Andy “Andyman” Davis passes.

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we at GBS say goodbye to our friend Andy Davis (John Andrew “Andyman” Davis, program director and DJ extraodinaire at CD101,  Columbus, Ohio modern rock radio station WWCD.)  Andy passed this last weekend, July 17, while vacationing in Michigan with his family.  Our love and prayers go out to his wife, Molly, and his children, Johnny, Oliver, and Sammy.  He was an amazing guy, so beloved by the Columbus music community, well deservedly.  We’ve shared the stage with Andy more than a few times, as he loved to jump up and and belt out a song with real passion and love;  some of the more memorable occasions would be when Andy would ask Tom to put together a backing band for the annual Halloween show at the Treehouse… last time the band played as The Cure, with Andy in full Robert Smith black attire and eyeliner, complete with wild teased-out hair.

We love you, Andy, and will miss you beyond description.  You are our hero and champion.  We can only hope and pray to one day see yall again, brother.  Right now he’s in heaven giving Ronald Koal a nuggie, Andy embracing Ronald in a headlock, while Ronald wriggles and shouts, “Get off!”  Andyman and Tom would occasionally joke about dressing up for a Halloween sometime as Laurel and Hardy.  Ronald, you carry that torch now.  Andy, God’s peace and love to you in your journey.  Thinking of you….

And we’re thinking of Molly and the kids, and Andy’s entire extended family.  You can make donations to benefit his wife and kids at the CD101 website donations page here.  Thank you.

Posted: July 22nd, 2010 under general interest.
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Hello, all;  we here at GBS Records and studios hope you’re having a great beginning to summer so far.  Thanks to all of yalls for keeping our friend and client David M. Bailey in your thoughts as he recovers from his 5th brain surgery.  Throughout his entire journey he’s been writing incredible songs of strength and courage, ups, downs, light and love.  Beyond inspirational.  More strength to him in his life and art.

It’s Comfest time again (oh, yeah) and Tom will be joining Jack Morris for his Friday show at the Solar stage at 5:35PM.  A great way to start out the weekend.  I do loves me some Comfest.  Please check out all the music, artists, and vendors.

(speaking of vendors, a quick shout out to Alex at GuitarCenter for the help and hookup;  what a dude!  Right on, brother!  You are the man.)

We’re continuing our projects with clients The Drowsy Lads, Go Robot Go, Jack Morris, Alison Kitchen, Eric’s been working with One Pretty Minute, also playing Comfest I believe (haven’t seen the schedule yet; speaking of, we’re hoping Earwig is playing, and we want to let you know that Earwig’s new CD “Gibson Under Mountain” is out now, and thanks to the wizardry of Mike Landolt, with mastering by Brian Lucey, this record sounds beyond amazing!!  We are just proud to have been a part of it!!  Incredible work by Landy and Lucey, Lizard and Laddies;  love love love LizardFamilyMusic.com.)

Eric’s band Hawkline has also recently released their new record so hit them up for a copy, too.  Or just hit them.

The film GrooveShack is getting its final touches and will be released to festivals this summer as well.  Powerful stuff.

Continue with ya’lls summer fun, folks, and hope to see you out and about this season.   Peace.

Posted: June 19th, 2010 under general interest.
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First of all, we’d like to send our love and prayers to our friend and client David M. Bailey, who underwent his 5th brain surgery this May.  Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his journey.  Please keep him in your thoughts, as well as our client Jack Morris, whose mom underwent brain surgery on the same day.  We’re keeping his whole family in our thoughts and prayers as well.  Thank you for thinking of them, too.

