Self note: reads for buying a house

Sacramento, do you have a home for Stephany and me?

And so much more… good stuff :-)


147 days ago | Comment




Winemaking: First label design

Here is the design for the first wine that Stephany and I will be bottling soon:

2007 Tinto Cellars Townhouse Series Malbec, Argentina

I’m excited to bottle our first batch here but I’m uncertain of a few things. The dimensions (3” wide, 4” high), how I’m going to stick it (on a label, or just straight paper), and probably other things that I haven’t thought of yet.

I really like the black and white designs especially for red wines. I was initially intrigued with this design when I saw it on Ben Glaetzer’s Amon-ra design (a spectacular wine by the way):

Amon Ra Shiraz 2005 from Labels at Wine Library

Let me know your thoughts!
-Nico


152 days ago | Comment [1]




Slowly tracking...

We’re in mid-late March now and we have a lot of recording to do still, hopefully done by the middle of May (and there are some trips in between now and then). I’m beginning to wonder if this will be feasible to finish all the recording before the big move coming up this summer. If not, that’s ok, we’ll still try to focus on the end goal of publishing the EP/LP/album by the end of the year.

In case you haven’t been following, the National Residency Match Program (NRMP) released results this week and we are headed back west to the great state of California! We are very happy and excited with this result!

Ok, back to the album – we’re not sure yet how many tracks this will truly end up with… these are my songs I’m giving serious consideration for the album:

  • “Year” (done)
  • “See You Fly” (mixing, done recording)
  • “You Were Her Sun” (mixing, done recording)
  • “Telepatía” (needs to be recorded)
  • “Culpable” (needs to be recorded)
  • “Purple Smile” (needs to be recorded)

Stephany has some wonderful songs also… among my favorites are:

  • “Rain Down”
  • “I Surrender”
  • “The Unknown”
  • “Spooning”

All of hers still needs to be recorded. We also have a joint song we composed called “Our Journey” which might be fitting as the title song for the album. But as you’re noticing, this is turning out to be longer than the originally planned 6 to 8 song EP (though I know it’s not too late for that). Maybe we can put some of our best recordings on the album and offer the rest as downloads on the site. If you have song preferences, you’ll find some of them on the site already, and the majority are listed on my FAWM profile or Stephany’s FAWM profile.

I received my Xotic BB Preamp recently and will be featuring it on the lead guitar for “Culpable” – hopefully I’ll have clips available soon.


159 days ago | Comment [1]




[EP] Stephany and I continue composing...

So as of tonight (well this morning), Stephany and I both have 8 songs for this February Album Writing Month (FAWM) campaign to write 14 songs this month!

Two of our latest posts I think, while not perfect, are among our best! Here are a pair of clips for you and a link to their FAWM song page.

Stephany’s romantic Rain Down – her sister Susan and I think this is among her best yet… and the harmonies are GREAT!
Here’s the stream of the concept demo (and MP3 link):

My latest tune is slightly sad bluesy song just about some life turns. Musically, I was inspired by Pappo’s “Desconfio”, but performed by Andres Calamaro. It’s actually my first song in Spanish for FAWM, but here it is, Culpable.
The stream of the concept demo (and MP3 link):

My guitar work is a little rough in my clip, all in one take, but I was very pleasantly surprised with the results of recording my PRS through my new tiny Roland micro-cube. I have the PRS on the neck humbucker, the amp on the “Blackface” (Fender model) with gain around 3 o’clock and volume around 11 o’clock. My Rode NT1A condenser mic was aimed closely to the side of the 5” speaker cone. It’s pretty cool!

Ok, that’s all for now, let us know what you think as we continue composing for our EP/Album we’re working to produce and release this year!


192 days ago | Comment [1]




[EP] Fawming, Always Hungry, More...

As you saw in the last post, Stephany and I have established Always Hungry as the name of our collaboration when producing and performing our music! Excitingly, as the first ensemble to be produced by Tinto Records, I have created the home site for Always Hungry – it is still under construction, but it will hopefully have similar content as other artists’ sites.

As you may have seen, I’m also consumed in this February Album Writing Month campaign to write 14 songs this February! I’m very happy with this catalyst of creativity and I have been documenting the songs mostly by video (because I think videos are fun, AND simply because it is easier and faster for me to capture the song take with the camera than do the entire recording with all the studio equipment). This good fun is contagious, and so Stephany has also started FAWMing and she has some GREAT songs so far that I like very much.

Here is her FAWM profile where you can follow her songs and see her music videos! I really like her songwriting vibe and I think these are compositions that can easily land on our EP/Album for this year. Here is my FAWM profile where you can see my progress so far. I have one song I think was particularly powerful for me called “You Were Her Sun”. Here is the song page with video and lyrics for that composition, it is a dedication to one of my friends who recently lost his mother.

Aside from that, in pure fun and somewhat twisted practicality, I bought yet another amp! Yes, I know, I just bought the monster of the Roland JC-120, and I love it… it is pretty much stuck in my rig for as long as I can envision me playing (I see no end!). But that amp is a monster, it is meant more for performance and band type situations which is a little impractical for me right now (though I’m ready with it when needed); so, in that spirit, I bought myself a the tiny Roland Micro Cube! It is spectacular: it has enough punch to blow away a bedroom, and it also sports a great flexibility in tone with some built-in modeling. While small, this is no toy. Check out this video demonstration or the one below:

Ok, that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more compositions!


199 days ago | Comment





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