Floors!

The hardwood floors are being sanded tomorrow (Sunday). They'll be stained on Monday, then varnished on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then we have to stay away from them for a week, then the carpet guys will install what little carpet there is. Oh, and we will also bring the mixing consoles and all of that in. Exciting times, to be sure. Of course, the most exciting question is: Will we really be able to get the Neve into Control Room A? I guess we'll find out. I will definitely post some photos for you of the ridiculous process that is moving the Neve.
Also (and this is the kind of reporting you get when studio progress is slow), in case you were worried about when I would eventually acquire an NOS pair of 1930s long johns (thermal one-piece underwear with a button-fastened flap in back, for those of you who live so thoroughly in today's society that you don't know what long johns are), well, you can stop worrying. I received a pair in the mail yesterday. I love them. They smell like The Great Depression.
Also, don't forget, you'll have to get ahold of me at flyingblanketrecording@yahoo.com until the new Flying Blanket website is unveiled. We are working on it.
Hope you all had nice holidays.

No website, but we have a building.

As always, there's good news and bad news. The bad news first: there's no Flying Blanket website anymore. I didn't get around to paying for the renewal on time (the reminder email just ended up getting lost in a flurry of emails and I spaced it), so they deleted everything that was on there - photos, mp3s, the works. So I will have to spend a couple of days putting everything back together, although I think we'll go ahead and launch the new site we'd been working on.
The good news is that the building is pretty much finished. The contractors moved out, though I think they'll be back to take care of a few things in a couple of weeks. There's still some flooring issues (carpet, hardwood and tile) to be finished, but everything else is done and working. The contractors even cleaned before they left (they are awesome folks). So it looks pretty good.
As soon as the hardwood floors are finished, we will start moving gear in. The Neve console needs recapping, and there's a lot of audio wiring work to be done, but we're hoping that stuff will move somewhat quickly (don't worry, it probably won't). It's just nice to see the barbed wire fence down and the place looking inhabitable (well, mostly). The hot water heater even works (still no kitchen sink, though).
That's it for now. I will try to get our site back up and running, but with all of the photos (many of which I no longer have on my computer), mp3s (hours of importing CDs - if I can find them - into my computer!), and descriptions of things (sadly, I will never be able to recreate the stunning description of the mighty Yakov 3400 compressor), it is a huge undertaking, one that will probably require me to take some days away from the studio just for me to get it all done, and I'm not too sure when that can happen.
you can reach me at the email: flyingblanketrecording@yahoo.com - which is a new email address, which means I forget to check it, so it might be a couple of days before I get to you. And if you're in a band who's been calling me all week about booking, sorry - I've just been super busy and your calls never come at a time I can take them, and I just haven't had much time for the phone this week, dealing with three different bands' mastering concerns as well as working on out-of-town bands for the past two weeks. I will get to you, I promise!

DONKEYWATCH!

Well, not much happening at the new studio this week, so I thought I'd talk a little bit about what's going on in the old one. Everybody (including myself) has been sick this week, so no one did much. I am told that the contractors will be in on Monday, finishing up what little there is left to finish up. By the way, I am painfully aware of the lack of a main Flying Blanket website - and I'm sorry to say, my web hosting or whatever they are deleted our account, and everything in it. No mp3s, no photos, no nothing. So I have to sort of regroup and figure out what to do. I was getting ready to launch a new site, but it really wasn't quite ready - and also, I'm not really looking forward to reloading all of those mp3s. And of course, I don't even think I have most of the gear photos anymore. So those will all have to be redone too. Lousy, no? Anyway, you can reach me at flyingblanketrecording@yahoo.com for the time being, I guess, since my main email doesn't work any more either. Sucks, I know. Anyway:The donkey head (there's no such thing as a mule deer) is still going strong, though you are now able to see parts of his skull through what I can only assume was once skin and fur. Someone did shift its position in the alley slightly (which I am not happy about, because I'll be the one to have to move it back to its proper resting place). I know I teased you all with tales of what else we had found in the garbage...well, it's a long story, and there will probably be more chapters to it (and hey, I've been kind of busy...you know, recording), but we did find buried in the rest of the trash deposited with the donkey some very bizarre letters written by a woman, including one decrying a love gone bad ("I'm tired of feeling like your live-in whore"!), and another asking the City of Mesa to forgive her nonpayment (I assume of utilities) but she's been in the hospital after having been mauled by three pitbulls and can't really do anything until she gets out. She also includes her cell phone number, which I just haven't had a chance to call yet. Plus, there's still a lot more stuff in the garbage which we just haven't gone through, and I don't want to have to call her twice because I found something else even more incriminating. Like I said, there is another garbage pile, and it smells much worse than the donkey head does at this point. What addtional wonders await me within that second trash pile, I can only guess. One other big development is that someone torched the dumpster at the eastern end of the complex. Or rather, they torched the area behind the dumpster. I don't know how no one noticed, because the entire side of the building next to it is totally charred, and half of the inside wall was still smouldering when I got there this morning. There were about nine fire trucks there and almost as many police. I was recording most of the rest of the day, so if there was any more drama surrounding the fire, I didn't get to see it. That's about it for now. Ron (manager of Circle K) claims they pressure-cleaned the sidewalk out front of his store a week ago. I don't believe that, to be frank with you.

Drum tests...

Have you ever heard the sound of a sawed-off shotgun being fired in a racquetball court? Well, that's what a snare drum sounds like in this room. I took my 1964 Rogers kit (and a '66 Rogers Tower snare) into the studio Saturday night to see what it sounded like. And you know what? I never thought I'd say this, but...it's TOO live. I have a feeling that rooms laike this are what lame 80s snare reverbs are patterned after. Although it did make me feel pretty manly (the lightest hit on the sanre drum sounds like someone firing a cannon in a school gymnasium), I can't imagine under what circumstances I would need a drum sound like that. The great news, of course, is that it's easy to deaden up a room that's too live. Surprisingly, the little B tracking room is massive-sounding. And almost no exterior bleed! The place is pretty soundproof. We definitely won't be having problems with that (not that I wasn't looking forward to administering beatdowns to complaining neighbors).

It's like Christmas...

Or Kwanzaa, if you prefer. That's right, there's electricity at the studio now, and I got to go over tonight and turn all of the lights on and off and on and off and on and off and well, you get the idea. I know a little thing like the ability to turn the lights on (and off and on and off and on) shouldn't be that big of a deal, but being in there tonight, with all the lights on for the first time...it's hard to explain why, but we have built something really great. Those rooms are so cozy - I felt so good being in there - man, it was wonderful.
All of the soundproof windows are in now, as are all doors and latches. And the alarm guy showed up today to wire the place up, so you all can't steal any of the precious cases of Liquid Nails we keep in there. The door seals were all done up nicely as well, and I'll be heading in there in the next couple of days, armed with some drums, to test the soundproof-ness of the rooms. And yes, I am aware that the main Flying Blanket website is down. I guess it takes a couple of days for domain payments to go through, or something like that. It'll be back in a couple of days.