Sunday, August 24th, 2008
The EP is now “put to bed” - “Between the Lines” has been officially released and we’re now moving forward on the rest of the stuff. Here’s how that breaks down into what and who:
- Andy Edwards (Frost*, IQ, Robert Plant) over in the UK will be recording drums on “The First Piece”, “[Story to Now]” and “Temple of Lost Souls”. The latter two songs are just going thru the final go round in the writing process and we will get them done by next weekend. [Story] and Temple are being built around some of the rhythmic patterns I transcribed from stuff on Andy’s website that just totally blew me away.
- Zsolt Galantai (Rusty Gold) will be recording drums on “Mirror Mirror”, “Atonement” and “Adagio in A Minor”. Zsolt has demonstrated his excellent ear for writing and arrangement with a melodic synth line suggestion that I immediately added to the chorus for Mirror Mirror. He’s been an excellent guy to work with to date and I’m hoping that we can extend our collaboration further in the future!
That basically takes care of this CD - the 6 songs take it to capacity. From early time estimates, this will be another long CD with around 75 minutes worth of music. I might manage to get a CD out only every 3-4 years but I make sure that it covers off at least two vinyl albums (from the stone age) worth of material 
I’m also starting to think of what’s next - this of course is where I also have to consider how long to continue writing, recording and promoting my own and the collaborative stuff. I’m a bit torn only because I know this EP and the upcoming CD have my best work to date - the writing is strong, the recording quality has never been better, and the performances from everyone else elevate the songs overall. My own playing and vocals are constantly improving even since the beginning of the writing and demo work - if this is what I’m singularly striving for then I’m achieving my goals.
But I also need to consider financial viability of these efforts.
By now I’m sure you’ve all noticed I tend to use this blog as my “thinking out loud” notepad. It’s a very valuable tool for me as not only can I read it back dispassionately later and assess my thought processes and the state of mind versus what has transpired by that time, but it gives me a good dose of reality as well. It’s highly unrealistic to expect my musical efforts to be profitable, but I think it should be realistic to expect not to lose money either.
Bottom line is - if people like the music and want me to continue writing and recording it, then everyone should show that by supporting it by purchasing the EP/CDs. If it’s good enough to download for free and play, it’s good enough to pay less than $1 per track and help prove to me and everyone else that I’m not completely deluded and living within my own little world.
Ultimately, I have to grow up sometime…
It also means that with this CD I’m kinda throwing my entire set of creative efforts behind it. I still have plans:
- to write the companion short story piece to come out at the same time as the CD.
- to do some kind of video low budget short movie that ties the short story to the music
- artwork that meshes the dark to the music
- finally some kind of performance of the entire piece in a venue that best suits it as a form of “performance art”
This CD is a bit sparse on lyrical content compared to the last one - I’ve been leaning to my strengths rather than weaknesses, and the instrumental side of the compositions is definitely my strength. But the lyrics are there and fit very well within the context of the story. Rewrites happen and ideas bubble up especially in these last two pieces I’m working on… as with Mirror Mirror there will be differences in ALL the pieces that wont just be introduced in the mix. For instance - I really really want to put in a Gentle Giant/Spock’s Beard/Neal Morse type of vocal thing in one of these two songs I’m working on, and hope to have it not sound lame (which is a challenge, believe me).
Anyways, to finish things off - I have talked about switching over the site to the new Paraesthesia site now for a while. I think this is now the last post for this site and sometime in September we’ll retarget this link to the new site. Videos, a streaming music player, e-commerce, each member’s own blog page, etc… you’ll get it all. Keep your eyes open and it’ll happen soon!!!
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
I’ve been working every spare moment for the past two weeks now to get the material done or to a release state - actually to get it to where I would be comfortable putting it out there and having you all listen to (and hopefully buy) it.
I think I’ve hit that state now.
I’m quite happy with how it turned out at this point. Some really hard to hear criticism a week ago spurred me to spend a little longer on it and put a bit more “filler” - although listening now I know it’s really added a new dimension to all the songs. I am definitely quite happy as it seems are the other guys - I can hear things and I’m sure others will as well, but this is the state at this moment and it’s now time to finish the remaining 6 tracks for the full CD and get that out in the fall as scheduled.
The people who preordered the EP will be getting them in the next week or two - depending on mail service of course. I will be sending links to the high resolution tracks to them as soon as tomorrow - I’ll have to get the list and emails and forward. Then I’ll be chatting with Melo the Prog Goddess about the webcast/chat.
