The latest… 4/6/95
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 01:10:38 -0700 (PDT) From: James Wigdahl <jwigdahl@cts.com>
Subject: The latest… 4/6/95 (Finally!)
Greetings to all! Let me start by appologizing profusely for the tremendous delay in sending an update… some of you have been clamoring for what’s going on and I’ve kept saying, “Well, maybe next week…”, etc. and it just keeps getting pushed back and back.
Anyway… on to the fresh exciting stuff…
I think I last mailed in November or something so I guess I’ll start from there…
I am no longer working for CTSNET (as in jwigdahl@cts.com) and was offered a position at an entertainment company called CyberBridge. (Try typing ‘whois cyberbridge.com’ at your system prompt for fun…) At CyberBridge (CB), I am getting to do all the things I love and I’m making a name for myself at the same time. I am the company’s network administrator, so I get to do all of the computer hacking and networking stuff that I love, I am also an electronic artist doing 3D modelling and animation and 2D high rez art creation/photo retouching/etc, and I’m also involved with the writing and recording/engineering of soundtrack (music) and sound effects for whatever projects may come our way that may require it. I work there with Rob (guitar in CM) and a few others including my boss (well, he’s kinda my boss) of ILM fame… it’s a really great place and exciting things are happening there. I am currently on 2 contracts with Time Warner doing what I mentioned above and I can’t tell you much more than they are CD -ROM games called ‘T-Mek’ and ‘Primal Rage’ due to non-disclosure agreements. Nonetheless, you can walk to your nearest arcade and play both titles to see what they are like…. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some famous houses in Hollywood (had a meeting there tonight in fact with an exciting group out of Canada) and we (our team) is starting to create a ‘buzz’ around town. Now for the problems… the company hired a bunch of unecessary people early on who demand high salaries and we (the team that actually produces anything) are having a hard time convincing the management (which there is too much of) that they need to be cut. In the mean time, our department is suffering in it’s capabilities because we don’t have the money to buy some hardcore graphics machinery (SGI) and the software necessary to run on it. I actually wrote out the numbers myself today and it was pretty depressing to see just how much is being wasted…
Anyway, enough on that. The band…. heh here’s another good story. We’ve been playing out as usual and were chosen to play the May Day festival which is the biggest musical event every year in the local music scene. Thing is…. it’s on the 29th of April when Rob’s going to be on his honeymoon… oops! We’re still going to play it with a substitute guitar player.
Eddie Huff of Salt Records (a Christian label out of Tulsa) has came out and met all of us and is writing up a contract (read: record deal) that he’s supposed to give to us soon. So it looks like we may have made it… we’ll see. In the mean time, we’re using $22k worth of sound gear that I was able to purchase through CB (and to my chagrin got dumped at my house 
) to record 4 songs not on our CD. The idea for the first album with Salt is to remix the seven on our current CD, add the four new ones, and voila! A full length album!
Let’s see… life other than work and the band consists of a little tiny bit of social life and CCT mostly. CCT is having it’s 15 year ‘flashback’ on Saturday which I will be handling sound for and then of course the shows are coming up this summer. I’m throwing around the idea of going for ‘Forever Plaid’ to make my stage comeback. Whaddaya you all think?
Ok… I’m pretty beat now… drove about 300 miles today… I’m going to bed!
Take care… I miss all of you… and write back!