6/17/06 - 1:08 AM - We're having our after-show wind down now with friends and family and reflecting on tonight's debut performance. Steve says, "One down, one to go."

My Taylor guitar, an instrument I enjoy very much otherwise, seems to have ED (Electronic Dysfunction), or performance anxiety at gigs. Seems like every other gig, I have issues with the pickups. But when I troubleshoot them before or after a gig, they are fine. This time, they worked fine for the first act, but the second act they were completely off (or so it seemed - see addendum below). Luckily I was able to use my vocal microphone for both my voice and the guitar and the second act didn't have much to do with the Taylor.

We'll see how things go tomorrow night. A jack replacement may be in order. Aside from that, and a couple lyric flubs, I was fairly pleased with my performance. We had some last minute changes just prior to the show during warm ups, and pulled some things together to the point where the show seemed to go quciker than expected. I suppose I'll have some more comments later. We taped the performance from two angles, so I expect we'll have some web video sometime later this summer.

Addendum: The guitar problem didn't occur the second night of the show. After further troubleshooting, I think it was a matter of perception. The monitors Friday night were not turned on, so it was hard to hear anything, but sound appeared to come through the mains. Saturday night, the monitors were up, and it was much easier to hear from the stage. I'm still keeping close tabs on the Taylor's output jack though. Might need a replacement.

6/16/06 - Well, opening night is upon us. CD pressing continued right up until Wednesday afternoon when we left for Greensburg. Our 4-hour ride out here was uneventful, with the exception of one cool van that we saw. I took a picture, but will have to wait until I get back to post it because I forgot my USB transfer cable.

Yesterday's rehearsals went well. Our first cue to cue showed that I had to do some serious restructuring of my notes to make sure I stayed with Steve. He made lots of last minute changes and cuts, and percussion is playing larger role than before. Another runthrough, and then a final rehearsal with tech brought us to about 8:00 on Thursday and at that point we felt like we did about as much as we could do.

We're trying to bring the show closer to 90 minutes, since it was running a bit long. We're adding an intermission just to be on the safe side. We'll probably do some cue to cue reviews tonight, but won't be doing any more full-blown rehearsal in favor of keeping things fresh for tonight.

For those of you in the Bloomsburg area who can't make it out to the show, the CD will be available shortly via the web, and we're going to see about bringing the show to the area possibly next year.

6/11/06 - CD Tracking Weekend - So far so good. I was blessed with awesome weather, which is a bummer because I am not out in it, but it means that I have not had to use the air conditioner and have had a reasonable temperature all weekend. Two or three songs left to record from the ground up and a few other touchups, but otherwise done with tracking. Should finish that tonight. Tomorrow is mastering/sequencing the tracks and (hopefully) starting to burn disks. Audra's sister Molly is visiting, so maybe we'll set up an assembly line. So Tuesday will be final packaging and packing for the trip.

6/4/06 - It's been another productive weekend of writing and recording, some of it beyond what is needed for Steve's play. This week will be dedicated to the final versions for the CD, printing labels and rehearsing my parts for the stage. Steve and I had a brief call today to go over last-minute changes, and it looks like there wont be many.