IN THE STUDIO CLICK HERE FOR STUDIO PICS 04/22/03 THE LAIR (DeKalb)- It has been a while. Several other projects lately have kept me in The Lair but away from the log. Releases lately have been sparse with the exception of the Gag Reflex's The War Song. We do have some major stuff coming down the pike. Firstly CBR's newest artist, Bobby Lord has produced his first solo outing. He produced the currently unnamed track at Studio C recently and has approached CBR for an online release. Keep your eyes open. I have also done a lot of digitizing of old, old, OLD stuff for the sake of the archives. Tracks from old comedy groups and so forth have been liberated from a low-bias cassette grave. No special mixing has been done for the most part. The DEEP VAULT project is simply dumping these tracks in the harddrive. A few tracks like The Stone from 1994 have been remixed from a 4-Track source. Be on the lookout, however, for more tracks from Gag Reflex as we will be preparing the REFLEXOLOGY "best of" album. Catch you later, -e 07/09/02 THE LAIR (DeKalb)- Well, we've completed the move. The studio is not in exact working order yet, but it's getting there. Studio A is now divided into two sections: The Lair and The Family Room. The Lair is the main control room for all recording and acts as head office for BWM. Adjacent to The Lair is The Family Room which ...is in fact our family room. However this is the space where much will be recorded. Live drums, keyboards and our new violin. We'll talk more soon, -e 06/10/02 STUDIO A (Aurora)- Lots of digital archiving going on. Don't know yet how much of this will appear online, but dammit they're archived. In preparation for the move I have reorganized the hundreds of master tapes in my possession. From Barry Newton Masters to Jack basement tapes to early recordings of comedy sketches from 14 years ago. Tons of stuff. I have remastered and remixed several Barry tracks including the classic Don't Forget Glue and the never before released Ichmod (A-Flat). I also found a couple of JACK tracks I wanted to save; My America and Sushi Baby (Blue Note Version). Recently unearthed was the long forgotten Barry Newton session tape that included The Game Show and This Is My House. After searching for ages for this last tape from the STATE OF ENTROPY sessions, I finally got a chance to listen to the lost tracks. These songs happily could have remained lost. But for the sake of completion and archiving, they are back. I also digitized all 34 sounds currently recorded for the future Totally Useless Sound Effects album from Gag Reflex. These tracks were all recorded on MiniDisc so the transfer was good. However. The tracks were recorded in our old Southview studio which was equipt with a noisy air conditioner. Thusly I fed all 34 tracks through the Goldwave noise reducer and took out the hum. BRILLIANT!!! Recorded 2 new sounds. Getting ready for the move... -e 05/28/02 STUDIO A (Aurora)- The main project going on in the studio at the moment is writing and recording demos of new Smokey Bidet songs. We are preparing for the big move in a little over a month. Millie and I will be relocating about 20 miles west to Dekalb and will be taking Studio A with us. The new studio will have much more room, including enough space for the drum kit, finally. Steve will be retreiving the Gag script archive prior to the move so nothing gets lost. I'm sure I will be sending news and new pictues over the coming months. Be well, -e 04/8/02 STUDIO A (Aurora)- As the spring Gag Reflex tour begins to wind down, I have launched a huge task. Apart from archiving vast numbers of mp3's from the last two years and clearing some hard-drive space, I have started to remix Gag sketches for future album releases. I have gone back to the original MiniDisc masters and started over. All of these were recorded and mixed for the radio show. They were then compressed into mp3s which reduced the quality. Our next album will be a studio album made up of sketches and songs, so in order to keep the quality high, they need to be remixed. This will be long process but I don't forsee another release until at least 2003. Three tracks have been completed and stored in WAV format (which means they will have to be archived for later use. The three tracks are Der Luger, Gold Water and For Richard, For Porno. Gold Water was recorded last year and never used in the series. We will keep you abreast of how the next album is progressing as time goes by. - e 01/13/02 STUDIO A (Aurora)- Happy New Year! The studio is again, thanks to Millie, organized and ready for another year. Like a good little producer I have leapt headlong into the Crapping Badger Archives and started remastering old tidbits. First off are