to shake. Reading his column, I couldn't help noticing that we had quite a bit in common: musical tastes, a predilection for self-deprecating humor, a similar appreciation for some of life's more absurd ironies. Perhaps it was all these things that started the little "Back-Of-The-Head" voices whispering to me, "Wouldn't it be great to work with this guy?"

In early 1999, I finished a song that will be the first track on the CD called "I've Got A Bad Feeling About This". The song has got lots of tricky little kick-drum syncopations that are constantly changing, and there's a couple of strange arrangement morsels that are just enough to infuriate anyone who is trying to learn the tune. I clearly recall thinking after I finished it, "Bryan Beller would eat this song alive." I didn't say this out loud to anyone until February 20, 1999, the day I first stepped into DiPietro Sound and shook hands with Darin DiPietro.

I've written constantly on this page about how great Darin is. He's brash, he's opinionated, he's got a HUGE heart, and he is hands-down the best engineer I've ever worked with. I won't re-hash the account of what went on that day in February at the studio, except to say that it began what I hope is a long working relationship between Darin and myself. That day, we were doing drums and we got great sounds, and I know at some point at the end of the day as we basked in the glow of a job well done, I said something like this in response to Darin's query about the direction of the project: "I'm thinking of contacting this guy in LA to come up and play bass on a few tracks." I know I said this to him, because between that session in February and when I next talked to him almost six months later in August, one of the first things Darin said to me was, "Are you still going to call that guy in LA?"

At that moment, I wasn't sure. There were eight tracks that needed bass and I was operating under the impression that Tobe Ramsey, my lifelong friend and co-conspirator in several music projects over the years, was going to be doing them. Tobe's involvement in this project is very precious to me, and his work on the three tracks he previously recorded for it, WAY back in February '98, was excellent. Over the last couple of years, Tobe has made himself, via sheer force of will and not a little talent, into a software developer. A side effect of this process has been that he has become stupidly busy, and in about July or so, two thoughts began to occur to me on a regular basis. One: I really, really, REALLY was feeling a compulsion to make a push to finish this project AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Two: Tobe had almost no extra time, and seemed to duck the subject of tracking the bass parts whenever I'd timidly try to sneak the notion into the few conversations I'd have with him. The idea of looking elsewhere to get the bass tracks done began to occur to me fairly frequently, usually accompanied with CRUSHING feelings of guilt associated with taking them away from Tobe. I even entertained the idea of doing some of the tracks myself, but thank goodness I came to my senses in time. The crazy idea of contacting Beller began gnawing consistently at the edge of my consciousness; at the very least, I started thinking I needed to at minimum give him the opportunity to politely decline the offer, if he even chose to respond at all, so I could move on to other solutions.

All this came to a head on September 7, 1999, following the release of Steve Vai's new solo album, The Ultra Zone. The CD featured, yup you guessed it, none other than Bryan Beller on two of the three best tracks, "Lucky Charms" and "Fever Dream". I listened to the CD incessantly for almost two weeks, not just because of Bryan, but also because, at least in my mind, the album is a return to form for Steve. I've made no secret of my adoration of Steve's music, "Little Green Men" and "The Attitude Song" having been two pieces that gave me courage to devote myself to music at an impressionable age. He's letting himself visit the fringes a little more on the new record; trying to stretch the minds of his fan base that expects nothing but guitar impossibilities in every measure. Aside from Steve, there's a plethora of some of the finest players on the planet on the CD, and I'll bet you can guess who impressed me the most. Nothing against the other bassists on the album, but Bryan has an energy in his work that is difficult to describe but is ever-present and really lifts the material. I started allowing myself to think about how amazing it would be to get some of that "Beller Mojo" on my project. It seemed like such a crazy idea. As I turned it over and over in my head though, I began to see it as a real possibility. From what I knew of his schedule for the autumn of '99 (detailed, of course, in "The Life of Bryan"), Bryan wasn't going to be touring with Keneally. He'd been doing sessions in LA so he was, in fact, open to session work for SOME people. I started to see that very likely it would come down to three things: timing, money, and interest in the music. The central question at that point to me was, "Would Bryan like the material enough to be willing to lend his time and name to it?" Only one way to find out!

