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STRAW VOICE:

My usual routine is a few things:

1. an ascending then descending scale, that starts in a low key then goes through a series of repeats, each in a key one step higher than the preceding
2. a descending scale that starts in a high key then goes through a series of repeats, each in a key one step lower than the preceding
3. vocal sirens that again start in a low key then go through a series of repeats, each in a key one step higher than the preceding
4. I usually finish the session off by oohing or awing* two songs, both in a series of keys from low to high:
   • first, the verse melody to "Ram On," by Paul McCartney, a simple melody line
   • then, the memorable organ melody line from Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale," which is bit more complex and has a wider range of notes.

   ‐‐ *in the case of the straw work, I have just been oohing

It's only been a few days since I've started the straw phonation work. Usually I have done it while driving, such as to and from work, or when I've been heading to and from the The Guild. I can say that there's been some slight improvement in the upper range of my chest voice, likewise in my falsetto. There is an issue at the cusp of my chest voice and my falsetto. I'm having a difficult time keeping my voice stable and on pitch. And the vibrato is unsteady. I've also notice unsteady vibrato toward the top of my falsetto, too, at least when using the straw. It's probably harder with the straw, which means that mastering it with the straw will translate to much better control without it.

So, I don't think I'm ready to tackle that vocal for the Album 2.0 Project's R&B song, yet. Still, however, I'll probably give it a try this weekend.

ANNOUNCING THE CAST:

The Cast of The Beacon
CHARACTER		ACTOR
Beiv		Cheryl Mellen
Colm		Montana Iverson
Bonnie		Katie Waid
Donal		Matt Meier
Ray		Carter Hume

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Directed by Kim Warrick Produced by Rhea Smith & Heather Atkinson This musical from the mid-2000's is a twist on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. A young, uptight greeting card writer's life is changed when he meets a flighty photographer. Along with their eccentric friends and siblings, they learn to love each other, not despite their faults, but because of them.

The Cast of I Love You Because
CHARACTER		ACTOR
Austin		Jacob Nichols
Jeff		Drew Roby
Marcy		Adee McFarland
Diana		Sephyrah Martin
NY Woman, et al		Emma Alexander
NY Man, et al		Matthew Clifton

Presented through arrangement with Theatrical Rights Worldwide

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DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT WE MAY HAVE A LEAD VOCAL IN THE BAG:

After accumulating some sessions of straw phonation vocal warmup voice therapy, and feeling like I'd achieve good results, yesterday I gave the lead vocal for the R&B song another go ‐‐ the preferred Sting-like version; and, again, I call it that, but I really can't do a "Sting-like" vocal.

Well, K.L., how did it go? you ask. I'll tell you: I may finally have a good take on that friggin' vocal, maybe. I gotta remember, though, that I thought that about the last attempt until after I'd gotten all the way to a mastered mix. Listening to that, I decided the vocal was crap. We'll see if I end up rejecting this one sometime between migrating to my laptop and listening to a new mastered mix. I wasn't able to migrate from the 24-Track recorder to the laptop last night because the laptop was engaged in another task until the wee hours of this morning *(see next entry).

This time, it was five tries to get a good take. Within those takes, I tried three different vocal styles, settling on a new approach that I used in takes 4 & 5. Still, there's one line in the chorus that escapes me. I'm not sure about the notes for that specific moment in the melody. I've taken what I have for the time being, but if I decide to go back, this issue just might be what takes me there. I'm looking for a certain effect, and I don't think I've achieved it yet. But, I may change my mind. I'm sure to get the vocal over into Logic Pro X and get a mixed master of the song later today; then I can see if I'm willing to take what I have.

SPACE & TIME:

I had loaded all the footage from the first two staged readings of Michael London's play, Varian, and all other related material onto a two terrabyte external harddrive. With both shoots being three-camera, that amounts to more than ten hours of footage, not including the talkback footage from both performances. When you add the external audio files and other graphics and documents, along with the Final Cut Pro X project, there's only a little more than a GB of open space left on the HD. And I'm only a little more than 60% finished editing together the movie for the first performance that took place at the Dayton Jewish Community Center.

In fact, while editing yesterday, FCPX gave me a message that there was not enough open memory to execute the last edit command I tried, that I needed to free up space. So I looked in my tech closet for another HD that I could use to load off some footage. What I found was an 8 TB external drive I had forgotten about, and it was empty, save for a FCPX library file, that was also empty.

I took a forced break from DV movie editing to copy all the Varian material and the FCPX project from the 2 TB to the 8 TB. The FCPX project transfer took from late afternoon yesterday to sometime early this morning. But now I have 6.33 TB of open space, which should be enough for everything, including the three final cuts.

The third performance, the rescheduled closed reading at the Jubilee Directing Lab at Wright State University, is this Wednesday evening, so there's another almost 160 GB of raw footage and external audio to add to the drive.

Michael also procured a new wireless mic system with two handheld and two Lavalier mics. I've tested this new setup and we should be good to go.

It's the editing after the fact, that's the rub. Editing the first performance has been far more time consuming than I anticipated. It's the task of syncing the external audio with the video that is the heavy factor. There's a slight speed variant between the DV footage and the audio, so I need to be vigilent about staying on top of needed adjustments or else the movie will start looking like a poorly lip-synced foreign film. I don't necessarily mind the work, itself; the time commitment, on the other hand, is another issue. But, such is life, right?

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REUNIONS AND ANOTHER RE-DO:

Primarily this has to do with my music partner from our youth, Rich Hisey, and myself. When I decided it was time to record a new album ‐‐ because, you know, the FIRST one was such a commercial dynamo ‐‐ I knew that I didn't want all the tracks to have computer generated or midi drum parts; I wanted some-to-most songs to have live drums played by a human being. And I knew what drummer was my first choice: my fellow Pilot from Wilbur Wright High School, drummer and percussionist in the Wilbur Wright orchestra, jazz band, and drum corps, drummer, later one of the guitarists and keyboardists, for the East Dayton garage band, SeazonWind, and occasional songwriting collaborator and all-around solid music collaborator with myself.

I'd approached him months ago about drumming on tracks for the album, and that blossomed into a conversation about recording things with him as frontman, and that in all of this, doing a few more of our collaborations. You five(?) regulars may be aware that I did one of my favorite songs we wrote together, "Memories of the Times Before (Pt. 1-4)" on the first album. As for the upcoming future, last year we figured we'd start getting together sometime during the next year, now being this year, after we figured out some schedule that worked.

Toward the end of 2025, we talked more seriously about getting Rich in to drum on Album 2.0, and he wanted some time to get his chops back up. I'll probably use him on rhythm guitar some, too. We still haven't figured out the schedule part, but, on my end at least, the schedule will be a bit freer relatively soon. I called Rich earlier this week and based on our previous conversations he's been taking action, which includes replacing his current set of electronic drums with a new set; that's happening sometime soon. So we'll be talking in a couple weeks to start getting more specific about plans.

Seems like a few things may be happening in some sort of sequence.

1. Rich is on some instruments, especially as a living, breathing drummer, on the Album 2.0 project
2. we do our own version of Hall & Oats* and/or Fagen & Becker featuring us as a double bill.
   Whether that would bear the name we had back last century, "SeazonWind," is not determined
3. we work on songs Rich wrote with him as the featured artist

*) also, our "Hall & Oats" cosplay won't include the nasty riff that has opened between Daryl and John. Plus, let's be real, neither of us has ever even been close to the league of Daryl Hall as a vocalist.

You five(?) potential regulars may remember that last Sunday I again attempted the lead vocal for the R&B song. I was hopeful that this one worked. Hope is always a good thing; it keeps one moving forward sometimes. However, my optimism was, though well-placed, premature. Tuesday evening I migrated the new lead vocal from my 24-Track recorder into the Logic Pro X project for the song and did a mix. As I was mixing I already knew: Nope. This ain't cutting it. My full scrutiny on playback of the mix solidified that thought in granite.

I guess there's more straw phonation and then another session in order. It'd be great if it's just ONE more attempt! I am more than a little impatient to wrap up the recording of this and move on to whatever is next. I think I know what it'll be. I am leaning toward a love ballad I wrote in the late 70s. I have several ideas for new songs, some that have been started, and at least one that is relatively close to completely composed. These new ones address the principle theme for the album. But I'm thinking that I may want to alternate between stuff from my way-back machine and material I'm conceiving right now. This despite that a lot of the older stuff won't directly address the theme concept like the new stuff will; but, then, the R&B song doesn't either, and it's a new composition.

