Please note that this journal dates back to 1998, so the page is fairly long.

April 5, 2007. Lots of stuff going on during the interim. I recently purchased an Akai EWI4000, which I've has occupied much of my free time. There's a lot of power in this little wind synth, although it's been a bit of a struggle getting the software editor to work on MacBook to actually edit and create new sounds since the laptop keeps crashing. But, we persevere. I've been doing some experiments with long delays and looping with the Akai and some interesting possibilities are presenting themselves due to this line of working.

Plans for Electro-Music 2007 are shaping. Besides a solo set in the theater on Sunday night, I'll be giving a talk/demonstration on performing with just one synth. I'm also coordinating a jam with a bunch of other players over a two-hour period that should be a lot of fun.

February 23, 2007. RIP Ian. I grew up with a keen interest in the Islands-era King Crimson, based mainly on Earthbound with its funky jams. Since then I've enjoyed every live release of this era that DGM has put out. But having said that, my favorite Ian Wallace performance is on Dylan's No Time to Think. Although the tune is fairly repetitive, Ian kept up a nice variation of drum parts throughout the entire long piece. Besides being a great drummer, Ian was truly a very nice guy who wouldn't hesitate to have a quick chat with anyone who asked. Fare thee well.

February 20, 2007. About a month has passed since I last stopped in. In the meantime, the weather has been very cold. I finished all my base material for the collaboration with APK and I'm interested to hear what he comes back with. Much of the next synthblock album has been written, but I'm leaving it for a while to ruminate. I've gotten a little burnt out on playing electronic music so I've picked up the clarinet again. It took about a week to get my chops back up, but it's been fun. I've been also experimenting with playing over some of the backing pads I put together for APK. It sounds a lot more interesting than I thought and I'm considering doing some of this at this year's Electro-Music 2007 shows.

January 18, 2007. It's actually snowing, although not too much is sticking. Currently working through credit card snafus.

Finished sequencing the last of the APK collaboration pieces. Now just to mix and then record them. I ended up redoing the piano/pad/bass piece.

January 16, 2007. Nice long weekend. It's finally cold! We went bowling yesterday, which we all enjoy. I also did a bit of work on the collaboration pieces and I'm coming down to the wire. Just need to sequence an opening and closing soundscape. I also did an improvisational piano/pad/bass piece that turned out well.

A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning out a box in the garage and my youngest was fascinated with all the junk and old papers in there, which were from when we lived on Fox Street. I mentioned to her that I had a couple of similar boxes up in the attic that I need to go through, and ever since then she's been asking about it. So the other day I pulled them down and finally threw out a bunch of old papers that I haven't needed for years. I did find some interesting things, like some old pictures and official college transcripts. There were also a bunch of letters in there; some from old friends when I was in college, but many more from other people. Some who I remember and others who I just can't recall. After reading some of the letters I realized what a dope I was in some cases and how blind I was to other opportunities staring me straight in the face. Ah, the follies of youth.

January 9, 2006. Cool weather returns. Up at the alarm this morning, but did not rush out of bed. Lots of ice puddles on the way to work.

Spent a fair amount of time this weekend working on one of the tracks for the APK collaboration, descriptively and temporarily titled Metal Arp. I put down the whole basis for the tune, both the front and back soundscapes and then the middle bell arp section. I still need to add a bunch of stuff over the whole piece, but the basis is there.

Other than that, still listening to a bit of Reich and even more Jefferson Airplane. A little disappointed that there was no new version of iWorks announced today.

January 5, 2007. Rain again. It's going to be very warm this weekend. I saw some new grass coming up between the bricks in the back walk yesterday. Too much.

I've been enjoying You Are, a recent Reich recording, very much today.

January 4, 2007. How much warmer can it get? I don't ever recall the weather being like this. Basically, it's like an early Spring day in March.

A huge sigh this morning. Sometimes we forget to breath. A quick run through the new pad compositions last night, but there was not enough lead time to make them seem anything more than rushed.

It got dark quickly.

January 3, 2007. Quite warm again today. I went and took a walk without a coat. I feel a potential sickness coming on but it's early enough that I should be able to nip it with some airborne.

Curses to Borders for their never-ending supply of 30% off coupons. My latest purchase was Steve Reich's Phases box. I've been eyeing this for a few weeks and finally decided to give it go as it ended up being a little over $20 for five CDs. I never got a copy of The Desert Music on CD so that was the main reason, but I'm glad I've given it a fair listen. Some of the material is very good. I haven't heard much of this for years, even though the versions on this set are newer recordings. You can definitely hear the influence on Brian Eno and many other of my electronic brethren, although Reich uses traditional instrumentation instead of synths.

January 2, 2007. It's still unseasonably warm around here, with rain instead of snow. And now we enter the ninth year of this online journal, and the 25th year of the more personal offline variety.

Trying to reacclimate after a week or so off. Nice holiday celebrations and other doings around the Block household. We got through the entire five DVD collection of From The Earth To The Moon. Some episodes were better than others, but overall a nice viewing.

I've finished up writing the pieces for the APK collaboration. I'll spend the next couple of weeks rehearsing the tunes and then another few days recording them. Overall, very happy with the results. Three pieces with drums and three of the more spacey variety.

Many thanks to Stars End for making Escape Velocity and Means of Ascent two of their most influential releases of the year.

December 19, 2006. Up before the alarm this morning and wide awake. First effective sitting in a while. The cool air returns and the air is noticeably drier, which my nose does not like.

What was supposed to be a short session turned much longer last night as I ran through a lot of collaboration numbers. I used the headphones to do some mixing and discovered some strange drum sounds that don't really fit, but was able to rework those parts.

Received my last monthly order from yourmusic.com, which has just raised their prices making their deals less so.

December 18, 2006. Not sure we're going to get any snow this years, as the temps continue to be unseasonably mild. Sleeping straight through to the alarm recently.

Busy weekend. Friday night we lit the candles and then went to my office party. Saturday, we finally straightened out the viola situation after a lunch of middle-eastern delicacies. At night, off to my parents for the annual family Hanukkah gathering. Yesterday, we had our nuclear family Hanukkah celebration. That's enough gift exchanging for a while.

Did a little listening to the APK collaboration tracks. Almost ready to do some recording as I have lots of material for him to hear.

December 12, 2006. A little cooler today. Slept right through the night to the alarm. That hasn't happened for a long time.

Did some work on the APK collaboration last night. Created a nice pad out of two layered patches, in the spirit of ASOF. I also created the layers for a mellotron-based piece. I really have more music than is needed for this project, but I plan on doing some recording in the week before the new year to see what really works.

December 11, 2006. Spent the weekend recharging from last week's travel. Had a bit of dizziness, probably caused by inner ears not adjusting right after the flights. Everything seems fine now.

Finalized a couple of tracks for the APK collaboration. These two are more "composed." There's a couple of others that are more soundscape-based. One using a nice evolving pad sound and the other which relies on mellotron sounds.

Started on The Prisoner DVDs this weekend, which I haven't watched in about a year.

December 1, 2006. A new month and unseasonably warm weather. I'll be traveling most of next week, so it may be a bit until this page is updated.

November 29, 2006. A little rain today, but still mild for the season. Overslept slightly, but was actually ready earlier than usual, so it evens itself out.

More work last night on collaboration material for APK. I have three fairly complete ideas and another couple that are somewhere in between. Since I'll be traveling most of next week, I'm trying to get a bit down because I don't see accomplishing much then.

Stopped at Tower at lunch yesterday. Prices continue to fall as they close up shop. There's still a good selection of rock CDs, but jazz seems pretty thin. I picked up Wingspan and an Edgar Froese title for cheap. I'll probably go back some other time this week as there were a few other things I was indecisive about, but I should just get.

November 27, 2006. Mild weather returns after the Thanksgiving break. Trying to ease back into the regular routine. Too early to judge success or failure.

It was a nice break, with lots of forward movement on many fronts. Very nice Thanksgiving dinner. The next morning I was up early to brave the shoppers. This was the first time I've done this and it will take a lot of convincing to get me to do it again. I hit the one store I needed to before the sun was up. There must have been hundreds of people waiting in line by the time I got there. Luckily, I was able to get exactly what I needed quickly. There will be happy faces this holiday season.

The rest of the break was nice family time and music making. Good progress on putting together a bunch of ideas for my collaboration with APK. I also started the break with a rough outline of the next synthblock disc and ended the weekend with the structure well in place. The live improv piece, Struggle With the Magicians, started out as a two-part piece called Flight. At the time I though it needed a third part, and this past weekend the third part arrived fully formed. So I'm back to the concept of Flight in three parts. I played around with each part and determined where more layers would be needed for a studio version. I also worked on the drums and put those in order. The full piece runs about 50 minutes. I also have the formations of two other pieces that will precede the longer tune. The framework for each is set, and I'll cover those in more detail once that become more solidified.

I've updated the photo gallery with pics of the Gate gig. Means of Ascent is now available for purchase.

November 21, 2006. It gets dark very early here. I also just remembered that gas prices right outside of Philly were less than $2.00.

Picked up Townshend's Scoop 3 today. A combination of a coupon and another discount made it necessary to fill this whole in my collection. Many of the reviews I read make much of the lack of vocal material, but I don't notice that at all.

Currently lots of ideas cooking, a few which seem necessary for solo work and not the collaboration I need to focus on at the moment.

November 20, 2006. Colder weather has returned after a number of days of temperatures that were 20 degrees higher than normal.

Dave has now been and gone. He arrived last Wednesday morning and we spent the rest of the day just jamming around. A few ideas emerged that I kept in my mind for the next day. On Thursday afternoon we basically worked out a 40 minute foundation with some transitions and solo sections, some more upbeat others more ambient. We ran through this a few times, all of which Dave recorded and we were pretty much set.

He left ahead of me on Friday morning to meet his girlfriend at the airport. I headed for Philly around noon, stopping at Tower Records on the way to see what they had left. The stock was still pretty much full. I picked up a few gifts, and a couple of CDs for myself. Everything was 40 percent off. I saw more I would like, but will wait for a deeper discount. I hit Philly around 4:00 pm, we had dinner and then headed over to the Rotunda for the show. The set went well; a few bum notes here and there, and I went through a couple of parts to quick, but in the end we did well. Our set with Ben was nice too; very dark ambient at times. I got home around 3:00 am. Click here for some photos of our rehearsals and soundchecks. Still trying to track down some photos of the gig since Dave lost his memory card.

November 14, 2006. Mild and rainy, again. Woke up a little earlier than necessary this morning, but not tired. Morning routine fully executed.

Spent the last few days working through some sounds and have settled on a nice catalog to choose from for jamming with Dave. Also set aside some unique sounds for onstage with Ben this weekend.

Glad for a roof over my head and food on the table last night as the rain was really coming down. The wind has returned some leaves to the back yard, but the front remains clean. The world becomes bare without leaves on the trees or the ground.

November 10, 2006. I was going to take a walk, but it's getting dark already. It is, however, not too cold out.

Busy weekend. K has a dress rehearsal and then concert tomorrow. In between we need to rake the leaves at least in the front yard. It's hard to believe the Gate gig is in a week. Dave will be here in a few days. I've pretty much come up with enough sounds for at least playing with Dave and Ben. Some won't fit for either, so I'll put those aside. More next week.

November 8, 2006. Lots of rain today. At least the political ads have ended.

Ben sent me a few ideas he's working on and they sound good, almost veering into Fripp and Eno territory. I've come up with a large set of layered and split patches that complement what he's doing. Also have a surplus that I've put aside for Dave next week and a collaboration with APK. Lots going on.

November 6, 2006. Election day cannot come soon enough, just to get rid of the TV ads. You can't watch anything without seeing an ad every other second. And, there's no difference between any of them. The two parties look the same to me.

A bit warmer today after a cold weekend. Some leaves remain, but most are gone. There's some trees tho that will not give up the ghost. Had trouble starting a fire last night, but finally got it to catch.

A bit of work this weekend on sounds. I've setup three separate performances as I come up with sounds that I think will fit any of the three collaborations I'm work on. I've been coming up with some nice timbres that are different from what I usually work with. A very neat acoustic guitar patch with weirdness going on in the background.

I've been listening to the new Who album. It came with a bonus live CD and a bonus live DVD. The music is growing on me. At first it sounded like a Pete Townshend solo album with Roger singing a few of the tunes, but after about a week it does have some of that old Who magic. It is lacking in the bass and drums department, but that's not surprising. I hope they release a full DVD from some show of the tour.

