Our upcoming show is going to be quite different from our previous ones. Ryan is going all out with his live guitar work now. He’s using my Squier Strat and Fender amp, which gives him a really different sound than the semi-hollow body he was bringing to our shows before. Now he’s all about guitar solos! He did one or two in past shows, but was mainly focused on the rhythm guitar. I prefer what he’s doing now, ’cause it’s a much better use of his talent. It’s a shame that at practically every LSD show he only strummed acoustic guitar. I did see him play bass for “Sound of Waves” live at KUCI, which was cool, but still not that big a deal compared to what he’s doing now. Anyway, he’ll probably be embarassed by this gushing, but I’m just so excited to hear him play guitar solos live. It makes performing that much more cool for me.

PS does anyone get the Bread reference?

Ryan was talking to his old friend, Tom, about doing percussion for our live shows last year sometime. We haven’t taken the time to meet up and work together yet, though. Anyway, it turns out that he’s playing drums for the band Red Lily at the 14 Below show. Great opportunity for him to check out our live set and see if he thinks he’d fit into the sound. Oh yeah, we also heard from Rodney, who we were talking to about playing bass for us. There’s a slight chance Ryan will have him do second guitar for our show, instead. I think that would sound great. Maybe we can still find a bassist in the near future, and really round out our live performance.

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 cords. 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.

We’ve begun practicing an all-new live set featuring mostly songs from our upcoming album, “Free & Easy.” Last night we ended up jamming for hours and totally skipped Gabe’s housewarming party. When he had his moving out party a few weeks ago, we were recording our cover of “Cymbaline” and missed out. Yikes! Speaking of “Cymbaline,” our live version sounded really good. We might even open with that.

We’re discussing doing a show in Santa Monica next month with The Flir and several other local bands, so stay tuned for news on that soon!

Man, I thought the rain was finally over in So Cal, but here it is, raining again. I think we got all of the Pacific Northwest’s rain for the season. Houses are sliding off of hillsides everywhere, streets are crumbling away… When will it end?

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.