As for Rich on guitar on the album, there are two specific songs I definitely have in mind. One I wrote a few years back, actually in my head, that I want one or more acoustics on. I had eventually worked the chords out, from what I heard in my head, on the piano, but if there's a piano on the recording, it'll be supplemental. I really hear this as a mostly acoustic song. I'll probably use my Giannini acoustic bass for the bass line. The other one I wrote in the olden days and SeazonWind did in our sets. Now that I think about it, I wrote that one in my head, too. Rich actually brought it up the other night before I did. It's a nice little poppy rocker that I think, in its day, in the early 80s, might have actually been a hit on the charts, had we ever progressed to being a signed band. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I think it had the potential to be a big hit.

A little note about both these songs. I composed the music for both in my head while at work. The new one, I was sitting at my desk, in front of my computer. The older one, I was literally sweeping floors with a dust mop in a publishing house where I worked in my mid-twenties. I conceived a small portion of the lyrics for both in my head, too. Of course, I finessed the music on instruments ‐‐ a piano, for the new one, where I identified the chords and tweaked the progressions a little bit, the older one on my bass. And I finished the lyrics with pen and paper for both.

Back to the concept of a basic theme for much of the album, I also have the album title as well as the cover artwork. I've had both for a few weeks. I am keeping them both under wraps. I have shared neither with anybody, at all.

I've also not shared the R&B song with anyone, save for putting a video of a portion of the isolated MIDI horn chart in a previous blog post. And I played a bit of the instrumental mix for my nephew at Easter dinner. That nephew being David Bernard, who does the great lead guitar work on "Identity," the opening cut off the first album. Of course, at least a few people have heard last summer's single, "Backward in Time," which is 90+% likely to be on the album, though, surprise-surprise, remixed and remastered if it does make it on. And that would probably not be shared, unless I wanted a private ear to give me feedback on the new mix.

THREE DOWN, ZERO TO GO (MORE OR LESS):

This past Wednesday I shot the third and last staged reading of Michael London's play, Varian. This one was in the Jubilee Directing Lab at Wright State University. So there's another 160 GB or so of raw footage and external audio to add to the drive.

I have the rough cut of the first performance at the Dayton Jewish Community Center finished. This weekend I'll be working on color correction and audio sweetening in Final Cut Pro X. Now all I gotta do is edit together two more performances, and make a tremendous effort to do each far quicker than I did the first one.

Not to mention there are three talkbacks to edit together as separate DV movies.

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STRESS, SELF-CARE, A NEW SONG, BUT NO R&B LEAD VOCAL:

Here I am at Davey Woods State Nature Preserve last Friday afternoon.

Last Friday I was embroiled in a stupid, self-induced production crisis that you'll read about in the next entry below. I was stressed and for most of the day. I couldn't take direct action, so I did some self-care, including a hike at a new park for me, Davey Woods State Nature Preserve, around 25 miles away and about a 35 minute therapeutic drive when you avoid the freeways, which is the best way to drive to a park: take as rural a route as you can. That philosophy is some of why the hike is relevant to this entry.

On the way there, a new song came to me, not one directly about the stupid crisis, but about the response to it, about the escape I was headed toward. The lyrics came to me on the drive there, and keep this under your hat but I started crying a little, and I'm not completely sure why, though I have some educated and instinctual guesses. But I do know that this new song fits well into the overwhelming theme that's developing for Album 2.0.

When I got to the preserve, I immediately wrote the lyrics, I'd come up with on the drive, into my Notes app, then expanded them during the hike, then more so on the way home, the latter not on my Notes app, just to be clear (I don't use my phone while I'm driving). Naturally I've done a little more work, some tweaking and additions, since.

I've had a rather generic melody in my head for the song, which I'm pretty sure will change quite a bit once I compose the music. That "place-holder" melody serves as working toward the intended mood of the song and the rhythm of the vocal line. That's often how I work.

On another Album 2.0 Project front, I still have not given the lead vocal for the R&B song that third try. One issue has been having the time. The other has been wanting to do more vocal conditioning before I make this next attempt. I've been doing the straw phonation exercises, usually while driving in my car. I want this vocal to be the best one I can muster and I am not convinced I'm there yet. But, to be honest, I was half tempted yesterday to give it a shot but decided to do more vocal work first. I may give it a shot tonight; I might do a rehearsal and see what I think of that performance. Although my vocal work this morning was a a little rough.

ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE FINAL FINAL CUT ‐‐
AFTER A RIDICULOUS, ANNOYING, ANGER-INDUCING SET BACK!
(Or, How to Work Around the Dimwit in the Room):

CLARIFICATION: I want to be sure people understand that the "The Director" icon I use for this Varian, series of DV movies is designating me as the director of the DV movies, NOT as the director of the staged readings. The readings were directed by Annie Pesch, just to be clear.

I've been working fervently to get the DV movie of the first staged reading of Michael London's play, Varian to final cut. That one being the performance at the Dayton Jewish Community Center on January 29. I got the editing and the color correction done in Final Cut Pro X, but before I got to the audio sweetening, there was a glitch, a major glitch!

Wednesday, April 22, I had finished all that color correction. All that was left to get to final cut was that audio sweetening. That was on the slate to at least start, if not complete, on Thursday evening. However, before I could get to that on Thursday, something really stupid-assed, irritating, and incredibly heart-wrenching happened!

Once again, as I have a few times in the past, I wanted to blame the ol' production gremlin, I really, really did. But, I couldn't. No, it was a mea culpa situation all the way. Later that same evening, I did this vague post on my facebook artist's page and my regular page:

I'm quite pissed at myself. I've actually been verbally abusive at me. I did something inexcusably careless and have set one of my projects back maybe quite a few days at the least. I've also just set my bank account back $270 and I may be about to spend twice that much if not a lot more. When my stupid clumsiness first occurred and it was clear I had wreaked havoc, my screams of denial were pretty primal; I lost a lot of work ‐‐ A LOT! It's not necessarily lost forever, but [I'd] put a lot of tedious work in and I may have to start all over! I said things to myself, mean-spirited insults that I would not have tolerated from anyone else. I've calmed down, but I am still pissed ‐‐ for the stupid bungle and for all the trouble it has caused and all the bigger trouble it may potentially cause, and the fact that my vacation plans for later in the summer are probably dead now.....!!!!

I can't libel the gremlin even though I want to; this was all on me. Now that it's the other side of this asinine dilemma, I'll drop the vagueness. That Thursday evening, not long before I was to begin working on the audio enhancement, I knocked the 8 terabyte external harddrive, with the project and all its sources on it, off the work table and it took a near fatal plunge to the floor. And it was damaged. It would fire up but it would not engage. It would not register on my laptop; no editing of any kind was happening. If my neighbors heard me desperately yelling "Noooooooooooo!" ‐‐ screaming, really ‐‐ and I can't reason how they could not have, they must have thought I was being tortured horribly.

After a few minutes of panic and dispair, I unplugged the injured harddrive and drove straight to the local Best Buy in hopes that the BB Geek Squad could recover the data. First thing I did was pick up another 8 TB external harddrive: the $270 mentioned in the facebook post (actually $266.86). The Geek Squad couldn't help me on site; they'd have to ship it off and it would be gone at least one month, plus I might have been looking at as much as $1600 in fees, if not more. They recommended a local computer tech shop that does repairs and data recovery.

Friday morning I did a few routine things at the rent-payer then took the rest of the day as vacation. The orginal plan was to take the damaged and the new harddrives to that local computer shop to first recover all the data to the new device, then if possible, repair the bad one, if the repair would result in a trustworthy HD. But I nixed that plan. I'm pretty strapped for cashflow right now and have been for a while. I'm not sure it would cost me as much for data recovery with the local shop as the send-out through Best Buy might have, but I doubt it was going to be cheap. It was a burden to drop the $266.86 for the new 8 TB HD. Taking another route, though not wholly attractive, looked more attractive than this money pit path.

I have all the source files for the DV production on the 2 TB harddrive I'd started with, save for the footage and audio from the most recent Wright State Jubilee Directing Lab performance, and that material is still on board the three DV cameras and the 8-track recorder; Also, I had started the editing in FCPX for the Jewish Community Center performance on the 2 TB, so there's a Final Cut file for that there with 83% of the performance edited in but none of the color correction was done; that had been done after I'd migrated to the now-damaged old 8 TB; I had to again add the last 17% of the performance, then again add the closing titles, graphics, and music, and color correct ‐‐ is it too redundant to say "again?" But I wasn't going to need to spend more money I can't afford to spend, and I could get to that final cut sooner, still late, but not as late. And at least I had less of the performance to add back to the end of the edit than I had worried I did.

