Catchin Up - Fall 2010 Shows and Studio Session

Hi There,
Wow, its been a while since I “blogged”. My rough estimate is that hi8us has played twelve shows since my last blog entry. Some rooms include The Farm in Essex, MA, The Beach House in Falmouth, MA, Red Square in Burlington, VT a few times, our buddy Brett’s wedding reception, a couple stops at Cap’n Carlos in Gloucester, MA, The Precinct in Somerville with John Doney and Evan LaFlamme, The Red Parka in Glen, NH, The Wonderbar in Allston, MA, and back at The Blue Mermaid in Portsmouth, NH.
Here is a quick little photo highlight reel of our time on the road during these shows:

During our weekend up in NH playing at the Red Parka Pub in Glen on 10/2/10, Precious made her first, of hopefully many, stops at Dolly Copp Campground. A short distance from the Pub, we camped out after the gig and, for the most part, had a great stay with Precious in the majestic woods of the White Mountain National Forest. This weekend was surprisingly warm, and we enjoyed some fleeting summer weather during the day on Saturday before the show. The Frisbees were flyin! Speaking of the Red Parka Pub, we have a few weekends scheduled up there during ski season, 1/21-22/11, 3/4-5/11, where we play back to back nights. This is one of our favorite rooms to play lately, and the play/ski/play trifecta promises not to suck.

This is a shot I took of Mike with my phone camera during one of our sets at Red Square in Burlington, VT… pretty sure it was 10/23/10. Mike has that glow about him after delivering an especially inspired rendition of Tuesday Night. Mike always steps it up for that number…. like when Garfunkel digs deep and drops Bridge of Troubled Water during the Concert in Central Park in “67”.

This is a speeder bike I found for sale at a flea market in Waterbury VT. on our way home on Sunday 10/24/10. I should have bought that thing! It was $5, and it looks like they are going for $25 on ebay. Not that I would have ever sold it again. Instead I bought a subwoofer bass tube for $10.

This is one of Max in front of the excellent pizza oven that our boy Brett had at his wedding reception party. We all got to make our own pies in this oven. They were incredibly good. Max couldn’t believe it!

This is an orange I ate that was looking at me.

Here is the outside of The Blue Mermaid in Portsmouth, NH…just in case you couldn’t piece that one together.

This is a picture of the band at breakfast after that Blue Mermaid gig in Portsmouth on 11/12/10.

This is a pic of me in front of The Dakota in NYC.

Other than playing a bunch, hi8us hit the “studio” in Salem, MA on Halloween weekend to do some recording. We set up in Max’s dad’s wood shop for the weekend, and live tracked a bunch of our songs. The sessions were real fun, and we felt like we fell into a nice rhythm together by Friday night after we set up. We wanted to take a different approach with these sessions, and from listening back, it sounds like we got a bunch of the feel we were after. We have been feeling like most of the music we play at shows these days is post-Superficial Deep material, and we have been dying to record studio versions of these songs. We feel like these songs are some of our best, and really capture the sound of the band. We are looking forward to finishing up the production on these tracks, and mixing them down. In the meantime, here are some shots from those sessions. Stay in touch. See you out there.

jim