Relatively new acquisition in the home studio: a Baldwin Discoverer organ in stellar condition. Photographed on Arista EDU Deluxe 400 with my Olympus Pen-F.

Half Frame Photos and Full Length Albums

First things first, if you're in the Austin or Marfa areas, I'll be playing shows there next week.

September 11 - Knomad Bar - Austin, TX
(with The Hasty Licks, The Wild Kindness and The Discount Pills)

September 12 - Planet Marfa - Marfa, TX
(with JJ Caballero and Star Plus)

Second, slow forward progress is being made on my next full length album. Slow because I'm still working on getting several other projects across the finish line as an engineer/producer. I've been doing a lot of recording in my house, a lot of mixing of projects I recorded elsewhere or that someone else recorded elsewhere. Two records (from one band) about ants. The followup that we promised to finish faster than the previous album but that has now taken a lot longer (Mia Antifa LP, though I guess this applies to my record, too). Maybe I am too heavily influenced by the Wrens?

I guess this Friday is Bandcamp Friday again, and I made some cool pinback buttons to sell at the merch booth, but I will also toss one in with any order of a physical album or EP via Bandcamp (Friday or any other day). They are hand colored and so each one is unique.

Handmade 1" pinback buttons featuring a print of a drawing of a prickly pear, each hand colored with alcohol markers. Some have a yellow background, some orange, some lavender. The cactus is green or blue, with purple fruit. All of the buttons feature a bright sunset sky. — Aren't they lovely?

I've also started crawling down the rabbithole of home film development. All the black and white pictures in this post were shot on my Olympus Pen-F half frame camera and developed at home (D76 developer stock, if you want to get really nerdy). It's the first film I've developed in probably 30 years, and the first I've developed without a professional looking over my shoulder making sure I didn't ruin it.

A grainy black and white photo. A very large prickly pear cactus fills nearly the entire frame. It has dozens of bite marks where deer have eaten portions of the cactus paddles. — My neighbor's (massive) prickly pear, a favorite of the deer in our neighborhood.

A diptych from a roll of black and white half frame film. On the left side, the band gathers around a microphone in the glowing sunlight to sing some gang vocals. On the right side, Shua plucks an acoustic guitar while his partner, Evie, grins in the background. — Recording Mia Antifa in our living room.

Mickey from Mia Antifa lays on our couch with a glockenspiel. — More Mia Antifa.

That's all I have this month. At some point, maybe I'll get a little more philosophical or literary and a little less kid telling you about their day at school, but today is not the day.

Take care,

--Ross