I'm happy to report that the Open House was a big success, and many "Seattle luminaries" attended. The playing of "Zaireeka" by the Flaming Lips was accomplished though the use of an ADAT and 4 stereo pairs of speakers suspended from the ceiling of the studio, although it was a bit tough to hear over the crowded din. And did I mention that the Reeses Pieces were a popular food table item?

CUT OF THE MONTH is for those of you who enjoy the good/bad of the likes of Mrs. Miller or the Shaggs. It is a piece by Iris Lover and her ensemble singing a devotional hymn. Listen and learn...

BLACK EYED SUSAN was in the studio this month working on their full length demo. Similar to PORTISHEAD or HUMAN LEAGUE (early period), this combo features steller female vocals, electric guitar and complex drum and keyboard sequences.

OTA PROTA continues fine tuning and mixing their full length CD with the addition of techno beats, monkey samples, muppet voices and computer trickery. TORTOISE fans, take note!

BILL MOYER and BILLY JARKO were in to comp a soundtrack for Jarko's animated short "Bob and Francis". This session was interesting because we had SMPTE timecode on a VHS tape that was fed to Moyers Mac through Opcode's Studio 4. The Mac ran Studio Vision to play foley work that Moyer had done at his home studio. The Studio 4 converted SMPTE to MTC, which was then run to my TripleDAT PC program in which all the voiceover, music and other SFX were tracked. Believe it or not, all these pieces of equipment communicated well. Jarko plans on presenting his trailer to several studios for series production.

DOUG THERIAULT was in to dub guitar on an improv tape sent to him by ED CHANG. Doug's guitar work is amazing in the multitude of sounds he can make his instrument resonant. The evening was finshed off with a jam between Theriault and Climax Golden Twins!

The LONG STRINGED INSTRUMENT and additional instumental improvisations were recorded remotely by Chris Gomez and I. This session featured LSI, cello, trumpet, guitar, violin and voice.

AIKO SHIMATA was in for a day to track two new songs for an upcoming Japanese-only collection of her music thusfar. I tried the ol' Blue Note mic technique for bass, which consists of mounting a mic in the bridge of the bass with the capsule facing the instrument. The result was stunning! Hopefully you will hear this soon.

SANDWICH PEOPLE were in for additional overdubs and remixing.

WICKER PALATE was in to do additional overdubs

FIRST HAND was in to remix "Mary's Hands" for their long-upcoming album

TAMARA CAULKINS brought in a collection of slavic 78's for transfer to CD.

UPSOYO mastered their second demo.

WALKABOUTS had me sequence and edit a live album which features a full orchestra for release on Glitterhouse, which will be available via mail, only (much like Chris Eckman's solo album).

We celebrated Memorial Day weekend by rewiring the studio patchbay and taking off to the Skagit Valley for a little bit of rest and relaxation (combined, of course, with the samplings of several wooded areas for Acoustic Mirror). Jaye told me that I might disturb the locals with my loud tone sweeps which echoed through the canyon like the mothership take off, but this idea also appealled to us both.

See you on MARS!