PICTURE A DAY, 09/13/09

Today was great. Got a fair amount of stuff done in the morning and early afternoon--couple loads of laundry, made sure the RV was cleaned up and ready, loaded in the non-perishable groceries, practiced my flute and singing, among other things.

By 3pm, I had loaded flute, mike, and mike stand, conga drum, and camera into the car and was headed over to Craig's, to carpool with the rest of the band to our gig at the Red Lizards Running Club's End of Summer party.

I wanted to get photos of our band, but I didn't know anyone there who wasn't a band member. No one to turn my camera over to. There were people taking pictures, though, and last year they posted one on their website, so I'm hoping they do the same again. I did get a lovely, peaceful, photo of Lorna, tuning her guitar beforehand.


So that was my Picture for Today, but I have to show this admittedly slightly-out-of-focus video, with apologies for the sound quality as well. I am no videographer. The thing is, we'd played our set, and I was sitting on a bench listening to the other band, when I noticed the tree near one of the speakers. Each time there was a particularly strong beat or burst of sound, the leaves right in front of the speaker twitched. They looked for all the world like green parrots dancing to me.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Our band, by the way, got very good reviews from the attendees. Lots of compliments, especially on the vocal harmonies, which are a special pleasure for the four of us. I haven't mentioned our name. It's Swappin' Lies. We've been asked back for next year's party.

SWAPPIN' LIES--Cd ART

Craig, who plays banjo and guitar, and sings bass, in our band, Swappin' Lies, has a new piece of equipment. If I'd taken notes, I could tell you what it's called, but I didn't, so we'll cut right to the chase: It makes recording music, even when you're talking about four people and twice that many instruments, really, really easy. So we did! We recorded an entire Cd, of music both original and otherwise.

(Is this where I get to say, "We're awesome"?)

If you have a Cd full of music, it's nice to have art for it, and I got to be the one who came up with it. I owe a great deal of that to Barbra Sundquist, who very graciously allowed me to use one of her pieces as the basis for my own. I want to show off Ms Sundquist's artwork first, called "Watching Her Heart". It purely won mine.


Lorna, who sings alto/soprano and plays guitar and banjo, was the one to come up with a name for the Cd itself: Four-story Heart. As soon as she emailed the suggestion, I got a picture in my head of an old building, old windows, possibly with our faces looking out. A heart with windows in it was also a possibility. I went looking for pictures of hearts, which is what I was doing when I found Barbra's website, and "Watching Her Heart". It shaped my focus.

I had started a search for the windows I'd need when I realized I already had them, on the buildings I'd photographed just a few months ago. ( Decrepit ) Once that popped into my head, the rest was just a matter of (hours and hours!) of PhotoShopping.

This is the color version, for the jewel case. I've extended both ends, to allow for the insertion of track titles and the like:


I used LightScribe to burn the image on the Cd's themselves. LightScribe does only black and white, but the disks come in different colors, so depending on the disks you buy, you'll get black and a color. I chose the gold ones, which give a sepia look.
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"SWAPPIN' LIES" PARTY GIG

A soon to become not unusual event: My band had a gig yesterday! A marvelous time was had by all, I do believe.

The gig was at the Red Lizard Running Team's end-of-summer party, a get-together featuring chit-chat, a roast pig and other yummies (no dessert! How could they?!) and two bands, Brightest Comet (http://www.myspace.com/thebrightestcomet), and us, Swappin' Lies.

We played first, and stayed for Brightest Comet's set, which was woefully short. These kids are good. I wish I had a photo of all three of them, but this is the best I could do, one of their lead, Andi Camp. Their drummer is Martin Castillo, with John Reed adding guitar.

Photo from Red Lizard Running


And this is us:



Photo from Red Lizard Running


Craig is playing conga here, Steve and Lorna are in the middle, and I'm on the right. This is "my" song, "Bedlam Boys". It starts with a slow, soft duet, just Lorna and me, which ends with a fiendish and loud cackle from Steve, and then adds the drum, speeds up, and rocks out. It's a capella all the way, except for that drum, with four-part harmony on the choruses and occasional further fiendishness from Steve. Great fun, and a real wake-up call.

It looks like we'll be landing a regular Friday night gig at a wine bar on Fremont after this. How perfect is that? Music and wine to end the week. Aaaahh.

Oh, you know what? Just for fun, because I can, here's Bedlam Boys as performed by Old Blind Dogs. I won't compare us to them, but this something like what we were going for. (Push the little arrow to 4:44 on the slider, which is when Bedlam Boys actually starts. I'd shorten this if I knew how, but I don't know how. :oP )



For the record, we may not be Old Blind Dogs yet, but we got plenty of kudos on our performance, and proof of it in the form of $65 in tips. Wah-hoo! We'll get the equipment we're yearning for soon!