air: all i need

sky smeed

Here's a great song to kick off your Memorial Day weekend: Moving Down by Sky Smeed. It came on the radio as I was driving across the Hudson River tonight and everything just fell into place.

As the folks at WAMC say, "Sky Smeed is the real thing, a kid from Kansas who's making his home in Housatonic, MA while writing songs and working on old houses, which, when you come to think of it, are the same thing." Love that quote.

Buy his records and play them in the car on your summer roadtrips! Sky plays honest Alt-Country that's straight from the heart; his music is the perfect soundtrack for these fresh sweet days in late-spring when everything is possible.

do you hear the difference?

My friend Mr. Tunes turned me on to this cool little test. Try it out & see if you can tell the difference in sound quality between a 128 kbps mp3 vs. a 320k one? Good luck...it's tricky!

best of jill hives

Song of the day: Best of Jill Hives by Guided By Voices

sarah perrotta

Sarah Perrotta has something going on...

She sings clear through the speakers right into my heart. I've been classifying her album "The Well" today, and it's beautiful -- just added her tracks to our catalog here at Pump Audio.

Found this great live recording from my favorite venue, the Bearsville Theater. Sarah plays "Out of Grace" with surprise guest Garth Hudson on accordion (dude, how do you even play an accordion so sweet with a beard that long?!?)

Also, big props to the crew - pretty slick production, eh? And I'm not just saying that because my darling husband Kale recorded the audio & my buddy Chris Rahm produced the shoot.

Well done, boys (and girl :-) Nice one all around!

might as well...

The story goes something like this: joined some pals for a night at the pirate bar down in Catskill one springy night not too long ago, funny place. We loaded up the jukebox and when my selection of Van Halen's Jump! came on, it matched our spirits perfectly. Really kicked the energy up a notch in the place -- I love it when that happens. Air-keytar action ensued and when things settled down a bit, my buddy and I began imagining what the hell it must have been like to be tracking that freakin' session, I mean the energy involved is super-human to say the least! Seriously, try it. Listen to that song and imagine actually being in the recording session at that very moment and you'll get my point. We were wishing we'd been flies on the wall the day that tape was rolling...

So today, I was retelling that watering-hole story around the water-cooler with a fellow friend and engineer, he totally got the idea. He asked if I'd ever heard Aztec Camera's version of Jump! Have you? Totally different vibe, beautiful all the same.

Go ahead and...

i especially enjoyed the scallops

had the pleasure of partying with these fine gents once again over the weekend, and boy they sure are entertaining in so very many ways. 

check out dead unicorn and their podcast & music for end times:

feels like i'm walking

This is a cool music video from one of the first bands that I fell in love with while working at Pump: Huma. Self-described on their site they're "Just three young folks. A brother. A sister. A best friend/girlfriend. Kids behind counters making music on coffee breaks. Teachers after school playing NYC late. Librarians singing softly in the stacks."

They started in Jersey & now live, work, & play in Seattle. They've got a new EP coming out soon & are rising stars in the world of Pump Audio & the universe in general. Check 'em: