Let's Play This, with Distortion

Tonight was rehearsal night again with the boys. I'm known for being a hard ass at band practice and my friends still make fun of me for how serious I am behind the mic but lately I've been trying to tone it down and just let things work themselves out. I never thought I'd say this but it seems that chillin' out has it's advantages. My drummer, Darious, picks up the music more organically, Dillon writes better lead lines, and Kenny kills those bass lines. It also amazes me how the guys remember songs better when I just shut the fuck up and allow them to create. Definitely taught me a valuable lesson I wish I could have had about six years ago.

Well let's see hear what else is going on...

So I got added into this facebook group that has a bunch of local show listings so I'll be able to see who's looking for supporting acts on a date and which places have open dates available. Very cool. This shit is pretty dope if I do say so. If I can't get a show now, then I think it's time to hang up the guitar.

Unrelated to our little band, I was practicing a Giuliani's Etude for guitar op. 51 no. 15 and it's pretty fucking cool. I would really like to turn this into a song. There are two voices that are interacting and creating harmonies so it wouldn't be to hard to just separate them for the two guitar players and write a third line and some words to make this into a modern tune.

Free Jazz!

So the coolest thing we did today happened during the last thirty minutes of practice. I played some tracks off of Four MFs Playin' Tunes, last year's release from Branford Marsalis Quartet for the guys and said "Let's play this, with distortion" and so that's what we did.

|| C-7 | Bb-7 Eb7 | Abmaj7 | Abmaj7 || in three was a pretty fun way to get our first Jazz/Rock fusion tune. Dillon stopped at one point and recorded about seven seconds of footage. Unfortunately, seven seconds isn't really worth posting anywhere so I guess we'll try to get something next week.

I love music

Stammerings

So about the Drum part

I was recording a live version of song today with me playing all the instruments and I great drum take except for one thing.

I added extra beat into a measure in the bridge.

I have no fucking idea how this happened and it pissed me the fuck off when I heard it. I can't believe I could even make a mistake so stupid like that.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck.


Well I have a small check list of things I want to get done within the next two weeks for the band. I think these are pretty basic things and that anyone in a young band is just has to do. The press kit is my small project that is nearly finished and I have a nice big band project that I hope will be done and out in 2 weeks.

Things to do:

1. Finish Press Kit.
I've almost got this one down. Really I just need to get us all together for a picture and we should be good. There's a band bio, a little blurb about each one of us,what we sound like, what we want to do, what our show is like, and some actual press (even if it is from a few years ago...)

2. Live Recording/Video
This is definitely the next big project. Not this Tuesday but the next, we are supposed to get into a studio and get live recording and a friend is shooting video for us. That is very exciting for me and that is going to be one late night. We're going to have a rehearsal starting around 6 and going until 9:30. We'll pack up our amps and shit (luckily theres a kit already at the studio) and set up again, get levels, and go for it around 10:30 and hopefully in an hour, we'll two or three songs with pro sound and video...maybe two hours for that.

3. Beer
I had one beer yesterday which is large increase of daily alcohol consumption for me but it was a Redd's. That shit is off the chain. Gotta get more of that shit.

4. Book a Goddamn Show
I think that with the press kit and now and something live, we will look like the very real and very serious band that we are. I have called emailed a lot of places, once. I think I should focus on only a few places but hit them up everyday. Thinking out loud there.


I guess this was more of a more random, I feel like writing something, addition to the blog but whatever. Beats practicing.

Well I guess that's it.

stammerings
Listen to tunes and watch some vids if you would.

Peace and blessin's

Pretentious Post Rock Jerk Off

So last week, me and my fiance went and saw Kenny play some pretentious post rock jerk off music. That was at least the sub-genre he gave me in his txt about the show. Nonetheless, I was really digging it. Instrumentation was was as follows: Fender baritone guitar, Boss tremolo, Boss Gigadelay, or something like that, going into a Peavey bass amp and an old Fender Deluxe tube amp. He also had a small Korg synth going into a PA and his coolest piece of equipment I'll talk about later. The delay was used as looper and he built each song from the ground up. Some of the tunes were monstrous and made the building shake while others sounded like conversations between friends. This was one of two local shows I've ever been too and not been bored out of my mind. I actually found myself getting lost in the music and watching each note tell a different part of this story. The amps he used were prefect for the guitar he was using and for those of you not familiar with a baritone guitar it's basically the lower part of a seven string, so BEADF#B (note the interval of a major 3rd between the third and second so there's no need to relearn anything). The Peavey made was a solid state amp that was very modern sounding but was still nice and full while the Fender was glassy and would fuck every now and again in the middle of a song. His tone was 3D as shit and made the performance that much better. The songs all seemed to flow into each other and could have easily have part of a soundtrack.

