Friday, January 30, 2004
hmmmm...i wonder if i should stop the presses and record one more song. maybe even two...
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
war is over.Sunday, January 25, 2004
malfunctions keep us humanthe old comments window crashed on me. so i tried to have it rebuilt and then the journal itself crashed on me. as a lyman would say, "stoppie comperter" ... so i'm gonna use the one that currently attached until we get another proper one built. don't mind those advertisement and 'basic account' readings... but hey at least now you can drop in your funny two cents again whenever you want. (laugh on the inside) i just realised this new comments window hasn't been tested. oh well, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. onto music things:
'jobber' has been recorded, as i stated on hQ a few days ago. it hasn't been mixed yet (obviously) but it sounds pretty damn good, if i do say so myself. that'll probably surpass 'the HEIGHTS' as the first single. it's all alternaPOP though, and i know how a lot of you out there feel about pop music. well it's just too bad...cos pop is pop and that's what gets on the radio these days AND, and AND, if the first single is pop you can't accuse me of selling out later. ....and there go the mumblings of people like [alex] who remind me that she owns the entire back catalogue.. *sigh* well 'jobber' was pop then and it's pop now. maybe i'll strike a balance and mix two versions, the pop and a straight ahead rock version of it.
there are some other brilliant works that have materialised into tangible forms. 'nothing ever happens at home' is just a piano and a vocal. 'the HEIGHTS' has been mixed and remixed about 100 times and it's finally starting to sound like a decent and potential single. 'drag' is my favourite song of the moment. some of you may recall it as the strokes song. it's nice a funky, and the lyrics are fiesty. you guys will love that one.
Friday, January 23, 2004
... war all the timeFriday, January 16, 2004
..at the cost of being a professionalcontinued to work on mixing today. 'drag' is sounding much better than it did say, yesterday. it tickles me a bit cos it sounds like the strokes made it. thumbs up on that one. it was never my favourite song but it damn fun to play live, and the mix is turning it into a fun song to listen to. it is, thankfully, the first song so far that i'm not cringing to while listening. just a few minor touch ups and it should be complete.
'sandia' simply fell together flawlessly. i don't think there were any takes (from the drum to the final vocals) that needed to be done more than say, three times. it's a shame really, cos i want to spend more time on it, but there's really not much more that can be done without completely screwing it up.
'a mute arrangement' (aka aaron's song) still needs supplemental vocal on underneath the main chorus, as it still feels a little empty in its full version. also thought about underlying it with some "banter", all distorted up to sound like an old crackly radio. i suppose it wouldn't hurt to at least try it... but the pressing problem with this particular song is that the intro to it is a full minute before the first verse comes in. this poses a problem if the song is anything other than the lead track. but even as a lead track, i'm still thinking excessive. what i MIGHT do is cut it, and have the beginning serve as an 'intro' track. but that's only if the song is the first song.
'never who you really are' and 'like me' are cut from the same cloth. they're both driven mainly by simple basslines, with wild guitars infiltrating the chorues. 'never who you really are' is only a tad faster than 'like me', with both songs jogging at a moderate pace. when all of the mixing is finished one of these may be dropped from the final tracklist as they almost work as an A/B side duo. In any even they both are two of the darker songs on the record.
'nothing ever happens at home' is beautiful. there's a piano arrangement (a la thursday's "this song brought to you by a falling bomb") that suddenly steps into a sweeping gust of orchestra strings at the second minute. what originally began as a modest alternative to 'i feel fine' (which has a guitar step a la radiohead's "sail to the moon") may turn out to be just that, if a proper vocal for the latter isn't put down.
'san mateo' (the album version) may surprise some. i'm almost sure that 'freak' (the rock song built around the san mateo arrangement) wont make the album. the album version of 'san mateo' will compensate for both.
'for the last time' and 'eleventh grade chess' are both vying for that coveted 2nd to last song in my opinion. whichever of those doesn't make the final cut, will likely become a holdover for the urban verses project.
