tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17124849401759006502024-03-05T07:42:27.359-05:00Stayed and Gone: The Old Story of the New Town DrunksAbout Attempts at MusicNew Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-31339664158726591992012-03-07T14:58:00.000-05:002012-03-07T14:58:15.264-05:00SXSW and pre-release umastered downloadWe are heading to SXSW to play a showcase with No More Fake Labels. Meanwhile, we have finished recording and mixing a new record. Still needs to be mastered, but if you'd like to hear an unmastered track, click on the link below.<br />
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<embed src="http://cache.reverbnation.com/widgets/swf/48/pro_widget.swf?id=artist_194065&posted_by=artist_194065&skin_id=PWFS5010&background_color=EEEEEE&border_color=000000&song_ids=12439308&auto_play=false&shuffle=false&song_ids=12439308" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowNetworking="all" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="opaque" quality="best" width="434" height="326"></embed></object><br /><img border="0" height="0" src="http://www.reverbnation.com/widgets/trk/48/artist_194065/artist_194065/t.gif" style="height: 0px; visibility: hidden; width: 0px;" width="0" /><img alt="ComScore" border="0" height="1" src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=10349858&cv=2.0&cj=1" style="display: none;" width="1" />RC Hopgoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14438581429807023356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-27183568805403284472011-09-20T08:51:00.001-04:002011-09-20T08:51:44.434-04:00We are going to CMJ!Ok, so we're going to try to revive this blog a bit. Especially with the upcoming trip to NYC to play at CMJ! <a href="http://nomorefakelabels.com/">No More Fake Labels</a> has put together a killer showcase for <a href="http://www.cmj.com/marathon/">CMJ Music Marathon</a> in NYC on Oct. 20th at <a href="http://www.bowerypoetry.com/">Bowery Poetry Club</a> (starting at 7PM).<br />
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The showcase will be:<br />
<a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/westernciv">Western Civ</a> (Chapel Hill, NC)<br />
<a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/motelbeds">The Motel Beds</a> with <a href="http://www.kelleydeal.net/">Kelley Deal</a> (Dayton, OH)<br />
<a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/saintlips">Saint Lips</a> (Rome, Italy)<br />
<a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/masssolorevolt">Mass Solo Revolt</a> (Flint, MI)<br />
<a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/salttobitters">Salt To Bitters</a> (Chapel Hill, NC)<br />
and us, <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/newtowndrunks">New Town Drunks</a> (Chapel Hill, NC!).<br />
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The exact order we'll be playing has not been determined yet.<br />
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Salt to Bitters and us are on <a href="http://tinycanvasrecords.com/">Tiny Canvas Records</a> label, which is like a brother label to No More Fake Labels who have been awesome enough to let us join the showcase.<br />
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So we're going to try to blog more about this and other stuff that may come up.
I am now especially excited to go to NYC and looking forward to maybe joining up with the indignados up on <a href="https://occupywallst.org/">wall street.</a>
RC Hopgoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14438581429807023356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-82184896099687989472010-04-15T09:58:00.008-04:002010-04-15T19:02:56.952-04:00New Town Drunks' Drunk Beer Ads<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWtOb9AhSS-rjIMLHo5eSDJAc5Ni7tUHEMpnCgNUTvDHiZNh8gMVenssrXw_ZK1raRiYt3iGbWQI6VqecMT9ipvCDmGa88kEjjpVN2Vyg06cchyZiqH6fgnjXKe8TsFg2sgiDOTxciRr0/s1600/ntd+beer.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 138px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWtOb9AhSS-rjIMLHo5eSDJAc5Ni7tUHEMpnCgNUTvDHiZNh8gMVenssrXw_ZK1raRiYt3iGbWQI6VqecMT9ipvCDmGa88kEjjpVN2Vyg06cchyZiqH6fgnjXKe8TsFg2sgiDOTxciRr0/s320/ntd+beer.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460385301827278162" /></a>5 years ago, we had a dream: to have our own brand of beer. But being better drinkers than brewers, and realizing that brewing actually took some effort, we didn't know how we were going to find the time, in between all the trips to bed, bath and beyond, to make this dream come true. <br /><br />The solution came to us in another dream, wait, not a dream, something like a dream... more like a stupor. We realized we didn't need to brew beer. It was the beer bull market of 2005 and everyone was selling and buying and selling and buying all kinds of beers. So in our Eureka moment, sure to change beer markets everywhere, we decided we would instead, sell our drinking. No, you say, impossible. Well, it wasn't as easy as we thought. <br /><br />The first batches of Drunk Beer sold fairly well at New Town Drunks' shows and our neighborhood bars. But even though we sold a six pack to a bar in Ireland, the international, and national, and, who are we kidding, regional and local customers were not coming back for more, the way we hoped. So we decided we needed the added help of some well placed advertising to really push our Drunk Beer sales where they needed to go, up. <br /><br />We immediately got to work at various bars until we came up with a reasonably wordless script and an unplanned shooting plan. We engaged the services of master cinematographer Mr. Mouse to run cameras, and contacted lots of local talent by letting them know there would be a party at the now infamous Camp Marmaloot where Drunk Beer label designer and professional artiste, Andrew Degraff, lived with local impresario and international poet, Hoppie Newton. <br /><br />The party was set-up. Beer was bought, beer was drunk, Drunk Beer was labeled and capped. And the party started. People brought beer, people drank beer, Mr. Mouse and Ms. Veda captured it all, well, mostly all, on video. And then we thought we were done. But we didn't realize that several hours of party footage do not an advertising make. And nobody seemed to know what to do next. In the olden days of yore ago, we dumped all the film onto some floor and went at it with scissors and scotch tape. But now all we had were these miniature cassettes that didn't seem to even have any tape in them and they wouldn't fit in our walkmans or betamax players. So we put them away and waited to get the answer from another, ahem, dream.<br /><br />The beer bull market of 2005 was trumped by the beer bear market of 2006 and then this by the beer boar market of 2007 and this by the beer baboon market of 2008. Throughout all these markets we continued to drink and bottle Drunk Beer, but we couldn't break the Mystery of the Miniature Cassettes, and Drunk Beer sales dropped down to zero. So we were in a bind, all drinking and no Drunk Beer selling makes for a house full of empty beer bottles. But then during the beer barnacle market of 2009, the answer revealed itself to us. <br /><br />In a flock of Wild Wild Geese, editor extraordinaire Rob DiPatri appeared to us with the answer to the Mystery of the Miniature Cassettes. I have the equipment, and I have the skills, he said from the clouds. And sure enough, before the current beer burro market had started, we had the completed New Town Drunks' Drunk Beer ads ready to convince drinkers worldwide to try New Town Drunks' Drunk Beer. We drink so you won't have to!<br /><br />So starting this week, and for the next five weeks we'll be releasing one ad each week (sorry, we just couldn't wait until the Super Bowl). All five of them however have begun rotation on something called television. If you own one of these and have a cable plugged to it, and enjoy socialist programming of the highest order like the one on Chapel's Hill's People's Channel's Television's Station's, then you may catch one of the soon to be famosos New Town Drunks' Drunk Beer ads. But don't take the ads word for it, try a Drunk Beer yourself. It's unexpetically tasty! <br /><br />Here's the first ad, this one is called The Mickey. It features Matt and Julie in a riveting soon to be CLIO Award winning performance. For the TMZ crew, Matt and Julie, or Julatt as they have come to be known, are now married and expecting. Was it the magic of Drunk Beer that brought about this, er, magic? You'll have to ask them. Our lips are sealed around a bottle as Drunk Beer sales have already begun to sky rocket after only a couple of days of this ad being released.<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OyImlHa5MKU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OyImlHa5MKU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />And here's some credits:<br /><br />Written and Produced by <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/newtowndrunks">New Town Drunks</a><br />Directed by Diane Koistinen<br />Videography by <a href="http://www.caverntavern.com/">Mr. Mouse</a> and Veda Williams<br />Beer Label Design by <a href="http://www.andrewdegraff.com/">Andrew Degraff</a><br />Voice Over by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/rosewoodbluff">John Howie Jr</a><br />Editing by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wildwildgeesemusic">Rob DiPatri</a><br />Band Michelle Ceremuga (bass), Nathan Logan (drums), Roberto Cofresi (guitar), Diane Koistinen (vocals)<br />Filmed at Camp Marmaloot, Chapel Hill NC, 2005<br /><br />Starring:<br />The Mickey: <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/aroosterforthemasses">Matt Vooris</a> and Julie DeSena<br />Drunk Dialing: <a href="http://www.myspace.com/thesiberiansnyc">Todd Colberg</a> and Joseph Brzoska<br />Upchuck: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Romweber">Dexter Romweber</a> and Evangeline Christie<br />Lampshade Guy: <a href="http://www.myspace.com/johnsaylormusic">John Saylor</a>, Alison Reed DiPatri and Alison Nickles<br />Waking Up: <a href="http://motherfuckingmusic.com/">Hoppie Newton</a><br /><br />Also appearing:<br /><a href="http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/ArticleArchives?author=1393235">Chris Parker</a><br /><a href="http://www.allhailthecomet.com/about.html">Seamus Kenney</a><br />Andrew Degraff<br />Pallas Adamopoulos<br />Rob DiPatri<br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/dexterromweberandthenewromans">David Schmitt</a><br />Anthony Lener<br />Autumn Spencer<br /><br />Special thanks to all the people at the NTD Drunk Beer party.