July 07, 2004 - 2:16 PM

New Design, New Choices

Hey now. That wasn't so hard. Just a few hours at the old computer, checking out source info for other webpages, plugging it into my own template, leaving the laundry in the dryer for 2 hours...oh shit. Be right back.

So lookee at that. I've got a new design. Very simple. And not totally finished. But I think we'll knock that out later today or tomorrow night. What do you think?

I'm listening to Adrianne's brand-spanking, hot-off-the-presses new album entitled 10,000 Stones, and I am so proud and giddy that I worked on it. Two of the songs were mixed by me and gosh if they don't sound good. This entire album was done independently, with Adrianne and her manager flitting from one producer friend to another, grabbing whatever studio time they could, and cobbling the whole thing together over the course of two years. I came in towards the end of the process in March, doing a little bit of mixing on the song Comets, then puttering around with it a few more times to get it ready for mastering; and doing a full mix on Strange which I'm quite proud of.

To have concrete evidence of my work, and having that work be quality. Wow. What a thrill. I don't mean the website overhaul...I mean the album. And, well, apparently, Adri's working on learning website design herself in order to handle her own homepage. Good luck to her. I was just tinkering around with old-school, outdated HTML for this, which I've read is no longer the suggested coding method. Whatever.

I picked up the album tonight at a show where Adrianne opened up for Rachael Sage. Rachael was pleased to see me again, as was her cellist Stephanie Winters from whom I bought her long awaited solo cello album Through the Storm. In the course of one week, I've received 10 new CDs, and am now basking in the sumptuous new-music saturation. It's like Christmas, unwrapping a present and anticipating the discovery of whether or not I'll like it. And so far, I've liked all the albums.

Also adding to my good mood is the fact that I had an interview at Paramount Recording studios today, and the owners hired me on the spot as a freelance assistant with the opportunity to be a first or main engineer on certain sessions. I'll be going in on Thursday to start learning how the rooms are set up. The pay won't be great, especially considering that I won't be receiving benefits, but at least I'm getting back into the swing of things engineering-wise, and they have been busy lately, even booking rock and roll as more than half of their projects in place of urban music, which is a trend that pleases me.

So, now I'm a freelancer with three different options, and I'll have to figure out which will take precedence if there are conflicts. The theater gig pays the best, requires the least work, and usually only takes up 5 hours of my time an evening; the teaching gig is close in pay to the theater job, is very rewarding as far as socially conscious work, and it leaves my evenings and weekends free for frolicking; the recording gig is half the pay of either of the other jobs, will probably require super long hours and haphazard scheduling, but it's what I love to do. And, we still have that classical engineer who wants to use me as an assistant come September. Choices to be made in the next two months.

Man, and there's even more stuff to share, like the two (that's right, count 'em TWO) parties I went to this weekend, plus my parents being in town and dropping some big news on me, and the wrapping up of the Ramayana show, several movies being watched, and plans afoot for a trip to San Diego this Saturday to catch a baseball game. I hope it doesn't take me a week to get the next entry up.

Now Listening To:
Adrianne - 10,000 Stones

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