The magazine is creeping up on it's sixth year and it still seems people are just discovering us. Our book, Tape Op: The Book About Creative Music Recording, will be out any day now. It contains most of the first three years plus many more unpublished articles and expanded versions of stuff that have run over the last few years. I'm hoping a lot of people pick it up and get turned onto the mag and vice-versa! Check on getting a copy through <www.feralhouse.com>. And don't forget that many back issues are still available at www.tapeop.com!

In-between session overload at Jackpot! I rewired our control room with massive help from "permanent intern" Gail Buchanan, freelance engineer Jeff Saltzman and sleepy Jake. We threw aside tons of guitar cables and cheap snakes and made new harnesses out of Belden wire and added some new racks, patchbays, racklights and such. We also meticulously ran all the power cables away from audio lines and had them cross (only if unavoidable) at right angles The place looks so much better than the "added-onto" monster it had become over the years and I swear it sounds a little cleaner too. And we did it all in five and one half days!

Besides this I worked on sessions with the Pinehurst Kids, Dismemberment Plan, Old Joe Clarks, Fernando and many others. I worked 17 days in a row at one point. Yikes. That's why I went to Mexico for a week over Christmas time for the first "real" vacation I've had in years. I hope your holidays were fun too and let's get crackin' and make some more records in 2001!