Are You Dave?

Welcome to my very first ever blog entry.

It’s late summer, and my summer semester of Music Together is winding down. I like these short summer semesters, less than two weeks left and then it’s time for Bongos! (After a break, of course. Hooray for Labor Day!) I have some great classes, balanced by one class with low attendance, low energy, and almost no singing grown-ups. Ah well, I really can’t complain. It’s still the easiest gig I’ve ever had.

The Fuzzy Lemons have pretty much solved the drummer issue–Kimberly will play with us on the 27th at Church Square park (yay!) and Brandon will play the Sept. 14 gig in Tenafly (yay!). As soon as I’m done typing this I’m opening GarageBand to continue mixing the first 5 songs of the Fuzzy Lemons Demo CD. I really want to have the CD done and available for the Sept 14 Tenafly show. We can sell a BUNCH there and get a lot of names on our mailing list. Also, the following week I’m playing at South Street Seaport, opening for The Sippy Cups, and they said I could put our CD on their merchandise table! AWESOME!

But first I have to finish it. Kipley and Maiken need to come over one more time and nail some final guitar, vocal and keyboard parts. Shouldn’t take long. I also need to re-record a couple of mandolin parts–I guess I’d better do that today. Oops, it’s raining and thundering outside… recording will have to wait.

The nice thing about Hoboken is, there are a LOT of music-industry people around. I live two doors up from Bob Mann, who has worked with Rod Stewart and Tames Taylor and has offered his skills and facilities to mix and master the demo; and I live two blocks down from Rob Harari, who has worked with Gregory Hines and Carlos Alomar (Bowie’s guitarist) and has offered his skills and facilities to mix and master the demo. Scott Altizio of Water Music (one of Hoboken’s big-deal recording studios) has also seen the band a couple of times and mentioned using their studio.

How to choose? If it were free I’d try them all! I haven’t talked money with Harari but he’s a good guy and won’t gouge us. Bob Mann said he has to make at least $100 to make it worth bringing in the staff at his facility. I’ll talk to the band and try to figure out a way to choose.  We want a clean, bright sound, not too slick or overproduced but still gentle enough for little ears!

In other news, my wife is taking some vacation days during the month of August–on days when our child is in day care! So we’ll have a chance to catch up, hang out, see some movies, all the things we used to do before becoming parents (not that we’re complaining–we just miss each other sometimes). That’ll make for a nice summer.

So that’s where I am as this blog rolls forward. I’ll be updating y’all on the progress of the demo, and posting about upcoming gigs. I’ll also be keeping a Gig Diary, writing up the shows (Fuzzy Lemons, Music Together and otherwise) I’ve done this year. Why? I dunno, just seems like a fun way for me to keep track of where I’ve been. This whole “professional musician” thing is still new to me and I’m amazed to look back and see I’ve already played a dozen shows this year, with another dozen coming on the calendar! Even when I was in a rock band in the city we played maybe once a month. 

At the beginning of the year I said that 2008 was the year I was going to accomplish something. Well, the demo is almost complete and the band is picking up steam! Next up, making a VIDEO! Whoa. Crazy.

Thanks for coming on this ride with me,

Dave

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