I remember thinking as a kid that it would be cool to design a bike that folded up into a briefcase… These guys at Terrafugia have really outdone themselves with this FLYING CAR! Check it out!

The Terrafugia Transition Website

Flying Car Article

This is too cool…

Like they say, “A Ferrari is cool, but a Ferrari can’t fly.”

Who do you think will be the first film star/athlete/rock star/rapper to buy one?

I say Jay-Z

Then, John Tra-vol-ta (Oprah …introduction voice)

Put me on the list as soon as I win the lottery…

I want one!

I just finished uploading the tracks for Julia Kay’s new EP, “This Is My Story.” The album consists of 5 tracks and it could not come at a better time as she prepares to perform at the Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan and for the Female Songwriters Night at the Abbey in Chicago.

The Traverse City Film Festival is a super-cool event that runs from July 7-August 1. Julia’s festival date will be released this week. The real coolness–Julia will have a live band behind her that I have been helping put together. This band is epic:

Julia Kay: Vocals and radness

Eric Yoder: Drums and percussion

Robert Coates: 8-String Guitar and 6-String Guitar…and anything else with a string attached to it!

Eric Yoder is a super-producer and musician out of Chicago. His studio, Horse-Drawn Productions, was just featured in “Mix” magazine–the magazine for studiophiles.

Robert Coates graduated from Butler University with a Music  degree in Classical Guitar Performance. He received his Masters in Jazz Improvisation from the University of Michigan; and his Doctorate in Jazz Studio Guitar at the University of Southern California.

There could be a live album in the works…

More information in the next few days…

Sorry, I have been out of the loop for a bit–moving and getting the new studio together has taken some time. But, I have got crazy updates and I’ll fill in the gaps in the next few days.

The first update is Julia Kay performing our tune “Reaching to the Moon” on May 31st, 2010 in Chicago at the International Space Development Conference. That is just cool… Julia sang for a room full of astronauts from all over the word–and it culminated with her hanging out with Buzz Aldrin. Mr. Aldrin was the keynote speaker for the conference.

They swapped stories: like the fact that Buzz wrote a book called “Reaching for the Moon,” and Julia was singing “Reaching to the Moon.”

I mean the OAKDALE3B logo is an astronaut–come on!

There have even been some rumblings that NASA might use the song for the astronaut recruitment program–please do NASA, please do! Man, I really have to follow up on that…

Synchromystical…

2010 has been the year that we made contact…

More updates to come…

Cheers

Kirk Medland was just out about a week ago to record his new single “Lipstick Kiss.” This track is a new departure for Kirk as it is a super rock track. We put the finishing touches on the song in Corpus Christi at a beach house.

We joked about the title of the Jimmy Page, Edge and Jack White documentary “It Might Get Loud;” our trip would have been titled “It’s going to get hot.” The weather was great, but it was pretty toasty down there. And, every time we took a vocal pass, we had to turn the AC off so it wouldn’t bleed into the take.

Also, look for a cool collaboration on this song from a monster guitar player from Los Angeles…

More details to follow on who??????

Cheers

So, the the results have been announced… And, Julia Kay reached the finals of the international songwriting competition and came out with a nice honorable mention. Not bad for a song that was written when she was 14.

Congratulations to Julia!

What a week–I got everything relocated to our new spot in South Austin. Very cool part of town–I feel like I moved to another state. Plus, with the new garage space, the studio is going to have even more room for video. Wow–deconstructing the floating vocal booth from the old place was a chore–but it’s all better now. The new spot is going to have a lounge area. And, the focus is going to shift to more analog based recording. I am shooting for one takes straight to tape. Now for all of the fun construction and gear hunting…

Cheers,

3B

Lauren Frost brought her sophisticated cool sound and hipster jazzy group to Denver on the 14th of April to Rock the new LiveNation sponsored Comfort Dental venue. From my insider reports, all of the big wigs from LiveNation were also in attendance–and they loved Lauren’s music. Not hard to believe as Lauren has been busy producing great original material for the last 5 years.

