You Say Potato, I Say Potatoe. Issue #12

Last Thursday night TJ Sherrill my hetero-lifemate, his wife Jess, and I embarked for a six hour journey to Idaho for a Friday night show. It was funny because we originally had three shows booked, but two canceled a couple of weeks prior. Still, we decided to make the trip for what was my first time playing in what the kids call "The Gem State". I realize as I can see the year ahead of me and tours we are planning that I need to get WAY better at riding in the car for long periods of time. I'm kinda like a nine-year old, and easily get a little stir crazy when confined. My wife is always saying I'm a little autistic and this might just be another indicator. The nine-year in me did like this though...


When we got to our destination, I found we were staying at their couple friend's house who were in Africa for a month helping orphaned children find families (insert feeling of needing to do something THAT GOOD here). The husband's name was Zack, and I immediately loved the guy without having met him when I saw how cool his paintings were, and wished I had his skillz. Their house was full of them, and I hope someday to be able to purchase one for mine. Until then, I will try to create knock-offs...


On Friday we did a little sight-seeing and got to check out Coeur d'Alene (where we were playing) and tried out a few of the local eateries. This really is almost my favorite part about traveling, getting unnecessarily really excited to eat a bunch of food that I don't have here no matter if it's good for me or not. Score of the weekend was The Pita Pit which was basically Quizno's in a pita but REALLY GOOD and fresh tasting.


That night we played The Barrel Room, a wine-bar that has some of the best wine I think I've ever tasted. Also a little strong from how I felt the next morning after not having that much...

TJ's friend Chris Has opened up the evening and I followed. It's pretty fun, and also pretty hard to play in a new town where no one knows you. The challenge is to get people to want to stick around in the first song when they probably have plans after seeing their friend/family member plays earlier or right before you. Unfortunately, the days of "lets just go see some new music" are pretty well gone with so many things competing for your entertainment dollar. This will make you learn really quickly what works and what doesn't when trying to keep a crowd interested in an artist they don't know. I felt I performed well, and made some mental notes on how to approach the situation next time where live music is not main focus of the venue, but still a fun place to play. Also, this trip shows me a little preview of the good time that TJ and I are going to have when we head out for a week in October. Like I said before, hetero-lifemates need to be travel compatible...

It's my last week to finish my E.P., and asked Patrick Porter to come by and lay some sweet-sweet Patrick licks on a few songs. He's a master of pedal-steel, and I can't wait to hear what it adds to a stripped down number I have on the album. Oddly enough, last week I exchanged a song that was meant to go on it for a new one I just wrote that I knew I would regret if I didn't record right away. It ties the overall lyrical picture together though, and I think I'll be glad I didn't let it escape...

Enjoy some classic Mitch Hedberg to get your week going right!



-Kyle

Apple Baseball. Issue #11

Last week, the E.P. release became a little more real when I booked a mastering date with Mark Guenther at Seattle Disc Mastering. Mark did the 3rd LAYMANS TERMS record (the red album) and I remember being happy with the way it turned out and thought he was a cool guy. For those who don't know, mastering is the final step of the recording process and the definition (which is really long) can be found here. It will be nice to have the songs interpreted by fresh ears, and given that little bit of extra shine that mastering can provide. I asked Brian Meredith to do my artwork for the record after much internal debate as to which direction to go, mainly because of two schools of thought. The first school of thought states that you should never put your picture on your cover. You should go for the more arty interpretation that is vague enough to make the listener ponder why you chose such a deep piece (even if it's because you couldn't come up with anything else, but don't tell them that...).
The second school of thought says you should ALWAYS go with your picture on the cover, and in that way it's also like a full press kit and an advertisement for the entire package. A lot of times this is a good idea for up and coming bands or an artist's debut. That is unless your stage attire is sweatpants, but even then you are rocking your own vibe so good for you!

What did I decide to go with? Hmmmmmm...


I can laugh about it now (can I?), but last week I was going into panic mode as parts of my finished songs were LITERALLY BEING ERASED by my external hard drives that though they said were formatted for a Mac, really weren't. Imagine this if you will for a moment...You are working on your album for months, and then one day you open your song file and PARTS ARE GONE. WTF!?! You close the file, restart the computer, open the file up again and MORE PARTS ARE GONE (insert crying here). After an hour and a half on the phone with Apple, I think the situation is remedied (knock on plastic), but it left me with some re-recording and damage control to do. It was panic mode for sure, and I wish that hell on no one.

After being cooped up in my studio for the past few months, and without a vacation planned for this summer, my old friends Matt from COLLIDER, and Ex-LT bassist Matt Campbell decided to go camping up by Cle Elum at a place called Cooper Lake. It was pretty relaxing and fun despite the fact that there was a burn ban and fires weren't allowed. What is camping without a fire!?! After much debate and talk of "The Man", we decided that it wasn't worth the $500 fine we would win if we got caught. That, and the fact that I would mentally see Smokey The Bear shake his head at me in disgust for a long time.



The next day we set out for reliving some adolescent memories in the form of APPLE BASEBALL. This goes back to when we were 13 and decided that it would be a good idea to make use of all the apples going bad in Matt's mom's backyard. We were happy to find that Safeway had 10 lbs. for $10, and knew the universe blessed the Safeway club card for us that day. Yes, for those who need to know they were Gala apples...
There really is nothing like the satisfying joy that fruit meeting the end of a bat can bring to you, and decided that it definitely needed to become a yearly tradition, and that getting juice all over my camera did not. It could almost become a purifying Burning Man of sorts for those who can't make the trip to Nevada. Tickets go on sale today...

