Far TOO early on Friday morning, I'm off to Ohio to attend Cinema Wasteland, help run the Kitley's Krypt booth and shamelessly self-promote Turntabling.net. Should be a great time and I'll be posting a few reports from the show both here and on Turntabling.net. Today I spent a good chunk of the day flyering for the Paisley Babylon show at Transistor on Clark Street in Chicago…most hilarious moment of the day was the look of utter disgust on the face of the gent behind the counter at Andersonville Wine And Spirits when I asked him if I could post a show flyer there. What's the matter, Bucky? Did I take the jam out of your jam roll somehow?

I tried not to laugh–the sneer of contempt on his face was comical–but I don't expect I'll ever purchase another bottle of decent Italian wine from THEM again. My next special occasion purchase will be from Trader Joe's, thanks. But I babble. There were plenty of nice, supportive Chicago merchants in the neighborhood of Transistor including the Women and Children First bookseller, The Brown Elephant, and The Chicago Filmmaker's Society. Thanks, all!

Paisley Babylon shows are coming up soon so I’ve been spending a lot of time getting things ready for them including the usual flyers, postcards, artwork, shameless self promotion, etc. When I wasn’t doing that, I was trying to ignore a long string of bad news stories on TV about alleged terror plots in Chicago, seemingly random and pointless shootings and other craziness.

I don’t understand what makes people buy and own firearms in the first place, let alone use them on people. But I suppose the NRA would write off that notion as just another clueless artsy type whining about things they don’t agree with. Next weekend I travel to Cinema Wasteland, the annual weekend horror movie convention held in Ohio, sure to be an excellent time. I’ve never been to Wasteland before and there’s a waiting list a mile long to get a table for it so I won’t be running a Turntabling booth there, sadly. But I will be there with iPhone in hand so I’ll file plenty from the show.

I remember when Paisley Babylon got its first little tiny bit of exposure on CD–a very big deal at the time–on this compilation put out by Uncle Buzz Records. Back then I had recorded all the music on 4-track cassette, dumped it into Cool Edit and then down to a CD-R which then had to be transferred to DAT at Uncle Buzz for inclusion on the comp. Whew! Today, it’s all digital all the way. It’s very strange to fix things in seconds which used to take long agonizing periods in the editing room. And then there’s yesterday.

I took delivery of a CD duplication system and an automated direct-to-disc CD printing system. Which basically means Paisley Babylon and Turntabling Records is self-contained. I have a t-shirt silkscreening rig in my front room, a PA, all the toys needed to be fully indie. It’s a strange feeling, but a good one. The real problem is the learning curve with all the new gear. It took me a long time to get the damn T-shirts going to where I thought they looked good enough to sell. Hoping that the learning curve for this new gear isn’t as steep.

The thing I love about this new gear is that when I do a show I can put out an EP specifically for that crowd. Every single time. What a fantastic opportunity that is! It would cost me each and every time I wanted to do a run if I had to go through the middleman CD duplication houses…now as long as I have the discs on hand and the ink to print them with, it’s short-run duplication heaven. How many discs do you sell at your shows? How many do you want to sell? That second question is the more important one now…

Most of this blog post has been sort of musician-geeked out. For fans and friends, the thing I am digging most is the ability to give something unique every time I perform. It’s the sort of thing you can’t do when you have CD duplication minimums and other issues to deal with from a third party. FREEDOM! I love it. I’m getting the first Paisley Babylon EP together now…stand by, there are free downloads coming.