Living "La Vida Lisbon"

Imparting Some Portuguese and Moroccan Flavor to LYRE's Debut

With the main VIP in my life spending most of the past 4 months in Europe it has become increasingly difficult to maintain the kind of relationship we both seek to have. And since The Babe's planted in Lisbon until who-knows-when I decided to re-enlist the cat sitter, throw 150 pounds worth of clothes, recording gear, and instruments into bags and flight cases, and move tracking and mixing duties to the Tivoli Oriente Hotel in Lisbon.

Travel was pretty uneventful except for the airlines loosing the one bag with all my clothes, toiletries, a MIDI keyboard, and some fairly expensive microphones in it. That pretty much set my schedule back by a day as I scampered around the mall buying enough stuff to get by and trying to remain positive. The case did make it to the hotel this morning with just a broken zipper and all the contents in tact. I can't wait to see what kind of positive thing ends up being attached to this rather negative experience. I did become suddenly aware of and grateful for the fact that this is the first time in a lifetime of travel that I've ever had a bag misplaced. Seems I'm doing way better than the industry average.

With jet lag subsiding I'm turning once again to work on the album. I'll be posting to the LYRE Notes Blog almost daily and giving out links to some new Flickr albums while in Europe. I'll be making the most of this time by getting out to experience as much live Portuguese music as I can. I also plan to do some surfing and make a musician's pilgrimage to Morocco to see what north African tones and rhythms I can soak up.

Cheers for now,

Dave

Mixing Music European Hotel Style

It Ain't So Bad, Besides There's No Room Service Back Home

I just wanted to give you an idea of my situation for mixing in London and Lisbon. About the hardest thing is getting used to wearing earbuds for hours on end and knowing I'll have to leave all EQing until I'm back home with accurate monitors. Still, I can compose and even use my travel keyboard to record midi tracks of things like synth, piano, organ, and drums.

 All in all I think it's working well and it does seem inspiring to take breaks and go on a mini adventure in the

 hotel's neighborhood. The only thing I really miss is my guitars. I really like to record guitars when the mood hits and they do tend to be my musical security blankets.

More later.

Cheers,
Dave

Oh, I almost forgot...

I saw a werewolf with a chinese menu in his hand

Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain

He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fook's

Gonna' get a big plate of beef chow mein.

Aioooo, werewolves of London...