Getting the data from one external harddrive to the other was not a quick proposition. Friday after I left the office, the day was not about redoing any of what needed redoing. The 2 TB HD was almost completely full, with only 1.2 GB of open space left. I had to migrate 1.998 TB, a bit more than half of that being the FCPX project file. I knew it would take all day. The file copying started at about 10:00 that morning. I figured it would run until 11:00 that night, or maybe even midnight or later, and that was almost correct (STAY TUNED). My laptop was going be mostly unavailable for most of the day; and clearly there was no DV movie editing going to happen until FCPX was ready on the 8 TB. So for the day I did other things that needed done. Starting to compose the text of this blog post was one of them ‐‐ I had some use of the laptop, just limited use.

I also ran some errands including dropping by the local T-Mobile store to replace a cracked screen protector on my iPhone, then I ate a great lunch at Jeet Indian Restaurant. Later in afternoon I headed off to that hike at Davey Woods State Nature Preserve. I note that when I left to go to Davey Woods the FCPX file was at 25% copied over; when I got home, a little over two hours later, it was at 55%.

Cleary I still had a few hours to kill before I could get to any sort of editing. It wasn't even a good idea to tax my laptop, or the new 8 TB HD, by migrating the Wright State performance footage from the three cameras and that audio from the 8-track to the new 8 TB. So I continued doing other stuff. A little more work on the narrative of this blog post was one action. I did a little more work on that new song I'd started earlier, some producer's work on The Guild's production of The Beacon, by Nancy Harris, and a little bit of recreational TV watching. I had until around 10 or 11 pm.

But wait, there's another dumbassed glitch! At about 10:30 Friday night, when the transfer of the FCPX file was at about 97%, I again bungled things! I managed to accidentally loosen the power cable to the 2 TB HD, which disrupted connection to my laptop and screwed the whole damned migration! I had to start the transfer all over, after all those (insert expletive here) hours! I had to start all over! Thus, "Migration 2.0" of the FCPX file was an overnight affair, so there was absolutely no editing, color correction, etcetera, etcetera that could happen Friday night.

In fact editing didn't start until Sunday because I had a previous engagement for most of Saturday with a friend of mine who's in the preparation period of starting a podcast, and I and another mutual friend will be guests on early episodes. We three had an informal meeting that loosely brainstormed things that could be covered. I also had, you know, regular life stuff to attend to beforehand on Saturday, and though I might have done some work on the DV movie afterward, I was tired; I opted for bed. So it was Sunday when the work resumed.

It had already become clear that I would need to take another vacation day on Monday, or at least most of Monday. I thought it was probable when I started the first migration of the FCPX file, but when that one got screwed after happening most of Friday and I had to start over, taking most of Monday off from work was a 100% given. I ended up burning twelve vacation hours on this rescue mission.

The small silver lining in this darkish cloud is that I still will have enough accumulated hours for both vacations I've planned, one surrounding Memorial Day weekend, the other surrounding The 4TH of July. Whether or not I'll have the cashflow is another question.

By the end of day, Monday, the final cut of the first performance had finally arrived, and only a day or two later than I'd hoped. Now there's a rendered 1:42:31 ProRes DV movie, coming in at 112.2 gb. Two more to go, with the hope of not so much unneccessary drama. I still have to edit the separate short DV movie of that talkback but that's not likely much of a challenge or task, or, perhaps I shouldn't write that.

More versions of photos of me in one of my favorite office spaces, Monday, redoing the finish of editing the Varian Jewish Community Center performance.

BOOMER MADNESS AT THE JONES HOUSE:

I only have one little dissension, though it's a minor one, I guess. For a long time, a few decades in fact, I have felt like I'm actually not a "Boomer." I've long associated the Boomer Generation as those who came of age in the late 50s or the in the 60s. I turned 18 in 1976. And that great prosperity that the Baby Boomers supposedly benefitted from, the one that I was promised, guaranteed?: that didn't come my way. Some of my peers growing up did end up sitting pretty financially, but by and large those close to me in age, the people I went to high school with, didn't seem to reap the economic boom the Boomers have the reputation for basking in.

More so, for years I identified more, but not completely, with Generation X. Not completely because there are some things that I don't readily identify with, but there are loads of things I do. For one thing, I was a latchkey kid a good decade before the term was coined. I don't believe I am alone in that with a lot of others in my close age range. I don't think Gen X was the first with a decent portion of kids coming home from school to an empty house because Mom and Dad were both still at work. We were a two-income family in the 60s by the time I was in the fourth grade ‐‐ not hefty incomes, more necessary incomes. But many wives and mothers were starting to go to work in the mid-to-late 60s not just out of an economic necessity but because the old traditional norm was being challenged and moved away from. I think a lot of us born in the late 50s onward experienced mothers who were not stay-at-home mothers, who were no longer the traditional house wife. I think some percentage of us predated Gen X on this front; we were coming home to an empty house when they were being born.

Other ways I felt more Gen X than Boomer was that, though normal access to computers, especially home computers, wasn't in the forefront until I was pushing 30, when they did start popping into our work lives, etc., I adapted pretty well and quickly when they became a norm. Plus, within the financial means of my lower middle class household, I was as self-reliant as any self-respecting Gen X kid.

But there are ways I don't at all feel like Gen X. Relatively tech savvy as I am, I didn't get introduced to common access to computers at as early an age. Computers were not part of my younger youth, and barely part of my teens. The only teen peers I remember ever messing around with computers were the brainiac geeks in high school who had access to them through Honors classes and such, and that was only at school in isolated circumstances. I didn't sit at a computer keyboard until I went to college in the late 80s, and that was in the computer labs on campus. I didn't have a home computer until I was 39 years old.

And video games were not part of my youth. Sure, Pong came out when I was 14, but my childhood was bereft of video games. No kid in my elementary classes had an Atari consol at home. And in the 70s, home video games were not as prolific as people think or remember, not like they were in the 80s and onward. And game arcades were overwhelmingly oldschool pinball machines, bowling machines, and fuze ball tables. Sure, Pong and Pac-Man and other earlier computer generated video games made their appearances in arcades in the 80s, but by then, I and my immediate age group were post-teen. We may have indulged occasionally, but we had entered that second phase of young adulthood; we had lives to build, we couldn't hang out at the arcades, unless we were the ones with stunted or delayed development going on, 'cause you know, each generation has that sub-group.

Still I felt far more Gen X than Baby Boom, but not wholly Gen X. Then a couple years ago I was introduced to a new cohort that sociologists have identified: Generation Jones, a population sandwiched between the old-guard Boomers and Gen X-ers. Some sociologists and anthropologists put Gen Jones births between 1954 and 1964, some 1955-1965; either way, I'm pretty close to the middle of whichever period one accepts.

Separating me further from Boomers was that by the time I hit my late teens, that "American Dream" was in serious jeopardy. I remember in my late adolescence and early teens how a lot of adult men in my life were getting laid off from what had once been incredibly stable jobs with deep financial security. The promised surety we of my close age range were suppose have was, at best, weakened. Then in my early twenties we were getting the con of Trickledown Economics as well as union busting and many other policies and actions that were attacking and sinking the social safety nets and the social, political, and economic power of what was once a robust, booming, and greatly influential middle class. My experience as a young adult growing up was not at all the same as someone born in 1945 or 1950. This new classification, the Generation Jones designation, and experts description of its members, spoke directly to me ‐‐ speaks directly to me.

Yes, I don't really think of myself as a "Boomer." I'm a "Gen Jonser." To my way of thinking, if you were old enough to go see The Beatles at Shea Stadium, if you were of age to go to Woodstock, then you're absolutely a Boomer, if you were a tad too young, especially for Woodstock, then maybe not; maybe you're really Gen Jones. I was too young for both.

