Double-A

Post date: Aug 8, 2011 9:21:47 PM

OK. So why is this break in This, Not This! activities just "a bit" of a break?

Let's start with the day job. I have one product shipping in mid-September and I'm needing to finish up the project planning for the next product in this line before we ship. Luckily, I have eight hours a day, five days a week to handle that.

Then let's look at This, Not This! Even when we're not playing there's stuff to be done. I need to post pictures from our Rose Festival gigs on the band website. We've run out of promo CDs, so I'll be burning another twenty-five or so more of those and manufacturing the hand-stamped covers myself. We've run out of buttons, so I have to place an order for those. We start mixing the EP next week. We're debating packaging for the This, Not This! EP (Gary wants jewel-cases, I want simple jackets). Although Tia is having a friend of her's do the cover illustration for the EP, we still have to turn that into actual CD cover art (figure out picture and photo placement, compose back/inner covers - don't forget the UPC!, write liner notes, etc., etc., etc. and, since Gary and I will probably compromise by doing some of both jackets and jewel cases, we'll have two sets of artwork to do). And, I still haven't gotten to doing demos for the three songs I've written, let alone doing the writing for the three song concepts I have in my head.

Then there's the rest of the "musical enterprise". I'm going to the midwest over Labor Day weekend to have a reunion with/rehearse with Shiver, an old college band (we're playing sometime next year in Kalamazoo, MI). Since I plan to release the This, Not This! EP on the Hancock Street Records label, I need the web changes to that site for that, need to record ISRC codes for the songs, etc. I still haven't updated the Adrian (the band, not me) website. Hancock Street Studio is getting off the ground. I have a spoken-word project lined up in September, and I'm fishing for others. I still need to add the new audio interface into the system and make sure that's working before then.

And, if that isn't enough, there's the project I'm most excited about right now. If you hadn't noticed (which you probably haven't, since I hadn't written about it yet), I've been getting into electronica lately. I'm finding the guitar, bass, drum format a bit stifling, aurally speaking and I'm looking for something a bit more keyboard-/synth-/sample-oriented. So I'm writing using those tools. I've also been looking for a partner to work with me on vocals, lyrics, whatever. I think I've found one. I'm working on the first song and I'll be sending it to her at the end of the week. In the meantime, I'm also trying to come up with a name for the project. Since both our last names start with "A", I've been thinking of calling the duo "Double-A", Catchy, huh? However, we wouldn't be the only ones. There's already one in London, one in Göttingen, and a rapper called Double A Villan in Pensacola/Mobile. Oh yeah... and a jazz band in Toronto. However, without one here in Portland, I'm willing to risk it at this time. Besides, I have a cooler logo than any of those other guys:

Anyhow... busy, busy... gotta run.