At last, I worked up enough courage to send out an email inquiry, and I did so on the night of September 15, 1999. In the interim between the time I had last emailed Bryan, he had removed his email address from public display on the Keneally site. All I had was the email address listed on the message from him that I had printed out back in '97. I was sure that there was no way in hell Bryan would be using the same email address; I'd changed MINE since then and so had most everyone I knew. So, as I clicked the SEND button that night, I figured there was a very real chance that the message would never find its intended recipient. Perhaps if I'd known it would get to and be read by Bryan in less than an hour, I might've chickened out. The very next day, I was shocked and wildly excited when I got a very polite return message from Bryan that basically said the following: "Interesting. Send me a tape."

Talk about a kick in the head! It's one thing to have a pipe dream; it's another beast entirely to have the subject of said dream actually consider your offer. Before I had the chance to enjoy my initial feelings of shock and giddy excitement, another truckload of guilt slammed into me: I had eight tracks with no bass, I had given them all to my buddy Tobe, now I wanted to send them to this "famous" guy instead. I hadn't even given Tobe any hint of my nefarious plans before acting on them. Part of me hadn't believed there was a chance of even REACHING Beller, let alone have him be INTERESTED. What to do, what to do? First, I arranged to meet with Tobe over dinner the next day. I felt that the only thing I could do was be completely honest and hope that he would understand. I decided that I would offer Tobe "propriety" over any of the unfinished tracks that he took a particular shine to. Tobe is, by anyone's measure, a terrific bassist and bass is only the tip of his particular iceberg of talent. I felt, and still feel however, that getting someone like Bryan to participate was a necessary thing; after two long years of neglect, this project needed a bold move, a shot in the arm. I pretended not to hear the other voices in my head that kept chattering on about how Beller would, by his mere presence, give the project a credibility that it had previously lacked. I knew that certain people who had never before given me the time of day might now be interested in hearing the finished product simply because Bryan Beller played on it. I hoped and hoped (and frankly, believed) that Tobe wouldn't kill me.

I'm so glad I was right. I could barely look at the guy when we first sat down to talk about it and I just barreled through the whole spiel I had rehearsed in my head as fast as I could because I felt that if I didn't, I'd lose my nerve. Thankfully, Tobe absolutely got it. He saw how good this could potentially be for the project and shared in my excitement. I made my offer to him to pick any tunes he wanted to keep, and he took me up on it, choosing a new song called "You Fell". The huge burden of guilt lifted from my shoulders, we relaxed and talked about what was going on in our lives with a degree of sincerity and excitement I hadn't felt for some time. It feels strange to me to be old enough to have a friend that I've known for over twenty years; to still be living close enough to each other that we're able to hang out and have a beer or catch a flick or just talk. I recognize now what a rare thing I have with Tobe Ramsey, and I wouldn't do anything in the world to jeopardize that. That's really why I got so worked up about this whole thing; I didn't want my old friend to think that I viewed him as second best. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Armed with Tobe's blessing, I made a tape of the seven remaining unclaimed tunes for Bryan and sent it out via Fed Ex on Friday. Knowing Bryan would receive it on Monday, I had the weekend to wait and wonder. It was a long couple of days, let me tell ya.

