2004 ... WHAT HAPPENED? ::


Hello,

Yes, it's true. Once again, I've slacked off on this whole website deal - it's not even semi-current. Ooops. But, it's been an interesting and eventful couple of years, and just keeping focused on the events at hand was more consuming than I'd hoped for. Time just goes by way too fast now - 2004 went by in a blink.

Such is life, I guess.

So, this is sort of an update. 2003 was a year of major change for me professionally, as I made the choice to stop touring. This was a trickier readjustment than I'd considered. When I left the world of recording studios and record-making as a full time occupation in the fall of 1999, it was indeed that - there was a world to leave, and a world I knew fairly well. Upon my reentry into that particular atmosphere I was somewhat shocked to find that everyone had packed up and left, and there were a slew of new values and ideals in place that were a little foreign to me ... maybe not so much new, as more extreme than ever. This was the most definitely the 21st century, the world of 'American Idol' and 'Survivor'; of Limewire and Kazaa and Garage Band; of Led Zeppelin and Who songs in TV ads; of unabashed lip-synching; of even less music on MTV and VH-1; and the cherry on top, a giant helping of post 9/11 paranoia. Sure, I was aware of major changes in the music industry, the economy, and the world as a whole while I was flying around the planet wearing funny clothes ... still, there's nothing like experiencing something first hand to get the real flavor of it. The reality of studio closings, label mergers, and the fact that I no longer knew any A&R people with jobs didn't hit me completely until I finally settled back home for good and attempted to go about business as usual, and could no longer do so.

Plus, when you get used to relying on a tour manager to tell you what you'll be doing every minute of every day for the foreseeable future, it's weird enough just to figure out where to find breakfast the first couple of weeks after you get off the bus.

So, 2004 was a year of rebuilding and rethinking what it is I do, a process that continues. A mistake I made along the way was to forget that it's a process that is SUPPOSED to continue (it's called evolving, stupid). I must admit to getting somewhat comfortable in the first few years of this still nameless decade, partly because of artisitic/personal fulfillment, and partly as a reaction to my way-too-up-close 9/11 experience, which frankly left me shaken for months. I think I stopped questioning things in my own world simply as a way to regain my footing after the shock of watching people jump to their deaths from the distance of a city block, and seeing a jet full of people plow into an iconic building I'd scaled many times from the same vantage point. On the positive side, I was making great music and had a new mate; the family was doing well and I had a great gig ... so, I couldn't complain even as I couldn't sleep.

Last year I put a lot of my effort into my own studio, Alice's Restaurant, and did a good portion of my work out of that little space in the East Village. I delved into a host of additional software and hardware, and other than an ill-timed computer meltdown it seems to be doing well. People continue to love it there - it's still light, it's still in a great neighborhood, and we still have weenie roasts in the summertime. I did a lot of work under the radar in there, notably with new Verve signings The Brazilian Girls ... more about them later. There were a number of independent and unsigned artists as well, among them Small World Revival, Lotus, Little Kitten Space Girl, Orange Blue, The Drown, Heather Eatman, and Scarlet Symphony. In addition to my own studio, I worked at a few of the holdouts in New York (notably Chung King, RPM, and good ol' Looking Glass), and took a half dozen trips to Los Angeles ... so many that I even brought a bike there to stay.

I also fit in an excursion to my alma mater in Bloomington, Indiana. The Music School flew me in to talk to students who are interested in pursuing careers in audio recording and/or music production - they try to bring in graduates who have been working in the real world ('real' being open to interpretation) to give the kids some insight into what it's like to do what I do for a living. I basically made it my aim to scare the crap out of them. The only requirement for my services? A bicycle, naturally.

As for 2005 ... I'm wrapping up an album with Parisian band Louise Attaque on an independent label called Atmospheriques. We began at Electric Lady Studios in Manhattan, and have been continuing in little stretches in Paris ever since. We're almost done ... one last trip to the Land of Vin Rouge to mix the last remaining tracks. I'm in preproduction with an LA band called the Bloody Lovelies, which we'll record in April in Venice, CA. There have been a few others already - Toronto based Eden Ants, NYC duo Astaire, continuing work with a few of last years' artists, a couple of writing projects, yada yada yada. So, the insanity continues ...