Wow. I’d been hoping to get my podcast on Sirius sometime, so I was thrilled to be asked to contribute to the Twofer Tuesday this week. Kinda funny, though, because I had just vowed to take some time off from podcasting, the band, and whatever ever promotional things I do every day, to enjoy the holiday weekend. I even did The Chillcast early so I could take Sunday off. But, alas, I was making another podcast this Sunday. I might put it up as a podcast after July 4th, so the listeners who don’t have Sirius can check it out. There’s a few spoken bits from last week’s intro, and one song that I played a few weeks ago, but the rest is all new content, so it should still be fun for folks.
Oh and I played a Lovespirals song I haven’t played before or put out as podsafe. Couldn’t resist getting the old Lovespirals on Sirius, now could I? I’d be derelict in my primary duty of promoting the band if I didn’t!
Anyway, I thought I was going to be watching Roger Federer play Wimbledon this morning, but they were just showing hightlights of Roddick’s game yesterday, so I had that many more extra hours to do work. I guess work like this is kinda fun, but it still isn’t vacation. By any stretch of the imagination.

This episode I decided to make more robust shownotes, with links to the sites we mentioned and a photo. It looks really cool on our site, but unfortunately the result seems to be NO shownotes in iTunes. I’m wondering if any other RSS readers are getting the shownotes? Drop me an email or comment here if you subscribe to the podcast and CAN see the shownotes, pretty please.

This weekend Ryan signed up for a free SecondLife account and I helped him work on his avatar a little bit. I gave him one of the Lovespirals t-shirts I created, which looks pretty good on him, gave him a Dylan accoustic guitar, and showed him the basics of the game. Well, game is not really an apt term for SecondLife, it’s more like a platform or something… Anyway, we wandered around Podshow Island, Slackstreet, and some of the more popular hangouts just so he could get a feel for things. I also took him up to the Tibetan Buddhist base jump, which was interesting. We shopped for electric guitars, but there aren’t many options yet. He’d really like a classic Fender Strat, I’m sure. Haven’t found the best hair option for him yet, but he’s kinda making due with the pushed back look. Something long and parted in the middle would be better. Oh, I got some new hair that looks a bit more like me. I should still try to find a bob with proper bangs, though.

If anyone out there reading this would be willing to help us sort out our avatar’s appearance and band gear without charging us a bunch of Lindens, we would love to chat with you! Lovespirals would give out mad props on our site, podcast, in game – whatever. I’ve got a signed CD with your name on it, for sure. Ha! I’ve figured out a lot in my short time in the game, but I could use an old timer’s knowledge to polish us up and get us ready to actually perform in game.

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By the way, my favorite SL clothing designer, Nicola Escher, was sweet enough to give me a few folders of her amazing vintage designs! I’ve been wearing her mink stole the past few visits, mixing that up with the pink or red boas. I just tried out her Milchy Way dress yesterday, and it looks pretty hot, but oh so classy. I adore her 20’s styled shoes and stockings! She has a great site with amazing photos of her GirlKultur collection that you must check out!

Anji checks out the cool Halou kiosk designed by Spin Martin on Slack Street.

Seems like we’ve both been keeping our noses to the grindstone for far too long, unable to find the time and energy to work on music. My new podcast is taking up so much precious time, sometimes I wonder if it was really the best thing for me to get involved with. Then SL tries to steal even more time away… Ryan has been really busy with his work. Ever since the .coms made their comeback, his skills have been in demand again. But today we both made some time to get back to tracking vocals for “Caught in the Groove.” The scratch track we had been working with was recorded too muddy to actually keep, and the vocals we recorded right after our Pheonix show sounded too tired. Today we captured a really great, fresh, well recorded vocal. It’s nice to have so much experience singing a song before recording it, actually. We’ve been doing it in our live show, so I’m really familiar with it. Anyway, I think we’re pretty much done with the song now. Just need to make a good, solid final mix. Then we can take a critical listen to the scratch vocal track on the new blues song and go from there. That one was my favorite song to perform, so I look forward to working on it a lot! Still not sure what the title will be; I was calling it “Falling Asleep,” but Ryan suggested changing it to “Once in a Blue Moon,” which I think was the original title in my journal.

— Anji

Wow! When it rains, it pours. Suddenly lot of stuff the band has done with other people are being released all at once. The Pink Floyd song we recorded last year just came out today, and earlier this week an interview we did during our last show in Mexico went online, and another one we did last month here in Long Beach went online. Also noticed that Podshow finally put up some promotion for my Chillcast podcast on their site. Wonder if any other things might be coming to fruition that I haven’t heard about? Oh, I know what I’m still waiting for, our interview for the Paul & Lynn Show from a few months back! I think Ryan and I are going to have to do another Chillin with Lovespirals podcast this weekend, there’s so much news!

