WOW wow wow!  Today was one of the coolest musical experiences of our lives.

I’ll give you the long story…

Maddie and I woke up at 8am.  Actually, Maddie woke up at 8am and (in typical Maddie fashion) proceeded to pester me until I emerged from my slumber.  We made a quick cup of coffee and got ourselves moving.  Traffic over Laurel Canyon was a drag, but we soon found ourselves in Culver City.  We were at the grumpy/bitchy/nasty stage of our morning.  Thankfully, Tender Greens opened at 11, so we swung inside and scarfed down two fancy salads (hooray for veggies!)  Even better, TG’s had cold brew.  Huzzah!  Sweet life-saving nectar!

12 noon rolled around and we made our way to Sony Pictures.  After a minute of confusion with security, we found ourselves at the end of the rainbow at the Thalberg building.  We descended into the screening rooms, where (at an amazing spot called the Bakery) we were scheduled to master our album “Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies” with the phenomenal Eric Boulanger.  John Spiker - our mixer - joined us as well.  After some hellos and chit-chat, we dove into the record.  Eric pulled up our song “Rose” first, working his magic with tremendous refinement.  Maddie and I sat back and smiled, not entirely sure what he was doing but loving it all the while.

The day was a lot of fun.  We hung out, we chatted, talked music, watched videos made by the ‘my talking pet’ app… all the while, we listened to Spiker’s amazing mixes of 'Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’ come even more alive.  It seemed like everyone had a good time and everyone was in good spirits.

So.  Basically.  Incredible.

That’s it.  About an hour ago, I sent off the final two songs to be mixed.  There’s still work left to do, of course.  Mastering and packaging… music videos and online campaigns.  But the album itself has left our hands.  And it’s now in the phenomenal mixing hands of John Spiker.  Thus far, he has mixed 4 of the 9 songs that will compromise “Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies” and we couldn’t be happier!

It’s been a long road, but Maddie and I are feeling very positive about this album.  "Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies" is our idea of what a sunset sounds like.  Saying that is pretty lofty, but it’s the image we had in our heads working on this record.  30+ songs demoed, constant talks with our manager to refine the sound and vision, and now the big payoff: hearing the final tracks.

We have some shows coming up this November and December… and we have a music video to make.  The first single off ‘Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’ probably won’t appear until February… but we’ll be furiously busy until then.  There’s always a lot going on behind the scenes, to get things moving.

I’ve been writing songs for our next album too, and I feel like it will be a great next step that takes what 'OBVS’ does and travels into a new direction.  Ultimately, this is where my brain really is right now.  Wrote a song last night that has really excited me, called 'Someone to Break my Heart’.

I love science fiction. Since I was a teenager, I have been an enthusiast of great storytelling and epic book series.  I’ve always been a fan of expansive, immersive experiences. Why read just the Hobbit, when you can read the Lord of the Rings?  Better yet, why go for that trendy stuff when you can dig deeper into the Silmarillion?  There are many epic book series out there… And I have gleefully devoured many.

So too do I love albums. Better yet, give me an artist’s discography so I can come to know the mind(s) of the artists.  I suppose I’m not suited for this decade, with its child-rhyme hooks and its singles mentality.

Polaris Rose is working on a 6-album series… Beginning with ‘Telescopes’, deepening into 'Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’ and then racing off into darkness with 4 subsequent albums.  All of which have their own theme and sonic palette… But all of which have the Polaris Rose sound.

As much as I’d like to excitedly talk about the direction we will take, I will hold off.  But I will say, I’m super excited.  On any given day, I will be working on material from album 6 and then turn around and work on album 3.  The titles are all established.  The landscapes are there too (we’re leaving the beach and driving through the desert).  The emotional themes are set up like skeletons, with room for adaptation depending on where life takes us.

“Telescopes” was an album about searching for something/someone unobtainable and making yourself miserable in the process.  I was writing about my own search for success in the music industry.  It was a fool’s search… But more on that another time.  “Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies” is about finding peace in ourselves… Building a life as an artist and letting go of that “unobtainable search” in order to explore deeper territories.  The following record (#3) continues that narrative in a more “socially minded” kind of way.  I’m excited to share those songs and ideas… And I’m excited to be in a band that will evolve over the course of each record, leading to that final, sad goodbye.

Lots of commotion here on the good ship Polaris Rose.  Aye, we’ve hoisted our mizzen mass (even though we’re not entirely sure what that is) and we’ve set our course to starboard.

This blog will be a bit brief, I think.  We’ve been recording!  Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies is on it’s way to becoming an 8-song reality.  Drums are done!  Kiel Feher killed it.  Now, we’re back with Yan Perchuk tracking vocals.  There is much rejoicing (yea!).  Next week we start rerecording some guitars and bass… forever searching for a better sound.  We’ve got some great people who have agreed to help us with mixing and mastering… we think this record is gonna be a great step forward sonically.

