Malena is safe and all is right again! Now I am ok , knowing she will not have to flee in the night with what she can hold….( no doubt in a long black gown , clutching a candelabra , with bats flying about her head, hee-hee)

Spent 5 hours in the studio today. Got one song mixed. The Scottish one, which we now believe is pronounced ” Kay-lick Boor ” despite it’s 20 some letters…..It is truly lovely, lyrics by Jane Yolen, and music by Adam Stemple.

Taking the weekend off from the studio to catch up on sleep and work here. Be the first couple days I have had in months to do so and I am looking forward to it.

Hope your weekends go as well….

Love and rest, Lorraine

The fire is 20% contained today. I never thought 20% could make me feel so safe. People are safe to return to their homes today. Yeah!

This fire is no good. We are concerned as it is not far from Malena’s , slept with a phone in my bed last night , but as of now, they are still in their house, which is a good sign. Pray for rain indeed! We’ll keep you posted…..

I was trying to keep Malena cheery yesterday , tho I have to say, she ought to remember the cd is half HER, and she can really sing, play , arrange and compose! That girl is magic! I am the lucky one and this friendship and project is one of the most special and dearest things in my life.

On a lighter note, some good news. We have a paypal button up for pre-ordering the cd! Delievry by Halloween, of course!!!! It’s under the Shop button, and we have some artwork up from the cd booklet too, in lieu of the actual cover. It’s a collage that Miles did for us, all sorts of nice shots.

For those of you in Minneapolis, if you want to save shipping, I am hoping when I pick the little guys up from Noiseland, to take some over to Dreamhaven right away. More on that idea as we get closer.

I am off to the studio for more mixing now. I will try again to keep my friend cheery, playing her mixes and making her laugh, from time to time. If nothing else we will get Adam and Leo to tell her some jokes. ( Nope, these aren’t the kind we want on our rather respectable website , hee-hee )

Love, Lorraine

Well, this has been a most interesting day! Both good and bad.

Fires are raging here in LA. The air is thick with smoke and it’s raining ashes…the sun is blood red! Days like these make me thankful for clean air and green plants. I look at them in all their green splendor and hope they will survive the fire. Many people have been evacuated and some are without homes. I can’t imagine leaving this house. Miles and I live to create and I pray we will have a place to continue our work. Of course, my house is no more important than anyone else’s. Loss is loss, no matter who experiences it. So, I pray for rain! Of course, Lorraine has kept me cheery by letting me listen to the mixes. I can’t believe the CD’s almost finished. Yeah! She can really play, and sing, and compose, and arrange, etc, etc. I’m so lucky to be a part of this project. As I sit here coughing with my eyes watering, watching LA burn, I think of the connections I’ve made on this project. Friendship outlasts all triumph and tragedy, and plants the seed of positive possibilities in the minds of the troubled.

I am blessed…Now I’m off to put wet towels under the doors.

Last weekend with Malena was wonderful. It was so perfect to get to be with her midway thru the last bits of the album, and for the last weekend of the Festival. I have been missing her pretty badly durning the recording, and the shows have been long and to some extent, frustrating. It was sort of an ABBA Super Trouper moment. ( yes, I assume, you all being people of intelligence and taste, that you are in fact ABBA fans )

Malena even got to come into the studio on Monday and record a few more bits. Actually , she got to record some more yesterday. She , quite literaly , phoned her vocal part in, with me holding the cell up to the mic. Our last thing we recorded for the cd was a bit I like to call The Party. It will be the last thing on the cd and it is, as Adam said, quite possibly the best thing we have ever recorded. Like a huge lurching Monster of Doom, it weaves and wobbles nearly going off the cliff in a most marvelous way. Un-Dead Dixieland Jazz at it’s best. I love this album. It has been such a fun thing to do, no tempers, no arguments, just so much fun. It is the first cd I have ever made where I didn’t CRY in sheer desparation. ( tho we got close doing fiddle parts on The Fox )

Now we are mixing. Very soon, it will be done. We got the cover art finalized yesterday and more of the booklet. As Malena said, we are going to take pre-orders just as soon as she can put the page up, and we do have a signing in LA on the 30th! Hurrah and Hurrah!

I hope you like it.

Those of you who read my Boss’s blog know that this moning we are over the moon and more happy than Misty the Kitten when she finds somethng to chase. Life is good. I send him out an even dozen Hurrah’s !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love and Mixing,
Lorraine

Well, Lorraine and I are almost done with the album. NO…really! hee hee
We have a signing scheduled for 4 pm, October 30th at Dark Delicacies here in LA. So, stop by and say hello. For more information, go to:

www.darkdel.com

AND, we are now taking pre-orders!

The Studio this week has been one of the best and most demanding expierences of my musicial life. Some things have come easily, another song, just my fiddle bit, took 4 and a half hours. My respect for Adam as a producer grows daily. A producers job is to hep you take your ideas and get them onto tape, and to get the parts out of You as perfect as you can play them. Which is most often much more than you think you can do, if you seee what I mean.