all that and so much more! now for these messages from a local sponsor. cheers.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
mixing begins.began work on getting the record mixed this weekend. after 25+ hours of work, not a single song was mixed down to liking. the songs were moved to be listened to in a new environment where new flaws were able to be detected. but on the downside, all of the songs song completely different in the new environment. so the challenge is not to mix the songs to get them to sound the way they were originally intended, rather, the challenge is to mix the songs to get them to sound like good songs. it's turning into a somewhat scary process but i'm hoping that the end results will still be satisfactory. depending on scheduling for the record to be mastered (which is completely out of PSO's hands), a release date for the album may not come until summer, at the latest.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
title of record.the sessions at phat pad were the best so far. many of the verses were recorded in just a couple of takes. a final session will likely be needed to finish up the choruses, plus takes for 'frontier' which hasn't even been touched since the drum track was lost 4 months ago. [sigh] ~ those sessions have forced me to covert over to cubase sx to finish the remainder of record. which isn't entierly bad except that the ENTIRE thing has to be remixed in the new format. but sx is so so thorough that i can actually go in an change the pitch for every word on every song, if i sang it all out of key for example (not that i ever would do that, but you get the idea. 'never learned' is gonna need a new title. a few songs on there are COMPLETELY out of hand...for those of you who remember (post - 29/09/03) i definitely have some dirty songs. some of it sounds a little like thursday. oh, and speaking of thursday, here's my 5 picks for best albums of the year:
5 - thursday war all the time
here's something that i can say with complete and utter conviction: thurssday is a ferocious band. their energy is phenominal. i didn't get war all the time right away because frankly, i'm not really an emo type of person. their last album, full collapse was full of bombastic tunes but i couldn't quite get over all the (painful) screaming. with war all the time, they get their wild stallion-type charge under control, and the result is a seamless display of kinetic bursts being deployed at only the right times. their best record yet, the best emo record of the year, one of the best rock records of the year. this album sort of reminds me of radiohead's the bends
4 - 50 Cent get rich or die tryin'
just when i was about to drop jay-z's supposed retirement album here, i remembered this song that had me going on the rare occasions that i'd turn on my car radio. it was called P.I.M.P. and it's hook was undeniably addictive. sure, jay-z is probably my favourite rapper out there, but 50 (or FIDD, as spin magazine calls him) had the best straight ahead rap cd out this year (outkast gets disqualied since it wasn't completely a rap record). there's rarely a dull moment on fiddy's record and even eminem's sometimes stale production couldn't hold him down. it's easy to see why the record spend so many weeks at number one in the US this past year.
3 - the strokes room on fire
only a handful of bands in the past fifteen years have been gifted enough to put out a sophomore album that was for what it's worth, better than their first. radiohead, the smashing pumpkins, coldplay, limp bizkit, pink and linkin park are among the few artists that were able to pull it off. the strokes' first record was so infectious that it seemed impossible that they would be able to match (let alone top) their breakout success. room on fire is very short, but very to the point. the melodies line up on top of each other so quickly that it's easy to get to the 5th song while still trying to process the first. the record reminds me of those popular underground bands that used to pull guerilla shows by showing up unannounced, rocking out for a half hour, then packing up and getting the hell out. if the strokes don't break up any time soon, they might mess around and become the next rolling stones.
2 - christopher o'riley true love waits
you haven't heard of this record, and that's okay. i could recommend this record up and down and you probably won't buy it, but that's okay too. christopher o'riley is a classical concert pianist (i can hear the yawns now, but if you're still reading at this point then that's a good thing). but what's cool about o'reilly is that he plays radiohead songs. on true love waits, o'riley does something that few cover bands and interpriters have been able to successfully do; create new visions within the new versions of old songs.
1. outkast speakerboxx/the love below
andre and big boi split away (not to be confused with split up) to make two equally compelling records. i easily thought it would be the best record of the year (sorry, white stripes) becuase within the overall package of outkast you get 1) an album that prince fans have waited for since, oh, sign of the times and 2) a rap album that by itself would be an instant classic not seen since the chronic. the two cds are as seperate as night and day, as different as the two members are from each other. but there's truly nothing out there like it right now
other good buys this past year: JET - get born, black rebel motorcycle club - take them on, all on your own, jay-z - the black album, the streets - original pirate material
Thursday, January 01, 2004
A New Year of Dolphonics.would you believe that i slept through the new years countdown, only to be awakened to sounds of M80s and (what really sounded like a full-fledged bomb. It's the justice i deserve for living in the city, only to be followed by four hours of complete insomnia. i suppose it would've been ok if i'd elected to watch television during the night hours, but no, i chose to stay under the blankets in the dark, under the lights from the street lamps and occasional drunk passerbys who howled out the windows of their cars throughout the night. and in those certain hours of clarity i decided upon all the things that i would and would not do in 2004; and alas, now that i'm awake, i've forgotten all of them. welcome to a new year, a same year of those repeated promises that we make every first of january. i promise to be no more of a good fellow, and no less of an asshole as i was last year. that, my friends, is a promise that i can keep. now onto business...
vocal sessions to continue at phat pad on sunday. everybody hates donica pine is a beast of a story....well get more information out when i can. and no, i haven't forgotten about the life soundtracks. give me a minute why don't you!