We have a show coming up!  It’s a special Acoustic Night that Maddie and I have wanted to do for a while.  The venue is the tiny, intimate Touch Vinyl record shop.  Kiel and Matt Saba will be joining us still, but it will be a bit more lovely (less rocky).  I’ve been saying we are playing ‘lullaby’ versions of our songs… and we’ll provide milk and cookies for everyone in attendance.  Maddie also insists on performing in her pajamas… in a onesy, no less.

One last thing… we had a fun time chatting with Dr. Bones on his radio show the other day.  Take a listen!

“When the curtains close and the film projector rests

And I’m breathless with my heart stuck in my chest

I’ll throw myself into the waves

It’s a tragedy but c’est la vie

wishing your life away”  - Rose

I shouldn’t be writing this right now.  I should be picking up my guitar and writing the last song I need to write for ‘Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’.  I know what it will be about.  I know what it has to sound like.  I just haven’t written it yet.  

But!  I can’t lock myself away in my studio forever.

We are nailing down the final structure for ‘Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’.  When last I blogged about this collection of songs, I mentioned we would release singles towards some sort of eventual release.  For financial reasons, we realized this was a bad idea.  Releasing a song one at a time is all fine and dandy, but without investing in publicity… well, we’ll be doing ourselves and the songs a disservice.  

So we started thinking of releasing an album or EP… and I really feel like ‘Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’ (as an artistic statement) needs to be an album.  I went back through our demos and drafted a list of 12 songs that I thought would make a great album.  I wrote out the album’s main themes and motifs (which I won’t bore you with) and saw where I still wanted to make certain points… so I set aside a couple spots for new songs and passed the list along to Maddie.  

While she liked the 12-song LP, Maddie thought that recording so many songs was a bit outside of our budget (how dare she be practical!)  So we went through the songs together and settled on a 9-song LP that we think is special and says what we want to say.  “It’s so sad,” Maddie mentioned, having looked at the list.  “I’m not sure I feel so comfortable putting out things so personal”.  We went back and forth on a couple of the more ‘personal’ songs (my argument was that people love to get personal) and settled on the final 9.  

The album has the elements we want and need.  It has radio-friendly singles, which has always been important to us.  We are constantly being played on boutique radio stations, and the exposure we get from those has helped us increase out listeners substantially.  The album also has ‘deep cuts’, with more progressive songwriting (much more to my taste), that I think will hook listeners and intrigue them a bit more than the cotton-candy radio songs.  At the same time, the album talks about life and death and finding our place in this crazy existence.  So the subject matter is near and dear to our hearts.  

…. but enough about the record.  We had an awesome & successful show at Hotel Cafe on the 17th.  Our bandmates - Matt Saba and Carlos Beltran - performed beautifully.  We played a couple new songs (that will appear on ‘Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies’) and enjoyed a terrific turnout.  We won’t be allowing so much time to elapse between shows this time.  We are aiming to put on a special acoustic performance this June, followed by a more rowdy rock show in August.

Music Junkie Press shared an awesome review of the show….  Read it here.

Okay.  I’m going to start writing this final song.  It’s called ‘Hiss’.  And it needs to be a rocker.  Bring out the OCD!

This Friday we are performing at the Hotel Cafe.  And we feel it.  We have been practicing every night for weeks, learning new material and tweaking the setlist.  We stay up late, work all day, and - only occasionally - find time to step out at night and catch our friends’ shows around town.  The work is totally exhausting and it can be nerve wracking…

But it’s gonna be a rad show for us.

Our steadfast drummer Kiel Feher is on tour with Zella Day.  While we are sad to be missing him, we have turned this into an opportunity to work with the mighty Carlos Beltran.  Carlos has a great way of re-interpreting the songs, which we love to hear.  

Our pal Matthew Saba is once more joining us as a second guitarist.  Matt is one of the greatest people to have on a team… a focused player and always working to achieve the best performance possible.  He is also on an endless search to find just one more pedal…

This setlist will be a bit different from our last… our last performance featured a lot of songs from ‘Telescopes’.  But this show is going to cover material back to our first EP and beyond.  We thought it would be fun to play a song of our ’singles’… all those songs that we released out into the world that seemed to get the most attention (so you’ll hear songs like the one below).  We are even going to debut a new song, ‘TigerBait’.

Which brings me to our plans with Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies.  I recently blogged about the debate we were having over whether or not to record an EP or an LP… well, the final answer seems to be ‘Neither’.  We are starting something we call an ‘Umbrella Project’… where we will be releasing singles every other month, leading up to a final product of some sort (we are still dreaming up what that final project will be… my vote is to make it a full album with fancy packaging… limited pressing, of course).

SO!  Come to the Hotel Cafe (1623 N Cahuenga Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028) on Friday the 17th!  We go on at 9:30.  $10 cover.