two old tracks Got A New Job (an improvised jam between me and Dan from 94), The Sound Effects Song (Another drunken E and D ad-lib from 97), our sweet cover of Possession by Elvis Costello from 95 and Don't Let The Night Get You. This piece was written by me, Dan and Mike V. during the 1994 JACK drummer debacle. The track is simply a writing demo and it peaks out and we stop and chat during it. It however is the only copy of the song in existence. Not long after I took over the drums and the number vanished. The other, more ambitious project is the re-edit and remaster of Barry Newton's 25 minute score of Love Overboard. This was to be a short one act musical about the Titanic. All the music was recorded and the lyrics were all written but the 2 never met. My old comedy group, Howard, did rehearse some of it a few times. Again, I don't know how much of this will be released online, keep your eyes peeled though. Later - E 12/7/01 STUDIO A (Aurora)- The year is drawing to a close as we all know. Reading back over the notes since Feb, what a ride it's been. This year we tripled the Crapping Badger output from last year, created artist-specific mp3 pages, created and used the mobile studio and much more. My only regret is that the radio station fell slightly to the way side this year. There are going to be some big changes to the station coming in the new year. The Viagra Monologues is done and will be going in for duplication this week. The CD will be available at the NYE show. I am currently working on InterGAGtive - the Gag Reflex Electronic Presskit. This should be ready soon. I am currently frustrated because both Soundclick and Live365 are down. I am hoping Soundclick comes back correct since we have a half dozen Artist mp3 pages up there. I have created a new Gag Reflex page at IUMA.com. I will let you know when that is up. Everything else is Christmas. - e 11/14/01 STUDIO A (Aurora)- We are in the home stretch toward the new Gag CD THE VIAGRA MONOLOGUES. 45 minutes are complete and we have about 20 to go. Recently completed are Rhetorical Q & A, Full Service, Creative Descriptions, Interspecies Lust Rodeo, Greco Roamin'. We also recorded the live show at The House on 11/9 and I have been digitizing that and releasing tracks online. Very little editing has been done to those tracks. Those were recorded directly from The House's soundboard into the MiniDisc. They sound great. That's all for now. Still trying to decide if we are going to fire up the mobile and record the coming New Year's Eve show. 9/17/01 STUDIO A (Aurora) - After a week of watching the non-stop coverage of the horror on the East Coast, Neid and I decided to go into the studio and record something goofy just to feel better. We became goofing around with Acid Music and the keyboard and recorded a few bits that we were calling "Husking For Chort" (which of course means nothing). 4 hours later we emerged with our track "Ghosts Of Manhattan". It was our way of working through the anger and frustration we were feeling. The preliminary music was worked on in Acid Music. We recorded the melody line directly onto the MiniDisk to the tempo provided by the rhythm loop we'd selected in Acid. We then transfered that into digital wav format and edited that into a Acid useable loop. (Please understand that I am unable to do playback and record at the same time on the current system.) Working around that we textured on other loops. We recorded Dan's vocals, processed them through Acid and began editing in DD-Clip. My vocals were less processed but to give it more resonance, I double tracked the voice off setting the second track by a hair. The song is now a featured song on Soundclick and we are waiting for its approval at mp3.com. 8/27/01 STUDIO A (Aurora) - A brief rundown of what's been going on. Since returning from Montreal I have remastered and posted a half dozen tracks. ANY PAGE is a Barry Newton track recorded during the sessions for State Of Entropy. I digitized and equalized the two track cassette master. I then fed the track through ACID three times. I created 3 versions of the track: Echo, half -second delay and distortion. I then layed the 3 over each other and did some cutting. So far this is my favorite BNP remaster. Also remastered THE MONKEY & THE MALLET, EMBALMING LADYand PLAN 9 . All three were fairly straight forward. Remember that the philosophy in Studio A is "echo means pro". THE CLOSING SEQUENCE is another JACK basement track that Dan and I discovered quite by mistake. On occasion I'll just put my hand into the archives and pull out a tape. This is exactly what happened. This version was faster and more dead on than the original jam version on a previous recording. I also pulled out an