<br /><br />Oh, and you can buy this beer online! Go here to get your own - http://www.newtowndrunks.com/store.htmlRC Hopgoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14438581429807023356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-30834549846642052342010-04-08T15:30:00.003-04:002010-04-08T15:33:11.259-04:00New Town Drunks vs. The Pneurotics<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgFNzgxJzBrnrIfQKfFk6zNnWKFZdyyy1hWNNOksB8FtPCwiKK0q5bOQWyWXO5l5YdoVexPktJFYA4WSFps-3kHEKlGqYUSvig4vLREu3hyMTDTvwvkCNbmgJlHMgyC489krC9-DlhY-96/s1600/2010-058-01+cave+-+vs+Pneurotics+black.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 206px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgFNzgxJzBrnrIfQKfFk6zNnWKFZdyyy1hWNNOksB8FtPCwiKK0q5bOQWyWXO5l5YdoVexPktJFYA4WSFps-3kHEKlGqYUSvig4vLREu3hyMTDTvwvkCNbmgJlHMgyC489krC9-DlhY-96/s320/2010-058-01+cave+-+vs+Pneurotics+black.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457851666418721202" /></a><br />Danny Mason Promotions presents:<br />HELL ON THE HILL<br />The Battle of the Decade<br />NEW TOWN DRUNKS<br />vs.<br />THE PNEUROTICS<br />Cavern Tavern Resort & Casino<br />May Day 2010<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qITsEgQjzpI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qITsEgQjzpI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />Poster by Daniel Snyder. Poster photo by Allison Springer<br />Promo video photography by Jesse Barnes, Davis Stillson and Rachel Klem.New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-80658814700875226082009-07-30T10:47:00.000-04:002009-07-30T10:48:04.358-04:00New Video!<FONT size="undefined" style="font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Hi there,</FONT><FONT size="undefined" style="font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Autumn and Roberto put this video together for the song Always Home. We hope you like it.</FONT> <FONT size="undefined" style="font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">And remember the record release party is on September 12 with lots of surprises.</FONT><FONT size="undefined" style="font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);"><BR/></FONT><FONT size="undefined" style="font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);"><BR/></FONT><FONT size="undefined" style="font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">See you around,</FONT> <FONT size="undefined" style="font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Roberto & Diane</FONT><br /><BR/> <br /><OBJECT height="374" width="332" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"><PARAM name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></PARAM><PARAM name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></PARAM><PARAM name="movie" value="http://cache.reverbnation.com/widgets/swf/33/video_gallery_widget.swf?page_object_id=artist_194065&id=artist_194065&backgroundcolor=EEEEEE&font_color=000000&autoPlay=false"></PARAM><PARAM name="wmode" value="transparent"></PARAM><EMBED height="374" width="332" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://cache.reverbnation.com/widgets/swf/33/video_gallery_widget.swf?page_object_id=artist_194065&id=artist_194065&backgroundcolor=EEEEEE&font_color=000000&autoPlay=false" wmode="transparent"></EMBED></OBJECT>RC Hopgoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14438581429807023356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-44727604186030222172009-05-14T23:48:00.002-04:002009-05-14T23:56:02.173-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 16The Ballad of Stayed and Gone has been released into the wild. You can purchase actual physical-hold-in-your-hands CDs here or mp3s on itunes (with the rest of the online stores to follow shortly).<br /><br />You can sample Always Home on the <a href="http://www.myspace.com/newtowndrunks">myspace</a> player and Double Sunglasses Sunday on our <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/newtowndrunks">ReverbNation page</a> (or on the RN widget on myspace).<br /><br />We are now planning a crazy record release multi-venue event. Stay tuned for details.<br /><br />We recommend you pop in your car and go for a nice drive, or sit at home with a nice bottle of wine and listen to the whole thing beginning to end, like a movie. That's a recommendation, we're sure you will find many other ways to enjoy it.<br /><br />This album was produced by us with Jesse Olley, mastered by Nick Petersen, and features Alex Bowers (Joe Romeo and the Orange County Volunteers) on piano, Stu Cole (Squirrel Nut Zippers) on bass, Nathan Golub (John Howie and the Rosewood Bluff) on pedal steel and cuatro, Nathan Logan (Hooverville) on drums and Seamus Kenney (SNMNMNM) on trombone. Joe Brzoska and Mary Gunn did the artwork and design respectively, and Ali Nickles the photography.<br /><br />We hope you like it.<br />And thank you.<br />Diane and RobertoRC Hopgoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14438581429807023356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-15515186701922227442009-05-07T09:08:00.001-04:002009-05-07T09:08:53.022-04:00Taproot Radio InterviewIf you missed our interview on WCOM, you can now hear it on the Taproot Radio podcast. <BR/><BR/><A href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnRhcHJvb3RyYWRpby5jb20v">Taproot Radio podcast</A><BR/>RC Hopgoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14438581429807023356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-75907775305922527762009-04-03T13:05:00.002-04:002009-05-16T08:41:47.440-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 15: Double Sunglasses Sunday, pre-released<span style="font-family: arial;">Double Sunglasses Sunday, the first single from the upcoming 'Ballad of Stayed and Gone' by the New Town Drunks, has been released on ReverbNation. Check it out <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnJldmVyYm5hdGlvbi5jb20vbmV3dG93bmRydW5rcw==">here.</a><br /><br />Enjoy,<br />Diane & Roberto<br />NTD</span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-11401321921172475002009-02-19T10:49:00.005-05:002009-02-19T11:28:45.834-05:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 14<span style="font-family:arial;">The album is mixed! Mastering will be done very soon and the artwork and design are being worked on as we write this.<br /><br />It’s been more than a year an half since we started this project, but it feels like this is all we’ve been doing since the beginning of time. Not because it has dragged on (a year and half is not that long for an album), but because it feels like, musically, this is all we’ve been thinking about, and it has certainly taken up most of our music listening time.<br /><br />But now our creative work is done. Now Nick Peterson will master, Joe Brzoska is doing the cover, Ali Nickles the photography, and Mary Gunn the design. And then we’ll have to play some shows and all that to back it up. <br /><br />And then start thinking about the next project…<br /><br />To celebrate this moment, here are two versions of <span style="font-style: italic;">Season of the Grape</span>, the final mix one and the original demo one. I thought some of you who have been reading these posts about the record might enjoy the before and after experience. You can choose which one you want to hear first.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/13%20Season%20of%20the%20Grape.mp3">The mixed (unmastered) version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Season of the Grape</span>.</a><br />Nathan Golub - pedal steel<br />Nathan Logan - drums<br />Stu Cole - bass<br />Alex Bowers - piano<br />Recorded in Chapel Hill at the Cavern Tavern (Rob Walsh bartending) and Ultra Fin Riz Studios<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/18%20-%20Season%20of%20the%20Grape.mp3">The first <span style="font-style: italic;">Season of the Grape</span> demo,</a> all done by Roberto in garageband with mostly canned instruments.<br /><br />The demo was track 18 on the original demos group. The final mix is track 13. So we've cut at least 5 songs/ideas between conception and final mix. Good.</span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-40454201589183018922008-11-07T14:37:00.004-05:002008-11-07T15:14:00.704-05:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 13<span style="font-family:arial;">Since we are not playing out as a band as much as we used to, I have been playing these small gigs by myself. These gigs are usually in a form that I would describe as songwriter showcases. Where two to four songwriters play about 30 minutes each, or rotate one song each. The rotation gigs can be fun, but you need the right mix of people since you are performing as a weird sort of band. Recently, I've been really enjoying the straight up line-up ones. In those, one has more time to develop the performance, and there is no need to be so strictly song oriented. The one line-up showcase that I've enjoyed the most, enough that I've returned several times, is the <a href="http://www.myspace.com/songshowcase">Songslinger's Showcase</a> that Brandon Herndon and John Pardue put together. I like Songslingers for various reasons. One is that Brandon and John pick the people and for the most part I trust their taste. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">It's also good that they host it at our home base bar, <a href="http://www.caverntavern.com/">The Cave.</a> </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.caverntavern.com/"></a><br /><br />Last night I played one of these gigs. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">It's usually three or four people and we each get about 30 minutes, which is just about as long as I can stand myself by myself on stage. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">And that is one of the hardest things about these gigs, the fact that I have to play by my lonesome. And boy do I get nervous. I've played for years and years in bands in all kinds of stages, and have never gotten as nervous about a band gig as I do about these solo gigs. However, recently I have figured out that two shots of bourbon and two beers is all I need to kill the nervous bug.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Last night I got there early and even though I've learned exactly how much I can drink, I was feeling good so I went ahead and doubled the dose. Four shots of Ancient Age later... I think I played one song all the way through. Mostly I'd start playing a song, then stop in the middle, to comment on something about the song, or something totally unrelated to anything, then I would realize that I didn't want to go back to that song, so I'd start another one. And so on. At some point I played part of Peter Gabriel's <span style="font-style: italic;">Red Rain</span> as some kind of joyful celebration of the victory of red, which to most of the world <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>the color of the left, while blue is the color of the right. In the USA the colors are backwards. As was apparently my logic last night. So my 30 minutes turned into some kind of comedy routine. And, surprisingly, everyone loved it, nothing like a train wreck performance to captivate an audience.