I haven’t cried yet, but my language has gone rather foul a few times, hee-hee….If I have to tune the Hardanger again, they may roll tape. ( Just realized the actual spelling of the thing, HarDANGER indeed!!!!! ) Mine is a rather lovely one, with a carved dragon head, but it is very old, and the thing has, besides the regular four strings, four more that run under the finger board , they sort of vibrate in sympathy. Or rather agony if they are not perfectly in tune ….

Malena comes tonight, which does my heart good. It has been so very hard to be in the studio this week working without her. I want so badly for her to be there, and for her to be able to hear as the songs grow up and the bones all get some flesh. I miss her ideas, and her wit ( which , it BEING the studio, can get as foul as anyone going , and I include the boys in this …) I miss her support and her strenth when I am on the 30th take and it still isn’t going right. The good news is , we have a few hours on Monday before she goes back, and we are going to spend them adding a few more bits of her.

You can never have enough Malena!

( Mwwwwaaahahahahahha!!!!!! )

( Not sure why I thought that needed Evil Laughter…)

Mullie recorded his vocals on Song of the Cailleach Bheur yesterday, , which is a song with words by Jane Yolen and music by Adam, truly truly lovely. Oh, and let’s just forstall the comments, hee-hee, no , no idea how to pronounce it, and Mullie TOLD us yesterday and SINGS it in the song…And I still don’t know how to say it. Anyone??? My fiddle parts took nearly four hours, but I did get to write a new fiddle tune for the middle of it.

I truly don’t mean to tease you with all the talk of the songs, we are just so exceited tho, we can’t seem to stop. We want so badly to share them with you, and for you to hear them, and one hopes, you will love them as we do. We will post an MP3 or two as Soon as we have a mix.

Hmmm….I seems to have gone back and forth there from being One person to Two. Might just be that kind of day….

And of course, Malena comes at the end of it….

Love and best friends,

Lorraine

Un Zipped, eh? Well , my brain is certainly starting to feel a little un-zipped. The cd is going very well tho. I am sure I have much more to say on the process, but I , sadly, can’t seem to think of it now. I am loving useing all the different fiddles, the electric is beyond cool ad I do think we may be the ONLY band in the history of music to use both an electric violen, complete with turbo rat and distortion AND an accoustic Hardunger violen on the same song…

Today Steve Mulligan from the Tim Malloys comes in to do some vocals on a song that Adam wrote the music to, Jane Yolen did the lyrics. Steve, or Mullie as he is known is from Scotland, Gasgow to be exact, and the song is very Scottish. ( Just for you K ! )

I am learning just exactly how much I don’t know about music. I have been feeling pretty high on my horse lately with all these gigs and shows and very hot on the fiddle, but the studio takes it out of you and makes you know how very much work you still have to do…..Very humbling, but I am learning SO much!

More tomorrow, back at it now…

Love and tracking, Lorraine

Hey, Malena here. Lorraine is in the studio this week zipping around on her violins. Yes, three in fact. The Acoustic, The Hardinger, and the Electric. Yesterday, they worked on Personal Thing. When I heard it, I said, “Woah! Who is unleashing hell on that electric guitar?”

Lorraine…in her sweet voice said, “Ah, That’s me, and it’s on the violin babe.”

The girl is FABULOUS people! They named her well. Today they are working on Tom O’ Bedlam, which reminds me of Tom Waits as Renfield in Dracula. You’ll see why I think that when you hear it. I can’t wait to do the video and wear our straight jacket outfits. Let’s just say we were temporarily channeling the sexy and insane.

All these songs are very different. Each one is it’s own creature.

Only a month and a half left! Then you can hear the CD too! Yeah.

Maureen at Stardust and Alchemy is helping us Sync our blog so you can read it in your live journals. Lorraine and I are both semi-dinosaurs with this sort of thing so, it may take a few days. Like I say to Lorraine in times of desperation,

“I just sing”

That isn’t actually true, but being around all these gigantic talents, you can start to wonder about yourself. Which is a good thing, I don’t want a big head..too many of my body parts would fit that description as it is. he hee

So, send Lorraine energy! She is on a marathon of music this week. And this weekend is the Renn Fest. I can’t wait. Haaaaa zzahhhh!

When we moved in this house, I started putting my daughter’s fairies on the side of the house for the neighbor kids to play with. Now, three years later, it has become the Mecca for fairy worshippers. Miles is being quite tolerant, being the King of ALL Hellish Creatures and all. He added his statue of Clint Eastwood from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly to “stand guard over the ridiculous array of fairy nonsense”.
Few men would tolerate 30 feet of fairies, wouldn’t you agree?

And….It seems the whole neighborhood is getting involved. Yes, now the entire side of our house is a fairy garden. In fact, just this week alone, some anonymous human brought a beautifully hand-crafted fairy house and another brought a rhinestone winged fairy. That’s two new additions to the fairy estate. How fun! There is always a Mom with a stroller parked outside my kitchen window. It’s so fun to hear the children playing as I make dinner or brew up some soap. It brings enchantment to our home that wouldn’t ordinarily be there. Just thought I’d share the magic with our LaMies.