Sunday, November 27, 2005
Update
An overdue update will be appearing here soon.
I am in Thailand.
Joel
I am in Thailand.
Joel
Friday, November 11, 2005
India
I will be leaving for a few weeks in India in 6 days. If any of you have suggestions for places to visit or people to see, now's the time to send them along. I expect to spend most of my time in and around Bombay (aka Mumbai). Then I expect to spend a week or two in New York City in December doing some recording there for this music project. I'm very much looking forward to that.
I hope early next week to get some listenable demo tracks mixed down so I can "release" those (to my friends) before I leave the country. I'll try to make those accessible via the web.
There are lots of things coming together at once presently. Business projects, music, travel. It's a nice time.
See y'all when I get back.
I hope early next week to get some listenable demo tracks mixed down so I can "release" those (to my friends) before I leave the country. I'll try to make those accessible via the web.
There are lots of things coming together at once presently. Business projects, music, travel. It's a nice time.
See y'all when I get back.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Viva Email
Hello from Fabulous Las Vegas. Continuing my pattern of trying to get away from L.A. as much as I can, I decided on Friday evening to make a quick getaway. I'm due at a management meeting tomorrow at 10am, and then going back into the studio at 2pm, so this will be a short trip, but it's nice while it lasts.And what am I doing in this city of a million forms of dubious recreations and distractions? This morning I am sitting in the dark in my suite at The New Frontier (one of the older and quainter hotel/casino enterprises on the legendary Las Vegas Strip) trying to catch up a bit on the almost 400 email messages sitting in my inbox. And no, that doesn't include any spam email... that has already been filtered out.
I am chronically behind with email, but with all I've had going on lately, it is considerably worse than usual. So I'm taking this bit of quiet time away from home to work on it.
If you are one of those who has written me, and you're wondering why I haven't written back, my apologies. You're in good company. One of these days I'll figure out how to keep more on top of my email, but for now I do the best I can.
But don't worry about me missing out on a little recreational activity. I plan on going for a swim soon, followed by some time playing poker (Texas Hold'Em) at Bellagio, and possibly doing a little card counting at the Blackjack tables. I steer clear of most of the games here because they're all rigged towards the house, as anyone with any common sense can clearly understand. Poker tables and card counting are the only two games I know of in LV where a player stands any significant chance of doing well over time, if they have the skills. I suppose some people do well betting on sports, but I don't follow pro sports enough to have any idea how to do that.
Of course, gambling in general is pretty much a waste of time, as far as its net impact on human civilization is concerned. Although I generally come out slightly ahead with my gambling activities, it never pays as well as real work. But I enjoy it, and I do need a little stimulation and recreation from time to time to keep me sane. The occasional Vegas outing serves that purpose. For me, the overall surreality and misguided grandiosity of the place has a certain perverse charm to it as well.
Friday, November 04, 2005
Update
I haven't updated my blog in a while, so I thought I'd just say hello.
I've been feeling a deep-seated desire to get away, not just from L.A. but from the USA. In about ten days I plan to leave for India. I may stay as long as a month.
In the meantime, recording continues. I went with Larry John McNally and our engineer, Jason from Groovetree Recording, to John Leftwich's house last night to do some recording using John's Yamaha C7 grand piano. I love the feeling of playing a good-quality, larger-sized grand like that one. It's a powerful instrument, particularly on the lower end. We also got a bit more help from John with some bass on one of my songs.
I am grateful to have found some good musicians who take enough interest in my music to work on it with me and collaborate a bit. They're getting paid too, but not at the rates they'd be charging if it were a purely mercenary project for them. Having music that people like, and being personable and flexible about schedules, means a project like this one can get done on a more limited budget than what is required in the corporate world.
I've been feeling a deep-seated desire to get away, not just from L.A. but from the USA. In about ten days I plan to leave for India. I may stay as long as a month.
In the meantime, recording continues. I went with Larry John McNally and our engineer, Jason from Groovetree Recording, to John Leftwich's house last night to do some recording using John's Yamaha C7 grand piano. I love the feeling of playing a good-quality, larger-sized grand like that one. It's a powerful instrument, particularly on the lower end. We also got a bit more help from John with some bass on one of my songs.
I am grateful to have found some good musicians who take enough interest in my music to work on it with me and collaborate a bit. They're getting paid too, but not at the rates they'd be charging if it were a purely mercenary project for them. Having music that people like, and being personable and flexible about schedules, means a project like this one can get done on a more limited budget than what is required in the corporate world.
