123120 Love you, Allen. 123020 Worked on new stuff and fiddled with the cans and slide projector. The new songs are coming along beautifully. 122820 Worked out a vocal melody to help transition to the last section of Swimmer's Shoulders. Image projector came so began the process of figuring out how to exploit it. Optimistically scheduling some spring dates and will cancel or honor based on the the state of the pandemic. 3/27/21 4/24/21 5/29/21 6/26/21 122320 I have an ending in mind for Swimmer's Shoulders that has been keeping me awake at night. I'm going to flesh it out today and send it to Danny. Lights came and everything works. For future me - here is the current list of songs for the next album and who will be administering drums. Dingus (Allen) Kitchen Matches (Allen) No Limes (Allen) Rattle (Allen) Shut Up You Crazy Diamond (Allen) Swimmer's Shoulders (Allen) The Blue One (Jerry) Dolemite (Jerry) It's My Island (Jerry) Ring of Stars (Jerry) Stinker (Jerry) 122120 Saw a tease for the Let It Be re-do and was knocked out by the green-red-green spot pattern on the walls in the studio. I want to replicate that in our rehearsal space for future live videos. Had a dream we were working on a schlock rock song that had the line "the 7th frame of the Super Bowl." 122020 Thanks to "Release Radar" & "On Repeat" for including Johnny Marie & the Lonesome Petunias songs in their playlists. Every ear is a triumph. 121620 Rehearsal with full band. Spent the first hour or so working on new stuff. Introduced Swimmer's Shoulders. When we're able to play out again the people that were regulars before the pandemic will hear a full set of new-to-them songs. One of those nights were words and ideas kept coming to me and I bothered to document them as they arrived. Finished off most of Swimmer's Shoulders and will introduce tonight so that we can work up a live version. 121420 Spent the morning finishing the Swimmer's Shoulders demo. Sent it to Danny for fleshing. 121120 Massaged Ring of Stars to reflect changes we discussed at last rehearsal. 120920 Ran through all of the new stuff. Implemented my idea of making Shut Up You Crazy Diamond a tango. 120820 Fooled around with some of Danny's ideas for the outro of Let Her Run and added a vocal idea. 120220 Spirited practice. Ran through a lot of the new stuff like Stinker, The Blue One, Ring of Stars, Shut Up You Crazy Diamond, Rattle, It's My Island, No Limes, Dolemite and some new additions like Sweet & Low, Beat Box Caveat and Juno Contacto. Renamed No We Her to Shut Up You Crazy Diamond and the first Shut Up You Crazy Diamond to No We Here. It will all make sense when you No We Hear them. 120120 Nearly 1,000 listens at BandCamp since the start of November. That's the result of the band and friends of the band sharing the weekly releases on their social media platforms. 113020 Shannon charted the piano parts for No We Her. 112820 Recorded the guts to Shut Up You Crazy Diamond and now want to swap names with No We Her since No We Her strikes me as more Shut Up You Crazy Diamond than Shut Up You Crazy Diamond does. 112520 Need to cement the foundation of No We Her so that I can introduce it tonight. And I did. 112420 Still fooling around with the arrangement of No We Her. 112320 Lengthened the intro to No We Her. Did another Moog solo take and tried a different bass line. 112220 Got the JohnnyMarie.com thing straightened out. It was supposed to bounce to JohnnyMarie.net and never did, unbeknownst to your humble narrator. Put the singles from The Green Piano up on SoundCloud. 112120 Thank you to Barry Lee at KKFI for giving Sweet & Low a spin on his show Signal to Noise tonight. 111920 Confirmed with team members that we aren't playing out again until the city's Covid Restrictions have been lifted. Hoping for March or April. 111620 KKFI's Signal to Noise will be playing another selection from The Green Piano Friday night. 111420 Added vocal ideas to No We Her. 111320 Pushed Reach Around off of the boat. Sketched out No We Her. 110620 The Green Piano is now available everywhere. Thanks to Barry Lee for opening Signal to Noise with Reach Around. 110520 I let Mars out today. I had planed to release it tomorrow but want to get it out ahead of the conclusion of the US Presidential election. 110420 First full practice with percussionist Carl Cherrito. It was wonderful. 110320 Shannon charted Dave Estes' keyboard parts for One More and worked on Danny's piano part at the end of Hats Off, Extraordinaire. 103020 Seven Little Eyes from The Green Piano out today. 102920 KKFI's program Signal to Noise will be playing something from The Green Piano at the start of their show on 11/6/20 at 9 PM Central. Picked up my water-soaked Strat from Matt. 102820 Album release party with nearly all of the contributors. Made a joyful noise after an amazing dinner. 