<br /><br />Meanwhile back at the studio....<br /><br />We are really close to finishing all the tracking for the record. We were hoping to release the record by the end of 2008, but it looks like we won't. But it does look like we'll be done with the tracking by the end of the year, so we should be able to mix and master and release it in early 2009.<br /><br />In the meantime, here's a couple of songs in their almost-finished, unmixed, and unmastered glory.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/03%20Stayed%20and%20Gone.mp3">Stayed and Gone</a> - this one now has Alex Bowers on piano, and most recently Seamus Kinney laid down some sexy trombone on it.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/14%20Season%20of%20the%20Grape.mp3">Season of the Grape</a> - this one now has Nathan Golub on pedal steel, and Alex on piano, and even a bit of cuica.</span>RC Hopgoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14438581429807023356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-73969451778718014322008-10-09T21:42:00.002-04:002008-10-12T22:07:18.566-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 12<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/uploaded_images/l_a8e83633768b4b42b603afb98a7da894-706583.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/uploaded_images/l_a8e83633768b4b42b603afb98a7da894-706561.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">We played a show last night. The first of a handful of shows we'll be playing to warm up for the release of the record. We played at the <a href="http://www.reservoirbar.net/">Reservoir</a> for an excellent local crowd. <a href="http://www.myspace.com/thealcazarhotel">The Alcazar Hotel</a> opened up and they played some great cheaptrick spiced rock, very good tunes.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Diane and I played with Stu Cole on bass, Nathan Golub on pedal steel and Nathan Logan on drums. Jarrod from <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dammitonline">Damnit Online</a> was there and he took some cool pictures (like the one above). </span><span style="font-family:arial;">It was one of the most enjoyable shows we've played. When even the mistakes turn out right, you know it's a good night. Great audience, great bar, great band, and Diane stole the show like only she knows how to do. I love you, love of my life.<br /><br />What else could we ask for? Oh, it was a free show like all these pre-record release shows will be.<br /><br />So today, I am recovering from the night's madness and my brain is too fried to write about anything else, and I'm not going to ruin last night's experience by trying to describe it in words, anymore than what I've already said.<br /><br />Stay tuned for the next pre-record release show.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-33582077503248484722008-08-21T13:01:00.014-04:002008-08-21T13:21:46.886-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 11<span style="font-family:arial;">We are approaching the end of this project. It’s been almost two years since we started putting the songs together for this. And soon we will be doing final mixes, mastering, and artwork, and then finally manufacturing the thing. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">But there is still a little bit of recording to be done. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Recently Nathan Golub came in and put down pedal steel and <a href="http://www.cuatro-pr.org/">cuatro</a> parts on some of the tracks. Nathan is one of those string wizards one sometimes has the luck to meet; give him anything with strings and he’ll make it sound good. He can probably make music out of shoe strings. He played my old beat up cuatro and fell in love with it so he asked if I knew how to get one. A quick call to my mom in Puerto Rico and she was off to see her cuatro maker friend who quickly set Nathan up with a nice new cuatro.<br /><br />Nathan recorded cuatro parts on three songs, but the bulk of the work he did was on pedal steel. For the pedal steel, we set up a Peavy Nashville 112 amplifier in a sound room, and Nathan sat in the control room, running through the amp and also direct. The session was, like Koko Goldstein might say, smooth. Nathan had already played the songs with us live, so it was just a matter of streamlining the material for the record. And Nathan is not only an attentive player, but also very easy to work with.<br /><br />The coolest part of the whole session, though, might have been recording with the plate reverb. On the record, there is a crazy transition between <span style="font-style: italic;">Itch </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Feet Beat Faster</span>. Neither song has a pedal steel part, but we thought that the transition between them could use some. Well, to tell the truth, at this point we’re throwing everything we got into this transition. Later we’ll have to spend some time editing and mixing it. So when we were about to record the pedal steel part for the transition, Jesse Olley (engineer/co-producer extraordinaire) suggested we use the reverb plate. Reverb plate, said I? What reverb plate? And Jesse said I probably hadn’t noticed it, but it was right against the wall in the room with all the guitars. I had been in that room many times, so I went back and looked again. The reason I hadn’t noticed it is because it looks just like a super long, super tall and super narrow box, almost the size of the wall. I thought it <span style="font-style: italic;">was </span>the wall.<br /><br />I sent Jesse and email to get some details about the plate. Here’s what he wrote: “It’s an Echoplate II with modifications designed and sold by the guy who originally built it in Chicago in 1983, the last year of production. It's a suspended sheet of stainless steel with a speaker driver and two transducer pickups mounted on the plate. The one control is labeled reverb time scale. It goes from from 1 to 8. It came from the late Wavecastle Studio in Hillsboro where (among others) <a href="http://www.myspace.com/flavorcontra">Zen Frisbee</a> and <a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=37480279">The Family Dollar Pharaohs</a> recorded their albums.”<br /><br />Jesse continues, “Here’s a picture of the reverb plate with the side of it removed so you can see the plate.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfgLtVGNkljOV9PuA19z0bHh4g4MnRo8lJL9boVTyTG9CioPa9gzOyw2ZKt6Blf4_1O5OMjkgGohHyi42rmc1r-xGGsKhIdFk7PYu_S9wd1ET6q28-Uz9gMd7BwEHBgkImZd-PGcRxCM/s1600-h/plate+pic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfgLtVGNkljOV9PuA19z0bHh4g4MnRo8lJL9boVTyTG9CioPa9gzOyw2ZKt6Blf4_1O5OMjkgGohHyi42rmc1r-xGGsKhIdFk7PYu_S9wd1ET6q28-Uz9gMd7BwEHBgkImZd-PGcRxCM/s400/plate+pic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5237011970832667858" border="0" /></a><br />Note the one cable in, two cables out on top and the lever, top left. The speaker magnet is in the center. The original pickups are the small black things stuck on the plate, the new (modified) ones are the brass disks lower on the plate.”<br /><br />So we hooked up the pedal steel to the reverb plate, and cranked it up to 7. It was like swimming in an ocean of melted steel. I only wish we could take that monster to a solo pedal steel performance, on top of a mountain, with giant amplifiers pushing the waves of steel down the mountain like musical lava.<br /><br />Here’s a couple of excerpts from Nathan’s session.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>First, the last two minutes of <span style="font-style: italic;">Walk</span>, featuring a steel solo.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/01%20Walk%20%28solo%201%29.mp3"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Walk</span> excerpt</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />And then some of the craziness going on in the transition between <span style="font-style: italic;">Itch </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Feet Beat Faster</span>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/06%20Itch%20%28w%20cuatro%29%20excerpt.mp3"><span style="font-style: italic;">Itch</span> to <span style="font-style: italic;">Feet Beat Faster</span> transition excerpt</a><br /><br /><br />Bonus links:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.beechpark.com/studioequip_outboard_EMT140.html">A Little Reverb History</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/tapeop/plate/plate.php">How to build your own plate reverb</a><br /><p><p><p><br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-20494307423834391572008-06-13T09:33:00.000-04:002008-06-13T09:34:12.496-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 10<br><br><br><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/06%20-%20baby%20camilia.mp3">Baby Camilia</a><br /><br><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">the end of the first act. the cliff hanger. the curtain before intermission. the impulse to change. the reason to try something different. the suggestion of a new beginning. the swing of the pendulum.</span><br /><br><br><br>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-64735236179889947862008-05-20T11:17:00.003-04:002008-05-20T11:23:33.600-04:00A Live Song<span style="font-family: arial;">We haven't been playing live all that much recently. We've played maybe five or six shows since last October. But we still love to play live, though for various reasons (among them the record we've been working on very slowly) we haven't done it that much recently. So it is possible that some of you have not seen us play live in some time. Well here's<a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/Itch%20live.mp3"> Itch, recorded live at our most recent show at the Cave.</a> That's with Stu Cole on bass, Matt Vooris on drums and Tone Pham making a special appearance on trumpet at the end. You can also hear and download this song on our ReverbNation page <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/newtowndrunks">here.</a><p><p><p></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-44705564129138849922008-05-01T14:05:00.000-04:002008-05-06T14:07:26.459-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 9<span style="font-family:arial;">Last weekend we did some location recording. Our engineer, Jesse, has this really cool <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-H2-Handy-Track-Recorder/dp/B000VBH2IG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1209665053&sr=8-1">handheld recorder,</a> which does 2-track recording with a 4-mic capsule configuration. It fits in your hand, takes about a second to set up, and you’re ready to record on location. It’s a nice little machine and we took it out to record various bits that we want to use for the record.