I miss IMM

Things have been quiet on here lately. What have you been up to music-wise these days?

Summer has been slow musically due to various school and other real-life-related things. The band hasn't played out since June 5 but last weekend we suddenly booked two August shows so we've been practicing like crazy this week trying to get back into show shape. We've been lazily writing new songs which is just kind of the usual state of affairs these days.

Meant to do a bunch of solo recording this summer but after a couple of weeks where I was really active I've been slacking off. My goal was to do more work on my music before and during the recording process; i.e., actually have a good song structure and lyrics and melodies before I start recording; but this means I actually have to put time into working on songs which I haven't been making myself do. Maybe I should go back to my more haphazard improvised approach just to get the creative juices flowing again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRnfwAsHvQw

My wife and I are singing this Bach duet at a wedding this weekend (up a half-step, not at baroque pitch as presented in this Youtube clip). The oboe is being replaced by a violin. We also are apparently not going to have an organist filling out the continuo part and will just have bass continuo. We haven't rehearsed with either of these people yet.

Should be FUN.

Ha my wife and I are playing a Magnetic Fields song at my sister's wedding (reciprocity for her and her boyfriend playing a Zombies song at our wedding) in two weeks and we haven't really practiced it yet. I am not looking forward to it, I do not like performing in front of family, but just trying to keep in mind that people will just care about the wedding and not our performance.

last gig I played was in February ... took a break/considered quitting for the past few months ... a piece I did last year came up in itunes the other day, and I was like, "wait that was me, that's actually pretty good."

Every now and then my dearly-departed band's demos will pop up and I'll lament the fact that I never got the chance to sell a bad rock song to an up-and-coming star.

n/a, my wife works with the groom and the couple are going to be the only people there we know, so I don't really care but my wife is FREAKING OUT over it, especially since she'd somehow convinced herself we weren't actually going to be doing it and therefore completely ignored going over it for the past three weeks; she literally got a confirmation "what the hell do you mean are we doing it, the song is in the program" message 2 hours ago and emailed a colleague/voice teacher in a panic over it. (Meanwhile, because I am a butt, I've been practicing my part at random off times because I pretty much have it memorized. Heh.)

I have been remastering the Shimura Curves album and as traumatic as it's been (lot of old memories and old issues getting dragged up) it's actually been a surprisingly healthy experience - not least of which, seeing how far I've come in terms of production since my early attempts at recording in Cubase.

OMG, stop putting that DRUMS OF DOOM plug-in on everything! OMG, WTF at that massively over the top EQ, why is everything cranked up to 11 in EQ and turned down to -15 in the mix? Ha ha, LOL, I really didn't understand compression back then (still don't, but at least I've realised that a bit of light limiting is 100x better than compressing everything in sight).

A lot of it has been "wow, this stuff isn't as poor as I remembered."

it's been a busy summer. been doing a lot of brass band gigs and my jazz band is playing on saturday. the rock band has only played one show so far this summer but it was really good, and we have another one coming up at the end of august.

the digd0wn album is done and we sold out of our emergency run that we printed up for the east coast tour (150 cds), but it hasn't really been released because the real artwork isn't done yet. hopefully we'll get a real pressing and a digital release soon, so we can start sending out promo copies and doing cd release shows.

haven't worked on my own stuff in months, but i'm just starting to feel the itch to get back to it. a few days ago i listened to what i have and had that "hey, some of this stuff is pretty cool" reaction, along with some perspective on what needs to be changed.

also i'm subbing with a country band in sept. for a wedding gig, looking forward to it. m4son j3nnings is playing as well, so the couple must be f'n loaded.

got a new midi controller and logic, have started about 10 songs in about a month and am wondering what kind of condenser mic to get (and if its wise to budget under 100 bucks for one)

Busy writing songs for next album and fixing/re-wiring broken gear.

played my first solo show (and my first public performance in three years) a few weeks back. lyrical writers block put the dampers on the chances of writing new material though so it was all old stuff and some covers. a start, though. throwing around ideas for a couple of new collaborative projects that need to happen sooner rather than later. doing recording for some talented mates and it's all coming out pretty sweet so far..

Finished off some songs. Messing around with DIY synth gear. Currently working on some old (~1999) song ideas.

Some years ago, I recorded a version of "Hey Bulldog" with a girl singer (it was back in the 'baggy' daze, and it was the Beatles track du jour)

All this on 4 track portastudio, bouncing around to get max trackage.

So, here we are in the future, and I thinks to myself "What if I put all the individual tracks on the laptop, and sync them together and remix-remaster them, what then?

Now, I can do things like "fix that dud note"/"lose that dreadful backing singer"/add some presence"/"goof some of the lead singer bits into new backing singerness"

The hardest / most time consuming bit was/is resynching the 'subsequent' tracks to the original rhythm pulse.

And to what end? Um, i dunno really, I haven't seen the girl singer since her 30th birthday (which was MY GOD HOW LONG? ago)

It sounds scarily like St Et's "Only love" but I hadn't heard that track at the time (although they had recorded/released it by then)

Anyway, if someone was to make ILX4, I can see it clear to release it to it...

