Well, dear readers, sometimes little delays end up being for a reason and because we had one for the Sandy Bainum album we’re about to record, we’ll now be doing the band sessions at the legendary Capitol Records. I am beyond excited to finally make a recording where a fellow named Sinatra recorded, along with other fellas like Dean Martin and Nelson Riddle and Billy May and Stan Kenton – only some of the greatest-sounding recordings ever made. And to think we’re doing an album of my songs, with Lanny Meyers’ charts and Sandy’s wonderful vocals, well, I think it’s just going to be a little bit of heaven. We’ll be recording the last weekend of August, and the following week we’ll be having our fourth anniversary show for Kritzerland at Sterling’s.
Other than that wonderful news, yesterday was kind of a day. I was up by nine but stayed in bed till ten, having a nice telephonic conversation with the aforementioned Lanny Meyers. I got up and spent a humungous amount of time organizing the list for the Richard Sherman show. I got it all in alphabetical order. I then was able to confirm about twenty people from the waiting list and unless anyone cancels, we’re now full up. I’m keeping about eight seats empty for emergencies, and I just know there will be a few no-shows who aren’t courteous enough to let us know in advance.
After that, I went and had a cup of chicken corn chowder and a ham and Swiss on rye as my meal o’ the day. Then I picked up a couple of packages, after which I came home. I wrote a little bit more on the set of liner notes, answered a ton of e-mails, got the news that LACC will hold the Abner set for a few weeks while I try to find some place to move us, had a nice telephonic conversation with Crista Moore, hired a piano tuner for Friday, and, most importantly, wrote two more pages of questions. I know have four complete pages, which is probably enough, but I may add three or four more questions if they should come to me. I’ve pretty much covered the entire career of Richard and his brother. I’ve placed the live songs we’re doing at strategic points during the evening. And I’m sure as we chat things will branch off into other things as they so often do. After all that, I made some popcorn and finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a deliriously wacky motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Thunderbirds Are Go. I wasn’t a regular watcher of the TV series when it aired, although I had seen a couple of episodes and I found the show entirely peculiar. The first movie made from the series was in Techniscope and color and if you just give in to it, it’s extremely entertaining in its own outré way, with great bombastic music by Barry Gray. The puppets are fun, the miniature sets are grand and I do love that every time they cut from the puppet to an insert of what should be the puppet’s hands, they’re real hands. The transfer is very nice and looks really good, especially given the number of opticals the film has. Grand fun, and I’ll watch Thunderbirds 6 soon.
I then watched another really wacky 1950s Universal film on a disc from Germany entitled The Monolith Monsters. It’s one of those wonderful seventy-nine minute programmers that feels longer than Ben-Hur. The titular monoliths are not very menacing or compelling and people just look at them as if they were horrifying, while they repeatedly tumble over and crash to the ground. The star (besides the monoliths) is Grant Williams, fresh from The Incredible Shrinking Man, along with Lola Albright and the ubiquitous Les Tremayne and the even more ubiquitous William Schallert. It was fun in a bad sort of way. The transfer is presented in a 2:1 ratio which looks just right for it. Some “experts” on the Internet boards are saying it would look better at 1:85, but it’s really perfectly framed at 2:1 so I don’t believe they are correct. It was probably shown in both ratios though.
That was it for my viewing, and I then went back and did some work on the computer, saw the cover and inlay card design for our next title, and that was that.
Today, I have some errands and whatnot to do, hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, and then we have our second Kritzerland rehearsal, beginning at three. We finish by six at the latest and I’m sure some of us will go have a meal, so I shan’t eat before then. I’m really trying to drop ten pounds a fast as I can.
Tomorrow I’ll relax until about three, at which point I’ll head over to LACC to be there for the piano tuner and for the set-up of the stage, sound and lighting. Richard and our singers and our pianist, Tom Griep, all arrive at six, and we’ll do a sound check and we’ll all run our numbers – there are five in total. Then the evening begins at seven-thirty and should last until nine. At one point I was thinking about opening it up for audience questions, but that just gets to unwieldy, I think – if we’ve moved along quicker than I thought, then I have that option. We’re talking about going out for a meal afterwards – if it’s a group of six or more, then I’m sure it will be Genghis Cohen. If it’s less, then maybe Ruth’s Chris, depending on how fast we can get out of the theater. We shall see.
Saturday is our stumble-through and then I’m sure a few of us will sup, and Sunday is our sound check and show. We have a pretty full crowd coming, but still about twenty seats left to fill, which we hopefully will.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up packages, have a rehearsal, write liner notes, and eat. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your favorite kid programs like Thunderbirds when you were growing up? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, thrilled we’ll be recording at Capitol.