In The Lab. Issue #10

Since it's about 2 months from now that TJ Sherrill and I will be hitting the road for a week-long tour, it's about the time to start booking dates and seeing which venues would be great to play for a first time out. Obviously we're not gonna be in the best of spots for our time around, but also we don't want to be playing the pizza parlors on the flip side of the coin. This is the challenge, and also something I want to get right as I remember the jaunt that LAYMANS TERMS did down the west coast in 2002. We were really eager to get out for an adventure, but found that when we got to our musical destinations in Portland, Oakland, etc...they were not the best of places. In fact, and I'm dead serious, both dates we played consisted of NO ONE in
the crowd except for our tour buddy Star, and the bartenders! First date we cried, and second date couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness...
So obviously as strangers in a new town, we are hoping to play some venues that have a natural draw, and fit well with the demographic we feel our music connects with. Mine obviously being senior citizens, and I won't speak for TJ because I don't know who he's going for...
Seriously though, I'm going to be really glad when it's all booked and we can get all the busy work out of the way!

Mmmmmm...Pie!


Matt and I have been working hard on getting a full set prepared so COLLIDER can get the rock out to the masses before the end of the year. As I stated in earlier blogs, I had some concerns at first how I was going to write differently for COLLIDER by collaborating with Matt, and make it sound separate from my solo material. At this point I feel like it's a non-issue and that the material is different enough as it's own entity.

"The Lo"


There's not really much new to share this week other than I am in the process of recording the final two songs for my E.P. It's been exciting, and a bit of a challenge for me as it's my first solo release. I've found it challenging in the fact that not only has it been almost 5 years since I've officially released a new album, but a bit of a mental challenge as well. I've also found when you are in a full band setting that there is no shortage of opinions, and though that poses it's own set of issues, it keeps the ball rolling constantly as everyone hopefully has the same goal. Working alone, you are obviously only accountable to yourself and the mind game that comes with it. In my case, I've found that constant forward motion is the key as I know I have the tendency to over-analyze my work which gets me stuck in the occasional case of analysis-paralysis (if you've been reading my blog you know what I mean...).

In the past, I used to think of my albums as something that needed to represent me for a long period of time, and now it's a lot more fun and freeing to think of them as "snap-shots" for a moment...

I'm really curious in seeing how this E.P. will be received, and can't wait to get it in everyone's hands. That's all for this week, gotta keep working! :)

-K

How To Swear In Australian. Issue #9

Last week I spent everyday working on a track for Gigi Edgley before she flew in from L.A. on Friday. That night, I met up with she and Brian at the CD release show at Mr. Spot's Chai House for Scott who was the lead singer of the now defunct M-Set.

After Scott's set, there was a lot of time left and he was kind enough to let friends come up and do a song or two. The theme for the rest of the evening seemed to be obscure covers (Queen folk-guitar interpretations for example), and thinking it would be a fun thing to play where I literally only knew three people in the crowd, I decided to throw down some Michael Jackson to what ended up being an appreciative-yet-horrified audience. After hanging out for a while, we called it a night for the big weekend of hopeful productivity that lay before us.


During the course of last week, I discovered a new way to work on songs as we passed ideas for song styles back and forth over the phone, and then would send her examples via email of recorded tracks. This way since we only had the weekend to crack something out, a lot of the busy work (not fun editing stuff and me cussing at my computer) would be out of the way. We got a full song recorded by Sunday afternoon, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. She has a really pretty voice (she's Australian too), and oddly enough I've never had the chance to work with a female singer before. It's definitely something I need to try again in the future. The song is totally different style wise than what I normally do, but very cool and the result of a really fun and positive collaborating experience. It was also a breath of fresh air trying to help someone develop their style, and taking on a different musical hat than I am used to. Brian (or as he's now been dubbed "B-Real") helped as a great set of extra ears and offered up helpful insight when we hit a few lyrical walls mostly because he speaks American darn good like. Unfortunately, I can't say what the song is for at the moment but I can tell you that she's working on a very cool multi-media experience that I'm excited to be a part of and will let you know more about in the near future...

This week I continue to work on my goal of getting my yet-to-be-titled E.P. out before TJ Sherrill and I hit the road for a week-long tour in October. TJ also kindly invited me on a few dates he had booked this month in Idaho for the weekend of the 24-26th, and I'm really looking forward to those dates as well.

In closing, we've had a lot of guests come into town in the last month or so, and because of that we've had some experience on what "Seattle" things are a hit and those that don't really end up being so much fun. Wanting to show Gigi a good time and throwing the go-to-list of ideas out the window, we ended up where Mandi and her crew were, and the place where all the classy ladies go...PIONEER SQUARE. For some reason I always feel like an old man down there, and maybe it's because I had a feeling that the bass player of the band playing wasn't trying to be funny by wearing the GOOD CHARLOTTE T-Shirt...

Still, Brian and I redeemed our host selves by ending up where everyone must go while in Seattle...DICK'S. Ah, the perfect combo of the Small Coke, greasy fries, one Deluxe, one cheeseburger, 1:00 AM masterpiece that you'll find only in Seattle.

Just don't eat it for lunch, or you'll go comatose...this advice is my gift to you.

Did I mention I learned how to swear like an Australian? Nice...