Ryan and Anji talk about their new podcasting setup, checking out Lovespirals on the Pandora music site, catching up with our old label mates Mira, Anji being interviewed by the Essence Podcast about the effect of piracy on indie bands, the evils of AllofMp3, iTunes Store reviews, creating band avatars in Second Life and more!
Lovespirals in SecondLife: Ryan Lumley & Anji Riel
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.
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.
If you’re into Frappring and Lovespirals, come join the brand new Lovespirals Fans Frappr map! Maybe I’ll add this logo thingee to the corner of the site later on, but for now, it’ll be lurking here in the blog. Oh yes, and while you’re at it, why not check out The Chillcast Frappr map, as well?
I spent a little bit too much time uploading photos into both maps, btw… I just couldn’t stand looking at all the white space in the Slide widget, so I filled it up! I especially like the Chillcast one. Makes me feel chill just looking at it.
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
Anji and Ryan go on a rant about illegal Russian download sites, complain about the Amazon Advantage Program, answer fan email, share recent band news, ask the listeners for a favor, and play a recent Lovespirals cover of Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine.”
Additional Links:
Lovespirals have just released a cover of Pink Floyd’s song, “Welcome of the Machine,” from their classic 1975 album, Wish You Were Here. The song was recorded as a contribution to the 2nd NPF tribute collection, Vol. 2: Return of the Sons of Neptune. This 3-disc set is available for free download in SHN format via the torrent area of this Pink Floyd fan group’s site: neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk. You will need to create a (free) account for access to the torrent, but it is well worth it if you are a fan of the Floyd. Otherwise, you can simply download a 192k mp3 of Lovespirals’ track at myspace.com.lovespirals, for a limited time. Enjoy!
UPDATE! Many years later, the band have made this track available on their Soundcloud page for free download in glorious 256k mp3 format. The NPF site took down their torrent ages ago due to pressure from Pink Floyd’s legal team (BOO!)
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!
Take a listen to a recent interview with Ryan and Anji on the Jason Knows podcast, Episode 24. This intimate 24 minute feature focuses on the band’s writing process and includes rare demo and live audio from the band, as well as album cuts. This interview was conducted after our show at The Blue Cafe here in Long Beach, CA, which is also where the live tracks were recorded.
Ryan and Anji talk about their recent trip to Phoenix to play a show with Mr. Meeble, discuss the US Meth addiction situation, announce a special podcast listener sale, answer fan email, and more in this “coming of legal age” episode. Includes some road trip audio!
Additional Links:
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?
