NSPCC Show, This Saturday (June 27th), The Royal Oak, Ipswich.
This is a reminder for everyone that forgets I am in a band, or just reads this blog so that you have something to talk to me about when the room goes quiet. We are playing in support of the NSPCC this Saturday at The Royal Oak, Ipswich. We are on stage at 9pm, there is a map for the venue here.
As part of some work we are doing with Vodafone, they are bringing a film crew to the show. They will be filming our set, and interviewing a few people in the crowd. Make sure you come along and get your face in front of the camera.
I have no idea why, but I am pretty addicted to this song. I've liked a lot of the Ryan Tedder stuff I've heard, but never really fell for any of it and the intro of this didn't grab me initially, but by the time the "better get your armour" lyric kicked in I was sold.
You can go to the YouTube page and click on the HQ button to get better quality audio, but you can check it out here too:
Is it just me, or does the backing singer look a little awkward with the guitar...like she got told to dress up to be a backing singer and then Dave the guitarist didn't turn up and everyone was like.."oh, hey, don't even worry about it...janine the backing singer can do it, here you go love, chuck this on...this is a blues riff in B, watch us for the changes and try to keep up...."
Terminator, Band Meetings and Regina Spektor...all good things.
Woke up late this morning after going to a late-night showing of the new Terminator movie with Dan and his gf, Maz. Holy shit that film was dark, bleak, violent and brilliant. It has none of the slight tongue-in-cheek, bank-handed humour that the second and third films had. There is no lull, no slow parts where the story lumbers along, it just beats you in the face with the oppressive post-apocalyptic violence of the Terminator world, and that's exactly what I wanted. I scarcely believed that my fully heterosexual man-crush on Christian Bale could get any bigger, but it's reaching new levels. I mean, I've loved the Terminator films and Batman since I was a kid (I watched T2 on a tiny little TV at my grandparents house very late at night when I should have been sleeping and remember being blown away with the liquid metal effects...yeah, I was a geek as a kid too, what a shock).
So yesterday we got back to band business with our first meeting for a while. Band meetings remind me of Flight Of The Conchords, but you gotta keep your shit together and you can't talk business too much at rehearsal/writing sessions as it gets in the way.
Anyway, if you don't know already, we are working on a project with Vodafone at the moment, they are coming in to talk to us about how our band works, how we use technology, how we record - just general stuff that bands do really. We are looking for some people to come and get involved with this project with us, and talk to Vodafone about being a fan of music. If you are interested in getting involved it's on Monday, 29th June 2009 near Ipswich (Vodafone/ODL will cover your travel expenses to get there, within reason) and all you gotta do is come and talk about the band, and they may well be filming you talk too.
Vodafone will also be filming at our show at The Royal Oak, Ipswich on Saturday 27th June - as well as filming the show, they will be interviewing people on camera afterwards, so if you want to get your face on camera, then get yourself down there.
In geeky studio news (I know you're all on the edge of your seats about that), I have just ordered some new microphones, stands, pop-shields and cables which makes me very happy. I started mixing properly in the new studio at the weekend and am fighting to find time to mix and write in there at the moment. If there's one thing I'm learning to do this year, it's manage my time better. I say no to a lot more things, and try and be a bit more realistic about how long things take. I seem to be doing ok at the moment, I am waiting for this to fall apart at any moment.
Seeing as my last post was Kanye West related, I figured I'd post up this remix of Beyonce's "Ego". I prefer the remix, but there is a link to the original on the youtube page if you want it. Not sure about the hundres of photos of Jay-Z and Beyonce in the video , but if you can forget about that, then it's a good tune and I love the lyrics ;)
Mr Hudson, Kanye West, Supernova and my ability to spot a great song.
Can I pick a hit or what? The other day I posted up a video by a band called Mr Hudson & The Library. I heard the song as one of those "recommended tracks" on iTunes Genius. I must have listened to 50 or more track samples that day, most of which I ignored, but that one was different so I got the album and posted up the video here.
Later that day, I'm listening to the radio and totally by coincidence Ben from Mr Hudson is on Trevor Nelson's show, apparently Kanye West liked the stuff he'd done and invited him to work on some other projects in Hawaii, and appears on his new single, which is of course awesome. Glad to know that I have as good an ear as Kanye ;)
Here's the song. Not sure how long it'll stay up as there's a download link in the description, but search for it if it's not here. Facebook/RSS readers can go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb0FTXLGADQ
I just got off the phone with Dan and we were chatting about what we'd been doing for the past few weeks. Despite working really hard, I seem to have very little to show for myself. It's time like this that you have to just believe in what you're doing, and that all the seemingly endless preparation, research and testing things out pay off and you have the stamina and patience to see everything out to the end.
