Where Do The Cat Souls Go?
The curse of running a blog like this one, is that when absolutely nothing is going on, I have mountains of time to dedicate to documenting every little detail. The reverse has been the case lately, where every second is filled with crazy exciting things, and not nearly enough time to get them all done, let alone document them. It's really been insane over here. I am going to do a big Spring Tour recap, but that will have to wait.
I'm sitting in a really nice post-production studio doing the very last final work on The Panic Channel's first video, "Why Cry". We shot it a couple weeks ago, did the edit all last week, and now we are doing an eleventh hour tweak on the audio that happens in the intro before the song starts. The finished video I believe will be on MSN.com first, then spread out to the other video channels/outlets.
We're very happy with it. I don't want to ruin anything, so let's just keep it quiet until you see it. The whole experience from concept to finished video was the speediest and least obstacle-filled of anything involved with this record so far. It pretty much couldn't have gone better. We were really lucky to have Kate Miller over at Capitol overseeing the production, who introduced us to director Robert Hales, who turned out to be the perfect choice. He dug our concept and treatment and was a dream to work with.
Once the video is released, that will be the time to talk about it, but for now let's just move along...
The time since returning home from tour has been a blur wrapped in a email stamped with a deadline. We had a week to reassemble our lives, then we shot the "Why Cry" video on June 16th. After that marathon 16 hour day, the next night we played a show at our "home" in our hometown - "The Dragonfly". The show ended up being one of the best shows on the tour (we counted it as the last show on the tour, since most of our friends couldn't get into the Roxy show). It was also great to recharge after the hard road schedule - I sang a much better show at the Dragonfly than the week before at the Roxy.
The whole next week was editing the video. Ken, Robert's editor over at Sunset Edit did an incredible job. They let us be a part of the editing process all the way through, and couldn't have been more creative or open to collaborating with the band. In turn, we hipped Ken to "Trapped in the Closet" which we figure he will owe us forever for.
So now the video is done. On to Vegas.
Tomorrow night we play a big party-event thing at The Palms in Las Vegas. The magazine "944" is having its one year anniversary, and The Palms is opening a new 40 million dollar pool, so apparently it's going to be some giant shindig starting tomorrow and lasting until the 4th of July to celebrate. I'm fucking stoked. Haven't been to Vegas in about a year, and that's too long. The last time was when I sang a tune for a Camp Freddy gig at the Hard Rock Casino's 10th anniversary. That was my first free trip to Vegas. This will be number two. Free airfare, food, rooms, and God knows what else. I am taking the lady, and some good friends and Panic Agents are coming out to see the show from L.A.
The plan goes something like this: we get out tomorrow afternoon, then play an acoustic set for a radio station in LV, then soundcheck at the Palms, then The Panic Channel plays, then Camp Freddy (I am scheduled to sing The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary"). Big day.
The bandstand is apparently outside under the stars around this new Uber-Pool. Afterwards, fireworks. Yeah, I know - it sounds pretty sick. It's one of those things that isn't possible to suck. Just not possible.
It's also a bit of happenstance that we are playing at a 944 magazine party, as in this month's issue G had a rememberance of her friend Dario (who was killed on his motorcycle last month) published. It was beyond tragic that someone so beloved by his friends was taken so young (28), and you can see the outpouring of affection on the last page.
Speaking of sad news, one of my two cats 'Yaphet" was killed by a coyote just after I got back from tour. He was born in my closet in '99, the one cat from the litter that I kept. The smart one, the attentive one. I loved that little guy so much. Don't really have anything clever to say about it. Just sucks.
Hope you all are well, and thanks for your patience while I was buzzing around the country playing shows and keeping thepanicchannel.com cracking along.
