News as of 24 November 2007
For earlier entries, back to December 2001, go here.
| 7 October 2007: We've been mostly working on construction around the house, adding new rooms, finishing up the "guest suite", re-doing some floors in the studio, etc. In the evenings I've been amusing myself with a couple of projects: one is the new photo gallery featuring pics of me with various bands as far back as 1974. Thought it might be fun for those of you who have been following my music over the years, so here it is! Also made a little webpage about my band: Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosites. That's all I can think of at the moment, until next time... |
| 23 September 2007: Two CDs just released by What Delicate Recordings happen to be two of my favorite things I've worked on in recent years: "Sookie Jump" by Eldridge Skell's The Rude Staircase, and "...and though we're told we've got it all, the all we've got is freezing cold..." by Condor Moments. I'm very proud of both CDs and hope to do more! Here are links to songs and info about both albums. I'll be doing a gig in Denver Colorado at the Mercury Cafe on January 19, 2008, with David Campbell on guitar and bass, and David Kerman on drums. We'll be playing songs from my solo albums and maybe a couple of new not-yet-recorded items. There will be a nifty opening band as well, to be announced. Check the Mercury Cafe website for more info as January 2008 draws inevitably nearer. |
| 6 September 2007: Maggie and I are doing a lot of building/re-construction work around here, fixing up/adding onto various bits of our sprawling farmhouse/studio. Maggie mentioned that Rob Murphy was good at that sort of thing, so I offered him a trade: x number of days here at the studio recording and/or mixing for x number of days helping us with building work. He liked the idea so he's here for the next ten days and we're slaving away fixing the place up. More news once we're finished with that. To finish up, here's an excellent review of my NEARfest set last June from someone called "moonchild", posted to yesfans.com, the entire review copied verbatim: "Next up was Bob Drake.. one of those avant garde artist.. trying to be funny, and altho he was amusing, I have no idea what he was playing." |
| 8 August 2007: I just HAD to share this exciting tidbit: it comes from someone called Harold at the Atlanta Prog forum, who describes my set at NEARfest as: "Way off-kilter Americana, singer-songwriter, finger style, alt-rockabilly pretentious crap!!!" So now I FINALLY know what to say when someone asks "what kind of music do you do, Bob?" Actually it's a pretty good description, but really..."pretentious"? Pshaw!!! Speaking of my way off-kilter Americana singer-songwriter finger style alt-rockabilly pretentious crap!!!, I want to do a couple of shows in the USA in January, since I'll be in Denver and the Bay Area anyway. So far we'll do a show (or two) in Denver, and probably a show in Oakland with Tom DiMuzio also doing a set. That's all I know for the moment...more news next week or so after Delaney Davidson's session. |
| 26 July 2007: Yesterday I finished recording the new Vril album with me on bass and a bit of guitar, Chris Cutler drumming, Lukas Simonis and Pierre Omer (promises he'll have a website soon!) on guitars. As with the first album we worked out and recorded the basic tracks "live" here at my studio, all set up in the same room. With the addition of Pierre we are a complete band now and thinking about doing some gigs in Europe. I'll get to mixing the album later this year, and presume it will be released early in 2008. Today was my first "day off" since June 26, I spent most of it riding my bicycle and working on some new songs (not at the same time though.) Tomorrow another solid three weeks of sessions commences with Dick El Demasiado, then a week with Bushwac, and then a week with Delaney Davidson. I'll spend the last part of August mixing Zeno Tornado (see 11 July entry). More news once we get to the end of August; at which time, barring Earth-shattering meteorites, plague (s), etc, I plan, among other things, to take a good long time to to work on songs for my next album. I don't know if I have used correct punctuation in the last few sentences...or any of them for that matter. |
