I'm Still Here

Yes it's true. I have not vanished from the face of the planet (does the planet have a face?) and the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated (I'm just a little bit dead).

In all honesty, I have just been really busy: Miley gigs, recording sessions, bingo night at the Eagles' Club... You know how it is. And the sloppy, cyanide-filled icing on the cake is I recently acquired a cold. I realize that I got a bit of a reputation as Mr. Sick Face last year (while sloshing in the petrie dish we call a "tour bus"), but this year, I haven't gotten sick since the end of said tour in February. So let's look at it like "celebrating eight months sober...from viruses."

But I assure you, the tap has not dried up (okay that sounds a little gross segueing from virus talk). New blog entries coming your way shortly. Find something to hold on to. We'll pull through this together.

The Big Payoff

I have lots of great pics and videos of the Houston rodeo, which will be up on the blog next week.

This week, I'm at South By Southwest in Austin. After months of hard work, the Samantha Murphy Show (which I'm directing and co-hosting) is finally premiering! It features great singer/songwriters and bands, as well as interviews with heavy hitters in music and technology. A new show will be up every night at smtvmusic.com. You can see two episodes as of this writing, and the third will be up in the morning.

We are spending every second shooting, editing and uploading. We're tired, we're sore and we're sunburnt, but if you enjoy the show, it's all worth it.

Here's the trailer:

Pretending It's July

It's 2:15am. Other than lunch with my friend Jan, I've spent the entire day working. Yes, I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day this year by flat-out ignoring it.

I've finished upgrading my studio to be fully Mac, and now I'm learning Final Cut and Logic and the other eight or so programs in their respective suites. That's a lot of learning, which equates to a lot of hours staring at a screen.

My parents were sweet and dropped by with a salad, some fruit and a little heart full of chocolates. So I took a five minute break and ate. Treating myself.

But this is probably for the best. I have my custody mediation downtown tomorrow, with Nicole joining us on the phone. It's stressful, and depressing, and absolutely ironic in its scheduling.

So I'll just keep working and try not to think about that.

Octopi

Putting this show together is a bit like being an octupus. There are tons of different segments: interviews, live performances, host interludes, behind-the-scenes pieces -- and we're working on them all simultaneously. So we'll shoot a segment, and then edit one that we shot a week ago, and then put the finishing touches on another, and then capture footage for yet another.

I'm someone who thinks very linearly. I like to take a project from start to finish, and focus solely on that one project. So this drives me crazy. I have to constantly re-focus my energy on a new subject, and just when I'm "in the zone," it's time to move on to another segment. Unfortunately, this is the only way to ensure that we'll have everything finished by the time SXSW rolls around.

Today, I edited footage of the incredible Elvis Perkins, finished the Inara George piece, mixed theme music, and captured footage of our host segments.

Oh also, I got my chest xray. I should get my results tomorrow.

Re-assimilating

It's been really hard to settle back into a routine since I've been home. I was all excited to be in one place, waking up in the same bed, that I just sort of assumed I'd be able to get back on a schedule. But I've been working a lot, and not sleeping much.

I did feel a little better today, because Samantha forced me to drink a nasty warm maple syrup tea with lots of spicy cayenne pepper and lemon. Disgusting, but just as she said, it picked me right up and took away my congestion. Good thing, too, cause we had a lot to get done today.

We spent the day shooting some host segments for the TV show. We'll be going live with our very first episode at South By Southwest next month, so we've got a limited time to create and edit the pre-taped segments.

I have a nice yard in the back of my house that doubles as a park, an alley, a zen garden, an orchard and a patio. It will be heavily featured.

Tonight, I spent several hours editing interview footage we shot last August of Inara George (The Bird and the Bee) and Mike Andrews (Donnie Darko), at the Bessie Smith tribute. Good stuff, and you'll see it soon.

But right now, I'm exhausted. I need to rest up for my bright and early appointment with the doctor.

Bullet Holes In Bullet Points

Wow. It's been a couple days. I haven't been fulfilling my blogligation. Trying to get well. Failing. We're having a doctor come in today to examine the Cough That Never Dies.

So what have you missed? Let's see.

• Well, we headed to Indianapolis, Indiana and stayed at the Conrad. A man was brutally shot in the doorway of our hotel, and Kay Hanley was on the scene to investigate. The man lived. We played a show to celebrate.
• We headed to Columbus, Ohio and had a day off with little to do. Wrote a bunch of songs. We played a show to celebrate.
• We headed to Lexington, Kentucky. Wrote some more songs. Finally wrote a blog entry. I think we'll play a show to celebrate.
• Oh, and I saw this sad sight on the news:

Apparently My Sleep Number Is Zero

We had to say goodbye to the Royal Park Hotel in the snow, knowing full-well that our next hotel was a Radisson. Goodbye, my love.

