Steve Ball

Breitenbush

Just back from a weekend with Regina and my Ovation at Breitenbush. Impression: sort of a westcoast Claymont with pools of hot water that bubble up from the earth.

A much needed retreat. Fingers and whole body feel great.

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Now: preparing to dive back into the busy-ness of business that will be waiting on Tuesday morning.

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Milestone

Morning: preparing for a weekend off, the first in a long while. Yesterday was a significant milestone in the Vista sounds project, and there was much preparation over the past three weeks: listening, mixing, editing, re-listening, while also developing a rational and reasonable framework to accompany the history that supports the recommendations and decisions presented.

Next week: there will be much catching up to do as many projects and people had been put on hold while this process unfolded. But for now, I'll be offline for a short while, back soon with renewed blast of music to complete the Night Wall and Fly By projects.

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Solsbury Hill

Weekend Update: hours of editing and processing from the recent Fripp session II. Between editing sessions, Regina and I ran into TobinB at the Ballard Market. BTV correspondent, David LaVallee also stopped by while on a bike ride by late afternoon and provided some useful insights regarding presenting the final sound selections. I still have much work to do to distill and organize the top selections. Working on two deadlines, one of them on Tuesday morning. I work well with deadlines.

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Later in the day, a nice set of email exchanges with guitarist Steve Hunter best known (to me) as one the guitarists in Peter Gabriel's first solo band and CD, and a key contributor to Solsbury Hill.

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Rock Spelling 101 by TravisH. :)

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Travis, the gigging machine

Evening: Coincidence or otherwise? Regina and I went for a Friday night date walk and happened to run into bandmate Travis Hartnett tearing it up at the Essential Baking Company. Photos from my cellphone:

Travis in action.

Travis and Camile

Travis and I met for the first time in a monastery outside of Buenos Aires in 1997. At the time, he was living and working in Austin. We've since spent much time together working and playing together in Seattle.

Great to see he's still out playing at least three times per week - he is sounding great.

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Earlier, morning: meeting with Buzz Bruggeman and Andy Ruff. Explorations and brainstorms around calendaring, startups, media, and appreciation of all that is and Woz.

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Evening Lecture

Evening: Regina and I attended a lecture by Byron Katie at University of Washington. She works with individuals in a method that she calls "the Work." This is the second 'Work' I've come across in my adult years, and, although it is fundamentally different than the Work I've experienced in and around Guitar Craft, this one also appears to be focused on freeing us from our habits.

Good stuff. Worthy of investigation for anyone feeling trapped or imprisoned by their thoughts or thinking.

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Orchestrations

Last night: a long night of orchestrations. Continuing this morning: listening and editing followed by a phone call to PatM in Austin.

Late afternoon: satisfying email exchanges with Scoble and Ben Ward re: formation of a Vista Volume Control appreciation society.

Evening: we're heading out to witness Slow Music, seated in Seattle.

Update, 10:57pm: just home from Slow Music with Rieflin, Fripp, Buck, Chalenor, Chamberlain, Zazou. Two hours flew by not so slowly. Slow is not equal to inactive, soft, boring, static, or difficult.

We were surrounded by great company sharing in this ground (and habit) breaking music. ReginaK, DavidL, PaulO, LeeS were nearby as were most of the Seattle Circle and Tuning the Air community. For me, the show provided strong inspiration for the next two weeks of work in transforming hours of possible musics into 2.5 significant seconds.

Also interesting to reflect on past intersections with four of the musicians on stage (and one running the sound board) last night. Fred Chalenor played a few live shows with the Seattle version of Prometheus in the early nineties. Matt Chamberlain and I also both contributed to a track (w Amy Denio) on the Joe Skyward CD in the mid-nineties.

Great to see (and hear) this kind of project-based collaboration brewing in Seattle.

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Vista Session II - sneak preview

New semi-historical mementos from yesterday:

Stills extracted from footage by Robert Scoble.

A long but surprising day on Thursday bringing some unlikely people together to witness a hazardous process in motion.

It may be a while before the new footage hits Channel9 (and NPR) but know that there is some juicy material now in the can. Highlights include multiple Soundscape sessions, explorations, Soundscape 101, unexpected improvised rhythmic collaborations, drums literally flown in from Austin, Q&A, and an open discussion with designers, developers, engineers, musicians, and even a few 'quarter maintainers' participating in a candid BootlegTV-esque sharing of experiences and observations about working together within a creative process.

Yesterday was perhaps a once in a lifetime experience.

Or perhaps, just another day.

Or both.

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And perhaps apt that the day after began with a team trip to see Mission Impossible III.

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ENO dinner

Evening: ENO (Entrepreneur's Night Out) dinner at Cactus with Buzz Bruggeman and the founders of Onfolio, JJ Allaire and Sebastian Gard. Diverse and inspiring conversations about Boston, Microsoft, startups, culture, acquisitions, and mysterous emergence of next big things.

I would have liked to do a quick cellphone photo op. Next time.

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Special thanks to Todd Hanna for helping the historically heroic John Sinks move the Solar Voyager from the Seattle Circle center to MS Studios so that I could participate in ENO this evening.

Primary after-dinner reflection:

start-up ideas are a-dime-a-dozen.
effective, energetic, ego-free entrepreneurs are priceless.

What a privledge to be able to invest time in such priceless company.

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Vista Session I - memento

Semi-historical memento from last October:

A second session later this week reconnects 11.11.1981 to 11.21.2005 to 5.4.2006. A perhaps interesting and unpredictable repercussion from the Drive to Carbondale.

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A small private Soundscapes performance earlier this evening at the Seattle Circle center. At one point, the music was so powerful, small rocks were literally ripped from the walls and sent to the floor.

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