Now for the coolest part of the show. Twice during his set he put the guitar down and let a drum machine with some samples play. These weren't shitty drum beats or anything like that, they were recordings he had done of cities. One was from a subway platform in San Fransisco (the city as I'm told) and the other from a skate park in Durham. These were not necessary to make the music but rather brought a unity between each piece of music. We've all heard this one before by countless musicians but this time it was different. There were no guitars or drums added to the music. They were as raw can be and were beautiful.

He faced away from the audience the entire time until he turned and said, "Well, that's about it" and took off his guitar. It was only about 20 minutes and I could have used a little more.

Well that's why he's the homie.

One time before Dillon got back with us, me and Kenny traded instruments for a second and it was kind of dull. Nothing really happened and we promptly switched back to our original instruments and continued rehearsal. I have no idea where this Kenny was hiding but it was awesome and I hope more of it happens in the future.

Mr. Kenny Wheeler's music can be found here: A Soap Bubble And Inertia and here's a link to a live performance New Year's Eve last year: Kenny Live

He has more music he will be putting out and something to possibily look for in the future is his project that might be called "Earworm" so keep your eyes and ears open for that.

No self bump this time, Kenny did way to a good a job for that.

Shit was dope. Dope indeed.

Hi, live music?

So on Tuesday I'll be getting together with my four piece for rehearsal. I'm very excited for this since I can't remember the last time we were all in a room together. I don't know why we're getting together since we don't have a performance coming up and we're not planning on doing master tracks yet but fuck it, playing music is fun I guess.

Me, Dar Bear, and Kenny made a recording of one of our songs "Arkitechton" last time we got together and it was ok. I decided to not be original at all and do an acoustic version of the song using a nylon string guitar and jazz style drumming utilizing brushes. Something kinda cool about this song is that I didn't use any compression. That's right folks, none of that awesome "pop" that we've all come to love in our modern recording and instead just boring dynamics. Now you might say Warren, aren't you really just being a dick now? and my response would be yes, so I apologize. Really I do love that modern edge to recordings as much as next guy but there's something special about hearing the volume changes and even the mistakes that compression can hide become as obvious as, well, a loud mistake. I guess I can't say that the track is just completely bare. A touch of reverb to fill out the instruments, some EQing to help out my collection of renegade microphones sound like they're part of society, and a limiter. Something else you might ask could be Warren, what the fuck is a limiter? well, I don't really know. From what I can gather it's half of a compressor where it doesn't let a track clip but doesn't squish the volume. Fuck if I know. Either way, I'm proud of this track even this it's filled with flaws.

So about the title of this post.

I spent most of my Saturday this past week calling up bars in Raleigh looking for maybe an open slot for band on a bill or just a date not yet filled. Instead I was found that many bars do not have live music anymore or possibly even worse, they are just hiring DJs. Now I've performed with backing tracks before and have used sound samples in songs in the studio and live, but I have always used them to enhance a performance, not as a substitute. So there's that shit. Not all places are like this of course. I did talk to some people who were cool and looking for groups, but they were looking for more indie rock or jazz. Right now it looks like Slim's is gonna be the place for us to play in Raleigh until the band is big enough to play at the actual music venues. On wards to other cities.

Regardless of shitty recordings and difficultly booking a single show, I'm still feeling pretty good. I'm still thinking abut my music and how to write for this band instead of how to sell t-shirts. I guess that is an important part of the business but I'm not there yet and I'm glad my focus is still getting my music prefect.

Now where did I put that soap box...oh here it is.