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So, hello, folks.  We here at GBS hope your spring is progressing nicely.  We’ve been working on several projects this May as well as recording some live concerts, some of which will be broadcast on WOSU’s HD radio channel called Capital City Radio.  (You might recall our own Eric French hosts his own weekly music program called GroundSwell Columbus on the same channel.)   Last week we recorded the J.D. Souther concert at BoMA with the wonderful Donna Mogavero opening the show, and both sets were fantastic.  J.D, who lives on a farm in Tennessee, jokingly opined that my treatment of my Honda Element as a farm truck was, oh, shall we say, “eccentric”.  (And since I’ve recently converted it to run on Corn Squeezin’s (ethanol), it does indeed harken back to the day when farmers brewed their own fuel for their vehicles from their own crops.  Prohibition put an end to that.  Now we fuel our cars with tasty petroleum, Gulf of Mexico-style.  Yum!)

We also recorded a private concert by Dala, a Canadian folk duo who are on the rise, and these girls were charming, talented, and simply fantastic.  Look for them on a PBS special called Girls From The North Country.  Or check out their MySpace.

Congratulations to our former bandmate Doug Beale and his wife Jen on the arrival of their first child, sweet little baby Lila.  She was born May 6th, and is the cutest lil thing ever!  Much joy to the Beales.

This month we’ve been recording the new Drowsy Lads record, and it is such a pleasure to work with these guys.  These young celtic masters are simply fantastic, and the sets of jigs, reels, and songs we’ve recorded so far are just dynamite!

We’ve also been working on Alison Kitchen’s new CD, and her amazing songwriting is a beauty to behold.  She flew in from Colorado for a few sessions with great results.  Very exciting!

And we continue to work on projects for Go, Robot, Go, our friend Jack Morris with producer Patrick Testa, and Eric has put the finishing touches on the latest release from our friends The Vague.  Eric also continues to record all of his live classical clients concerts, as well as being the recordist for The Columbus Symphony Orchestra for WOSU Radio live broadcast on the FM Classical station, 89.7.

Tom has been continuing his work as voice talent for video tutorials for Apple, Microsoft, and Google, and we’ve been proud to contribute to two films released this spring, the documentary Groove Shack, and the feature film Minus One, which features a song from local film maker Mike McGraner, and great performances from the film’s writer and director, Jon Osbeck.  Both of these films are really worth seeing.

We’d also like to give a shout out to our friend David Nedrow and his wife Jennifer for opening and renovating the historic Grandview Theatre, which is showing great films of all genres, and now serving sumptuous food as well as fine wines and beers.  We wish them much success with this admirable venture.

See y’alls soon!

Posted: May 23rd, 2010 under general interest.
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First of all, we’d like to send our love and prayers to our friend and client David M. Bailey, who underwent his 5th brain surgery this May.  Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his journey.  Please keep him in your thoughts, as well as our client Jack Morris, whose mom underwent brain surgery on the same day.  We’re keeping his whole family in our thoughts and prayers as well.  Thank you for thinking of them, too.

__________
So, hello, folks.  We here at GBS hope your spring is progressing nicely.  We’ve been working on several projects this May as well as recording some live concerts, some of which will be broadcast on WOSU’s HD radio channel called Capital City Radio.  (You might recall our own Eric French hosts his own weekly music program called GroundSwell Columbus on the same channel.)   Last week we recorded the J.D. Souther concert at BoMA with the wonderful Donna Mogavero opening the show, and both sets were fantastic.  J.D, who lives on a farm in Tennessee, jokingly opined that my treatment of my Honda Element as a farm truck was, ah, shall we say, “eccentric”. And since I’ve recently converted it to run on Corn Squeezin’s (ethanol), it does indeed harken back to the day when farmers brewed their own fuel for their vehicles from their own crops. 

Pardon.  Wordpress is having technical difficulties.  Perhaps Blogspot is a better option.

Posted: May 23rd, 2010 under general interest.
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The aforementioned Willy Porter concert and collaboration with The Carpe Diem String Quartet at BoMA was an amazing success!  Two incredible nights of some of the most talented musicians we’ve had the pleasure to work with.  This CD will be amazing!!  There was a four camera video filming of the event as well, so we suspect a DVD will perhaps be in the works as a companion piece.