Last night, at the Rochester show, I noticed that the stalls in the bathroom were made by:

Yes. It does say "Hiny Hiders."

While backstage, I had a terribly depressing phone conversation, and I really wasn't feeling very happy, with only three minutes to showtime. Jaco turned to me and said, "But now you get to go play in front of 15,000 people! So life is good."

And life was good again. It's hard to be too depressed when you have the best job in the world.

We all went out and played like little kids with a License to Rock. And so I experienced the healing power of Hannah Montana.

After driving about 120 miles in the snow, watching season one of Dexter all the way (Candice and I want to get the band into it, and it seems they're quite enjoying it), here we are at a semi-dumpy Radisson in Grand Rapids. Once again, as with the Radisson in Moline, my Sleep Number bed is broken. Do these things ever work?

And I realize I sound like a hotel snob, and I have become a hotel snob.

But would it really kill them to just get a nice TempurPedic? And leopard bathrobes? And marble sinks? I mean, come on.

The Littlest Rock

No offense, Arkansas, but your capital is mind-numbingly dull. Little Rock is a wasteland. And we had our day off here. Candice and I were going to take a cab to see a movie, but this town just sapped us of all our energy. So we took naps instead.

Most of us just stayed at the hotel the whole day, which fortunately has an adjoined Benihana's. So we had a lovely dinner, and then for me it was an evening of getting my work done in my hotel room. At least we had free internet.

Hopefully the crowd will be super-energetic for our matinee show today.

Last Day of Kenna/ First Day of Hannah

I got back from Orlando on Sunday. What a whirlwind trip. We were in Florida for just about 24 hours. I was playing keys for Kenna at the Hard Rock Hotel for the Pepsi Smash event. We opened for the All-American Rejects. Here's a pic of the stage (courtesy of Amberwithafro):


They filmed the concert, but I'm not sure where or when it's airing. Kenna dragged me into the interview afterwards. They asked him when the new record is coming out. He looked at me and said "tell 'em Mike."

And I was like, "umm, next week or so?" How would I know? I'm just a "for hire" for a one-off!

Kenna said "October 16th" (I think that's what it was), and then again said, "tell 'em Mike."

And I, embarrassed, repeated, "October 16th."

So if you happen to see the show on TV, you'll probably catch me all redfaced under bright light.

In other news, today was our first Hannah Montana rehearsal. There's a lot of music. She's basically opening for herself, playing a set as Miley Cyrus before coming out and doing a whole set of Hannah stuff. So I have to learn and program synth sounds for about 30 songs. That'll take some time. I've got 8 down so far.

From what I hear, almost the entire tour is sold out at this point. The show at the Staples Center here in LA sold out within 2 minutes. And we'll be playing to some seriously large (10,000+) crowds every night. Sounds like a blast!

The band is rehearsing in a big soundstage and the dancers are rehearsing across the hall. We won't be joined by Miley until Saturday. I think we can get the band solid by then. I've got to get programming now though!

Gigs! Gigs! Gigs!

The gig last night at Genghis was a total blast. I shared the stage with Andrea Stolpe and Samantha Murphy. It was a perfect combo of different songwriting styles and personalities. I hope I have the pleasure of sharing the stage with them again very soon.

I've decided to take the Hannah Montana tour. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication. They thought I had all my own gear. As a result of the MIDI project studio becoming so feasible, I sold all my synths a few years ago. Now I keep all my sounds in my computer and control them from a keyboard that has no sounds on it. This is a problem. I have to buy new synths for this tour. I still don't know if Disney is going to cover them, but it certainly won't be a dealbreaker. I'm heavily entrenched in Research Mode right now.

Next weekend, I'm playing a one-off gig with Kenna in Orlando. I love Kenna's music, so that should be a lot of fun. And they're running all their sounds out of Logic, so I don't even need to provide a keyboard for that. I'll just show up and play. My favorite. The lugging and setting up of gear is the main thing about live shows that I don't like. It's like moving, minus the U-Haul.

The World Goes Round

Despite the fact that this blog has been exclusively Bioshock posts as of late, there's been a lot going on. (I have managed to squeeze in some sweet Bioshock time though).

