Random Islands of Kindness

Recently, after a worship gig at South Hills Church in Corona, we were eating some hamburgers at Islands, and basically having a good old time talking about whistling, Santa Barbara, and Mona Lisa. When it came time for the bill, our waitress brought it up and said that someone who was at the church saw us come in and paid for our meal. That person didn't leave their name, myspace address, or even a demo for Eric to listen to! How cool is that?

Generosity and humble anonymity are an amazing combination, and we were blessed by it. So, whoever you are... thank you so much for paying for our meal and teaching me about the power of selfless acts of love with no expectation of anything in return.

-T.J.

Power!

A young spider's uncle once said, "with great power comes great responsibility." To a recording engineer, we could turn that around and say "with great electricity comes great guitar tones." I'm sure Eric will touch on this later, but it's been power issue Tuesday today. First, it was an annoying buzz. A power conditioner/regulator fixed this, but now fuses are being blown and music is not being converted into 1's and 0's thus hindering the progress of the album. I miss the good old days, when you didn't even need electricity to make a CD (he said sarcastically!).

-T.J.

Daniel Lanois/Alison Krauss/and musical inspiration

We were on a plane a few weeks ago, and got to talking about Daniel Lanois' killer pedal steel playing and tone. Then, we started discussing Jerry Douglas and his amazing dobro skills (A.K.'s dobro player). I had heard Alison Krauss before, but never really LISTENED to it, if you know what I mean. I bought three of A.K.'s cds last week, and they are really awesome on a musical and production level.

Maybe I've been playing too much mandolin, and I need to head out into the backwoods with my cousin ol' Ricky Jimmy Daniels for a few months and wallow in crazy bluegrass until I can get this out of my system.

At the end of the day, listening to such high level stuff is really inspiring. I can't listen to really inspiring stuff before bed anymore, because I get too worked up to sleep... I end up going to my studio and working into the wee hours of the morning! I love music that does this to me, because it is the far less macho equivalent of a pre-game pep talk for a sports team.

Picture a coach getting the team all worked up...

"You gotta fight, FIGHT hard and never give up!!! When the going gets tough, ducks fly together!!! No Man is an island!!!..."

What if the coach then said, "Now head on home, put on your PJ's, and get some sleep."

That's totally what it's like for me to listen to really inspiring music before bed. The trick is finding music that is good, but not so good that it will turn me into an insomniac. I save the really really good stuff for when I am emotionally and physically prepared to deal with the hours of creativity that stem from listening to it.

I'd love to continue this insane blog post, but I'm getting tired and am feeling the urge to listen to some fairly okay music and catch some zzz's.

T.J.

Live Broadcast! Tune in on Wednesday.

This Wednesday (9-3-2008) at 6pm (pdt), we'll be broadcasting live video of a drum tracking session (a certain Christmas song about a certain drummer boy). There will be big drums, little drums, guirros, popcorn snares, oh my!

Here's where you can watch it: http://foftv.blogspot.com/

If you want to comment and interact while you watch, watch it here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/future-of-forestry-tv

Hope to see you Wednesday at 6pm!

T.J.