what is going on in your musical life

(which is actually why, in my teens, I realized I was never going to be a pop or rock singer, and why I was so taken by the grunge explosion)

putting the last touches on my new record (doesn't feel new, been working on it for about 15 months now) to send to mastering next week, figuring out how to put it out.

then i want to take some time to switch up my process, shake things up a little. work on some new synth sounds without any goals, try to finally learn ableton, record a bunch of new percussion samples. i want to take some piano lessons too, since i do everything with midi + mouse. i can figure stuff out on piano very sloooowly, so i thought it would be fun to play through some tunes in real time and get some chords under my fingers.

honestly though i probably won't do most of these things and i'll go back to what feels easy & comfortable. :/

I just got our first track back from the studio. I love it and I also cringe a bit because I can hear bits where my voice goes a bit wrong or a beat doesn't quite land how it's meant, and I'm trying to work out if anyone in their right mind would really notice or care.

roxy high school is an amazing band name

this is a neat thread idea.

i've been playing with a couple guys for the last month or so but it's just working out that well. they seem like they really want to sound like real estate or something, which isn't terrible, but a bad real estate impersonation comes out sounding reaaaaally bad, and it's not much fun to play drums to, either!

i've been writing and recording some new tunes, which doesn't sound like much but it's actually been a big breakthrough for me after about a 10 year songwriting/music coma that i didn't realize was a coma.

i'm moving back to chicago in a few months and i'm determined to join up with a good band. i used to be good friends with the cave/bitchin bajas scene so i'm hoping i can be looped back into all that stuff and that someone needs a good drummer

and yeah, high school is good, although i have to say i liked it even more when i thought the name was high school??

haha

whoa z s do you want to be in a band with me?

this is going to be really awkward when you reject me

well, that was easy. sure, let's play!

it's gonna be more like september or so

i think we are gonna be called "high school"??
a
I started a band in college called junior high university. I recorded one song for it and we had two practices and then everyone split up in different directions. that was the last band I was ever in.

have not touched my recording computer since my son was born. I long for a classical acoustic guitar so i can play around the house but I have no money for that now. debating selling an amp or two. I think my creative well has run dry for the foreseeable future.

i'm really burnt out on school this semester & have been slacking off to spend more time doing music stuff. all three bands i'm in are pretty active rn which can be overwhelming at times but is really fun. most notably i went on tour in january and started a new band called l0ud s3x which i am just so, so stoked on. the other songwriter in the band is really prolific and i really want to keep our ratio of songs 1:1. it's been a really fun challenge trying to keep up, he also writes amazing songs so i've had to be really strict about scrapping my tunes if they're not up to par. we're playing our first show at the end of the month & i'm pretty nervous because not everyone shows up for practice consistently and i want it to be spectacular

sp3ctacular l0ud s3x

I am not going to go into any more detail than this but the biggest audition opportunity of my lap literally just fell into my lap; I fully expect it to go nowhere but still, you never know...

would watch n/a z s band

DJP on x factor, it's America has been waiting for
xp

l0ud high school s3x

the biggest audition opportunity of my lap

lol dan

oh no, I've said too much

I am in month 15 of releasing a home-made recording every month. A lot of times I put it off until the month is almost over and then go into crunch mode. But at this point, even though I approach each song as its own thing and wasn't trying to make an album or anything, I can listen to all the tracks straight through and it sounds really cohesive to me, which I think is really cool. I also feel like I get a little better/more efficient at production each time.