<br /><br />The first thing we did was use it for Marina's first recording session.<br />We recorded about 5 minutes of her playing on two toy pianos. I know, bear with me for a moment. Here’s a very very short video of one of the compositions she performed for the recording. This one we call <span style="font-style: italic;">A Very Very Short Composition 1.</span><br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7uNJ3C2oINE"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7uNJ3C2oINE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="350" width="425"></embed> </object><br /><br />Marina’s recording will be used as an intro to a song called Baby Camilia. The idea is that the song will transition from Marina’s piano recording to pianist Alex Bowers' recording on the same toy pianos, to Alex’s recording on a grownup piano. Musically the track is a solo piano instrumental piece loosely based on the song Camilia, a version of which was posted last week. So in a sense Baby Camilia works as a prelude to the later Camilia song.<br /><br />There is a lot of Marina in this record, not only her voice and her tinkering on various instruments, but also her presence and her influence on the music, how it was written, performed and recorded. Ultimately the record is for her. It is the record that, if she is ever interested, </span><span style="font-family:arial;">in 15, 20, 30 years, </span><span style="font-family:arial;">she can listen to it and get a sense of what home was like back then.<br /><br />After recording Marina’s piece, we went to the Local 506 and met up with Grandmaster of Ceremonies Hoppie to record him doing a carny call. He is better known for his MC'ing skills with a microphone and a top hat introducing some band, or a rock paper scissors match, but he transitioned nicely to a megaphone and a top hat trying to convince people to step right up. Along the way we also picked up some nice ambient sounds.<br /><br />Further down is a draft of the Carny Call track, which leads into another track, Itch, which leads into another, Feet Beat Faster (or something like that, the title has not been decided upon yet).<br /><br />The Carny Call draft is composed of a bunch of different stuff recorded all over the place. I did this draft in garageband with my crappy headphones, and afterwards, when i played it on the regular "nice" stereo, it sounded way more muddled than it did on the headphones. Go figure. Listening to it on the stereo we figured that Hoppie’s vocal track will need to be upped a little and given more separation. But this is not supposed to be perfect, just good enough to get a general idea so that when we go into the studio to cut the final version together, we’ll have a good blueprint to guide us. At any rate, if you listen to it I recommend using headphones.<br /><br />Itch is pretty close to finished, but it still needs a lead instrument during the instrumental break (suggestions?) and there is a little bit more work to do on the ending/transition.<br /><br />Feet Beat Faster is also pretty close to being done, except there will be piano at the tail end of it, big piano chords, like giant footsteps. The quote at the beginning of the song is from Carlos Fuentes’ <span style="font-style: italic;">Gringo Viejo</span>.<br /><br />Here’s the three tracks back to back – <a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/04%20-%20Carny%20Call-Itch-Feet%20Beat%20Faster.mp3">Carny Call into Itch into Feet Beat Faster</a><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-75761811006720845662008-04-24T16:54:00.003-04:002008-05-06T14:08:12.358-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 8<span style="font-family:arial;">Sometimes it’s nice the way a project develops over a long period of time. And by project I mean the working out of particular ideas and their documentation.<br /><br />As time and energy are put into it, the project begins to take a life of it's own and to suggest it's own development. A long time ago, when I started working on the material that would end up being part of this project, I did it in an intuitive sort of way. A conversation with someone would stick in my head, or an image, or a dream, or a particular melody or structure. As these stuck in my head i would start putting them together into ditties and verses, bits and pieces. Over the past year, I've recorded the material and listened to it and edited it, and then re-recorded it and listened again, and edited again. And this cycle has been repeated several times. And each time connections between the parts and what the project is about begins to take focus.<br /><br />Formally, it is shaping up to be in part a concept album, in the sense that it explores related ideas from different angles. It’s also a little bit like a musical, because there is an underlying story, although the story is more implied than literal. It does, however, have a certain melodramatic quality to it that is reminiscent of musicals. Ultimately, however, a formal categorization of the project is not that important except as it helps us move forward by giving it some momentary cohesiveness as it threatens to run wild. However, if one thing has become clear over the past year, it is that this record is an exploration into an ocean of intersections and contradictions, a place where opposites are not so opposite. In particular it is an exploration of how the way we feel about home and leaving can change over time.<br /><br />Over the time I've been working on this project I've had many ups and downs about my feelings for it. We've kept on track though and now we've moved <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=FWUyAAAAMAAJ&dq=william+yates+the+lands+of+heart%27s+desire&pg=PP1&ots=uTi45So4bT&sig=mNEMeL3oVkEXL_9awS9RefOgYKw&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=william+yates+The+Lands+of+Heart%27s+Desire&btnG=Search&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA9,M1">"out of a red flare of dreams and into a common light of common hours. Until old age brings the red flare again."</a> In that common light of common hours we float amidst a group of sounds, words and ideas that are taking audible shape as a horizon all around us. A changing horizon, so that what begins sounding like an answer often ends up being a question. “I hear the sounds of home” as a statement made by me changes suddenly into “Do you hear the sound of footsteps?” as a question I am being asked. And the horizon begins to take shape and as it does it gives the project its shape. Like the two years I spent reading the Brothers Karamazov, towards the end I felt like Dostoevsky was reading me rather than the other way around.<br /><br />So what follows are windows whereby you can see individual tracks from the group that together form the ocean on which we tread, the ocean that is this project. Actually it's more like surfing. Catching that wave as it's rising, standing up on the board and riding it until the board is flowing with the wave. Then seeing the crest begin to turn and the pipe start to form, and we hunch down, point one hand towards the future, and use the other hand to trace the inside of the wave, feeling its shape, its flow, the undertow lifting from behind and propelling us forward. It is then that we begin to carve our leads into the giant and the music begins to really sing.<br /><br />Ideally, at the end, the tracks should stand on their own, but right now it’s hard for me to see them individually. In each track I hear the echoes of the previous ones and the anticipation of the ones that follow. It feels weird to separate them from the group to post them individually here. Like my friend who would get all excited about playing a record, then he would play you only the first 10 or 20 seconds of a song before skipping to the next one. He wanted to play you the whole record in one minute. I always though that was so annoying. This feels like I'm doing that to you. But I'm not, because this songs can stand on their own. I hope.<br /><br />We have been approaching these ideas with several different methodologies. Here's a sample of the method whereby we start with drums and go from there. This is <a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/11%20-%20Double%20Sunglasses%20Sunday%20%28w_%20vox%29.mp3">Double Sunglasses Sunday,</a> which you heard in a previous post as a garageband sketch. Here it is still in a fairly basic form and still needing some work, but at this juncture this version is a good representation of the shape of the song.<br /><br />Another method we are using is to start with vocals and guitar and go from there. <a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/13%20-%20Camilia%20into%20DSM.mp3">Camilia</a> is one of the songs we are producing that way. The plan is to add to this some piano, for more percussive rhythm, and pedal steel for more tears and air at the instrumental bridge.<br /><br />On the above link, Camilia is followed right away by Double Sunglasses Monday which is what it’s like being lost in Montreal. In a previous post I posted the original Garageband version of this song. Here it is now in its almost complete form with real instruments.<br /><br />I’m really getting a kick from transitions.<br /><br />We are using other methods, including recording some songs live under the James Taylor bridge where the cars go thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump high above, but I’ll tell you more about those later.<br /><br />It’s nice working on a project at this pace. Like a chess game where days go by between moves, but with more players. Maybe like that old negotiating game, remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_%28game%29">Diplomacy?</a><br /><br /><br />In other news:<br /><br />Valient Himself, leader of the Venusian rock and roll band Valient Thorr is donating one of his kidneys to his earth father. Read the press release <a href="http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=1325027&blogID=370914662">here.</a><br /><br />As a result of this Valient Himself has incurred some debt and to help pay for the debt he is auctioning a number of his paintings and has also promised to make a line drawing of any picture you send him for just $29.00 ($25 + $4 S&H). <a href="http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=1325027&blogID=381914996">Here’s the link</a> to that follow up post.