What a summer it was. As it turns out, it's not easy to move homes (again), all of your worldly possessions and simultaneously embark on a large construction project for the studio next door! Wow.
The good news is, we LOVE our new home and are very pleased with how it all turned out. We are equally pleased with the studio exterior structure and have made significant progress on the inside and infrastructure. One of the most important things for the studio building at this time of the year was getting the whole structure insulated properly and getting the HVAC system up and running. What a difference it has made! We can now endure whatever comes our way without slowing down progress as the weather gets colder.
We are awaiting installation of our backup generator (26kw) that we're putting in for peace of mind and security. Our rural electric company has been great with really no meaningful outages since we arrived in June. However, as insurance that we are never without power (and our well), we will have backup.
We added some recycled asphalt to the front of the studio for easy access and parking closer to the building (there are additional parking spots a few hundred feet away as well). Not that I expect to have a lot of cars here, but it's nice to be able to load in/load out from this position.
Inside, as previously mentioned, we insulated everything to an R49 level for energy efficiency and comfort. For me, infrastructure is the most important thing to get right, so this isn't a place to cut corners. Our contractor used spray on, blow in and batt insulation to acheive this and the building is tight!
The auxiliary rooms (outside of the studio envelope) are nearing completion. We have a bathroom with shower, bunkroom and a workout room with our Peloton gear. We hope to have these closed up before Thanksgiving so we have extra guest space!
Workout Room
Entrances to bathroom and bunkroom
You can see the entrance to the workout room on the right
Bunk Room
Bath Room
I'm definitely growing tired of having continue moving equipment and gear around the building over and over again, but I'm staying focused on the prize of having this facility open and creating music.
If you're reading this, you have seen our newly designed website and branding! A big thanks to Ed Levy for his talented work and making this special. Thanks Eddie! It looks great!
Marie and I attended AES and saw the usual suspects, shook hands and kissed babies. A few very special moments were:
1) Randomly bumping into a bandmate and friend, Charlie Castro!
2) Randomly bumping into KC Chahine who I met while at the Blackbird Studio workshop last year
3) Having a planned reunion with our old friend and TV programming guru - Jerry Leo
4) Attending Denny Tedesco's 'The Immediate Family' panel (legends at that table)
5) Sitting with Will Lee for Denny's session!
Before I sign off, I have one more exciting thing to mention. Early this year, my Mom entered my Nephew/Godson Trevor in a Major League Baseball contest. She got a call in June saying that he had been selected to be featured in a MLB TV interview AND got two tickets to World Series game 2 with airfare and lodging!! So, he and my brother Brett (also our Soul Rash drummer) are flying to Los Angeles to watch OUR Yankees in game 2 against the Dodgers. They are both very excited to go but it is possible that I'm even more excited for those two! Go Yanks!
That's all for now!
Jim
Hey Jim,
Thanks for the shout-out! It was a pleasure working on the website, and I had a blast listening to the albums you worked on. Wishing you all the best with your new studio and upcoming projects.
Cheers,
Eddie