old journal entry...

i'm sitting in a coffee shop in seattle today. i was looking for a song i'd been working on in my song notebook when i came across a random journal entry (i think i had just filled my last journal and not gotten another quite yet)

8-1-08
"haven't gotten a new journal yet.
i drove west, stopped in newburg then i decided to head for lincoln city. i wanted to see the ocean. i've seen it now.
what hunger in me is never quite touched enough by just going to the ocean- although it's closer when there's no one there. just me, God and the waves to remind me of who he is.
i walk the shore like a prisoner at the fence line. hoping to find some way through- something i'd missed before.
the sun cracks the sky of grey clouds and diamonds and crystals scatter across her face.
the sea holds a terrible grip on my heart and she will not let me go."

Room to Write.

So, it's been a few months now of playing with our friend Brianna on cello, doing a show once a month at Olympia's Loft (the big room, to a lot of the Oly kids) and polishing up some songs that have been in the queue. stuff we've wanted to play for you but hadn't quite gotten finished up. like the song "you woke me up" that we performed for the first time at November's Loft show (featuring our good friend Abby Gundersen on violin and our friend Erik Newman on the glockenspiel)
We decided to take a much-needed break from shows for the month of December. Hopefully this will mean that we'll be able to turn what was rehearsal for shows into time working hard on some new material.

shows at The Loft (Lantern Productions)

after a few years of playing shows- learning what kind of places were fun to play shows, fun to watch shows and what kind of atmosphere we were looking for in a venue- we realized that there was really no place locally that we wanted to play. no place locally that we were even very interested in seeing a show.
some of the troubles we saw were:
I. that there weren't many people interested in putting on shows.
II. that the folks really interested in doing shows weren't able to do it with a good sound system. (it's tough to play a good show with bad sound)
III. that there wasn't really a particular venue people knew of as putting on solid shows on a regular basis.
IV. last, that the folks putting on shows in the area were doing mostly hardcore (not that there aren't some very talented hardcore bands out there but we're definitely not one of them)
i'd played with the idea of producing our own shows but things hadn't come together enough for me to take it seriously. we slowly accrued a solid sound system ourselves over the years. and one night, driving through Olympia, Washington i heard some music coming from a second floor room in an industrial-looking building.
i looked into it and worked a deal with the owner of the Loft on cherry st.
we've been producing shows there once a month since the summer. bringing in bands from seattle and portland to come play with us.
one of the specific things we've been working on and continue to improve is creating a built-in crowd. to make the venue and promise of an event be something to draw a good amount of people, taking some of the pressure off of bands and performers to draw in order to get paid.
i think that's one of the things that really holds back good, upcoming performers and bands. the classic catch22: you can play here if you draw a big crowd. of course there's not many ways to create a fan base and in turn draw a big crowd unless you get to play places where people get to hear you.
i'm ok with the fact that this venue may be nothing more than a beautiful room with decent sound where a small group of folks come to hear good music. that's all i'm really after, i guess.
but i'm excited about where it could got with the right people behind it, working hard to see it succeed.
there are a few different people doing things there at The Loft but this particular line of shows put on at this level is being done by Lantern Productions. it's essentially the show production side of Lower Lights Burning and allows us to put on shows and be involved without confusing show goers even if Lower Lights Burning doesn't play a particular show.

(our friends, Noah Gundersen & the Courage playing a show with us)
if you're interested in volunteering we'd love to hear from you!
to keep up on when we're putting on the next show at The Loft sign up for our emails.
~lower lights burning

the EP adventure: part 5

home-made CD jackets and pancakes with gabriel.
after we left the "studio" we finished the production for the EP: "climbing out from the dark (BOOTLEG)"
done mostly on headphones and referenced through different sound systems.
i spent a lot of time staring at my computer screen. although the view from the office wasn't such a bad deal.

we wanted to design a unique CD jacket for the EP. one that would use minimal paper and at the same time be something interesting and functional- mostly we wanted to be able to design the whole jacket, including the lyrics out of one sheet of paper.
we came up with a simple design: a sheet of standard 8x10 paper folded to make one side the back and front (album art, track names and info) and the other the inside of the jacket (containing all the lyrics).
through some trial and error we found that using "Mod Podge" and a clear acrylic spray we could give the jacket a texture and durability.

we really like the way they've turned out although the amount of effort in one CD is a bit ridiculous so i'm sure that the (BOOTLEG) is going to be "limited"
we haven't decided for sure yet but because of the ins and outs of production we may not even have this one up on iTunes or for sale at CD Baby.
another issue was keeping the CD sealed somehow. nobody wants to buy an open CD, really. and if we were ever to sell them off the shelf we would have to have them sealed somehow.
well this is what we came up with:
looking through small street-side shops we found sealing wax and a "seal" of a ship.

melting the wax over the closure and impressing it with the seal we were able to keep it closed and it looks pretty darn neat.

and the whole thing unfolds so you can read all the lyrics.
is this not cool? ok, maybe not, but we think it is.

thanks so much for all your support! we're so glad to have something new for you!
love
~lower lights burning

the EP adventure: part 4

Saying Goodbye to the "Studio" space

So, Thursday i spent most of the day mixing (in the coffee shop with BIG headphones because our power went out) i spent some of that time listening for things i thought the songs needed as well as things i thought the song had too much of. It make me realize how much work there is to do when all the actual recording is done.
Now having noted all those things we headed back to the "studio" to lay down some last little bits here and there. Mostly some background vocals; a little inside note= if you listen you'll be hearing Michael singing in a few places on this CD!- Be proud of your man, Amber {that's Michael's wife}
A little shaker and tambourine, and of course, we didn't want to do a CD without any harmonica on it.












And that was it. All done recording the new CD. There's still a lot of work to do on it, the the recording phase it done! (unless we have some surprise guests ;o)
So we packed up the "studio" and headed out.












And now we're back to mixing!

the EP adventure: part 3

Mixing, Producing, and more Mixing












i'm spending today mixing what we have, listening for anything else we want to do and reading suggestions from a few friends who've been able to hear rough mixes of the new tracks.
i'm not in the "studio" today. i woke up to a power-outage so i got my day going and headed into the coffee shop... that's right, i'm mixing a cd through headphones at a coffee shop. don't worry, folks we're still aways from "done" we'll be dialing it in a bit better than this... i think.
well, i'm back to mixing.












hoping to have something for you to hear up here soon!
~graydon

the EP adventure: part 2

on the way to the "studio"
it's just about a mile from our place so sometimes we ride bikes!
i ride a girl's bike :o(
i'm uploading a video on youtube as i'm typing this.
we wanted to give you a look at what were doing and at how and where we're doing it.
this post promises to be less "verbose" then the last... i should put up some pictures too! i'll do it.
here we go.
our friends, the O's are letting us use their extra bedroom in their house in the woods so we don't have road noise or boat noise!
sometimes we get to hang out with them between recording sessions.
(and they make GREAT food and feed it to us!)

and now back to work.


and here's short video tour of the "studio"