<br /><br />So contact Valient Himself through the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://www.myspace.com/valientthorr">Valient Thorr myspace page</a> or write to Valient Himself at cloudbox@hotmail.com and ask for details. Valient Himself is doing the hard work of donating the kidney, your part would be to send a few dollars to help him pay the bills, and you’ll get an original Venusian line drawing of your mug, or any mug you like. </span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-86569490157365799082008-01-31T12:28:00.001-05:002008-04-18T17:39:44.486-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 7<span style="font-family:arial;">Part of me resists writing these posts, these posts about our recording project. These posts about music most of you probably won’t care to hear in its finished form, much less in the incomplete and imperfect form found in these posts. Part of me wants to wait until everything is done so I can just say, here it is, love it or leave it, I don’t care, it’s done, I’ve moved on to other projects. Part of me doesn’t want to discuss it unless you are playing on the record. That part of me says that I don’t remember why I started writing about this in the first place, says that whatever the reason was, it probably wasn’t all that good of a reason anyway, and says that I am conceited to think anyone cares and that if I stop now, no one will say, hey what happened to that series of posts about the record you were recording? That part of me wants me to hide the incomplete parts, wants me to hide in a basement somewhere and not say anything ever unless it’s absolutely true and necessary, anything more than the completely true and necessary is vain, pointless, selfish. That part of me may very well be right.<br /><br />But I don’t care. The other part of me, calls that part chicken-shit. The other, stubborn part of me wants me to finish what I started. The other, bullshitting part of me likes crap whose reason and meaning might be hidden from me, might be so hidden that I won't see it until I take my last breath, or maybe never, maybe it doesn't have any, and maybe its attraction and beauty is precisely the result of that very lack of reason and meaning. So that other part of me wants to show how stuff is put together, wants to show little pieces that might end up making the whole, wants to show how this record is different from other records we’ve done, wants to let the crap fly to the four winds, devil be damned, before it ends up in the cutting room floor. This other part of me sometimes hopes that when you hear the finished record, you’ll feel like you were part of its creation, feel like you heard the songs when they were merely a few chunks of undigested chords. But this other part of me, also thinks, to hell with it, this is what I’m doing, and who needs a reason for anything. Because this part of me likes to go on about nothing, constantly dwelling on nothing, constantly trying to make something out of nothing, constantly trying to find the little bit of something in all that nothing.<br /><br />And if nothing else this series of posts should at least be a document of how our record was made, a document of how we made a record after having a baby during her first years, a document of music in transition. A document which maybe, just maybe, long after I'm gone, she'll read as she listens to the record and feel something special thinking that this record was all done for her.<br /><br />Ok, so a few weeks back we picked up the recording after the holiday break and I put some guitars to substitute the scratch guitars that were there with the drum tracks. Not really too much to report from that session. But some days later Stu Cole put some bass tracks down. You’ve already heard his name mentioned on this blog, so let me tell you a little about Stu.<br /><br />I’ll tell you a recent story because I think it conveys the spirit of the man when it comes to music. Last year, on Thursday November 1, I went to the <a href="http://www.carrboro.com/ocsc">Orange County Social Club</a> (a bar in the town of Carrboro which is in Orange County NC) to have a drink after work, and I ran into Stu. He had been out late late for Halloween the night before and wasn’t fully recovered. We had a few drinks and an old friend of Stu’s who he hadn’t seen for some time showed up. I left them catching up in the back patio and went inside for drinks. I guess I took a bit longer than I thought because when I went back out, Stu had walked the five or so blocks to where his car was parked and had walked back with his stand-up bass, so that his buddy, who fetched his guitar from his car out back, and him could play a few songs sitting in the back of the OCSC. There was no one there but us three, so it wasn’t like a concert or anything of the kind. It was two buddies playing music together, playing bits of songs, helping each other remember old songs they’d played together, sharing new music they’d been working on, laughing, singing, playing and having a good time. I kept going inside to talk to the people at the bar and out to the patio to watch them play a song or two and back inside. Once in a while someone would hear the music and walk up and sit and listen for a bit, and then go on their way. It was all very casual and it went on for a good two hours.<br /><br />Eventually Stu’s friend had to go. By then both Stu and I were fairly toasted, but Stu had the added weight of the previous night’s Halloween debauchery plus a stand-up bass to carry. I offered to walk with him to his car so we could drop off the bass and figure out what to do next. But the bass is a big instrument to carry drunk for five blocks. So we crossed the street with some difficulty and reached Southern Rail (aka The Trains), which at this point had been opened for just a month or two. We decided we needed a rest stop. After all, we had made it across the street from OCSC, so a reward was in order. As luck would have it, there just so happened to be an old-timey band about to start playing in the main platform/bar area of The Trains. These were four guys with no amplification at all, fiddle, banjo, mandolin and washboard. And in walks Stu with a stand-up bass he can barely carry.<br /><br />Master songwriter Jim Smith, immediately spotted us, and comes up to Stu and will not take no for an answer, not that Stu was trying to get out of it. Jim carried Stu’s bass to where the four unsuspecting gentlemen were about to start playing, took the bass out of the case and held it up while he waited for Stu, who stumbled over to the bass and barely got behind it as the group started their set. It was like Popeye and spinach. Without missing a beat, Stu was on. It was hard to tell if he was holding the bass up or if the bass was holding him up, but there was no denying that he was rockin' that Brutus of a bass. And just to be sure, the old timey band, right away on the first song, threw him a solo, Stu handled it like the captain of a hundred stormy seas, and from then on the old-timey band was up and away riding a ship fueled by Stu and his bass.<br /><br />After that the night got even crazier, but that is another story. What I’m trying to say here is that Stu is not only an incredible bass player, but also a musician with a true love for music. This is a player who’s in a band that (according to the wiki, anyway) had a platinum record, has been on all the late night shows, Sesame Street, the Olympics, president Clinton’s inaugural ball, you name it. But even with all that “success”, his real success is that he has remained true to the music. And he is never too tired to play or record with a friend.<br /><br />Originally we were going to record at Stu’s little farm cabin studio, but the studio had to be shut down. I still wanted Stu to be part of the project so I asked him if he would play some bass on the record and he readily agreed.<br /><br />We set up a date with Jesse Olley, who is co-producing and engineering the record, and I gave Stu a CD with what we had, which was drums and guitars with some scratch vocals. After that I met with him three or four times. Each time we sat and listened to the tracks, and talked about them, and he would play little bits on whatever instrument was available. And I would respond and we would listen some more and talk some more. We did a lot more talking than playing and we never played the songs all the way through from beginning to end. The night before the session, I was nervous. I’ve heard Stu play many times, and I’ve heard his recordings, so I trusted him, but I hadn’t heard him play any of the songs we were going to record from beginning to end, and this way of recording one instrument at a time is still new to me, so I was nervous.<br /><br />The recording day arrived and we went to Jesse’s Ultra Fin Riz Studio. We had a five hour session ahead of us and about 10 songs/parts of songs to work on. The plan was to do as much as possible and then come back another day to finish. We decided to do the electric bass parts first since those were the majority, and Stu suggested a direct line and then just punch and run. Jesse and I must be from the same school that doesn’t trust direct lines too much, so we ran the bass direct and through different amps, but the direct line always sounded best. So we went with that, and then Stu proceeded to lay down 9 of the 10 songs we were working on, in one of the smoothest sessions I’ve ever participated in. We did not get the full impact of Stu's playing as I've seen it on stage, ripping it up like some rock god, instead Stu put solid bass parts that enhance the songs without drawing attention to themselves. They were the perfect bass parts for this record. And besides that, I got a master recording lesson.<br /><br />There were a couple of factors that made this session such a success, aside from Stu’s expertise. The first was the punch and run method, which was a definite eye opener for me. The second was the importance of talking about the music and developing an understanding about it. As Stu laid down the bass parts, I realized that during the hours we had spent talking about the tracks we had developed a clear way of talking about the music much like the way that bandmates sometimes can. Understanding was the main obstacle, and once we understood each other the act of translating that understanding into music was actually fairly simple, at least when working with someone as skilled as Stu.<br /><br />The way the session went was pretty much like this: Jesse would start recording and Stu would play the song up to a good stopping point, he would then ask me what I thought of that, and I’d say something like, maybe you can flip that last turnaround upside down, loosen it up a bit and come in on the three with that buddy holly bit, except make it more clouds and rain but add some Jupiter to it, and he knew exactly what I meant! And not only that, he would adjust accordingly, replay the part up to the break, stop, how was that? Perfect, I'd say. Ok, let’s keep going. Jesse would punch in there, and we’d move forward along the track, punching and running, sometimes back tracking a bit and redoing a section, until we’d get to the end. Then we would listen to the whole thing, and maybe do it one more time depending on how we felt about what we had. Sometimes we redid a beginning only, or a middle part, but for the most part it ran seamlessly, and for the most part when we got to the end of the track, it was done.