So something needs to be done here. When I call up a bar on a Saturday night and say, "Hi, do you guys do live music?" and some asshat on the other end of the line says, "We don't do live music." something is fucked up. Really, I haven't my part for the Raleigh but my shits gonna have to change too. I hope that this isn't a trend going around the country and I'm sure that there are more places that supporting live music than not so it's just getting out there and supporting those places and others will follow.

Well I guess that's it for tonight. If you read the whole thing, thank you very much. I wish I had something nice to give you but I don't.

Here ya go

Stammerings

fuck

Well we didn't get the gig.

I'm looking back at this shit and it was a pretty boring read to me. It's something musicians go through and bands playing original music deal with all the time. I guess it's the first fall for this group and so it's kind of a bigger deal in my eyes.
First off, it definitely wasn't going to be a career changing even or anything but it was going to be our first show as group and my show first show as a singer in about 18 months. I tried not to let that shit get me down though. I emailed one place today. Just one. Haven't heard anything back but what should I really expect but the place looks like it's pretty cool and emailed another place yesterday. Haven't heard anything back from that either. Met up with Dillon last night to go over the material for the group. He's the ghost of a guitar that comes and goes. It was nice to work with someone and talk about the songs instead of just telling someone notes or a beat to play.


Ok so positives...

Well we all made it our mission to get together and practice. There was no teeth pulling to get people together and we even made plans ahead of time to jam again. That was probably the biggest thing for me. It's like we can do it, we're just lazy most of the time. Good to know, I guess.

...

So a positive.

Well I guess it's time to get the shit together. Tomorrow some music should get tracked and look into other venues and bars.

Stammerings

a couple days later...

so i normally write without paying attention to grammar, most punctuation, or even capitalization but it looks silly.

So we had a rehearsal Sunday night, went well. Bassist bailed at the last second but had a pretty valid exscuse, his business not yours. That's Kenny, by the way. The amazing thing was the guitarist showed up. I almost shit my pants when he sent a txt saying he was on his way. I won't mention his name until he starts frequenting more often, at least one more. Punishment's a bitch.

Not much has happened since then.

So tonight being Tuesday was our second rehearsal within a weeks time. Felt pretty good getting to get together again so soon. Bassist Kenny came over with some good news. Two things, one is uneventful and even to us and the other is pretty cool. We might have our first show. Somewhere in Durham (North Carolina just in case) and it will be for a small art expo, very cool. We made a quick recording of one our tunes tonight and it actually sounded pretty good. Missed a few notes here and there but the phrasing is pretty good. Drums have a pretty good feel overall too but little things are going to have to be ironed out. I think we're going to be posting that tomorrow in the afternoon.

More than likely you're unaware that I'm engaged. We've together for four years and are getting married next summer. Very cool. Needless to say she's a huge part of my life and we talk about the future a lot so today we were on the subject of my current musical endeavor. She expressed her concerns and I, mine and in the end we decided on some things that we both need to do to make sure that we can be successful with this. Not a get rich quick scheme, just how to keep our shit together during these last thirteen months under the marital status of being single when we start checking off a different box.

I don't really have any new music but I did find the original acoustic version of our song I will be Leaving with the Dusk. I'll just go ahead and, I will be Leaving with the Dusk

There we go.

Again here's another bump to me and the guys: Stammerings

Anything else...

So a new song will be out tomorrow, a live recording of it, check out the acoustic version of the song, and check out the band page for some of that shit.

Totally unrelated, my glasses broke while writing this. fuck.

so some music

it's been far too long since i put any new music out. it's been far longer since i was part of a band.

reading that back, i took a deep breath and i don't think my fellow band members know how much it means to me to be able to say that i am part of one these things again.


so here we go


these songs are still in the demo phase and unfortunately, i don't have the guys on any of these tracks and not sure when that will happen. we also still need band pictures. actually we need a finite line up.

fuck, so we're barely a band i guess.

well there is a name and there are three of us who come consistently to rehearsals. there is a forth guy who shows up fucking one time, you know who the fuck you are you apple beer drinking, giant doughnut eating, what-the-fuck were you thinking tattooed bastard.

well fuck it, i spent more time on this then i wanted to so enjoy some rantings, some listening, and our stammerings in music

Stammerings