This Friday night - January 26th - I'm producing a live recording for my friend Bryan Miller. He has a wonderful, unique and very funny Piano Bar act that has never been recorded. We're going into the studio with a live audience so we can get studio quality recording with real audience response. I did this last year for my vocal group "4 Friends" [of which Bryan is a member] and the results were wonderful. The edited master for that CD is great! It would seem to be self-evident that it makes all the difference recording comedy if you have an audience there laughing. But few actually attempt live recordings. There are too many problems bringing recording equipment into venues that are not designed for it. My friend Mary Jo Mundy did that for her forthcoming CD and had a miserable time. She and her engineer Andy Waterman learned from that experieince and came up with a really good idea. They called it NOHO LIVE [that's short for "North Hollywood" for you non-LA residents]. For a set fee, you could come into the professional, high-tech recording studio Andy was using for his other projects, bring in an audience and get the best of both worlds. When Mary Jo told me about the project, long before it was actually running, I told her I wanted to be the first to record there. And I was. I twisted the arms of my fellow "4 Friends" [they thank me now!] and we were the first act to take advantage of this deal. Unfortunately, it looks like I may also be the last producer useing NOHO LIVE. Very few cabaret acts took advantage of the offer [Amanda Abel's new CD is a wonderful exception] and of those that did, more singers cancelled at the last minute than actually showed up! Andy was understandably disillusioned and moved on. He's actually coming back to this particular studio this Friday just to record Bryan with me. We all had such fun together recording and editing the "4 Friends" CD that he agreed to work with us again. I came up with an idea I think is pretty good, if I do say so myself! I bought a little bell and called it The Boo Boo Bell. During the "4 Friends" recording, if any of us did or heard something we knew we couldn't live with on the final recording, we rang the bell, everything stopped, and we started again. The audience loved this! Without fail, they would laugh at the same jokes harder the second time [or, god help us, the third or fourth time!] and the device worked perfectly. In fact, one of the tracks - "Comedy Tonight" - will be featured on the CD in it's edited form, and again as a bonus track with all the Boo Boo Bell nonsense included. My, we do get funny! Anyway, it looks like this Friday night will be the end of another era. Shorter in length and not at far-reaching as the Tower Records saga, but sad nonetheless. Thank you Mary Ju Mundy and Andy Waterman for giving some of us the chance to make really good live recordings with ease and high quality.