I bought a fully functional Oberheim DX at a street sale for $75. I currently possess five drum machines. Also, I realized that every song I'm currently working on is ripoff of Felt in someway.

was hoping to boost the traffic on IMM with a report on all the new shit that came out for summer NAMM and then uh nothing did. scared music industry is timid.

lol so my wife is now panicking about Saturday hardcore because our regular teacher/coach is out of town and can't do an emergency session with us and is insisting we rehearse tonight; buh-bye videogame time ;_;

looks like its time for you to quit the band

ha that would go over well

CREATIVE DIFFERENCES

I Love You But I've Chosen World of Warcraft

cant practice must PWN NOOBS

"Why don't you work on your part while we down General Vezax; I'll take an AFK for Yogg."

hahahaha see now i know how you feel when you open up one of the techy guitar threads

"yeah you could probably file down the yogg, which should fix the intonation problem. if that doesnt work, try raising the vezax w/ a 1/4" AFK."

i'm working on my first song since my computer crashed 2 months ago, and i lost everything i ever recorded. this one's taking a really long time, which i guess is a good thing. no pain, no gain.

oh damn dude

i feel for you. my band's been doing a lot of sessions this summer and just recently the screen started to shut down as we're recording. so far we've managed to salvage everything anyway but it still makes you go "better save for that external drive soon...".

pretty psyched otherwise as we're doing our first proper gig this saturday, after almost two years playing together. oh well, it's on a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere so not yet sure how proper it will be but exciting nonetheless.

Right, finished my mix.

I lost a year and a half to a hard drive crash. (Thankfully all I lost was the time, and not the actual data.)

When you are recording - or, more especially, MIXING - make sure you backup every night.

I mean, I made a backup *before* I totally re-mixed the album, but neglected to do so during or after - BOOM - everything gone until my friendly sys admin decided to have a go at data recovery. (Got pretty much everything back.)

I've taken up drums, bought a kit. Well, an electronic kit, but it's okay since I want to do stuff like trigger midi with it.

i'd like to hear your hey bulldog cover, mark g

Holy crap, we're on iTunes and Amazon now!

awesome! that album cover is great

Did a gig 3 weeks ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOnEYSv5-CY

Since then - a couple of new songs sorted out and booking autumn gigs.

Sorry it's a bit dark! At least I have a white t-shirt + white guitar...

Wedding is over and went well! We only did the A section due to time constraints and the violinist and double-bass players almost lost their music due to an unfortunate gust of wind (oh btw I found out the day before that the ceremony was outside; fun stuff) but we got kudos and the Boston-based bass player wants to do other stuff with us. ^_^

cool. we've been rehearsing our wedding song for next weekend, and we're going to record it too for the "wedding time capsule" (my sister is way too creative).

the band played a weird show on saturday. we were subbing in at the last minute for another band, the latest version of an obscure 80s powerpop band. it was at a shitty bar. all the other bands were made up of older dudes in their 40s. they all played really long sets. one had two token "hot" female singers who sang everything in unison (ie no harmonies). we played last so by the time we played i was really tired and grouchy from listening to mediocre bands play forever. then we played pretty well and everyone from the other bands was really complimentary and enthusiastic, so i was briefly in a better mood. then the band that played before us got on stage again and played for another half hour, using our drum kit so we couldn't leave, so i was grouchy again.

yow that sucks

i tried to not be a dick after we walked in and saw that the other bands seemed old and lame, but my dickishness ended up winning out :(

have the studio room properly wired up two weeks ago so now merrily recording songs.

if anyone's interested in 30 minutes of some free improv rock, i uploaded our gig from saturday , straight out of the woods complete with rampant dogs and all

a friend got us the gig, it was sort of this private party where we followed a standard sleaze/hard rock-band, that everyone seemed to enjoy. the people you hear on the recording all liked it, but then there were about 30 other Slash wannabes ready to chase us of the ranch with torches basically. all in all a good debut show...

musically i've shut down a bit, with a few instrumental tracks being tweaked for nothing at all. Due to a new flat i have to set up my studio gear in the living room every time i want to use it and then take it down again when i'm done. Also the <a href="http://www.myspace.com/danfridholm";>album</a> is going nowhere, might start giving it out for free. bah.

whoops, album is at here

After trying for a very long time it looks like I am finally in with the main indie promoter around here so I've been able to open for some touring dudes. It's really refreshing to play with bands that are musically simpatico and that people actually want to come see.

congrats, steve!

I have not been recording anything, just spending lots of time wanking around on a new guitar and playing with Pod settings. The other day I made a patch labeled "SVU," so I can replicate the guitar bit from that Law & Order theme music and confuse people. That was a productive day.

Thanks broshua!