In the article, "11 Unique Traits Of 'Generation Jones' That Make People Born Between 1954 And 1965 Completely Different From Boomers & Gen X," at the website, Your Tango, Nia Tipton lists these common traits of Generation Jonesers. To one extent or the another, mostly to a big or perfect extent, these are all about me:

1. They were disillusioned by boomers' idealism ‐‐ I do remember JFK being assassinated, but my biggest concern was that my cartoons were getting interrupted. But I was old enough to remember the social movements of the 60s and I had pretty decent politcal awareness for a little kid. But as we moved into the 1970s, as I moved into my teens, I was more than disappointed that the social change didn't seem to be holding up to what it was supposed to be. And then we go back to the prosperity I was supposed to getting that didn't show up.
2. They were coming of age when divorce was most common ‐‐ I am a child of divorce and many, many kids I knew were too.
3. They helped normalize going to therapy ‐‐ I hit therapy in my mid-twenties as well as self-help groups; and I certainly didn't buy the stigma bullshit even before that.
4. They were sometimes the first to go to college in their families ‐‐ I'm the first in my immediate family, but I do have a niece and a nephew who beat me there. But, their neither much younger than me and both fall into the Gen Jones time frame (my siblings are all much older than I).
5. They knew what it meant to be bored ‐‐ Yes indeed. There was no social media to turn to whenever things got slow or silent; I didn't have a Game Boy to distract me. Often I was left to my own devices, to dig into my imagination to conjure up some entertainment. And might I say THANK GOD! I truly believe it greatly helped foster much of the creativity that defines my identity today.
6. They learned how to hustle ‐‐ Meh. Though I actually think I might hustle a little more than I give myself credit. But my hustles are not too much about money. And I know many peers who are far, far better at it than I.
7. Hyper-aware of generational comparisons ‐‐ I am indeed, and always have been. And for the most part they make me uncomfortable. I especially dislike any generation bashing regardless of which generation is bashing which-other generation. I think it's all useless nonsense. I feel the same about gender bashing, I find it shallow and unproductive.
8. They have the 'trust no one' mentality ‐‐ Not always, but not infrequently. I actually am trying to be more trusting but I do sometimes boarder on being paranoid, especially about people I don't know, or don't know well. And I frequently second guess people's motives, even those I do know.
9. They have a quiet toughness to them ‐‐ That's probably truer than I know. Yet I do have a voice inside me that constantly berates me as weak and lacking.
10. They're masters at talking in-person ‐‐ Yep. Though I know that sometimes people would rather I sit down and shut up, which probably takes away from being a "master" at it.
11. They find themselves caught between nostalgia and stress ‐‐ All. The. Damned. Time!

But, to circle back to what initially was supposed to be the main point of these prose, I do want to participate in Lou's podcast. Some of that is assuredly just my big-ass ego, let me not bullshit myself, or you. I also think there will be interesting conversation going on and I'd love to be a part of it. I'm sure that on my episode there will be a conversation, perhaps a healthy, friendly debate about this different take on myself and others born in the late 50s and early 60s. But there will be so many other things nostalgic, sociological, and cultural to discuss about being a kid in the 60s, a teen in the 70s, a twenty-something in the 80s.

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NO SINGING, TOO MUCH HISS, AND THE REPRISE IS COMING:

It seems my work on the next album is either on a little hiatus or is at a snails pace, with lots of slow deep breaths in between each muscular movement. I have yet to record that next, and I hope last, attempt at the lead vocal for the R&B song.

I have been doing the straw phonation vocal exercises/warm ups, still usually while driving in my car, and more often than not while driving to and/or from work. I do think there is some improvement in my control and possibly a small expansion of my range, but I haven't concluded yet that I'm ready to tackle certain sections of the vocal for the R&B song. I also have needed to prioritize time and energy to other things, especially the Varian DV movie project (more on that below).

There's a tape hiss issue with the Heart Walks multi-track masters that I think I've mention here previously. It has definitely been a hitch in getting this album, recorded in the mid-1980s, mastered. Of course, the hiss comes from the orginal '80s analog-tape, four-track masters, with most of the four tracks being bounce tracks with more than one instrument on them, which adds a layer of hiss for each instrument/voice in the bounce.

I've had no luck eliminating any of the hiss without effecting the audio dynamics of the instruments or voices on the tracks. And I don't have any machine-learning software (i.e.: A.I. software) to do it. I haven't had the money to purchase any, mostly because of my auto troubles of the last six months, which has cost me thousands of dollars.

Though I haven't yet pulled my "Coming This Year" teaser graphic for the album, I have had serious doubts that it truly will be coming this year. But there may be hope. I was at my friend, Lou Lala's house yesterday *(see below) and he mentioned that he does have software that can easily isolate and eliminate the tape hiss. It can also separate out all the individual audio signals (instruments/voices) on each bounced track to create individual stems (i.e.: tracks) for each instrument or voice. There's about a 99.9999999999999% probability that I'm taking him up on that. The hisses would be gone and I'd have far more mixing choices across the stereo pan since each instrument or voice would be independent of all other audio in the song.

So maybe I won't have to take down or revamp that teaser or update my Projects and Music pages, after all.

Slowly but surely, Rich Hisey and I are gearing up for some music making starting sometime this year. My hope is we launch our musical reunion this summer, and I think there are good odds of that. We've had a couple productive conversations, in between all the "SQUIRREL!" moments that sidetracked us.

We'll be getting together in the next several weeks to coordinate a plan. Meanwhile, Rich will be doing some woodshedding on his new electronic drums as well as starting to get to know his new Yamaha keyboard, of which I can't remember the model, but I know it's a top-shelf one.

GET YOUR FORMATTING IN ORDER:

I managed to get the DV movie of the staged reading of the Dayton Jewish Community Center performance of Michael London's play, Varian to final cut, with no further glitches. There however was a glitch, albeit a minor one, after the DV movie was locked. Michael's system would not open or read the uncompressed ProRes movie version I gave him because it was an APCN codec. I had to convert it an MP4 movie with the H.264 codec. I later discovered I can render an uncompressed ProRes at H.264, which I will probably do for the DV movies of the other two performances. As for the other two performances. The rest of my day today is pretty much dedicated to editing together the Wright State Jubilee Directing Lab one.

RAMBLE ON:

It was a quite informal, casual conversation. We just went wherever we went ‐‐ which was all over the place. Some of it was about our youthful experiences and influences. Some of it touched on our thoughts on things social, sociological, and, to some extent, generational. I am curious as to how he pulls together that cohesive half-hour.

He want's to meet up again in the next few weeks. I suspect that session might just be a little more structured. Or, maybe not. There could be a method to his madness.

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Q: WAS THIS A GOOD IDEA? ‐ A: NOT SO MUCH...
(OR, The Minor Tale of a Minor First-World Drama)...
(OR, How My Kiser Lake Vacation Getaway Was Significantly Altered):

There had been light rain earlier Friday. It slowed down and stopped in late morning. Of course, a light mist began when I started to pack my gear in the car. Then, just adhere to Murphy's Law, as I pulled out of my apartment complex, real raindrops began to fall. Not heavy rain, but rain all the same. But after a few minutes, it slowed down.

I arrived at the campsite at about 4:00. My orginal plan had been to hold off setting camp until the rain stopped; if that meant I spent the night sleeping in my car, so be it. But it was barely drizzling when I arrived so I opted to pitch camp. I thought I'd risk it rather than sleep in my car. It did get a little wet inside the tent before I got the rain tarp over it, but it was quite minimal.

Not long after the tent was secured, the rain picked up just enough that I wouldn't have wanted to pitch during that rain. There was nothing else to do and it still wasn't raining that hard so I took a tour of the campgrounds to see where things were. I noted the entrance to a trail that I planned to explore the next day. Then I went back to my tent and took a long nap.

I set my iPhone alarm for 45 minutes. It went off about 7:00, but it was still raining, so I did not get up. I had earplugs in and when I woke up again at about a little after 10, I didn't hear rain on the tent. But when I took the plugs out, there was rain hitting the tent. It was pretty light rain though so I decided to try and start a fire and maybe cook a warm dinner.

The idea was to boil some water and have some freeze dried chicken Alfredo that I bought in the camping section at Menards. That very light rain got heavier, and the fire didn't make it. I ate a raspberry protein bar instead.

It kept raining and by midnight it was pretty close to an actual heavy rain. The floor of my tent seemed wetter; I didn't know if that was from a leak or was the moisture that dripped down that had been captured when I was pitching the tent. I lay in bed that night, listening to the drops hit my tent and wondered if maybe I had made a mistake. At least I had a cot and I wasn't in a sleeping bag on the floor. The rain got heavier.

When I woke up at 6 a.m. the rain had stopped. That was, however, a little joke on me, because as I was about to brave putting on my damp blue jeans to drive back to my apartment, it started to rain.

You see, I'd come up with a plan to attempt to salvage the weekend. I live less than an hour from the campsite. I decided to go back to the apartment, use the laundry room there to dry some things that had gotten in various degrees of wet, and to bring back lots of towels because it was supposed to rain for most of the rest of Saturday. I had also noted a laundry room in the shower house at the campsite. I would get some quarters so I might use the dryer there later in the trip.

But when I noticed that the floor of my tent was slightly slushy, like a cold waterbed, I realized my tent was now pitched in a small rain pond. The weather forecast called for several more hours of rain so it was clear it was going to get worse. It seemed pretty obvious at that point that my Memorial Day weekend camping trip was looking like a failure.

The new plan was: as soon as the rain calmed down a bit, to pack up as much as I could, take it home, and come back later to strike the tent ‐‐ strike it when it wasn't raining anymore, that is.

The rain got heavier; I'm talking "major-downpour" heavy; and not just for a few minutes. I do believe that this was the serious game changer ‐‐ this was the "Event." You might even call it "The Event Horizon."