November 3, 2006. Received the artwork this morning from Gears of Sand for Means of Ascent. It looks excellent; their artist did a fantastic job. Click here to see what it looks like and to hear some excerpts from the upcoming disc. If all goes well it should be released on November 17 and available that night at The Gate gig.

The weather has gotten cooler and the leaves have fallen. Fall will soon be gone. Probably start raking up the leaves this weekend and stacking up the wood.

October 30, 2006. Nice weather today, but with the clock change it is already getting dark.

Very windy this weekend and lots of rain on Saturday. Drained the pool cover yesterday and also covered the awning and deck furniture, although it took longer than it should due to the wind. We all watched Chronicles of Narnia in the afternoon. Very good movie, although a stretch of the imagination at points.

Created a bunch of new and interesting patches this weekend. I have two confirmed collaborations going in 2007 and I'm trying to get in the right frame of mind for them. Worked a bit with some guitar sounds as well. Also, there's some 2007 gigs on the horizon if I want.

October 27, 2006. Going to stoke up the fire tonight. There is a chill in the air.

Finished up the root canal this morning. Lovely. Then I discover a firmware update for my Mac that solves the random shutdown problems that many have a lot of trouble with. I've only had a couple, but it was still concerning. We'll see if this solves it.

More noodling last night on this new piece that emerged from the ether.

October 26, 2006. I've got planets in my palms...

Last night I was just playing around with some piano patches and one in particular caught my ear. I must have created it a while ago, but instead of a mellotron string that swelled up behind it, it was some otherworldly sound. I'm figuring that transfering the patch from the Fantom to the G must have something to do with it accessing different waveforms. Either way I started noodling around and ended up writing the framework for a new piece. Whether it keeps this piano sound or not is up for debate, but it's always nice to have some new music to work on. Now I have to get back to creating some new patches.

October 24, 2006. The chill has arrived and the leaves are caught between yellow, brown, green and fallen. Still clearing my head of the past weekend and ruminating some new musical concepts. I need to work on some new patches and ideas, but there's no real preparation involved before Fulton gets here next month. That's all for now. Darkness comes early.

October 23, 2006. The Marty Balin concert on Friday was excellent. He did all his most known tune, and he did them well. Good crowd, except for the individual who kept calling out for Good Shephard. Not sure why they thought Marty would play a Jorma tune, but there you go.

My gig was fun. A small, but appreciative crowd. Greg's visuals were excellent and it was nice to be able to see them since they were to the side of me instead of behind like at Electro-Music. Photos have been posted.

2007 is beginning to look like a full year of collaborations, which will be a nice change of pace. I'll also be joining Ben onstage for his part of the GATE gig.

October 20, 2006. Had a root canal this morning and the tooth already feels better. Lots of rain and wind today, bringing down most of the leaves that had already changed. But there's still a lot of green around.

Hit the point of diminishing returns last night regarding practice for this weekend's gig, so I unplugged the equipment and started to pack it up for the trip. Tonight, we go to see Marty Balin and then tomorrow we are off. Have a nice weekend.

October 18, 2006. Not the most restful sleep as I was disturbed by tooth pain. It's much better now and the x-rays show nothing out of the ordinary, although the dentist has identified two possible teeth that could be causing the pain. Up and out early today as I drop K off at chambers orchestra practice.

Ran through a few tunes last night. Dropped Plangent Bleating from the set. And the improv. piece, Struggle of the Magicians, closes in on the 40 minute mark now. Tonight I visit some first set pieces.

October 17, 2006. Up before the alarm, sit, eat and the rest of the morning ritual. Out the door and it was clear that rain was coming. And it did.

After four replacements, I was given a different model phone. The RAZR kept crashing due to checking email and surfing the web, and since I need to do that they would have either kept replacing it or offered me a comparable model, which I took. It a bit larger, but is much more customizable. So far, no software crashes.

Very close to dropping Plangent Bleating from the live set. It's difficult to play live and might be a bit too heavy for this weekend. I need to time the improv. tonight to see how long it actually goes naturally.

October 16, 2006. Up early and it's cold. We turned the heat on last night for the first time. I also prepared the wood stove for the winter and brought in all the necessary supplies. Nice dinner with friends on Saturday night and some relaxing times yesterday.

Means of Ascent will be released next month on Gears of Sand. It will probably be out in time for the GATE gig. I've never put out two discs in a year, but since it's done there's no sense in holding it back. Expect a page, cover and some sound samples in the coming weeks.

Confirmed last night that Dave Fulton will be joining me for the GATE show. He'll come out for a few days before, which will give us time to compose and get the music together. It will be a lot of fun.

Practice continues for next weekends gig. I'm just concentrating on the pieces that are hard to play live, such as Silver Sky and Plangent Bleating. It will be nice to hear these tunes loud and outside of the confines of the studio.

October 13, 2006. The coldness has returned making it hard to get up in the morning. But it has to be done, so it is done.

So Tower Records is closing. I remember when Tower had very competitive prices, but I must have missed when they decided to start charging above list. But they were always a great store to spend hours in browsing. I'll wait until the prices really drop to see what's left.

Trimming a minute here and there in a bunch of the pieces has made a big difference. The sets run much smoother and the music doesn't drag. I also did a long version of Struggle of the Magicians (the live improv piece) that was around 45 minutes. The second set is more fluid so that a piece can be played or not depending on how the improv piece flows.

And now for a relaxing weekend.

October 11, 2006. Up and out early to drop off K at school. Started cloudy out today and now the rain is here.

Forget what I wrote yesterday, the set remains as it was last week. I have a couple of ideas for edits in two pieces that really should have been done anyway. Really only a minute or two here and there, but they do tighten up the two pieces. I need to run through the improv. piece tonight.

October 10, 2006. Up early and wide awake so a leisurely start to the day and a focused sit. Weather continues to be nice and golden.

More work on a first set last night highlights that it's too long. A few tweaks in my head for potentially dropping a piece and moving some others around. But it's tough as I thought I'd pared it down enough. I'll have to break out the watch to actually time the set and figure out what to do.

October 9, 2006. Not much to update. Had a nice weekend away and now it's back to practicing. Columbus Day has waned as a holiday in these parts. I've noticed over the last 10 years that most banks now stay open, and the kids have had to go to school for the last few years.

The set list is pretty well set for Hyperspace so there's a pretty straightforward framework for practice. It's a delicate balance though of knowing material well enough to not mess it up too bad, yet still have an edge that makes it enjoyable to play and not just go through the motions. As the first set is more difficult overall, that's where my concentration is at the present.

October 4, 2006. Back earlier than I thought yesterday. A little tired but was able to don the headphones and do some mixing. It was fast as there's really not much more to be done except practice. An idea appeared for a third part to Flight, but two may be enough for a live show.

October 2, 2006. Off today. And the kids too. Hard to keep focused on what I need to focus on, and keep part of my attention on the day. Out for some time, picked up necessities for tonight's meal. About an hour's worth music, mainly on the improv piece, which gets better every day. It will be short night as I need to get a very early start in the morning to go to NYC for work.

October 1, 2006. The one morning the alarm isn't set. Up early and then fell right back to sleep. The day started with rain, then some sun, then clouds. Now dark. I can't see any stars out there, but the light is on in here and there's reflection on the windows.

Yesterday, I dropped K off at orchestra and then mowed the lawn. This is the first year in the 13-plus we've been here that the lawn continues to grow. Usually, there's a few weeks off in August as the heat is up and there's little rain. This year, not a week has gone by where the lawn does not need a cutting. No brown outs, and still the green remains. By now it should start getting dormant and down to every other weekend.

Lots of music making this weekend. Most of the work has been on the live improv piece, tentatively titled Flight. The sections are First and Second. I envision a third at this point, but it merely a hope out there. A bit of tweaking and practicing on everything else, in no particular order often, but there is a formative set list, a concrete start with numerous variations.

Tomorrow, drop one of the cars off, pick up materials for the break-fast, and other solemenities.

September 29, 2006. Leisurely wake up this morning. Cool, crisp fall day. Excellent chinese food for lunch and then a brisk walk.

Worked out the segue between the two live pieces. No gap between them really and it works well as one long piece. Have no placed it in an appropriate place in the set and will probably record a version or two just to see how it sounds in real life.

September 28, 2006. It felt like one of those nights when your head hits the pillow and the next thing you know it's morning. Met C for breakfast and then off to work.

Productive jam last night. There are many similarities between the two improv pieces, and after spending an hour tweaking them separately it occurred to me that they might actually work well as one long piece. Not sure how to integrate them together from a technical perspective although I've already figured out a way to bridge them musically. They each work at about 15 minutes, so it would make a 30-minute piece that would require moving some stuff around the live set and possibly ditching a tune or two. Possibilities to explore later.

September 27, 2006. More work last night on the second live piece, which may actually be played before the first improv piece. Added a bass part I can play in real-time so the piece is not as sparse. Did some more mixing tweaks and ran through it a couple of times and then turned off the gear. About 30 minutes later I went back and just couldn't get back into a groove. I should have left the equipment off. Also wrote down some potential new titles, but need to have those place those in my mind while I'm playing to see which ones resonate with the music.

September 26, 2006. Spent most of last night working on the first live piece. I have to keep reminding myself that these are meant for improvisational live playing, as I'm having the tendency to think of other parts to beef up the mix. The problem is that I'm intent on performing these completely in real time without sequencing. But this one is missing something that I have to work out. I'm also meaning to title the two improv pieces but nothing has presented itself yet. Tonight I'll take the second improv piece out for a spin.

After practice I immersed myself in the surround sound To Our Children's Children's Children. Great mix.

September 25, 2006. Up a little before the alarm, and leisurely started the morning. It was a busy weekend. So much so that it's hard to remember what I did. I did have a very nice New Year's dinner on Saturday night and was able to get in a lot of music yesterday.

It looks like Means of Ascent will be released by the end of the year. At first I was a little hesitant, but since the music is done I might as well get it out there. Like Escape Velocity, this release will be out on Gears of Sand, which is really a great label to be on. I've never had more than one release per year, but it reminds me of older days when bands did release more frequently. Expect a Means of Ascent page, with sound samples, in the next couple of weeks.

September 22, 2006. Up early in the cool weather. Time to retire the short sleeve shirts until Spring. Found out early that Boz Burrell passed away. RIP.

Did some work on both live pieces last night. Moved what was the second live piece to the first slot as the first has a lot of mellotron sounds and fits in better in the second half. I need to experiment more with that though. Also listened to the first disc of In Search of the Lost Chord, the only one of the bunch that's not in surround. I did run it through the prologic encoder and it has a nice faux surround sound.

Time to listen to some live Crimson from 71/72 in honor of Boz. Thankfully so much of it is available now.

September 21, 2006. Woke up well past the alarm, which made everyone have to rush around a little this morning. The weather has turned definitively fall, with crisp temps and falling leaves.

Ended up just going over Farthest Rille and Silver Sky last night. They are all set. I'll try to move on tonight, but I ended up getting the other three Moody Blues surround SACDs that were released the other day for a great price, plus a discount coupon, so I may be immersed in that tonight.

Two payments from vendors arrived recently and plans for releasing the next CD, Means of Ascent, are shaping up.

September 20, 2006. Up way too early. Last night I worked out a new live version for Silver Sky. I have to spend a bit of time practicing the lead synth line. I also added a mellotron patch that I can play over certain sections that gives the piece a slightly more eerie sound.

Put up a myspace page at the suggestion of some colleagues. In conjunction, I created a Downloads page with some full-length mp3s of Silver Sky, Swell and Slack, Shoal and Careful With That Fax Machine.

September 19, 2006. It was nice out when I woke up this morning, but now the rain returns at the end of the day. Last night I did some work on the live Farthest Rille. Muted the parts to be played live and added a few other bits here and there including an additional arp that can be played over the middle section. Also did some more practicing with In/to. Tonight I move on to Silver Sky.

September 18, 2006. Warm weather returns for a couple of days. Busy weekend. Set up the replacement computer. It's much more powerful than the one we had to send back. Also, many chores around the house. Yesterday, a flea market and the heat, but we didn't buy anything.

Did some fine tuning to the mixes of various live pieces this weekend. This week I move into practice mode to work out what will be played live and what will be sequenced.

September 15, 2006. Strange night of dreams. I awoke in the middle of the night, about 2:30 am, after what seemed like a very long dream. In a house I do not ever recall being in, with many people that I've never met before. There were some who I knew from the past, but no current friends. The strangest bit is that after I got up for a few minutes and then went back to sleep, the dream picked up where it left off and went on for another long while until I woke at around 5:00 am. Can't really remember what was taking place during the dream except for the setting and some of the people in it.