<br /><br />One is never to old to learn new tricks and this session taught me a few things. I had more than a few preconceptions blown away: that you have to know the song beginning to end to be able to record it, that recording with a direct box is not a good idea, that it’s better to be standing up when you record, that punching in is only for correcting mistakes, that one should play the song beginning to end like one would if it was a live performance. These are all preconceptions I’ve had from years of recording music as if it was live, from years of trying to capture in the studio what a band’s perfect live performance might be like, because all those things apply if you are playing live. But if one does away with the idea that a recording should somehow document what a band can do live, then one can judge a recording as just music. I'm sure all this is no news to many, and though I knew it in theory, this is the first record that I feel I've been putting that to practice. And while some purist part of me wants to call it cheating, the other part of me is quickly learning to call it recording.<br /><br />Now, here’s a couple of tracks that are more traditional songs<br /><br />First, here’s <a href="http://www.unc.edu/~cofresi/napdownloads/03%20Stayed%20and%20Gone.mp3">Stayed and Gone</a> which I think you’ve now heard at various stages. This is just one guitar, drums, electric bass… still to be added is other stuff like vocals, trumpet and pedal steel.<br /><br />And here’s <a href="http://www.unc.edu/~cofresi/napdownloads/15%20Season%20of%20the%20Grape.mp3">Season of the Grape</a> which you’ve also heard at a few stages along the way. This again is one guitar, drums and stand-up bass, which was recorded with some heavy duty mikes in an isolation booth, but still using the punch and run method.<br /><br />Finally, here’s the first minute from <a href="http://www.unc.edu/~cofresi/napdownloads/10%20-%20Always%20Home%20(karaoke%20w_%20intro%20excerpt).mp3">Always Home,</a> which includes a new intro, which used to be a separate bit called <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">An Attempt</span>, which was originally recorded as a segment for the NAP’s exquisite corpse experiment many months ago. That bit is now integrated into the song, at least by Garageband standards. Many of these more abstract bits such as <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">An Attempt</span>, which were recorded on Garageband are being slowly transferred to the masters at Jesse’s studio and re-mixed and re-edited for the record, but keeping the actual tracks.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">**************</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Se Acabaron las Navidades<br /><br /></span>Christmas is over in Puerto Rico. This Saturday, February 2nd, Dia de la Candelaria (Candlestick Day), everyone will take their dried up x-mas trees to the beach and burn them in huge bonfires.<br /><br />The weekend before last was the official last party of the season with Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastian. These Fiestas have grown from a little street fest for the local residents of Old San Juan into a massive festival with lots of corporate sponsors and the idiots that go along with the corporate sponsorship. I’m not sure how I would feel about going to them if I was there, but even so, I see from the picture below, that Billy Van is still going, so I think ultimately I would have to say, that if it is still good enough for Billy Van, it’s still good enough for me. Billy Van has developed over the past 20 or 30 years into a sort street leader for the fiestas, organizing random groups of singers and musicians, and leading them through the streets. Here’s a picture of Billy Van in action by the Ponce de Leon statue in the Placita de San Jose, with his trademark hat and megaphone. This is one huge parranda. Can you find all the instruments in the picture?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="FONT-FAMILY: arial" href="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/rocofresi/sansebasconbillyvan.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/rocofresi/sansebasconbillyvan.jpg" width="450" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-78642030857182522602007-11-29T12:27:00.000-05:002008-04-17T12:28:12.941-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 6<span style="font-family:arial;">It’s been 17 weeks since my last post on this recording project. During these past weeks, we’ve been focusing on rehearsing the music, playing a few live shows, and vacationing, and last Sunday we officially started production of the record.<br /><br />But before that, over the past few months, we played a few gigs in order to rehearse the songs we would be recording. However, not all the songs we are planning to record easily translate to a live stage. Many of the tracks for the record already have parts that have already been recorded, what we might call musique concrete parts. Some of the tracks are composed almost entirely of these pre-recorded bits. But using tape effects or laptops on stage is too complicated for us, so any tracks that relied on these pre-recorded sounds were either not played, or the pre-recorded sounds were substituted with other stuff that could be played live.<br /><br />The opening song, <span style="font-style: italic;">Walk</span>, for example, is a song we wanted to play live, but to do that, we had to come up with a different way of doing the pre-recorded intro. The intro, you might remember, started with a long series of sounds from door opening and closing, lighting a cigarette, footsteps in gravel, etc, in a crescendo that led to the beginning of the song. On stage the pre-recorded sounds were substituted with some spoken word describing the sounds, backed by some snare, pedal steel and guitar washes that built up to the start of the song. The spoken word described the pre-recorded sounds in a non-specific kind of way. You hear the sound of home, then the sound of leaving home, then the sound of the longest walk, then looking back, even the fading is gone, the longest night, etc etc… Stuff like this reinforces my opinion that, although a record can be a document of a live performance, generally speaking recording and playing live are two completely different animals. Which is why there are so many bands that excel at one and not the other, and why, to me, the ones that are able to excel at both, clearly treat them as the two different animals that they are.<br /><br />We have a plan for the recording, but the extended process of recording one or two instruments at a time makes it so that the plan can be adjusted as we move forward. The plan includes voice, guitar, bass, drums, pedal steel, cuatro, various keys, trumpet, percussion, and pre-recorded sounds loosely organized into various arrangements. However, the live shows were all done with voice, guitar, pedal steel and drums, because that’s who was available for the shows. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/rocofresi/NewPicture1.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" alt="" src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/rocofresi/NewPicture1.png" border="0" /></a>Following are a couple of tracks from the show at the Local 506. This show was recorded from the back of the room with a digital recorder, so keep that in mind. The purpose of recording the show was to have a reference for the studio work ahead.<br /><br />Here’s <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/stayed%20and%20gone%20-%20live%20at%20the%20506.mp3">Stayed and Gone</a>, the third song, which you might also remember as the song that had the cheesy Garageband horns and that ripped off some Neil Young lyrics. I post this one, because it’s probably the one that has changed the most since it’s original Garageband sketch. The lyrics have changed, the arrangement has changed, the structure has changed… I post it here starting from the very end of <span style="font-style: italic;">Sometimes Mariana</span>, because I like the transition.<br /><br />The other song I’m going to post from the 506 show is <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/grape%20-%20live%20at%20the%20506%20.mp3">Season of the Grape</a> which has remained pretty much the same in structure, and vocals, but I want you to hear Nathan Golub’s pedal steel and Nathan Logan’s drumming on the arrangement, a far cry from anything Garageband can do, even when recorded from the audience with a handheld recorder.<br /><br />So we played a few lives shows, way less than would make me comfortable before going into the studio, but there was no way to get around that. It's a different rock and roll world with a one year old baby. So last Sunday, we jumped in the recording waters and officially started production of the record. Luckily we are working with a crack team of musicians that are used to jumping into the fray and getting it right. For me, however, this will be a very different recording experience in many ways and as such, a little daunting but also exciting and educational.<br /><br />Almost everything I’ve ever recorded has been recorded the same way, practice the songs and play them live for months and months, go into the studio for a couple of days and pretty much lay down the songs live with a few overdubs on top. On this record, however, we have not had the opportunity to play the songs live for months, so the recording process will be a little more organic and integrated into the creative process, instead of trying to document and reproduce an already existing musical experience. So instead of starting with a canvas that already includes guitar, bass, and drums, we are starting with a blank canvas, and building from there, one instrument at a time.<br /><br />In the past all my recordings have also been based around one studio. Go into studio X for Y number of days and come out with the tracks that make the record. This time we are working with microphone and sound effects master, Jesse Olley, and we will be recording wherever best suits the music being recorded, studios, train tracks, festivals, small rooms at home, etc. For the first session, however, we went into the very professional Track and Field Studios, and recorded a bunch of drum tracks with Nathan Logan. In preparation, Jesse suggested we listened to the drums in the Beatles’ <span style="font-style: italic;">Rubber Soul</span>. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Rubber Soul</span>, the drums seem to be miked from above with just one mike, so the cymbals come in very clear while the kick drum is a little more distant. I liked the idea since the sound we're looking for on this record is fairly light and I’ve been concerned with getting too much kick drum into it. So for the recording Jesse and engineer Nick Petersen, tried a bunch of mikes placing them overhead in various ways. But they also miked the kick, snare and toms, as they might end up being useful in the end.