The Weekend

Well it was a tiring weekend, but we made it through. We were up early on Saturday morning, at least early enough to be on a bus bound for Gwangju at 9:30 am. At least we had our good friend Jason to help us out (and keep us awake). We arrived in Gwangju at 11, and that gave me lots of time to get to Jordan's by noon. So we wandered Keumho World for a bit. Keumho World is a large building with about 6 or 7 floors of all things electronic, from cameras to mp3 players to phones to guitars. Dawn needed a new iPod USB cable so she can plug her pod into her computer (which we found), and Jason was looking for a wireless headset (which somehow he didn't find). With plenty of time to get to Jordan's, I left them wandering and started walking to the subway. After 5 minutes of walking, I realized I didn't know where I was going. I knew about where Jordan lives, but not exactly. And he lives in a confusing part of town. So I walked back, found the wandering waegukins, phoned Jordan, attempted to remember his instructions, and walked five minutes back to where I was. So I should be 15 minutes late so far. Then I walked to the subway, sat on the subway, got off the subway, walked to the church and met Dan and his girl on the way to Jordan's. By this time I was really late. Probably about 40 minutes late. Why? Because I was carrying the backpack full of stuff, my bass, and dragging a small suitcase full of audio gear behind me. Took me a lot longer than I thought it would. And I was sweating profusely by the time I got there. But it was worth it. Why? Because once we got everything set up and mapped out the drums into my computer so that it will actually sound like drums (don't even get me started on that process, it would probably geek you to death) we got the drums for 6 songs laid. Which is a good start. So now Jordan and I will try to finish the songs while Dan is out of the country. Should be a fun challenge.

A quick note about the Jordan Emmans Band: unfortunately, our (too) short term guitarist Matt has decided to move on to bigger and better things in his spare time, and frankly I can't blame him. He's still playing on his own once in a while and hopefully he'll find a band of his own soon enough. I for one will miss playing with him, especially the challenge of finding two harmonies all the time! Thanks Matt!

So what was Dawn doing while I was recording and practicing for our gig that night? She was touring the town with Jason and taking lots of pictures. Of what, you ask? I have no idea but I will post them when I find out (I haven't unloaded the camera yet). From what I understand fun was had in abundance. More to come on that later.

The gig was once again at Mike and Dave's Speakeasy in downtown Gwangju, which is proving to be quite a welcoming venue. It's small and smokey, but they have expanded the stage and just got a new bass amp, so things run a little smoother than last time we played there. Also unlike last time, we were only an opening band for this gig; the headliners for the night were Seoul's Taste of Dinomite. You can listen to a couple of the songs off of their new CD on their site, and I recommend it. They're pretty good, though I only got to hear a couple songs live. Dawn was waiting for me back at the hotel, and it was getting late.

Our set was pretty good, lots of reactions from a few of the patrons at the bar, and everybody seemed fairly impressed. We were a little disorganized for my liking, though. We didn't even have time to make a set list this time. And I forgot to put out my mp3 recorder, so I don't have any clips for all my fans reading this. Sorry, mom.

Speaking of clips, I have discovered (or rather, I have rediscovered) that I really like doing Foley recordings. All that means is recording things that could be used as sound effects. For example, Dawn helped me record putting coins into the ticket dispenser in the subway. And change coming out of the dispenser. And bills going in and out of the dispenser. I also recorded the ambience on the subway, which you can listen to if you right click on the black void below and click Play/Pause. If it doesn't work, give it a few minutes to load the audio and try it again.

You can also go here and see all my samples in their huge-file-sized glory! You can play them from the window, though it may take a little time due to their huge file size.

It's just like being there! You can hear Korean chatter (probably about the waegukin with the microphone), the doors opening and closing, even the (too) friendly voice telling you what stop you're at and where the doors will be opening. Pretty cool. Anyway, that's all for now. Annyoung!