I still have nothing to show you, so once again I will fall back on someone else's work for everyone to see. This song is called "Picture Of You" by Mr Hudson & The Library. I know nothing about the band, but I picked up the album recently and it's great - a really laid back listen for summer. The album is called "A Tale Of Two Cities", please go and check it out.
p.s. I saw these on Mark Hoppus' blog the other day and I'm totally jealous. I spoke to the people at Ultimate Ears when I had my earpieces made, but I just couldn't afford them. This is the dream people:
His blog is here: http://www.pickrset.com/markhoppus/ and it always has loads of cool photos and stuff about Blink 182 so go take a look at it.
You say you love me, but if you love me, where have you been?
Hey, i've been taking a bit of a break from the social areas of the internet for a little while (other than my facebook page obviously, i'm as addicted to that stuff just like everyone else), and the reasons for that are all long and boring, but everything's fine, i'm just a little bit behind and now with all this bank-holiday rubbish all over with, it's back to work (and by work i mean posting blog posts for you to read while you avoid whatever it is your supposed to be doing.)
Anyway, I will post back with some actual information about stuff we've been working on in the next few days, but in the meantime here is the video for a song that i've been banging on about for ages...it still doesn't come out for a long time, but i can't stop listening to it. hope the rest of the album is this good.
We are playing a show at a brand new venue in Ipswich, this Saturday 2nd May 2009. The venue is called QJam - it used to be called The Pool Club which is where me and a bunch of my friends played our first shows when we were young. They have stripped it out and rebuilt it as a custom-built music venue. Please come along and check it out and support new music venues.
I have been pretty much offline for a little while because of the room conversion I was babbling on about before. You can see some photos here if you're interested:
Hey, no post for a little while as I have been really busy. I am setting up a new mixing room for us to be able to work on new recordings every day, something we've never been able to do before as we've had to rehearse, write etc in the same place. I have had to take a step back from everything else in order to fit that in along with some new work stuff I am doing. My spare time recently has been spent going out with friends and getting messed up.
I really have nothing new to report. Things are good, the weather is getting better every day, which makes me feel great about everything. New stuff is coming, slowly but surely.
In the meantime, someone showed me this video and I like little facts like this so check it out:
The dawn chorus had already begun when I went to sleep last night. I woke up and went straight to a production meeting for a project I've been working on since just before Christmas that is going to be one of the coolest things I've worked on outside of music. I got back and had a lengthy discussion about the acoustics in the new control/mixing room I am putting together at my house. The new room will solve the problem we have that our studio is out of use a lot of the time due to rehearsals and shows etc.
There is very little about my life that I am not passionate about, and little that I do not enjoy. I count myself lucky for this and do not take it for granted. I hope you can say the same, and if not are willing to work to make it happen.
Gonna post here because my inbox looks a little intimidating right now. There are 39 emails that need me to file, reply, delete or do something. Not many I know, but I'm not in the mood right now.
We played a really last-minute show in Ipswich at the weekend and played a song that is waiting to have the vocal tracks recorded. Here's a video of the show:
As usual, the people on facebook and RSS won't be able to see that, so you guys have to click here.
It's a total slice of Americana, and I know it's not cool to like James Taylor, but f*ck it, those are some good tunes, and has a sound that's like being hugged by an acoustic guitar with big furry arms. Also, check out the music-box style drum kit/machine they have...very cool.
This is one of those songs that just seems to be speaking specifically to me. You ever find that? When you're pretty convinced that the person writing it was inside your head for just long enough to put you down on paper. If you like this, please go and check out the whole album here.
Head over to www.myspace.com/palomafaith and check out "Stone Cold Sober". It's just a sample up there at the moment, but when it's released I will post back up here and remind you to DL it. The rest of the tracks are pretty much Duffy/Lily Allen/Amy Winehouse/Corinne Bailey Rae all over again, but that track has something special.
They don't make this t-shirt any more, but I want one (minus the star in the middle, and 'loves' instead of 'likes'). I am seriously considering having our t-shirt manufacturer make me one....I clearly have way too much spare time on my hands.
I am scared to find out my capacity for self-destruction. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is a tidal wave, an all-encompassing tsunami that could swallow me whole with disregard and contempt for whoever I believed I was before. It is only through sheer luck that my life has been lacking in any kind of catalyst to trigger any of this inside me, but sometimes with just the slightest of actions, I see the person that I could become.
