Seattle in September, and more ...

-by Angie

It's been a while since any of us have posted, but it's just been crazy busy here in Clockwork-land!

We've spent the summer learning a pile of new tunes, getting ready for gigs in the Bay Area during November and in Seattle this coming December, and spending time at a couple of regional booking conferences.

The whole group traipsed up to Seattle the first week of September for the Western Arts Alliance conference. We spent a day rehearsing with our bassist Clipper Anderson and drummer Mark Ivester then performed for four showcases. We're used to rehearsing in our living room full of sound equipment, so we felt right at home in Mark's living room. Besides networking and shopping Clockwork to presenters in the Western USA, we're excited to have booked two days of recording rhythm tracks at David Lange Studios with Clipper and Mark when we go back to Seattle for a couple of gigs in December. They are playing for us on those gigs, and it's a kick off for our new CD. We expect to get the new CD out by late winter or early spring. We'll post our progress as it happens ...

We had a great time and also got to hear and hang out with M-Pact as they did their showcases. They were awesome, as always.



And, as some of you know, we love to eat together. Our first night in Seattle was Juliet's birthday so we had a FANTASTIC dinner out at a place called Crush.

(Juliet's husband couldn't join us in Seattle, but we saved a seat for him at dinner anyway.)





This is John before coffee the next morning ... breakfast at Etta's and pizza for dinner at Scrumptious Pie ...
The gang left me there for the last couple of days of the conference and I had the opportunity to meet and sit in with the lovely Greta Matassa. Clipper and Mark played for her that Thursday night at Tula's.

If you have yet to hear Greta, check her out! It was a real treat for me.

We'll be back to Seattle in December and looking forward to it!

recording continued ...

Day 2 in the studio was at Phil Schroeder's fabulous studio in Oakland (No pix, unfortunately 'cuz we was busy ...) We were recording a trio for the LHR-based arrangement that Dave did for "In A Mellowtone" that we're going to use as a demo for conference samples. It's been done already as an a cappella chart on +4DB's CD. The trio was so, so great! Jeff Redlawsk on drums, John R Burr on keys and Phil S himself on bass. Swings like crazy!

Days 3 and 4 ... we're back at Skyline to track vocals on "Mellowtone" and Dave's cool smash of Ani DiFranco's "I Carry You Around"/Chameleon.



Here are John and Dave listening back. Hmm ... I think they like it!!

New York Voices at Yoshi's

Last Wednesday night we traipsed down to Yoshi's in Oakland to hear New York Voices, and it was fantastic. I have never heard them (or seen them) live and it was impressive. If they come through your town you're in for a treat! I don't think they make it out to the west coast very often, and as Darmon Meader said, they'll be back in 2028 without fail!

The night was like a vocal jazz extravaganza. (I don't have any photos, unfortunately, but I'll include links.) We were just in Columbia working with the choirs and there were a bunch of those folks at the show. Kerry Marsh and Julia Dollison came down with the students from Sac State, Roger Emerson was there all the way from College of the Siskiyous, Curtis Gaesser from Folsom High School, and we got to hang out with Phil Mattson and Rita Scholz for the evening. Basically, it was a roomful of friends and the band was awesome and inspiring.

and so it begins...

Yesterday was our first day in the studio tracking with players for our upcoming (and yet untitled) CD. We'll be blogging the entire experience for your enjoyment and so you'll stop asking "When does the CD come out?". Not that anyone is asking this question at the moment, but we're pretty excited about the project just the same. The creative ideas are free-flowing and we've got ambitious plans, so stay tuned.