The drum room at London Bridge is beautiful and sounds like a dream. Chris set up in front of a big brick wall, and I think he only ended up doing about two or three takes before comping together the best bits from them. Engineer Jonathan was seriously cool, and seriously talented, and we all had a fun time talking music in-between all the serious "making music" bits. Chris's friend Greg showed up later to put down the bassline, which again took only a few takes. I look forward to going back there soon to track my parts. I guess I'd better learn the tune, eh?

And THEN I got home just in time to hoof it a few blocks across town to watch Lizzy and Pete play the closing set of this year's Seattle Hemp Fest with Charlie Drown. I've sung Ms. Drown's praises 'round these parts many times before (and of course she has a fantastic cameo on our new album), but I must admit I was a little apprehensive about how they were going to go over in daylight(!) to a festival crowd. Charlie Drown (the band AND the singer) bring "Teh Metal" in a big way, and it's decidedly Music For Adults. I really was unsure how Charlie would come across to a big field of mellow stoners.

They were awesome. Just incredible. They looked "Big Time." Somehow, even though Lizzy has been playing in the band for a year (Pete's been in it for four), this was the first time I'd seen them with her on bass. The band is tight, tight, TIGHT, and after a couple of tunes, the sound was pretty damned good. Charlie is an absolutely riveting performer, and she was on her game in a big way. Certainly their music isn't for everyone, but Charlie's knack for theatricality will bring people in who wouldn't otherwise be into material like theirs. It seems impossible to me that these guys aren't going to be going out on the road and Making A Very Big Noise very soon. Onstage yesterday, they looked like they already were.

Obviously, it would impact HZ not a small amount if Pete and Lizzy take off with Charlie to conquer the Metal World. But they'd be crazy NOT to go, should the opportunity arise for them. I'd be the first one in line to buy a ticket to their show.

"Negative, negative... it didn't go in. It just impacted on the surface."

Hit or no, we are FINALLY taking pre-orders for my band Half Zaftig's new album Life Like Luster. We expect orders to ship the first week of September. The "street date" for Life Like Luster is September 25.

There are a couple of nice (at least, WE think they're nice) pre-order deals. $20 will get you LLL, a BONUS disc of oddities called The Eyes Have It: B-Sides AND your choice of one of the new T-shirts. If you don't want a shirt, you can get the two CD's for $10.

If you've been waiting a very long time, the wait is almost over. We thank you for your extreme patience.

Man, I love living up north. I can't wait for autumn. Bring on the sweater weather, I'm ready.

I watched this movie called George Washington last night. It has absolutely nothing to do with George Washington. It's a good movie, with a very unconventional narrative. It's making me think a lot, especially since I'm in the middle of this screen writing class, and it has such an unconventional structure. You rarely get to see movies that are so unlike other movies.

I finally finished the student film score that I've taken way, way, WAY too long to do. Because the movie it belongs to is embarrassingly bad, I'm never going to tell any of you how to watch it. However, if you're curious about what my first ever attempt at trying to write a film score sounds like, then today is your lucky day.

CLICK HERE to download the MP3 of the score for Mrs. Millschneider.

It's twelve minutes of nearly continuous music. The reason it's so sparse in the middle is that there's like 7 minutes of near constant dialog between something like nine characters. It was hard to put any music in without trampling on all the constant (and redundant) yapping. I tried really hard to make it work as a thing on its own as well as being the score, and maybe that's why I took so long. I learned a lot about the MIDI capabilities of Pro Tools. Don't be surprised if you hear some of the themes from this showing up in future projects. I'd like to develop some of the melodies into songs some day.

A fun opportunity. I'm not sure I'd want to do it a lot, unless it was for a film I'd done myself.