last night i went to see marianne dissard play at the echo curio. this was the after party featuring the awesome fiddle of vicki brown. this should be every night.

i was just about to rip a solo for a recording and my ebow will not work. pain in my ass! i didn't drop it or anything. so i took it apart and the bastards at ebow decided to drown everything in silicone so you couldn't work on it, or to absorb shock.

nevertheless, fuck them.

i'm going to drive to the store and buy another one on monday. ebow, i wish i could quit you. here is a picture of the way i feel.

i don't know if you can read that, but that sign says jimmy kimmel live. and that can only mean one thing. d'mode. for you who are not in the know, that means depeche mode.

d'mode made the city shut down hollywood boulevard so that they could play personal jesus to their adoring fans, aka us. here is a picture of carrie reacting to dave gahan's bare chest while i'm reacting to martin gore's bare chest.


after the shock wore off there was a little bit of this going on.



the best part about it was that there were all these policemen on horsies because they anticipated a riot. why would they riot? for depeche mode? the next video might help to explain.

gentlemen, start your engines!

here's an update. i'm wet sanding very slowly because i'm afraid of sanding through to the primer. i've started using a 800 grit wet sandpaper because it has the sensitivity i need for this moment. since i have no paint left, sanding through would send me in a panic. i get hung up on little things like that. i wouldn't be able to forgive myself for a long time.

patience is the most important thing at this point. so i spend a lot of time slowly working and trying until one day it happens. like losing your virginity. or so i'm told. here's my blue bowl.

wet sanding makes the paint come off and mix with the water and you basically get fresh paint. wet sanding is really relaxing and i recommend it if you need to unwind after a long day of being unemployed. here is a picture of what wet sanding does to towels.

a few more days and i think it's clear coat time. we also need to talk about a logo for this mother f**ker, aka/ bad boy.

all this social networking makes me want to barf. but on the other hand, sometimes i think i'm falling behind. i feel that way about music a lot. pitchfork tells me that the hottest new band is like vampire weekend or like dan deacon or some shit. so i go to youtube to listen to a song and i don't connect with it at all. so i'm sitting there thinking maybe the world has passed me by. maybe i've stopped learning how to love. oh blessed are the joys that vampire weekend brings to the youth. i wish i could feel that warmth. but then after ten minutes you realize that vampire weekend sucks balls and maybe it's time to get a twitter account.

facebook really got me soft for social networking. there was too much poking and getting in touch with people who used to beat me up. so this is my new experiment. how long will it take before twitter turns out to be the next vampire weekend? i'm trusting you on this one oprah. the challenge starts now.

wet sanding. it sounds scary. while spraying the blue on the guitar, i got a run. oh no! they say that wet sanding is the way to go. i was scared. so i started to dry sand, things were going pretty good. then i saw a glass of water and thought,"now's the time to live. i just gotta be me!" dunked that nasty 600 grit wet sand paper and started rubbing so hard. blue water everywhere. man i'm wiping and sanding and wiping and sanding. then i drop the guitar and get a big deep dent. oh, hell no!

i'm not sure what to do. so i put some wood putty in the hole, sand it down and spray more blue over it. amateur hour. i keep repeating to myself, "no one will ever know. no one will ever know." it covers up quick and it looks better than a big ass dent. it's time to move on. so tomorrow i'm spraying whatever is left in that can. no surrender!

i got my spaycan in the mail today. let's go straight into the unknown. i feel like spraying the guitar blue is a big deal. it's like the guitar has hit puberty. a few more years and it's not going to need me anymore. i'm terrified.

i'm going to spray indoors because i hate the sun and the wind. i tried to lay down a tarp. i think it's going to be o.k. because the primer didn't travel very far and this is a light color.


here is a close-up of the first coat. it's a little uneven but i figure the next few coats will cover up my amateur ways.


so now i have no idea what i'm doing. i think i should leave it alone for a few hours and then re-spay. some people also recommend wet sanding. what the hell is wet sanding?

getting water all over this guitar seems like a really bad idea. i'm going to do some research and get to the bottom of this matter. also, the nitrocellulose lacquer smells like paint. there was supposed to be a huge difference, but i can't taste it yet. here's one last parting shot of the daphine blue. that's a nice looking blue.

out of the studio and back in the living room. this week was all about putting some hustle back into the CMG record. i borrowed some equipment and some people and set up shop at the casa biazevich for five days. i realized that i have never recorded a band live in my life. i've always single tracked due to lack of equipment.

come to think about, it's also a learned behavior from my metal years when it was all about precision. and when i started recording the novi split record, i was the only guy in my band. it makes sense.

so anyways, i was scared as hell but it turned out really good. the songs instantly sound more natural. all the bleed from all the instruments (and there's a lot) gives it way more depth, even in mono. that's what i've been missing all these years. tears stream down my face even as i'm writing this. i was moved.

they songs got worked out as we played them. we recorded them quick. we had way more fun. we were all focused.

for a second, it was starting to look like the cmg record was going to be the 'chinese democracy' of our generation. now it looks like it'll be out by this summer.

another thing i felt was important was the use of a living room. houses sound better than shitty studio spaces and sometimes high end studios. maybe it's the shag carpeting? maybe it's the view of the cemetery? maybe it's all the dialogue you have to provide when the t.v. volume is off during a take? maybe it's all the time i've spent in that house as a young dude? whatever it was, i want more. i'm really getting back to my roots here. here's a really poor clip of a song we we're working on called 'feel the night' that i took on my camera phone.

i just put on the primer. it's looking better than the last time. had some problems with the sides looking like cellulite but i sanded down and reapplied the primer. it's all about multiple light coats. thanks for the tip dan. here's a picture of me and my painter's touch primer.


we're all set. now i wait for the paint.