so...
for about a month, my hosting service decided to hold my domain name hostage. shawnavery.com expired on jan 20th and i was given one email as a reminder to renew. i replied before the domain expired and asked them to renew my domain name and to bill my account.
i heard nothing back for weeks. i got a bit worried after 3 weeks because after a domain is expired for a month, it goes into this weird holding phase for two months. it would have been very expensive to buy my own name back. so i threatened them with litigation and charge backs.
that seemed to do the trick. i would have been working on getting all of my files uploaded, but when the domain is out, the hosting is out as well. so i was basically holding a dead site for a month.
so what has happened...
we've finished tracking the record and pretty much have mixed it. a few weeks back we dropped two songs from the track listing. this made sense not only for wiseblood, but it will actually enhance our next record, which will be less ambient and literary. more blues rock. the new album is still being called "wiseblood" and the track listing as of the end of feb is:
gasoline
hwy.
bad luck
dreams
adam/eve
blackout
lonely broom
lovers in antipodes
after the flood
endless light
wiseblood
night
midmorning
some of these are working titles. our next record, that we hope to begin working on actually this summer or fall... might be titled : "my dirty american blues" - we'll just have to wait and see.
on feb 1st i moved into my new crib overlooking caldwell park. its about a mile from everything. i can't think of a better location in southside. i'm in the process of re-framing and mounting prints and working on some custom furniture for the mdeia room and the living room. oh... and this sounds way gay but... the hardwood floors are to die for.
tonight ashby and i went to see our friends, formerly known as long story short - now going by "the bridges" - at workplay. they opened up for the british post-pop band aqualung. both bands played very good sets. its was cool hanging out with everyone again. ash had a little mishap with his car, but i'll let him tell you about it. that's of course, if you ask him.
on the sideman front... in feb clint wells, (the guitarist i played with in jesse payne's first line-up) played some guitar parts on the ashes record. actually we finished tracking after his sessions. everything sounds pretty incredible.
i sat in on a session for a local female hip hop artist. playing live break beats on a vintage drum kit. i was way out of practice, but i think i did ok. and last but not least... i have a new side project, which happens to be clint well's band - the spots.
crazy name, i know. here's the deal. we get paid a lot of money to play swanky martini clubs and private parties, colleges, etc... and in return, we don't play covers, we don't write songs, and we rarely rehearse. pretty much straight up improvisation for an hour or two at a time. we do have some riffs that we replay but that's about it. our style ranges from ambient funk to bluesy fusion to pop jams. really spacey stuff.