So, what am I up to? I was working on the new record until about a month ago when another project (it’s too early to tell you about) tore me asunder, so I had to put everything on hold for about 6 weeks. It was agony to not be working on the record, but as I write this at 8:30am in the Harmony Hut, the computer is booting up a song that I will be tweaking over and over and over again for the record. The working title of the song is called “Building the Church.” It’s the part of the story where the shaman enters the town and builds a metaphysical-like living, breathing structure where the townspeople will come and live out their fantasies (or something like that). Hey, sounds like the Jerry Springer show.
I also put the finishing touches on the two new Archives CDs that will be available through Vai.com in about 6 weeks. These two CDs have gone through many changes as the licensing of some tracks have gotten out of hand, but I think you may like Archives Vol. 3 quite a bit. It has all the bonus tracks that were released in Japan from all my CDs. There’s one in particular that may take the skin off your face. It’s from the Sex And Religion album, called “Just Cartilage.” Devin is out of control completely, as usual. By the way, if you have not heard his new CD you’re missing out on some intense audio pleasure.
Some of the other things that are going on at the Harmony Hut, hmmm…
Anthony Garone came to our home as an intern and spent about 7 months. He became part of the family and is moving back out to LA in May for a while. He’s still going to school so we steal him in-between semesters. Anthony worked for 7 months downloading 80% or so of the tapes in the vault onto hard drives. An opportunity then came up for me to build a music library so I went through everything in the vault and compiled approximately 8-10 CDs of decent stuff out of the approximately 2,500 gigabytes that were downloaded. There’s still a major ton of stuff that needs some tweaking and I would probably have about 30 CDs worth of stuff, if not more. I may include bits and pieces into various projects along the way but I do have a historical master plan for all that stuff if anyone is interested in it in the future. Yes, the vault is deep with bytes. I have to put on waist high rubber boots to walk through it.
Brandon Sanders is a wonderful young guy (22) who comes to the Harmony Hut and is tweaking the Astoria DVD as I work on the record. He is basically interning and aspires to be a video editor so this is a perfect opportunity to get the Astoria DVD complete. I edited about 70% of it and then ran out of time but Brandon is proving to have a very good eye for editing. Don’t know when the DVD will be available, but I’m hoping by October or so.
Enrico is diligently working away at editing the music library. The Harmony Hut is really a little room and we have a very nice working atmosphere.
As I’m working on this CD I’m planting subconscious mental notes to myself to remember to make the next tour something from another planet. I would like to hear from you your thoughts on what you like most about the shows you have seen along with what either bored you or you didn’t like. Mikey will create a special thread on the Message Boards for this discussion.
Sometimes it’s difficult and anti-productive for me to think about the next tour because I get so excited I can’t focus on anything else. I lay in bed at night sometimes and imagine that I’m on the stage just playing and putting my energy out to everyone. I feel so fortunate. It’s truly a blessing. Thanks so much for being there. It’s been too long since I’ve been out there and it’s starting to hurt. Odd how that happens. We’ll keep you filled in on what’s going on.
I love you and I promise to completely blow you away!
s.