102620 Digital distribution under way. I'm going to run out of highlights soon and have to resume working on the next album. 102520 Met at Danny's and played a bit before The Big Game. Had another go at halftime. Ran through Ring of Stars and Rattle. 102420 Played for 3 hours at The Westsider with Allen Johnston and Jerry Riccardi switching between hand percussion and drums. Carl Cherrito sat in on a few songs. Thanks to everybody that came out and made the night special. 102320 Made Mother available to the world today. Had multiple dinners with Allen & Joelle. 102220 2nd rehearsal with both Allen and Jerry. I've coaxed Danny into setting up a keyboard so that he can play some of his wonderful recorded parts live. When we last played in Colorado, John McConnell came up with a Time Is On My Side-feeling solo for Mother that I dug. He recorded a few takes but as the song got more stringy we decided not to use it. Last night we were casually playing the song at rehearsal and I, for some reason, started simulating John's bit and Danny, who had never heard it before, excitedly exclaimed "What's that???" The song is due to release tomorrow. Winstead's tater tots on the way back to Allen's lodging. Drinking is bad. 102120 Danny and I are picking up some percussion gear from John Bara's shop today and then having a full rehearsal tonight with Allen and Jerry. 102020 Listened to The Green Piano this AM after a few days of not. First rehearsal with Allen Johnston tonight for the 2-drummer show at The Westsider on Saturday night. Ran through his set and had time left over to do a set with Danny. 101820 Thank you for the plays, downloads and feedback for Sweet & Low. Got the artwork ready for the next 2 singles that will be released on 10/24 and 10/30. We are going to do some recording before Allen heads back to San Diego Sunday. I originally thought we could do something from the 6th album but then it occurred to me that it would be fun to record live versions of That Doesn't Turn You On and You Set It Off to release later to reinvigorate interest in The Green Piano. 101720 Digital distribution for The Green Piano launched for 11/6/20. 101620 The Green Piano has been mastered and the first single is up exclusively on BandCamp. 101520 Revisions reviewed, approved and now we are in mastering mode. 101420 Got revisions back from Patrick. You need to use this guy to mix and master your work. We worked on new stuff and old stuff that we'll be doing on the 24th that doesn't get included in the set very often. Sent Patrick a few more revisions. 101320 Spent a lot of the day sexing up our BandCamp page. I hope that if you follow us anywhere, you'll follow us there. There are so many opportunities for sales, free downloads, single releases etc. 101120 Sent Patrick my first wave of revisions. 101020 We're back at Repeal 18th on Friday, November 20th for a full show. Listening to Patrick's amazing work on The Green Piano and making notes for some revisions. 100920 Got The Green Piano mixes back from Patrick. So beautiful. 100720 Trying to learn new stuff while keeping the stuff we don't do very often (Wake for Wanderers, Parasol, White Girl) fresh. Talked more about a full time percussionist (depending on venue/ stage size) and plan to try out someone specific we have in mind for a month's worth of rehearsals to see if it will work out. 100620 Going to do some acoustic sets with a full band in November. Will post dates later this week. 100320 Sent Allen and Dave a reference track for Every Night so that we can record some live drums and bass after our show at the Westsider on the 24th. 100120 Had an amazing time playing at Repeal 18th. The whole experience with Mary, her staff and the crowd was very nurturing. God bless any club owner that takes care of bands that only do original material. Can't wait to come back! Thanks also to Carl for turning us onto the gig and for sitting in with us. We really enjoyed it. 093020 Everything is loaded up for tomorrow. I love our haunts but I'm very please to go play in a different part of the city. 092920 Patrick is working on You Set It Off, 12 of 12. 092820 Dong a full night at Repeal 18th in North Kansas City on 10/1/20. 092720 Added more songs from the first 4 albums to our BandCamp page. 092620 Working on words today. Also decided that at the October 24th show it would be fun to do whole albums in sequence. I don't know if we would do the albums in order. Sent Jerry Ring Of Stars (Got One) and The Blue One to start developing parts for. 092520 Decided to rename Got One to Ring Of Stars (Got One). 092420 Starting to convert the gibberish lyrics in the 5th albums to purposeful gibberish. 