Monday evening, the 20th, the phone rang and the voice on the other end said, "Hi, this is Bryan Beller." and I can barely remember the conversation that followed because I was way too excited. I remember consciously trying to modulate the tone of my voice (failing miserably), and desperately trying to not say too many things that would make me sound like a drooling fan boy (yup, failed on this count too). Bryan said a couple of really flattering things about the songs and said he was certainly up for doing the project. I asked him which of the seven tunes he wanted to work on, thinking that perhaps he'd want to pick one or two, maybe three. Instead he said, "Well, I didn't hear anything on the tape that I wouldn't want to do." I could barely believe it. Here was BRYAN BELLER agreeing to play on over two-thirds of MY little CD. We chatted a bit about other things, went over some particulars that would need to be taken care of to get him to Seattle, and set a date for the first weekend in November for the visit and session. I thanked him vigorously way too many times, at which time HE thanked ME for thinking of HIM. This struck me as being wonderfully gracious and strangely surreal all at the same time. We agreed to communicate via email and the occasional phone call as the date of the session approached. After hanging up the phone, I was so stunned I could barely move. In the list of "Great Big Deals" in my little musical career, this was something WAY up there near the top of the list, if not at THE top.

So, that's the HOW. Next: the WHAT HAPPENED. See you all soon!

The studio will make you crazy.

It's hard to describe the weird state of mind being in the recording studio for hours on end will impose upon you. Hours of listening to the same song, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER yet again, dissecting every extreme little nuance. You are paying attention so closely to every little deviation in time, tempo, and inflection, that after a while you can start forgetting just what the heck the end result of all this is going to be.

A little pop/rock song. That's it.

Last Saturday, Chris G and I ventured once again to DiPietro Sound to lay down what should be the final drum tracks for The Project That Would Not Die, this CD of mine I've been working on for nearly two years. Once again behind the board was Darin DiPietro, whose work I appreciate more and more each time I spend time with him. We laid down three tracks, Soundcheck (which is the short title for something called I've Got A Bad Feeling About This), Truth, and You Fell. We had a Friday night setup, so's we could get the sounds dialed up, and then recorded all day Saturday. If you've ever spent much time in the studio, you know that it can be uniquely stressful, and sometimes about as pleasant as being drawn and quartered. Setting up and recording on different days really helps the process. You get set up and get your sounds one day, you come back the next and worry only about playing.

We made great progress throughout the day, and once again I must re-iterate that Chris G is the most well-prepared player I have ever worked with. Oh, and by the way, he also ROCKS so very much. Chris, you kick all of the available ass, and you do it on a consistent basis. Thank you. For the most part, Chris was able to blaze through everything, and where he didn't, Darin (for whom I'm having a plaque made that reads, "I AM The World's Greatest Puncher") was able to punch Chris in and out where sections needed a touch-up. Darin's attention to detail is inspiring, and he gets the best drum sounds I've ever had on my stuff. Darin, a hat tip to your own bad self. You ARE the master.

The other thing that Darin did was to keep Chris and I from going down that horrible aforementioned road of "Studio Dementia". The last track of the day was "You Fell", which features a strange verse section that is almost all samples and weird noises and such. On the basic track, Chris just played kick and snare through it. There's a hi-hat part I wanted as well, but because I am just way too silly, I really want to run the hi-hat for that one section through a flanger at mix time; the only way to get the hi-hat properly isolated was to overdub it seperately. It's amazing how something so simple is sometimes the hardest thing to get on tape. Chris gamely went after take after take just overdubbing the hi-hat part, but had a hard time getting it to sync with the samples. The fact is, as a drummer, he is almost never asked to play a groove on just one piece of his kit at a time; he bases his concept of time and feel on how he's playing the whole kit, as a unit. We finally figured out a strategy to get it, but once THAT was done, Chris and I, pretty much fried at that point, started thinking that some of the original kick and snare parts were rushed. And because of yet another foible of mine, I wrote a coda to the song that required a whole different drum setup, so it was impossible at that moment to go back and re-track the notes we thought were off. Dismay and frustration were beginning to combine into a strange sort of gloom, but Darin came to the rescue once again. He let us know that HE didn't hear anything not kosher, and that we were starting to hear things that weren't there, just because we were tired. And I'll be danged tootin', when I listened to the rough mix the next day, all of those perceived "miscues" weren't there, and they had never been there at all. I have to remind myself that it's hard to listen to loud drums for ten hours in a row, as much as you may love the process. After a while you start getting loopy, and the best thing to do at that moment is walk away.

