Electric Company
Holy Hell! The home studio has been out of business for about 2 months now while hunting down an electrical problem. Turns out there are lots of electrical problems. After several visits from many electricians we have learned that several circuits are cross-wired doubling the power to an outlet that could have fried my music equipment (if they didn't support EU current); plus the house is wired out-of-phase, which was the cause of all the noise in all my recordings. So, we have to have the whole house rewired up to code, which will put the studio out of commission for another couple weeks. Once the house is wired up it will be a mad dash to finish the next Afflicted By Design Ep.
What to do?
Record as much as I can on the laptop, write new songs for the 3rd and 4th Eps and work on designs for band merch. I've been working so much on new music that I ended up with my hands in splints for 4 days from playing too much guitar and bass. Hopefully the new merch goes over well. I'll post some images. The first Ep plus a stickers, buttons and guitar picks go on sale May 14. In the meantime it's been really awesome getting back in to design and catching up on reading a pile of neglected comic books while my hands recover.
SXSW & New Music
This was my 4th year going to SXSW. The experience this year was much different than past few. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting better at it, or because I avoided all the big hype shows and went to check out new music and bands I love and will never see in small clubs again. Either way, it was pretty cool. The weekend opened with the Suicide Girls party and the Blackheart Burlesque preview. My gf and I have been to a bunch of burlesque shows and this one was one of the more fun. The gang was working out the kinks, but it was still cool. Other cool bands: Tying Tiffany, Spandau Ballet, David J, The Weekend, Fleshtones, Foxboro Hot Tubs (best band at SXSW!), Feathers, Damon Albarn, Turbo Goth. Chino from the Deftones played with his band Crosses, which I totally missed. I just bought the album and it is great. Highly recommend.