092320 Getting good responses from the percussionist ads. Danny sent me guitar parts for Stinker and Dolemite. Spent the whole rehearsal learning The Blue One, Got One (gotta change that title) and Rattle. 092120 Trying an Electro Harmonix Big Muff for the fuzz solo in Dolemite. Also picked CUVAVE an Twinote PI pedals to try because the Big Muff is so noisy. Still collecting responses from the hand percussionist ad: 5-piece band asually looking (we're in no hurry) for someone to play hand percussion on recordings and live performances of original music. We rehearse once a week and perform once or twice a month. Prefer someone whose tastes and approach are left of center - more Radiohead than Grateful Dead, more Elvis Costello than Elvis Presley, more Captain Beefheart than Captain & Tennile, more Patti Smith than Patti Smythe. Ability to move around to other instruments and sing would be amazing. Way more interested in character and reliability than talent. Pay is shit - generally 1/6th of the door. 092020 Thanks to everyone who came out last night. We had a blast playing for you. Added e-flyers to our gigography. 091720 Talked to Chris Ruzich about how to get a bass part from him for a song for the 6th album during the pandemic. Sent him demos for Every Night, Failure to Rise, Kitchen Matches and Got One for consideration. Patrick wrote to say that he was missing some guitar tracks from The Green Piano, betraying that he was now working on The Green Piano. Did a Save Copy In to capture all of the audio tracks and uploaded to DropBox. 091620 Put feelers out for a hand percussionist again. Last rehearsal before Gaslight Gardens. It's pretty amazing to have 50 songs rehearsed that we can pick from. I plan to have more for the 10/24 Westsider appearance. 091520 Patrick is at That Doesn't Turn You on. He recorded some trumpet parts today. I brought up mixing the next album as I get done with the songs and he agreed that it would be less overwhelming. Recorded some vocal melodies for When the Money and uploaded a new version of Kitchen Matches with new vocal takes. 091420 Uploaded When the Money and Kitchen Matches with a vocal idea. Got guitar harmony tracks from Danny for Dolemite. 090720 Went on a short road trip today and took a few of the mixes from the 6th album to contemplate. Was dismayed to discover that the MIDI EP in Rattle was suddenly off by several measures. Checked my backups and they are the same way. 090320 Joelle's birthday so pizza and cake. Michael came by, perhaps for the first time since the pandemic. 090120 More runs at the Dolemite solos. The fuzz dies after 10 minutes and then works intermittently after that so super annoying. I need to learn the solos using some different pedals and then when I have it down quickly record it with the homemade boxes. 083120 We are confirmed for Gaslight Gardens for September 19th. Tell you Ma. Danny loaned me some fuzz pedals that his friend Leonard made. I tried them for the Dolemite solos and love them. Imported the last takes of Stinker and Dolemite from last night in to the sessions. 083020 Off to try to get a live recording of Stinker. Got bass and drums for Stinker and Dolemite. It took about 6 hours to get everything set up, partially because Danny put fresh heads on everything. Looking at rescheduling at Gaslight Gardens on September 19th. 082920 Worked on re-arranging Red & Brown/Dolemite. 082720 The Gaslight Gardens show double booked the 12th so we are going to reschedule for another Saturday in September. Will update the calendar in a few days. 082620 I know that Patrick is mixing the album in alphabetical order. I casually mentioned One More in our last Girl for Samson session and he was familiar with it so I knew he was at least that far into the album. I brought up Reach Around last night and again I got a "Hit!" Here's what left after Reach Around: Seven Little Eyes Sweet & Low That Doesn't Turn You On The Green Piano You Set It Off 081920 Mostly worked on new stuff. Introduced The Blue One, Rattle and Got One. We also played a lot of stuff from Land Ho that we don't do live like Boyfriend, Bon Voyage and Is This Your Thing? Shannon added a TC Electronics HOF 2 reverb to her keyboard rig just for the shimmer effect in an effort to more accurately represent Dave Estes' recorded parts. Decided to go ahead and do a small run of CDs for The Green Piano. Will still do digital distribution. 081720 Sorted out Got One enough to post it on Drop Box for my mates to hear. Had another song fall out of my bottom that I named Expression Petals. This summer has been good to me. Bought a SuperEgo+ so my pedalboards are now in disarray. 081520 Finally linked up some bits for Got One. Added some more vocal takes to Swimmer's Shoulders. 081420 Showed Shannon the keyboard parts for The Blue One and Rattle. 