Livestreams Are A Go, Guest Room Sessions On Hold For Now

Just a quick news update to say two things:

1) This week, I've finally been able to get a functional livestream situation going in the studio. I'm doing this via Instagram Live for now, though that may change in the future. These are less formal and less planned sessions than the "Guest Room" series, and will generally be me just winging it and trying out new ideas and/or rare songs and covers in the moment. I've added an "Instagram Live Archive" link under the website's Videos tab and will be occasionally posting after-the-fact clips from the livestreams there, but I won't be releasing all the video or separate audio tracks for these sessions on the site. For the most part, you'll either see and hear the session when it happens, or you won't.

I've done two livestreams so far. The first one was a bit of a wash (or, as we call it in the business, "a learning experience"), but I posted an electric version of "Blackbird Girl" from that session to the site, because I liked how it turned out. I went live for an hour or so again yesterday and really enjoyed the whole setlist, so I've posted the whole set as well as a standalone clip of "The Light" which features a new loop-based outro jam that I've been experimenting with recently.

The TL;DR is to expect more livestreams to be popping up on Instagram (@theghostpines) in the near future!

2) I've been wanting to get livestreams up and running for awhile, and part of the reason I finally made time to sit down and figure it out this week is because fall term is starting up again, which means way less time for any fun stuff, let alone arranging/recording/uploading more "Guest Room" sessions. I have two more planned (to round the set of sessions out at six total), but it's probably going to be awhile until I get to them. In the meantime, the livestreams will hopefully keep me on my toes and practiced up through the busy parts of fall, so that when I do get some free time again I can lay down "Live From The Guest Room" #5 and #6 quickly. I've already written the setlists for these and am excited to get them out there.

Anyway, that's all for now! I hope to see you drop into a livestream at some point!

"Live From The Guest Room": 8/13 and 8/16 Sessions Available Now!

A quick update to let everyone know: I got a little carried away with the "Live From The Guest Room" concept and have already recorded four sessions. They're all up on the website now, under the "Videos" tab. You can also stream and download the audio only (for free!) under the "Live" tab.

A reminder that these sessions (both audio and video) are only available directly from the site (or YouTube, in the case of video) and so you won't find them on my Bandcamp page.

I also made a few small cosmetic changes to the site since the last update, mostly to style it after the Wilderness Amen cover art instead of the Fire and Rain art, partially because it makes some things on the site easier to see and read, and partially because I just personally like it better.

I didn't really intend to create such a deluge of content so quickly after putting up the new albums, but a) wildfire smoke has trapped me in the house for nearly a month at this point and b) I underestimated how fun these are to make, especially when I'm on break from work and there isn't really anything else I can do.

I have two more sessions planned for the near future, but I'm hoping those will actually be delayed for a bit as I want to get out into the world somewhere if there's anywhere that doesn't have endless smoke in the west and spend some time on the road and out in nature before another nonstop nine months of work starts in mid-September.

Anyway, we'll see how that all turns out...for now, here are the setlists for the third and fourth sessions. Info on the first and second sessions can be found in my previous news update.

Guest Room Sessions #3

8/13/21

Recorded Live in the Guest Room

Audio by The Ghost Pines

Video by The Ghost Pines

Mixing and Mastering by The Ghost Pines

Audio Source: 2 MXL Condenser 990 Mics > Behringer Eurorack UB1202 > HP Lappy Soundcard

Video Source: Pixel 3 Video Camera (1080p) on a tripod

Lineage: Audacity 2.3.3 > WAV > FLAC > Ultra Quality VBR MP3

8/13/21 SETLIST:

01 Intro

02 California* >

03 Not California*@

04 She and Me

05 Jack-a-Roe#

06 Winter Song$

07 Invocation% >

08 Isis (Bob Dylan)^ ->

09 Caroline ->

10 Jam& ->

11 Isis

12 Bright Girl (Hey There) ->

13 Ways To Fly

14 Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver)~

15 Dreams ->

16 Invocation+

* w/ harmonica

@ w/ "Wish You Were Here" introduction

# w/ Badlands teases

$ first time played live (or "live"), with extended outro

% unfinished

^ w/ Caroline teases

& w/ Caroline and Neal's Jam teases

~ new fingerpicking arrangment

+ outro only, "completing" the version from earlier in the set

---

Guest Room Sessions #4

8/16/21

Recorded Live in the Guest Room

Audio by The Ghost Pines

Video by The Ghost Pines

Mixing and Mastering by The Ghost Pines

Audio Source: 2 MXL Condenser 990 Mics > Behringer Eurorack UB1202 > HP Lappy Soundcard

Video Source: Pixel 3 Video Camera (1080p) on a tripod

Lineage: Audacity 2.3.3 > WAV > FLAC > Ultra Quality VBR MP3

8/16/21 SETLIST:

01 Intro

02 Badlands*

03 Ghosts Of The Highway ->

04 Ice On The Mountain@

05 The Ghost Of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen)*

06 Fear >

07 Long Black Veil (Traditional)

08 I Love You (Or The Mountains)

09 Trains

10 Amie

11 Autumnsong*#

12 Ways To Fly (Part II)

13 Loving Cup (The Rolling Stones)

* w/ harmonica

@ w/ "Ghosts Of The Highway"-style intro

# new arrangement, with new intro and outro

Announcing "Live From The Guest Room," A New Video/Audio Series!

