Well, dear readers, I must once again write these here notes in a hurry because I must leave bright and early and also early and bright to attend our first music rehearsal, at the odd hour of nine o’clock in the morning. Of course nine o’clock in the morning will really be eight o’clock in the morning because we have Sprung Ahead during the night. Yes, damn their eyes, it’s already daylight savings time and even though I have a nine o’clock rehearsal it will really be an eight o’clock rehearsal and that’s just too damn early, damn their eyes. Speaking of their eyes, yesterday was an uneventful day filled with events. Funny that. I got up early, went down to The Grove, took some photographs, drove about in my motor car, had a couple of poached eggs at a local coffee shop called Twain’s, then came home. One of the things I did whilst at The Grove was go into the Apple Store, where I queried a salesperson about Garage Band, and he finally unlocked the secrets of recording piano/vocals live – once I got the hang of what he was doing, I picked it up easily. So, once home, I did some test recordings, first singing and playing at the same time, but the vocal wasn’t quite loud enough. So, then I tried playing first, then doing the vocal as a second track and that worked like a breeze. That’s a very big deal to me, as I can now record the score to the musical I’m mentoring and get it to the fellow who’s preparing the lead sheets for the songs. I can also record the new Nudie Musical songs. If there are multiple vocal lines to record, I can do all that as separate tracks and it comes out great. I’ll be doing all this recording starting later today. I then watched a little bit of the two awful Ray Dennis Steckler movies I TIVOd – The Incredibly Strange Creatures… (a very long title I can’t remember), and Rat Phink A Boo Boo. The later has some pretty great mid-60s LA shots, so I’ll be keeping that one. And then it was time to head over to the Hills of Woodland to sup with Miss Cindy Williams and Mr. Mark Rothman, aka The Brain. We met at Todai, the all-you-can-eat-for-one-not-so-cheap-price place. It was a really fun meal, and since Mr. Rothman co-created Laverne and Shirley, and since Miss Williams was Shirley, and since I’d even appeared in three episodes of the show, we had lots of fun chatter about all of that. It was, in fact, a rather fun-filled evening and I hope we do it more often. I then came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched one of those ABC Stage 67 shows – you may remember, that that adventuresome series did a whole slew of original musicals for television, including shows by Sondheim and James Goldman, Jule Styne and Comden and Green, Bock and Harnick, Richard Adler, and Bacharach and David. I watched the show by the latter team, On The Flip Side, a very rare show that very few have seen. It stars Mr. Rick Nelson and Miss Joanie Sommers, along with performances by Donna Jean Young, Will Mackenzie, James Coco, and Anthony Holland. It’s a pretty bad script, but as most of you know, I adore the songs, two of which my close personal friend, Mr. Guy Haines, has recorded. Mr. Nelson sings wonderfully, and Miss Sommers is a complete delight. In fact, this DVD I have is made directly from her one-off three-quarter inch video tape, which itself was made from a kinescope of the show. It’s black-and-white (the show was in color – I saw it when it originally aired) and the quality is okay, but it’s always fun to watch it. It was directed and choreographed by Joe Layton, and one of the dancers is my close personal friend, Mr. Gene Castle (they even call him Gene in the show). I recorded several songs from these Stage 67 musicals, and if you don’t have my Prime Time Musicals CD, I recommend it highly.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get as much sleep as I can whilst our clocks magically Spring Forward. Damn their eyes.
Today, as noted, I have an earlier than early music rehearsal which will last for three hours. During that time, I’ll also be auditioning someone for the role of General Mills, and last night Cindy gave me two other names to call, both good suggestions.
After the rehearsal, I shall come home and record more songs into Garage Band. From there, it’s ever so easy to export them to iTunes and send mp3s to the guy who’s doing the charts.
Tomorrow, I will have a lot to attend to, and I’m hoping that your excellent vibes and xylophones will result in some sort of good news this week. And you will be the first to know about it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, attend an earlier than early music rehearsal, I must do an errand or two, I must record songs into Garage Band, and I must get used to Daylight Savings Time, damn their eyes. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we? And don’t forget to check all your clocks and spring them forward.