Soon after that webcast, we’ll be switching over the website to the new one and the tracks will be available thru the in-site player for audition. We’ll also have the feature allowing you to purchase and download into your iPod or other player, and of course purchase the EP-R thru the site.
I’ll also be making available the cover songs at that time. Keep an eye on this site for the major change in the near future!
Friday, August 1st, 2008
My friend Chris G. has been working on producing and recording the music of his brother Andrew - Andrew died back in August of 2004 at 40 years of age leaving behind many family and friends, but also quite an extensive collection of original music none of which was presented into a commercial environment nor a forum for wide exposure. From the liner notes Andrew preferred to work in his personal home studio with minimal collaboration and my guess that would mostly involve Chris himself…
Chris has just completed the project (actually sometime in the spring of this year) and the results are really amazing imho. Going through someone else’s notes and demo tracks trying to determine their intent or the state of completeness/development of those ideas is verging on the impossible, but when you also include the emotions that have to be involved on that review and the efforts to complete this I think it’s superhuman. This is also reflected in who is involved in this - Nick, Mike K, Bryan, Rick et al all were involved in bringing Kevin Gilbert’s (unfinished) masterpiece “The Shaming of the True” CD to completion, with Chris G. playing the live show back around 2003 (I think… dont quote me). Massive endeavors like this deserve to be applauded…
Go to the MySpace site http://www.myspace.com/actofglass and check it out - so far my favorite pieces on the CD have to be “Peasant Under Glass” and “Tall Tale Heart”, but other songs are definitely moving up as I get more exposure to them. There are so many amazing musicians who have been tasked to work on this as well - Mike Kenneally, Brian Beller, Adrian Belew, Dave Meros, Nick D’Virgilio, Ryo Okumoto, Rick Musallam, Phil Keaggy, Ted Leonard… and yet more - all of them nail the material down well. Chris G plays all drums - and he’s an excellent drummer.
This has been a significant investment both in terms of personal time and resources for Chris G. The high quality of the recorded material definitely reflects the effort and the love which he injected into this - and the scope of material presented is worth the cost invested. Support the effort!!
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Today I thought I’d send links to the tracks to the president of an unnamed record company soliciting feedback about the material. I think I got a bit more venom in reply than I bargained for…
Distilling it down, I got some takeaways which I can definitely confirm I am uneasy about - the guitars are almost entirely VST processed (i.e.: using computer amp emulation) and yea, the tones are a bit lacklustre. I have been planning on reamping the guitars thru my Ampeg and Epiphone amps, but the Ampeg is kinda giving me some temperamental fits and I’ve got an email to Lee Jackson to ask what to check out/look for in order to fix it. I love that amp and it kills me not to be able to use it. The Epi Valve Jr will work for some of the tracks, but I really want that beef of the 1/2 stack for the solos.
I’ll probably have the rest of the stuff mixed down for Thursday night - it’s been tough with some other commitments (good ones though) taking me away. I am also going to try talking with the people at the Triple Door downtown Seattle about doing a CD release show there in October… I guess I can only present the material we have and go from there.
Sunday, July 27th, 2008
I got the last of the instrumental tracks this weekend, now some minor vocal tweaks needed and mixing/mastering. Here’s the last of the songs for the EP: Mesmerize So for the EP package, the following songs will be ready for release this Friday Aug 1st:
- Mirror Mirror
- The Only One
- Mesmerize
- In the shadows…
- Drawing the Short Straw
As a bonus, the package is including the following cover songs as recorded/arranged by Rob, Paul and Mark:
- Aqualung (Ian and Jenny Anderson)
- Ramble On (Page/Plant)
- Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)
- Eleanor Rigby (Lennon/McCartney)
- Phasors on Stun (Hawkins/Nash the Slash)
- Watcher of the Skies (Rutherford/Banks)
I’m still messing around with some other cover songs anyways - just trying to keep my chops up and I’m learning a ton as far as production wise from trying to recreate the original sounds as well as just learning and trying out different arrangement ideas. I’ve been getting a bit rusty with my playing and some of the songs are in keys I’m not accustomed to so they make me bend the motor memory a bit to work a different set of muscles. Particularly with vocals, I am really picking up stuff I haven’t really encountered before and it’s making me try to be more emotive in delivery while still fine tuning timings. A slight speech impediment and an old stutter make me deliver against the rhythm sometimes - but with Mark and Paul catching my lazy delivery and pointing these things out I can go back and correct them. Anyways, mixing and mastering will be happening this week - the cover songs will get minimal attention as the originals will take the majority of time. To those who bought and paid thru pre-order: thank you for your patience and we’ll be getting the CDR’s into the mail to you along with the drafts of artwork and lyrics by the end of next weekend.
