With turkeys.

Happy last day of 2015! I could write a summary of all the music I listened to and loved in 2015. I could admit that Spotify's end-of-year calculations confirm that I listened to a lot of Colin Blundstone and The Turtles this summer. But here you go:

Last night, my husband and I celebrated our anniversary by throwing darts at The Albatross (followed by a fancy dinner, but this is about the bar).

I met him thirteen years ago at Mooney's Pub through the serendipity of mutual acquaintances. He was playing darts. Mooney's had a decent jukebox, not particularly notable but solidly stacked with comfortable drinking favorites like Johnny Cash, Social Distortion. I had just moved to Brooklyn from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I'd hung out a little too often at a crummy neighborhood bar where you were as likely to hear a late night Frank Sinatra sing-a-long as be drunkenly serenaded by the lead singer of a local punk band. I had high standards in drinking establishment jukeboxes.

Fast-forward thirteen years. I don't go to bars that often, my darts game is rusty, and I'm not so judgmental about the music. Last night at The Albatross, I was utterly content to throw darts while listening to Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, mediocre country crooners I couldn't name, a sprinkling of necessary 1980s punk from The Clash. I hit some solid bullseyes, still lost three (close!) games out of four, can't wait to go back.

Cheers to 2016!

As I was fumbling to unlock the front door to Coast Mastering (aka Fantasy Studio C) this morning, a car drove by, windows open, blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born On A Bayou." Life giving me a little wink.

Studio C was built for John Fogarty and CCR, and they recorded a bunch of albums in the very space that now houses our mastering rooms. The old CCR console sits in my archiving and editing room (formerly the iso booth!), racked up with a Nakamichi cassette deck, Vadlyd archival phono pre-amp, an old Tascam DAT machine... and this unused patch bay, which I left intact as a nod to the history of this space. If (okay, when) I buy more gear, I'll probably have to knock it out and use the rack space, but for now, it's a wink and a nod to the past.