I just set up a Flickr account for the band and uploaded some pix from our Pheonix roadtrip and show. I mentioned I’d put up something on our new podcast that talks about our Phoenix trip and show… Now you can check out some pix from the show, the hotel, and our drive. Fun times!

Michael Plaster and I.

The haunted stairwell I spoke of.

See more by clicking the Flickr link listed above!

Scoot on over to Dave’s Lounge to check out his latest podcast… I suspect ya’ll might enjoy it!

Considering doing another remix “contest” soon. Several people have asked to remix a track from Free & Easy recently, so we were thinking we may as well make the files available to a large group of folks and see what comes of it! Still not sure which track would be the best one to work with, but probably one of the more upbeat ones like “Deep in My Soul” or “Trouble” would be the most fun. Perhaps we can add our fave mixes from this contest with our fave remixes from the last contest to do a digital release?

Had a nice little getaway this weekend. Decided to make a mini-vacation around the Phoenix show, since we’ve been working so hard for so long. Between the new CD and my new podcast, I really haven’t had any time to just chill. And how can Lovespirals music be created without any chill time? Not that we worked on any music, but having time to cool down and process a bit is really important. I’m sure Ryan and I will be chatting a lot about our Arizona experiences in our new Chillin podcast, so be sure to check out the next episode for all the stories!

Oh man. I met someone at the Curry Castle yesterday who asked, “Are you Adam’s mistress; the one who doesn’t play cello?” WTF?! I had to admit, “That would be me,” but I hope people don’t honestly think I’m *involved* with Adam Curry??? That is just silly…

I have gotten totally sucked into Second Life this week. It’s all Adam Curry’s fault! I heard him talk about the online game on DSC, then Kevin Rose mentioned it on TWIT, and my curiosity was picqued. I honestly didn’t think it would run on my old iMac, but I seem to be able to get around just fine. Maybe things don’t rez as quickly as they should, but it seems to me that the game is mostly a fancy chat interface. I’ve been sharing a little bit of my experiences over at my Chillcast site, including a few jpgs of my avatar. Speaking of my avatar, apparently the work I’ve done on it isn’t up to snuff with the game’s old timers because 2 days in a row girls have urged me that I “need to work on it.” Sigh.

There honestly hasn’t been much time to learn how to create custom skins and all of that because I keep getting into conversations about how to perform live in-game, which is what I’m most intersted in. Several club owners have already offered to let me and/or Lovespirals play live, which is quite fascinating. One DJ suggested that I have a listening party first, where I could introduce tracks to the audience, which should be easier than full on performance. Now I need to start running some audio tests on my computer to see what all I can really do. Oh, the other interesting possibility is in-game podcasting. Prerecorded podcasts would, of course, be much simpler, providing I was working with someone who offers audio feed to the masses in-game. I don’t own any property at this point, so I don’t have an outlet of my own to do it.

Honestly, I am beginning to be afraid of how much time this game takes away from Real Life, or RL as they call it… I mean, my identity is a singer/songwriter, and that’s what makes me happiest to do. Podcasting is already taking a lot of that time away from me. Even playing live has taken time away from songwriting and recording, which I’m sure many fans wouldn’t understand, but it just isn’t the same to perform a song I wrote years ago as it is to create a brand new song for a new CD. I guess there are writers and there are performers, and I am the former. Anyway, SL has gotten me thinking a lot about myself, my goals, priorities, position and function in society, personal relationships — it really is just a microcosm of RL, and not just “a game.” Grand Theft Auto, which I adore, is just a game. The Sims, which I was obsessed with, is just a game. Second Life is just that, another way to live one’s life – without leaving the house, basically. In some ways, I am down with that concept, but in other ways, it is pretty frightening. I think for me, it is yet another great way to get my music – and my friend’s music – out to an open group of listeners. There’s just some learning curve that I’m trying to master before I’m ready to do somthing truly interesting for those who have been using SL for years.

Anyway, this ended up being much more personal than I had imagined. I guess that’s the effect of the game. Adam warned me that it “messes with your head.”

Just put up a new review on the site, from the lovely RadioGirl at Church of Girl. She mentioned an old interview I did with the genius Miranda July for KUCI radio, but it turned out that the link was dead! I went over to the KUCI site but didn’t see my alumni page on the list. Hmm… I’ll have to look into that more. I’m thinking that I should take some time one month to put together a site with all of my various interviews from my old zines and radio shows. I know a lot of the bands are very hard to find anything about online. I just don’t know when I’d have the time to dedicate to this big project!