We've just uploaded a version of Friend of the Devil for your enjoyment. As with all of our songs, this was a live take not done in a studio. Ben and I sat down and played through it from start to finish and this is that we came up with. We're finally starting to get a bit of polish on things and I hope you're as excited as we are about this.

http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/song_details/4788808?play_now=true

I know that this is primarily a food, wine and beer blog but I did mention that there would be a fun component as well. I haven’t been posting quite as much as I would like because 1) I’ve been spending a lot of time with my band and 2) I’ve been working on a recipe for a competition. The entry deadline for the competition is this Friday so I will have the recipe posted up for you early next week. However, I do want to take a bit of time to mention my band, Paper Canoe.

If you hadn’t noticed, there is a little link on the right hand side of the page that says Paper Canoe. If you follow it, you will see the primary page for my band. It is short and sweet and has a couple of songs for you to listen to. However, I will be changing that. If you click on the image in this post or the image that will be on the right side going forward, you will now be taken to our page at Reverb Nation. This will give you a complete picture of the band and what we’re doing, including a listing of upcoming shows. You can also join our mailing list there if you want to be informed of new and exciting things happening with us. I hope to see you all there.

Don’t forget to enter to win your chance at free tickets to see the Fab Faux at Lisner Auditorium this Saturday. You can enter by adding a comment to the thread at this link.

Hey folks, guess what? I’ve got a pair of tickets to this Saturday’s concert by the Fab Faux and I’m giving them away! See what you get for checking out At Least I’m Enjoying the Ride!

In order for you to get these tickets, all you have to do is to reply to this post with a comment and leave a valid email address. One of the responses will be selected randomly to receive this pair of tickets. Your entry has to be time stamped before 11:59 PM Thursday May 20, 2010 for you to receive these tickets and only one entry per email address will be accepted. The Winner will be notified and their name posted on the site Friday morning.

Remember, the Fab Faux will be performing at 8 PM, Saturday May 22 at the Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington University campus. So unless you live in the Washington, D.C. area or can travel to Washington, D.C. for the show, please don’t enter this contest.  Thanx everybody and good luck!

Employees of At Least I’m Enjoying the Ride and their relatives are not eligible for this contest.

I’m guessing that most  of you are like me in that you were too young to actually see the Beatles in concert. We did however, grow up with them as the soundtrack to our lives. So I was especially pleased to see that the pre-eminent Beatles tribute band, the Fab Faux, will be playing in the DC area once again.

This time, their show “will feature  a ‘Glorious Hodgepodge’ of Beatles music, as The Fab Faux are accompanied by Creme Tangerine Strings and Hogshead Horns.” The event is at 8 PM on May 22 at the Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington University campus. Not only should you consider attending this event, but you should check back here as I may have more info forthcoming.

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The name sounds like some shadow conspiracy group whose purpose is to overthrow the Pope. It is not.  Or I should say, they are not. The name means “Sun of the Illimani” in the Aymara language and they are a Chilean musical group founded back a in 1967 which perhaps also owns the longest musical tour in history. You see, they were in Italy at the time of Augusto Pinochet’s military coup back in 1973 and since much of their music was a) politically motivated and b) aligned with Salvador Allende (the guy Pinochet overthrew as head of the Chilean state) they were not allowed back into Chile. It wasn’t until September 1988 that they were allowed back into their home country.

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A while back I wrote a little bit about America’s National Parks and the fact that we, the people of this country, do in fact own these wonderful places. Now I’m sure that there are very few of you that don’t know about these places. But what I’d be willing to bet that the majority of you don’t know is that hidden amongst all these wonderful jewels is an amazing concert venue, Wolf Trap.

Back in 1966, a gift of 100 acres of land in Vienna, Virginia and the funds for construction of a 6,800 seat indoor/outdoor theater was accepted by the U.S. Congress. It is on this land that the main venue, the Filene Center, was built. In addition to the Filene Center, two 18th century barns were relocated from upstate New York to this site and were used to create the more intimate 400 seat, The Barns at Wolf Trap. Both of these venues and the property is taken care of by the National Park Service.

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Today finds our intrepid voyager out lost without a compass, map, or shapely Native American to lead him back to known lands. I'm doing some different things to try and bring some life to the video. This is supposed to be a learning experience so some experimentation is to be expected. I am also rapidly finding out that playing the guitar and singing is by far the easiest part of this whole deal. It would be so much simpler if I didn't have to be producer, director, cameraman, lighting specialist, sound engineer and performer all at the same time!

One of the audio enhancements is emphasizing the SM 57 microphone over the SM 58 to get a bit thinner and more rustic tone profile for the recording. I also added a touch of tremolo during the lead section; I'm not sure if this adds or detracts from the overall experience. For the video, I went and played while sitting on a bar stool. I really didn't enjoy doing this and I most likely won't again. I did incorporate multiple camera angles, but because of some timing issues, I had to use a cheezy effect to help distract y'all from some issues. Editing AVCHD files is just not possible in real time with my computer, I'll need a beefier machine if I want to do any serious editing.

That being said, I get a bit more comfortable each and every time I do this. I hope you enjoy it!

The second in my continuing series of videos of me playing guitar. Each time I put one of these together I learn a little bit more about the technical aspects of video and audio recording, editing and display. This time I learned how to get a tru HD picture captured and uploaded. I changed the lighting, this time I used more fill lighting and no overhead lighting. It's better, but there are still some awkward shadows. This is what happens when I resort to borrowed and repurposed house lighting rather than breaking down and investing in a light kit. I'm also a bit pissed about the title card being a touch messed up; I have no idea what happened there.

[youtube:Vf0duuL8GdU]

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So I got me a new high def video camera, now the challenge is to learn how to use it. More than just the mechanics of push this button to start recording, there's all those fun things that I know from still photography that I need to translate over here like aperture settings and shutter speed. Plus there are some things unique to video like frame rates. Then there's the audio which is a whole world unto itself. Dead spots, room reverb, microphones, mixing, it seems the list doesn't end. Finally, there's the editing of the video, putting it all together with the audio, plus little titles and graphics and things like that.

Since I have a lot of stuff to learn, the subject of my videos should be something that I am very familiar with, at least at the start. Well, I am very familiar with playing the guitar so I think we'll start with that. Now that you know why I'm doing this, here is my very first effort at video. I hope you like it.