old track for Schwartzcaster called DIFFERENT SHAPE OF ANGEL.. This was a two track master recorded in early 96. The song is much older. In the remaster I used the same bouncing wah effect that I used on MERIDIAN. The track already had plenty of echo, when I recorded it live I was singing through a DOD delay pedal. A few vocal flubs were removed by editing another section of the song into its place. The third verse (same as the first) was dropped completely as was some pointless noodling. The song now clocks in at just under 3 minutes. Yesterday I hooked the keyboard up and began working on ACID+ live playing. The rythmn tracks for an old song called FUMBLE WITH THIS LOVE THING have been put down. (This will be a track on BOY) -E 7/31/2001 Studio A- (Aurora) 2 new remastered Barry Newton songs, The Sale and Meridian both recorded in the summer of 1990 during sessions that eventually turned out State Of Entropy. I took both songs from the 2 track masters, on Normal Bias, D'oh! GoldWav is still my best friend for cleaning up and cutting hiss and pops, boosting bass/trebel etc. BUT I used ACID music to add effects this time. Great effects! I added some tasty echo to The Sale and did some fun stuff with Meridia. To that I put the entire song through a bouncing Wah effect. It's hardly noticable on the vocals but it adds a nice subtle texture. For the bridge I Drove the song through some whacked out chorus and put that behind the main track and freaked out with the stereo panning. It's not over powering, it's just a little freaky. It's nice to be able to go back and do stuff with old tracks that you wished you could do back then. These should be released online by the end of the month. Off to Montreal.- e 7/2/2001 Studio A- (Aurora) A prototype of The Viagra Monologues has been worked up. Only the inside of the cover has yet to be designed. There is not a track list but currently there is roughly 40 minutes finished. Most recent mixed track is "Girl Talk". Soft Porn is the first track that will not make the album. It will be available for free download but the low vocals make it not so great for CD release. Sorry all you SP fans out there. Some day there will be an official "canon" version. Of the 3 we have now, the acoustic demo, the 1997 live version on Scraps and the recent Viag version, the best is still the 97. Finally got Driving To Andromeda and another Marmot track called The First Moments Of Eden uploaded to Soundclick. - e 6/19/2001 Studio A- (Aurora) Production on GRCTOTA has ground to a near halt. While we do have several bits to go into a new episode, it's not enough to take up the whole half hour. Most of this is due to the fairly vigorous rehearsal/performance schedule that Gag has been under. (True it's no where near as vigorous as bands who play out every night but it's plenty for a group of 8 people with day jobs and most with families.) Studio A is also in shambles. Studio A as is actually the "nerve center" of the entire Boundary Waters-Crapping Badger- Gag Reflex Empire. The room is currently littered with props and costumes for THE VIAGRA MONOLOGUES, boxes of cassettes that need to be scoured for fun, usable tracks for CBR backlog mp3 releases , piles upon piles of CD's that have been plundered for Boundary Waters Radio, stacks of scripts that have been pulled for the radio show, mini-discs, cigarette butts, empty pop cans, and fast food wrappers. Sigh. I need to straighten up before I can squeeze the group in to record anymore. 2 new episodes of Steve Lord's Mid-Life Crisis have been sent down from Studio C for digitization and upload. Someday maybe we could get Studio C to make a couple of these little notes...huh? I still have not managed to get Driving To Andromeda uploaded. I have tried multiple times and each time something goes wrong. Catch ya on the flip side. - e 06/12/01 Studio A - (Aurora) The mixing and editing of live tracks from Viagra is going well. Armed with both nights of performance and the dress rehearsal I've managed to save some bits that I thought were lost. There are still a few Peak Pops but I've diminished them a lot. So far I have Apollo 69, Gutthumping, Chow Mean, Worriers Anonymous, Knight School, Stereotypes and Who The Hell Are You in CD state. This may not be the best quality live album ever, but it will stand as a nice momento for us and fans. Incidentally I had to bolster up the back tracks on Gut and Apollo. The speakers were too far from the microphone so I loaded in the tracks directly into the mix and they came out sounding great. 