Well, it’s been a busy couple weeks over here at DTR.  Paper Tiger’s Summer EP  release and awesome new music video, P.O.S’ We Don’t Even Live Here album and pre-order announcement, and Dessa’s sweet lipstick for charity pre-order.  This just happens to be one of a very few off weeks for us before the end of the year, so I figured I’d do another personal epic Random Photo Recap and get you caught up on what’s been going on outside of the music.  

Gonna start things off though with the new P.O.S promo video for We Don’t Even Live Here, featuring a great view of our city’s modest skyline.  It includes a banging instrumental to another track off the album too.  “There’s no mortgage up here son.”

OK, let the epic Random Photo Recap begin!!!

Might as well start things off with some SNAXXX.  I’ve been in the studio with Mixed Blood Majority (new group with Joe from No Bird Sing and Crescent Moon from Kill The Vultures) the last week.  We’ve tracked the majority of the record (ha!) and mixing is already underway.  I’ve been involved in beyond numerous recording sessions over my long legged life, but never has there been an email thread devoted solely to who is bringing what snaxxx to the studio.  I like how these guys get down.  For the tracking round I was in charge of the junk food (Cresc handled the co-op health food and Joe brought the booze).  My contributions are above.  Pretty proud of what I pulled together.

Came up with a new drink concoction while we were in there too.  Been throwing a couple names around in order to pitch some serious co-branding proposals to both RC and Jameson.  Shouts to everyone who chimed in with suggestions.  Here are the finalists:  The Irish Wal-Mart, The (no) King of (no) Kings, King James, The Christopher Walken, and Irish Royalty.  Year of the Endorsement Deal is still in full effect.  Hoping to make my first mill off this deal.  Keep you posted.  

The mandatory “rappers writing in the studio” shot to confirm that we are actually making a record and not just eating chips together in a dimly lit room.  In all seriousness though, this project has been a blast and I’m feeling really good about the songs we’ve put together.  The goal is to wrap everything up by the end of the year.  Very excited to share it with you sooner than later.

A few weeks back we decided to take the kid on her first big road trip to meet some of her relatives on my wife’s side of the family.  We called it Baby Tour 2012 and it totally ruled.  That’s Penny gearing up to meet her great grandma and great aunts in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

Grandma, Great Grandma, and Aunts Nancy, Chris, and Laura aka The Henhouse.  

Spanning four generations.  An approximately 86 year age difference between those two.  The next day we drove down to Chicago to hang with Brittany’s family and have a baby party with all her friends.  

Party girl in a party dress.

Basking in the glory of her first party ever.  Big Time.  Huge shouts to my bro-in-law Nathan for taking all those sweet shots.  The next day we went over to Joel and Katrina’s house to meet up with a ton of old friends.  I had so much fun I forgot to take any pictures, but Joel was able to snap this Lion King reinterpretation pose up on his sweet rooftop deck.

So yeah, the sprawling five day Baby Tour 2012 was a smashing success.  Another round of huge shouts to my in-laws Tom and Janet for taking Penny off our hands two nights in a row and letting Mom and Dad catch up on some serious sleep.  Truly incredible.

Got back home and realized that football season is totally upon us!!!  That’s our fantasy draft board.  I am the worst at calling these things.  I sieze up in the moment and end up picking The Gronk in the second round.  Gonna really need Drew Brees to channel his teams for real lack of coaches into about 7,000 TDs this year.  

Oh yeah, we totally saw Archers of Loaf play last Saturday!!!!  (Told you this was gonna be a random photo recap).  I went with Jeff and Scoops and had no idea what to expect. It had been about 13 years since AoL’s last album, but I still bump these guys all the time.  Never realized how bad TPC! ripped them off throughout our time as a band.  Anyways, this show was insane.  They played songs off of every album, especially the early Speed of Cattle stuff I never thought I’d hear again.  I don’t think I’ve been to a small sweaty rock show like that in over five years.  Totally relived my entire high school nightlife in a few short hours.  They even did “What Did You Expect” directly into “Web In Front” with no break.  Amazing.  Here’s an idea of what that sounded like for the uninitiated.

Not sure if they’ll ever hit the road again, so I highly recommend catching them if they come through your town on this tour.  Hilarious stage banter as well if you’re into that sort of thing.

One final random pic of me holding a roll of paper towels, dubbing myself The Towel Man, and rapping “Call me Towel Man/wild as The Towel Man/towel in my right/’nother towel in my other hand” to the tune of T.I.’s “Rubberband Man” over and over again.  Maybe you had to be there, but I swear this was funny at the time.

Aaaaaand on that weird note, so ends the Epic Random Photo Recap.  I hope you all have a wonderful week.  I’ll leave you with a couple super chilled out R&B joints from my guy Kem.  I’ve always really liked this dude’s voice, almost has a Lionel Richie twang to it at times.  He is the king of the way stripped down slow burner, so you really gotta be in the mood for some serious end of the night Quiet Storm music, just a warning.

Ok, I hope you all have a wonderful week.  See you next Tuesday for sure!

— Beak