shawn avery

this weekend after doing vocal tracks all day saturday, i set up my new ipod. right now i've got almost 300 songs loaded and just that number seems plenty. this morning i read on my favorite website an article about the 21st aniversary of the macintosh. as of this coming august i will have been a mac user for ten years. i remember a few months before going to university, my best friend casey uttered some mantra about getting a mac because they were more user friendly and creative. at the time (i was 20) i just wanted to figure out my recording gear and drum machine. as luck would have it my roommate in college, steve wilson, was a mac-head. he was using a mac '94 model performa 6116 if i remember correctly. my introduction to the mac, photoshop and the internet began in the late summer of '95. a few months later, obviously informed by steve's knowledge and guidance and my enthusiasm, my girlfriend at the time got a new performa that xmas. this completely eliminated the ...

i hate to say it, but it looks as if one of my former music heros is about to go down in a big way. after following the news passingly like everyone else, i decided to actually investigate and read the file / complaint against mjj. its pretty shocking. i have to admit that i have become more and more intrigued by the upcoming trial. as someone who works in the legal field, and as someone who idolized michael jackson 20 years ago, it's definitely my kind of scandal. if he is indeed found guilty, which the physical evidence will make hard to disprove, the entire planet will stand with our mouths gaping. i have a much much longer treatise on this subject which i will post later. for now i'll just leave it with a photo of the dark prince of pop. i'll always cherish the eddie van halen guitar solo on beat it and the breakdown on wanna be startin' somethin'... no matter the verdict. it is truly a nature vs. nurture situation. if he is convicted, will it be because he was...

ashby and i recorded some demos for wiseblood and a fantastic version of a simon and garfunkel song. i won't say which one... all i can say is that it could blow everything up in a big way. the album just got a lot better. we recorded all afternoon and well into the evening. you haven't lived until you've recorded with a century old steinway & sons grand piano. i played a show with jesse payne at the nick on friday. we opened for two other bands but the crowd seemed to be there for us. it was a good, high energy set.

friday and sunday ashby and i worked on vocals for the song bad luck. things are coming along, albeit slower now that we are tackling harmonies. the project has passed the one year mark and is poised to pass 18 months. my girlfriend got a pink ipod mini this weekend. i was along as mac moral support, as is usually the case with my friends. ashby got a powerbook g4 to aid in the recording eandeavors this summer, and this past xma$ he got an ipod mini himself. i am now surrounded by them. although i have been using apple products for almost 10 years now, for some reason i have been procrastinating getting an ipod. then i disovered the ipod mini. 1,000 songs, really small and sexy. with the itrip adapter, it can stream music to any radio anywhere in my vicinity. i'm sold. i'm buying a silver one this week. it's almost time start reviewing rough mixes for the album anyway. i watched a documentary on johnny cash during a tour in the late 60's. he visited indian reservations,...

this week marks one year since we began recording the album, tentatively titled wiseblood, formerly titled ...and then we shall walk in endless light. at one point during the drum sessions, it was called "rock happens." we initially recorded about five songs worth of drum sessions at the home studio where the (now dissolved) band stateside had just recorded the album phonograph. i was working on album art and photography for their album as we began the sessions. we tracked using thomas mimikakis' vintage ludwig kit, which made the sessions sound big, round and earthy, including possibly the best snare sound in north america. very anti-modern rock. think honky tonk women by the stones. i tracked the drums during these sessions. we later set up a tracking room at ashby's and proceeded to put meat on the bones of these early drum tracks. that pretty much ate up the rest of winter and part of spring. in april / may we set up a pre-production room and a drum room at our (n...

today, for those in the know, is when apple will announce its annual offerings of ultra-hipness. this time, rumours of a flash memory ipod or a really cheap imac... probably no g5 powerbook, because the betas are melting the casings off. the problem in that instance isn't developing a faster computer, it is developing one where the heat from the processor doesn't overpower the design of the unit. things are evolving. that got me thinking about the problem of moore's law. the ceiling effect. the fact that we came from (when i was in college) 60, 75, 180mhz, 500mhz in the 90's to 1,2 and 3gz is pretty fabulous. i remember my best friend actually brought his huge mac system to my apartment in college to hang out for a few days and mess around in photoshop and music apps. a good bit of that time was spent waiting for photoshop to hurry the fuck up. now that's not really the case. photoshop rarely makes me wait, except maybe when i'm opening a huge file. no big deal....

some excellent movies i've seen lately: the manchurian candidate . (remake) - much better than the reviews. comedy, psycho-drama, oedipal themes. paraniod. good. garden state . killer movie, got the soundtrack last night. that frou frou track is the shizzle. code 46 . in the future, cloning could seriously complicate your love life. the life aquatic . bill murray is an alcoholic asshole, and you love him for it. the music in the film impressive. and the french / acoustic renditions of ziggy era bowie songs are worth the ticket price alone. the bourne supremacy . better than the last four bond films combined. damon can act circles around ben afleck, but then again so can i.

i got a phone call yesterday from the lead singer of the band long story short. lately i've been doing a few things to help them establish a base in birmingham (they are from oxford/anniston). one of the things i'm doing to help, is to get them some airplay on bham's rock station, wanz / z100. during the course of the conversation i realized that the station might be in trouble. i didn't really mention it at the time, but the discussion of the dj's and the programming made me take more notice of what has been happening. i've been somehwhat closely aligned with the station for almost two years. my good friend amber, who i met at workplay when she did promotions, started at z100 soon after they launched in 2003. she became the staple of the midday and weekend slots. the other prominent dj, monk, has been very helpful - having played several songs by the ashes and jesse payne. the ashes were invited to play a few radio endorsed shows and monk even passed along pra...

it's 73 degrees. in early jan. is that the opposite of hell freezing over? the pres is pimpin' out clinton and his dad to ask the american public for money. that's fine i guess, but i think dubya's days of asking for money should be tempered. $100 billion (more) for iraq is being requested as i write this. thus far the world has donated about 2 billion. 100 billion for iraq? that's 50 tsunamis. or, one hell of a protools rig. with 100 billion dollars, i could finally have enough plug-ins, and dsp cards on which to run them.

i did the new years thing... it was very new yearsy. got back into the swing of things - recording ashby's "final" vocals for the album. we're trying to push the status quo that has become the initial scratch vocals. it's going quite well. if we remain focussed, we'll be done with the primary vocals by the time ashby returns to cumberland. cursing loudly in french on a track. too much fun. more recording this evening. the weather is surreal. i walked around in a t-shirt on new years day. it was about 70 degrees. last week it was 17.