So the bottom line is this: the drums are DONE! After two long years of work on this project (some of it in the physical plane, most of it in the mental), I can finally say that one aspect is complete. Amazing. Next session is on November 6. This is the session that I alluded to earlier this year on this page, as being sort of "special" for me. I was vague about the details then, and I'm going to continue to be vague at this time. I'll write about it after it's over. It's a big deal, though. You may even be surprised.

Good things keep happening.

There have been many rather extraordinary circumstances occurring with a shocking regularity in recent weeks. I find myself constantly surprised, humbled, gratified. I find myself hoping against hope in ways that I’ve denied for so long, that it feels like a completely new experience. Hope is a good word. Excitement is another. Vindication is yet an altogether different beast, but all of these are feelings I have been having in huge quantities lately.

Knock on wood, good things keep happening. For instance, progress in the studio! Here’s the skinny on THAT situation…

So it ‘twas I, back in the studio again this weekend, back down to DiPietro Sound. As has been my experience every time I have worked in Darin DiPietro’s studio, I had a very productive session, with extraordinary results. The guy thus far can do no wrong. If you out there in Internet Land could only hear what we’ve been working on, you’d be amazed. I recorded the rhythm guitars for three songs over the course of one very long day (Saturday the 25th). The songs were: “What Have We Here?”, “No More Evil”, and “Throw Me A Bone”. The first two were ripped through in three and a half hours, the last took another five. I knew going in that “Throw Me A Bone” was going to be the beast, which is why I saved it for last. Even though when listening to it, the parts don’t seem that involved or difficult, my God, there were moments where I swore that I would never get through it.

Another thing I learned about Darin DiPietro, is that he is the World’s Greatest Puncher. There were moments where we’d listen to the playback and hear one wrong note, say a note pulled sharp inside a chord, and he’d get me in and out with a punch-in on that one note. I had heard of such things, and not really believed it could be done. Darin showed me how wrong I am to be a skeptic. Darin, you absolutely rock. He made me sound like an actual real-life guitar player.

Next recording session is scheduled for the weekend of October 15-16, with Chris G on drums and Darin twiddling the knobs as only he can. After that weekend, the drums for “Any Raw Flesh?” should be FINISHED. And I can put a check mark in the “drums” column on the white board. What a huge moment that will be. To think that the first entry to appear at this site that mentioned this CD project came along in December 1997, nearly two years ago, the idea of even finishing one aspect of this project boggles my mind. This project gets closer and closer to being an actual THING that’s round and CD-shaped, that you all can listen to, or use as a coaster, or something. Crazy.

After the October session, there’s another one coming up in early November, that’s… well, let’s just say it involves one of the aforementioned “good things”. This one is a biggie, both for me and the project as a whole. I am so excited about this, that it hurts me. I don’t want to let the cat out of the baggie completely about this certain event, however. I’ll write about it after it’s come and gone. It is very, very cool, and I can’t wait to fill you all in.

But that’ll have to wait for now. Knocking on wood again.

Funky people say YEAH! Say YEAH! SAY HELL YEAH!

Sorry, don't know what exactly came over me there. Greetings from the Dog Days of August, I don't know why they call them "Dog Days", but rest assured, I hear they absolutely do call them that. Out there in the rest of the country, poor folks are baking in record high temperatures... I think today we MAYBE hit 68 degrees here in the Seattle area.

In case you were wondering. Four and a half months until the End of The World!

Holy cow, I'm in sort of a weird mood, maybe because it's one o'clock in the AM, and I'm oh-so-very-tired after sitting here for many hours cursing the computer gods while working on this site. I have some very new changes coming up, folks, as it is high time for Version 3.0 of this site to be born, to be a reality, to EXIST ON THE MATERIAL PLANE.