All our other projects are progressing nicely, we thinks.  Tom has been hired again as voice talent to update the tutorials he recorded for Apple, Google, and Microsoft last year.  As the software gets updated, of course, the tutorials continue to progress as well.

Celtic band extraordinaire The Drowsy Lads will be coming in in late March to record their first studio album.  We recorded their first record, a live CD, at the Shamrock Club, and the energy and talent on display was tremendous, so if this new record is anything like that, wow!  Lookout!  Check out the Lad’s on their website.

Posted: March 21st, 2010 under general interest.
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Our good friend Willy Porter has asked us to help him out and record his 2 night live concerts on March 12th and 13th at BoMa, the Bar of Modern Art, located on Broad Street in Downtown Columbus.  We’re very excited and privileged to be a part of this incredible collaboration.  More details to follow.

Also, many of our fantastic celtic music clients, like the great band General Guinness, the rockin’ Knot Fibb’n', and the dynamite young lads in The Drowsy Lads are playing at more than several locations around town for St. Patrick’s Day, so please check out their websites and schedules.   You’ll be glad you did, and tip back a pint for us in their honor.  Slainte!

Posted: March 21st, 2010 under general interest.
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Hey, folks.  2010 has started nicely with another visit from our Colorado client and friend, Alison Kitchen, who cut about 10 new songs for her upcoming 2nd full-length CD.  She’s got a great batch of songs here, from very moving and powerful to sweet and sublime.  Many of the new songs are inspired by her new life in the beautiful state of CO and its vibrant life and past history.   Looking forward to this one.

Go Robot Go continues working on their new record, with Dave cutting tracks committing his quirky and original vocals to tape.  Uh, I mean, hard drive.  Although we’re cutting this project on Pro Tools High Definition, we’re also running Steinberg Nuendo in sync alongside of Pro Tools HD so the band can take tracks to their home studio and work on parts there.  This is a great way to work creatively and saves them time and money, too.

Jack Morris continues his project with producer Patrick Testa at the helm.  Jack has been gigging a lot in the meantime, so check out his MySpace page for dates.

Eric continues his online radio show for WOSU and Capital City Radio, and it airs several times per week so you have plenty of chances to catch it.  It’s called Groundswell Columbus, and features local and Ohio acts of all kinds.

And there’s plenty of other ongoing projects (as listed in below postings) happening even as we continue to look for a new building that will suit our studio needs perfectly.

Let’s chat soon, shall we?  Coffee, anyone?  (Our new fav local coffee shop is Luck Bros in Grandview.  Yum!)

(and speaking of Grandview, we’d like to congratulate our friend Dave Nedrow on the opening of The Grandview Theatre. He and his wife are working hard restoring this local gem where you can catch major film releases as well as select art and independent films.  Please check it out and support this amazing venue in our community.  Thanks!)

Posted: March 21st, 2010 under general interest.
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Happy Holiday, folks, and Haddy Grimble to you all (as John Lennon would say.)!!  We’re hoping you all have a beautiful swinging season.

Come celebrate with us!!  Tom will be performing for the radio station WWCD101’s AndyMan-a-thon Christmas Charity at a show at a live venue called The Treehouse on Dec 19th.  It’s in Grandview, and the show is the 80’s PowerBallads night where we raise our fake lighters to big-haired rock bands of the 1980’s.  Many bands are playing, dressing up, and it’s super fun, and for the kids.  We’ll be playing Nightranger’s “Sister Christian,” and then tipping our hat to the father of the power ballad, Paul McCartney with “Maybe I’m Amazed,” and then showing where the power ballad went in the 90’s with The Afghan Whigs “Faded.”   Yeah, we break all the rules!  Tom’s backup band is John Bolzenius from the Guitar House Workshop, Throat Culture and So Everything, and Dave Fowler and Bob Mains from So Everything and the Dick Nixons.  The show starts at 10PM.  C’mon out and sing along!