You ever find yourself doing something and think, "hmmm, so this is who I am..?"
I try my best to have a pretty good sense of perspective on life. To be honest, I sometimes think my brain has glimpes of Ataraxia as I stuggle to care about things that other people find important.
Even when I do find an issue to take to heart, I find it hard to stick to. I am not a great multi-tasker and whenever I am scared, nervous, hurt or down the best thing I can do to shake it off is just to throw myself into something else as hard as possible and distract myself from it. My self-defence mechanism has become such a big part of me that sometimes it feels like there isn't anything left to defend.
What I am trying to say, and failing, is that I want you to know I do care sometimes - even if I've forgotten how to show it. Of course, you must also deal with the possibility that I really don't care and I really do just want you to leave me alone. I'll try and make it a little clearer in the future.
Does anybody else get really bummed out when your phone/blackberry/iPhone tells you you've got an email, but it turns out to be a lonely piece of junk mail that has intrepidly made it through the hundreds of spam folders and junk filters that are out there to protect me from Nigerian Princes who have fallen on unlucky times and need my help.
I need to get more emails that aren't about boring things. Most of my emails tell me things I need to know. I really want emails that tell me things I want to know, or even things I didn't even know I wanted to know. If you have this information, send it to me.
I am getting through a long to-do list at a pretty good speed, the only thing that I actually care about right now is finishing all the lyrics I have to write. Unfinished lyrics are like having the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head - I know that at some point very soon I will have to get these recorded, and it's a case of trying to work on them without worrying that they are taking too long. We have put entire songs off because I couldn't make the lyrics fit - it does not feel good.
I gotta go post out some online store orders right now, thank you to everyone who still picks up our older stuff, we loved making those records and although we are usually wrapped up in the newest thing we never forget those songs or what it took for us all to put them together. With that in mind, I put a quick thing together in the studio earlier, I'll post it up here later.
So while phoning around and trying to sort out insurance for our tour van, I watched most of Gene Simmons talking to Bob Lefsetz at Canadian Music Week '09. It did not inspire me for the future of the music industry. If you're bored, you can watch the whole thing here
I tried reading Bob Lefsetz's email blog for a while, but it was just too rambling and vague. I talk too much, but if that guy could take a leaf out of Seth Godin's blog and just write simple, concise opinions and we'd all get along better.
Anyway, new songs are back from San Diego where they've been mastered and there are just a couple of edits currently being made. Like I said on Twitter, they will be up for sale as soon as physically possible. They are the last songs to be made with the old studio. We have already started tracking new songs on the new system and I can already hear the difference.
We are working on a new area of the website, where you will be able to hear new songs straight from rehearsals. The moment they are done we will be posting them up on the website.
One of the coolest things we are working on is a song called "Life, Stuck On Repeat" which has a full horn section. This one is kinda my baby as a lot of it will be using computer production rather than just recording us playing live, like most of our songs are.
I am re-writing the lyrics and parts of the melody for the song which is at the end of this month's podcast which was called "The Girl Who Stole The World". I can't seem to get a grip on it at the moment, but it'll come, just need more coffee and liberal use of the "repeat" button on my iPod.
Livin' Th' Dream - You, Me, And Everyone We Know Everybody Knows - McFly Smile - McFly Stuck Between Stations - The Hold Steady Do Ya - McFly Fascination - Alphabeat Catch Me if You Can/Proclamation of Emaciation (featuring Travis from Gym Class Heroes) - Fall Out Boy One For The Radio - McFly Beat It - Fall Out Boy POV - McFly The (Shipped) Gold Standard - Fall Out Boy Chips Ahoy! - The Hold Steady Falling In Love - McFly Corrupted - McFly That's How You Know (As Used In The Film Enchanted) - Alan Menken Going Through The Motions - McFly Hot Soft Light - The Hold Steady The Last Song - McFly I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous - Frank Turner A Walk Through Hell - Say Anything (Coffee's For Closers) - Fall Out Boy Hey Beautiful - The Solids Friday Night - McFly ALPHAdog and OMEGAlomaniac (demo) - Fall Out Boy Lake Effect Kid (demo) - Fall Out Boy Happy Working Song (As Used In The Film Enchanted) - Alan Menken Same Kooks - The Hold Steady Sugar, We're Goin' Down - Fall Out Boy Waking Up in Vegas - Katy Perry You Help Them - Say Anything
No surprises in here if you've ever met me. Newest entries by far are "The (Shipped) Gold Standard" and "(Coffee's For Closers)" as I've become a little addicted to those songs.
