Oh! My! God! How time flys when you're secretly producing Seattle's most...!

There have been some major upgrades here at Gravelvoice since January,first of which is the establishment of gravelvoice.com. Now if you wantto tell me something or ask a question or whine like a snivelling idiot you need to send an email to updates@gravelvoice.com. C'est ingenu, non?

The studio has enjoyed some upgrades, as well: Welcome [drumroll] the Tascam 90-16 1" 16 track analog machine! And the Mackie 1604 VLZ! And two Rode NT1's! [applause, cheers, underwear tossing] I reviewed the Rode NT1s for Mix Magazine's March issue, by the way, which is, at this very moment, on a newstand near you.

My new 16 track was immediately christened by the Bali Girls - which made me AND the 16 track very happy - who recorded four songs for the Spork label here in Seattle over the past few weeks. Their new CD-EP will be released in a few months, featuring a cover of Accept's "Balls to the Wall" which is apt to offend all "serious" metalheads (as if you can take them seriously) and tickle those of you with a sense of humour.

In The Land O' New Releases:

-- The Climax Golden Twins' manipulations of the Secret records is still available, although Artist Editions are going fast. The "Locations" CD will be available in just a few weeks, and the Twins are presently working on more beat-oriented material for "Static Luxury Object". Such busy boys...

-- Ed Pias' solo CD - "Ancestor's Halo" - is now available worldwide on Extreme.

-- "Dying Ground", featuring Eyvind Kang, is available as a Japanese import, only.

-- Rick Bishop's solo record "Salvador Kali" is scheduled for April release on the Revenant label.

-- I just finished mastering a Charlie Feathers' double CD which will be released by Revenant later this year.

The Sun City Girls recording blow out was a great success, resulting in 28 reels of canned tape (not to be confused with potted meat). Two thirds of this material is improv (aka: unrehersed) and the rest is comprised of composed songs (which were also unrehersed, but I dare you to tell me which are which). These recordings will begin to surface after the release of "Dulce" (a soundtrack for a Japanese film), which is going to press in a week or so, most likely as an LP because we're oooh-so-retro! Oh... and
BTW this is a _single_ LP, not some megadruple package like the last schmillion releases.

The May issue of The Wire will feature a Sun City Girls article with interviews from Rick Bishop and yours truly, so... read up.

Alan Bishop's new solo record (as Alvarius B) will be released as a gatefold double vinyl LP (so hip, so NOW...).

The final mixes are being completed for Brent Arnold's fabulous RGI
project. I'm not sure when it will come out, but these recordings have gained the interest of a Prominant Seattle Indy Label (not Sub Pop - I said "prominant").

I had a unique opportunity to record a duet between Elizabeth Falconer (koto) and Ellen Fullman on her newest creation - the long string instrument - a few weeks ago as part of Elizabeth's duet project (other duets already feature Ed Pias on pakahwaj and Lori Goldston on cello). Ellen's istrument is easily 30 feet long and she mentioned that this installation is only half the original size (my girlfriend says, "Puh-leeze! I've heard THAT one before!"). It is made up of three sets of 9 or more strings, each set of which is attached to a wooden box resonator. The strings are then stroked with a rosened finger to create sounds which often belie a small orchestra, or sometimes even a pipe organ. It is certainly one very expressive instrument, and I am quite impressed with Ellen's ingenuity for having invented the darn thing.

Several people have asked me about the Residents' shows in San Francisco last October. They are incredibly hard to describe - like some wonderful and demented Dr. Suess dreams - so take a look at http://www.residents.com/shows/fillmore-gallery.html to see pictures from the show; I believe they say it all. The Residents are not to be missed for visual entertainment! One may not like their music (or, one may), but even the uninformed will thrill at the sight! Their stories, costumes, sets, tie-ins... hell, even just crowd-watching at a Resident's show is so out-of-this world it's like Salvadore Dali on Acid meets M.C. Escher on shrumes. We even ran in to the Three Day Stubble lads at the Halloween show - IN COSTUME (no, I mean, even MORE in costume than normal) so what's
not to like?

I made the trek to SF over Halloween as part of my first vacation in three years. I flew in to Oakland, rented a car and drove to Big Sur to visit the Henry Miller Library. Miller is one of my favorite authors, so it was so nice to spend the day at the Library with Magnus, curator extraordinairre, during which I was allowed to peruse the archives of every Miller book ever published! One of Miller's typewriters was there, as well as his famous cap - I even got to (*sigh*) TOUCH it! And I had never seen any of his paintings before, some of which were great and some of which were so-so but ALL of which were Henry Miller's, so it hardly mattered what they looked like - could've been schmatta on cardboard and I'd have gone "ooo" and "aah". An extra bonus was a long conversation I had with Magnus which spanned musical references such as The Residents, Snakefinger, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa and Pint Sized Spartacus! Ya Falla! All-in-all it was a trip to remember, and one I will hopefully repeat this Fall when I attend the AES Conference in SF. And that concludes "What I Did Over Summer Vacation".

We now return to Horror of Dracula starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Thank you for your time.