I'm also finishing up mxing season 2 of the Let's Go Show for Sprout. It's live action environments this season, as opposed to the green screened CGI backgrounds we used last year. It looks really good, and Bruce Liteki did a bang up job recording the audio. It's a pleasure to mix well recorded talent.

In other news, "Happy Birthday Harris Malden", a film I recently mixed for Philly production team Sweaty Robot, was premiered at the CineVegas film festival in Las Vegas last weekend. See www.sweatyrobot.com to watch some of their shorts and read the reviews. Sounds like they had a blast in Vegas and the film was very well received. I may have mentioned this below but a lot of it was shot on Franklin St in South Philly, just a few blocks away from our house. It was a lot of fun gathering ambiences and foley sounds from around the neighborhood and having them fit in so easily. 

So there are some serious changes in the works here at my website. I'll be updating the look and adding some features in the next couple of days. All this co-incides with the removal of the Made on Mac banner I used to have over there. Yup, that's right, we're getting into our PCs now. My Mac will always be my platform at Work, but for web stuff and day to day computing, we just can't afford to keep up with Apple's prices. I still think they are clearly superior devices, but we're getting an awful lot of bang out of our very used PCs (read:killer workstation class computers from a few years ago), and will the prices of things what they are today, we're glad to be saving the dimes. Also in the works is changing some things around to be easier to view in Internet Explorer. But, for those of you in Internet Explorer, please please please please go to Firefox.com or Opera.com and make the switch to those browsers. The web is so much faster and  smoother in a better browser. They copy all your user data from IE so nothing will be lost and you can always switch back, but please, for me, go give one of those a try. Thank me later.

In other news, I'm wrapping up work on a feature film mix I have been working on. It's a very funny story shot a few blocks away from us here on Franklin St. Nice to see a team of filmmakers embracing the neighborhood and going all the way for a feature length film. Details will follow upon its completion.

The Sharing Show is underway every afternoon on Sprout. Early response has been very positive. The puppets are really adorable. You can beat a 3 piece house band consisting of Ricky the rabbitt on Piano, Patti the pig doing the singing, and Curtis E. Owl on the Bass. Really nicely written and produced. Go team go.

Middlehill is threatening to get together in June and record a new record, Ben and Brad don't know it yet, but they'll be coming to Philly to cut some new songs and have a few laughs. Maybe we can get John Charnota to produce? I'll have to work on that. Also, planning a trip to DC in 2 weeks. A nice weekend away with the Landaus. Looking forward to seeing the hope diamond, and getting down at the Black Cat to some new wave dance action. We're staying in the GW/Froggy Bottom area, right near the watergate hotel.

So glad to be able to incorporate a few Middlehill songs (thanks Brad and Ben) and a song by The Classic Brown (thanks Staci and Dave) into the film. Check out Staci Brown's myspace over there. She's amazing.

Special thanks to Jordan and the CCFV family for hiring all of us in the first place and granting us access to CCFV's amazing resources. Also, a big thanks to  Mark and xlntads.com for sponsoring the project. And, thanks to the 44 other teams that submitted films to the Project. It's excellent to see so much talent in the city we love to call home.

Click here to download the .wmv file of the movie.

Working on 2 new super secret projects. But you didn't hear it from me. Been reading Getting Things Done by David Allen, re-aligning how I organize my to-do lists and calendar. Very cool way to use ann extend an existing organizational system. Turns our our neighbor across the street is a roller-derby gal. Love it. Missing Reel.

Enjoyed a bachelor party last night for Thomas Reynolds. We went to the Philadelphia Gun Club off of the Italian Market. Had a lot of laughs. 12 of us went, clearly with no idea what we were doing. we had a great class with an un-named master of lethal force and shot 9mm and 40 cal. handguns for a few hours. Good times, good times. DONT BE THAT GUY!( the guy that holds the gun wrong and cuts up his han). We weren't that guy. Though Ryan spilled a bit of beer at Triumph in old city afterward. 

Philadephia is gearing up for our crucial primary battle. Everyone I talk to is pretty excited about Obama. Looking forward to the drama on April 22.

Meanwhile, my record is coming along nicely. I've got all the ideas together and three songs just about completed. They are taking me in a new direction, which is adding to the complexity of the production, which adds to the time it takes to execute the songs, but they are worth it.  Perhaps I'll tka emy own advice and release 2 EPs  instead of a Full length record. Maybe a part 1 and 2 type of thing. We'll see.  

We attended the 2008 Art Banquet at Scott Kip's artist studios. Great turnout, great food, and a very good Art Swap. I randomly received a 7" Single by Paper Napkin, produced by Jeff Mott. Which is an amazing coincidence as I knew Jeff pretty well at one point and was a fan of his. Very cool. I look forward to checking it out today.

Other news, I'm typing this entry on an HP tx1410 laptop running Vista Home Premium. Yup, I've had to make the switch from Mac to PC for my everyday computing. Still have a kick butt Mac Pro as my workstations at home and the studio, but the network at the new CCFV facility necessitated my getting a PC. It's actually really nice. I'll report more on this later as the glow from a new gadget fades and I start to see it for the pc it is. But so far no problems.

Almost done with the 2 songs I'm producing for Best Wishes, looking forward to getting together with Bradly and Ben for a new recording, dinner with the fam tonight to celebrate Chrissy's return.