A few months ago, when I was reaching the point of finally finishing the new albums, I started setting aside time to more intentionally practice playing more full sets of songs, in part because in the midst of working on recording for so long, I felt I'd lost a bit of the ability to play "live," and in part because I realized that because I'd worked on songs mostly piecemeal throughout the writing, recording, and producing process, which meant that while I had about fifty new songs, at any given time I only really knew how to play about ten of them.

I started posting the setlists and some photos from these practice sessions on Instagram and my personal Facebook, more to keep myself accountable to The Internet And Society more than anything else, but I almost immediately got feedback from a number of you who wanted to see the sessions as they were happening. This was really exciting, and I immediately wanted to stream randomly from my phone over Instagram to see if anyone would show up...but, I also wanted the sessions to sound and look good, which they would not have had I used the first ad hoc solution that occurred to me.

So, while continuing the practice sessions, I've put a lot of time in over the last two months to revamp the look and layout of my studio space (which, for the sake of these sessions, I'm calling "The Guest Room," because that's literally what it used to be), and have created a whole new audio and video recording setup that's semi-autonomous: I'm at the point now, where I can walk into the room, plug my phone into the tripod, hit record, pick up and a guitar, and play, and know that the recording is going to come out looking and sounding if not perfect, then definitely better than any live recording I've ever done before. It's pretty exciting!

The next steps are, of course, figuring out how to livestream and figuring out how and where to play live again, but as I'm facing pretty significant obstacles on both of those fronts (technological logistics and a global pandemic, respectively), "Live From The Guest Room" is the next best thing, and will be an ongoing series for the foreseeable future.

I've already recorded and produced two sessions, one from 7/26 and one from 7/27. They're up on the website, both as videos and as audio recordings (tracked, tagged, and with cover art!). I've also made a few video clips from each session available as "Clips From The Guest Room," for anyone who is interested but doesn't necessarily want to sink an hour into watching.

Even though I've recently added my new albums (and some older stuff!) to Bandcamp, "Guest Room" content will be website-only. This is really just a practical decision, since Bandcamp is prickly about you uploading cover songs, and cover songs have always been a part of my live sets, and I didn't see any reason to stop now.

All the video and audio from these sessions will be free for stream (and download, with the audio), with the option to pay what you want for the audio in case you want to throw me a tip.

Below is the setlist info for both sessions. I'll be working on more sessions here shortly, since we're all trapped inside by the smoke right now here in the PNW, and I'm hoping to have a new one up within a week or two! Enjoy!

---

Guest Room Sessions #1

7/26/21

Recorded Live in the Guest Room

Audio by The Ghost Pines

Video by The Ghost Pines

Mixing and Mastering by The Ghost Pines

Audio Source: 2 MXL Condenser 990 Mics > Behringer Eurorack UB1202 > HP Lappy Soundcard

Video Source: Pixel 3 Video Camera (1080p) on a tripod

Lineage: Audacity 2.3.3 > WAV > FLAC > Ultra Quality VBR MP3

7/26/21 SETLIST:

01 Intro

02 Running*

03 Sunshine* -> Bright Lights -> Sunshine*

04 I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash)^$

05 Note To Self^

06 Montana# ->

07 Molly ->

08 Friend of the Devil (Grateful Dead)% ->

09 Montana#

10 Blackbird Girl

11 Monster Ballads

12 Friend of the Devil@ ->

13 Generals

14 Technical Difficulties Banter

15 Neal, Joan, and Me >

16 Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) (Bob Dylan)

* w/ harmonica

^ slow version

$ w/ "Kurzweil Transmissions" and "Palace" teases

# w/ "Molly" teases

% bridge and final version only

@ first three verses only, "completing" the version from earlier in the set

---

Guest Room Sessions #2

7/27/21

Recorded Live in the Guest Room

Audio by The Ghost Pines

Video by The Ghost Pines

Mixing and Mastering by The Ghost Pines

Audio Source: 2 MXL Condenser 990 Mics > Behringer Eurorack UB1202 > HP Lappy Soundcard

Video Source: Pixel 3 Video Camera (1080p) on a tripod

Lineage: Audacity 2.3.3 > WAV > FLAC > Ultra Quality VBR MP3

7/27/21 SETLIST:

01 Intro

02 The Melody

03 The Light >

04 Machine of the Universe

05 Please Don't Let Me Go

06 Acteon's Groove >

07 Idyll

08 Time (The Revelator) (Gillian Welch)

09 Palace ->

10 Jam ->

11 Prince Caspian (Phish) ->

12 Palace

13 The Gambler (Kenny Rogers)*

14 Hand In Hand^

15 Maps

16 Jezebel

* slow version

^ w/ "Acteon's Groove" ending