So I had a bit of a meltdown onstage at BD Riley's Saturday towards the end of Eric Tessmer's set.

Feel bad for it but given the weekend I was having--dealing with heavy personal issues, continuing gear problems: JCM800 out, SVT-II questionable, TB-600 out, just got speaker cab back earlier that afternoon only to have it go out again near end of the night--it was understandable. Broke the jack on my wireless transmitter and may have finally mangled an iffy cable. But before the cab cut out it was a good night depsite my early and later sour mood.

Have finished tracking so far on 5 songs towards my RPM Challenge solo album 'Ocean of Stars'. Had to use the Epi Valve Standard chassis to track bass as well... ugh. But the results aren't too shabby, very gnarly bass tone reminiscent of the QOTSA self-titled. Nailed most bass tracks in one take w/little to no preparation/overdubs, that was cool.

In fact, gear problems and drum-retracking aside the whole thing has been coming together really well. The title track "Ocean of Stars" came out as trippy as I'd envisioned, had the title and wrote a song around it. On "Hammerfoot" added this weird gypsy thing that changed the tone of the whole song, not sure where that idea came from. "Dig That Hole Deep" is ominous and crushing, inspired by something I heard in a dream. "Untitled" features 2 guitar tracks that were originally both busts (using Phase 90 whole song, no way to punch-in parts) but used together have a really cool unintentional interplay. The solo on "Push" I almost re-tracked but it has a sense of urgency that makes it work.

Rough mixes up at http://www.myspace.com/oceanofstarstx

God it is SO good to be doing something creative, have not felt the fire in entirely too long. Nice to have an all-consuming musical distraction like this to keep my mind focused rather than focused on nothing.

ETB @ Maggie Mae's tonight. Don't know what I'm going to do for an amp. Speaker guy has not been at his shop all week, starting to get a little aggravated.

Ironclad is playing the Vixen Productions show Friday @ Headhunters, that will but fun but again we have no time to practice. Will be interesting to see if we can pull off another no-practice show... Will be refreshing the music up to show, want to play my best and keep myself on the map as a guitar player.