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
er ah… to try to compensate for the delay getting the EP out, I’ve been just cranking out the cover songs - they’re easy to produce and I can somewhat do a reinterpretation of them without deviating too too much from the original.
In that spirit, here’s the latest cover:
Cinnamon Girl
I had a *HELL* of a time with the 3rd harmony part - trying to nail the major 3rd plus the natural 7th below in the last section before the guitar solo was hell, so I cheated, went to the 5th above and the 7th below and said that’s that.
Bass parts are still being recorded (which is the hold up) and we did a full review and critique of the vocal parts with some new homework for me to be done. Otherwise we *should* have everything ready to ship by end of this month. Sorry for the delays, but my next cover will likely be another off the beaten track thing I’ll dig from the archives so hold tight.
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Mark’s computer has begun to seriously choke - the statement I got in email was that “if I turn it off for a few hours it will come back on and I can record stuff for about an hour before it starts to choke again”
In the meantime, the new computer is being shipped and should arrive this Saturday.
We should be getting together sometime to record vocals where needed - the debate rages if we should delay the EP a bit longer while the vocals get done. I’m conflicted inside - I’d like to commit the mixes to EP complete status and then get it to Jay for mastering. Then we ship it to everyone’s hot waiting hands.
For your pleasure, I have thrown together a quick song - I’ll probably get some nasty letter for this but…
Eleanor Rigby
Yea yea, the American Idol version sounds similar, and that Seattle band that claims to have had their arrangement ripped off by American Idol guy as well. I literally threw this together in a couple hours tonight - some nice little rhythmic changes to the “all the lonely people” part makes it more interesting from my perspective and I really got to do some real groove parts on bass for this - as much as I got groove. I also thought I’d be a bit more sinister vocally than the other takes - my raspy allergy affected voice worked well in this regard. I still could do some interesting stuff with this but I do like the raw rawk take on it.
Hope you enjoy it, and thanks for your patience.
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Conflicting schedules, various outside commitments, late recording schedules and finally DAW/computer issues have pushed out the ship date for the EP “Between the Lines” until about Sunday July 20th. Many apologies to those who pre ordered the EP expecting shipment June 30th, but as we’re just now getting to final mixes and some vocal re-tracking we wont be able to get this out to you right now. We will fortify the package with some special bonuses - another one or two tracks that would constitute B-sides whose only guilt is that they dont quite fit the tone or mood of the rest of the CD.
We are also planning a live Webcast World Premier hosted by Melo (a.k.a. Anita) of Melo’s Prog Bazaar for around July 18th - we’ll be playing the tracks and discussing them (all three of us - Mark, Paul and I) as well as playing some of the bonus material and talking about how we worked here and have been working with Nick D’Virgilio remotely. We will also likely discuss what the future beyond the full CD release holds - there are talks of some associative electronica projects, as well as thoughts on simple songwriting releases.
Details on the webcast to come - it will be a video webcast and if all goes well, one which could feature a live performance of one or two songs as well.
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
The Only One
Here’s the “single” from the EP and CD - a nice little pop song with lyrics which seem innocuous but read into them a little…
All the tracks posted here are really just initial mixes - starting points if you will for the real concentrated mixdowns to come. Also, especially in this song’s case, vocals are 1st or 2nd takes - started off life as guide vocal tracks but seemed to work or at least until the real mixdowns start to happen. Levels are a bit wonky still with some instruments a bit high and others low…
BUT the quality of our little home recordings is very high - so enjoy and get ready for the last track preview (Mesmerize) coming likely Friday…
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
Another fine song preview from the EP - coming a week from today!!!
Drawing the Short Straw
So we’re into the last week of this version of the website - this weekend the site will morph into the Paraesthesia website. From there all news related to the “Between the Lines” EP, “a fine line between…” CD and other future projects will be there - video blogs, preview material, song videos, gigs, etc…
I’ll likely be posting one more entry to this blog - the preview of Mesmerize sometime Wednesday or Thursday. Enjoy the tunes, I’ll also do a round up post that will have previews of all the tracks from the EP by end of week.