I was lying on the cot, listening to rain pound my tent, , looking up, watching the silhouettes of bugs crawling around on the outer surface of my tent when the little stand my lantern was setting on tipped over, which was a rather odd thing to happen. I then discovered my ten was several inches flooded, and that slight slushiness of the tent floor was no longer slight; there was a depth of water under my tent. I had thought I'd wait until it was raining less to take action, but now it was "pack-and-get-outta_there" time. Sometime over that last few hours that pond I'd anticipated became a little mini flood zone. I was now dealing with the bulk of what I'd brought being soaking wet ‐‐ all of the clothing and much of the gear.

I waded back and forth in several inches of water (roughly six to eight inches) moving everything except the tent and the cot (and a few things I missed grabbing) from the campsite to my car. The plan was still to come back and strike the tent, but now, not only when it wasn't raining, but also when the flood water had subsided.

At home, I put a couple loads of soaking wet clothing in the dryers in the apartment complex laundry room, with some of the things needing two full cycles to completely dry, they were so soaking wet. I also had some gear that got wet, and shoes that were soaked. I lay all that out on my living room floor and pointed two fans at the gathering, the fans turned on high. Some of that gear are devices that may be too water damaged. Those include three of my health maintenance devices that I use to monitor various health conditions. As of yesterday, none of them were functioning. I'm hoping that if I let them dry out more, they'll come back to life. I really don't want to replace them; I can't afford that right now. And I have a portable generator, for jumping my car and also for auxiliary power, that was on the tent floor during the flood, but it seems to be okay.

I've decided not to completely abandone my little Kiser Lake vacation. But the camping part of the trip is over. I went back yesterday morning in hopes that the flood water was down, and it was. So I struck the tent. There was still a couple inches of water in the bottom of the tent that couldn't escape when the water table had retreated; that's actually good news; it means that I don't have a leak in the floor anywhere. It was "dry" enough at the site to get the tent struck, but the area is still pretty much a wetland; it's going to be a few days of no rain before it's a good spot for a tent, maybe longer than a few days. Still, I am technically a camper at Kiser Lake until 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday. I live close enough to commute back there to do some hiking and, if the weather gets to the point, maybe an hour or two on the lake in a kayak ‐‐ my lower back no longer tolerates much longer; I'll even be wearing a back-support belt if I kayak. Yesterday, in fact, after I stuck the camp site, I hiked the little short trail close to the camping area, the Rabit Run trail. Nice hills ‐‐ I'm a hiker that likes a hilly trail "" but it's too short. When I go back today I'm looking for longer trails. A good hike should last at least an hour. And I might just brave the camp site tonight and do at least one fire pit. I have five and a half bundles of wood that haven't been used yet. I would have gone back last night, but it had rained in the afternoon, though pretty lightly, but still I thought about that wetland condition I'd seen in the morning.

On another note: as I struck camp, I also found those few items that I'd missed grabbing the morning before, not much but a few things. One rather important thing I missed in my rush to get out of there Saturday morning was my prescription eye glasses. They'd been on the floor of the tent and I didn't even think about them until I was a few miles on the road home. I was about 99% sure they were submerged in the tent and figured I'd retrieve them when I struck camp. Fortunately, I was right; and fortunately, I had not inadvertently trampled them in my haste to clear the tent.

So, I'm gonna finish off my vacation by still patronizing Kiser Lake. And if and when I ever go back there to camp, I've scoped out the tent sites that are on higher ground, and also closer to the forestry, which is another plus.

My tent, Friday evening before the flood, then Saturday morning after the flood. Note that it's raining in both photographs.		Inside my flooded tent ‐‐ thank the stars for my camping cot!
Wet gear and devices on my livingroom floor, fans pointed at them on high setting.	Five-&-a-half bundles of unused firewood, now setting in my car trunk, waiting for the next fire pit.	My traumatized tent, Sunday morning, after the flood waters subsided.
The case of the prescription eye glasses recovery: Here I am when I arrived Sunday morning to strike the tent, wearing an old pair of reading glasses. Then, my prescription glasses, submerged in the remaining flood water inside the tent. Lastly, me wearing my rescued eye glasses. Don't I look happier?
The Rabbit Run trail, with me, in the second photo, crossing a small bridge on the trail.		This white canoe, full of garden soil and a lovely bevy of flowers, sets to the side of the Marina check-in and concessions building.

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HEY! LOOK OVER THERE! IT'S FLOYD FOSTER JINXEN!:

Tuesday, around the time I would have returned from my camping trip, I gave the R&B song's lead vocal another shot, after having done vocal warm-ups that, as you might guess, included straw phonation. After some rehearsal I hit the Record button, but it was again another failed attempt to get a performance I can live with.

I've spent the days since, mildy exercising my voice and working on my throat health. The two big issues seem to be how some of my daily meds affect my throat hydration with the new addition of the appearance of summer pollen which will just get worse as summer moves on.

I've come to the conclusion that I may have written a song for someone else to sing, at least to sing successfully. But surrender is not an option and tonight is another GO for this singer.

GETTING READY FOR THE STARTER PISTOL:

There's movement on the Hisey/Storer, or Storer/Hisey, or K.L./Rich, or Rich/K.L. reunion(-ish) project. We are meeting this coming Friday to lay out a plan. It'll be about when we get together. It'll probably also, to some extent, at least in a general way, touch on what material we're going to tackle.

I think we need to switch off between three separate projects: my Album 2.0 Project, solo music by Rich, and things we'll do with equal billing. What that equal billing will be is another question that will need answered at some point ‐‐ do we go with some configuration of our names? do we invoke that name of our barely-out-of-the-gate band from the late 70s/early 80s, SeazonWind? Do we go with a new name? But that's not a pressing issue for Friday, we have months to settle that.

There are few business issues to at least start dealing with. One I hope to have finally solved is an issue with BMI and our songwriting collaborations. That would be for equal billing work, for sure, plus for my Heart Walks album project which has two collaborations by us on it.

NEW HOPE FOR AN ENDANGERED PROJECT:

On the subject of the Heart Walks album, a couple of you five(?) may remember me running into a big issue with the remixing and remastering* of the album, that being that every stem of bounced music parts for each song has a noticeable amount of tape noise (static) and I have thus far been unsuccessful in eliminating it without seriously compromising the quality of the instrumentation or vocals on the stem. I tried to use some free, then cheap, machine learning software, strictly to filter out the tape noise, but I was still not successful.

Mr. Lou Lala, on the other hand, does have a more robust machine learning app, and I will shortly be taking stems over to his place, one song at a time, to at least get rid of the unwanted static. Separating the different instruments off of each stem, to be in their own solo stem ‐‐ which would give me many more stereo pan placement choices for the mix, would be nice, but the tape noise elimination is paramount, least Heart Walks will not come out "this year," maybe never.

ANOTHER SECTION WRAPPED:

The final cut of the Wright State University, Jubilee Directing Lab staged reading of Michael London's play, Varian, is now complete. I had some big problems with the color correction, and some annoying issues with the audio sweetening, so it ain't a Spielberg/Soderbergh/Cameron product, in the least bit.

BOOMIN' & JONESIN':

One specific thing we discussed was Generation Jones. Some sociologists and anthropologists classify Gen Jones as the second half or the latter part of the Baby Boomer cohort. Other's see it as a separate cohort, or generation, altogether. I think Lou is on board with the former classification, while I embrace the latter, separate generation concept. I just see too many disparate traits and disparate experience between the Boomers born in the mid-forties through the mid fifties and those born mid fifties to mid sixties. We didn't really delve into that divergence in our understandings of the Gen Jones cohort. Though I did point out a few of the points I made in my April 29 essay on the subject. And we talked about far more than Gen J.

A RESPONSE FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:

McCartney's new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, dropped the end of last month, and the morning it released I grabbed the digital download I'd preordered, thus for a while I was listening to it repeatedly and am still returning to it quite a lot.

On my first listen that morning I loved a few songs, liked a few others, and felt a little ambivelant about a few. With the repeated listens, as the album as a whole soaks in, I'm warming up to the collection. I'm starting to appreciate the tracks I was luke warm about at first. And though I'm not ranking this one as high as many other people are, I have still come to find The Boys of Dungeon Lane a really fine album by Paul, certainly in the top ten.

To be clear, I never disliked anything from the first listen, but there are still a couple songs that are fine but do nothing special for me. Others, the ones I loved at first, I love more. And a few I at first "liked" enough, I really like now.

Here's my current response to each track (which you can play by clicking on the title), and I reserve the right to adjust my thoughts on any given track, or the album in its entirety:

"As You Lie There": This is a great opening cut. It starts out a ballad, with a nice disident decending chord progression and Paul speaking ‐‐ "I used to walk past your house / Every night / I'd look up at your window / The light was on / I saw your silhouette on the blind / Do you think of me? / Do I ever cross your mind?". It moves into a lovely vocalized verse with lovely harmony, then kicks into a banging mid-tempo rocker. It later reprises the ballady section as a bridge and at one point has one of those Paul quirky, experimentally moments. I loved this one from Listen One and it has maintained its status as my favorite track off the album.

