A lot going on, will try to keep it brief.

About to head to a bass studio session. Placed some ads on Craigslist, got a bite. Will do doing three songs for a guy named Stanley with Josh Zee of the Mother Truckers on guitar and Trinidad Leal of Dixie Witch on drums. Yeah, awesome. We rehearsed last night, was hella fun. Will be rocking out some of Stanley's crazy/quirky/clever songs. Should be pretty cool!

This month have been working all spare hours of the day on my next RPM Challenge record. Have drums set up in my room, this time 3 mics thru my mixing board instead of 2 room mics, now kick drum is much more present than implied. Marshall tubes already took a shit so tracking with my Epiphone Valve Standard 15w tube amp chassis powering my Marshall 4x12 on guitar, or powering my housemate's 4x10 bass cab. Both sounded great last year so not worried about using them this year.

So far have 2 rough mixes of songs, which I am passing on to Adrian Conner (Hell's Belles/Adrian and the Sickness) for guest guitar tracks and to my housemate Deanna Marie (Velvet Brick, Looking for Bucho) for guest vocals. Yes, this album might not be entirely instrumental. I guess after 2 other intrumental solo albums I am finally running out of ideas, heh.

Have a few more ideas demo'd out. Was kicking around the idea of having this record be an instrumental concept album based on the book "House of Leaves" by Mark Danielewski. But abandoned the idea as a little too ambitious given the RPM time constraints. That and a third of "Ocean of Stars" would have been perfect for it. But demo'd out a new idea I am calling "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" which I have already extended out with a second section making the entire thing almost 11 minutes, and would like to add at least a third section. Now thinking of having this RPM album be a split-EP, 'Sunrise on the Sea Floor' and 'House of Leaves.' Maybe release them separately, who knows?

Have a brief break from Eric Tessmer Band, he is up in Wisconsin for a week attending to some family things. We are back to our Wednesdays at Maggie Mae's (well, this past Wednesday was cancelled due to the 2nd cold snap, and probably for the best as I didn't want to leave the house either). We had my good friend Ric Furley fill in on drums for Monday at Friends. And he kicked its fucking ASS! Damn, that was fun. We def need someone with some rock sensibilities. Talking to Deanna's bf Rob (Hyde Park Showdown, ex-New Disaster) about filling in Wednesday of next week. That will be awesome as well. Need to respond to Eric's email about needing stage plots for the ETB trip to India in May. Good to know that not having a full time drummer yet is not slowing us down.