Somebody give this guy a Valium, eh?

So things are going on that are good and some of them even have to do with music, ye gods, Whatsa Mesa Saying? To wit:

1. Been playing in the Joey Furlan Band since March. It's been fun. We played this very large festival called The Bite of Seattle at the Seattle Center, where many thousands of folks converge, and where scores of folks cook up weird food like (I am not making this up) ostrich, alligator, other such delicacies, and sell it to hungry festival goers. Meanwhile, there are many stages around the Seattle Center, with many bands per day of the festival playing on the aforementioned stages. We were one of the bands, and while I'd love to say we played for an audience of thousands, it is much more accurate to say that we played for hundreds, or maybe hundred. Whatever, Joey sold scads of CD's, which tells me that we did our job. I had never ever played on the Mural Ampitheater stage before, and I got a wicked sunburn for my efforts. Yay! Joe is sort of scaling back his promotional efforts for his musical designs, however, so the upcoming show at Dynamite in Kirkland will be the last show we do for a while. But that's OK, 'cuz:

2. Things are picking up as far as the pace of work on the CD is concerned, after a long dry spell. I've revamped the track list of the CD yet again, so if you read that old news item concerning the "final" track listing from earlier this year, well, that isn't so accurate anymore, sorry about THAT. Chris G is diligently working up the next batch of drum tracks for recording in early September. I was back at Darin DiPietro's DiPietro Sound just last Saturday getting some technical stuff finished so that I'd have a free pathway ahead to continue recording and such. I should mention that the CD is still going to kick ass.

As I work up the new version of the site, some new features are showing up little by little already, to whet your collective appetites for all of the bitchen stuff to come (I like to pretend anyone out there HAS an appetite for this stuff). On the main menu page, maybe you noticed the "Upcoming Gig" box. This box will automatically update with all upcoming live shows I'll be participating in. Of course, once the Joey band quiets down, that box will likely be empty for a while.

Great googily-moogily, I'm tired. Off to bed.

You guys should see The Sixth Sense if you haven't. Very cool. Very...

ZZZZZZzzzzzz....

Alright so it's been a couple of weeks, and I'm late getting this studio update posted. I been busy, ya know? So here's the skinny...

Rapturous. That's the one-word description I'd used if pressed to describe how I felt at about 11:30 PM on February 20, when I drove away from Darin Dipietro's studio. Chris G and I had gone in to lay down three drum tracks for the upcoming CD, and it was our first time in a new studio. It's nerve-racking enough when you're paying somebody your hard earned cash to record you to begin with. You've got only a certain amount of time to get what you want across, and then you have to sit back and trust the guy who's running the joint to know what he's doing.

Luckily, Darin knows EXACTLY what he's doing. The drum sounds he got are the best of the project thus far. On a song called "Throw Me A Bone", Chris sounds like the second coming of John Bonham. It's unbelievably huge sounding. Funny thing about that particular song is, I wasn't all that thrilled with it going in. I finished it about six months ago, wrote it on the tracklist, and hadn't really thought much about it since. Even though I try my best to not let songs go until I am absolutely crazy about them, for some reason, "Throw Me A Bone" didn't thrill me when it was done as much as say, "Firefly" did. Hearing Chris G's tracks back at an ear-damaging volume in the control room solved THAT little problem. Suddenly, I'm in LOVE with "Throw Me A Bone", and there's a long section towards the end of it that, when it's done, is likely to be among my favorite parts of the whole CD.

