Hey folks,

First of all, for all photos of this thing, and video to come, check out my Angelhouse album!

So I am here in the studio with Drew Kapner and Alex Wong, the West and East Coast sides of Angelhouse studios, along with the trusty aid of Ben DeJong. We've been hard at work here in Southern CA (well, as hard as you can work when the post June-gloom sun shines and the water is blue and clean as can be) since I arrived last Sunday. We've hit the ground running, having talks about the feel and schedule of the project as soon as I got off the plane.

As it happens, Alex came to pick me up like a sweetheart, and got a big ole ticket from the LAX officer who informed us that NO, you cannot, in fact, linger for 2.75 minutes to load your baggage and arriving guest in the 2nd lane there. Back at the studio, we went out for some lunch and a grubby paws visit to Guitar Center for some gear, but on the way out, a bee got stuck in my hair, which was tied back, which kept it there long enough to produce several aching stings, and what felt like a punch in the head for several days. I guess the somewhat inauspicious start ended up boding well for the week to come...

So far, we've finished tracking all drum kit stuff, with Alex the percussion God cranking out our every whim on the varied kits for different tunes. I'm sooo excited about the beauty of arrangement for a lot of the newer stuff. Alex and I have been starting the days with Oatmeal for hearty, cholesterol-reducing strength all day, but I decided I am going to start marketing a Quaker HitMeal (Just Add Drums!) with a picture of Wong instead of that funny dude in the hat, because he really has upped the ante on my little visions. We also had a virtuosic bass man, Dan Lutz, in here the other day, rockin out on the upright and a couple electric tunes. He was super and we may have him back on one more track, just can't get enough! We've made some phonecalls as to who else will be coming in to work on the project- we're going to get some strings and horns (oooh!) in here and hopefully the fabulous guitar skills of some great player friends. We've got a few more tricks up the sleeves too, going out and looking for some trash cans to bang on, items to shake and crash around, just to see what sounds come of it. Dirty Little Cloud is going to be pretty brassy and irreverent, Let Him Be Wrong will have a whole Ryan Adams/Richard Julian thing going on...but this is all subject to change of course. We'll see!

In other news, the vibe here is really chill, fun and efficient. We all have a great working dynamic (like, I can sit here and write this blog while they worry about the minutia of something or other...heheh) And of course there is Angel. Angel, the tank-like pitbull with a heart of gold, is truly a calming and/or engergizing spirit of this place. He sleeps on the loveseat with me when we're getting drum passes at 2am, he incessantly licks my feet when he feels I am in need of a wash (or really if there's just any skin exposed at all), and he runs around playing with us when we're all out of whack and need some perspective. He's completely his own personality that is rare in dogs, very intelligent and unique. Alex got a tattoo in the studio last night too. That was cool, we were on the dinner break and he got some groovy colored lines on his hands which have significance to him that he can share with you at his leisure. I am now officially the only person who has witnessed Wong recieve both his tattoos, the documentarian if you will. The other, Angelhouse's Logo, which he designed and got back in NYC, is on both Drew and Alex's middle upper spine, and apparently hurt like a bitch compared to this one.

Anyway, that's the update folks, do check the fun photos out! I'll post again in a week or so, but Alex is going on mini-tour to Austria and germany with Vienna Teng for a week, so we have a couple days off in which I intend to surf and lounge and get a (small, non-cancerous, sunblock-heavy) tan. Working on a show out here, possibly...Cheers!