"Lost Horizon": A really decent mid-tempo rocker about how sound is often a memory trigger, good and bad. This is one I've come to like more than at first listen, but it's not a song I'd play for someone who ask me to show them Paul at his rockin' best.

"Days We Left Behind": This, the first single, has been getting lots of deserved praised. It's a lovely, sentimental ballad, tinged with regret that things will not stay as they were, yet celebrating the nostalgia of looking back with a subtle nod to moving forward. It's approached with that masterful simplicity that Paul's been known for for the last sixty years. A friend of mine was unimpressed with the vocal melody when he first heard it, but to me the melody is crafted well toward the theme.

"Ripple in a Pond": I must admit this is one of those late-career adult oriented pop songs by Paul that I'm not overly enthused with. It's another one that I have warmed up to some from Listen One, but not even close to a favorite on the album. It's clearly to his wife, Nancy but not as impressive as his song to her, "My Valentine."

"Mountain Top": This is a nice, off-the-beaten-path, psychedelic rock ballad that in many sonic and melodic ways reminds me of "Looking at Her" from 2013's album, New. Both songs have a similar vibe, too. I like "Mountain Top" but like "Looking at Her" a little more. "Mountain Top" has a fun almost stream-of-consciousness psychedelic set of lyrics, but to me there's something forced about them. The "Looking at Her" lyrics work much better for me even though they're clearly fully fictional about a femme fetal conjured in Paul's imagination.

"Down South": Written about an adventure Paul had as a youth with George, this country ballad tells the story of the two of them heading down south ‐‐ where else ‐‐ from Liverpool on a day trip. It has a distinct Beatles feel to it, but one that has been common to Paul's work throughout his solo career.

"We Two": I don't think this song is identified as such, but the more I listen to it the more I think this song is not a love song to a woman, not to Nancy, not to an imaginary woman, but a song directly speaking to John.

I want to live for love
So many people do
Over, over again
My thoughts return to you

You give me what I want
You show me how it's done
Always, always, my friend
You'll be my only one

Last night, I dreamed of you
And saw what we could do
We're standing side-by-side
We two came through

"Come Inside": I almost want to say that this would have been as good a choice to open the album as "As You Lie There." On the other hand, given the intimate, revealing nature of much of the album, it might be a little too on-point, i.e.: too obvious. My instinct has much to do with its rock vibe; plus it reminds me, in some thematic ways, to the opening cut on my album, Virtually Approximate Subterfuge, "Identity."

"Never Knew": What an interesting, almost quirky song. I'll go the mat on this: "Never Knew" should be the final song on the album; it's a perfect album closer. It simply has the right musical dynamics and the right feel. As the closing song it could even have been perhaps a minute longer with that recorder melody happening for a longer period of time. The album has a good ending, but this would have been perfect.

"Home To Us": It's always a joy to hear Paul and Ringo together on post-Beatles songs. Actually any combination of ex-Beatles singing together is good to hear. This time it's a true duet on a nice poppy rock ballad with a catchy guitar riff. "Home To Us" would be quite at home on a 70s top-forty chart ‐‐ certainly it would have hit the top-ten on the Billboard Hot 100, and may just have hit #1. I'm not so sure this is 100% autobiographical, but I am quite confident it paints a very true picture of the Liverpool the four Beatles grew up in.

"Life Can Be Hard": Once again, a song that at first, I didn't like very much. And again, it's one that I have warmed up to quite a lot. It has a very Paul-McCartney catchy melody line that masquerades as simpler than it really is. I think my only complaint, which is nit-picky, trivial, and minor, is the total fictitiousness of the love-song set up. Paul sings of a miraculous woman who will stay with him even when "there's no food in the larder." Paul's an actual billionaire and has been a very rich man for decades and decades and decades, so, as down-to-earth a life as he may lead, there's alway food in the larder. In fact there are multiple larders, in The U.K., in the U.S., and probably other places. Besides that, Nancy's a multi-millionaires in her own right. The song has a nice, sweet sentiment though, and again, a lovely melody.

"First Star of the Night": For me this is another very Beatle-y song. I'd say from the 1966-68 era, possible a Paul ballad that could fit on The White Album, perhaps, though the instrumentation might've been stripped down even more.

"Salesman Saint": Written as a tribute to his father and mother this could be easily retitled "The Ballad of Jim and Mary." Paul fondly looks back with pride and awe of these two rocks of his life, struggling for the survival of their new family in the aftermath of the German Blitz of the U.K. There's a bit of Spanish-style trumpet in the song, which has been already widely accepted as Paul's nod to Jim McCartney playing a trumpet in a local jazz combo. I'm not personally sure why the trumpet has such a Latin feel to its melody, but that may just mean I'm missing part of the story.

"Momma Gets By": A couple of people I've seen react to the album have interpreted "Momma Gets By" as another song about his parents, and especially about the strength and character of Mary. I don't believe this is true. The lyrics are too contrary to the narrative of Paul's youth, and for that matter, to the narrative of the previous song. "Momma gets by while papa gets high" ‐‐ yeah, I don't recall that part of the story where Jim McCartney was druggy. The narrative of the story is also about how Momma seems to be solely keeping the house afloat while she tolerates her deadbeat but "complicated" husband because "She loves him with all her heart and soul." I would imagine that Mary McCartney did love Jim McCartney with all her heart and soul, and that she did everything she could to keep her household afloat, but I think the similarities end there. I find this a lovely little ballad that feels very authentic, but I still think it's made up. And, to return to an earlier point, for a few reasons, especially its subtle musical dynamic, "Momma Gets By" makes for a nice closing to the album, but "Never Knew" would have been better.

So there you have it: an emphatically unimportant response to the great Paul McCartney's new album. And I reserve the right to completely reassess, retract, totally change my mind about any and all of this, and to one extent or the other, probably will.

Today my mother would have celebrated her 109th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM June Storer 1917-1997

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GOOD NEWS & "MEH" NEWS:

The good news is that, at least at this moment, I have recorded a lead vocal take for the R&B song that I'm accepting as the "good" take. The "Meh" news is that it still ain't the vocal I want. But I'm 99-ish% certain I'm going to use the take. It's really, basically me surrendering to the notion that I am not going to be able to do the vocal for this song that I want. I've said before that this is a song I've written for someone else to sing, and I am begrudgingly accepting that.

This latest vocal, by-the-way, is the thirty-first take from six separate recording sessions. In between, there were a lot of rehearsals and many, many straw phonation exercises. The straw phonation work is now a routine I'm working; it's good vocal therapy and exercise. Plus, I have a song from the past I've targeted for this album and it calls for vocal gymnastics that were no issue at all when I was twenty, but now they will be a bit tricky for this not-quite-as-young gentleman.

The new vocal is incorporated into the multi-track Logic Pro project, and there is what we'll call a rough mix, though I haven't rendered it yet, and thus have done no sort of mastering. Getting to that will be the point where, if I'm going to change my mind and reject the vocal, that would be where it would happen. But I will tell you this: the album is a long way from getting finished; sometime between now and then I might feel my vocal ability has rallied back or even gotten better than ever, and I would not rule out giving this vocal another shot.

John during the Rubber Soul sessions

On a related/unrelated note: I was asked recently why in the photos of me recording my vocals do I always seem to have a lyric sheet in my hand. If I wrote the song, the person posed, why would I need the written lyrics in front of me? For those who haven't already rolled your eyes at the obviousness of the answer, the answer is that just because I wrote the lyrics doesn't mean I have them immediately memorized. Though I'd say in the case of this one, I did probably have them about 80-90% memorized. The alternative answer is: if I can see footage of John Lennon in the studio with his lyrics in front of him, I feel just fine with mine in front of me while I record.

I believe I've mentioned this before, but we won't discuss how I mostly can't play any instrumentation from virtually anything I've written and recorded thus far, including the bass lines. That's because usually after I've composed and/or arranged the part, I immediately record it, then never play it again. I have taken to written records of the chords or notes, albeit not in sheet-music form, so there's a resource to refresh myself on any given instrumentation I've forgotten.

COOL CONCERT THIS WEEKEND AT DAYTON THEATRE GUILD:

The Bashaws are returning to DTG this weekend for three nights of the Sound Sculpture concerts. The band will consist of Michael and Sandy Bashaw and will include other members of Puzzle of Light.

They've done this at The Guild a couple other times and the shows were an amazing fusion of folk, ambient, and new age music. I'll be there Saturday night.

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STEPPING BACKWARD:

Second-guess [SEK-uhnd-GES]: to use hindsight to criticize or correct.

