Busy weekend, and Forever Town studio report

Howdy all.

Have a busy weekend starting tonight:

Arcana Mundi plays the Elk's Lodge at 7pm. Then ETB rocks BD Riley's 10:30 til close. Tomorrow night ETB picked up an early set at Friends 7pm til 10pm, then we share the stage at Hole in the Wall with the mighty Amplified Heat for their tour kickoff party. ROCK!!! Gonna be fun, I will be tired come Sunday morning, but bring it on!

Also been promoting the upcoming ETB show at Threadgill's World HQ next week Friday, Oct 26. Here's the poster I whipped up:



Figured a Halloween sort of theme would be good as its the weekend before Halloween. Was either The Exorcist or an old Frankenstein poster which would also have been tits. This is the make-up date for Eric's birthday party which was rained out in a downpour of Old Testament proportions. I have never been so soaked in my life as I became in the brief time it took me (with help) to get my gear into the van which was parked nearby. Crazy. Let's hope history does NOT repeat itself...

In other news, I have wrapped up bass tracking on the Forever Town album at the Bubble. What a great facility, and Frenchie Smith has been awesome to work with. His teenage enthusiasm for all things ROCK def helps in keeping the energy level up and positive, especially on a day like Wednesday when I spent 12 hours non stop finishing up 8 tracks.

By the end of that day I was admittedly exhausted and was having trouble wrapping my brain around the groove of a particularly involved track. So Danny Ramsay stepped up and recorded the bass line himself with a pick, knocking it out in 2 takes. Nice. I had no qualms about that, mainly felt bad for my own frustration. And watching him play it the bass line and groove finally made sense to me. Everything is a learning experience, and whether or not you choose to learn from it is up to the individual \m/,

Frenchie and Donnie, manning the controls:



Jayson Ramsay checking out the sounds, as Danny Ramsay gets some cool video:



Bass rig:



Frenchie's dog Agnes, official mascot of Bubble Recording



Of course I tagged the bathroom Walls of Fame:



Looking forward to hearing the album!

Gearing up

Lots to prepare for.

Doing my best to promote ETB's sorta last minute idea of recording our set tomorrow night at the Saxon Pub for a live album. Last minute yes, but very good time to. We're playing Saxon enough to finally be comfortable with the stage, last few gigs this week we've really felt on top of our game, and it sounds amazing there. Win/win/win. Be great to finally capture the energy of our live show and have a limted edition disc to help raise funds for the new album.



Eric should be en route back from New Orleans, where he went Tuesday night after our HAAM benefit set at Sam's Town Point to play a show down there as Anders Osborn's lead guitar player. That is awesome and will lead to bigger things for him and ETB as well. Awesome!

Anders and Eric



Also prepping for recording the Forever Town album starting next week with Frenchie Smith. We're getting together tonight for rehearsal with the man himself overseeing. Been running through the music alot yesterday and today to keep it tight.

HAAM Benefit on Tuesday was a blast. Thanks to Loranda Stuart for putting together such an awesome night of music and being so involved in HAAM. If not for Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, none of us in ETB would have any medical help. Sam's Town Point is also a great venue, so go check it out.

Courtesy of Loranda Stuart

ETB Monday residency at Friends was pretty epic, one of those nights where we were on fire and played almost 2.5 hours before finally taking a break. The crowd stuck around for it and we melted faces the rest of the night. Definitely a good night compared to others the past few months as APD is cracking down on the noise ordinance and Friends cna no longer have the windows behind the stage open. We really depended on our sonic spill-over to get foot traffic in the bar. A few people will come in and leave cause it's too loud (for them) but most people don't seem to mind. Hearing music with your ears is one thing, but feeling it in your BONES is a whole nother experience. Then of course some drunk pissed on the side of my van at the end of the night. Buncha savages in this town...

ETB also had a great set in San Antonio for the Sam's Burger Joint annual block party. We played a blistering 45 minute set and that was it. Wow! So used to playing long sets that we're just getting warmed up after 45 minutes! Had a great crowd and great response on the indoor stage.

Photos by Sonny Saenz





And continuing on this note, ETB also had a great show at the Saxon Pub last Saturday. Good times with good people, we felt great and played great. Rob's first show back with us since getting back from a brief Norway tour with another project. Reunited and it feels so good, heh! The poster Eric made for this show has been selling well, particularly on this night.



Having a large variety of cool posters on sale at the merch booth is definitely helping our sales. The new T-shirts are doing well as well. Having a new disc, and a live album no less, will be a great boon to us. We're still selling 'Green Diamond' which is more than 2 years old and was a completely different band.

Pretty cool that we have been working elements of "Green Diamond II" and "III" into "Armadillo Strut," that'll sound awesome on the live disc \m/,

Arcana Mundi had some good sets last week as well, we finished out our Wednesday September happy hour residency at Gypsy Lounge and had a Dunn Brothers Coffee set previous to the Saturday ETB Saxon show.

The band is really getting tighter, and I'm liking my Epiphone Valve Standard as an amp over the Marshall Lead 12. Just warmer sounding. And thought my Phase 90 was going out, making weird crackle noise on guitar rig all of a sudden. But fixed that right before Dunn Brothers set. Turns out having the acoustic guitar EQ with Treble and Brilliance maxed out was causing interference with the pedal. Weird. Dialed some out and problem solved, and saved me $50 from having to buy another one \m/,