| 11 July 2007: On June 28 I got back home from the NEARfest show, first time ever playing my own songs in front of an audience. I've done gigs with about a zillion bands where we all wrote/arranged the tunes together or someone else in the group was the songwriter, but this was my first ever time playing my own songs onstage. David Campbell was great, we'll be doing more gigs together, and I'll say more about him (and maybe recount one or two of the various interesting little adventures we had on the journey) in the next update. Considering it was also the first ever gig for this particular ensemble, it went OK; there were of course the expected stupid mistakes you get on a first gig, especially a gig in a large theatre with no sound check...there was nothing in our onstage monitors and no time to do anything about it, so we were relying on the sound bouncing back from the hall (not much) for our vocals. We didn't let it bother us and it was fun in any event, and after the show I met several people who'd come to see our set and said they'd really enjoyed it, that's what really matters! It was great meeting you folks! Wish I'd known there was going to be that "autograph" session after the show...I would have brought some paints or something instead of just scrawling my name with a sharpie. After the show I was introduced to Gary Green, the guitarist from the band Gentle Giant who were one of my faves back in the day. First thing he said to me was: "Hey I saw your set, it was....(a pause while he searched for a word)...quirky..!" He did mention he liked the sound of my guitar (I used my Gretsch G5127) and we chatted about guitars for a bit. Really nice fellow and it was a pleasure to meet him! The day after I got back home from the Nearfest extravaganza, Zeno Tornado arrived and we recorded their next album's worth of songs. They're excellent musicians and I really like the stuff, sort of bluegrassy/punky/pop rockabillycountry or something. I'll be mixing it later this summer. Production-wise this album will be very different from the two they've already released, which were deliberatley trashy sounding and quickly recorded.The day Zeno Tornado left, Stinky Lou and the Goon Mat arrived, and about an hour ago we finished recording their next album's worth of songs. Tomorrow morning I'll start mixing it...the nature of the music and the recording is such that it should take just a couple days to mix. The day I finish with Stinky Lou and the Goon Mat, Chris Cutler, Lukas Simonis and Pierre Omer (can't find a website for him but you'll find things if you search) arrive and we start recording a new Vril album.That's not all...as soon as Vril is finished recording, a couple more groups will be coming, I'll write about those in the next update! For now, I'll have to stop and post this update because there is so much more I want to put into it but I know it'll take me weeks at this rate...so that's it for now. Oh, and before I go, here are some photos from the Nearfest show. There are several more online galleries from the festival but I'm too tired to think about looking for them at the moment, will post them soon. |
| 15 June 2007: In a couple days I'll be flying to Canada where David Campbell and I will rehearse for the NEARfest show coming up on June 23rd. We've both been rehearsing individually for some time now, I'm very curious and excited to see how it goes! So that's all until I get back home in late June, there are a lot of sessions coming up with various groups, more about that when they happen. |
| 14 May 2007: The "turbofolkgypsypunk micro-orchestra" Vialka are here, we recorded four more songs for their next album; of which the first batch were recorded here back in October 2006. They are a mighty duo and getting better and better, and really do not sound like anything else I know of. Listening to the last album they recorded here, Curiosities of Popular Customs, I think I've gotten a clearer, punchier sound this time in the recording. I'll be mixing it for the next week or two. |
| 3 May 2007: Zoambo Zoet Workestrao were here for a few days and we mixed their new album. I think it's a good thing to occasionally have to mix and master an entire album (of fairly complex music in this case) in two or three days. I must say, in typical self-aggrandizing mode, I'm quite good at that kind of instant mixing; though if you really want the full BD treatment I need around 2.5 days per song. Anyway, Zoambo Zoet Workestrao is a bloody excellent band, I love what they do and they are really nice people too. Besides repairing the roof broken by a freakish hailstorm while I was at the RIO fest, I'm currently still mixing Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp's new album, riding my bicycle because it's not winter anymore, and playing guitar and banjo looking for some new songs, and rehearsing my NEARFest show. Lots of sessions coming up this summer too, more news as it happens. |