Now if anyone out there is listening–please send her on tour with Sondre Lerche and have her open a few show for Michael Buble. She would be such a great tour-mate for cool artists like these folks. I mean she already toured with Barbra Streisand around the world–so she is used to the rigors of putting on a great show every night in front of packed houses!

Check out Lauren’s stuff in the licensing library and also click on over to her personal site at LaurenFrost.com!

Lauren is still in Denver rockin’ a few other venues and getting up close and personal with her super fans…

We are relocating! The new studio will be up and running in about two weeks and it is going to be even better. There is a much more room and the studio will be able to run 24/7 without any noise concerns. So, expect alot more tube-amp driven rock n’ roll in the next few months. Kirk Medland will be the first to try out the new digs for his new EP in May. The songs are already together–now we can start laying it down.

Then Robert Coates will be stopping by in the middle of the month to work on some new material. After that visit from Bob, then Julia Kay heads into town as we finalize her record release–also expect acoustic versions of her songs so you can see that Julia doesn’t need any studio magic–just a guitar and her powerful set of pipes. We’ll also start working on brand new music for her next album.

Expect cool things as we will now be able to do more video production!

Cheers,

3B

This is too cool… I have been on a major space mission for the last five years–I mean just look at the blog and the OAKDALE3B logo.

I was first introduced to to Julia Kay when I had been heavily researching symbology and its relationship to the arts. I can remember Julia’s mother, Julia and I all talking about how incredible it is to look up into the night sky. We began working off of images of space as we wrote “Reaching To The Moon.” The music that was written to accompany the lyrics was a very droning kind of Nick Drake thing–a hypnotic kind of groove.

After Julia recently sang this song at a fashion show in Chicago, she was approached about singing for an upcoming conference in Chicago–a conference where NASA is the sponsor and the room will be filled with astronauts. SHE GOT THE GIG!

More details to follow…remember I told you that some new things were literally out of this world!

Everybody has their own way to restring their acoustic guitar. But, I remember when I got my first acoustic and I was confused about the whole process. So, here are some things I’ve gleaned along the way. Hopefully, it will make it easier for new guitar players to restring and get playing.

I like to use a nice pair of wire cutters and a modified peg winder. I put a little duct tape on the inside of the peg winder so that it is nice and soft in there–so it won’t damage tuning pegs.

Duck It

To start, loosen up all your strings on the guitar so that when you go to cut them, it is not a huge tension shock to your instrument. Then, when all the strings are loose, use your wire cutters to cut the strings so that you can gently remove them.

Now that all the strings have been removed, you can clean up your acoustic with some nice polish. Also, you can oil your fretboard with a little lemon oil.

All clean–time to restring. Remember to work from the outside in–that is work from the low E string to the D string or the high E string to the G string. If you work from the inside out, you will be stuck trying to work around the other strings later in the process.

Jump up a peg

This is a cool and easy trick to get just the right amount of string… After you have inserted the ball end of the low E string into the bridge and reinforced it with the bridge pin, take your low E string and pull it past the peg for the A string. Now, crimp it around the A string peg. Bingo–the string will now be the perfect length–you won’t have too much or too little string when you go to wind the string on the peg.

Crimp It

Important: make sure that the string goes on the inside of the peg and not toward the outside. Your guitar was constructed so that the strings set on the nut and extend up to the inside of the pegs.

Strings Toward The Inside

Then, wind the string so that it wraps under the crimped string through the peg. So, as you wind, the string should move from the top to the base of the peg.

Wound on Inside

Repeat the process for the rest of the strings. With both the D and G strings, just pull the string up to the top of the headstock and crimp.

Crimp at Headstock

Work from the outside in from the high E to the D string and your golden.

Golden

Hope that helps… Sometimes, it is nice just taking a moment to appreciate the old guitar–polish, restring, and reinvent. And, today was restringing day at my place…

Cheers