Here are some shots I got on last weeks trip to Toronto. Dave & I flew out to do some press for The Panic Channel and had a blast.

Posted by steveisaacs at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (45)

I must have seen this face a few thousand times in the past year or so. And sometimes with that blonde gonad who is supposed to represent the handsome popular guy at school: "They ended up together!?!". Beside the fact that it's just kind of mean and shitty as an ad, we've seen it for-fucking-ever it seems. Either come up with a new CONCEPT, or pick a new uglychickposterchild for your pic.

And classmates.com, PLEASE let up on the Spam YOU BASTARDS!

Posted by steveisaacs at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (39)

Posted by steveisaacs at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Thursday afternoon. Still hot here in Los Angeles. The whirlwind of getting (ONe) ready and out into stores has calmed for a bit. I went pretty crazy leading up to Tuesday. All night sessions working on the site, debugging the bastard for the PC IE audience (which is most of you, but let me tell you what a bitch it was removing those fucking gray "Active X" boxes). It was like I always felt like I had to be doing something to help The Channel be ready for Day (ONe), and my nerves got a little chewy in the process. Too much...

Well, as far as I can tell - everything came out ok, except for Tower Records - who Capitol had hooked up a deal with to digitally release "Go On". Unfortunately, Tower is 100 million dollars late with some kind of payment to the labels, and they are shutting them down for new releases (PDL from the Asylum had it right). So the "Go On" digital download is in limbo. I am told that if it goes on like this too long, we can just put the song on iTunes. We'll keep you posted.

Speaking of "Go On" and "Loophole", here is why we left them off "(ONe)"...
As we were making our final selections for what goes on the album and what was to be left off - we all went through our own processes, and left me tell you, for me - it was agony. Trying to balance out each song - which feels like a child - was maddening. I wrote all about it back in the NYC mastering blog entries. In the end - the only song that 3 out of 4 members voted to leave off was "Go On" (I would be the "put it on" vote).

I love "Go On". Lyrically that song is very central to what we are as a band. The spirit of taking a hard look at your life, and moving forward - to assess the mountain of white lies we all use to protect us and burning it to the ground and moving forward. Also the death/rebirth theme of the record has an echo in the reincarnation theme of the "Go On" lyrics.

We decided to leave it off, because a) it was the only song more than two members could agree on keeping off, and b) we wanted to have at least two songs to have for extra stuff - soundtracks, b-sides, whatever else. The custom is that every band should have some songs left over to spread out to other places. I personally felt okay about "Go On" being left off after thinking about it, because I know it can hold it's own as a "stand alone" song.

One sidenote - while we were on tour this Spring, we as a band listened down to the record and all freaked out that we had left "Go On" off, and made a last minute attempt to get it back on. We were told that it was too late, and that the song was already promised to...
...Tower Records - for a big promotion that looks like it won't even happen. Oh well. Welcome to the ins and outs of putting an album together.

We left "Loophole" off because even with the beautiful ferocious rock jam of the bridge, the main gist of the song was pretty poppy, and we didn't want the album to be off balance with that kind of music. "Why Cry" and "Blue Bruises" were enough of that type song on (ONe).

Posted by steveisaacs at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

Can't sleep again.

So how's a bout a recap...
Spent the day at the Capitol tower with The Panic Channel. Today I actually really felt like a "Capitol Recording Artist". Here's why:
We've been signed for almost a year now - but I haven't spent much time at the tower, it just always is looming there right down the street where I live, keeping an eye on me (and me on it). Today we had a whole mess of press to do, also an acoustic performance for FMQB.com. So we were there all day.

The day started at 1:30ish and we set up an acoustic circle and played "Why Cry", "Blue Bruises", and "Outsider". So far those are the most fun to play acoustically. I'd like to see us try "Teahouse" and "Go On" soon as well. We did our first interview in between the performances, and that will be sprayed out to various radio stations soon. We saw the actual CD artwork, (well at least the booklet no actual finished jewel case yet - maybe tomorrow for that) and signed about 400 of the fucking things, and a few Fender Stratocasters, then went on to more interviews.

Dave had been up since 4:30am (Wednesday is taping day at Rockstar), and I was feeling for him. We did interviews with CNN, Reuters, Campus Circle, GO TV, AP and a few others. Got to be a blur after a while. After the whole thing was done, I stayed behind to get my own private tour of the Capitol recording studio with my new friends Dan and Jess. Jess did some on-camera stuff for us in some upcoming music video footage that will be online soon, and she's in the audience in the "Why Cry" video. Her friend Dan works in the Capitol Recording studios in the Tower. He offered to give me a tour, and I jumped at the chance - I had thought that when you signed a deal at Capitol, they just cruise you around and show it off first thing, but that's not the case.

Capitol was the site of the recording of arguably the best phase in Frank Sinatra's career - the comeback years. I am a huge Sinatra fan, and listen to him at least a couple times a week. It only gets better with time. As I grow, I get new meanings from the lyrics, and his vocal style changed so much through his life. You can hear a song he sang in his younger days, and it sounds really clean and precise. The same song, re-recorded in his fifties, gains a richness - a world weariness that's sad sometimes, intense in others. Took me a while to really get a taste for him, but once I got it - he's just the absolute best. Not to mention the fact that songwriting and orchestration was at a creative zenith in those days. The work of the musicians and lyricists that wrote those songs and played those tracks that make up what we now call "The American Songbook" are the masters of their crafts. Besides the old Brill building in New York, I can't think of a more timeless epicenter of that old magic style of music.

Dan made a special point to let me sing my acoustic tracks through Frank Sinatra's own vocal mic, which really made my day.

The three of us explored the studios, then went up to the roof of the Capitol tower, by this time it was night and the city was all tiny lights. I've written before about the romantic concept of the Capitol tower I've had my whole life. I think every musician does. It's like the Mecca of Recorded Sound - the holy land. Constructed in an era that was so much simpler, the proudness of it's purpose breathes art into it's architecture.

There are 13 floors in the Capitol Tower, then just above that - the doors lead out to a wide round roof, with the giant capital letters about 12 feet above. The view is gorgeous... 360 degrees of re-affirmation of your faith in Los Angeles.

Ok, gonna go give it another shot.

11 days.

Posted by steveisaacs at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (67)