I haven't performed onstage in like a year though, which was a conscious decision and I don't miss all of the bullshit that made me sick of doing it, but I do miss being onstage. But I maybe just joined a band that I actually think is really good and is kind of successful locally, which is cool because I don't feel that way about hardly any local bands and also I've never really been in someone else's band. They have kind of a Modern Lovers/Beat Happening/Magnetic Fields/Morrissey vibe. It'll also be neat because I'll be playing synth and I'm not actually a keyboard player at all, I'm a guitarist and songwriter, but that's also why I'll be a good fit for this.

kicking off recording of a new album. finally a chance to properly use all this new synth gear

Hey all - could I get a little bit of constructive feedback on this please? We've had an initial "how's this?" from the studio engineer on one of our tracks. Overall, I think it's okay but it's very difficult to distance myself and listen to it with uninvolved ears.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts, particularly on the mixing/production (we can't really go back into the studio to do any overdubs or retakes so we're working with the raw material we have, for better or worse). Are there any glaring errors on this track or things I should mention before I get back to him? One thing I noticed is that he's been a bit heavy handed witht he gating and compression, particularly some of the vocal parts where the sibilants and plosives are almost non-existent.

I'm only gonna keep this track online for a short while, but if someone could give it a listen and let me know their thoughts, i'd be very much obliged: https://soundcloud.com/doglatin/honolulu-demo-050313

god this sounds like a super harsh thing but i dont mean it that way - do you want/intend the beginning to sound like a 80's nylons style acapella group thing? like exactly like one? because thats what i hear. also some pitchy weirdness in the "so afraid" "yesterday" multivoice responses. again, if these are intentional things, no prob.

Lol, I haven't hear the nylons but it is supposed to be a bit of a tongue in cheek doowop thing and if it comes across that way I guess that's intentional. The song is very much a comment on retro culture and so it's littered with 60s and 80s references. Cheers for checking it out jjjusten, I'll look into the autotune thing. Think the sound guy's gone a bit overboard with vocal manipulation, but then we're not at all trained singers so there's undoubtably gonna be a push/pull thing going on.

song sounds good to me, esp. for a demo. i like it.

Xpost If you're talkin about Housemartins/Flying Pickets, I def see what you mean and kind of don't mind. I (was made to) grow up with that shit, haha.

Cheers n/a

I am making a lil album of songs that are about a min long each, I have about 10 so far where the music is done but I have finished singing over one of them, I've come up w/ vocal melodies for about 3

I am seriously using the dumbest most unwieldy out of date programs to put the songs together because for whatever reason I like how it all sounds more than if I do it in ableton?

what are you using?

I (lol) am using cues in virtual dj to play my laptop like an mpc or w/e (I could slice to a drumkit in ableton and do the same thing I guess, but idk, when I use ableton I spend 3 extra hours on shit) and then editing shit further and recording vocals in audacity, its a forehead in my hands deal, but still

i love stuff like that.

well I hope it lives up to its rudimentary description, I'm starting to embrace it, at least this way I don't end up fucking around with corpus for a week with no results

Good sounding demo, dog latin. I'd get some friends in a room for the backing vocals. And as for your solo performance it's a little too measured, just make sure you're saying "gate" instead of "gay" and make it fast and effortless

I was just in Prague recording with a budget-priced orchestra, stuff for five different clients and some stuff for my own use. There were 30 "pieces" ranging from 45-second long bits of orchestral incidental music to 20-minute marathon workouts. A total of 2.5 hours of music and 24 hours to record the whole thing. I def. got paranoid and overworked but I didn't break. I drove that bus.

It went very well but I instinctively prioritized the work of my clients, taking the time to really get something beautiful out of that shaky orchestra. I left not enough time for my own material. Now I'm futzing.

cheers FGTI - I did the lead vox, the others did backing. I think the engineer's but too strong a release on my vox because yeah, "gaze" sounds like "gay" etc...

i'm listening to spotify

gotta get these tapes out soon (for this band i recorded) but have no idea what im doing! i need to buy a tape duplicator! i need to buy...tapes! i need to figure out how to get this shit onto a master tape! what am i doing with my life! HELP!

i told my mom i was in a new band called high school and she recommended that we call it COOL GIRLS instead. additionally, "i like just a girl's name, like maureen, or mabel, for a girl band"

lmao at cool girls altho tbh i would like it as a name for a coed or all dude band

I was briefly in a(n all-male) duo called "Sarah"!

haw

possibly touring in the summer with the black/doom band, havent been out in a long time bc our guitarist lives a couple hours away, so we havent been as "active" in general. mostly an east coast thing, possibly all the way to canada, where i have never been

come to Atlanta!