6/8/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- Last weekend the mobile studio worked out great. The studio which (thanks to Steve's father) consisted of a pro Shure omni directional mic going into a 4 channel mixer directly onto mini-disc. We hung the mic from the ceiling aimed at the stage and it got great audience reaction as well. We didn't have anybody to engineer on site so a lot of the "Screaming" scenes may be a dead loss. I did mix down Knight School. I fed the peaked out popping sections through Goldwave and it did a pretty good job of getting the pops out. Luckily the worst of it is during huge group chaos so you can't really tell it's been filtered, maybe if you listen real close with head phones you'll be able to pick it up. I also cut the 2 nights together because the beginning was way better on Friday and the end was better on Saturday. I also had to work a new end because the sketch goes straight into Guthumping and there is no "capper applause" so I had to drop in applause at the end. I also put some ACID music original transition music in to mask the copyrighted music that we used live. It sounds good. I ran the transitional music through the ACID music fx processor to sound as if it's coming from speakers elswhere in the room. Mostly I'm glad I could salvage the sketch. It's always an audience favorite. 5/30/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- Most of the studio time has been taken up in preparation of the Gag Show on the 1st and 2nd. There is, however, a new Marmot song that was completed over the weekend. Driving To Andromeda is now the title track of the eventual Marmot album and will be the next Crapping Badger mp3 single. It will be released on Marmot's mp3 page at Soundclick.com. The mobile studio will be getting a shakedown at the Gag Show as we will be recording both performances for a possible live album and webcast. I'll let you know how it goes. 5/11/2001 Studio A - (Aurora) -Fired up the board and the MiniDisc and laid down some tracks for the next Gag episode lastnight. Recorded 2 new ones that Steve wrote straight for the show, "A Movie Trailer" (which is a generic title that doesn't give away the joke) and "The father of Invention". We also recorded "Two Eras Of Phil", "Conference Of The Pests" and "Catalog Girl". This isn't near enough for an episode so there will be another session Monday. After everybody left I finished editing Episode 3. It looked like I was going to run short so I dropped "Father Of Invention" . As it turns out I wound up running a little over. Oh well. By the time I was done transferring the ep into 2 15min halves, it was little after 1. I digitized half of Steve's new episode. I will finish the 2nd half and get it uploaded to the station before Sunday's airing. 5/10/2001 Studio A - (Aurora) Currently racing to finish editing Gag Ep 3(2c) this particular episode has been very edit heavy. "Phone Mail" especially. I'm not terribly happy with the phone effect. It was also a pain because the sketch was recorded at 2 separate times with Steve recording his lines alone and the rest of the cast reading them alone. I don't know what possessed me to do that. I comes off okay by again the phone "effect" leaves something to be desired. Got 16 To Mid "Square Root Of Nicholas" digitized and edited, had to cut out almost 25 minutes to get it down to half an hour. Sigh. Still have to digitze Steve's new ep. Luckily there's no editing required there. 4/30/2001 Studio D Roehenge Studios, Austin, TX ‹ Work has begun anew on "Flash No. 1," the slowed-down, doo-woppy version of Flash, for possible inclusion on the next Gag Studio CD. I've edited the best parts of the vocals sent from Studio A on MiniDisk and dumped them into the PowerMac of the Gods using Bias' PEAK software. Next will be normalizing all of the pieces to the same volume and probably tweaking the EQ before layering them onto the backing tracks in Bias Deck II. Even then, the piece will be a ways from finished, needing other miscellaneous background vocals and more sporadic acoustic and fuzzy electric guitar sounds here and there. Stand by. Studio A Aurora - New Marmot song Gently Rip You Apart is awaiting vocals. Spent most of last week finishing up Gag episode 2 and editing 16 To Midnight "Food For Mingus" down to 33 minutes. 4/18/2001 Studio A (Aurora) - Completely reworked Until I'm Holy using ACID. Incorporating Dan's vocals from Zipper Food added a nice creepy quality. The song is posted up at Marmot's Sounclick page. Digitized Sushi Baby, Mexican Girls and Korsakov for posting. Did a little work on Sushi to shorten it a bit. 4/11/2001 Studio A (Aurora) - Finished the first episode of the new Gag season. Do you know how hard it is trying to find good 18 Wheeler sounds on the web?! But I did it. They aren't great but...eh... The second episode was actually started last year. The first 5 minutes were actually intended to be episode 10 of the last Season but didn't get completed because of time constraints and the baby. I would imagine that ep2 will be done this time next week. My hope is to have production complete on 3 episodes before the season starts on April 29th. Last year got out of hand with us finishing recording an episode on Thursday , editing on Friday and Saturday and spending all Sunday afternoon uploading it. I want to give myself a little leeway this year. 4/4/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- I am now almost halfway through the editing of the first Gag episode of the new season. HAd to go online and find a few sound effects, which if you've ever tried to find the sound of an EKG online is next to impossible. I had to wade through dozens of sites with WACKY WAVS from Seinfeld and The Simpsons and DISNEY! I did find some stellar soundfile sites that are for people doing what I'm doing. Send me an e-mail if you want those addresses. 4/1/01 Studio A (Aurora)- Remastered "Until I'm Holy". This track will not be included on SCHWARTZ OF IT. It will probably become one of Marmot's ambient tracks. Remixed it with some sound effects and a newly programmed dance version to double the length of the song. Not really sure if they jel as 1 piece, may just do them as original and techno remix. Also worked on ACID to create original segue music for the new season of GAG. 3/25/01 Studio A (Aurora)- Working on Acid drum tracks for new Gag song Do The Pink Slip. 03/21/01 Studio A (Aurora) - remastered the 16 To Midnight track Michael Healthcott. The 30 sec or so track has been uploaded to mp3.com. It should be available for download within the next 50 years. After the remix/remaster was done Marmot took the helm and put together a sweet techno version that has also been uploaded along with the music for Zone Jumper. - E 03/21/2001 Studio A(Aurora) - Just outifitted the studio with Acid Music 2.0. The first complete project is the Zone Jumper theme for the upcoming Boundary Waters radio series. The previous intended theme that was programmed with Acid at Silver Key Studios actually became the Boundary Waters Radio Theme that plays at the top of every rotation. Now that the program is installed I hope to use it to spruce up some Schwartzcaster tracks and finally record the "long anticipated" Download This Fucking Song. - E 3/16/01 Studio A (Aurora) - Cleaned up the 2 track master of Barry Newton's Sign Me Up For Love. The number of BN tracks that never made to an album or were left over after abandoned "comeback" albums is emense. Eventually most of these tracks will appear on a CD called Barry Newton & the Plagues - The Abandonment Issue. Another track slated for that album, Doughboy Pts 1 & 2 is available on MP3.com. Sign Me Up should be available next week. Also revisited the Ape's Escape remaster. I've dumped the vocal track because the phased out radio effect wasn't any good. Plus I use a similar effect thoughout The TV Said. Now I need to find the master vocals again and reload them and clean them up. -E 3/7/01 Studio A (Aurora)- Still scouring old four tracks for incidental music for the BWDD shows that will be debuting later this year. I thickened up the bass on Steve's Prawn Theme and added some echo. Also dug up some other experimental tidbits that can work to create an atmosphere. The plan is to have a collection on CD and for sale in time for the debut of Prawn and Zone Jumper. Big City is still on the back burner as its a very weighty undertaking. I will probably begin cannibalizing the music from songs like Until I'm Holy that are atmospheric but don't stand up on their own. -E 3/2/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- Recently edited the basement tape of JACK's Raincoat Johnny from 1994. Originally sub-titled How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love AIDS, this song was the most boisterous, dark thing in our canon. It is sung by Dan in the voice of and angry psychopath who gives a woman his deadly disease deliberatly. The song has a desperate manic feel, changing tempo constantly. Should be up on mp3.com soon. -E 2/26/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- Spent most of last week finishing up SPIDERDUST SARAH. This number, penned by myself and Dan Neid in 1994 was originally a song for JACK. This version is the only song specifically recorded for LONG & SCHWARTZ OF IT. The drums were provided by the Acid Music program (Courtesy of Silver Key Studios). There are 2 acoustic guitar tracks, one guit track is the bass boosted for a bit of bass guitar track and one lead vocal track. On the song's chorus the vox were duped with the second track offset by a 10th of a second giving it a really interesting