This blog contains music, cats, and things of less importance.
HERE is a scan of the set list I played at Ivy Room last Sunday. Blogging it as a memento, as it was a fun slice of life. Funny detail? I’ve started to use non-cursive print lately, along with my usual BLOCK LETTERS. With a pen, mind you, these ancient instruments.
I’m scheduled to play a set for Peter Montgomery’s 60th birthday party, at Gilman, in January, with a luminous cast of luminaries. Here’s the flier for that, as created by Peter himself:
And good morning
Hey, I’m doing a solo set opening for Psycotic Pineapple! Deets:
I released a Schlager! It’s here:
And I’ve been keeping up somewhat on my mewsletter, which I invite you to follow here: https://berkeleycatrecords.substack.com/
I bought the postcard stamps for my 200 get out the vote postcards via TurnoutPac, yesterday, and that was rather thrilling, actually 🙂 What are you doing to ensure a Blue Wave? Let’s get it, y’all! That’s all, I gots work to do, Happy Caturday <3
I make records that I want to hear. Or at least, that’s the ambition. As things go, sometimes I do revisit a track and remix (rebottle!) it. This one came up recently a few different ways, and I decided to spend a little time fine-tuning the mix and remastering it.
Nerdly notes!
The basic track was done “live” in Mike Stevens’ Lost Monkey Studio, during the October 2017 firestorms. Many of my friends and fam had to evacuate, and some of them lost their homes. In the midst of that, I composed and recorded this song. There was a third verse, but it seemed unnecessary on reflection, so I cut it before including the song on my CONTENT album. Just last week I remixed it, and bounced an instrumental mix.
We didn’t use a click-track (metronome) when we tracked the basics. Just me and Mikey, him on a drum kit, me on acoustic guitar. I don’t sniff snobbishly at click-tracks, in fact I use them often. But when it’s possible to make a recording without one, I opt for that. Because it’s cool to let the tempo breathe, for some songs. This one’s pretty steady (Mike is a GREAT drummer), and the tempo does shift subtly in places. As intended. It’s rock n’ roll, baby.
The first overdub, Mikey did right after we cut the basic. He played tambourine, and he nailed it, so beautifully. Thing is, a tambourine part is hard to do. Then it’s hard to place the tambo in the mix. Tambourines notoriously sound either too loud or too quiet, in a mix. Now I got it right where I want it.
Next, I played a guitar solo. 8 bars. I have nerded often about my FAVORITE 8-bar rock guitar solo, Mick Ronson in the original Ian Hunter recording of Once Bitten, Twice Shy. I don’t pretend to have reached such heights. But my solo in this track is one of my favorite 8-bar pentatonic scale outbursts. I played my trusty “Oates” Tele-beast, which I use on pretty much all of my recordings. We tossed it through Mike’s vintage Fender Champ, dimed out. “Dimed” means everything’s on 10. Not that there are a lot of knobs, on an old Champ. Volume and tone controls on 10. Everything the amp can put out. It sounds, to use the appropriate term, Gnarly. We wanted gnarls. Oh did we get them. I added some tape-echo and light compression to finish.
Thankfully, MOST of my releases don’t call me to remix/rebottle. I’ll probably never touch I Can See It Now again, or Am I Not Alien?, or most of the others I’ve made since I started this solo adventure. But I’ll do it when I feel inspired to.
Last nerd-note – I’m confident in mastering my own tracks, now. This is new. For many of my songs, I have turned to some great mastering engineers. They did great work. You can find their names in the credits for my releases in Bandcamp, if you are curious. I learned much from each of them, and finally figured out a way to do this step myself.
Mastering is funny. Anyone who has made records probably knows, it can take your track and finalize it gorgeously, so you go “Wow! It sounds like a record now!” Or, alternately, it can wreck the whole thing, leaving you sad and howling, “Whaaaat happened to our record?!” So you learn by doing.
