stefanie wanted to take a trip to celebrate her 30th birthday. at first i was thinking that we couldn't possibly do it, but now i am beginning to think that i should order the tickets to the show anyway. it isn't for seven months- that gives us some time to save some money for a trip. i have a jar full of change and i have been working on it since we got back from tour- specifically for such an occasion. there isn't a ton of money in it, but there is some. we can get a round trip flight on virgin atlantic and 3 nights in a hotel for $800. that's a good deal. an excuse to go to london? you don't need to tell me twice- hell no! i'm beginning to think that this might be something that would be worthwhile. i couldn't think of anywhere to go. stefanie not got much of a chance to experience london the time that she came to visit. it is kind of hilarious that i have been to london more than once and haven't been hardly anywhere else in europe and here i am wanting to go a 3rd time. i think i'm doing a coin-toss when i get home. i figure the worst case scenario would be that i buy the tickets, can't get a flight and end up having to sell them off for what i paid for them. i could think of worse things...
other than that things have been a bit crazy over the past week- yikes. meghan and reggie came to visit us for st. patrick's day (or weekend as it is here in chicago). they came in on saturday night and they left yesterday morning. i got a full night's sleep only one of the three nights. yesterday we had a really hastily set-up practice fall through after we'd lugged all of our junk (well, most of it) up to evanston because we are housesitting for jay and diana right now until the 23rd. primal scream is on the 22nd. i'm working on the 27th, which will start a six-day week during which my parents will visit for that weekend and then the week will culminate with me taking the megabus to kansas city for a recording trip that i will return from on sunday the 5th early in the morning and then head to work after dropping my stuff off at home (if i have time to that is). at least that week will be a short one and the insanity will die down for a week or so. after that is the strings show on the 18th and we also have an offer to play live on wnur (which i need to email about). anyway that's how it's going right now. we went to sleep really early last night and i only woke up once at 2am before their cats woke us up to feed them at 6:30am. they normally don't let us sleep that first night- waking us up over and over from as early as 3:30 am until 6.
as if all of this weren't enough i am in the harsh grip of my allergies. my nose is dry as a bone right now and i get random headaches a lot. both of us are just a touch irritable. we might have bit off more than we could chew. things keep piling on too. next week we are going to try and get everyone together for the first practice with the strings. i need to find a cellist stat. hannah was up for it, but has something scheduled on the night of the show. billy can't come up, which i'm not surprised about (it's asking quite a bit of him to drive all the way up here to play a show).
i have some extra money on my paycheck that i must pick up and cash later today before i go to pick up stefanie. i think i might just let it get eaten up by the unexpected expenses of the next few days (i.e. dinners, cat litter, etc.). very nice indeed. i have given my bicycle tire to will to repair so that i can start riding my bike to work everyday starting at the beginning of april (that's when my 30 day pass expires and switches back to a pay-as-you-go kind of arrangement). again, i'd like to try and use the money to either save or pay down my credit card balance. i do also still have about $500 to raise before i can get the 'dandelions' record out. i did a mixdown (i need to do a backup, but i can do that later- it'll be easy), i have the $300 i need to master the album now (with my paypal balance from selling a bunch of guitar pedals on ebay- i sold my spare tremolo pedal, my fender blender and my vintage big muff). dammit i'm going to get there! where am i going to get the money for the 'all hope is blind' record? not sure- we're praying for a grant for that one. if that doesn't work i have to figure something else out but i am determined to get the record out so that i can pay down my credit card balance and live like a normal person in 2010. if i didn't have to scrounge nearly every penny together or pay my credit cards every month then i could live more comfortably than i ever have in my entire life. i think we could buy a place if this were the case (of course i am still about 2 years away from the possibility of this). we'll see what happens. we'll just see what happens... *positive waves* *positive waves*
it will be my goal to do all of this successfully this year. i think it can be done- i do think it will come at a bit of a price... not sure what that will be...
yipes... will it work? i certainly hope so.
fun anecdote- on saturday after i got home from work stefanie and i recorded some vocals and i schlepped all of my equipment into the stairwell to try to record some reverb and i heard someone walking around in there and they found my mic, started talking into it ('check one, two- we are on a shure mic, a shure mic. give it up for my first album- my first album. this one goes out to my moms for putting me through military school...' etc. etc.) and i braced myself a bit hoping they'd just leave but then, naturally, they picked up the mic and tried to walk off with it, so i just tugged on the chord and looked up at them from where i was two floors down and said 'sorry' and they just smiled at me and walked away. so i'm a bit nervous about the idea of going back in there to record again- it was kind of unnerving and upsetting and also probably a bit overdue. it is encouraging to know and have actually seen someone who lives in the building who doesn't have a problem stealing from his neighbors. i'm only going to assume that this is the same person who steals packages that don't belong to him (yes, there is a package thief in my building). i didn't get the best look at him- he was a bit non-descript looking (plus i'm terrible at describing people as it is) and i saw him from two-floors down through a few stairs. so now i'm not sure what to do about all of the reverb i need for the album. i am beginning to think i might ditch the reverb altogether. the vocals we did sounded quite nice and it would probably be a bold move that would be very fitting for the album- a lot of the sounds on it are incredibly dry and the general plan is to keep them that way. it is possible that the vocals don't need reverb- they are turning out very nicely so far, plus it really is a pain in the ass to lug all of my shit down there to record reverbs. we are exploring some other options- stefanie was going to talk to the landlord at the warehouse where lorna's laces is about a time we could come in to try and do them there. in that case it might not be until the very end of the process that this occurs. i suppose i could also just use reverbs off of the spx90, but the plan for this record has always been to keep it organic- so i should probably just stick with that and stay as true to that as i can which again begs the question of whether or not to even bother with reverb in the first place? there's a ton on the guitars as it is. the album is definitely coming along very nicely- it is working very nicely as more of a group effort- which i am very pleased about. it might be fairly easy to keep it going without getting burned-out.
i think that's about all i have to say for today...
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