I had an extremely productive but jammed day at work yesterday, even needing to log in once I got home for a late meeting. The joys of working with a cross country team I guess. I’m happy to be working here. They have been extremely flexible with the schedule and I’ve recently gained the ability to work from home some, so that’s great. I still have 13.5 months left on this contract and I hope it’s all this great.
Over the years a variety of musicians have stored their gear in my basement practice space. Of course as soon as I have a use for it they come around wanting to move it to some other corner. This can be really irksome, especially in the case of drums because they take up a lot of space. As it so happens, AZ has a few shows booked and it looks like when the dude comes to get his drums I’ll have to once again pay for new gear I personally won’t be playing. Being that we are practicing with a kid drummer, “Boy Thunder” Lincoln Oakes. All the time, energy and yes money, I wasted on the undeserving & ungrateful former band bums me out. On the other hand I do have a boss bass amp, a new bass and a practice bass amp out of the deal. The major difference here being that we are playing MY original songs which I think have a ton more merit than a bunch of out of time, compromised, unpracticed by half the band and utterly average covers. Absolute Zero band practices frequently and everyone comes knowing their part, so I’m willing to invest in its future.
We had a fantastic practice last night where we unearthed some more of our earlier, heavier material. It’s extremely encouraging how fast these old thumpers come together. If things go as planned our set at this year’s Pearson Halloween bash will be 80% different songs and much heavier. Last year we went in with 2 weeks practice. This year we’re playing with a new drummer and we’ll have around 2 months prep time. That in itself ensures a much tighter performance. So stoked!
In 11 days we are scheduled to begin production on “Take That.” I’m rolling with a brand new team, well, Todd, Robert and myself and few friends of MVP. I’m looking forward to a low stress and fun experience. I’m taken great pains to get the script tight and the locations manageable. Unfortunately, we’ve had to make an 11th hour casting changes. I’ll announce the specifics at the end of the week when I launch the fan site. It’s over some unavoidable family business that has popped up for one of our main players and while there are certainly no hard feelings, it’s certainly caused its share of stress on my end. It’s all good though because an MVP stalwart has stepped up to the plate. We got it covered like milk gravy on a biscuit!
Yesterday my father made a key prop for the production. That takes one more little piece off of my plate for the remaining days. Todd is sculpting the primary makeup appliances as you read this. Yes, right at this second he is sculpting. J This weekend, I’ll be back down at the lab creating another gore FX prop and just generally keeping the machine moving in the direction of having everything done in time.
In the coming days, I hope to have a bit more info about a cast and crew screening of Tales from Mutantville and maybe even a rough cut of, “Take That” at our home cinema around Halloween. This’ll be MVP insiders and cast and crew of the various projects we are showing. Stay tuned!