In other news, I'm going to be out there playing live again soon, again in a backup role. Singer/songwriter Joey Furlan is finishing up his solo CD, and he has asked me to play acoustic guitar and sing backup vocals for his live shows promoting that disc. The best part of it is that also in Joey's band is Chris G on the drums, Tobe Ramsey on bass, and Scott Stoltz on guitar! You may recall that Chris, Tobe and I were in a little band called Stop Hitting Me, and I played with Scott in Thread. There's also a keyboard player I don't know. Joey is currently also the lead male vocalist in local cover act 80-Something. He's a great singer, his material reminds me of a more upbeat Counting Crows-ish kinda sound. Not only are all these guys my favorite musicians in town, they're also my best friends. It's going to be an absolute joy to play with these guys. We're going to sound AMAZING. That Joey, he a SMAHT man. He put together SUPERBAND. I feel lucky to be in it. Wheeeee!

That's it fer now, more news after THESE COMMERCIAL MESSAGES.

Hello, out there! It's about time for another news update, eh? Alright, then, an update you shall have!

Work continues on the CD, as I have gotten into a rather lovely working routine now that I no longer have to worry about playing cover tunes at night. I have settled on the DEFINITIVE TRACK LIST for the album. Zoinks! Wanna see the list? OK!



Ta da! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Any Raw Flesh? This should not be viewed as the final running order, I'm still tweaking that. There will also be a couple of short, as yet unnamed, mini-compositions that will serve as bridges between songs. Other songs will segue directly into each other. "TNK" is that Beatles cover I do, in case you're wondering.

One slightly sad note regarding the ongoing work on this project is that I will no longer be recording at Keith Woodman's Cydonia Sound. Due to unfortunate family troubles, Keith has had to put his studio into a semi-permanent hiatus. I was very distressed when I found out, as Keith and I had forged a nice working relationship. However, life must indeed go on. On the recommendation of Panhead bassist Brian Lake (who will himself be adding low-end rumblings to "Numbered Days"), I have booked time this weekend at Dipietro Sound in Federal Way. Chris G and I will be laying down drums for "No More Evil", "What Have We Here?" and "Somebody Throw Me A Bone". I will, as always, provide a blow-by-blow report of the studio experience after Saturday's sessions.

There are NO good movies to go see! Arg! See you guys in a few days.

I am very much glad that 1998 is over as I sit here today. However, I think that at some point down the road, I will see the year just past as a milestone year. I put myself through hell last year, pure and simple. I set a couple of goals, and I failed to achieve them. But I believe I’ve hit rock bottom, and I truly think that things will only get better and better.

One of the things I was determined to do in ’98 was finish a new CD. Well, it didn’t get done. All told, I spent a whopping six days working on it in a recording studio. As I sit here right now, five drum tracks have been laid. Of those, three have finished bass parts, and a smattering of guitar overdubs. Not very good. Why? Well, let’s just see now...

Throughout 1998, I worked two jobs. By day, I contracted my services to The World’s Largest Software Company. By night, I played 5 sets a night, often seven days a week, of top 40/alternative music to people who didn’t care about anything other than drinking away their problems. I moved, AGAIN, in May. I had a relationship fall apart (although it ended well, we’re still friends and roomies). I gained about fifty pounds while on a strict diet of drive-in food. I learned what life was like on little to no sleep. I rarely spent time with friends. And I almost never had the energy to sit down with my instrument, and attempt to create music. So the album mostly sat and waited for me to get through all of this.

I’m one of those people who likes to listen to tapes and read books about what "makes people behave the way they do". The idea here being that if I understand WHY I make the mistakes I make, I can "self-motivate" myself to improve. Tony Robbins is a GOD to me. I dig all that stuff, though I have been spectacularly bad at implementing what I have learned to my own life. One thing I know I am guilty of is self-sabotage. I have a bizarre sort of "comfort zone", and I think that putting myself through what I did last year was my sub-conscious self punishing me for having any dreams of moving forward. It’s really easy to ASPIRE to do something. It’s easy for me to ASPIRE to be the kind of musician who can entice multitudes of folks to buy CD’s I put out, and then fill rooms far and wide with people who want to hear the music I wrote. I can even practice really hard, turn myself into a really good guitar player. "Boy," I say. "Wait’ll they hear me do THIS on a guitar. They’ll think I’m really BITCHEN." I think I’ve finally come to the point where I realize that I’ve gotten too comfortable with "aspiring mode". I have to push for more than that. I have to move from ASPIRING to BEING. I think I finally feel ready to do this.