Oh, here is a short clip I just found on the tubes from our show Monday night:

http://vimeo.com/5945355

played a craft beer festival on saturday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8J8o2xpQg

then on sunday had a nice little show with drums, guitar, and two vocalists. it started raining in the middle so we ditched the soundsystem (and most of my drum kit), huddled around a table w/an umbrella, and finished the set.

fired up my music-making computer last night for the first time in months. got a good start on a dfa-ish track for a project i'm doing with some writer friends...it'll be interesting because none of us are especially good singers, but they're going to write lyrics for us to chant/shout (i am shitty at writing lyrics).

had a good band practice yesterday. we spent a while trying to fix up this song we wrote a few weeks ago, then just decided to trash it and learn a new song i wrote that immediately sounded really awesome with all of us playing it, just fell together really quickly and easily. even though i liked the other song, it was nice to just decide to get rid of it because it didn't feel right. and now it'll be one of those rarities that we played at a show once and never record properly and we only have a really shitty cellphone recording of it. save it for the box set, as my friend jamie used to say.

haha, i always get a good feeling when I discard a song, too. something kind of satisfying about being able to say "it's not really working here" and moving onwards and upwards.

^^^ did that a few days ago with a song whose lyrics were just trying to be clever and ended coming across as clumsy. But nothing is ever wasted, because I replaced it with a song that I'd been working on last year and similarly discarded back then.

We had a mini-rehearsal yesterday with the group singing at a friend's wedding this Saturday; mostly college friends getting back together and singing stuff we did together in our church choir, plus my wife is singing the solo in Mozart's "Laudate Dominum". The rehearsal was fun because not everyone was there, so since I already know the pieces I spent most of it sight-reading the tenor parts so that we could hear the full chords. (It did really confirm that I'm a bass-baritone, though! G above middle-C is not in my toolkit)

i'm in the process of deciding whether my band's current "hiatus" is actually a "break-up". my wife and I are expecting a baby in the next week or so, so I told the band that I was taking the rest of the year off. But really, it seemed like a good excuse to call it quits -- I'm just horrible at confrontations, etc. But I keep waffling on whether I really want to break up the band. I'm sort of having trouble deciding whether I think the band is good! Maybe that's a sign. The other guys in the group are slightly older and pretty locked into Guided By Voices/Built To Spill/Dino Jr, which is ok, but maybe not the type of band I'm excited to be in? There are also the usual personality conflicts ...

Maybe you could quit the band and the rest of them could continue together? Sounds like the music the band is making isn't your cup of tea, so perhaps it would be better to do some solo stuff and decide what you want out of being in a band / if you even want to be in a band.
I haven't been in a band for years, but it's something I've experienced...

singer: "Hey, I've had a great idea! Lets do yet another Nirvana cover!"
snoball: "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

or if you're taking a break anyways, you don't really have decide until your break is over. you can reassess how you feel at the time.

i miss makin music

when are you coming to chicago for epic boner jamz?

yeah, that's sort of the plan ... maybe after four or five months I'll be itching to play in a band again. we played a bunch of shows in the first half of this year, and I think in general, I'm feeling burnt out on the whole process of being in a band. Would also be interested in playing with other people ... we shall see. Maybe I'll get IMM's opinion and post a solo demo of one song and then the band's version of the same song ... xxpost

doubtful it'll happen before summer's out :(

still think we should go to chetek, wi for boner jam weekend

lol I went to bible camp there

Oh, no sorry, that was Lake Shetek, and is in MN, n/m.....

i'm working on writing "songs" (like with "chord progressions" and "melodies") for the first time, as opposed to "tracks" with "hot beats". it's fun and exciting and scary.

what are you composing on? like guitar or keyboards or what?

Wedding we sang at this weekend was super fun, plus I kind of impromptu ended up running the choir rehearsals and psuedo-conducting during the ceremony! "Beati quorum via" ftw

just keyboards. i've been messing around on the guitar at my gf's house and she lent me some guitar books, but that's more for fucking around and playing covers after diner. i have trouble thinking on guitar, looking at a keyboard is so much easier.

i was also listening to son volt and mmw and happy apple a lot and thought the raddest band ever would be tenor sax, bass, freaky pedal steel, and skittery dave king drumming behind country songs

― how rad bandit (gbx), Tuesday, October 20, 2009 4:07 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

still want to be in this band, w/lots of distortion

also nick i am heartbroken, wha happen, i cannot come to chicago on the 20th 8[

my band is going ahead with plans for our long-threatened michael jackson tribute album

oh sorry gbx didn't see your post here. yeah the band is calling it quits oh well - mix of adult life interference and generally getting tired of the bullshit aspects of being in a band and playing shows etc. sorry you can't come to the show, if you hook us up with a twin cities show soon maybe we'll cheat on the "last show" thing and come up there

jordan - which band? d1gdown?

yeah

Hopefully you aguys nd Robbie Fulks will stagger your releases.

i miss IMM because i barely make music anymore. trying to decide if doing some kind of open-mic night to motivate myself to write a couple of songs is a good or terrible idea.

If you can pull it off on your own, I'd say go for it.

I'd love to be one of those people that can take an acoustic guitar sit down and pull it off, but I'd feel really naked without the volume and having the other pieces there.