<br /><br />We then spent twelve hours running through tracks that would have drums in them, some times whole tracks, sometimes partial tracks. Per the recording plan, less than half the tracks on the record have drums, but getting the drums right for those tracks was crucial since those are the tracks that are also songs in the more traditional way. Well, it was a painful experience, I won’t deny it, recording just drums with some scratch vocals and guitars on top is not very rewarding at all. It’s a lot of work and when you play it back it just sounds like drums playing by themselves, which is what it is. I had to focus on my faith in Jesse and in the final product in order to get through it.<br /><br />But we did. And a few days later Jesse gave me a CD of the drum tracks so I could meet with Stu Cole and start working on bass parts, and it was a beautiful thing, the hard work that Jesse and Nick put into picking and placing mikes to get the drums just right, paid off.<br /><br />So off I go to start working with Stu. So far the process feels somewhat like making puzzle pieces, and trying to get each individual puzzle piece right, without loosing sight of the bigger picture they are supposed to be making, but without being able to put them altogether to see if indeed that is the picture they are making.<br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-76149260564880567432007-08-02T12:24:00.002-04:002008-04-17T12:26:43.276-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 5<span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Here are two new sketches on the continuing Ballad.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/01%20-%20Walk.mp3">Walk*</a><br />This bit represents my coming to terms with the most basic influence for what I hope this record will be.<br /><br />Dialogue is invaluable to me during the creative process. I don’t create well in a vacuum so I need the back and forth and exchange of ideas I’ve generally found in bands, friends, music venues, etc. However over the last year that dialogue has been somewhat lacking. Since the arrival of our daughter the band hasn’t been gigging. The Ms and I have played a few shows in the past month and we are slowly making our way back to the clubs, but it’s been slow moving. Since we haven’t been gigging we also haven’t been having official band practices. The Ms and I practice at home when we can, but she is busy with her new business and with the baby, so the little time we get alone together we haven’t been using for practicing music. We also haven’t been in bars and friends houses playing and exchanging ideas until the sun comes up. Of course, none of this is said as a complaint. It is our new life with our daughter, and I love it. But it’s a transition period, and it needs a little tuning. And one of the aspects that needs tuning is that I’m having to find new ways to interact with people and get that dialogue that I use as part of my creative output.<br /><br />I am working on various ways to obtain such dialogue, and one of them is this blog. Granted it is not the same as all of us sitting around in a practice room with our instruments working on music, but by the same token it may offer other possibilities. That being said, I appreciate the comments that have been offered, but at the same time I wish for more. I wish you would all see this blog as the great opportunity that it could be. We each have our own preferred modes of expression and we don’t necessarily agree on aesthetics, methodology, or much else for that matter, but we’ve all made a commitment to this blog and to me that combination is one of the best foundations to create something that could actually evolve into something greater than the sum of our parts which ultimately would be a very musical thing to do.<br /><br />Back to the sketch. In this first sketch you might recognize the beginning of a previous sketch <a href="http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/2007/06/week-32-ballad-of-stayed-and-gone-2.html">(the wrecking ball).</a> It starts the same, but please, if you’ve heard it stick with it through that beginning because it’s going somewhere totally different this time. However, just as I felt before, I still feel that this is how the record starts. Though I feel the mood is now more acurately described.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/02%20-%20Sometimes%20Mariana.mp3">Sometimes Mariana*</a><br />This is an older song. We have live recordings of it but have never done any kind of studio recording of it. Subject-wise it’s the central inspiration for this record I’m working on. And in a way it’s her record. Mariana’s record, that is. I grew up with Mariana from very little until her dad was stabbed on the street, walked into a bar and bled to death when everyone thought he was just drunk. Then her mom and her and her little sister moved to Canada and I never saw them again. She was my first best friend.<br /><br />Anyways, the usual version of this song that we play as a band is quite fast (runs about 2 minutes) and in D major. For the record and since I’m thinking about it in terms of being the song right after Walk (see above), I feel it should be slower, more folksy, and in C major (though I’m already beginning to see how it would work with the faster version too). Here’s a first sketch of it with just me on the guitar.<br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-24571489571195964322007-07-05T12:20:00.002-04:002008-04-17T12:22:02.593-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 4<span style="font-family:arial;">In a recent post DD was talking about the difficulties he was having finding a vision before starting to work on his movie. I often wish things were that simple for me – get a vision, bring it forth. For me it’s a substantially more tortuous process. I get a lot of ideas. Mostly stupid ideas, ideas like a song where every other word is the word ‘little’. Sometimes these ideas start to show me that they are connected in some way, and a certain part of myself begins to be exposed by them. Like the idea that I have never really had a home since I left home and therefore what I call home is something else. These connected ideas then begin to show up almost everywhere and I start thinking, ok, maybe this is worth exploring, might as well since they wont’ leave me alone anyways. Let’s see what the hell these ideas are trying to tell me. And I start to think that maybe these ideas are worth sharing and I start to work on how to get them out as something shareable. And I get distracted and start thinking of different ways in which they could be presented, so I pick the easiest one, cause really at this point I want to be done already, I’ve seen the connections in my head. But I’m really just beginning cause nothing has been made yet. And from experience I know that as soon as I start to put the ideas down, they’ll change, suggest something else and the whole thing becomes a whirlwind of trying to stop time and failing, and trying again and failing again. Until at some point I inevitably start wondering, what is the point of all this? Why bother? Why not just go lay by the pool and drink rum til the lights go out? I mean, does anyone really need to hear more music? Do I really need to play guitar ever again, beyond just picking it up and plinking at it while watching TV? Isn’t that enough? Why do I feel the need to put the playing down on record? Why do I feel the need to share it with others? Do I hope that when I die there is something beyond a bunch of well organized offices to say I was here? Maybe. But now I have a child, what better legacy than that? Nothing I could ever record could compare to that. Is it previous commitments that I’ve made to music? Previous sacrifices that are clamoring to please play, please don’t let the sacrifices be in vain? Maybe, but really come on, what sacrifices, really. When I poke my own eyes out Oedipus style so the world stops bothering me with vision, well, then I’ll come back and talk of sacrifices. So far it’s been mostly fun. And is it the fun that seems superfluous? Aren’t there more important things to do than have fun? In this time, as the great American Empire sinks like so many Titanics, isn’t dancing the thing to do? Enjoy that sinking feeling of everything we’ve known as reality giving way under our feet? Yes, that’s a good time for dancing, for playing music, celebrating. The end of the world as we know it. But whatever, that’s been said a million times by everyone. So why bother? Let all those everyones dance and play their way to the bottom, they have more skill, time and money to do it, so why should I? And this is the time in the middle of the creative process where I just want to dump it all and say fuck it. Who needs this? But I’ve done this before, this is one of the many crossroads where I just have to close my eyes and sign the devil’s contract on the dotted line. Again. And again. Fuck it. If it sucks it sucks if it doesn’t it doesn’t ask me if I care? Cause right now I have to care, more than anything. And somehow I must continue to care or I wouldn’t continue to do it, but at the same time I have to not care. And how is that done? How do I care and not care at the same time? I don’t bloody well know. The only way I know to do it is by just sitting in front of the machine, taking its cables and plugging them right into my bloodstream and hoping that this one will feel like something, maybe like the first time, or at least something that I can live with. And sometimes it does, most often it doesn’t. But sometimes it does. And when it does, it never feels like it was that difficult.<br /><br />So I have to remind myself that the best arrives with ease. Trying too hard is the curse of everything (said the Puerto Rican).<br /><br />Here's a recent sketch of a song as I plow ahead.<br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/15%20-%20Season%20of%20the%20Grape.mp3">Season of the Grape</a>*<br /><br /><br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-19428041030956616242007-06-14T12:19:00.001-04:002008-04-17T12:19:58.733-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 3<span style="font-family:arial;">I continue to work on sketches and various attempts at music, while at the same time trying to come to terms with how much I like Burt Bacharach and Gerry Rafferty. Cause, what else am I to do?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/10%20-%20double%20sunglasses%20sunday%202.mp3">Double Sunglasses Sunday</a>*<br />This is an arranged version. Where's my captain's hat?