Sonic Love Tonic spent the weekend in the studio laying down three demo tracks. We recorded at Get Reel Productions at San Francisco’s Secret Studios.

Saturday was spent laying down drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, vocals, keyboards and trumpet. After a solid 10 hours of laying tracks we returned refreshed for another 10 hours of mixing on Sunday. After all was said and done, we emerged with three tunes:

• Essence Is Precious
• Ants and Plants
• Cowboy

Big thanks to Robert from Get Reel who kept us on track. His wizardry behind he glass was amazing to watch. Thanks to Sam Adato from Sam’s Drums in SF for making my drums sound like new. Now I know the trick to getting a good sound is to just stand on the heads…

Here’s a shot of Robert trying to get just a little more out of us. More pics can been seen on flickr.

I’ve never been much of a gadget guy. I mean I use and own the basic must-have gadgets, like a cell phone and an iPod, but I’m not the first one in line to get the new thingamabob with the fancy dohicky on it. So when Bluetooth first hit the scene I thought “ok, sounds gool, but I can live without it.” Now I’m living with it and it’s awesome!

About six months ago my embarrassingly old Nokia 1600 was dying a slow death. After looking around for a decent mp3/camera phone I chose the Sony Ericsson W810i, which has been great. It came with Bluetooth. Ok, great.

Then the face plate of my car stereo got lost (it wasn’t me, really) and I needed a new stereo. I looked around a bit and and decided to get the Sony MEX-BT5000. The sales guy pointed out that it had Bluetooth, so I bit. Bluetooth, ok great.

After installing it I spent about 4 minutes reading the manual and the next thing I knew my phone and my stereo had become one:

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Now whenever I get in the car the stereo detects it. When the phone rings the music cuts out and the it rings on the stereo. A push of the volume dial and I’m talking on speaker phone through a mic in the stereo face. I can use the stereo to switch between phone and speaker mode, as well as redial. If I’m on the phone when I start the car, it automagically cuts to the stereo. It’s so cool! Complex technology made simple that just works. I love it.
I now have seen the Bluetooth light! How’d I ever live without it?