081220 Scheduled October 24th with the Westsider. 081120 Joelle made a beautiful dinner to celebrate the August birthdays in the group. Worked some new or not-often-visted songs like It's My Island, Parasol, Repeat and Wake for Wanderers. Going to start work on Rattle and The Blue One next week. 080920 Thank you to everyone who came out last night for our 32nd performance. We had a great time playing for you. 080720 Waiving the cover for tomorrow's show at the Westsider. Buy hamburgers and beer! 073120 Patrick did something very special with Mother today. I mention this for future self to reference. 073020 Came up with a 3rd section for The Blue One. 072920 Spent a few hours tidying up things we don't play very often. Talked about putting all of the albums on the hard drive on the PA so that we can learn the proper arrangements. Also debated whether to put The Green Piano out on CD or not. 072820 Talked to Patrick a bit about his progress with the album. He spent a month on Hats Off, Extraordinaire and is now working (in alphabetical order) on Mars. 072720 I just saw an upcoming event share on Facebook where one of the bands cheered something to the effect of "Let's pack this place!" with the hashtag fcovid. I understand if you are the act you would want to play to a full house. I also appreciate what a full house might mean to any club likely struggling right now. I do question the science behind the hashtag, though I share its sentiment. Self-promotion in the new age (from MySpace to now) has been a painful thing to watch - not excluding myself. One of my favorite scenes in the film Rivers Edge depicts the media interviewing high school students about the death of their classmate and one lad, after boasting about being friends with the victim, hastily adds "I play guitar." 072620 Got a nice bass part from Dave for Rattle. 072420 Got drums from Allen for Rattle. 072320 When we scheduled our August 8th appearance at the Westsider it was intended to be a CD release party for our fifth album "The Green Piano" with Allen Johnston sitting in and Girl for Samson doing a short opening set during a pandemic recovery period. Now, none of these things are true ("The Green Piano" now set for a September release, Allen and Girl for Samson staying home while the plague continues to dully grind away) except that we're still going to play a full evening and do it as safely as possible. Masky smooches. Sent Danny a mix of Red & Brown that approximates last night's arrangement. 072220 We were short a bass player so we spent the evening reviewing stuff that we haven't done in a while. Also worked up Red & Brown. 072020 The Wine Crawl on 8/1 has been cancelled. Scribbled down bits for The Blue One. 071820 Had fun playing an hour set at The Roxy last night. Introduced a few new tunes from the 6th album and did lots of songs from The Green Piano. Thank you to everybody who came out. You sounded like a hundred people! 071620 Allen sent me drum tracks for Rattle and some ideas for Failure to Rise. I haven't had a haircut since late January. Be prepared to laugh at me with a mask on if you come to see us at the Roxy on Friday. 071320 John McConnell and Chris Ruzich both have birthdays today. Got drum tracks for Rattle from Allen. 071120 Fooled with Failure to Rise and sent the session folder to Danny to fiddle with. Hey Danny, no fucking fiddle! I mean, unless that's what you're hearing. 071020 Recorded some ideas and called ti Failure to Rise. I think I got the water too hot and it killed the yeast. 070820 Still doing 5 hour rehearsals like we have a bunch of safe, uncancelled gigs coming up. 070120 Another spirited rehearsal. 4th since the shut down. We're probably spending too much time learning new stuff when there is so much material from the other 5 albums to learn but it's kind of invigorating. 063020 Was hoping to get The Green Piano back from Patrick in August but it's looking more like the Autumn now. 062620 Dear future me: when the Mackie isn't getting output press the FW 1-2 button. Just do it. You'll be delighted with the results. Filing this under troubleshooting the Mackie/ONYX. 062520 Fun rehearsal. Very loose. 062420 Sent Allen reference tracks with more lead in time for Terry for You Set It Off and That Doesn't Turn You On. Also sent him some different mixes of Rattle to drum to. 062320 Terry recorded some horn takes for You Set It Off at Allen's studio. 062120 Checked in with Terry about horn parts. 062020 Gaslight Gardens in Lawrence in September. 061720 2nd rehearsal since the pandemic. We've a lot of rust to sand off. Trying to get No Lines, The Green Piano, One More and It's My Island ready for live. Trying to keep the sheets clean and the pillows fluffed. We may have a guest for the Westsider show in August. Hint: It's the same guest that we have everytime we play at the Westsider! Talked to Terry and he plans to get me horn parts this weekend. 