Friday, July 17, 2009

School's Out for Summer!

The Place: Shippensburg Area Senior High School
The Time: Spring 1987
The Occasion: Last day of school in 11th grade
The Fashion: Hilarious!

Yes, that's me wearing a tie dye t-shirt (my favorite one of many that I owned), robin's-egg blue shorts, and flip-flops (I called them Ethiopian sandals). For those who met me after I went to college (Fall '88) should be quite shocked and amused by this picture since I've worn, almost exclusively, all black clothes from that time on. However, back in the day, I was quite colorful with my wardrobe.

P.S. Thanks to Kim (Scott) Hepfer for sharing another magical moment from my "colorful" past.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Idea H-2-12

This is one of those happy accidents of the recording and mixing process. The original music tracks were recorded by Scott in early 1987 using a Korg DW-6000, a Casio SK-1 (on loan from the Fiber family), and recorded onto a Fostex X-15 Multitracker 4-Track Cassette Recorder.

Later in 1987, the infamous DSL sessions were recorded. For these mind altering sessions, Scott and I ended up using the other side of the cassette from the Idea H-2-12 recording.

Now, jump forward 2 years to the Summer of 1989 when I was mixing tracks for final release of The Secret Society project. Though most of the songs for The Secret Society release were recorded during the Summer of 1988 at Horse & Buggy Highway Studios, I was looking for additional material to include on the final master. This is when I stumbled upon the cassette with Idea H-2-12. I popped the cassette in the X-15 and hit play.

Here's where the happy accident occurred...

The previous song that I had been mixing was a 4-track song and had all the levels wide open so, as the 2-tracks for Idea H-2-12 started to play, the 2-tracks from the other side of the tape were also audible. However, those 2-tracks from the DSL sessions were playing backwards! I thought it sounded "so cool" that I mixed it all together and we created our first (and only) backwards masking song.

Now you can be the judge of whether or not this song is as "cool" as I thought it was at the time and you'll also get bonus points if you can decipher the backwards masking vocals and sounds from the DSL sessions. But be warned, you may not want to know what the backwards masking vocals and sounds are!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Even more boxes...

This will soon be the Audio Library in the new FFS. It will house all commercial and FFS CDs, cassettes, vinyl, DATs, ADATs, 1/2" reel to reel, and maybe even a couple of 8-tracks. Yeah, that's right. Even I have some Jethro Tull Aqualung, Heavy Horses, and Songs from the Wood on 8-track. I couldn't pass up those $1 bargain bin buys from old department stores like S.E. Nichols, G.C. Murphy, and Woolco back in the early 80's.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

More boxes...

This will soon be the Video Library and home to all my Blu-rays, DVDs, LaserDiscs, VHS, 8mm, etc. For now, it's just a library of boxes.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Boxes, boxes everywhere!

I still have boxes everywhere. I can be quite the procrastinator and so far that has been proven true when it comes to building the additional bookshelf units that I need. Once I get them built, it won't take long to unpack the boxes since they're all clearly labeled and orderly packed (thanks to my anal retentive trait).

By the way, what do you think of the wall color? Came with the house...