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And that’s not all we have going either!  We’ve just begun rehearsing with a full band in preparation for takin’ the ep LIVE!

Thursday — 06-01-2011 — 1000 hrs. — GMT

Amber and I successfully transfered 5 Top Secret Files to a secure server at:

Metropolis Mastering — Chiswick High Road — London — UK

…and with that our production work on the Sex & Sound EP is drawn to a close.

Thanks to Graham, Geoff, Jeb, Thom, and Baraka for the engineering efforts they contributed to the tracking and mixing phases of this project. Their focus, expertise and well trained ears have elevated the songs beyond anything my personal efforts could have achieved.

NOW — We are working ’round the clock, to put together a live show that will help us represent all the excitement, frustration and exhalation that went into the record.

I really, literally can’t wait to begin sharing this music!

-Joel

…we also happened across information that lead to the discovery of ongoing credit fraud in my name. And have begun climbing a sludgy hill of phone calls and document collecting and faxing?!? in the hopes of correcting the discontinuities in my credit history.

…and the mixing has once again been placed on hold due to the breakdown of hardware at the studio in Austin, TX. Hope to be back up and running this week sometime.

On a slightly happier note we had a nice Thanksgiving here in Santa Monica, and were very excited when Amber discovered the growth of some ice crystals on the inside of a jar containing frozen pumpkin destined to become a pie.

-Joel

But, behold, recently this has reached new heights. If it doesn’t fit in the bins under the bed or isn’t gear necessary to a rock band going on a tour, it’s now on its way out. The selling spree has been brought on by the immediate need to pay for the mixing, mastering, and replication of Sex & Sound, but also the growing sense that one way or another, we need to get out of Los Angeles as soon as possible (or at least put an end to our stressful job situation and unsustainably tight budget), so excess possessions will only make it harder to get out as fast as an opportunity materializes.

Where are we headed? I’ve rarely known, and certainly not this time.

Lately Joel, too, has been fond of muttering in a low, theatrically serious tone “I have been placed under a Voodoo hex…”. I laugh, because sometimes, and very often of late, the number of obstacles that have stood in the way of us finishing this recording seem to border on the absurd and uncanny, like some evil force has deemed that it will not ever be finished. We’d like to say we know better, but wow, it’s been insane.

Have no fear, however, we will finish this recording one way or another, hex or no hex.
Also, this week we came across some appropriately eerie glowing Halloween skulls decorating a home down the street. We might be incorporating them into a video…if we can somehow outsmart the creepy forces that be.

The tracks have been sent to a producer/mixer/engineer in Austin, Texas and the mixing is set to begin in two days…at least that is what they tell me, though any hope of something happening that soon and that certainly is becoming hard to believe!  In the meantime, however, we’ve been keeping quite busy rehearsing, auditioning musicians to play shows with us, as well as painting a lot of stuff that we own purple…including, as you can see, one of Joel’s guitars.

So we put our life’s work into a cardboard box and shipped it off to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  On the surface it seems to be questionable judgment, but in reality, not a bad call.

15 months into the recording of the Sex & Sound ep, a hard drive containing the completed tracking sessions is on its way to Mix Engineer, Justin Carl Perkins of the Mystery Room for a rock and roll mixing like you never heard.

We are excited to hear what he hears in the sessions we’ve been slaving over.  As long as USPS doesn’t lose our package we are Close, with a capital “C”.

I did send it priority mail so I’m assuming getting it to Miltown is pretty high on their list this week.  Time will tell, but for now I’m feeling pretty good about our chances!

-Joel

Jeb Lipson, the proprietor has put together an absolutely beautiful collection of vintage guitars and amps that made getting the “right sound” both easy and enjoyable.  And just like that the “Sex and Sound” choruses where big and awesome!

We are getting so close I can taste it! It tastes pretty good too, like wintergreen.

-Joel

Some things went down on the recording this week…secret things.

So Graham got us moved into studio 1 and started bringing up a mix.  I joined him after fulfilling my personal assistant duties for the day and helped to fine tune some of the balances and make treatment decisions on several tracks.  However when it came to the real “mixing” Graham was the one making it happen.

We printed our final mix just shy of 2 a.m. and cleaned up the place to make way for one of the studios more recognizable clients.

When my alarm went off that same morning just after 6 am I had momentary “mixed” feelings about the whole thing, but listening back to the track we’d made got me excited for the next opportunity to get into the studio and deprive myself of some sleep!

One down four to go.

Check out the pics below to see mixing the track “Ready or Not”.

-Joel