I wanted to learn this final step, and I did. THANKS to all the aforementioned mastering engineers and producers whom I have had the privilege to work with. I’m NOT going to master other folks’ records. I don’t want that responsibility, and I have no ambition to be in that field, which is populated with geniuses. But I DO know what I want my records to sound like. Each one different; Each song follows its own rules. And I’m glad to have finally demystified this step, for myself. Baby 🙂
Live in Bandcamp now, goes live in all the streaming services July 31. Pre-save in Spotify or Apple Music if you do that sort of thing.
All love,
Eric
I returned to Lübeck sooner than I had originally expected to, for more family and friend gatherings, two years after my first visit there as an adult. Lübeck is my mom’s hometown, and it feels like a second home to me now. My parents met there in early 1960, and I’ll share more about that later. For this morning, I want to recall a few great musical moments from the trip, while they are fresh in my mind.
1. Chorkonzert des Rundfunkjugendchores Wernigerode at the Marienkirche.
Also known as the Church of St. Marien, the Marienkirche, Lübeck is one of the tallest and grandest brick gothic cathedrals in Europe. It took centuries to build, and decades to rebuild after WW2. Maintenance on such a structure is ongoing, actually – it’s sort of always being built and revisioned, as it is utilized and explored and enjoyed by many. The main hall is utterly vast. Its arches and towering stained glass and two mighty pipe organs – plus the massive brick and other surfaces – all combine to create a cavernous reverb which sweetly amplifies and lengthens even the slightest sound of a footstep, a voice, a cough, or anything else. It’s one of the most beautiful long reverbs I have ever heard, and this makes the space ideal for certain kinds of music: Pipe organ of course, and church choir.
This amazing young group..
Rundfunk-Jugendchor Wernigerode
..happened to perform at Marienkirche while we were in town, to our fantastic luck. One of the top youth choirs in Europe, their performance was elevating. I try to think of the right superlative and yes, elevating – uplifting, in the truest sense. The group is top-level pro, yet all teenage kids, so one hears not only their finely rehearsed ensemble work and impeccably trained voices, but also the joy of discovery in every moment – their exhilaration at hearing the sound they create together. It was medicine for the soul, to watch and hear them in this completely organic, acoustic setting – voices and space, absent a digital layer or anything artificial at all. I was struck by how rarely I hear anything like that in my daily life these days. Humbled and inspired, I was revitalized, and moved to joyous tears.
So that happened. There was also a marvelous solo organist in the program, playing the giant pipe organ in between the choir’s sets, all of this amplified and extended by the aforementioned glorious and massive reverb. You can read the programme here for details about the composers and pieces.
Here’s the one shot I naughtily snapped in between the choir’s sets..
..I say “naughtily” because phones (“Handies” as they are called there) are rightly not allowed during the performance. I did it as quickly and stealthily as I could, and I shall repent appropriately. Great shot, tho, innit? 🙂
The gent on the right is of course their conductor, and his interaction with the choir was exciting to watch as was the comeraderie of the singers with each other. By the last set, their smiles were irrepressible as the energy and sound and music soared, and the audience and singers knew they were sharing a unique and unforgettable moment. Faith in humanity restored, and, I suppose, that’s why one might visit a church.
2. WIENER KAMMERORCHESTER / SEBASTIAN KNAUER
»ÜberBach« – works by Arash Safaian, J.S. Bach, Tschaikowsky, Grieg
This epic concert took place at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Tickets gifted by a lifelong friend of my mom’s, we traveled with them and my aunt by train and arrived at this stunning building overlooking the harbor. The architecture is a concert in itself, here’s a slice from their website –
I have a hard time conceiving how this monument was dreamed up, much less designed and constructed. You enter and step onto what might be the world’s longest escalator, and it’s not a straight angle – as you see in the pic, the escalator has a gentle and asymmetric curve, which feels strangely soothing as you slowly ascend. Multiple staircases later we were in the main concert hall – here’s a snap I took while seats were filling up –
It’s like that on all sides. The stage is centered with the audience all around it, and much unlike the earlier-mentioned cathedral, this hall was impeccably designed not to add extensive reverb. Supposedly the sound is magnificent in every section, and it certainly was in ours. The room sounded much smaller than it is – more like a finely tuned recording studio than a normal concert hall. All the instruments felt nearby, and at times I’m pretty sure I could hear the musicians breathing.
