Jacob Wolkenhauer

I’ve posted a video to youtube from my upcoming CD; I’m playing Stasis w/ Joe Hickey. This is from LastSundaysFest in July. It was a beautiful day, and a good festival. Hope you enjoy the vid!

A week and a half ago, it fell out of my gig bag (which was admittedly wide open), and landed right on her tail on a concrete floor. The outside of it looked fine, so I thought I was in the clear. Not too long after that, I heard something rattling around in there. I was hoping that the internal microphone had simply shaken loose, but it was actually one of the braces. The brace split and snapped clean off. I’ll be giving her to my guitar-doctor. I’m sure he can fix her up again. Keep your popsicle sticks crossed for me!

(I was hoping that when/if it did break, it would be from playing, not careless handling.  I’d much prefer a sporting story of  “oh, I punched through the face of my guitar at that show”…)

How many times in a row do I have to log in before I can listen to my music?  … so incredibly stupid.

I’ll be playing the LastSundaysFest later this month, July 26th, from noon to 6pm.  It’s a free music festival in Berkeley (on Telegraph, with stages at Bancroft and Amoeba).  More info as it becomes available on their website and/or my myspace.

I’m flying out to Carrboro, NC tomorrow morning to get my CD mastered. And how!  I’ve been working with Brent Lambert at The Kitchen to hone my mixes and make them as ready as possible for mastering, and I’m super happy with the results; he and his staff have been surprisingly helpful.

Naturally, this means a couple things:
- CD will be out soon
- I’ll be able to post new tracks before too long
- I get to eat some amazing Southern food.  (Fried-chicken biscuits, anyone?!?!)

Hardest part of the trip = getting to the BART at 6 to make my flight.

I’m done with all the recording / editing / mixing / producing / cud-chewing / etc.  The album is finished!  And by finished, I mean it still needs to get mastered (by my amazingly talented ME, just you watch, he’s sick!) and I still need to put the last touches on the artwork, but it’s D-U-N.  Werd.  It’ll be out soon.

And in the meanwhile, I’ll be playing a show this Friday, May 8, 8pm at the Rooster’s Roadhouse in Alameda, 1700 Clement Ave, at Grand… with my good friend and amazing musician Steve Laciak.  He’s one of my favorite people, musically and non-musically alike.  Join us for tunes and drinks (do they serve drinks?  they do?  oh good!) as we rock it out for you.

So I’m playing some improvvy musical craziness at an art show over in West Berkeley this Friday.  It’s kind of on the railroad tracks.  Or at least, on a building on the railroad tracks.  Danger!  Trains!

April 24, 2009   8 pm – 12 am
@ Zughaus
1306 3rd Street, Loft 2, Berkeley, CA 94710
(This basically means, at the intersection of Gilman and the RR tracks.  Choo choo.)

Other things happening there:  Drawings!  Music!  Shiny (Nancy Fair + 6 others)!  Sangria!  Trains!!!!

Here’s a flyer.
Here’s a googlemap.

Sometimes you’ve gotta record a song seven or eight times before you really nail it.  Done, and, done.

So my multi-dimensional expertises (yes, expertises) apparently don’t include website maintenance.  This website’s been down for about 4 months, but I finally fixed it.  Now I’ll try to work on being interesting again.  Don’t hold yer breath.

So last wednesday, I went to go see one of my favorite bands‘ CD release show. This particular band also happens to hold the top 3 spots for loudest shows I’ve ever seen in my life. So on my way there, I decide that it’d be a good idea to pick up some earplugs.

I start by going to corner store #1.  This place has a fairly limited selection and small staff, so their prices are a little high.  But they’re really friendly people, and sell lots of organic stuff, so all the better.  But no earplugs, so out I go.

This brings me to corner store #2.  Cool place, just a hair cheaper, and cool staff.  They have earplugs as well, so how much are they?  (Cue yelling to the back of the store:) “HOW MUCH ARE THE EARPLUGS?”  Guy comes out and says the earplugs are $4 / pair.  Not just any pair of earplugs, these are old earplugs in faded cardboard packs, in tiny plastic ziplocs… at least 5 or 10 years old, by my estimation.  You’re not seriously going to try to charge me $8 for earplugs for me and my friend are you?  Really?  REALLY?  Out I go.

Most days, I’d be one of the first people to kick all the chains out of Berkeley and only go to local stores.  But here I am at the medium-sized chain pharmacy, and they’ve got 10 pairs of earplugs for $4.  This is seriously 10% of what they cost one block down the road.  As much as I’d like to support the little guy, I can only do it within reason.  So I bought the earplugs from the chain store, and I don’t really feel bad about it.

So what?  What’s the point of this?  I don’t know… maybe just that you have to include a little bit of flexibility in your philosophies, whatever they may be.