I took a road trip back in October, and when I was in Massachusetts I spent a couple days at Matthew Larsen’s old brick duplex in Holyoke and helped him record a few songs. Go to Matt’s site and listen to the new songs.

Here’s Matt laying down some melodica.

Was lucky to see a great show in Greenfield, MA when I was back there a few weeks ago. Was good to see a bunch of people I haven’t seen in years. Urthquake (Bob ex-Squidlaunch) started off the show with his noisy, guitar-loop-filled set, rockin the pointy-headstock guitar. Bromp Treb (featuring Neil of Fat Worm of Error) killed the audience with his spastic, psychy-dubby, insane soundfest complete with two reel-to-reel tape decks and custom tape loops. Truly great.

Dan Friel was up next… I was in the band Squidlaunch with Dan back when I was 18. His music is a lot different but his love for noise has not changed. His new album has been getting a bunch of great reviews. Go check it out. The set was ended with Diagram A. Complete blistering, hypnotizing, intense noise.

I took a bunch of pictures. Here you go.

The last few months have been crazy. Been working like hell to finish the new album This is Old.

Flew out to Massachusetts and had two friends (Matthew Larsen and Rebekah Dutkiewicz) contribute on a couple tracks. Spent some time shooting photos and working on the CD artwork. Got it mastered last month, and just today the CDs arrived from the manufacturer. We’re really close to the official release on November 11!

Most importantly, pre-ordering will begin this Thursday, October 23. On Thursday, come on down and order your copy (or buy more than one and give to a friend). Help me sell all of them so I can quit my job.

Well it ended up being too cold to camp, which means too cold to record any new songs while camping! I guess I’ll have to try out the State Shirt back country mobile recording studio some other day.

Today I made it all the way out to Massachusetts. Traveled along some windy back roads and came across a couple beautiful family farms and took some more photos. Will be working on some new music next week, and working to getting This is Old released!

So there is a lot going on right now. Final mixes are off to Don C. Tyler for mastering. Looking forward to checking out his handiwork, since he has mastered a few albums that I love (Elliot Smith: XO, Figure 8, Hot Snakes Suicide Invoice). I know mastering is a subtle art, but if he can subtly find a way to make my album as great as those that would be super.

Apart from mastering I’m trying to keep everything else pretty DIY, I just finished designing the artwork for This is Old… I’m excited, it will be a 6-panel digipak, and features a bunch of photos I took on a soggy spring morning on the back roads of western Massachusetts, including one inquisitive cow.

I’m hoping to start online pre-ordering of the album in a few weeks. After I figure out how to make these interwebs work.