Samantha and I have been shooting crazy quantities of footage for the upcoming Samantha Murphy Show. I'm very excited about it. Sunday night we went to Inara George's annual tribute to benefit the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon. It featured Inara, Eleni Mandell, Mike Andrews (composer of Donnie Darko and Me And You And Everyone We Know (one of my favorite movies) Priscilla Ahn and Tom Brosseau. It was a lovely evening, and we got some great interviews.

Hopefully I'll have more announcements about the show soon. We're headed to San Francisco tomorrow morning to tape a backstage interview with Crowded House (psyched to meet Neil Finn and the guys!). While we're in town, we're also slated to each play sets at Apple world headquarters. Very exciting.

I've been working on a brand new VH1 show called "With A Bullet." It's a hilarious mockumentary show about a has-been singer who makes a comeback. I wrote the song that the show centers around, "My Retarded Heart" (their title, not mine). Samantha sang it. This morning, we visited the set. We just missed Alanis Morrissette, who apparently loved the song. We watched a bit of the shoot it and was a blast. Everybody had the song stuck in their head. I felt like I should apologize. I have to say though, my favorite moment was when we met Jane Lynch (I'm a big fan) and she couldn't stop singing it. Hopefully the pilot will get picked up. More news soon.

An offer just came in for me to backup Hannah Montana on her upcoming tour. I'm not really familiar with her music, but I know she's Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter, a huge Disney star (the tour is stadiums only), and mostly aimed at teens. It's not my demographic, but it sounds like a fun gig. The tour runs through January. I'm still deciding.

Also, my new album is almost done and will be released this fall.

So whew! Lots going on.

Today's The Day

Bioshock Day. Finally.

Or rather it was supposed to be. I ran out to the store first thing and grabbed my reserved copy.

I thought I would continue capturing footage for The Samantha Murphy Show while I played me some sweet sweet Bioshocking goodness.

Unfortunately, today was the day capturing died. My computer wouldn't recognize the camera anymore. No sweat. I tried five different cameras. None of them were recognized. No sweat. I tried a different firewire cable. Nope. I thought, "maybe it's my video capture card." So I even tried all five cameras and two cables on a different computer (the Mac). That didn't work either! SWEAT! I spent literally all day trying to get footage to capture like it was last night and no dice.

I did spend about 45 minutes playing Bioshock though. And it is definitely amazing. The city of Rapture is an amazing place. Teeming with detail. It's all so beautiful. The game is full of ideas about Objectivism and human frailty. It's a gorgeous work of art and I can't wait to return. But not until I can get this footage going.

I'm also working on some music for a VH1 pilot, and yesterday they contacted me and said they need the song by Tuesday. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but as I have to have the SM show done by the weekend, that will be very tight. I was going to try and have my album done this week, but that will have to happen later.

Rapture. One day I will visit you.

The Samantha Murphy Show Is Coming Together

I'm honored that Samantha has chosen me to direct her upcoming internet show, and we've been having lots of fun filming segments for awhile now. Yesterday, we taped a music video-type-dealio with Cataldo (Eric Anderson and crew) a fantastic band out of Olympia, WA. It was a blast, and for some unknown reason, there was much half-nude cavorting (don't ask, I don't know -- but you'll see it in the video!). It's hilarious, and we're still laughing even after seeing it all night.

We started filming around noon, and by 3am the whole thing was shot, edited, color-corrected and rendered. Yup, we're on the fast track around here!

And tonight, we filmed a live performance and interview with the incredible Rob Giles, who sang and played beautifully and ripped my heart to pieces (and that's a good thing)! I'm excited for you all to see these shows. More details soon on when that might be.

Much editing to be done this week, but it's all been lots of fun, and everybody's been so easy to work with. That makes it all easier.

Coming up on Thursday we're shooting one of my new favorite musicians, Buddy. I've been listening to his album, "Alterations and Repairs," almost nonstop for the last week. Whatever you're doing right now, drop it and go listen now now now now! I promise you won't be disappointed. It's a perfect album, and that doesn't happen often.

Don't Do It, It's Bad!

Trust me. Of all people, this hurts me the most. I've been reading pretty much everywhere that multitasking doesn't help, and actually hurts productivity. The general consensus is that, in switching from say, your email to a paper you're working on, your brain has to make a transition every time. And even if this transition only takes 10 seconds, it all adds up over days. And also, in this mode, you're sort of thinking about all the things you're working on, all the time. This graph from Creating Passionate Users illuminates things:
I'm a compulsive multitasker, but I found this article about being mindful, helpful. I'm working on it...but like any personal transition, it will take time.