quality. The song should be up at BeSonic.com this week. E 2/20/01 Studio A (Aurora)- Remixed/remastered JELLO SHOTS and WONDERING ALOUD. I(with some tricky editing) managed to edit out some of the flubs in the JS 2 track master. I extended the opening rhythm and changed the "outro". JS was recorded in Feb of 96 by first recording the drum track and then pumping the live vocals and guitar and the drum track through a mixer. Needless to say there were no isolated tracks to work with. Any remixing was done by splicing. I also recorded and added me saying "I'm sorry" (which is the opening line of the song). I then put the phrase through Goldwav and created some delay feedback that takes the "S" in "Sorry" and makes it almost a constant hiss. This was not intentional but definately fits the mood and subject matter of the song. WA was another problem. The current track starts abruptly. Though the song was recorded using a mix of MiniDisc and direct WAV recording, the main tracks were dumped to make hard drive space. The only isolated track left was the lead guitar track. I converted the current mp3 into WAV, boosted the treble and cleaned up a good deal of surface noise.The song nowopens with the ambient sound of a jet interior w/ cabin announcement with the lead chorus track. Then main body of the song then starts with the first note reversed. As the song ends it fades into the sound of a jumbo jet take off. I'm really enjoying the thematic SFX thing. Don't miss the personal "hidden track". Also working on remaster of THE APE'S ESCAPE. 2/13/01 Studio D (Austin)-Work continues on the next Gag Reflex CD, "Harmonized For Your Protection." Tracks under consideration (among others) include: "Italian Love Song," "Horny Amish Guy," "Jar Jar Binks Must Die," "Zipper Food," "Morning People," "Neanderthal" and "Bat In The Ass" (which has been fed through an "AM RADIO" filter to make it sound like it¹s coming out of a transistor. Even if these tracks all hold, there¹s room for 5 or 6 more, so email suggestions to StudioD@gagplanet.com ... A reworked, horn-heavy and Beach Boys backing vocals version of "Top Quark" is possible, and "Jar Jar" might hold for a future CD, "Songs We Wrote to Make A Lot Of Money At MP3.com." Also possible for that project is a number I¹m toying with called, "Britney¹s Spheres" (putting "Britney" in a comedy title at mp3.com, if the charts mean anything, is like striking gold). Still trying to muster up the courage to weed through the "Flash No. 1" MD vocals from Studio A and sync them to the improved backing track. The upgrade to Mac OS 9.1 (from 8.6) has wreaked havoc with many of my audio programs; Deck II would not even record. So I reinstalled the old one and now have both systems on an un-partitioned hard drive, which I know can be dangerous, but what the hell. 2/12/01 Studio A (Aurora)- Began work on the remaster of FOOLISH MOON. This is a jazzy little song was written in 1992 and recorded in 1996. It was recorded with 2 nylon string guitar tracks, 1 track of organic percussion and a vocal track. Should come out well. 2/8/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- Radical remaster and remix of EMERGE another track recorded in 1997 along with THIS TIME, INSIDE. The song now ends with a short snippet of a guitar instrumental recorded last year emerging from the synth heavy main track. EMERGE will probably be the opening track of THE LONG AND SCHWARTZ OF IT. Am also staring at the prospect of having my shareware Goldwave program expire which will suck. 2/7/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- Completed digital remix of "This Time, Inside". The original analog 4 tracks were digitized into the studio hard drive. Then each track was run through the GoldWave program. The program removes surface noise and adds effects like chorus or delay. The track is much much cleaner than the original mp3.com release (which was mixed in 1997 from analog master onto analog tape). The treble on the track has been boosted, the drum breaks and the shortwave radio samples have been lost and the track (while a good minute shorter) is a much better track.- E 2/6/2001 Studio A (Aurora)- Digital remastering and remixing of "This Time, Inside". Should sound drastically different from current mp3 release. Still scouring old 4 track masters for instrumentals that can be used as incidental music for PRAWN. - E 2/5/2001 Studio D (Austin)-My weekend project was copying Scraps onto my hard drive, cleaning it up as much as possible then burning it onto CD. I also changed the stereo imaging of some of the tracks. I feel like George Martin. I'm thinking of adding backing vocals to "Top Quark," which would make me feel more like Jeff Lynne, I guess.- Dale