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/10%20-%20double%20sunglasses%20sunday%20-%20solo.mp3">Double Sunglasses Sunday (solo)</a>*<br />This is what I think of as an extremely moody/mannered version, kind of getting that extreme out of my system (shudders).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/14%20-%20double%20sunglasses%20monday.mp3">Double Sunglasses Monday</a>*<br />And this is a variation on the musical theme.<br /><br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-70644421403443209942007-06-07T12:14:00.000-04:002008-04-17T12:18:46.812-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 2<span style="font-family:arial;">Ok, here it goes. At the bottom of this blurb are sketches of two songs. I picked these two because they both stem from the same conceptual and harmonic root, though the second one has diverted from it quite a bit at this point. I think both songs also cover some of the range I’ve been playing with, both in recording methodology and feel.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Disclaimer</span>. I must emphasize again that these are sketches, drafts, blueprints of pieces of music. They have been done quickly and mixed even faster. I'm not looking for a final version here. There has also been very little input beyond my own in their creation, so working on these feels very similar to the way I felt back when I used to paint - a lot of sitting in a room alone layering textures.<br /><br />Diane’s involvement (she’s done almost all the vocals) of course makes this a not so solitary endeavor, as does having my daughter around when I record. Even so, Diane has not been around for most of the recording, since it happens mostly when she’s at work, and Marina keeps her opinions to herself most of the time.<br /><br />I am not sure what I hope to get out of posting these here, mainly to get me in a steady production mode by having to produce stuff every week (more or less). I have also grown to admire each of you who participate in the NAP, each of you for substantially different reasons. This to me makes the NAP a perfect environment for sharing ideas. So in a way I am also hoping you will get involved in some way. <span style="font-style: italic;">Disclaimer over.</span><br /><br />In my mind this is how the record starts:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/TheWreckingBall.mp3">The Wrecking Ball</a>*<br /><br />The above song has been tweaked a bit more than most of what you’ll hear, but it was still done very quickly. It also has more tracks than any other song so far, and it has been edited quite a bit, both by cutting and replacing sections and by copying parts and using them throughout. My least favorite part of this is the horns, mainly because of the sound I’ve been getting, and because I really don't know how a trumpet would be played. Soon, if all goes as planned, <a href="http://www.snmnmnm.com/">SNMNMNM</a>, who actually know how to play their horns, should be replacing the horns on this bit, but I won't go down the road of what's gonna happen since a lot of changes will be taking place on all this stuff.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecofresi/napdownloads/WreckedBall.mp3">Wrecked Ball</a>*<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">At some point later on in the record comes this bit, which is inspired by the first one, but has taken a very different turn and ended up somewhere else altogether.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> In this recording there are only four instruments and they are played straight through from beginning to end with no cutting, copying or pasting, and very minimal editing or mixing of any kind.New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1712484940175900650.post-15634907597726159352007-05-31T12:11:00.000-04:002008-04-17T12:18:24.428-04:00The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 1<span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To start this blog, I am republishing 7 posts about the new record that were published originally in the </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www2.blogger.com/nonalignmentpact.com">Non Alignment Pact</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> group blog.</span><br /><br />I am trying something new. It makes me a little nervous, but what the hell, I’ve done way stupider stuff that makes me nervous too. What I’m going to do is to start using this forum to present and hopefully discuss work in progress. After 30 weeks of writing mostly about music, and getting extremely addicted to writing and reading every word posted on this blog. I now need to switch the focus to making music instead of writing about it. Of course I will still do my weekly posts, but mostly they will be about the music I’m working on, with samples of recorded material in progress.<br /><br />Since having a child, the way music plays a part in my life has changed. For the time being I can't sit in someone’s house playing and making up songs ‘til the sun comes up. For the time being I can’t go spend 3 days locked up in a studio out in the country recording all day and night. For the time being my musical output is mostly confined to recording music on garageband and playing songs at home with my wife, for my baby or to myself.<br /><br />I am treading through musical waters previously unknown to me. These are the waters where I record songs that have never been played live; the waters where I record songs that are created track by track instead of using a live band to lay down the basics from where to build; these are the waters where I am arranging all the parts of the song. These are the waters of the lone wolf working from home.<br /><br />But I’m not really much of a lone wolf type of person. So while one part of my natural instinct tells me to work alone (and of course, by alone I mean with Diane) on the material until it’s done, the other part of my instinct tells me that I need to work out this music with some kind of more general public. Also, this blog has been very good at getting me to write. Having that weekly deadline and having the support of the group has been instrumental in me writing a few things I had been meaning to write for a long time. So now I’m going to see if it can similarly work for recording music.<br /><br />Not that I haven’t been recording. I’ve been working on a record for a few months now. And I have a vision of it that get a bit sharper every day, though it is still fairly open ended. So I’ve started to work out sketches of songs and bits of music and putting them together in various ways. The goal at present is to complete a blueprint that can then be used to create the final recording. But I can't say that I know exactly how that final recording will take shape.<br /><br />For the blueprint at least, I am using a collage technique which makes it possible to create super fast sketches of ideas on record. I’m not recording songs all the way through. Instead I am recording little bits and pieces and then I am cutting and pasting them at various spots of a song or even in other songs as they might seem to fit. This way the whole record is slowly being built. However I am also trying to work within the basic rules of a traditional song album, structured with cohesive short statments that can stand on their own as individual pieces.<br /><br />It is possible that some of the material I am recording now will end up as it is in the final recording, but for now I am still seeing everything as a blueprint. And by that I mean in the way that a blueprint is a two dimensional, skeletal projection of a three dimensional construction. The way I hear them in my head, the recordings I am making still seem to be in one dimension less than the final dimension. In my mind the missing dimension is other musicians playing the music all the way through, ideally as a group. But I might be ok if the recording can convey that certain freedom and intra-instrumental communcation that is what makes band music so cool for me.<br /><br />So for now, I am using only a few very basic instruments to create the whole thing. Some basic live instruments such as my guitar, Diane’s voice, natural sounds, and other various instruments I have around the house (toy instruments, other guitars, percussion instruments, etc). I am also using a few canned instruments that come with garageband, mainly drums, bass, piano, trumpet and organ. Piano, trumpet and organ are being used as placeholders and could be easily substituted by other instruments in the final recording. In some cases I hear in my head a pedal steel, trombone, accordion, flute, etc, but since garageband either doesn’t have these sounds or has crappy versions of them, I’m not using them. Also, since I am recording at home, you will hear the sounds of my baby daughter, since I can’t ask her to be quiet while I do a take. And as cute as it may sound, her input has affected the direction of certain parts of the recording.<br /><br />What I am hoping is that by me sharing the various sketches of the work as it progresses, that you will offer some criticism in return. Any and all responses would be appreciated, verbal abuse of course is not my preferred way, but if that’s what you feel, I will listen quietly to that too and try not to get defensive. My greater hope, however, is that you will get involved at that very basic level of creative input that band members share, to the point where you want to add instruments or pieces of your own to the record. However, I’ll be very happy if you just offer a critical perspective and maybe some suggestions and/or questions. I can't think of any place where I could find a group with the range of interests and skills available here so I imagine the criticism would be broad in spectrum and concern with many aspects of the music.<br /><br />Ok, that being said, I’ll give you a couple of very general starting points about the work as a whole, sort of as if you were looking at it in a store.<br /><br />The working title at present is “The Ballad of Stayed and Gone”.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/rocofresi/CopyofTobaKhedoori_table_and_chairs.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" alt="" src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/rocofresi/CopyofTobaKhedoori_table_and_chairs.jpg" border="0" /></a>And if I could have it my way, I would be able to use this beautiful image by artist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_Khedoori"> Toba Khedoori</a> as the cover.<br /><br />For now this is all. Next time I will start posting some of the actual recorded sketches so you can see what it's beginning to sound like.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><p class="MsoNormal">*<span style=""> </span>*<span style=""> </span>* </p></span></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>New Town Drunkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15889450766737878399noreply@blogger.com0