061520 Sent Danny a rough demo of Let Her Run. 061320 Allen sent two more Sweet & Low takes. Playing at the Roxy on July 17th. 061020 Our first rehearsal since the pandemic. Rusty but you can still see some shine. Introduced a few of the songs from the 6th album. Discovered that my Deluxe Strat case was full of water. Not sure how it happened but it was most assuredly a boo hoo moment. 060920 NOW Patrick has the whole album in his hands. The power flashed on and off tonight and for a second I was panicked about perhaps having a session corrupted before I remembered that everything is somewhere else. 060820 The last vocal takes for The Green Piano. 060620 Tried some first-thing-in-the-morning vocal takes for The Green Piano. 060520 Received The Green Piano drum tracks from Jerry. As I prepare to audition them I discover that the project for the song does not exist. After a frantic search I found an older version that was missing recent vocal takes. Recorded a few new tracks. Will record more tomorrow and have another shot at the backing vocals. 060420 So now it looks like: The Green Piano ============ Beat Box Caveat Christian in July Hats Off, Extraordinaire Mars Mother One More That Doesn't Turn You On The Green Piano Seven Little Eyes Reach Around Sweet & Low You Set It Off Sixth Album ========= Dingus Stinker It's My Island Red & Brown No Limes Rattle Every Night Dingus has been getting shoved to the next album since Her Bows. 060320 Girl for Samson won't be playing with us at the next Westsider show. Recorded a sketch of Red & Brown and sent it to Danny 060220 Got another Seven Little Eyes take from Jerry. Should have The Green Piano take in a few days. Added everything to the hard drive for Patrick and am ready to move on to the next album. Handed the drive to Patrick. Still have a chance at getting some horn parts from Terry Powers. 060120 Got drum tracks from Jerry last night. Still need The Green Piano from him and maybe another take or two of Sweet & Low from Allen before passing this off to Patrick. 053020 Woke up and immediately after attending to the 3 maidens I tracked several husky vocals on You Set It Off. Danny sent me some harmony ideas for Seven Little Eyes that I incorporated. 052920 Back to thinking Mars and Reach Around should be on this album. Sang new lead and backing vocal takes on Seven Little Eyes. Had another go at an acoustic all the way through with the RODE on the bridge and an SM57 on the neck. Allen thinks he can get horns this weekend for That Doesn't Turn You On and You Set It Off. Jerry is promising the balance of his drum tracks by Sunday. I plan to hand everything over to Patrick on Monday night when have our first Covid-era GFS session. 052820 Sang more lead vocal takes for Mother and Seven Little Eyes. Sang more harmonies for Hats Off, Extraordinaire and That Doesn't Turn You On. I initially used guitar organs on No Limes. Added a proper keyboard organ today. 052720 Sang more takes of Hats Off, Extraordinaire and added more solo variations to One More. 052620 Got drum tracks from Allen for Sweet & Low and No Limes. Added more guitars to That Doesn't Turn You On. 052420 Sang new takes of Hats Off, Extraordinaire and The Green Piano. Need to do harmonies for both and work out the transition from the B to C part in Hats Off. 052320 Got bass parts from Dave for Sweet & Low, Stinker, The Green Piano and Christian in July. 051820 Thanks to WFMU's Nick The Bard for giving Capers a spin. 051620 Met with our host to discuss our June resumption of rehearsals. Sent Danny a sketch of No Limes. 051320 Danny and I are still working on new stuff while waiting on bass and drum parts for a few songs on The Green Piano. For my own records: The Green Piano ============ Beat Box Caveat Sweet & Low Mother You Set It Off That Doesn't Turn You On The Green Piano Seven Little Eyes Christian in July Hats Off, Extraordinaire Mars One More Reach Around Sixth Album ========= Dingus Stinker It's My Island Every Night Rattle No Limes 051020 Trying to get some of my phone ideas into Pro Tools for future songs while still making some progress on The Green Piano. Fleshed out Rattle and sent it to Danny for some love. 050920 Got some bass parts from Dave for Hats Off, Extraordinaire and keyboard tracks from Dave Estes for One More. 050820 The May 16th show at the Westsider is postponed. 050420 I think The Benton County Wine Crawl has been re-scheduled for August 1st. 043020 Got final tracks from Allen for Dingus and It's My Island. 042620 Had some overnight ideas for Every Night that I implemented upon waking. Songs are made up of a series of problems that have to be solved. It's that kind of shit that keeps me awake at night. Got guitar parts from Danny for Every Night and some drum takes for It's My Island from Allen to audition. 042520 Got bass tracks from Dave for It's My Island and One More. 042420 Danny sent some more ideas for the solo in It's My Island. Twin slide attack! Uploaded a mix of Every Night for Danny to futz with. 042320 Danny came up with a nice transition for It's My Island. I came up with a temporary bass part. Recorded another song rather than finishing what I have. Every Night. 042220 Got new tracks from Allen for That Doesn't Turn You On. Perfect! Danny is working on sexing up the transitions in It's My Island. 042020 When taking a break from recording The Green Piano I like to fiddle with my pedal board. It mostly consists of Electro-Harmonix stuff because I dig them. They are made in the USA and they will repair any pedal and ship it back for $25. It's not loaded with boosts and distortions. In fact, while looking at reveiws for the Boss SY-1 I was delighted to see a demo that included the sub-title "No guitar solos or blues licks." Here's my current chain: Electro Harmonix Soul Food Electro Harmonix Soul Preacher Boss SY-1 Electro Harmonix Mel9 Electro Harmonix B9 Electro Harmonix Canyon Electro Harmonix Mod11 Electro Harmonix Oceans 11 Electro Harmonix Cathedral Electro Harmonix HumDebugger Pedals that have spent some time on the board and then were demoted, ususally because there is limitied space (so no under- performers) or they one were one trick ponies: Electro Harmonix Ravish Sitar Electro Harmonix Small Stone Electro Harmonix Key9 Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi Electro Harmonix Silencer Electro Harmonix Analogizer Electro Harmonix LPB1 Loads of Mooer, Joyo and Donner stuff There, we talked gear. 041920 Got Danny's Hat's Off parts and they really sex up the song. 041820 Finished cleaning up all fo the songs for The Green Piano and what we have for the 6th album. Added a few more parts to Hats Off, Extraordinaire and requested some more parts from Danny. This song is nearly 9 minutes long. That's right, I told you that the song is nearly 9 minutes long. 041520 Cleaned up The Green Piano, Christian in July and One More for Patrick. 041420 Sketched out Sound Hold. 041120 Added some bass ideas to Christian in July. Thinking that The Green Piano might be a 9 song record and the rest will go on the 6th album. The Green Piano ============ Beat Box Caveat Sweet & Low Mother You Set It Off That Doesn't Turn You On The Green Piano Seven Little Eyes Christian in July Hats Off, Extraordinaire Sixth Album ========= Mars Dingus Stinker One More Reach Around It's My Island 040920 Recorded more rhythm guitar tracks for Christian in July. Having a hard time getting it to feel and sound right. I did switch from sitting the RODE NT1-A in front of the amp to draping a SM47 in front of the speaker with reasonable results. 040820 Sang a half-dozen takes of Christian in July. Imported some nice piano parts for The Green Piano from Danny. 040720 We have a couple of shows coming up in early May. If the distancing order is lifted on 4/24 this will give us one week to rehearse after having not rehearsed for I don't know how long. Tricky stuff. 040420 Lengthened the end of The Green Piano and added guitars and organ. Shannon sang harmonies on Beat Box Caveat, Sweet & Low, It's My Island and Seven Little Eyes. Danny is recording some more piano takes for The Green Piano. Jerry has one GFS song to finish before he helps finish up the drums on this album. 040120 Added more guitar bits to That Doesn't Turn You On and It's My Island. 033120 Sang more takes of That Doesn't Turn You On. Comped them and the takes I did yesterday of Seven Little Eyes. 033020 Sang more takes of Seven Little Eyes after finishing the lyrics last night. Got bass takes for One More from Dave. 032920 Got drums for Beat Box Caveat so that one is ready to ship. 032820 Got bass part from Dave for Beat Box Caveat and guitar bits from Danny for It's My Island. 032520 Everybody, including Allen, working on The Green Piano tonight. I spent time writing words for It's My Island and straightening out one of those freaky Pro Tools issues that caused a timing issue in the song. 032420 Still tidying up sessions for Patrick. Added a jazzy C section to It's My Island and came up with a scratch vocal melody to play with. 032220 Kansas City has instituted a ban prohibiting non-essential social activities effective for 30 days. That finishes off our April performance schedule. The Benton County Wine Crawl has been postponed until September. Cleaned up a bunch of sessions for Patrick this weekend. 