And thank you all for voting for Sue Mogan’s elementary school choir singing a swinging holiday song on the Sunny 95 Christmas Idol competition. These Windsor Elementary 4th, 5th, and 6th graders knocked it out of the park!! Check out their tune on our MySpace page.  Although they did not win the final, it was a great gift to these inner city kids to be played on the radio this holiday season.  Great job, everybody!

Posted: November 29th, 2009 under general interest.
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We’re giving thanks for all the great artists, clients and friendships that we’ve had the privilege to have contact with this past year, and wishing them all a wonderful holiday season. Our friend and client Alison Kitchen came in from Colorado to record with her daughter Emily, who’s studying to be a chef in Denver. Boy, can that girl sing! Fantastic.

And thanks to David Bailey for his awesome work, heart, and soul, (as well as for putting a chill pic of he and Tom hanging out on the inside cover of his new CD, “Friendship.” We are honored!) We’re just finishing getting the last of his requested mixes to him for an upcoming release. Great stuff.

Our good friend Sue Mogan brought us in to record her school choir singing a swinging holiday song for the Sunny 95 Christmas Idol competition. These Windsor Elementary 4th, 5th, and 6th graders knocked it out of the park!! Check out their tune on our MySpace page.  They’ve made the quarter finals of the contest and you can vote for them on Monday Nov 30th all day long.  Sunny 95 will play their song at 7:10 AM.  Please help these amazing inner city kids win by voting online or calling the station.  Thanks!!

Thanks to San Francisco’s own Martin Jones for including us in the film “Grooveshack,” scheduled for release early next year. Go to www.grooveshackfilm.com to check out a preview. We’re putting the final touches on the soundtrack and film audio now.

BalletMet Columbus has asked us again to collaborate on The Nutcracker this season, a great holiday show created in collaboration with our good friend and client Robert Post. It is a marvel!!

And speaking of that, GBS Studios own Holiday Audio Postcard is up on our MySpace page. Hear us absolutely butcher the lovely “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” as only we can. Thanks to our former bandmates in The Fabulous Johnson Brothers for the horns.

Thanks to our friend Mitch Hyde for allowing us to help him out with running the live sound for Hot Club of Cowtown at The Fawcett Center and The Flatlanders at the Columbus Maennerchor. We’ve worked with Mitch during the years Tom was the live sound engineer for Columbus’ folk series, Six String Concerts.  The trio Hot Club of Cowtown are dynamite and put on an amazing show, with our own Eric French dialing in a killer mix in the front-of-house position. (That’s FOH for all you audio engineer insiders.) We thank you, Mitch, for being such a sharing and caring (and great!) guy.

And thanks to Jack Morris and Patrick Testa for allowing us to be a part of their project this year. And of course Lizard McGee of Earwig (a super dude!) and Go, Robot, Go and gosh, so many other of our wonderful friends and clients we worked with in 09.  Dig!

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season from Tom and Eric here at GBS Records/OATH Studios.

Posted: November 24th, 2009 under general interest.
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Tom has just returned from his trip to the Rocky Mountains camping with his dog and visiting clients, musicians and friends points west (thanks Alison, Ann, and Ricardo!), and now we pick up where we’ve left off with Jack Morris, Earwig, Go Robot Go, and other clients who hate me for leaving. But we’ve returned to rave reviews for our work with BalletMet on their October performance of Swan Lake, and we’re happy it went so well, even though we missed the actual show (we were driving crazily toward the setting sun.) Thanks to Eric for running the studio so superbly. Be sure to check out his radio show on WOSU called Groundswell Columbus.

We’re looking forward to making more records for all our wonderful clients, and we want to give a shout out to our friend and sometimes bandmate in So Everything, John Bolzenius, for opening his new business, The Guitar House Workshop in the Grandview area. What a great community spot for music and the arts he’s created. Congratulations, John!

Posted: October 31st, 2009 under general interest.
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