The good stuff about 1998: My one real artistic refuge in the past year was in the movie theater. I love movies almost as much as I love music. Sometimes I’ve actually thought about going to film school. I saw a great many films this year... You can read my Top 10 Films of 1998 here. I learned, via the top 40 band, how to be the lead singer in a band. I’ve done so many shows in the last couple of years, that I feel completely at home on stage - I never get nervous anymore. I’ve thoroughly learned the art of playing rock music in a live environment. I’ve learned not to worry about hearing every instrument perfectly. I don’t wig out when a monitor is too quiet. All this will prove invaluable as I move, at the end of this year, toward putting together a real live performing unit of musicians specifically focused on playing the music I write. I’ve become closer than I ever have been to my frighteningly talented little sister, Heather. She’s just moved to LA after finishing college, as she’s going to be an actor. She is the most amazing person I know in this world, and she is going TEAR THE PLACE UP. Watch for her, you’ve heard it here first.

Right now, as I type this, I am more excited about music than I have been in years. I wake up at night to work on ideas, because they won’t let me sleep. I’ve got Chris G ready with three more drum tracks to go work on at the studio. I’m working very hard on the most complex piece of music I’ve ever attempted. I bought Mike Mangini's practice system, Rhythm Knowledge, and it ROCKS. At last, the answers to questions I've had for YEARS about polyrhythms and the practice thereof. I am also on a HUGE Zappa kick right now. I’ve been listening to Zappa music since high school, going on twelve years now - it’s taken me that long to finally "get" it. On every record of his I bought, there was plenty of stuff that went right over my head, but there was always some stuff that kept me buying more records. At last, the floodgates have opened. The song that did it? "The Adventures of Greggary Peccary", which I have on the "Läther" album, though I know it previously appeared on "Studio Tan". If you haven’t heard it, you really need to. ’99 looks to be good for music... my heroes Mike Keneally and Steve Vai are working on TWO new projects together (the first being Steve’s new studio album, the second being Mike’s solo piano arrangements of Steve’s music - apparently one of the tunes is "Ballerina 12/24" - I can’t WAIT to hear that on a piano). There should be a new Keneally/BFD album out before the year is done. Trent Reznor is releasing a new record (hopefully). Oh, and MY record will be finished. And all three of you who are waiting for it are going to love it.

Oh and HOLY COW, we are going to see a NEW STAR WARS MOVIE this year! And it’s going to be incredible! I will see it a stupid number of times.

I’m excited. I’m happy. And best of all, I’m really, finally ready. A small victory. Thanks for reading all of this. See you soon.

So, like, another year has gone by. It is true that the older you get, the faster the time passes, and as hard as I worked this year, through all the dumb crap that happened, the days just FLEW by. This site has been sorely neglected by me throughout 1998, but I don't know what I could have done differently, given how much I worked. This is going to be changing BIG TIME now, as I am no longer going to be playing in a Top 40 band, seven days a week, for weeks on end. In fact, I'm out of that COMPLETELY. I played my last gig with Panhead/Captain Ned last Saturday night, the third. It still hasn't hit me yet that it's over, that my time can be largely my own once again. What a concept.

I'm writing a big 1998 in Review News item, that will be posted right here on this page. In it, I'll list all the music I thought was worthwhile that was released, I'll recap my Top 10 favorite movies, and I'll touch on some things that have happened that are relevant to my musical life that I have not yet written about. It's been very enjoyable to write, and I hope you will enjoy reading it. 1998 was a hard year, in all respects. There wasn't much time for fun, that's for sure, and I intend to change that. More about that in a couple of days.