Paper Cranes…
This project was spawned shortly before I left Des Moines last August. The concept was to take it all back to basics with Sabicas handling the production and myself focusing on rhymes. Everything was intended to be simple and quick, loops with breaks, rhymes in a more free verse stream of thought. What it became it much more and probably the most complete piece of work I’ve been a part of lyrically in years. The simple beauty of the production brought out a side of me I had not been able to find in quite a while and the final product is fantastic. It is currently in the mastering phase and we’re looking into options at Central Standard for how to release it. Should be available sometime in the spring.

Maxilla Blue Volume 3…
Fresh off the last release the group has found some motivation and somewhat of a new life with out new workflow. Asphate made his first trip west for recording completing 10 songs over the span of basically 3 days. Another trip with both Asphate and Touchnice has been scheduled and it looks like we might be finishing up the record then. We have booked time in early June at Tiny Telephone here in San Francisco to finalize the mixes and put some mastering touches on the project. There will definitely be a release at some point in the later half of 2011, and probably a lot of teasers popping up before then.

Lead Breakfast…
Sadly this project has run it’s course on me. What was supposed to be my full length was really about 6 years of learning skills and developing ever evolving tracks with no end in sights. I’ve always had trouble letting go of my music and this one had to be let go before complete. There is a shortened form of the project basically completed, but the end result of this project is hard to determine. It will probably show up at some point.

Bread and Circus…
This has become the working title of my quickly developing full length. It is still in infant stages but is much more focused than my previous attempts. I have always struggled producing and rhyming at the same time. It generally has lead me to a level of madness hyper focusing on details of production generally unnoticed. This time I am trying to adapt my work flow in other projects such as Paper Cranes and Maxilla to my own style. Letting things go and develop quicker, adding a much more spontaneous nature rather than the over calculated mess I’ve gotten myself into in the past. I am also taking one step at a time, working from beginning to end on the record and letting things fall in place. The first song has been titled “happiness is a warm gun” and is in the lyric stage currently. It is a general reintroduction of myself and where I have been, travelled through and am today, as confused as ever.

http://www.uncommonmusic.net/news/2011/2/5/new-uncommon-radio-features-aeon-grey.html

Tiny Telephone is a collection of vintage gear mixed with new technology and an incredible amount of creative energy and passion. The gear list is impressive to read, but seeing it in person is mind boggling, and the knowledge that the staff has about the gear is impressive. It is more than just a collection for show, every piece of gear has a purpose from the 50′s amps to the brand new compressors. However, these tools are not there to make the performance, or even correct the sound. They are simply there to aid in the capturing of the performance, and to help bring out what the artists themselves to best.

The most impressive piece of the studio is the drive that the owner, and engineers take towards to the all but forgotten method of recording to tape, outside the box, removing digital software such as ProTools from the equation. This is not a fidelity snob argument as most would think though. Instead it relates again to the purity of the music and the performance of the artist. I have to say that I myself have been leaning more and more on the crutch of the digital format, and the flexibility it offers within the editing and signal processing. In the past I had a preference to not touch audio in this fashion, I preferred the imperfections and the miscues. I felt that those nuances of the performance added personality to the music. But in recent times, I have moved away from that aspect, perhaps enchanted by the concept of ‘perfection’ and creating ‘clean’, ‘slick’ productions. Something I need to get away from, moving back towards just making music, and stop trying to perfect it.

I don’t know that I could of had a better first experience in the music scene in San Francisco. Tiny Telephone was a great visit, the things that I absorbed in the short hour that I was there helped me to refocus, and gain a level of self realization. I now know better what it is that I want to do, and what I need to do. This was exactly one of the main reasons I made the move.

The move has been huge, and being in a new city is refreshing. There is a world out there for me to explore again, and people for me to learn from. I’ve spent most of the time so far getting settled, searching for work, walking up and down hills and putting together some new tracks with the hope of finishing up projects. I’ve been ready for this, even if I wasn’t quite sure I was, or was maybe scared to acknowledge it. But for the first time in quite a while I feel liberated creatively, and open to so many new things. I have to thank my wife for this huge opportunity, and while I miss her a great deal right now, I have to work to not let her down and make the most out of all this.