Ryan and I been working on our new live set the past week or two. It’s quite a bit different from our last tour! We did one show last year with The Flir, so we had worked up a few songs from Free and Easy and our cover of Floyd’s “Cymbaline.” Now we’ve added 2 of our brand new, unreleased, songs to the set. We’ve also been testing out an old LSD tune to play acoustic, rather than the version of “Ring” we did in 2002. It’s cool to have so many more tracks to choose from when we play! Now we can actually have a few extra tunes tucked away for encores, if we need them. The first time we went to Mexico, we only had one album out and no extra tunes for encores. I ended up doing an acapella Billie Holiday song at one gig, and an acapella LSD song at another. This time we’ll actually be prepared. Should be cool.

After finishing up the podcast yesterday, we started recording another new song. We had starting writing this one a few weeks (months?) ago, before the mixer blew… Anyway, it’s always so fun to be working on new music. We’re constantly evolving and finding new ways to express ourselves. Got to be one of the best feelings in the world!

Man, Robert Cray was SMOKIN’ HOT last night. He is like 100 times better in person than on record. Ryan and I were standing right in front of him, getting his monitor feed really loud in the mix so we could hear his guitar and vocals much louder than the keys and rhythm. Holy crap is that man talented. Not a stinker note in the whole set. Not only was his guitar totally fucking amazing, but his vocals were perfect, as well. He has such control, I was in awe. And such presence. I almost burst into tears after the first or second song, it was so beautiful. Wow.

Now the crowd was a whole other story… I really wanted to pop this one guy in the face, he was so fucking rude and annoying the entire set. He was some dufus named “Dave” who apparently is on vacation from Jersey and has spent the last few days at Disneyland. He told these women he was trying to pick up on next to me that he “was all Mickey’d out” hence, he mosied over to the House of Blues for a change of scenery. I know a lot more about his trip, since he kept talking the whole time, only stopping to yell “Woo!” during solos and “Thank YOU!” between songs. Finally, during the encore performance of “Time Takes Two” – which I’d been looking forward to all night – I said “Shut up!” and flipped Dave off to his face, but he was so stupid and drunk, he didn’t seem to notice. The chick he was talking to left, though, so that helped. But then some gross guy in a sparkly red Ruby’s Costume type shirt and a super gross lady in a cheap flame patterned polyester dress lurched over and started dry humping up against me. I pushed the guy’s back away from me, but he didn’t move, so I started elbowing him and kicking his foot, but that just seemed to excite him or something. I had to retreat backwards a foot and move to the other side of Ryan, but by then, my song was over…

Anyway, all the dufi in the world can’t take away the magical feeling songs like “Who’s Been Talking,” “Poor Johnny,” “That Ain’t Love,” “Twenty,” and (the unexpected) “12 Year Old Boy” gave me.

At long last, Ryan and I went into studio B to record another podcast. It’s a Valentine’s podcast, I suppose, though it’s pretty much like any other Chillin with Lovespirals podcast. The highlight of the show is a clip from our second brand new song, “Empty Universe.” You can check it out through the “podcast” tab on our site, or via iTunes or any of the other usual podcast listing sites.

Oh, I promised listeners that I’d post a photo of the new and improved worker gnome, Babik Nurn…

So the mixer is in the shop now. Ryan’s been researching alternatives for days now, just in case the mixer can’t be fixed, or the price is really high to fix it. Either way, he’ll have to pay $75 just to have it looked at. 🙁

Ryan did figure out a crude work around, using a tiny mixer he had for his computer, so that he could still create a little jingle for The Chillcast. I think it turned out pretty cool, actually. Didn’t get to use the PCM70 reverb, but we made due. Maybe we can play the jingle in the next Chillin’ with Lovespirals?

Speaking of which, we are waaay behind schedule on our podcast… sorry to the loyal listeners!

Man! Went into Ryan’s studio to do a little intro song for The Chillcast but the mixer was acting up. I noticed a weird smell, like plastic burning. Ryan said the mixer suddenly rebooted once, and shortly after telling me that, it just shut down completely. Great… We unplugged everything to take it into the shop, and when we pulled it up, the smell was coming from the side where the fuse is located, so I’m hoping that just blew. Cross your fingers for us!

Put together another episode of The Chillcast today featuring music from bands on MySpace. Seems like a lot were also on Garageband. Anyway, you can check it out at chillcuts.com in the “Chillcast” section. Still don’t have my official site and RSS feed setup, but hopefully by the end of the week. Then I’ll start listing on iTunes and all of that fun stuff so it’ll be really easy to subscribe. Now I gotta round up Ryan to do another Chillin’ with Lovespirals!