It was great to enjoy the visiting with family and close friends, and the delicious food.  It was a relief to send the mastered EyeConspire album and print packaging to get duplicated and packaged.

This year thanksgiving included a bittersweet big warm hug from lots of old friends and acquaintances.  Bittersweet, because it came hand in hand with the loss of a friend. My friend and old band mate was battling cancer, and wasn't really telling anyone about it. Too 'busy' to deal with friends, until we realized what was happening.

A lot of people came to the benefit show we did on Thanksgiving eve. Many I haven't seen in some time. Dave's oldest son played his guitar parts, and stepped up to the task. I enjoyed the rehearsals as much as the show itself. It really felt weird the night of the show to play a gig under the circumstances, but by the time we were going on stage I was cool, and revved up.  Folks had a great time, and 'little'  Dave and the guys want to play more.

I changed the flypaper web site to feature some of my favorite pics of Dave playing. In one sense of reality he will be missed. In another, he is with us, and with reflection and meditation we can learn from the totality of our shared experience.

I decided to visit a church for the first time this year.

I was fixing this guy's ceiling and learned while talking with him a bit that he's a pastor.  A few weeks later I visited Bridging The Gap Ministries in Cuyahoga Falls, and enjoyed the informal and welcoming atmosphere.

I felt motivated to suggest, and volunteer to bring a P.A. for, a Saturday night jam session.  I took my bass and played and sang whatever came to mind.  Of course I was focused on my faith, so the words reflected that.  It was a really cool experience. 

Folks were suggesting lyrical ideas and I'd run with them.  At one point we translated a psalm into regular 2008 American language.

It was worth repeating the event, and we've basically decided to do this every Saturday for at least a while.  Everyone's welcome to come hang out, bring a guitar, drums, voice.

It's been said  'writing songs is easy, but writing good songs is very difficult.' 

For the past three years I've been collaborating on an album with guitarist Joe Leonti and drummer Dorian Dimitrov. 

We have some new sounds for you to enjoy from the album 'Never Fade,' at (our new MySpace page) and (the EyeConspire web site). It isn't mastered yet, but if you don't like it, there must be something wrong with you.

I haven't done any live 'shows' since early 2006, and I have done very little traveling.

I'm playing bass and singing!

Without a whole lot of bass background, I've felt it important to take my time and live with the instrument - to be a real bassist, so you can enjoy listenable low end - that's right, I said low end - music.

I started out with a used 5 string Yamaha from Musician's bargain basement with a direct box into the rehearsal PA set up.  I paid more attention, listening to cuts of the same wide variety of music through 'new ears'- maybe most notably, James Brown, Funkadelic, Jeff Berlin, John Paul Jones, Roger Waters.  Everywhere I went where there was music I started tuning into the bass.

In time I felt justified in getting a pre-amp that models different bass sounds, but once I really turned to on an SVT Classic and 8x10 set up, and mic'd it through a Neve console, the Line 6 amp modeler was jokingly called "a very expensive tuner."  It's great for trying out sounds, and direct digital recording, but nothing seems to beat the old tube technology for those classic vibrant sound qualities.  Tubes may be outdated in tv's and other electronics, but when it comes to sound, tubes win in my book.

For pre-production, I've assembled a nice set up centered around an easily portable audio/digital interface.  

Among other things, it's great for recording drums without having to move anything from the drummer's rehearsal spot.

Mixing and re-mixing is a blast.  I've figured out a few things, and come up with some good sounds. 

Often I'll record vocal tracks I'm pretty happy with, but when I  listen back another day I'll see where they could be better. 

I'm definitely more critical of my singing and playing than I am of anyone else's. So these tools come in handy for putting tunes together just right.

I started out with Cubase LE since its supposedly not as complicated to figure out as the industry standard Pro-Tools.  Anything that has to do with computers can become more complicated than you'd like it to be, so It was a good way to start without getting ridiculously bogged down and distracted away from actual music with troubleshooting, instead of just regularly bogged down and distracted by troubleshooting.  I am ready for a Pro-Tools set up now, if you know anyone selling a late model 'full blown' set-up, let me know.

We recorded and are editing the album at Closer Look in Cleveland.

Part of the ridiculously long time on this is that we go there every couple of weeks on average. So far we're getting awesome results.

If you've read this far I have to insist that you buy a CD. 

You can probably appreciate what's gone into it, and, yes, enjoy listening to it. 

What's more, I refuse to live on a diet of oatmeal and cheap merlot.  It all adds up.  Don't think your contribution won't make a difference.  How often do we ask anything of you?

I can still say the past several years have been good all in all. This is mostly due to my decisions, but also a handful of really good people. They pretty much know who they are.

A couple dozen have established a plaque in my personal hall of fame of cool people by handling things in a positive and respectable way.  They may or may not know who they are.

There are still a lot of people who I barely know, but have added something in some way. 

It seems the more friends acquaintances you make, the more the more really good people you find as friends you can keep.

Thanks to those who've been a big help in picking out and hooking up the right gear.

When it comes to buying affordable gear that performs well and holds up to a beating, it helps to have knowledgeable people on your side.

Maybe most of all, I owe thanks to the DiLauro Service Company customers that have kept my bills paid through ups and downs, and the guys and gals who have shown up and followed through with work.