032120 Starting to think about cutting down the length of this album and getting it out. It feels like the more recent songs have nothing to do with the original topic. Uploaded new versions of just about everything so that Dave can cut some tracks from home. Added some new guitar and bass parts to It's My Island. 032020 Still grinding away. What else can I do? Sent Danny a demo of It's My Island to play with. Recorded more vocal takes for You Set It Off. 031820 Life During Wartime: Day 57 Sang more takes for Mother and got Reach Around ready to hand off. (That bit of word play was purely organic and magic.) Sang more ideas for It's My Island. 031720 Worked on getting Mother and YSIO ready for Patrick. Tracked some more guitar parts. 031620 Kansas City has instituted a ban on all gatherings of 50 people or more for the next 8 weeks due to the Covid-19 outbreak. This will most likely wipe out our schedule until August. On the upside, there will be nothing preventing us from finishing The Green Piano unless it ends up requiring toilet paper. 031520 Thanks to the audience at Christine's Firehouse last night for surviving the transition from cover band to Johnny Marie & the Lonesome Petunias back to cover band. We got through it together. This was our 30th appearance together. 031420 Doing a little pop-up set tonight in North Kansas City. Danny has another gig so we'll be doing vanilla versions of some of the songs. On the upside, for the first time it will be socially acceptable to wipe off the microphone before using it. I've waited a lifetime for this day. 031220 Playing on Saturday, April 18th at 7 PM at the Roxy. 031120 We've decided not to tavel to San Diego so our next shows will be in April. 030820 Got some guitar parts from Danny for the temporarily-titled "One More" 030720 Sent horn info to John Legge and Terry Powers in San Diego for You Set It Off and That Doesn't Turn You On. Dave on his way over to track some bass parts. I want to be done with this album and start writing about something other than You Know What. Ended up tracking bass parts for You Set It Off, That Doesn't Turn You On, Reach Around and Mother. 030520 Booked 8/8/20 at the Westsider for an album release party for The Green Piano. Edited One More to reflect the changes we've made at rehearsals. For our drummers - here are the songs that Allen has finished and that Jerry needs to track: Allen Hats Off, Extraordinaire Christian in July You Set It Off Reach Around Beat Box Caveat Mars Mother Jerry Stinker Seven Little Eyes Intro Dingus Sweet & Low The Green Piano 030420 The Green Piano and the other new songs coming along nicely. 022620 Taught the new Hats Off bit to the Sad Petunias and it came off better than I had hoped. We also worked on The Green Piano, Glad to Pass On and Juno Contacto. Joelle and Michael made loads of food for Fat Tuesday. 022520 Came up with a 46 second intro to Hats Off, Extraordinare. We've married White Girl to the end of the song live, making the whole pile of music about a third of a set in length. 022420 Posted Now Here from the 2/2/20 Westsider performance on our YouTube channel. 022320 Band breakfast. Swung by a thrift store afterwards to see if I could find a vintage piece of luggage to house my unweildy pedalboard. Found an American Tourister that fits it perfectly for 75 cents. 022220 Uploaded a full version of Stinker from the Westsider on YouTube. 022120 Sent Allen reference files for Stinker and Seven Little Eyes and horn files for You Set It Off and That Doesn't Turn You On. 022020 Dave wants to run everybody into the PA in the future so that we can do a better job blending music and vocals SO, I bought a Quilter Phantom Block Interface. Might be handy for San Diego too. 021920 Supporting the Groove Pilots and this year at the 2020 Benton County Wine Stroll in Warsaw, Missouri. 021620 Saturday, April 4th marks 2 years since our first live performance at McGuire's Tavern. I think we should commemorate it with another show somewhere. 021320 Re-staged our rehearsal space, took a few stabs at Glad to Pass On and then squirted off to have a few drinks at the Piano Room during their open mic hosted by our friend Karen McCorkindale Baum. 021220 Cris Walkinshaw died today. Cris was the drummer in Porps. He was a true artist behind those Gretsch drums and a marvelous lyricist. Love to you. 020820 What a wonderful night at the Westsider. A small venue stuffed with very enthusiastic and musically savy listeners. A dream scenario for a musician. Click here for a brief bit of video. 