a day off... wah?

got a full night's sleep last night after watching 'black snake moan' (which was a good movie- i like it). i really liked the music in it- good stuff. it's gotten me back on my whole old-timey blues kick. that could only be good. all roads are leading to skip james at the moment. i used to always get him confused with skip spence for some reason. they probably couldn't be more different (although after being in moby grape skip spence would go on to do solo acoustic blues stuff).
i got the crystal stilts full-length in the mail yesterday. i am really loving ordering vinyl from insound- they are really fast with the shipping. i also got 'whip it on' by the raveonettes in the mail last week as well. i have another raveonettes album on its way in the mail at some point as well- hopefully that shows up soon. probably better that it's taking a bit longer so that i have sufficient time to soak in the first one.
the first strings practice was a good one. katelyn and chris were totally on point- not a surprise as i've worked with them a bunch of times now. aleksa was good too- i felt kind of bad for her because i think she was probably a bit overwhelmed. the other two knew what to expect and had even played a few of the songs before but aleksa had never even met us. she also didn't have a music stand so she was having problems. plus i wrote some of her sheet music out wrong- yay tyler! for a first practice we got a lot done. i pretty much know what the setlist is going to be at the show- great stuff! i also know what we're going to do for the wnur show as well- i have a big cluster set all ready to go and we're going to do the thing where we bleed songs together. i figured out a way for us to play about five songs back to back. of course we also have a batch of new songs that are just begging to be played live already. it's going to require some tricky maneouvering but i think we can get the requisite three practices going before the show and i think it should work out fine. i'm not worried really. the time to worry will be if there are any problems by the third practice but i am 99% sure that it's going to be just fine by then. plus we aren't going to play for too long either- which was a bit of a concern for me. i am trying to work in 'sleep now...' again, naturally because it sounded so awesome at the record bar show and i'd like to do a better job on that one, but i already have two really big set-enders so i don't know where i'd fit it in- it really should only come at the end of a set. i suspect that the second practice will be much tighter. one of my favourite things about string players is that they get it together really quickly- even last night we'd play through a song the first time and it'd be a bit rickety but the second time it would sound really really nice. i think it's going to be a pretty cool show. i'm excited.
i've already sent out press releases. i hope i've done it early enough to get some decent press. i waited until the last minute because i just got the message last week about the first group that's been added, so i wanted to include them in the press release (as well as nick). i've only emailed 'time out' and a few people at the reader (miles is one of them of course). i've already got a press release all written up for the 'all hope is blind' album. woot!
then of course there's the impending recording trip. once the show is done with it'll be nice to get back to work on chipping away at tracks for the album. we've still got lots to do. lots and lots and lots. and lots. i might try to get stefanie to do some more live tracks soon- probably once the insanity dies down (or is supposed to). i guess that would make it practically may by then. yipes. i should probably look for megabus fares soon so i can do more tracks with billy later on in the summer before the tour. around june/july is probably going to be crunch time as the deadline rushes towards us to complete the album and get it sent off for mastering and pressing. yikes again... i'm glad i got a date book. i've actually started to use it just so that i can remember things.
i shall sign off for now then. eleni mandell is tonight, brian jonestown massacre is on saturday. tomorrow i have work, but i think it might be an okay thing.