I have been recording bits and pieces for an eventual cassette release. I've also been asked to do a split release with a local drone act. AND my band is recording stuff. So hopefully soon I'll have lots of physical stuff to give out at shows!

I've heard good things about getting cassettes made through National Audio?

Yeah National Audio is great, I've done a couple things through them.

guitarist in one band left us cuz he moved out of london :( which is a shame. was looking forward to recording those songs. we'd played 5 shows or so. it was going well. oh well. i have a decent recording of the last practice, guess i'll stick that on soundcloud if i can be bothered to mix it.

started a new thing with the same guys, got a new guitarist, and he rules! he's a bit older than us, used to run a drone and kosmiche club. had a practice on sunday and ended up with 16 little things to work on, 3 or 4 fully formed songs just happened, so looking forward to this band. krauty space rock with big OTT vocals and thinking i'm gonna bring an edp wasp and delay pedal into the equation. will prob play a show in the next month or two. my drumming is really rusty tho, need to get back on the practice pad before they kick me out!

tracks sitting in the computer way into the 100s by now, mostly experiments with the ridiculous synth collection that lives in the studio where i live. none of the synths are mine, but i'm free to use what i want and i've set up a synthesizer room and got everything patched up. pretty sweet. currently obsessed with the doepfer modular and making new presets for the matrix 1000- that's a seriously powerful bit of kit but the presets that come with it are crap.

playing classical guitar again, got my nails all purty, think i'm going to try and start performing too. maybe get some restaurants gigs.

have also been digging my uni pieces, trying to put together some sort of composer portfolio. surprised myself by how good some of those pieces are. the goldberg ensemble performed some of my string pices, which was very cool, had to ressurect an old hard drive, thought i'd lost those recordings for good!

Why is having good nails important for playing guitar? I don't play with my nails. I guess if I had long nails it would be difficult but...

if you play fingerstyle you get more control over your sound, you can also play louder and as everybody knows louder = better

It's a really fundamental part of classical guitar technique. Your nails are the tools you use to create and shape your sound.

Do restaurants in the UK hire classical guitarists??

What are you putting a composition portfolio together for, CB? Graduate schools? Grants/gigs?

*Show us your scoressss*

actually "Both Your Houses" I could see the comparison

Day after my album release show and I'm soooooo relieved that people showed up, the sound came out of the speakers, and that generally speaking we felt relaxed and musical and didn't eat it in front of everyone. It's always hard to combine acoustic drums and electronics sound-wise but it worked out. It was also very nice to play drums in a group where the only other member is a much better drummer (and had a moment or two of time vertigo when I thought about the two of us playing double drums in the basement of a music store when I was like 12 and taking lessons from him).

Album's out now:
https://maloca.bandcamp.com/album/speleogenesis

thanks UMS! i'll check out your friend's album
congrats on the show, Jordan - looking forward to listening to the new album

ok the new chants rips

thank you! here's a clip from last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xrN0JvZrwM

Beautiful
O man Jordan so good

Oh thank you so much. <3 I found that playing the music live helped alleviate some of the low-key malaise that often accompanies releasing an album, who would have thought. We want to do more shows in the midwest, but it's tricky to find venues that are more on the diy/arts space side of things that also have a decent sound system (it can be hard to balance samples and bass against acoustic drums even if they're not mic'ed, we've found).

Ive often liked that kind of venue as an audience member. If there is no stage and its cozy its just so great to be on the ground with the musicians.

But yeah i never considered the sound issues

...and now thinking what a coup!e of kits might feel like in those environments

J try Elastic in Chicago — they have elaborate sound system (CLEAT something or other) and are total pros in every regard

Ooh thank you LL! I will look into it. We want to book some shows with J0n Mu3ller in the spring.

Me too, I love that guy

No shame — he’s super nice and generous and also a riveting performer.