020620 Sharing a bill at the Westsider on 5/16/20 with Ghost Tapes from Denver, CO. 020520 Last rehearsal before Saturday night. Very productive. Continued the dangerous habit of seeking out hamburgers at 11:30 PM. 020320 Another run through the set. As you know, we will be using two drummers at our appearance at the Westsider. The non- drumming drummer will be playing hand percussion. It does wonderful things to the songs and has renewed my interest in looking for someone to do it full time. 020220 Watched the Super Bowl at Danny's with rehearsals before and after the game. 020120 Andy Gill's machete hacks have unconsciously become instinctual for me. 013020 Croaked my way through a refresher set. Excited to introduce some of the new/old stuff on Saturday. 012820 Incapacitated by some virus. Dr. Brown brought over soup. 012420 Aborted the drum session until after the Westider gig. Just couldn't get the QSC to monitor Pro Tools. We recorded drums for Gardenaire using the ONYX and 4 microphones! SM57 above the snare, SM57 above the rack toms, PG52 on the kick and a near the floor tom and ride cymbal, acting as an overhead. Thought I had thoroughly test the QSC with Pro Tools but I found a monitoring issue that cost me two hours of futzing before giving up. Waiting on a response from Patrick before going to Plan B. Michael gave me some ideas for fonts and font colors for the album artwork so I got started on the layout in Illustrator. Patrick's plan for drum recording setup for future self. We're using Dave's QSC TouchMix-30 Pro as an interface. OH - 2 Audio-Technica AT4040s Kick - Shure PG52 Snare - Shure SM57 Tom 1 - Shure SM57 Tom 2 - Shure SM57 Floor Tom - Shure SM57 Room Mic - RODE NT1-A Hi-Hat - Shure Beta 58 Bottom Snare - Electro-Voice ND96 012320 Made some edits to Seven Little Eyes and Green Piano per suggestions made by team members last night. Spending the rest of the day getting my space set up to record drums. Finally got a conversation going with someone at MusicTribe. Of course they asked if I had reset the keyboard. I brought it home from the studio and of course now the issue is mostly gone. No noise in the LR out, just in the headphones. I recorded the noise for them, per their request, and reset the keyboard. Of course it had no impact on the issue. 012220 Confirmed doing a night at Gaslight Gardens on 05/02. Focused on new stuff and got a lot done tonight. We can now confindently add Wake for Wanderers, Hats Off, Extraordinaire, White Girl, Nellie Ordinary, Blister Beetle and Seven Little Eyes to the set. I don't think Green Piano is going to be done in time for the 8th. 011720 I sold my Juno 106 in 2017 to help finance Her Bows. There wasn't a live version of the band at the time so I figured I could get good synth sounds out of software. As the live band became a thing I bought a Behrigner DeepMind 12 to replace the Roland and a Korg X50 for some basic piano sounds. In less than a year I have had 3 issues with the DM12, two that required a ticket. The keyboard has a 3 year warranty. It can take weeks for Music Tribe! to respond to the claim - despite indicating that someone will respond in 24 hours - so I figure once I send it off for repair it will be gone a long time. So, I bought a Yamaha MO6 hoping that it will have a decent piano and enough classic synth sounds to replace the often-out-of- commision DeepMind12. It's also appealing to consider replacing lugging two keyboards and a two tier stand with a single board and stand. MO6 has arrived and it seems like it is going to do the trick, though the piano doesn't seem dramatically better than the X50. 011620 Have Jerry and Patrick scheduled to track drums for the long-overdue Girl for Samson album and the balance of the current JMLP album. 011520 Long, raucous rehearsal. Having a difficult time getting in as many new songs as I would like before the next performance. 011320 Got a Yamaha MO6 to replace the Korg X50. Getting some nibbles from Lawrence venues. 011220 Just got a message from Danny confirming that he'll be availble for Artist of the Week at Navajo Live! in San Diego. Still hoping to take more Kansas City Sad Petunias with me! Figured out how to get the White Girl intro saved onto the looper for live performance. 011020 Bumped the tempo of Green Piano up from 116 to 124. 010820 Excellent rehearsal. Finally have Sultan Eyes worked up like the recording. Seven Little Eyes is nearly done. Several other new ones and old new ones are a week or so away. Contacted a bunch of Lawrence venues about weekend opportunities this spring. 010620 Sang some Green Piano takes. Still have some words to sort out for Seven Little Eyes. 010420 Determined to finish all lyrics today and come up with a set list for the Westsider. And I did. Who's a good boy? 010320 Shannon has started to re-do her parts and charts so that we get closer to sounding like the album arrangements. 010220 The DM12 is making a noise. Still under warranty but don't want to be without it until after the Westsider on the 8th. Going to put a limiter on it and then ship it off via Priority Mail the day after the show.