2 months in photos
It’s been a busy couple of months! Some highlights in reverse order:
Composed a solo violin piece for an upcoming film by Jeff Lamb. Here is the excellent violinist Barry Socher after our recording session.
Finally met VFX Wizard Mike Ritchie of Gloo Studios after five years of working together. One of the nicest guys in the biz.
Found a new use for the first tie I ever owned: foley for an animation by Ahmad Al-Awadi celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid.
Rented some fancy API pre-amps…
and used them to record 7 songs in a single evening (!) with Brandon Dickert, a drummer of the highest caliber.
Recorded bass with Griffin Rodriguez - an inspiring engineer/producer/mixer (Icy Demons, Beirut, ..) and person. He actually suffered traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident not 2 weeks later. As I’ve been mentioning on facebook, you can help support him here. Get well soon, Griffin!
Drove into the mountains on my birthday and bought a chromaharp from a nice banjo player named Dave.
Joined the cult of cast iron.
Recorded a song for The Pact II with Pat Horvath and Dallas Hallam (more on that in a future post!)
Found out I am KILLING IT in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Back in July I visited Chicago, caught up with a lot of old friends and did a bunch of recording (thanks to engineers Dan Smart and Max Crowe). I am humbled to have some truly world-class musicians involved…
Nicolae Feraru, a Romanian cimbalom player I’ve been a fan of for years. This year he won a National Endowment for the Arts Lifetime Honor National Heritage Fellowship, our nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Though I am exhausted in this picture, I was extremely excited to collaborate with him.
Blagoj Lamnjov, a virtuoso clarinetist from Macedonia.
Long-time collaborator Max Crowe on guitars & bass. (photo: Mikel Pickett)
I also recorded more vocals with my favorite soul singer on the planet, Hawk Colman, but we forgot to take a picture! I can’t wait to write & share more about the project all this recording was for :)
Before the recording kicked off, I also…
Did live sound at the Museum of Science and Industry for my friends Eric McCoy & Justus Meyer as they interviewed neuroscientist David Freedman about his work with “categorization”. I had a fun chat with David about James Brown, and enjoyed working with our cinematography/lighting team Mike and Leland.
Saw David’s band FuzZz (which consisted of him on guitar, another neuroscientist on keyboards, and KILLER rhythm & horn sections) with my friend and colleague Paul Lazarre. Paul is an entrepreneur and science enthusiast, and conceived of the interview video in the first place.
Before Chicago, my buddy Rebecca Berdel and I saw Jordan Vogt-Roberts film “Kings of Summer” - a great indie film worthy of your support.
I also saw some truly inspiring concerts..
The otherwordly Harry Partch Ensemble (featuring the talented Alex Wand).
My friend Gina and I saw Björk! One of my creative heroes… an Artist with a capital “A”. I feel bad haven taken a photo after she asked the audience not to, but I promise my flash was off as to not distract anyone from the fireballs!
How’s that for a blog post? 'til next time…