My musical life is moribund from the outside and thriving inside. I’ve recorded more songs and better songs this year with my solo setup than I ever have. I’m trying to get back out there — this is the hard part for me.

Strongly relate. I'm doing tons of stuff, but don't know how to turn it into actual gigs. I've started a program with a local entertainment company to sharpen up my brand and social media and map out how to achieve some professional-ish goals.

I need to remind people that I exist and have some weird music for them, probably IRL because that works best for me.

Exactly, in addition to trying to ramp up my pursuit of DJ gigs, I've decided I need to look for opportunities to do my weird synth improvs, going to look for art spaces and other venues that might be open to more experimental performances.

made new song i really like. shared it with some people. everyone liked it, but i got one "positive" critical response and now i hate the song

Was it a "reminds me of X" comment? That will always do it, lol.

no, i'm dumb for letting it bother me because it came from a old timey music historian in his 70s. he was like, "why all the distortion?," which i can handle, but then he said something about my vocals (of which I am most insecure) sounding "beaten down" which i can't handle

meanwhile my drummer neighbor, who makes some great music, loved it. we have very similar music taste so i should just be happy with that

It’s my experience that any feedback directly to the way the music sounds is hard to come by. I’m always grateful for it when someone makes a specific comment. I’d be grateful for whatever anyone feels like telling me.
I like my set of September songs the best so here it is, feel free to comment if you feel like it!!

https://on.soundcloud.com/TaMfHUG28c2GGq4L6

I agree LL it can feel so vulnerable at times though. in fact i tried changing the key of the song to see if it might brighten up my vocal, and it may work, but requires a complete restart

idk i think it should sound how YOU want it to sound -- what does this guy know about how you express yourself?!

ok well here it is https://soundcloud.com/heez-1/goodnight?si=61ea1c15ed8d4cdb9a7ca14aef4a07b2&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

i will not shed a tear if you would like to constructively critique

also, i said it's done but it's not mixed and my left ear is fucked so the mix may not be great

i dig that, LL

Heez that track is sick, your voice sounds great

thanks!!!

I dug that LL

Thanks for listening!

That’s some Residents-ass shit, LL. It’s not really my jam, but it honestly sounds great to me, like just sonically & the way it’s put together. I think the combo of synthesized sounds and live drums/percussion is cool & unusual (punishment)

That’s some Residents-ass shit, LL. It’s not really my jam, but it honestly sounds great to me, like just sonically & the way it’s put together. I think the combo of synthesized sounds and live drums/percussion is cool & unusual (punishment)

ok well here it is https://soundcloud.com/heez-1/goodnight?si=61ea1c15ed8d4cdb9a7ca14aef4a07b2&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing🕸

i will not shed a tear if you would like to constructively critique

also, i said it's done but it's not mixed and my left ear is fucked so the mix may not be great

Some excellent lyrics as well.

Ha thanks that’s a good description

Thank you HD!! I feel like people would probably not expect the music that comes out of my head to be so weird/abrasive and I appreciate being recognized for it.

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kOw0gsj-WaI42sn_Lq-224KATrgfyKrFo&si=B5D1yTvMMaD8WZcM

Here’s an excerpt from a concert I did on Sunday. The song is “Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise” from the musical The New Moon (1928) by Hammerstein and Romberg

https://bsky.app/profile/djperry1973.bsky.social/post/3lar2cv4g5u23

I am learning VCV Rack via YouTube videos and have reached the point in my explorations where I can create a primitive ping-and-crunch rhythm that sounds REMARKABLY like recent Autechre. Since I am a musical imbecile and I have always thought of them as wizards, this is somewhere between deflating and inspiring.

In other news, I have put together two musicians who've played together before — guitarist Ava Mendoza and violinist gabby fluke-mogul — and a drummer they've never worked with before, Carolina Pérez Arrago of the death metal band Hypoxia, and they're gonna make a record for my label next weekend. It'll be out in the spring, probably. Depending on how it comes out, I'm considering asking the engineer to mix it in mono for extra thunderousness.