I think I’m going to give up coffee for the sake of my voice. I’ve been reading that caffeine is bad for the vocal chords. So is sugar, surprisingly. So sugary coffee is probably really bad. I love coffee, and have loved it since High School so this is going to be a big sacrifice for me. I haven’t had any the past two days and I do feel a bit cranky and tired, but oh well.

I love the smell of coffee. I’m going to crave it when I smell it. Just thinking about it right now makes me want some. Darn it. This is going to be hard.

Lovespirals will be playing a show next month with The Flir. This is their first performance since the 2002 Tour. Ryan and Anji will be doing an all-new set composed mainly of tracks from their upcoming album, Free & Easy. It’s a very moody set with lots of soulful, bluesy numbers and plenty of guitar work. Copies of “Windblown Kiss” will be on hand for sale, which the band will gladly autograph. Come on out and get a sneak peek at what Lovespirals have
been up to the past few years!

April 14, 2005 at 14 Below
1348 14th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401
14below.com

Cost: $7 ($6 w/ flyer) | 21+ with ID
Doors open 8 pm
The Flir go on at 9:30 and Lovespirals follow them at 10:30.

Don’t forget to download and print the official flyer for your discount.

Many people I know have been praising this as a great comedy. I’m into odd comedies as much as the next person (ie: Spinal Tap, Ishtar, Death to Smoochie) but I didn’t get this one at all. I feel like I must have missed something, but I don’t think so. So if anybody who ‘got it’ could help me out here, I’ll listen to what you have to say.

Picked up a copy of Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad the other day and was blown away. I loved Goodbye and Hello but had mixed feelings about some of the other stuff I’d heard. This album is really dreamy and groovy all the way through. One of the songs that most grabbed my attention was “Love from Room 109 at the Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway).” I’ve read that Buckley was originally an Orange County musician who performed locally, and The Islander sounded familiar, like I’d seen it around, so I looked it up. Indeed, there’s an Islander Motel not too far from here. On a whim, I went out to see it, with Happy Sad loaded into my iPod shuffle. I can’t say for sure it’s the same place, but the architecture is classic 60’s and it’s right near the beach (hence the ocean sounds in the song). The size of the hotel seems to fit the 109 room number. I resisted the urge to get out and actually look for it. Anyway… just a romantic gesture for a romantic song by a romantic artist.

I think a blog mention is more of a blog entry, so here goes… VayderX’s daily electionica music blog, In-Tune, profiled Lovespirals for today’s entry. Woo hoo.

Former Mp3.com CEO, Michael Robertson, just launched a new site called Mp3Tunes.com, which offers 192kbps mp3s for just 88 cents, and full albums for $8.88. Check out the site’s entries for Lovespirals and Love Spirals Downwards.

Ryan and Anji were recently interviewed by Jen of Stratosphere Fanzine. You can read highlights here in the “interviews” section, or view the full interview at Stratosphere Fanzine’s Yahoo! Launch Group.

Just found out about a place that sells FLAC (and OGG) files online. I was just talking about that concept, too. The only catch is, it costs artists $50 a year to use their service plus they take a cut of each sale. Whole albums sell for just $8.99, which is a bit cheap considering they take almost half of that. So I don’t know if that’s what we’d want to do. Probably better to set up our own online store with FLAC files. Or SHN files. Anyway, the site URL is www.mindawn.com. Trippy.

It seems like we always come back to the question of genre with our music. It’s unfortunate that promotions rely on super specific categories, but that’s just the way it is. The music world is like a giant data base in that way. Folks want to be able to put each band and release into a box so that they can stack it up with other boxes into neat little tables (data base “tables,” not dining room “tables”). I can understand the need to organize information like that, but with something like music it isn’t always so simple. Sure, some bands are totally fine making a career out of one style of music writing, song after song, album after album, but we aren’t. Since 1999, Ryan and I have shifted musical styles drastically, and since 1991, Ryan has made some pretty dramatic evolutions in his sound.

I’m thinking today about the fact that our last album, Windblown Kiss, is listed as “Jazz.” While that is a very cool genre and all, it really doesn’t successfully describe our CD. Nor does “Electronica” really represent the myriad styles of LSD’s retrospective collection, Temporal. Our upcoming album could be listed under either of those genres, and either way it would be missing the whole rock element also inherent in the songs. Not only are the songs each of different genre varieties, but many of the songs themselves are a mix of genres. So how the heck are we going to categorize this one? And how is our band itself being classified?

Finally the storm has broken here in Southern California, to be replaced by a wonderfully warm Santa Ana wind. Mmm… Actually went to the beach yesterday and laid out, enjoying my new iPod. I hope this weather lasts long enough for us to sneak in a band photo shoot. It’s about time we got some current portraits taken. I’m also starting to seriously think about album art for the new CD cover. We’ll probably go with colorful nature shots again, but maybe a bit less abstract this time. I’m not sure that folks even realize that the Windblown Kiss artwork is photos of reflections in water or not?

Now is the official launch of the band’s Cafe Press Store which is just filled to the brim with cool merchandise for both Lovespirals and Love Spirals Downwards, including t-shirts, stickers, and buttons. Everything is priced very, very low for your shopping enjoyment, so get it while it’s hot at cafepress.com/lovespirals!

Ryan and I have come to the realization that 128kbps mp3s are way too old school. Like, so 1998!

I’ve been re-encoding my digital music library into 320kbps AAC files, which sound much better — much better even that 320kbps mp3 files. For special albums, I’m using Apple Lossless, which sounds basically like an AIFF or WAV file (which is what CDs are generally made from), but is only about half the size. I mean, I have a huge hard drive, so why not enjoy my music in hi-res quality?

I love the concept of the iTunes store, and selling our music there, but what I don’t love is the sound quality. We make these gorgeous 24bit start-to-finish albums (more music geek talk, I know!), only to have it all squashed down into measly 128k mp3 files. It’s murder! We really need to figure out a way to sell our fans nice, high quality files worthy of critical listening.

It’s so sad how the music industry is completely melting down under the pressure of new technology. Kids today don’t even think they should have to buy CDs anymore! They are perfectly content with crappy mp3s files traded on the Internet.

It seems that a whole new model for music is necessary now, one that somehow combines professional quality sound with affordable prices so that we artists can get our music out to fans in a format that is not only convenient, but great sounding, doesn’t cost too much, and yet allows us to cover all the costs of creating and distributing the music.

Any bright ideas, anyone?