For you five or so who read the last blog entry about this, remember when I wrote, "the album is a long way from getting finished; sometime between now and then I might feel my vocal ability has rallied back or even gotten better than ever, and I would not rule out giving this [R&B song] vocal another shot"? Now it's a certainty that I'll be revisiting that lead vocal. As I've listened to the mix with the latest vocal it's so obviously not there at all where it should be. I've also become unhappy with the backing vocals. If I leave the vocal tracks I am taking what would be a really great song on Album 2.0 and making it a mediocre one, and diminishing the album along with it. So, the status of the R&B song is that it is NOT wrapped.

I'm setting the R&B song aside for now and will revisit it down the road to deal with the vocal lines. In the meantime, I'm moving on to the next song for the album, though I'm not sure what I'll deal with next. There are a lot of small bits of music and/or lyrics started for new songs; there are also a few songs from the way-back machine that I'm looking at for this album, all those which I'll do some measure of rewriting, whether it be music, or words, or both. I just haven't decided which one of these choices, new and old, is calling the loudest. Guess I should listen closer.

STEPPING FORWARD:

Yesterday Rich Hisey and I had what I'll call a preproduction meeting. We mapped out a gameplan with a short list of songs and a schedule to start things going. How we might go about recording was discussed, too. There may be amendments to one part or another as we go along; we are going to be adaptable.

We're getting together next Saturday for a session. We'll see whether or not there's official recording or even demo recording next week. There are two songs we wrote together on the docket as the potential candidate, I suspect it'll be one particular one over the other, but we both want to do both songs, so the one not picked will get its time later.

I can guarantee there'll be some rehearsal Saturday, but we'll see how far along we'll get in laying down real tracks, if we even get to that. I'll be "refreshing" my bass lines for both songs during this week ‐‐ I've not played the one at all in decades and I've only noodled on the other one every now and then when I've been woodshedding (which is FAR too infrequently), and I haven't played the whole song since probably the early 1980s. Truthfully I need to relearn both to one extent or another.

We are going to switch off between three projects: Our music, which will end up being at the least an EP; Rich's solo work, which I do believe he wants to release as well ‐‐ and I think he should; and lastly, my Album 2.0. I know I'm bringing in new material for my project, and I am willing to bet we end up writing new stuff for our project. Rich may just end up doing the same for his. It's just inevitable that new songs will happen for the other two projects, ours and his.

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DIGITIZING THE PAST TO MOVE FORWARD:

My Fostex 4-track running into my Tascam 8-track.

I wrote yesterday that Rich Hisey and I are getting together for our first music session to begin work on the joint project part of our little project triad. We named two songs we wrote together to start things off. As I intimated yesterday, I think in both our minds one of the two is going to get attention first, but we will get the other one next in the joint project part.

I need a little refresher on my bass lines for both songs, one a little less than the other, but still a refresher is in order. I have an old cassette tape of our old band, SeazonWind, rehearsing for a gig in the summer of 1983. Both the songs Rich and I are resurrecting are on that tape. I was prepared for this cassette to be in pretty bad shape, and I will confess I have yet to listen to the whole thing ‐‐ I need to get this blog post on-line ‐‐ but much to my surprise what I've heard so far is not at all the low quality I anticipated. And I was really prepared for another crapload of tape noise like the Heart Walks masters. For something on the thin tape of an old cassette tape to not sound too bad after forty-three years is a pleasant surprise. I was just going to grab the two songs of interest to digitize them, but I've decided to digitize the whole thing, even the covers we did, of which there were quite a few.

For the record I'm playing the rehearsal cassette on my old, analogue Fostex Multitracker X-28 four-track cassette recorder and running that into my Tascam eight-track digital recorder, (I'm not using the 24-track because I only need two tracks because the orginal is a stereo recording). I'll record from the Fostex to the Tascam in real time, then I'll migrate from the Tascam into Logic Pro X. There, I'll do any sweetening then render to the final sound file for each song. Of course, the two target songs are first; the rest of the music on the cassette will wait for final treatment.

TREATING THE HEART STEMS:

The promise of the Heart Walks album actually releasing in 2026 looks a little closer to being actually unbroken. The first session to, at bare minimum, kill the tape noise on the stems for the first of the album's songs, via Lou Lala's machine learning app, is scheduled for this coming Sunday.

Some may know that Lou and I have also discussed the possibility of splitting out the individual instruments and any vocal lines that are bounced together on each of the four stems for each song. Thus, I'd have each part on their own separate stem. As discussed before, that would give me far more options during the mixing process. Like I wrote before, that would be nice, but the crucial task is to get rid of the tape noise, otherwise mixing and any subsequent mastering will be pretty much of no value. It could be done, but the end result would not be good for release into the wild.

SOUND SCULPTORS EXTRAORDINAIRE:

Last night I attended the second of three performances by the Sound Sculpture Ensemble at The Guild. As I knew it would be, it was an excellent performance. There have been two Sound Sculpture concerts weekends hosted at The Guild in the past and they have all been great musical experiences.

The personnel line-up for this weekend has been Michael Bashaw, Sandy Bashaw, John Taylor and Erich Reith. The Bashaws are also known for the Dayton local musical group Puzzle of Light.

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ON THE WAY TO FIRST BASE:

The first session of Rich Hisey's and my joint music project is tomorrow. We've agreed about which of the first two songs we've tagged to resurrect as the inaugural venture. It's pretty much the favorite for both of us from our collaborations.

I'm spending a good portion of my day off from the rent-payer today to get the rust off the bass line ‐‐ I'll be punching it up a little, too. I'll probably give some time to the other song we've tagged for early work, as well.

Tomorrow We're starting our session in the late morning and we have quite a few hours we can utilize. The hope is that we get some actual tracks laid for the song. But there just may be kinks to iron out, technical or otherwise, that we haven't even anticipated. The rule for any type of production is that whatever amount of time it seems like it's going to take, it'll take at least fifty-percent longer, and maybe twice as long if not longer than that. But we're both still hoping we get some solid recording finished. Whatever we get done, recording or not, I am positive it'll be productive in one way or another. It'd be lovely if we got the whole song recorded and ready for mixing and mastering; I welcome that idea but I'm not laying a bet on it.

I have sweetened all but one of the 1983 SeazonWind rehearsal songs in Logic Pro X. These being the originals written by one or both of Rich or myself, as well as our bandmate, the late Ronny Lingus. I've rendered the finished versons of nine of the ten songs. I have one left, a really nice ballad by Rich. That get's done today. Then I'm burning at least one CD, with artwork, for Rich; and maybe I'll burn one for myself. The rehearsal collection, and the CD, will stay private. The recording is good enough quality for us to use to refresh our memories of the songs, and it's a nice artifact from our past, but it's not something in shape for the public to hear. Plus, we couldn't put Ronny's stuff out there without coordination with his survivors.

HOW I'LL SPEND MY SUMMER VACATION:

Starting July 2, then over the Fourth of July weekend and all of the following work week I'm on vacation. When I scheduled it I'd hoped I'd be going away, like perhaps the whole twelve days in a cabin in Hocking Hills, or maybe spending a few days elsewhere, like in a yurt at The Wilds, or perhaps somewhere new to me. But my bank account says no to any of that. So, I'm using the time off to put in a lot of work on one or more of my music projects. I absolutely will give a big chunk of time to the Album 2.0 Project; I'll likely give a bit of time to the Heart Walks album project; I could also perhaps finally get the Ambient Music Album Project remastered. You can be assured I'll be doing some hiking, too. And it's not at all far fetched that I slip in a few days camping ‐‐ if I can even afford that. But otherwise, it's mostly music projects.

KUUMBA RISING AT THE DAYTON THEATRE GUILD:

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BACK IN A SADDLE FROM THE LAST MILLENNIUM:

The first session of the Rich/K.L. music project starts late morning today. I sat down with the forty-year-old-plus rehearsal recording last night of the song on the slate for today. I got a pretty good handle on the bass line I'd come up with way back when. There's a bass solo but I only partially worked out what I was doing back in '83 because I'm going to change it up a little bit, anyway.

I know I'm doing the bass line on my Epiphone Viola Bass (see the pics below of me woodshedding last night) but I'm also bringing my Embassy Pro just in case we find a need for it. And, I'll be bringing all my pedals. I though about bringing the Ampeg bass amplifier but I plan to record the bass plugged directly into the recorder; and if we rehearse before hand, I believe Rich has a bass amp. I'm bringing other stuff as a rule. I'm not going to list all of it here, but there are things beyond my basses that will likely always make the trip to Rich's for these sessions.

And here we go.....

Woodshedding the first Rich/K.L. music project song.		Good bass axe hygiene. Wipe the oils from my hands, etc., off ASAP.

