Astrol Waters at Substation!

set (46 megs)

Here's Astrol Waters's set from December 7th at the Substation in Freelard.  We had a nice big group for this one!  Lineup for the evening was B.W.H. (guitar), 5-Track (guitar), Jeremy Gonzales (sax), John Leighton Beezer (bass), Keenen Magik (voice), Patrick Lenon (drums), and Me Woods (percussion/vocalizations).  For me it was a mostly seemless blast/blur, but I haven't listened back to this recording yet...?  We opened for "Explosions Everywhere", whose first movement was very nice(!), but then I had to head out early to get some sleep before an early start.  "Face Mason" (a prog/punk duo who played before us) was also weirdly appealing.

Toast Fantasy at SP20!

First Three (and a half) Pieces (23 megs)

On November 17th, Toast Fantasy played its first show (!) at my work's 20th-Birthday party in a brand-new high-rise in downtown Bellevue.  This was certainly an unusual event for a first show.  But in spite of the distractions of a hundred current and former coworkers and their relatives and friends, it seemed the music was very well recieved!  Lots of great things happened that night -- not least of which was just successfully stringing together some songs in front of a live audience for the first time -- but I thought the opening jam and the first three tunes (Static, Your Song, Aphid Tea) were particularly energized, so I've included them here.

Toast Fantasy Show's Eve Runthrough!

Under The Tent Outro (3 megs)
Albright and Kalm (8 megs)

Here are a couple brief snippets from what was a very satisfying rehearsal on the Eve of our first show.  The first clip was the tail of the jam after "Under the Tent", and the second was our first real run-through of Five's "Albright and Kalm".

Toast Fantasy Early November Session!

Warmup (12 megs)

Here's the warmup jam from the top of a session where the Toast Fantasy catalog really started to glow and burst.  Can't wait to share the colorful cocktail this group has been mixing up!

(perhaps I'll update next week with some song-slivers and jams from later in the evening...?)

Toast Fantasy October Session!

Heard From a Moving Train (12 megs)

Here's the warmup jam from the October 19th Toast Fantasy Session.  Before we attempted to run through a bunch of songs for our first show (!!), I tried to film our warmup with a new and improved brio-train-mounted camera setup.  Both times I've tried to film, the music has come out extra restrained and smooth(not sure why...?), which I'm really digging.  I'll include a few captures from the video here, but I also posted most of the video with the Edirol audio overlayed to Facebook ... so find me there if you're interested in that.

 (Note To Self:  next time, turn on the light over by Adrian!)

Toast Fantasy September Session!

Warmup Jam (11 megs)

Here's the warmup jam from Toast Fantasy's September rehearsal, gearing up for some actual gigs!  Wait, did I mention we came up with a name for this group yet?  It's "Toast Fantasy".

This was my first rehearsal with the Hartke TX600 as a replacement for a recently deceased tube-head excavated from a Carvin combo decades ago (mostly great! ... but I think I'm gonna try to fuzz it up a little more to move a bit towards my previous tone).  And Five was playing with some sort of iPad-based FX rig.

Astrol Waters at Vanfest 2017

Astrol Waters Set (41 megs)

Here's the recording of Astrol Waters' mid-day set at Vanfest 2017.  This was an unusually stripped-down Astrol Waters lineup with John Leighton Beezer (bass), B.W.H. (guitar), Keenen Magik (vocals), and Me Woods (percussion).  Featuring a dense lineup of creative bands ping-ponging between 3 stages lining the Cedar River in Maple Valley, this festival was a blast!  Next year, I'm gonna invite everybody I know to come and geek out with us.

May "Neon Grey" Warmup Jam!

Studio Warmup Jam (10 megs)

Here's a jam that was captured at the beginning of the second recording-session for an upcoming EP.  Woody, Five, Adrian, and I have been goofing around with a 4-piece evolution of the Neon Brown concept for long enough now that we're ready to put together a demo EP and play some shows!  ... stay tuned

Four Twenty Neon Grey (?) Session

Warmup Jam (8 megs)

Here's most of a warmup jam from the top of last Thursday's rehearsal of what I've been calling the "Neon Grey" project (5-Track, Woody, Adrian, and Me).  The "?" in the post-title up there hints that we may be getting close to settling on a real name for this project.

A lot was going on this night!  Not only was it April 20th (my birthday, among other things), but we were set up to multitrack for a demo/EP, *and* I was playing around with a silly moving-go-pro film-experiment.  The film experiment crashed and burned, adding plenty of distraction to at least the first 3rd of this warmup, but the vibe was very nice anyway, and I even pulled some stills out of the resulting video to add to the post here.

Six Sided Cube at Slim's Last Chance Saloon

Six Sided Cube's Set (56 megs)

Here's the official recording from Six Sided Cube's set at Slim's Last Chance Saloon.  Six Sided Cube is 5-Track (guitar), Sheridan Riley (drums) and Me Woods (bass).  This was my first time playing at Slim's.  What a great place!  What a great night!  Six Sided Cube closed the evening after inspired sets by "Beyond Captain Orca" and "Bats of Ballard".

(This recording is a matrix of Five's, which was onstage, and Mine, which was back by the pool table)