Melissa Axel

Why is he such a slacker about updating his 43 things? ;-)

Because I read some of her entries and they inspired me.

That and she’s cute ;)

Back in May, my sweetie and I went to see Imogen perform live in Boulder’s cozy but acoustically great Fox Theater. We stayed afterward to meet her…

Though she must have been exhausted from a very energetic and captivating performance (complete with encores) in which she personally recreated almost every note of her sonically-intensive edgy poptronica album Speak For Yourself using a variety of electronic gear and her gorgeous voice, she still made time to greet everyone who’d waited with a genuine smile and a hug.

I gave her a DVD of my stage production as a sort of thank you for her inspiration, and she wanted to know what it was all about and said she looked forward to watching it. I doubt she has any time to, but I thought that was very sweet.

was on May 2nd at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. Regina puts on a great show and is not only an exceptionally talented singer/songwriter and pianist but a very witty, sweet, and approachable person as well. Now don’t you all go bombarding her along the tour and stress her out or anything, I’m just saying it was quite nice to meet and talk with her! ;-) If you’re debating about whether to see her perform in your town, DO NOT MISS HER!

We’ll be checking Imogen out in concert for the first time next week in Boulder, and I am pretty sure my sweetie will be determined to have her sign something for his frabjous collection of signed-things-from-artists-of-substance. I have really been moved by much of both Imogen’s latest solo effort and her work co-creating the Frou Frou record. Even her earlier solo stuff from years ago reveals interesting, sort of raw hints at where she’s now ended up musically.

Definitely looking forward to seeing her perform live, and it’s always great to meet a fellow singer/songwriter.

See this story =)

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were awarded their honorary doctorates during the first of my two graduations from Berklee College of Music in Boston. They are a couple of cool cats – and nice, smart guys.

So today I finally got around to recording several songs on cassette for my producer friend Randy, not-so-conveniently within less than one week of him moving away to Hotlanta (where, presumably, he will encounter nothing but “hot-ness,” much to the possible dismay of his steady girlfriend, whom I might add, is pretty damned cute herself and certainly merits his full attention). This was not the first time I had recorded these songs on the tape I had bought to give to Randy so he could outline them in one of his snazzy digital recording software programs and begin production on them, but the first recording really sucked. Badly.

Hence, on this recording (which was done right over top of the last, much in the way Rome’s latest incarnation was built right over top of the original city – ugh), I felt compelled to “cover up” the old bad recording with, well, almost silence. I had to do this because on the old recording I was overly ambitious and recorded several songs which really needed some more work, but on this recording I was smart enough not to repeat this foolishness. The almost silence consisted of mostly ambient room noise, me typing on the computer kind of not near the piano/recording setup, and occasional shouts from the kitchen area while getting (juice) about how yummy juice is and how I was wondering whether or not my shouts could be heard on the tape. Fun stuff.

Note the totally MacGyvered mic setup, courtesy of some of the books I recommended in one of my earliest 43T entries. Yes, MacGyver is, in fact, a verb.

We hid in a little hallway leading to a locked conference room that we couldn’t get into and I kissed him goodbye before he left to start the adventure of his life in Colorado… or could I be the adventure of his life? Only time will tell…