The programme was fascinating and fun. Hamburg native pianist Sebastian Knauer is the sort of seemingly effortless virtuoso I find so fun to watch, and his duets with Danish vibraphonist Morten Friis were unexpected and thrilling. Vibraphone on a Bach piece? Well, why not!
Most remarkable for me was the sound of the string ensemble. This is where the unusual acoustics of the room really sang. Concert master Anna Morgoulets has a star presence of her own, and her tone (we guitar nerds have to nerd out about “tone”) – her tone was otherworldly, very much like a voice, and her timing and technique.. I feel silly trying to even describe it. She’s amazing.
So, that also happened!
3. Freddy Quinn’s 1962 hit, Junge, komm bald wieder
This song was a favorite of a very dear uncle of mine who recently passed. I had never heard it before this trip – at a memorial service for him, which I attended along with members of my extended family. Everyone was moved, and clearly many recognized the song from their youth. It’s a sailor’s song, simply calling a son to come home soon, as countless sailors’ moms have done through the ages. My uncle and aunt, and my mom and dad, all emigrated from Germany to the Americas during the early 1960s, while Junge, komm bald wieder was a hit, and I quickly understood the song’s special place in all of their hearts.
Here it is on Pandora, and I’m sure you can find it on other services as well.
As for me, I had thought about renting a guitar for my three week stay there, but opted out as the days were packed with travel and fun activities. I have my mom and cousins and uncles and aunts to thank for that, and for their warm hospitality to this Junge aus California. I feel I know them all better after this journey, and as such, have become more acquainted with myself. I did take some audio notes on the ol’ iPhone Handy! Have a few song ideas percolating, and one of them is straight-up Schlager. I love me some Schlager, and now that I have a chorus and song concept, I’ll just need to find a little free time to bang it out, hopefully within the next few weeks.
Oh!
4. This song – I can say this out loud now, cos I found it amusing, though a tiny bit frightening. Why did I choose to write and record and release a song with the opening line, “I jumped out of a plane,” like, minutes before getting on a plane? Coincidence, or my perverse unconscious mischievous process? I don’t know. Songs happen to me, you see, sometimes that’s the best way to describe it. I Changed My Mind is part of this journey, in fact it was still earworming me as we embarked at SFO. I had also watched the recent harrowing documentary about Boeing’s horrific demise into stupid greed and treachery, just a few weeks ago, so a small bit of my mind was thinking, “OK, this is it, then!” But thankfully, I live to sing another day.
With gratitude and love, don’t jump out of any planes, and komm bald wieder nach Haus.
I have an affection for cold pizza that must be attributable to favorable memories. Pizza is band food, college food, party food, food young people enjoy together with or without beers. After the gig or party or session or thing, if one had the sense to close the box, 12 or 18 hours later, at room temperature, with or without a hangover, the cold pizza can be a great blessing. You’re ready for a bite, you open the box, Eureka, two slices remain, it’s just you and the room and your itinerary and a quick lunch or 3AM snack and off you go. Peppers, garlic, cheese, tomato sauce, a crust which New Yorkers scoff at but will eat under the circumstances, maybe some pepperoni or sausage and you’re hungry – you’ve worked or gigged or partied or all of these, and this, this is the most welcome deliciousness in all of culinary anything in the right moment.
Ordering books, while savoring cold pizza from last night’s in-hotel dinner from Pizzeria San Marco in Lübeck. Ordered The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. Several of my friends have mentioned this novel to me since she apparently mentions The UpTones in the story, and said friends recommend the book highly, and only now am I getting around to it. Why? Reading glasses. I have reading glasses now and.. Well I can read, with them!
