I’ve neglected posting due to huge demands on my time by a 100 year old house formerly occupied by my parents that’s going on the market.  This coming week, I’ll be reporting from Uncle Charles’ studio on the album underway there.  I also said “yes” to help a fellow teacher record an audiobook.  Simple setup but LONG session there.  Hopefully, we’ll have that finished and off to market before school starts.  The new Richard Stoltzman chamber music cd has been released and those of you in Troy can pick up your copy at the university bookstore.  It features liner notes by Yours Truly.  If that’s not enough to make you like classical clarinet music, then catch the composer, Dr. Carl Vollrath, on one of his grocery walks and make him sign a copy;  I promise it will be worth more than you paid for it someday because he is the postmodern reincarnation of Chopin.  And he’s gonna live a whole lot longer than Chopin because his girlfriend doesn’t smoke cigars and dress in men’s clothing.

My sister-in-law and her son have moved in with us and life is good with 3 1/2 bathrooms.   With 3 women in the house now, you can never have too many bathrooms. 

Last Sunday at church, I finished the last hymn and the fireworks started.  At least, that’s what it sounded like.   It seems that the folks who spliced in some extra line outs in front of the two power amps in the digital organ didn’t realize that years of oxidation at the contact points would someday mean that Sunday services would be interrupted by the sounds of artillery fire.  The priest literally yelled “No guns in church!!” which managed to get a chuckled from the folks who weren’t already hunkered down behind a pew.  When I flipped the power switch, the explosions stopped and I led the rest of the music a cappella (a treat).  In hindsight, we should have just left it on and began an “Altar Call.”

Not many digital organ repairmen are left nowadays, and we were lucky to get one who came Tuesday from Birmingham (3 hours away) who discovered the problem immediately and also fixed the squeaky G pedal (Thanks, Jim).  The repairman used to run sound for Showco and was FOH man for Santana, among others.  He said his life as a roadie lasted 3 years until he burned out, but his memories are still priceless.  His helper was an organist from Montgomery who is an AGO member (American Guild of Organists).  If I had time, I would like to join that little fraternity!

I’m headed to Jacksonville, FL to visit an intern next week and hopefully, I’ll remember to take my camera and post some studio pics. 

The new Me First and the Gimmie-Gimmies cd is out;  –dang good driving music!  I’ll also take the new Victor Wooten and Joe Bonnamassa cds.  I also picked up a Los Lonely Boys cd, but that hasn’t made its way back into the player;  –I should probably give it another chance, too.

So that’s the news from the ”old gum” (my grandfather’s term for his home).  Keep your ears clean and turn that music down!

 

Peace,

J