Started another new song last night. "Can't afford to lose" is the title. Some nice country action on it.

I enjoyed a terrific weekend with family. Here's a photo of my niece Lilly and I enjoying brunch on Saturday. She's the best, all smiles and giggles. She is even clapping, almost walking, too. I have a video of her almost gnawing a water bottle in half. Pac Man style. It's great to have family around while Chrissy is away at Sculpture Space. She's doing great by the way, despite the sub zero temperatures and the dryness associated with a wood burning stove.One piece down one more to go. Some very exciting things are happening with her work up there. More info upon her return (too many days and counting!!). Odd how being apart affects us. 

Very excited about how Senator Obama is making out in the primaries. Great to see some real momentum heading in a good direction. I found the Yes We Can music video very moving. There I said it. I also liked "We are Marshall". Darn, perhaps too much information for the web...

Spent more time writing Everything Burns tonight. I'm looking forward to letting you all hear it.

Looking forward to a full day at home working on "Everything Burns".

I'm of the mind that music should be free. That's what the marketplace is telling us. People are not placing the same value on .mp3 downloads that they did on vinyl or CDs. People want easy to access, free/inexpensive music. In light of this availability I think consumers are ingesting more music than ever before. Media file players are ubiquitous, it's almost too easy to create your own musical wall paper to accompany you throughout the day. Gone(more like going, probably) are the days of gathering around the turntable and really listening to a recording. So I think we music creators are being challenged like never before to create a sort of beacon than can keep an audience coming back. Look at the big mainstream entertainers of our time, Will Smith, Queen Latifa, Ice Cube, etc.. all have transitioned from being musicians to being entertainers. Adding skills to their quiver that keep them in the limelight and keep consumers coming back for more of their output.

Not to mention the huge hit to actual sound quality people are willing to deal with. No wonder hi - def audio has been on is death bed for years. 5.1 records? I think not. Can't enjoy them on the train, in the car, or at a cubicle. Forget it. Music is easier to make, easier to put out there, lower fidelity, and almost too abundant. It's never been better. More people making more music thats reaching more people than ever before possible. Yes please.

This does however make us change our expectations of monetizing out efforts in music. We need to redefine a successful record. How far can the money from a tour take you? We need to get better at licensing works to TV and film, make better use of touring support services like eventful.com, and we need to always have something new in the stream to keep listeners engaged and returning for more.

Last night, one of the Punk Ave. guys, Rick, mentioned something super important. Curators. How can a listener choose from this infinite pool of new music content. I love recommendation algorithms. I'm curious to see how important better music journalism will become. I'm suspicious of the lack of bad record reviews. It was good to see the booking agent from Johnny Brenda's there last night. She's curating new music, too.

Mike brought up subsidized music. It's coming. This record sponsored by Audi. The record is free but you can only get it from a slickly advertised site.

I could go on and on. My new record is coming along nicely. I've got our living room looking like a pawn shop. Accordion, banjo, uke, guitars, maracas, and piano bits everywhere. I'm taking advantage of Chrissy's 2 months away at Sculpture Space to get it all together. It's still titled "Everything Burns" and yes, it'll be available for nothing, right here.

So things are excellent around here. Chrissy and I are re-building our vestibule. It all started as an innocent attempt to build shelves for our record collection. I was ready to go to home depot and pick up a miter saw (we got the Dewalt that Chrissy uses at work, kick butt machine). Christina was up stairs getting ready and I sort of absentmindedly started pawing (well, more like boot-toeing) at the wall to wall in the vestibule. Just sort of poking around, curious as to what lie beneath. Chrissy comes down and in a thrilling flurry of expletives, scarves, and freshly applied hair products we broke out the crowbars and went at it. 6 hours and a few Evan Williams later we had it down to studs and sub floor. There was an almost geologic amount of lineolium, wood paneling, luan, and wall paper. I'll post pictures later. The floors made this amazing wet sticky "SCHLOOOOOOOP" sound when we peeled up layer upon layer of nastiness. So we've ordered tile, cut the hardi-board, and pointed the bricks. We'll have a new vestibule by thanksgiving. 

Speaking of which, we're very excited to have 16 family members joining us for Turkey day. From the far reaches of NYC, Doylestown, Juniper St., and Old City. Dueling turkeys, grandma's cranberry sauce, hashweh, pies and some of Mike Baker's kitchen magic. It'll rock. 

My concolences to the families of the recent murder victims here in Philly and abroad. I applaud the city of Philadelphia for giving the Boy Scouts an awakening "WHAT, WHAT" about their free rent sudenly becoming not so free on the basis that their anti-gay policy violates the City's anti-discrimination policy. Our many congratulations to Chris Landau on his first few days at his new job. Happy Birthday to Tommy Reynolds. Cheers.

G. Bradley Rhodes and Benjamin Teague are coming into town this weekend to record some new tunes. Looking forward to seeing those guys. Rehearsals with the group formerly known as the North American Martyrs are going great. A new name for the project is in the works. Stayed up late last night moving my Scope DSP system from a clunky rack PC chassis to a classy Carillon Audio PC Chassis. It occurred to me how elegant it is to be able to swap parts out and do little upgrades so cheaply and easily. Points for the PC camp.