Another rainy day. Almost got out for a walk, but then it started up again. The replacement computer from Apple has arrived. It's one of the brand new Intel iMacs that were just released a couple of weeks ago. It will take a couple of days to get it up and running with everything that's been backed up over the last year.

Finished the mix of Drunken Shadows last night. Redid the two pad sounds and then finished up the drums. Also worked out using Means of Ascent as the intro and outro to the piece, in real time. A very droney pad with some synth overlays for the beginning and electric piano for the end, all played in real-time. So now it's Drunken Shadows in a Means of Ascent sandwich.

September 14, 2006. Damp and rainy this morning so it was a little tough to get up. But I was motivated, dropped K off at school and hit a store on the way to work. Rain most of the day, and I guess for the next couple of days.

Spent some time last night tweaking the mixes of Silver Sky, Soft Weed Factor and Plangent Bleating. Silver Sky has an entirely different feel with "real" drums. It's a bit more aggressive, but will still work well. Tonight I'll move on to Drunken Shadows. Once that's done it's time to actually practice the execution of everything live.

I was sent a link to some long footage shot by a couple of folks who lived 500 yards from ground zero. They decided to release the tape as long as no one can reuse and profit it from. Gives an entirely different perspective from all the footage you've seen to date.

RIP Richard Burmer. I'll have to give Bhakti Point a spin tonight.

September 13, 2006. Woke up early and then again when the alarm went off. Not too rushed this morning and everyone was up. The trees are beginning to turn in earnest and the stars come out earlier each night.

Pretty much have fought off whatever cold was coming on. Took a break from music last night and watched an old French movie, Grand Illusion. And then it was off to bed. Reworked a potential set list out today and it's about 45 minutes for each set, which seems about right. This means Sailor's Tale is probably out, but leaves a little more room to expand the two improv pieces. I still need to figure out how long they can be without being ineffective, and a couple of names for the pieces too.

September 12, 2006. Up early and still feel like something's coming on. Still fighting it off though. And now the day is almost over and not very much accomplished. Did download the latest version of iTunes, which finally has seamless playback for songs that flow together.

Entered Sailor's Tale into the live set last night. Now I have way too many pieces and need to decide what to keep so I can focus on practicing.

September 11, 2006. Woke up early and sat. Feeling slightly under the weather today as if something is trying to break through. Ignoring the news today as I don't need to hear the trivializing, sentimentalizing and politicizing today.

Finished the drums for Silver Sky and Soft Weed Factor yesterday. Silver Sky gets traditional drums and SWF gets electric ones. Also added a lead sound, distorted organ, that's closer to the original one for SWF.

September 9, 2006. Fall activities begin today. K to orchestra and J to karate. I stay behind and finish closing up the pool. The new one has no brackets at the bottom to hold the cords I usually use to hold the cover done. This year I've had to do with the wire and ratchet that came with the cover. I can already tell that any weight will be trouble.

Lawn in the afternoon. More leisure for the remainder of the afternoon and then off to dinner. I have sushi. We drive in to get ice cream but we have so much at home it seems redundant. Laugh with J and then off to the studio. Settled on the drums for Silver Sky, and while scrolling through songs I load Soft Weed Factor and quickly reimagine it for the Juno. Mostly electric pianos and variations thereof. The only real decision is whether to stick with "real" drums or go with a more electronic kit. There's quick thunderstorm that just past through, and now it's time to watch Are You Being Served.

September 8, 2006. Wake up quick and alert well before the alarm. Sit. Eat. Out the door leisurely. The weather is nice today and it looks like it's beginning to get darker earlier. Start to close up the pool this evening. We will get the defective liner changed in the Spring.

More work last night on In/to and the second live improvisation piece. I really need to come up with names for those two.

September 7, 2006. Woke up before the alarm. Typical morning rituals and then off. Weather is beautiful. Ate lunch outdoors, but may not get out there again until the end of the day.

More practicing last night of In/to. Also read some net reviews and comments on the Juno G; another synth that engenders either love or hate, but little in between.

September 6, 2006. Up at the alarm. Very groggy, but sitting cleared away some of the fog. Very nice day out; Fall has firmly planted its foot around here although it's going to be much warmer tomorrow.

Although I was intending on working on the second live improv piece last night, I ended up running through In/to a number of times because it's a lot of fun to play. There's always tonight.

Empty Glass is still the soundtrack to and from work.

September 5, 2006. Raining out again, although it was nice and cool earlier. Up at the alarm, get ready for the morning, gas up and then off to work.

Good session last night, mainly working on the first live improvisation piece, which is yet untitled. Easily flowed well for about 30 minutes. Based on this, and the other improv. piece, there's no point right now in resurrecting any more older material. I easily have well over two hours of material right now, which is still too much. Also, did a nice run through of In/to.

It's official, Dave Fulton will be joining me onstage for the Gate performance on November 21. We'll get together a few days before to work out a set and hopefully solidify some material we can record.

September 4, 2006. No alarm this morning, but up at a reasonable hour. We go off to the local bookstore and spend most of the morning there. Then some lunch. The restaurant we wanted to go to is closed, but a good one is across the street. Very good sweet potato fries. Then it's off to the music store to get get a book for K. The ownership has changed hands so they have a section in the back of books and sheet music for 75 percent off. There are hundreds of books so it takes a while to go through them. Couldn't find any clarinet books, but I do find a neat book on synths from 1982 and a book of Coltrane solo transcriptions. Get the pair for $7.00.

I'm not a big Moody Blues fan, but I picked up a couple of their recent reissues because they are SACD surround. They sound magnificent and the spaciousness of the surround mix helps. Some of their albums sounded too murky to me. These reissues are actually in 4.1 surround without a center channel and that's a mix I prefer. I find the center channel very distracting in many surround mixes. Also been listening to the reissue of Pete's Empty Glass. It has some nice demos from the sessions.

Posted a new picture of the studio today.

RIP Dewey Redman.

September 2, 2006. More windy than wet today, but still lots of rain. And now lots of leaves on the ground. Mostly errands today. A little music making, just jamming on some new patches.

September 1, 2006. Getting windy and the rain will be here tonight. I was able to get the lawn mowed, since it's been a couple of weeks and there will be no other chance this long weekend.

Spent the last couple of days on Block Island (no relation) for business. Nice weather and food. Although one night I ate way too much and paid for it later that night.

It looks like Dave Fulton will be joining me at the Gate show in Philly on Nov. 17. The plan is to get together for a couple of days of rehearsals beforehand to work out a short set. I'm sure some very interesting music will come out of all this. And now to finish out the day.

August 29, 2006. Woke up early and then fell back to sleep, making it tough to get going. Finally made it out the door and then a quick stop for some new sneakers before work.

In honor of Pip Pyle, I've been listening to Hatfield's Rotter's Club today. I remember back in the late 70s listening on late Sunday nights to a radio show called The Rotter's Club on a local station, which played only Canterbury scene recordings. Four hours of Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong and the like each week. Fitter Stoke and one of Egg's longer tracks are the only ones I can vividly remember hearing. The local station is still around, WPKN, and continues to play an eclectic variety of music.

Finished up Plangent Bleating last night and fiddled around with a couple of other tracks. Ressurected Magnetic Center as a quick ender and also decided to try out Half Awake after stumbling upon it yesterday. Haven't given the track much thought in years, but it's uptempo beat would go over well live. I do have the MIDI track and listened to it last night with just piano sounds. I need to go through my old notebooks to see if I can find patch information to make recasting it easier.

Much rain again today.

August 28, 2006. Up, breakfast, and out before anyone is really awake yet. Short sit and then to work. The rain has finally stopped. There were some moments of extremely hard showers last night. Thankful for the shelter we have.

Read today that Pip Pyle died yesterday. RIP. What a great loss. I have enjoyed listening to his playing on Hatfield and the North and National Health releases over the years.

Plan on finishing the live Plangent Bleating tonight and then revisit Silver Sky. If time permits I'll explore one more older piece to work on. I have room for about one more in the set, which gives me the option to swap tunes in and out of the lineup.

August 27, 2006. After breakfast I got ready to mow the lawn. Then it started to rain. And it has rained most of the day. Tweaked the drums a bit, changed a patch, and did some mixing work on the live Plangent Bleating. It's getting there. I have more than two hours of music I could do live now, but there are still some older pieces that want to be heard again.

Dinner and mahjongg at my folks. Back home and the Daniel Boone TV show marathon continues.

August 26, 2006. Wet again today. Got up leisurely, and then get J off to karate. Nice lunch and some minor shopping, then back home.

More work on Plangent Bleating. Finished the patches and did some preliminary mixing. Also pulled out the Drunken Shadows section from Orbits. It will work well live. The piece started as a standalone track that was originally slated for Sonic Approach, but didn't really fit, so it went on the shelf. Looking forward to playing it live in its original, although now changed, incarnation.

August 25, 2006. Rain on and off most of the day. Cooler. Darker later in the morning and getting dark earlier is noticed, so Summer is definitely on the way out.

Started work on Plangent Bleating last night. Got through creating and assigning a good amount of the patches, but need to work on a few more. One thing that I've noticed while recreating these older tracks is that trying to replicate the studio versions exactly ends up with the mix being much too cluttered for live play. I'm also not getting stuck on recreating the old sounds too much, and in some cases the new sounds are completely different. The drums will take a bit of work as the sequence triggers some strange sounds in the new kits that don't fit the piece at all, such as bird calls and some strange vocal sounds. I'm just creating a new kit that will have more appropriate sounds. The only requirement I have is that the bass drum, snare and toms have the power of the original.

Listened to Sonic Approach today and may recreate a couple of tracks from that release as well. It will be good to have nice, usable backlog of older titles to choose from for gigs.

August 24, 2006. Initially woke up an hour before the alarm. I should have stayed up. I fell back to sleep and woke up an hour later very groggy. No doubt due to the drinks from last night. Good food and conversations as well, so it is forgiven.

When is a planet not a planet? Apparently, Pluto has been "voted" to no longer be classified as a planet. Despite the supposed renown of those voting, I don't see the classification changing in the minds of the public for years. Ah, the dominion of man.

August 23, 2006. Beat the alarm again, this time by about 45 minutes. Minor breakfast conflict with J, and then out the door. Quick stop at CVS to replace the hair trimmer I dropped last week and then off to work. Only one of the attachments had broke, but they don't sell those separately.

More work on Silver Sky last night. It has a more aggressive sound than the studio version, which is good for live play. I was ready to shut the synth down when I scrolled past In/to. Ended up doing a fair amount of work on that one as well. Tweaked the pad patches that were too overpowering during the chordal sections and didn't cut through enough as solos. A fun piece to work on since there's no sequences; it's all played in real time.

No music tonight as I'm meeting friends for dinner.

August 22, 2006. Up at the alarm and a bit groggy this morning. Typical morning rituals. Relaxed, but to the point. J up when I went out the door. Weather is nice, breezy and mild. Should get even cooler by the end of the week.

Spent a bit of time working on Silver Sky last night. It's completely ported to the G now. The MIDI files I saved made that easy, but wasn't saved was the patch assignment. I've kept notes about every piece I've done, mainly maps to know what patterns were used, at what measures, and at what level. In some instances I do jot down either the patch name or at least a description of the sound. In this case, I did have some descriptions for each track and was able to use that as a guide in creating patches. Not quite there yet, but I'm not trying to get it to sound like the original. The one patch I've always recreated on every synth is the main clavinet line that inspired the original piece, with it's reverb delay. The hardest part now will be to create the drum line. That was done originally on the Quasimidi 309, and wasn't saved in any way. More work on this tonight and then on to Plangent Bleating.

August 21, 2006. Up earlier than usual to shave the week's worth of stubble. It's always hard to get moving after a vacation. Beautiful weather after a rainy night. It's supposed to be nice for the rest of this week, with cooler temperatures by the end of the week. Fall is just around the corner.

Did a bit more work on both new live pieces yesterday. I have to change a couple of the sounds, but from here on in it's more working on the structure. I also need to turn my attention back to retooling a few of the older pieces. I've definitely decided on Silver Sky and Plangent Bleating. I'll take on a third piece but haven't made up my mind on which one yet.

Testing out internet access via my cell phone this weekend. Since it accesses a high-speed data network and has a big screen, I decided to try out a month of web service. It's definitely fast and being able to set up the links via a desktop browser is much easier than trying to type on the phone's keypad. I've been able to access my email and navigate to other sites easily. I'll see how much I actually use it as the month progresses.