| 17 April 2007: It's been a crazy 5 days since the last update! As mentioned below in the 12 April update, Peter Blegvad, John Greaves and Chris Cutler came here to rehearse for their show at the RIO Festival in Carmaux. While they were rehearsing the song Bee Dream on Thursday night (11 April) I overheard them saying it really needed something extra at the end. I said how about I'll do a feedback guitar solo, so we tried it the next morning and it felt really good and sounded great too. So they said why not play something on this other song too, and hey how 'bout this one too...and this one, that one, etc etc...so before long I was playing guitar on half the set! Naturally I threw in some vocal harmonies here and there too. Now this all happened on Friday, and the show was the next evening, which gave me just barely enough time to almost feel confident about the tunes. Even so, the show went really well and we all had a great time, so much so that the Peter Blegvad Trio is now The Peter Blegvad Quartet. I'm really looking forward to more gigs with this group...and having the opportunity to work out some tasty little guitar and vocal parts on Peter's excellent tunes. I think the show was videoed by someone with a fancy camera, and I saw lots of other cameras in the audience too so I reckon something will show up on Youtube sometime...It was also recorded on 24 tracks by Amplitude Studio, they'll be sending me the files soon so I can mix 'em and see if there's anything worth releasing or posting. The festival was excellent, Present's sparse (and welcome low volume) Saturday show with two pianos and percussion was one of my favorites, but I enjoyed everything I saw. Unfortunately by the time Magma came on, the last show of the festival, my ears had had enough...despite my excellent -25 dB musician's earplugs...so I had to reluctantly leave shortly after they'd started. I was really looking forward to seeing them live as I don't know their music at all and had recently seen a few videos on Youtube and was intrigued. I also have to thank Udi Koomran, a great friend who unexpectedly did the live sound for the PB Trio/Quartet (and several other groups too.) We were fortunate he was there. Udi: we are all extremely grateful!When we returned home after the festival on Monday afternoon, we discovered part of the roof torn off, and about a foot of hailstones, mud, and water inside the house! The local folks told us there was a storm at around 1AM the previous night, of "apocalyptic" proportions, which dropped several inches of ping-pong ball sized hail and I don't know how many inches of rain. All in all the damage to the house wasn't so bad, and the studio wasn't touched at all, but shovelling hailstones out of the house wasn't exactly how we'd imagined spending the day! Well that's it for now; among other things like playing guitar and banjo a bit every day, I'll be mixing Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp for the next two weeks (See the 12 April entry just below.) See you next entry! |
 The Peter Blegvad |
| 12 April 2007: Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp were here for five days to record an album's worth of songs. I'll be mixing these over the rest of April. Peter Blegvad, John Greaves and Chris Cutler are here for a couple days to rehearse for their show at the RIO Festival coming up on Saturday. It's great to hear these guys playing together again, and they've asked me to join in a song or two on guitar. So we're going to have some fun Saturday night! It's unusual to have a group in the studio playing for hours and hours who aren't here to make a recording...so I'm taking the opportunity to record the rehearsals experimenting with different microphones, mic placements, monitoring techniques, etc etc, without worrying about wasting their time or wrecking the recording etc. |
 Peter Blegvad, Chris Cutler and John Greaves
rehearsing at BD's studio. Click the pic for bigger version. |
| 30 March 2007: Practicing the 30 minute set I'll be doing at NEARfest in June (that'll be here sooner than ya think...) once every day, and enjoying that a lot. I'm loving the guitar more and more, and finally able to think of myself as "a guitarist"; when I imagine myself playing onstage I always picture myself playing bass or drums, but I can finally see myself playing guitar. It's a strange thing, because I've been playing the guitar at least as long as I've played the bass and drums, that's to say something like 30 some years, though it's true that in most bands I've been a member of I was playing the bass or drums, so perhaps it's not so strange afterall...but I'm in one of those chatty moods this evening so I'm just typing as I think. For anyone interested, I've finally updated the pages about my first solo album What Day is it?, AA Kismet's Where's The Rest of me? and What's the use of Crying When the Wolves Have Arrived by replacing those pre-high-speed internet 30-second excerpts with three complete songs from each album. The amazing Paed Conca was here earlier this month and we mixed a huge selection of his pieces, 2 CDs worth of stuff. It was all recorded on his old Fostex 1/4" 8 track, a good old workhorse who is still going strong! It's always a pleasure to work with Paed.LOTS of recording sessions with all sorts of groups coming up from April-July, more about those as they happen, and I'll be at the RIO festival on April 14th...I'm not playing, but it's just a couple hours drive and lots of my pals will be there...maybe see you there? |
