Spring 2015 - And here come the spring releases! First up, a trio of live performances from the Bottom Line Archive Series, all restored and remastered by me with Gregg Bendian producing: the Brecker Brothers tearing it up in 1976, Kenny Rankin covering the Beatles and more in 1990, and a double album from Willie Nile featuring live shows from 1980 and 2000. Expect more from the Bottom Line Archive in the coming months. I have a stack of tapes in my studio, newly digitized, ready for remastering. Also out this spring, a project I am truly proud to be part of - Los Dreamers, a bilingual mixtape of songs inspired by stories of undocumented youth, written and produced by Ozomatli's Raul Pacheco and Devotchka's Shawn King.

Out soon on Varese Sarabande, Maura Kennedy's lovely collaboration with poet B.D. Love, Villanelle: The Songs of Maura Kennedy and B.D. Love. Maura and I had a wonderful time mastering her music on a snowy day this winter, and I bet it'll sound even better when the sun is shining.

In March, I'll join Magic Shop owner Steve Rosenthal and producer/multimedia archivist/musician Jocelyn Arem at Skidmore College to give a talk on Reviving, Restoring and Re-imagining The Music Archive.

In April, I'm off to Seattle to present on the process of restoring Ata Kak's Obaa Sima at Experience Music Project Pop Conference.

Til then, back to the studio!

This joke about the weather never gets old around our house. "It's windy."

"Everyone knows that."

I am not talking about records. I am talking about stationary bikes. This surprises even me. Is there anything worse than when your spin instructor has no innate musicality and tries to make you spin off the beat? Yes, I am aware, there are worse things, but that won't stop me from complaining about bad music choices in my gym classes. It drives me nuts when my instructor contradicts the beat by making us do interval sprints based on made up timing rather than the natural verse/chorus flow of the song. So here are a few suggestions:

I'm always a year or two (or, uh, ten or twenty) behind the times with my workout music choices, but can we talk about how supremely satisfying it is to spin (or run) to selections from Santigold's Master of My Make Believe? "Disparate Youth" is my go-to hill climbing song, and "GO!" (featuring Karen O) is magical for interval sprints. Regina Spektor's amped up theme song to Orange Is The New Black, "You've Got Time," has interval sprints built right into the song structure. How about Metric's "Youth Without Youth," the BPM of which perfectly matches my running pace?

Maybe, I'll concede, I'm overly sensitive because I'm an audio engineer, not an athlete. But is it too much to ask for a little musicality in my spin class instruction? That would distract me from the ridiculousness of riding a stationary bike in a room full of people riding stationary bikes. What can I say? It's been a long winter in NYC.