Pre-ordered also the new second edition of In Defense Of Ska by Aaron Carnes. I have his 1st edition, found it a wildly fun and informative read, and this obsessed defender of ska has gone and made an expanded edition. The UpTones are part of that story, and in the course of interviews with Mr. Carnes we became pals and I also reconnected with some other peeps from my distant cold-pizza-gigging past as a result of his efforts and research.
Now equipped with fresh reading glasses yes, I am reading books again, not exclusively reading on my computer as I have done for the last decade or so. Progress. I promise I’ll also read some books that don’t involve the UpTones! And maybe heat the pizza, but no promises there.
Finishing an amazing vaca with adventures with friends and family, and I’ll share more about this when I get home, including a bunch of photos.
Guten Abend, and bon appétit
Berkeley, and Panda.
I decided during the Covidopalypse that I must find a new pair of kittens. After some research and tips from friends, I met a marvelous foster-kitten-fosterer who was herself pregnant with a hooman baby. She had two bonded pairs of catboys – a stripey tiger and a sleek noir panther, plus a rambunctious somersaulting holstein-kitten and a subtle grey silvery feline of mystery. Instantly I loved them all, of course, as one does. Sat myself down in their kitty-rumpus-room right on the floor to get amongst them, on their level. The tiny panther, just six weeks old or so, saunters over, climbs onto my outstretched legs and.. falls asleep. I had been chosen, clearly, and I was about to ask – which of the others is in this bonded pair? The tiger answered by investigating and scrutinizing me, as his brother snoozed utterly unconcerned and blissful in the way kittens do. Promptly I committed and signed adoption papers (these do exist for kittens). The lads were too young to take home yet, and they hadn’t been neutered yet, and I had travel plans, so off I went and four weeks later, gleefully collected the now larger and more bouncy felines.
Playful doesn’t begin to describe the ball of energy that is a happy young kitten or puppy. One is reminded of this when confronted by such a whirlwind of enthusiasm and curtain-climbing. The lads roughhouse roughly in the house, occasionally to the point where we think they’re fighting – only to stop abruptly and groom each other and themselves ever so gracefully, and spontaneously nap intertwined in that kittenly way.
They needed names. I as their hooman needed to name them, for their vet records and kitty-chips, as one does. I didn’t think long. Berkeley, and Panda. The tiger is Berkeley, the panther is Panda. Berkeley being my hometown and Berkeley Cat Records being my record label, naturally the tiger is Berkeley. Panda, this also came to me quickly, as I work for Pandora Radio and SiriusXM, and my esteemed Pandora music-head colleagues refer to themselves and each other as Pandas. This nickname had been established well before I started at Pandora as a contractor in 2017, and when I was eventually hired full-time, I embraced my Panda-ness and of course, named Berkeley tiger’s panther-brother, Panda. He’s also just sort of a panda. I mean, he’s ridiculously cute and playful and cuddly as one hopes a kitten or a panda would be.
So it came to pass, Berkeley and Panda are the executive leadership team of Berkeley Cat Records. Here’s an earlier photo of them in discussions about creative direction:
Note the antiquated 1980s stereo gear. We at Berkeley Cat Records kick it old school. There’s even a song in which we claim 1983 as our permanent residence. Cameo appearances here by Berkeley Cat himself and yours truly:
So many pieces converged here. I’d love to tell the story of how this one came about but it’s too soon for me to tell it well. I myself didn’t do any jumping off of things – that’s all metaphorical, save for some friends close to me who did some leaping indeed. Thanks Shannon for the awesome artwork on this. Thanks Damon for clueing me in about Logic Pro Mastering Assistant – wow. I have tried Ozone and a couple of other mastering thingies but couldn’t get anywhere useful. Now, lo and behold I can master my own records at home. Cycle complete. I can create drum tracks, all the way thru to mastering.. A victory of sorts, true solo record-making. But enough nerding. This one rocks and I hope y’all enjoy. Definitely a big nod to early Beserkley Records stuff here, especially Modern Lovers, and the underground velvety wonders they adored.