| 12 March 2007: Paed Conca arrives tonight and we'll be mixing something for a week or so. Don't know what it is yet. Last week I mastered two recordings for CD re-release by Heiner Goebbels and Alfred Harth recorded in 1976 - 1979: Vom Sprengen des Gartens and Hommage Vier Fäuste für Hanns Eisler. To be released by ReR. |
 My 10 year old niece Laura Drake from Illinois sent me this scan of an amazing leaf-creature she made. Click for larger view. |
| 18 February 2007: Been working out the set for my NEARfest show coming up in June. There will be songs from each of my solo albums plus two brand new tunes, all in a 30 minute hopefully entertaining mini-extravaganza. Meanwhile, looking for a good multi-effect pedal to use for the upcoming gig(s), I bought a Boss ME-50 without having played with one first, because I've always liked Boss effect boxes and this one looked like a really nice layout for using onstage...but I don't care for it's sound at all! I'll sell it for 120 Euros (plus postage) if anyone's interested. I think it would be a great box for someone who likes to put masses of extreme processing on their instrument...the effects of this box don't sound so good to my ears - especially the overdrives - unless you put them on really heavy...which isn't my style of guitar playing; I like the sound of the instrument to still come though. So I'll stick with my good old Boss SE-70 for that, it sounds excellent even in light doses and I found a good midi foot controller which makes it lots easier and more flexible for live use. Without a midi controller all you can do with it live is basically turn the whole thing on/off and step up to the next program, unless you feel like scrolling through parameters one at a time in that little window while you were supposed to already be playing the next part of the song. Anyway, I'm happy, how about you? |
| 2 February 2007: Maggie and just returned home from a two week stay in the USA. Here are some photos from the trip. (I'll be adding a few more pics daily for the next few days.) I visited many old Denver friends and did an improvised concert at the Mercury Cafe with Mike Johnson, Mark McCoin, Kurt Bauer, Sharon Bradford, Arnie Swenson, Janet Feder, Pin Rose, Mike Serviolo, and a small, highly amused audience who stayed till the very end! Thanks to Steve Navarre, here are some photos from the gig, and a Youtube slideshow. After Denver we drove out to California, visited one of my best friends Mark Fuller, and where I had a wonderful time at Further Confusion in San Jose, meeting many new and old "furry" pals. The drive back to Denver on Nevada's US 50 was fantastic! On our next visit we'll allow ourselves even more time to explore this spectacular and mysterious region. Next I'll be working out some arrangements for my 30 minute Nearfest show with David Campbell coming up in June. Figuring out which tunes work well as a duo, who will play and sing what, and how to keep it entertaining and fun for all.I was commissioned to do a set of erotic drawings for someone in California so that'll also be keeping me busy and entertained when I'm not working out songs for the NF gig. I don't usually do commissioned drawings but I accepted it this time...since they were very nice people (and even paid some in advance!) and what they asked me to draw is the sort of thing I'd be drawing anyway! |
| 16 January 2007: Greetings from a hotel room in Salt Lake City! OK, I'm almost half a century old, so I get excited about things some of you younger readers might take for granted, like high speed internet connections in hotel rooms...not to mention the internet in general...Anyway, Maggie Thomas and I just spent a week in Denver, visiting my old pals and basically having a vacation. Now we're en route by car to California's Bay Area where we'll visit more of our pals, and where I'll be attending Further Confusion. Then we head back to Denver where I'll be playing with The Emancipation Proclamation at the Mercury Cafe on January 25th. It's a spontaneous band including me, Mike Johnson, Mark McCoin, Kurt Bauer, Sharon Bradford, and whoever else we can get to show up for some unknown improvisations. I want to do some unexpected versions of a couple of my songs, but in general no plans at all except having some fun with friends and lots of instruments! I believe there will be no admission charge, but call the Mercury Cafe if you want to be sure. Photos at right: |
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