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GETTIN' BACK TO THE GROOVE:

Yesterday was our first session of the joint Rich Hisey/K.L.Storer music project. We did not record anything, not even at the level of a demo recording. We spent the wealth of our time woodshedding and rehearsing song number one on our joint project agenda. I did play my Viola Bass for the bass line, and after a while I plugged in my Boss CEB-3 Bass Chorus Pedal for portions of the song ‐‐ back in the olden days I used a Boss BF-2 Flanger, and I've been meaning to get a new flanger, but haven't yet, but I do have the ability to add a flanger effect in post while mixing in Logic Pro X. I also pulled out the Embassy Pro and ran it through my Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion pedal to try out an idea I have for the chorus sections of the song, and I think what I have in mind will work. But, again, overall, we pretty much spent most of the time we worked on the song just refreshing ourselves and woodshedding.

We also did a little bit of work on the other collaboration that we've slated as the next song for the joint project. What we discovered quickly was that we had completely forgotten about a few chords and chord changes. But we got a little bit of work in on it. Fortunately we had the 1983 rehearsal recording to reference, and to learn from.

We also did a little bit of overall organization discussion with ideas about how we will approach the three different projects, what the recording sessions might look like for each.

In conclusion, we may not have made it to the recording phase for Song Number One, but it was still a productive session. It's been more than forty years since we last played together, so the day was as much about the musicians getting back into the groove of working together as it was about the other things, and that was probably the most important part. And I must say it was an easy groove to bring back to life.

Mr. Hisey on guitar.

Mr. Storer on bass.

Mr. Hisey & Mr. Storer ‐‐ don't they just look ecstatic?

THE EXECUTION OF THE TAPE NOISE HAS BEEN REPRIEVED:

Today I was to head to Lou Lala's to have him use his machine learning software to eliminate the tape noise on the four tracks of at least one song from the Heart Walks album. Unfortunately, a last-minute scheduling conflict came up and he's had to postponed this work until next weekend. It'll probably be next Sunday; it's really up to me; he's good with either day; I could do it Saturday, but Sunday may work better for me.

ALSO, THERE MAY BE THIS:

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HALF-SPEED LEARNING:

Me, on my Epiphone Viola bass, woodshedding the bass solo for our first joint-project song.

The first of our collaborations to be dealt with is still the focus and Rich's and my next session together will be this coming Friday. I think we may just actually lay some tracks down. In the meantime, I've started working on relearning the bass solo from last century. To help me with that, I used Logic Pro varispeed to slow the 1983 rehearsal recording of the song down to half speed without lowering the pitch, so it's still in the same key. I only grabbed the bass solo section in a short clip. Then in another clip, also at half speed, I grabbed the guitar solo so I could relearn the alternative bass line I play during it. Some of both I'd already figured out, but the slower pace will make it easier for me to pick up the rest. The solo will change a little bit, but there are things in it that are nice and I want to keep.

SAME NEIGHBORHOOD, DIFFERENT BLOCK:

So the main link to On-Liner Notes now takes you to an On-Liner Notes index page where, at present, you can then go to two pages for two different collections of music:

1. Virtually Approximate Subterfuge ‐‐ The First Album Release
2. The Chasing White Landscapes EP

A NIGHT OF SMART COMEDY:

My seat for Steve's show. It meant my photos of the show were at a bit of a low POV, but: small burdon.

Thursday night I saw stand-up comedian Steve Hofstetter for the second time at the Funny Bone at The Greene, and it was as good of a show as I expected it to be. Steve, who has become one of my favorite stand-ups was on top of his game. And his openers were good, too.

His guests were, in order of appearance, Kelly Collette, Brett Druck, and Jon Bander. Druck and Bander appeared with Steve last September, and I think they tour with him, a lot. Bander, by-the-way, is the tour manager; don't know if that was true last time, but it might have been.

Like I did for the September 2025 show, I bought the VIP ticket with the Meet‐&‐Greet perk. Last time there were about six or seven of us, this time it was only three: myself and a couple who was sat at my table, Michael and Amber ‐‐ I didn't think to get a pic with them, though they were nice company.

This time we met with Steve in the greenroom, and each VIP-er got to interact a bit more than last time, since we were a smaller group. Steve was as authentic in this little group setting this year as he was last year. Pretty much, the guy you see on stage, whether in person, or in comedy specials or YouTube clips, is the same guy in those Meet‐&‐Greets, only not in performance mode. We got some merch as part of the VIP packet, too. One of the items was Steve's new children's book, A girl can like baseball. I'd tell you the inspiration, but the explanation was part of Steve's set last night, so I don't want to give away any of his act.

Kelly Collette also has written a children's book, You Are Actually Quite Small, that she had for sale at the merch table, and I bought one. I bought merch from all four acts, mostly simply to support the artists. Steve, of course, gets the bigger paycheck for the gig, but even he ain't makin' Jim Gaffigan money, at least not yet.

To sum up, it was a great night with lots of laughs and with NO HECKLERS! If you are aware of Steve, you may know that there are tons of clips on YouTube and social media of Steve handling hecklers at his show. He's a master at it. He actually talked a little about the science and method of dealing with them during the Meet‐&‐Greet. I suppose it would have been fun, to a certain extent, to watch him verbally wrestle a heckler to the ground, but a heckle-free evening was much better.

So I've seen Steve in person twice now. I can't wait for number three.

First opener: Kelly Collette.	Next up, Brett Druck, posing for me.	Last guest comedian, Jon Bander.
And, of course, Mr. Hofstetter.
All four comedians, during the after-show audience participation segment.
Ran into some friends at the show. First, Kerry Corthell, and also Jason Eric & Katrina Kittle, the latter two who were at the last show, too,

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ONWARD ON THE BASS SOLO:

Same routine: me, on my Viola bass, woodshedding the bass solo for that first joint-project song.

I worked more yesterday on the bass solo for the first song in the joint project. I'm throwing something a little different in during the second half of the solo, but there are still some elements and some little nuances from the '83 rehearsal recording that I'm trying to pick back up and get ingrained in my muscle memory.

I've not relied much on that half-speed recording clip of the bass solo that I created. I pushed the bass end and killed a lot of treble in the EQ and I'm finding I went too far and it's a bit muddy. I've had a bit more success with the full-speed recording than I was afraid I'd have. My big issue is deciding where on the fret board do I play certain segments; I cannot remember what I did back in 1983, so now it's do whatever works for me in 2026.

THE CLEANING STARTS TODAY:

Today is the "rain date" for starting to scrub tape noise from the stems of the multi-track recordings for Heart Walks, which is being done courtesy of Lou Lala and his machine learning software ‐‐ hey, if it's a good enough term for Peter Jackson, it's a good enough term for me. We start with the opening song off the album, and I hope we at least get all four bounce tracks of that dealt with today. I'm okay if we get to song #2, too, but one song will satisfy me. And, yes, the order of the songs is determined and has been for forty years.

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"COMING THIS YEAR" IS LOOKING TRUER & TRUER:

Yesterday was that "rain date" at Lou Lala's to kill the hiss and other unwanted white-noise from the stems of the multi-track recordings for Heart Walks.

If you look right above, you may see where I wrote, "...I hope we at least get all four bounce tracks of [the opening song] dealt with...I'm okay if we get to song #2, too, but one song will satisfy me...." Well, the process was much quicker than even Lou expected it to be. He actually scrubbed all the stems for the album, including the stems for two extra tracks that won't be on the album but will likely somehow be released in conjunction with the album. Maybe they'll be extra tracks for possible ‐‐ probable ‐‐ singles.

There are a few issues with some of the "cleaned" stems, but I think I have work-arounds that'll be successful. I've started a Logic Pro X project for the album opener and experimented with that work-around, and it worked. So, doing some mixing and mastering during the upcoming Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation July 2026 is looking like a distinct probability.

And so is this album releasing in 2026 looking like a distinct probability.

Note: I have noted that, for some reason, in the Safari browser, anything in a second paragraph onward is not clearing the images on either side. It only is happening with entries about the HEART WALKS album. I have not been able to discover what the issue is. I've looked and looked and looked at the code and I see nothing amiss. I'll keep on it.

YEAH, THAT'S IT....JUST ADD TO THE LIST!:

I have not done anything to or for my Vacation & Recreation section of the website since I created it. It has two features, from four and five years ago. I think that beyond the music projects that I'll spend time on during Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation July 2026, that I'll also get some of the backlog of additions to this section added. There are more vacations, there are concerts, there's road-trip theatre attendance, etc., etc., to add. And the plan has always been to take such things that were originally entries in the blog and move them to this area. So I've added a goal to at least put a small dent in this low-priority project, even if it's just one or two events that are added.