When teh Inertnets was a widdle baby, I visited a “colocation” site where companies and individuals could rent space to host their webservers. “Servers” made me think restaurant, but these were “boxes” – that is, computers, some of them not unlike the one eventually ravaged by Angry German Kid. Linux was newish, Windows NT was overlording and Apple squeaked from a distance “We’re not dead!” Startups and investors roamed the valley in search of meat as the words “dot com” caused money to rain from ice sculptures. In the colocation building there were cages, each cage padlocked from the outside, LEDs within blinking furiously, whirring of hard drives and thousands of cooling fans created a soothing yet deafening hum. Oh, this is it, I thought – the whole William Gibson, Philip K. Dick business – souls in these electron-streams, experiencing reality of a sort, invisible except in there, in those caged boxes among each other. What did it mean to me? What was my relationship to this lunacy? I didn’t know yet but I was attracted to it, attracted and repulsed, as to a great fun drug with unpleasant side-effects, and still today I am. The boxes are smaller now and “blade” shaped, racks upon racks filling untold acres of energy-devouring computing power, keeping the light flowing so I can “like” a pic of PKD and his adorable kitty.
I recently purchased a little scanner, an Epson ES-50. It’s quite tiny, unlike the giant hulking scanning machines of yore. Remember how they emitted bright white light as the works crawled the page, placed face-down on glass? You’d cover the thing and it would do its mysterious work, whirring and clanking. Now this little tiny machine makes almost no sound, emits no light, and efficiently passes a page through producing.. voila!
I was delighted to find that page recently – I had forgotten I had it. The drawings Jesse Michaels sent us when we recorded our Skankin’ Foolz Unite album. The doggie on upper left won the audition, and landed thusly:
This ^ is also a scan, using said spy-scanner. I fancy it a spy-scanner because it’s like some James Bond shit that Q gave him to scan secret documents but I digress. I have not secret documents, nay, but plenty of pages of handwritten lyrics and assorted photos and drawings from friends and sooooo, I like my new scanner spy thingy.
Speaking of exciting top secrets, Shannon Wheeler is drawing a cover for my EP release of I Changed My Mind. I like my homespun cover art for the single – in fact I purchased said spy-scanner precisely for the purpose of making this. I simply printed out the Berkeley Cat Records logo, wrote on it with a Sharpie, and then scanned it. Voila indeed.
What ever shall we scan next? I love a new toy.
So, as evidenced by evidence, my attempts at NOT making records have utterly failed. I’ll accept this about myself and continue.
A long time ago, a post-UpTones band I had with Ben and Paul and drummer Tom Pope, did a lot of touring on the west coast of these Untidy States. The band was called HOBO, which mystifies me somewhat, but it made sense at the time. We had a lot of fun gigging and recording an album and.. well, we were going to call our second album Another Truckload Of Animals And Prizes. I mean, I wanted to, but the idea never took flight, and the band turned into something else and didn’t make a second album and.. Well, now I am going to make Another Truckload of Animals and Prizes. I think the words were lifted from a circus truck we saw on the road somewhere, but googling around I can’t seem to find it. Maybe we made this phrase up? Anyway, who wouldn’t want another truckload of animals and prizes? I must have it. I must make it. I must and I shall make and have it.
Good morning.
Made a song. Published said song. Below is a scan of the lyrics as originally scribbled while composing and arranging the track. Once the songwriting was done, I typed the lyrics out in ALL CAPS and printed them out large, so they’d be easy to read.. Taped that to my wall, set up a mic and captured the lead vocal in one pass. It was smooth, efficient; In ways that jumping back onto a plane or bridge may not be, one presumes.
…all of which ends up being:
