outbirds; stars

A brief post before I go to bed – I’ll post about it for real later – but the Dick Tracy Must Die version of “Outbirds” is up on Bandcamp. You can steam it off the official band site or directly off Bandcamp. It’s the first track off Sketchy Characters (which was, as you’ll recall, a work-in-progress CD, and I kind of think of it as almost a live-recording disc now) to make it onto Dick Tracy, so compare and contrast if you want to see how my ideas of engineering have evolved since January.

Also, I’m not posting a link, but sometimes – and I’ve talked about this – you put something down in a recording at night, particularly late at night, and you think it’s pretty fuckin’ awesome, but then you listen to it the next day and you’re all disappointed and are wondering what you were thinking. The bassline I recorded for Stars last night is exactly the opposite of that. I can’t believe I performed this. I’m not this good on bass, but apparently, for a few minutes last night, I was. Don’t ask me to do it again, I don’t know how it happened.

More on that later. Go listen to Outbirds, new and old. Hear what I’ve learned. What do you think?

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil.

I don't know why more people don't do this

Installing those DIY gutter screens that Consumer Reports rated quite highly is really quite easy, once you get the hang of it, and it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. I recommend thin gloves so you don't get your hands scratched up by shingles. I've got the basement/garage level completely done, the ground level (only a tiny amount of gutter) done, and a good start on the main level (not as large as basement and garage). They look like this and so far the sections I had up already have worked beautifully through our recent rainstorms:

There's very little waste, as well. It's a nice system.

(Oh, yes, we have four levels of gutter, because we have four levels of house. The bottom level's floor is level with the ground in front - that's garage and basement - and in back, were it not for the retaining wall, only the top floor would be above ground. As it is, the top floor and half the main level are above ground, and the two levels below that are underground. The two gutter levels you can see in the photo are on the bottom two levels; the next up is the main level, then there's another above that. The house isn't nearly as so big as that'd make you think, it's just built into a crazy steep hill and includes its own massive retaining wall to make this work.)

And that's what I did on my day off!