August 19, 2006. Worked a bit on a second live piece today. I ended up taking a couple of elements from another tune that fit this one better, but was able to quickly fill the gaps that were left in the first piece. Other than that, some basic practicing of riffs and motifs.

Also mowed the lawn and had a great middle eastern lunch, and ended up a the library for a while. Very humid out. We went Mexican for dinner. Evening slowly slipped by with rain, which is sorely needed. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

August 17, 2006. No alarm, but still up at a reasonable hour. Took the car in for the check engine light and found out there was a minor recall repair to be done. Everything under warranty, but just slightly inconvenient as there is no long any dealer in my town. We also renewed our cellular contract. Same plan and free new phones.

Spent a few days in Lancaster County. An anachronism as it's mostly shopping and eating in the midst of the simplicity of the Amish. It reminds one of the needless complexity we operate under.

Started a new live piece this evening. Mapped it out in my head during the vacation and created and set the different patches. Constructed with improvisation in mind I was able to get a lot of tones to work without every having to change patches during performance. I mapped the different tones to different parts of the keyboard. Just needs a bit of final tweaking.

August 13, 2006. No alarm, but up early. Weekend morning rituals and then out for a short while. The weather this weekend has been perfect. Cool, with a breeze. Did a bit of yard work and packing for vacation.

While doing some file work for the Juno I discovered that using the song files from the Fantom and Juno didn't work too well since a lot of the data on them is in patterns. What they did help with was for recreating a lot of the patches and performances I created in the past. The good news is that I had also saved many songs in MIDI format. Those translated perfectly to the Juno, so the combination of all the files gives me the pieces in the state they were in before I got rid of the Fantom. So I have all of Escape Velocity and what will be the next synthblock disc, which was already recording and is scheduled to come out next year. But it will be a big help for live work. Some of the older songs will be more work as the XP sound engine was vastly different. But, it is fun work.

I will be on vacation for most of the week without online access, so don't expect any entries until later in the week. Enjoy the nice weather if you've got it!

August 11, 2006. Up well before the alarm. It is cool and still out. Last work day before vacation. Short concert tonight.

After a week in transit, the Juno G has arrived. Some first impressions. It is very light, a lot lighter than the Fantom S. Most of the casing is plastic, except for the top metal panel, which folds over the back. Besides the plastic, the external power supply cuts some of the weight; at least it's not a wall wart. The Juno G is about as long as the Fantom S/X, but not nearly as wide. Lots of buttons and controls on the surface, so there's little empty space anywhere on the synth.

The first thing you notice when turning it on is the screen. It's much bigger than it looks in the pictures on Roland's site; very bright and very orange. Similar to the look of the XP-50 screen, but bigger text and a lot more information. The contrast knob has a wide range and makes the screen viewable from any angle.

Once you get over the plastic and lightweight feel when picking the keyboard up, the build quality is pretty good. The knobs are firm and have an even travel all the way through their range. The buttons are also sturdy. The sliders are smooth up and down, although they do move slightly side to side if you try, but they don't seem any better or worse than any other slider Roland has used. The data wheel is also solid, and feels like hard rubber instead of plastic. If you remember the data wheel from the XP-50, which often had a mind of its own, this is nothing like it. The keybed is not weighted and has a synth action. If you're used to the Fantoms, it will take a bit to get used to. It reminds me of the action of the XP-50 but a lot more firm and sturdy. It is velocity sensitive but does not transmit aftertouch. Strange, as you can set many patch modulation routings to respond to aftertouch.

The sound engine is the same as the latest Fantom series and sounds great. Very full and warm sounds, with noticeably more bottom-end than my Fantom S. Not much else to comment on regarding the sounds if you're already familiar with the range that the Fantoms provide. I will say that it has a few more "vintage" waves than the current Fantoms. But, I have to comment that the two mellotron patches (Tape Memory and Mello Tron), which don't use "mellotron" waves by the way, are awful. Other than that, no complaints. Pop in the SRX07 (Ultimate Keys) expansion board if you want Tron waves and a larger variety of vintage, organ and e-piano options. The bottom line is that you get a big complement of onboard waveforms (almost 1,300) across the map, but leaning more toward vintage and classic synth sounds.

The sequencer is also the same as the Fantom series, a direct descendant of the trusty MRC-Pro. Unfortunately, Roland dropped the ball a bit here regarding some functionality. Gone is the ability to record patterns; you can only record linear tracks, although you can loop them. Also not present is Roland's RPS function, which lets you trigger patterns on the keys (and pads for the Fantom). You also lose some deeper sequencer edit functions such as swapping track data, changing a track's velocity by a percentage, and the ability to extrack track data. All of these are functions I've used heavily in the past, particularly the pattern sequencing. Yes, I could use an external sequencer, but that's not the point. On the plus side you get a flexible arpeggiator and a rhythm pattern function, which is like having a built-in drum machine, easily customized and triggered from the front panel.

There are lots of controls on this synth. You get six knobs: two that are dedicated to cutoff and resonance, and four that can switch between frequency and amplitude envelopes, and LFO parameters. Roland's D-Beam is also there. Besides using it as a solo or theramin-like synth, you can assign a parameter to control if you'd like. There's also a third choice, called active expression, that's seems hardwired at the patch level. Buttons are available for accessing every main function, and the large screen makes editing at a deeper level easy. A tabbed interface helps here so you don't have to scroll through lots of menu pages.

I haven't mentioned some of the functions that I won't use much, such as the audio recording and sampling, which are as deep as the rest of the sound engine. My main quibbles are the lack of some key sequencer features mentioned above, and the absence of keyboard aftertouch is strange, but no one is going to confuse this synth with the Fantom series. It's also not really related to the Junos of yore, save for the style of the top plate text. Still, a very good and compact synth with great sound possibilities.

August 10, 2006. Up before the alarm and listen to the news. I'm glad I don't have to travel in the coming weeks. Usual morning rituals executed in enough time to get off leisurely. Edgar Froese's Aqua the soundtrack for the morning ride. Return an inexpensive digital camera for K that just wouldn't transfer photos. Pick up some small, unnecessary items while at the store.

Weather is cool and comfortable. The home computer is repaired finally. If it goes again it's time to play hardball with Apple. Spend the evening cleaning out the music library on the system and loading some new music, which is then transferred to my laptop.

New keyboard is due to arrive today. Thinking on restructuring some small parts of the web site: Making a separate page for the archive recordings off the main discography page and figuring out permanent navigation for live appearances. On a related note, a new set list is making itself know, including the structure for two pieces that haven't been written yet.

August 9, 2006. Up at the alarm. Listen to the results of yesterday's primaries. My state seems to be the focus of the reporting. Quick read of the paper for more news, and the comics, before going out the door. Sitting in the car. More of a dividing attention exercise but the same connections as usual morning sit. There's a Bennett saying: "one need not sit cross-legged to transform energies."

Physical work last night raking all the fallen leaves and flowers from the aforementioned tree. Then a quick dip in the pool. Much cooler out than last week. We even slept with the windows open last night. Of course the cat kept waking me up as she jumped from window to window. Extremely bright moon played tricks on me during the night as it reflected off different surfaces. The temperature in the house finally equalized with the outdoor temps at about 5:00 am.

Currently listening to some Tangerine Dream, which happens about once a year. Mainly Encore and Logos, as their live work is always interesting, even if these releases aren't completely live. Hard to be an electronic musician and escape their influence and impact, whether knowingly or not.

Good to see Krimson News back up and running.

August 8, 2006. Up at the alarm. A groggy sitting. Look out at the front lawn to see it covered again with debris from the mimosa tree. They are not meant for this climate and this one is giving up the ghost. It's huge and has been here for long before we came. All the moisture from the last six months has wreaked havoc on it. Bark has been falling off for months and now after looking strong it is losing all its leaves. A messy tree to begin with, now it's showing up everywhere.

The check engine light came on again in my car this morning after being out for a few days. It first showed up last week after an extremely hot day. It's an interesting light as it really means check the emissions system, not the engine itself. Not a critical indicator, but still makes its presence know glowing brightly.

Finished cleaning up the studio area last night as the keyboard stand sits empty waiting for the Juno arrival. Today a sound card for the synth will be here and a compact flash card is on its way. Mental preparations for next weeks vacation take hold for a short time.

August 7, 2006. Up before the alarm. Usual morning routine. Dark out as rain approaches. Out of the house before anyone is very conscious. Stop at Staples to pick up a couple of more pencil boxes. These are perfect to hold patch cords and other small items in the studio. Very cheap at two for a buck.

Excellent weather this past weekend. Gathered a bunch of old XP50 files that were on many different floppy discs. Also found a disc of many of the same pieces saved as standard midi files. These are all mainly from my first two CDs with some cover versions that were on compilations. These sound real interesting when played through QuickTime. Many just use a piano sound, but others are separate tracks and play different sounds. Arc for instance uses different percussion sounds for the main sequence lines in QuickTime so it moves from marimba to xylophone to steel drums. I'm going to work some of these older pieces into the live set. Plangent Bleating and Shoal for instance have linear drum and percussion lines that sound good via QuickTime so I'm sure they will translate well to the Juno. I have versions of everything in the Roland format so it will be interesting to see how they are interpreted. Based on moving from other Roland synths, the sequence tracks should be read fine, I'll just have to tweak the sound and try to reconstruct some patches.

I also came across some covers that I forgot about. One being Marillion's "Three Boats Down From the Candy," which I submitted for a compilation that never came out. Sailor's Tale and Soft Weed Factor were on these discs, although ST is missing a lot that was done on the Q309. SWF sounds good as a midi file since it's mainly piano to begin with.

August 4, 2006. RIP Arthur Lee. Forever Changes. Up at the alarm. Sit. Check the pool. Finish wrapping a package to be shipped. Off to work. The heatwave has broken a little, although it's still humid. On a lighter note, happy birthday to my wife. I'll be meeting her and my youngest for lunch today.

Mapping out some older pieces that I haven't played live for a while. Since I don't have a master keyboard at the moment it's figuring out in my head how different parts will port over from the older synths. I have saved all my patches and song files and Roland's file format seem the same on the new synth. But not sure how it will fetch the waves, which are different. I do write down a lot of settings as I create a patch so it will just be a question of finding a similar sounding wave in the new synth engine. The newer stuff is still fresh in my mind so I'm confident I could recreate it if I had to. Right now I'm planning on porting Farthest Rille, In/to, Escape Velocity and Proximity. I'll also try some real old material like Silver Sky and Ping. It's also a good way to relearn some of these pieces that I haven't played live for about six years.

August 3, 2006. Up a little before the alarm. Sit. The heat continues. As does the central air. Fingers crossed.

Some slight rearranging of the studio last night for the impending arrival of the Juno G. Mostly changing cables. Also brought the small mixer back out in anticipation of some upcoming collaborations. I thought the Juno would be here by the end of the week, but it's coming from the West Coast. Not sure why, as everything I've bought from this vendor has come from NJ. Maybe I'll be surprised and the UPS tracking info will change dramatically.

Either way, it's back to a main hardware synth. After a month of working with Reason, despite it's power and very easy interface, I just got tired of staring at a computer. Even though I could control most of the program from the Korg, I still felt somewhat disconnected when playing the keys. And there was a tiny bit of latency when playing an acoustic piano sounds. Also, it would take a bit of time to load the samples even though I have no lack of processing power. Luckily, the Korg was still within its return policy. Reason is on ebay and the auction ends tonight. I'll still use the computer for storage and some other small task, but that's it for music making.

I made the decision about a week ago and set off looking for a new workstation. I've always liked Roland sounds and the architecture of the sequencer, so I looked at the Fantom line again, but despite the upgrades from the Fantom S I had, the current line is too expensive, particularly for the low-end model. I also wanted to get away from the bulk and weight of the Fantom. The decision came down to a Roland Juno G or Alesis Fusion. On the surface, the Fusion appears more powerful and has an easily expanded OS. They both have a major shortcoming that neither supports pattern-based sequencing and are built around linear operation. I find it surprising that such a basic part of Roland sequencing, RPS, the ability to trigger patterns on the fly, is also missing. Not sure about the logic of this. The code already exists, it has been part of their workstations for years, and I don't think having it would confuse anyone with the Fantom line. Since much of my music has relied on pattern-based sequencing, this has been a big mental roadblock, but there's really nothing else out that inspires me. I've started to think of ways to work around this, and it shouldn't be a problem for studio work. Live, however, is a different story, as my live playing relies on being able to trigger patterns on and off on the fly. I'm sure there is a way around this via a combination of looping and muting. Regardless, I'm a big fan of the Roland sound engine and there shouldn't be much of a learning curve.

August 2, 2006. Heatwave made for a disturbed sleep last night, even though we have central air. Two sittings; one in the middle of the night, the other before the alarm.

After a number of days of frustrating work, I'm going back to a hardware synth. Besides a general disconnected feeling, I really don't want to rely on the computer for music after sitting in front of it for 10 hours a day. So now a Roland Juno G is on it's way. More about this decision tomorrow.

Looks like I have to move my Gate appearance to November, but this may actually be a blessing in disguise. Other news includes a potential collaboration in the works.

July 25, 2006. Up before the alarm but very groggy. New moon today.

July 21, 2006. Up before the alarm, but since I had an early appointment near home I did a short sitting and then listened to the news on NPR i n bed. Checked the pool, appointment and then off to work. Can't get my motor to start, figuratively.

Composed a secondary bassline for one of the new pieces last night. Funny how changing the rhythm so slightly makes a big difference in this piece. It gives it a sense of acceleration.

Here comes the rain.

July 20, 2006. Up before the alarm. Too short sitting. Stop and pick up some pool supplies before work. Enough to take us through the end of the season. Weather is nice today. Warm, but a breeze. Lots of inertia at the start of the afternoon walk, but it was gone by the middle.

The new cable out of the computer to the amp is a big improvement. The volume is up about a quarter, so the cable from before was very cheap. After a couple of hours work on the three new pieces it's clear they are very live oriented. And although all three are at reasonable stage there's no path evident that make them seem anything other than live vehicles. Right now that is fine. I have a CD in the hole and really have no desire to put another one together until after the Fall gigs.

July 19, 2006. Up at the alarm. Short sitting. Check the pool and pick up some stuff thrown around by the storm. Cooler today. There was a violent thunderstorm last night. Lots of hail and high winds. Before that I got a quick dip in the pool as the water was nice and warm.

The storm lasted over an hour and by the time it was over it was too late to get to music. I did get to do some recabling and to set up a back-up cable for live shows. Also caught the end of a James Cagney flick on TCM. Then bed.

July 18, 2006. Up way before the alarm. Took the opportunity to do a few quick things around the house. Then off to work. Hot yet again. Went out to Borders to pick up a DVD for C's birthday, and impulsively bought a cheap book for K, so had to find something for J, which turned out to be very appropriate. Updated EV reviews page with a very nice and long review by Bill Binkelman.

Listening to Miles Cellar Door box right now via iTunes. Love Jarrett on the electric piano.

July 17, 2006. Hot weekend and still hot today. I don't know why, but I took a walk this afternoon. Way too hot for that.

Discovered a small tear in the pool liner this weekend, which I patched. It's holding so far and will be replaced gratis at the end of the season. After accidentally breaking off one of the legs of J's doll we went out yesterday to get a new one. It took three stores to find one that was not expensive. Dolls I guess are not very popular these days.

A call from D opens the possibility of some recording and joining me on one of the live dates for the fall. That would be something. FIngers crossed. More work on the three new pieces. Two seem destined for something over time. The third, probably only a few elements will survive.

July 14,2006. Up early but then fell asleep. Got out of the house barely in time, only to receive a call that a bird was stuck in the wood stove. Back home to free the bird, which exited quickly out the door, only to hear a second on in the flue. For that one I had to take off part of the pipe and then a quick bang to scare it out. It too exited the house quickly.

Hot and getting hotter. Thankfully, the new pool is going strong. I read today that the Who are touring the US for the first time in 25 years. I though they were here a few years ago. And I checked the tickets then and they were way too expensive. They still are. I guess I'll buy the Live in Boston DVD from a couple of years ago. Oh well.

July 13, 2005. Woke up a half-hour before the alarm and listened to the news. Got a quick start in the morning. Checked on the pool in the dripping humidity. All is well so far but need to make some minor deck changes to fill the gaps.

Started a third new piece in Reason the other day. The easiest way to learn this program is to just dive into sound and composition. I've also solved any lingering controller problems so I can control just about everything through the Korg without ever touching the mouse. There's still a long way to go.

Listening to the Miles Davis Cellar Door box. Excellent stuff and quite cheap through yourmusic.com. Also picked up a used copy of the first David Gilmour album last weekend and have been spinning that.

Some live shows are being scheduled. Right now I'm confirmed to play the Hyperspace series in Stroudsburg, PA on October 21. Confirmation should be soon regarding The Gate series in Philly, which I think will be September 15.

July 5, 2006. Happy Birthday America. Yet more muggy weather and some rain, but not nearly as much as in the last few weeks.

Woke up exhausted this morning, no doubt due to waking up in the middle of the night, but feel fine now in the afternoon. So what has happened since the last entry? The company I work for moved a short distance away, received a very nice sleeve for my MacBook from Waterfield, learned I have an old tooth filling that has cracked and needs to be replaced, and Escape Velocity has showed up on iTunes. Currently listening to a selection of 1977 Grateful Dead. Now on is the fifth version so far today of Estimated Prophet, a tune I will never tire of.

Work continues on learning the new studio. Click here if you'd like to see a picture of the streamlined setup. Two pieces are emerging from familiarizing myself with Reason. These are more live-oriented pieces where I can easily switch patterns and sounds. But, there are holes and parts where I know more density is needed yet haven't figured out how to fill it up in real-time. I have a couple of gigs brewing for October where I'll need to have this all figured out. Experimenting with porting some of Escape Velocity and In Transit to Reason but it's a tough nut to rework much of the parts.

June 26, 2006. Hot, humid and rainy for days, and there's no break in sight. Went on Saturday to order a new pool, in the rain. Broke down the old pool yesterday and did some other miscellaneous chore. Lots of education work on Reason this weekend. New RAM is expected today and it's about time.

After posting this I realize how rote and rushed it was with no attention paid to its writing, but mostly to the afterward.

June 23, 2006. More work on getting used to the Kontrol49 and Reason. It's going to take months. I did construct a couple of nice evolving pads last night. There's definitely much power in this setup. It's also made the studio a lot more streamlined, and it was very streamlined before. I'll post a new studio picture soon.

The replacement MacBook is running smooth. No more screen or noise problems as with the last one. Pool disasters continue, but a logical, long-term solution is already underway. Went for a walk in the muggy weather and the same is forecasted for the weekend, complete with rain here and there.

June 21, 2006. Received my replacement MacBook today. The original one had some screen problems. This one is in perfect condition so far. It also runs much cooler. The Kontrol49 came in yesterday. Excellent native support for Reason. Just change the modules and all the controls for the Kontrol49 change as well. Makes it much easier to work with than the Novation controller. Now to take some time to explore the sounds and capabilities of Reason.

June 19, 2006. Not in the mood to update the journal, so I will update the journal. It's hot and humid today. Summer has arrived. Spring was short.

I returned the Novation Remote LE last week. After a frustrating night it just wasn't worth it anymore. Strange that a line of keyboards originally devised to control Reason have such a hard time controlling Reason. It's too bad as the keys felt good. After much research and banging, a Korg Kontrol49 is on its way. The best thing going for it is the seamless integration with Reason. Not really impressed with the key action, but compromises need to be made. So this will be the main studio controller. I will still pick up a 25-key model for lightweight traveling. I played one of the new Korg K series and it wasn't too bad. I really don't need a lot of controls on a smaller one now. So until the big Korg arrives I've been composing using the drum machine and pattern sequencer interface in Reason.

June 15, 2006. Reason arrived in the mail yesterday. After downloading the most recent update I also loaded some extra sounds and was off. Very powerful program and interesting interface. Already making some very neat sounds and drum programs. I also began cleaning and rearranging the studio to accommodate this new mode of working. Still evaluating a larger controller as 25-keys does not cut it at all.

June 14, 2006. You can see some photos from Electro-Music 2006 by clicking here. You can also download the Gears of Sand jam, courtesy of William Fields, by clicking here.

After playing with the Reason 3 demo for the last week I've ordered a copy that will arrive today. I don't see myself as becoming a "laptop" artist, I'm just separating the sound engine from the controller. The music still sounds the same. I bought a Novation Remote 25 the other day, but it's really not enough keys. I'll probably buy the 49-key version soon. It's nice to have a small, 25-key controller so that I can play anywhere in the house and it does make it more mobile when traveling, but I get the both ends and there's nowhere to go. I'm used to 61 keys, but 49 should still be effective.

I received the remastered Exposure the other day. It's great to have the original vinyl version on CD. I missed the original Hammill vocals as well as the extra talk in Haaden Two. Interesting to finally hear all the Daryl Hall vocals, but I can't say that I prefer any of them over the Hammill originals. It's a much better album in its originally released form. My only preference on the remixed version from the 80s is that Tony Levin's bass is more upfront in the mix. Either way, nice to have everything in one package.

June 8, 2006. A little rain today, but was able to get in a walk. Enjoying the demo of Reason, a very interesting software package. Nice old school interface with the ability to patch many modules together, both sound and effects. It's also a new version that is completely compatible with the intel Macs.

Pictures from electro-music 2006 coming soon.

June 7, 2006. Yet more rain. It just doesn't stop. Time to build an ark.

Electro-Music 2006 was great. I'm sorry I was not able to be there for all three days but will definitely plan to be next year. It's probably the best place to hear the widest range of electronic music out there. The music was pretty much non-stop from noon until midnight for the three days. I did a great jam session in the afternoon with fellow Gears of Sand folks Ben Fleury-Steiner, William Fields and Mikronesia. We did four different pieces. Three of them clicked really well despite our stylistic differences. My slot in the theater on Saturday night went well. Nice visuals projected, although I didn't really get to see them. It was great performing in front of such a receptive crowd. I played In Transit, Escape Velocity and Proximity.

Special thanks to Howard, Greg and the rest of the staff for providing such a superb environment. It was also great to meet other musicians and listeners, such as the already-mentioned GOS gang, Mark Mahoney and Mike Peck, Mike Victor, Mark Jenkins, Terry Furber, Ace Paradise, JEM, Stephen (lotus spray), and many many more. I'll be posting pictures from the event soon.

As I was driving down and going over bumps and potholes, it occurred to me that I should stop being such a luddite and look into software synthesis. I could just picture my keyboard being bumped around in the trunk. Also, I bought one of the new Macbooks, and it seems such a shame not to use that processing power for music. So for the last few days I've been exploring this way of making music. One of the problems is that there's not a lot of software out for intel-based Macs at the present. But, I'm using GarageBand as the sequencer and found a couple of free synth programs, Crystal and Automat, that I'm using to produce additional sounds. Still a lot more exploring to be done in this area, but so far it sounds promising.

June 2, 2006. If you're near a computer tomorrow (June 3) at 10:00 pm EST you can hear me live from at the Electro-Music 2006 festival in Philadelphia. Click here to listen.

I also have the lead track on their compilation, which is an excerpt of one of my new pieces, In Transit.

May 22, 2006. Vegas. Busy. Conference. More later in the week.

May 16, 2006. Nice write-up by Chuck van Zyl of Star's End of Escape Velocity, which you can read here. Thanks to Chuck for taking the time to write this up and for playing tracks from the CD for the last seven weeks on his show.

Preparations pretty complete for live versions and jamming sounds for the beginning of June. I'll be in Vegas for about a week starting Sunday, so I'll have a few days when I get back to tweak and lock down everything.

Very impressed with the new MacBook that was released today. I may be replacing my iBook sooner than I thought.

May 15, 2006. More rain, and more to come. In a Van Der Graaf phase.

This is a good example of why I only play solo or in small combos.

May 11, 2006. Time is a thief. More rainy weather, but was able to squeeze in a short walk with just minor sprinkles. In a bit of a VDGG mood. Other than that, nothing new to report.

May 10, 2006. I should have written earlier, I'm running out of steam. There was a break in the light rain before so I did get in a short walk. I need to burn off some serious calories.

Teaching the kids mahjong progresses. J won again last night. They pick it up quick. We are all still learning. Finished off the Red Dwarf 8 episodes last night and have moved on to the bonus features. Other than that, lots of work due to an upcoming conference. Until tomorrow...

May 9, 2006. Lots more energy today, especially in the morning. Unfortunately, there's been intermittent rain so no walk today.

I did buy the final season of Red Dwarf over the weekend and will be watching the last episode tonight. It's a lot better than I remember it from watching the series on PBS. The final season generally gets the biggest thumbs down, but it's still very funny.

Some of the titles of the tracks for In Transit are changing.

May 8, 2006. Low energy today, but the day is going fast.

Nice weather this weekend. Spent some time sorting out sounds for the live appearances. Also, lots of yard work and other chores. Taught J how to play mahjong. She's a fast learner and actually won the first game. Received the glasses this weekend, but they used the wrong frame color. At least the quality was good so should have those back by the end of the week. And that's a wrap.

May 5, 2006. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

May 4, 2006. Very tired this morning. Real tough to get up and going. Not sure why because I got a full night sleep last night.

Contemplating a keyboard case to replace the gig bag I now use. In related news, besides the night slot at Electro Music I'll also be participating in a Gears of Sand jam session in the afternoon with Ben F-S and some other label members. Now that should be fun.

May 3, 2006. More light rain this afternoon, so no walk. I had planned to take one this morning, but realized when I got to work that I had forgotten my wallet, so need to go home to get that. I did have a walk last night with J, which was nice.

Other than that, just some reading last night. And some dominoes. Today has really flown by. Went to Best Buy at lunch to get the latest Red Dwarf, but they claimed they didn't have it, even though their web site said it was available for pick up at this store. Hmm.

May 2, 2006. Light rain derails the chance at an afternoon walk. I just realized Red Dwarf Series 8 was released today. I'll try to get it tomorrow during lunch. Not one of the best seasons, but still better than a lot of the junk out there.

Went over the live In Transit last night. Not much more I can do with this one except to keep practicing the solos. Also did a little work on the live Stations, but not much. It's time to start some new music. Or at least the framework for some live improv. material.

And finally a public thanks to Chuck Van Zyl, who has played a different track from Escape Velocity on Stars End over the last five weeks.

May 1, 2006. Nice weather this weekend. Finished cleaning the garage and put up the new mailbox and post. Some more work on the live music versions, but still a bit more to do. Pretty quiet other than that. New review of Escape Velocity here.

April 28, 2006. Another nice day. A bit foggy this morning internally due to some strange dreams, but the clouds cleared by the afternoon.

April 27, 2006. Very nice out today. First time this year with a walk without a coat. Everything is, or getting close to, blooming.

Did a bit of work for the live In Transit last night. This one is easy. Just doing the solos and then some tron parts over the intro, bridge and exit sections. Then a bit of tension which I successfully deflected. I'm learning to let go of much stress and not to absorb it to begin with.

A bit more work than off to sushi and saki.

April 26, 2006. Cooler today, but still a nice walk in the sun to the post office to return the glasses I got last week. The lenses are great, but the quality of the frames leaves a bit to be desired. This online vendor has higher-quality choices so I choose a designer frame that I saw in a local store and is made well. Bottom line is that buying online is half the price of local, yet the quality is equal.

The other day I saw yet another new edition of Beelzebub's Tales, this one in hardback that smoothes out some of the original translation to make it more understandable to english readers. The last edition that came out sought to go more toward the original. So I each edition goes back and the next forth.

I also learn that the company I left last year because I had an feeling they would be sold was, in fact, sold recently. I picked that one well in advance, but then again I have much experience in this arena.

April 25, 2006. A pause this morning for Yom Hashoah. We are master practitioners of a science of forget.

April 24, 2006. It's been very easy not to write. Yesterday it rained more than it does for the whole month of April typically. Luckily, no flooding at the house, but lots of large puddles everywhere, particularly in some neighbors lawns.

Spent some time trying to make a DVD of the family trip but keep having problems getting music to play for the whole time. Also, some photos get cut off. More ideas for solving this later.

April 19, 2006. Last night of quiet. Gas prices continue to rise, with very little reason. And as so often happens the attorney general of CT is reportedly investigating, over which nothing ever comes of it. Really. He's always investigating rising gas prices as long as I can remember and it has made no difference.

April 18, 2006. Up before the alarm by my internal clock. Very quiet in the morning. The cat does not know what's going on. Returned the dead battery for the deposit fee. Then off to work.

I'll stop at the store on the way home to replenish some minor provisions and to return the DVD. Ordered the glass online. I have little expectations but would like to be surprised. If they work out I'll try a sunglasses next.

April 17, 2006. Watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tonight. Some funny bits, but it's no Red Dwarf. Other than that, work and a quiet house.

April 16, 2006. Second day of quiet. Up early but lounged in bed for a bit. Then off to clean the garage. Did about half of it. Lunch. Short nap and then some music.

Tried to register the new watch online, but the Timex site is down for the second day. Off to bed.

April 15, 2006. Up very early to deposit family at airport. Everything safe and sound. Off then to return some items at various stores. Then to the Timex outlet store for a big sale. Picked up a temperature/tide watch that shouldn't have been on sale. Some chores outside as it was beautiful. Then research glasses online. Did not realize how cheap glasses can be bought via the Internet.

Yesterday, the battery in the van died. Replaced and good for four years or so. The sun is now setting.

April 13, 2006. Beautiful spring day. Nice and warm. Noticed many things blooming while taking a walk today.

I've been listening to a playlist I put together on itunes of a lot of various songs. I have a whole group of playlist for stuff I know I can always listen to: ELP, Jethro Tull, VDGG, Jefferson Airplane. What I did was go through all of my CDs and found there were lots where I only want to hear one or two tracks, so I put those together, along with a track or two from the other playlists, and now have a 10 hour mix. It used to take many hours to put together a mix back in the cassette and CDR days. Now, importing and moving things around is quick.

My music area is currently covered in clothes and shoes for my family's trip next week so I don't even attempt to go back there until this weekend.

April 12, 2006. Happy 13th birthday to my eldest daughter.

Back home, still acclimating after the quick trip. It will be a fast week. Wrote an article from home today and preparing for Passover and birthday festivities.

April 10, 2006. Waiting at the gate for a plane to the West coast, a quick overnight trip. At least I got an aisle seat, although not in the exit row.

Warm day today and I'm traveling light. Nice news from work today and a pretty pleasant day all around. No music last night. It was hard to concentrate and it just seemed like a losing battle, particularly since what I'm working on is not critical.

April, 9, 2006. Getting warmer finally. Not a great night's sleep, mostly due to going to bed late. Lots of outdoor work. Finished cleaning the yard and started on the garage. I plan on finishing the garage next weekend.

Apparently there's a number of CDs out there called Escape Velocity. Perhaps I should have picked a different piece to be the title track?

April 8, 2006. Rainy, wet and cold. There was some snow and ice falling today. Some work outdoors to check the gutters. J to karate in the morning. I stopped by Borders and picked up the remastered Sandy, by Ms. Denny.

So many ways to die but leave it up to man, he'll invent some more. Who's going to save the world? The mighty groundhogs. You've got to like a band that can put together a song about the ills of the world from the perspective of a roll of toilet paper.

Family day today with two meals to celebrate K's upcoming birthday. Also got a good deal on a watch today.

April 7, 2006. Rainy and chilly. Flagging energy in the waning part of the day. Hopefully, the weather will turn nicer at some point this weekend so I can finish the yard cleanup.

April 6, 2006. The rumors regarding the latest OSX release (10.4.6) seem to be true. I've gained about a half-hour in battery life, currently showing about 7 hours.

Up before the alarm. Sitting. Breakfast. Out to work. Had a small liberation during the day from a material object. At the end of the day, off to see J get her latest belt in karate (blue). Then a moment that tries the patience of parents. Eventually a small release.

After dinner, I fixed K's viola case. On my way back in I pause to look at the twilight sky. A quarter moon and a couple of planets were already out. I didn't do much observing this winter, certainly not nearly the same as last year. But I did get some short looks with the binoculars. Wide views of the sky are the way to go.

April 5, 2006. Spring was here, but now it's back to cold and windy. There were reports of some snow around these parts this morning as well.

On the music front, work continues on live versions of studio tracks. Not much else to report there.

Good reminding factor today. I put on an older watch this morning that worked, but by mid-morning the battery died. I took off the watch, but still check my wrist every now and then.

April 4, 2006. Just a little break. Escape Velocity is now available through CD Baby and Hypnos.

I've been doing work on the live Escape Velocity and Farthest Rille. Pretty much worked out which parts to play and how to switch between them in a live setting. When I'm recording I don't often consider, from a usability perspective, how close patches are in relation to one another. Not from the sound but how close to switch between them, which becomes a lot more important when playing live. It's just a case of practicing the transitions now. The new pieces are easier as I'll be concentrating on playing the solos and some pads here and there.

There was an article in the NYTimes the other day about a collection of unpublished poems by Elizabeth Bishop. The gist was that she only approved what she wanted public during her lifetime. Fair enough. Although, I have the main collection of her poems and have enjoyed them, I've never felt a particular resonance with her works. Having said that, I can understand her wishes having read some of the unpublished works that are now available. Many writer now just delete their work and that's it if they don't want it public. I have boxes of old works, and although I have no reason to believe that they would ever be published, much less the poems that actually have, I have on occasion thrown away bits and pieces that I'd never want to see again. Actually, nothing that I wrote from ages 12-14 exists as far as know, although I wouldn't mind seeing what was going through my mind at the point when I first started writing poetry.

March 31, 2006 I don't remember not writing or posting a journal entry for the past two days. I do remember not doing it yesterday.

Finished adding the Fantom drums to Escape Velocity. Nice groove to it. Now I need to work on the parts I'll do live.

I'm scheduled to play on June 3, Saturday night, at the Electro Music festival. I'll be there both Saturday and Sunday and hope to participate at some jam sessions.

Also, Escape Velocity is now available through the Hypnos store, as well as the other outets mentioned earlier.

Have a nice weekend.

March 28, 2006. Back after a quick west coast trip. Slept and then did a bit of work. Firmer plans regarding Philly in June. I'll be playing June 3. More tomorrow.

March 27, 2006. Up before the alarm. Relaxing start to the morning. I'll be on the road for the next couple of days.

March 26, 2006. A few errands in the morning and then lunch. Quiet afternoon and evening. Helped J practice the piano and did some work. Also packed for tomorrow.

March 25, 2006. Up way before the alarm. Typical Saturday morning. J to karate and K to orchestra. Rest of the day out with the family for errands.

More work last night on adding Fantom drums to Escape Velocity. Still slow going.

March 24, 2006. Less foggy this morning. Short walk in the afternoon.

More listening to Shakedown Street last night. It just reinforces the notion of how limited Keith Godchaux was with just using the piano live most of the time. There's a nice selection of keys throughout the disc and Keith could certainly play. Great four song sequence near the beginning (France, Shakedown, Serengetti and Fire). The bonus live stuff from Egypt just begs to get a more expanded release.

March 23, 2006. Up before the alarm. Sit. Eat. Out to work. Fragmented and foggy, although an afternoon walk helped. Spent some time last night packing up promos for Europe.

March 22, 2006. Still waiting for spring to arrive.

Started replacing the drums for Escape Velocity last night. This is for the live version. The drums were from the Korg, but want to travel really light so I'm using the drums from the Fantom. My original thought was to just run the Korg to trigger the sounds from the Fantom and then record those but I may take this opportunity to just redo the drums. I'm also considering some other tracks from Escape Velocity. Farthest Rille is a given since the drums are already on the Fantom. I'll also be visiting a couple of older tracks to see how they translate. Silver Sky is always a live favorite, so that may be next. Many of the other older tunes would have to be done from scratch.

I was reading a book about the history of skateboarding the other day and it reminded me of my childhood. I skateboarded a lot in 1976-78, the second boom of skateboarding. I remember my first board had a fiberglass yellow top and I got it for my birthday from Korvettes. The bearings were open and after a couple of weeks the nuts on the axles started to strip and the bearings would inevitably fall out. I was able to return it and got a Makaha board from a sporting goods store called Hermans. This board had a grey plastic cambered top. I never did fancy tricks or anything, just riding around. I eventually built my own board. I bought some trucks, wheels and shaped the deck. Like an idiot I sold it a few years later. I've had a longboard for about six years now. Good for us aging folks as it's very stable. It's handmade by a company that's no longer in business called Motherload Longboards. It's a comfortable ride and lets me skate with my kids on our street.

March 21, 2006. Another day flies by. No walk today because I spent the time doing something nice for my kids.

Last night I started some work on converting pieces to their live versions. What this means is basically erasing some of the parts that I plan to play live. I already have a set pretty much worked out, consisting of released and unreleased material, as well as a few framework pieces that will serve as platforms for improvisation. No rush on this work, but I would like to finish it off in the next few weeks.

March 20, 2006. The day has moved to quick. It's chilly out but the sun helped warm today's walk. Nothing else right now.

March 19, 2006. Leisurely waking this morning. Colder and breezy. Started a fire and did some work. Then off to guide my daughter in maximizing the yield from a small percentage of birthday money. She did get a good deal.

The schedule is coming together for the electro-music 2006 festival. Right now, I'm the penultimate performer on the last evening. I'm still deciding logistics for going as I'd like to be there for the whole festival, but I may have to go the second day if I have to stay over the last night. Either way, there's a nice roster of diverse performers and it should be fun. There's some interesting jam sessions scheduled.

March 18, 2006. Saturday morning trips to the orchestra and then back home for housework. Family party today for Jessica. Also cleaned out the piano. I opened it up to check on a sticking key and found a piece of paper and felt were the culprit. Also gave it a nice vacuum. Found the original shipping slip and warranty info. This piano was from my parent's house. When we moved in here 13 years ago they gave it to us. The shipping slip is date October 1974. I took piano lessons on it for two years.

March 17, 2006. Escape Velocity is now available for purchase. Details on the discography page. Also finished the "making of" page and posted that as well.

Spent last night setting up the new used computer. Took a while, but was able to load OS X.

March 16, 2006. My youngest daughters birthday is today. She turns 7. Happy birthday!

While poking around the online management tools from my web host, I found a tool for creating an online shopping cart system. So I did. It was very easy. Typically, I try to send people to retailers, but for those who want to order directly it's a lot more convenient than the method I've been using.

March 15, 2006. Disturbed sleep last night as it was so windy. Could hear the wind when it was far away and coming closer. It was hard to pinpoint the direction, but somewhat eery that it was off in the distance. Did not walk today due to the high winds still around.

Received my artist-comp copies of Escape Velocity last night. They came out really nice; clean, interesting artwork by the label. I'll post the updated discography page once Gears of Sand posts their page and I can link folks over to purchase from them. We're also going to offer an exclusive download of Magnetic Center, which is not on the disc, to those who purchase.

Some tweaks to the In Transit disc mixes last night. Also made a 4:00 edit of the In Transit track for inclusion in the electro-music compilation.

March 14, 2006. Windy today but the rain ended and the sun is out. Just back from a walk. The temperature is dropping though.

I'll be playing at the Electro-Music Festival in Philadelphia on June 2-4, 2006. More details to come.

March 13, 2006. Up after the alarm. As foggy inside as out.

Many opportunities for dividing attention and separation as there were over the weekend. Continued discussions with other principals regarding recasting the OMC without the M as an effort to embrace other arts. However, the responsibilities that carries are the sticking point. Certainly related to this, aims that started 25 years ago reassert themselves.

March 12, 2006. No alarm and up by 7:30. Rug cleaning was the chore of the morning. In the afternoon we went to the mall for lunch and to Circuit City. I have a gift card from birthday, but didn't see anything. However, there's stuff coming out in the next couple of months that will be purchased.

Other than that, it's rainy and cool, wood has been brought in, the laundry is going and the afternoon is almost over. Current reading is Bennett's How We Do Things, the only book you'll ever need. The page I'm on talks about how an organized challenge is a reminding factor. My copy is the original Coombe Springs edition from 1974, which I purchased about 7 years after that in a used book store in Amherst that had lots of metaphysical and poetry books for less than they were truly worth.

March 11, 2006. Up well before the alarm. Sitting is done vertically. Breakfast and then get the kids off to their respective obligations: karate and orchestra. Spend a short time at Borders and then listen to the In Transit mix in the car without the background hum of the engine. Back home to stain the new front door and pick up the metal and nails that litter the yard here and there from the work a few weeks ago.

Now taxing the laptop to get the battery to drain quicker so I can recalibrate it. This is recommended by some to do once a month to keep the battery healthy, but I do it every three months. While usually a good thing, the 6+ hours the iBook battery provides now makes draining this a slower task. I'll pop a DVD in soon to really get it cooking.

March 10, 2006. Just back from a relaxing walk. It's quite mild today. I'm fortunate that most of my walk takes me through the older section of a typical New England town on the shores of Long Island sound. Lots of old houses and churches and old slate sidewalks. The other part of the walk is through a the train station with my ears being blown out by the passing trains, and the sounds of I-95 close by. Still, very worth it. It's a very similar place that can be reached by sitting, but it's walking.

A few mix tweaks last night, but stuff only I'd hear I'm sure. Also some thinking for a new piece I to do for a compilation. Nothing with structure, more trying to put the In Transit project out of my realm so I can concentrate on something new.

Put on the first set of the Dead's Closing the Winterland DVD last night. I was in the mood for some Shakedown Street material as I've been listening to the remaster lately. A very maligned Dead release, but one of the first I ever bought. There's a nice groove and sound to the whole album I enjoy, that was never really replicated live. As opposed to Blues For Allah, which is another great album but one I never listen to because the live versions on One From the Vault are just so much more beyond the studio takes.

March 9, 2006. Up at the alarm with a twisted neck, which has loosened through the day. Rest of the morning uneventful.

Last night I put together a new kitchen table and chairs. Not too difficult. My youngest was the assistant and was a pro at handing me the correct hardware. After that I finished up the mixing of the long piece. I believe we have a CD. The electric pianos now sit nicely in the mix. Still need a new name for the tune, but that will come. I've listened to it all the way through and will let it sit for a few days. Probably a few more tweaks, but another will be in the hopper. The release of Escape Velocity is imminent, while the release of In Transit will hopefully happen in the fall.

March 8, 2006. Up at the alarm, some sitting, eating and off to work.

Did the first mix of the complete In Transit last night. Haven't made it through listening to the whole thing yet, but already notice some tweaks that need to be made. The longer piece needs a little more reverb on the electric pianos and possibly some limiting. That tune is 40 minutes long, with the full CD clocking in at 67 minutes. Once Escape Velocity gets released I plan on posting some excerpts to In Transit.

I received iWork 06 for my birthday and have installed Pages and Keynote in hopes of using them instead of word and powerpoint. So far import and export tests have worked fine. The only glitch is that Pages does not have compatibility with Word's track changes option. But for the most part I should be able to use iWork about 80 percent of the time.

March 7, 2006. Up a few times during the night with some weird dreams. I'm not the only one. I wonder if it was the pizza we had for dinner last night? I ended up having cake twice. First at work then home. Many thanks for the nice gifts I received.

Finished the first two electric piano overlays to Mindpsore. I changed the second sound from a wurlitzer, which just didn't fit the mix, to another Rhodes with prominent tines for a bell-like tone. Tonight, I'll do both parts for the final section. Also contemplating a name change for the piece.

It's nice out today so time for a walk.

March 6, 2006. Out to lunch with my wife for my birthday. Back at work and surprised with cake.

Spent a large part of yesterday, in between chores and playing with the kids, working on Mindspore. Got down the entire backing track and most of the overlays. It's three sections that all blend together. The first section is very similar to the original version I trashed last week, while the last two are new. It's not much of drone piece now, but more spacey. There's even drums in the final section, but it's definitely not like the other two pieces for this disc. I now have to put down the electric pianos. A Rhodes in the first section, Wurlitzer in the second, and both in the third. I'll be starting on that tonight.

March 4, 2006. Got to sleep an extra hour this morning. Spared the usual shuttling of kids to spackle and paint new trim and windows. Short nap after all that was done in the mid-afternoon, and then out to a magnificent shrimp dinner.

Trashed Mindspore last night and started from scratch. I just found myself erasing part after part and decided a blank slate was the best approach. Still using the same sounds as before but have a new idea for having the drone for only half the piece and then a bit more space for the second part. I put down the drone and will do more tomorrow.

March 3, 2006. Up before the alarm. Kids delayed opening for school. Shoveled the end of the driveway before heading to work. Shoveled twice yesterday instead of saving it all for one muscle straining session. I also fixed the light in the garage yesterday as well.

Did some work on Mindspore last night. Did about half of one electric piano improv. over the drone. Stopped when it got to the middle because some weird sounds I don't remember making changed the mood of the piece. Still not sure if I'll keep them or need to redo this part. Also created one nice lead sound that's very mellow and with a long delay that may work in the fade out of the piece.

March 2, 2006. Up before the alarm. Usual morning activities. Also spent some time hooking up gutter extensions in anticipation of the coming precipitation, which is now falling in the form of snow.

Spent some time last evening working on Mindspore. There's two piano lines that evolve over the main drone. I was not happy at all with the results. But not happy in the sense of it needs more work, not that it won't fit. One of the electric piano sounds is perfect, but the other doesn't really sit in the mix well. Also had to tweak one of the drone sounds; one of the tones was an octave too high.

March 1, 2006. Up at the alarm, a few minutes to figure out where I was. Then, typical morning routine. Stopped at home depot for some supplies, then work.

The washing machine took minutes to fix. Apparantly a wash cloth got stuck in the bottom. The outside of the house is finished and looks beautiful. Feb. journal entries moved to the journal archives. Today's reminding factor is the clock on my computer, which I've changed from digital to analog. Everytime I look at it provides an appropriate wake up. And now a repost from another site regarding some composition thoughts:

I use my own shorthand for notating pieces. Similar to what you see on the back of some album covers (Eno's Thursday Afternoon and Jerry Garcia's Garcia). For others I do write out the music for some themes, but nothing major. For some pieces I've been trying to write out the whole thing because many parts I write from a bass or guitar perspective and would like to hear them played someday by a full band. A couple already have and it's a kick to hear them like that.

For the more structured pieces I usually just start with some ideas and others present themselves as I go along. Others I work out in my head so that they're pretty much structured and set before I even fire up the synths. Sometimes I just start with a new sound or patch and that at least dictates the beginning of a new piece. Then it's just a question of see what else a tune needs to be added or taken away. I spend a lot of time considering the space and the bits between the bits, deciding if the sound is too dense or not enough is there.

I often do covers just for fun, particularly taking something that was not electronic in the least and seeing where that goes. Other times it's in answer to a call for submissions, such as the Sailor's Tale. I follow the structure of the tune but take some left turns here or there. The first cover I ever attempted on synths was a version of Jefferson Airplane's Two Heads for a tribute cassette, which really doesn't sound anything like the original. Others, like ELP's Barbarian, which I did for a compilation, follows the original pretty faithfully. Most fall somewhere in between.

February 28, 2006. Up early to get Kali to school for chamber orchestra. Limited sitting. Ran some errands before work. Much more on the ball today.

Spent most of last night trying to fix our washing machine. The water wasn't draining and the motor was making a lovely grinding sound. After getting the clothes out and draining all the water, I was able to determine that it wasn't a belt, which I could have fixed. Actually, I couldn't find any belts so I think that it's a direct drive. Either way, it's out of my league. Luckily, we have a friend who is coming by to fix it.

Some music making last night without sound. I was just fiddling with some levels on the two completed tracks. Tonight, more.

Offered another gig that conflicts with a business trip. Hopefully, the gig date can change.

February 27, 2006. Up in the middle of the night, or early morning. Sitting to fall back asleep. Awake by the alarm but fell asleep again for a few minutes. As a result, I've been in a fog for most of today. The cold is not helping either. Dry, watery eyes today.

Just noticed some bad links, particularly to the Sailor's Tale mp3. It's fixed now.

February 26, 2006. Relaxing morning. Jam in the afternoon. I played mostly bass, but some keys on a few tunes. Luckily, I wore earplugs because it was loud. A bit hard to react to some of the dynamics as well as missing a few changes, but worth it to save my ears.

February 25, 2006. RIP Don Knotts. If not the funniest actor ever, in my opinion, then certainly one of them.

Windy today, up before the alarm. Lots of work around the house caulking, spackling, and hanging new shades, among many others.

Final mixes of In Transit and Stations. I'll be leaving these for a week to get some perspective. Monday work continues on Mindspore. Tomorrow a jam session in the afternoon with bass and clarinet.

February 24, 2006. Up before the alarm. Sitting. Got wood. Breakfast. Very windy today.

Finished the mixing of Stations last night and it passes the listening test so that one is done. In Transit just needs a bass tweak. I dropped the bass sound an octave and that works well, but there's a bit of boominess that I need to dial out. I hope to finish that tonight.

February 23, 2006. Up with the alarm. Sitting. Breakfast. Drizzle to work.

Just minor tweaks to In Transit and Stations left. Pretty much just lowering the volume on the drums and bass a tad. I ended up just dropping the bass on In Transit an octave and now it sits fine in the mix. The added reverb to the drums opened up the mix and made it breathe a little more.

Other than that, the housework is almost complete. A potential gig has presented itself in Canada in April, but I just don't know how I'll swing that. Still need to complete the Escape Velocity making of page. Also mulling the translation of some of my music to guitar. Some potentials are evident, but nothing is free.

February 22, 2006. Mixed Stations and In Transit last night. The first mixes. The tracks from Escape Velocity took anywhere from 4 to 6 mixes, so who knows here. I've only had a chance to listen to In Transit closely. My first impression is that it's very dense. The drums need more reverb and to come down in volume. The bass is too loud but not deep enough. And there's a recurring lead motif that's too loud as well.

After a mix, I listen back on a number of systems. The stereo in my studio, the main home one, in the car and on a portable player. I try headphones with most of these as well. Since I don't have a "reference" system, the sound is definitely different on each example. I try to isolate what differences each system introduces and then cancel those out from the listening task to hopefully end up with as a true a mix as I can.

February 21, 2006. Day is almost over. I plan on mixing In Transit and Stations tonight. Engaged in some interesting discussions with some other musicians regarding live performances. I've already sent out some queries to line up shows to support Escape Velocity. There's just not a lot of options here, or anywhere for that matter, for this type of music.

February 20, 2006. Finished the taxes, again last night. I'm glad 2005 is over from a tax perspective.

Finished recording the solos for In Transit, so now it's just down to the mixing.

February 19, 2006. No alarm this morning. Chores for most of the morning. Out for a chinese lunch alone with wife. The benefit of kids growing up is the built-in babysitting it brings.

Lots of progress for In Transit today. Tweaked all the solo sounds and added a few bits here and there. Finished the closing bit, and slowed down the intro to bring an entirely different vibe to the beginning. So instead of deleting it gains new life. Tomorrow i will lay down the solos. When building some of the solo sounds I came across two sounds that will form the basis for an entirely new piece.

February 18, 2006. Not up early. Breakfast. Visit to my folks. Lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then home to do the taxes. A few hours later. Ugh.

More work on In Transit tonight. Added a tron pad. Started with that sound, worked through a few others before ending up back at the original patch. Added some other parts here and there that may have to go because parts sound too claustrophobic. Also added an intro that doesn't work. Have another idea built around layering percussion and fading in with that.

February 17, 2006. Up before the alarm. Sitting. Breakfast with the kids and off to work. Wind has picked up throughout the day while the temperature drops. It made for an invigorating walk.

Laid down a substantial bit of In Transit last night. Still have to add one pad and two leads. Also need to put down the ending, which I've already figured out in my head.

Some web site tweaks today, including updating and changing the format of the bio.

February 16, 2006. Up before the alarm. Sitting. Then some breakfast with the kids, writing, short doctor's visit and then off to work.

No music last night. Before I left work I accidently deleted an article I was writing, I thought it was on my removable drive, and had to spend last night recreatinig it. Ugh.

Mild today, so nice walk in the sun.

February 15, 2006. Three distinct dreams last night. One took place in a mall I've never been to before, but do remember the same setting from a dream a few years ago. Up early. Sitting. Fell back to sleep as usual. It's the quality not the quantity.

Recorded a percussion line for In Transit last night. Also tweaked the regular drum line. Then fired up everything, the drums, bass, pads, sequences, and did a few solos to find out what it sounds like. Pretty good, but still lots of work to do.

Also downloaded and printed out the cover for KC CD I downloaded the other day. A lot of work to cut and fit it. Way too much hassle for me. I guess I'll only be doing this once in a while.

February 14, 2006. Tired and low energy today. One of us had to stay home with Jesse last night since she was feeling sick so I missed the concert. I did, however, hear the pieces in their entirety at Saturday's rehearsal, so little loss there. It was my turn.

No music making last night, but I did download Crimson 10/81 from the official site.. Excellent energy for an audience recording.

February 13, 2006. Lots and lots of snow. About two feet. The snowblower barely got through it. I had to go out and shovel out the end of the driveway after dinner due to the plow finally coming by. Today, it's cold but the sun is melting away some of the ice.

Due to the snow, Kali's concert for yesterday was cancelled and is tonight.

Spent some time working on In Transit yesterday. Worked mainly on the drums, but did put down a modulating pad for another part of it. Some ideas for the ending, but too soon for now.

February 11, 2006. Took Kali to dress rehearsal for her concert tomorrow night. However, with the snow on the way, the timing is up in the air. In the afternoon, a chinese lunch and then to search for a new outside light. Nap and then out to dinner with friends. Now watching James Bond and waiting for the snow.

February 10, 2006. A blizzard is forecasted for tomorrow night. We haven't had snow for awhile. It has been cold though.

Did a lot of work on Stations last night. Worked out all the melody lines and a few extra sounds here and there. All that's left are the solos at the end. I'm going to try to finish up the piece this weekend and then it's just down to mixing.

Work continues on the house. New big window is in the front and some of the siding is already up.

February 9, 2006. Just in from a cold walk. I pulled a muscle in my back while sleeping last night and it only hurts when I'm up and moving around. Sitting is fine, but by the end of the walk it definitely felt looser.

Finished the drums last night for Stations. May change some of the sounds, but for the most part the percussion is complete. Also chose the lead sounds and a pad for the closing section. Once again, it feels like a piece to close the CD, not start it. Only 20 percent left to do for this one, all fun stuff.

February 8, 2006. RIP Elton Dean.

I just read that Elton Dean died yesterday. One of the great jazz-rock saxophonists, he often strayed into Coltrane territory. His presence was strong on a number of Soft Machine releases, particularly some of the live vault ones put out by Cuneiform. And of course the studio albums 3 and 4.

Welcome to the new site design.

Finished the transition to the closing section of Stations last night. I also settled on two lead sounds. One for the main part of the track and the other for the ending. Also spent more time with the drums, but still not satisfied with anything I've come up with.

February 7, 2006. Just realized I still need to pick up a couple of cards. I was at Walmart early this morning and forgot to look there. I did pick up the Wallace and Gromit movie, complete with a bonus disc (the reason I went to the megamart), and another Pink Panther disc that was too cheap to pass by.

Stations work continued last night. Finalized the structure of the piece and the entrance and exit of the main melody lines. Also spent a long time on drum sounds and lines, but this will take time. This piece is beginning to feel like the CD opener as opposed to the closer. Either way, out of the middle of creation of the piece. Before bed the way to transition into the closing section appeared and I rushed into the studio to lay down the idea quickly. Thankfully, I have equipment that facilitates this quick work. It literally took three minutes from the time I had the point of seeing until it was recorded.

February 6, 2006. More work on Stations last night. Mainly drum lines and a few pads for the ending section.

Watched Spirited Away with the kids last night, a film by the same director as Pom Poko and Porco Rosso. Great animation and a good story line. We also watched some of the classic Pink Panther cartoons.

Cold walk today, but necessary.

February 5, 2006. Some work on Stations yesterday. Added a bass line and worked out the structure of the ending section. Created a few sounds for this part, but haven't figured out exactly where they'll go yet. The night before I did a little more work on Mindspore. It takes a while to put down even one sound for this piece because it's so long. I had slated two new sounds as slightly atmospheric additives here and there, but one of them now seems more suited for the end of Stations.

Took out all the gutter guards, since the gutters will be down soon. Day two of draining the pool cover. It's been raining a lot over the past month. Not much of a winter. Pretty mild for the most part.

Settled on a new web design and started porting content into it. Expect it to be live within a month. I found I was looking for specific designs and was frustrated at not being able to interpret the code to figure out how to get text blocks to work. The new design settles out a lot of these problems.

February 3, 2006. Working on a new site design, but getting very frustrated. White text is just too hard to read sometimes. I may just need to try another font. Also problems with getting text to fit in a field. Time to leave it for a while.

Did some work on the long drone piece last night. I'm working simultaneously on three pieces. Two I started in the fall, In Transit and Stations, and the third, tentatively titled Mindspore, is the long drone piece. About an hour's worth of music so far.

February 2, 2006. Woke up at 3am and had trouble falling back to sleep. Did some sitting and then put on Music For Airports on the headphones. Fell asleep before the end of the CD. The effects of the disrupted sleep are making the midafternoon tougher.

Still tired last night so I didn't attempt anything productive. Watched an episode of the Saint and then read the latest MacWorld before retiring. This morning work on the house exterior started with the brick coming off the front with a sledgehammer. I hope the walls don't break.

Spent the last couple of days with some MS Office problems. First Entourage was not letting me accept any invitations unless I dragged them onto the desktop and then clicked the meeting. I trashed Office and planned to reload it this morning, but accidently brought in the disc for an earlier version. I'll try again tomorrow morning. I've been using Mail instead, which is alright, but doesn't tell me about undeliverable mail, which has happened in the last couple of days. Oh well, much to do, so back to work.

February 1, 2006. In a fog for most of yesterday due to drugs for a medical procedure. Slipping away, the feeling when you know your are losing consciousness and there's nothing you can do about it.

Not too cold today, so a short walk to get some fresh air. Other than that, just work for now.

January 30, 2006. Liquid diet today in preparation for a test tomorrow. Slight tweak to the web site design, getting rid of a thick bar that separated the top from the text section.

January 29, 2006. Cloudy this morning, then giving way to rain. Did some yardwork and brought in wood for the stove. Spent the rest of the morning on some music. Working on a longer piece, a bit of a drone. I have an idea for a title and that this would be the first of a series, but still in the ruminating stage about this. Also spent part of the time playing some clarinet over the drone.

In the afternoon I played dominoes with Jessica and then we watched a japanese animation film, Pom Poko, about shapeshifting raccoons. Neat film, with a realistic ending.

Now to watch an episode of the Saint before bed.

January 28, 2006. Early rise, but rushed all morning. Much shuttling of children and then a mattress, actually two back and forth.

Revisited Music for Airports today. 1/1 is still very powerful. Robert Wyatt wrote and played the main piano line that the entire piece is beholden to. A magnificent piece. The rest of the album can't meet the power of 1/1. It's still good, but somewhat of its time. Not in the sound, but execution. As a whole, a very relaxing listen.

Watched Office Space with Cindy. She had never seen it. Always funny to me after many viewings. The Bonus "Making of" was full of great interviews and bits.

January 27, 2006. A pause to remember those on the two shuttles and Apollo 1. And for the forgotten original crew of Gemini 9, Elliot See and Charlie Bassett.

More work on the making of page and some minor web site edits today. Last night took Orbits and stripped out a lot of the solo parts and rhythm sections to expose a nice long drone piece. Tonight, I'll try the clarinet over it.

Picked up the remaster of Steve Hackett's Voyage of the Acolyte for very cheap at Borders. Nice upgrade of sound and two neat bonus tracks, including an expanded ending for Shadow of the Hierophant, bringing the track up to 17 minutes.

January 26, 2006. After thinking about it for weeks, I did some clarinet soloing over a synth bed. Mainly one track I've been working on, In Transit, that's just a few patches creating a nice evolving drone. I also tried some single groove patches: basically a drum line with some nice enveloped pads, that worked well too. When I get enough motivation, I'll hook up a microphone to my Boss SX-700 and try out the effects. Right now the pure sounds of the clarinet were a nice counterpoint to the synths.

I've started writing up a "making of" Escape Velocity page detailing the writing and recording sessions for the CD. I hope to finish it by next week and post it on the Escape Velocity page.

Off for a walk.

January 25, 2006. Nice day, for January. Short walk to pick up lunch. News will be forthcoming soon regarding the release of Escape Velocity.

January 24, 2006. Sunny and cold, but the sun is now setting.

The first volume of Time Tunnel was released today on DVD. I watched the show when I was a kid and recently saw an episode; it has not aged well. The Rat Patrol, on the other hand, is a different story.

Basic practice last night with a piano trio for the quartet of swing tunes. As I was putting the clarinet away I noticed on of the post screws was coming out. I went through and tightened the rest up, just enough so they won't fall out. I had to go back a do a few. When they are too tight the keys get stuck. My current reeds are slowly dying.

January 23, 2006. The day just flew by. Snow, then rain this morning. Dried up a bit by the afternoon so I did take a walk, but it was cold. Packing up now for the short ride home.

January 22, 2006. I've been on battery power on the iBook for about 15 minutes now and the remaining time I have left on this power keeps going up. It started at about three and a quarter hours and is now reading over four hours. Zappa Zoot Allures, from the Zappa Plays Zappa disc is playing and I'm anticipating the Ship Ahoy section of this versi