Not by posting numerous and timely blog entires, that’s for sure…
Quick updates and highlights:
1) Two seperate movies featuring my guitar and looping work are coming out within the next month-and-a-half. These are Hollywood studio films with national releases and household-name stars, and there are at least a few moments where you can very clearly hear me “doing my thing;” I still don’t quite believe it myself. More on this soon (since the first one opens on Oct. 7th.), including whether or not there will be soundtrack albums released for either film.
2) Recently I’ve been listening to rough stereo mixes of the five-Echoplex 5.1 gigs at The Monkey in NYC from March. Some stuff that felt horrible at the time sounds extremely good now, some magical moments during the gigs are kind of ho-hum heard after the fact, and some stuff that I liked then I still like now. The general plan is to see one full-length album of highlights from the shows released sometime in the first half of next year, as a dual-sided (5.1 on one, stereo on the other) disc.
3) Two other releases with me on them which may or may not see the light of day before the end of this year:
– Half-Pint Demigod, an album of remixes I produced (entirely from the recorded performances in the original versions of the songs) of music by Shawn “Yogi” Farley. The tracks were turned in to Shawn in mid-2002, when they were originally slated to come out, and then went into indefinite limbo; they’re sort of my “lost” album, as they were done between Disruption Theory and Normalized, even though I didn’t “perform” a single note on the record.
– Beyond The Foggy Highway, a live record by pianist/composer Chris Opperman, which features a few cuts with me performing. Haven’t really heard this one, so no idea what to expect from it.
4) A handful of gigs in the works, including Nova Express here in LA at the end of September, and a likely return to The Monkey for the New York Guitar Festival (where I opened for David Torn back at the beginning of last year) early in 2006.
5) Teaching a lot of guitar these days – 17 students at last count – and really enjoying it. I’m the son of two professional musicians who made/continue to make a lot of their living by teaching, so it feels a lot like tapping back into the family trade.
6) Brilliant album alert: Candles In Daylight by Jed and Lucia, a pair of friends of mine going back to my CalArts days. Stunningly written, performed, and produced acoustic-meets-electronic, folk/hip-hop/ambient songs. If the sound clips at the link above catch your ear, please take a moment to order the record.
More soon…