New Kelly Clarkson album is good, even though I've only listened once so far. New Taylor Swift album is ok, lyrics are little too pop even for me, but some good melodies I guess. The latest New Found Glory album rocks, but we all knew that was gonna happen.
Did anybody else watch Jim Cramer on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart the other day? It was some of the best TV I've seen in a LONG time (although I don't watch that much TV admittedly). I'd watched the build up to this and thought it was gonna be the usual light-hearted interview that TDS usually has, but it totally blew me away. Awesome.
That vid is part 3 of 3, you can find links to the others on that page, but that part pretty much says it all.
.p.s. If you have no interest in the current economic problems, or the hypocrisy that lies at the heart of it all, then this will probably be of no interest to you.
Ages ago, I posted up some photos of the moulds I had taken of my ears for my new in-ear monitors on stage. Here's how it works: it doesn't matter what you can hear in the crowd, the band hear something totally different. We're standing next to drum kits and amplifiers and we are behind the main speakers that you're all hearing. A lot of times, we have speakers on the floor pointing up at us, but these aren't perfect as they have to be really loud to get through our earplugs and be heard over the sound of everything on stage. So we have a special mix of the sound set up and played back to us through a wireless pack that we wear (Dan keeps his in his back pocket, and I tape mine to my belt - see if you can spot them when we're playing).
As it's all so loud, we want to protect our hearing (it sounds a little dumb, being in a loud place and putting even louder sounds in your ear) so we want headphones that block out as much of the stage sound as possible. That's where these come in. They fill my ear up, and block out loads of sound, then they play me the sounds I want right next to my eardrum. Perfect.
As they are made from moulds of my ears, they won't fit anyone else, and they have to sit perfectly in my ears or they feel a little uncomfortable, but when they're in you can barely feel them. The only problem i've found is they are a little tricky to get out, but I'm sure I'll get used to that.
In other news, I've finished the new version of Brand New Enemy which will be up on the site for download soon, and a new song called "Take This Flight".
The new mixes I am working on are called "The Girl Who Stole The World" (working title, I am re-writing the lyrics so it'll definitely change), "Life, Stuck On Repeat" and "Get It On". We just upgraded the studio so it's now a pleasure to mix which means we'll be putting out new music on a much more regular basis...everyone wins.
I also found the sessions we did for a song called "It's not doing it, it's living it down that's the problem". It never got finished as I wasn't happy that I could make the chorus work, but the new gear means I can work harder and smarter on vocal sounds than ever before so I'm pretty sure I can make it sound awesome, and the song rocks from start to finish (I LOVE the middle-8). It also features some backing vocals from my ex-girlfriend which I had totally forgotten about, so when I lifted the fader on the channel it was a total shock to hear her voice...in a good way, don't panic - we're still cool...this isn't like the BV's on Brand New Enemy or anything.
Out of all the bands I love (and I use that word far more for music than I do for people in real life, but mean it just as much) I think the one that seems to get hated on the most is Fall Out Boy - it doesn't really bother me since pretty much everything I listen to is uncool by someone's standards.
So I saw this post over at Ask Hey Chris asking a few people for their top 5 most significant Fall Out Boy songs and thought I'd post mine up too, seeing as I'm supposed to be working but I've finished and now about to go down the studio instead and work on lyrics. Not my favourite FOB songs, just the most signifgicant like the man asked for.
These aren't in any specific order.
Dead On Arrival The first FOB song I ever heard. There used to be a channel called P-Rock TV which started around the same time as Scuzz TV. They started rotating this video really late at night and I caught the end of the track a couple of times. Dan was in my room a few days later and the song seemed to have been bumped up to a pretty regular rotation and we watched the whole thing and both agreed we'd have to go check them out. Loved it from the first time I heard it.
Sugar, We're Going Down I listened to the sampler that FOB put out for "From Under The Cork Tree", which contained 30 second samples of each track. This song stood out a million miles above the rest. I took the sampler on my iPod down to rehearsal and played it to the others and made them listen to that hook specifically. It is one of my favourite songs of all time, no contest.
Hum Hallelujah This came out way before the recent 'Hallelujah' craze, and it works way better than a lazy X-factor cover ever will. This one also stands out to me because of the lyrics - "I love you in the same way there's a chapel in a hospital" is just one of the lines that I really, really wish I'd written.
Catch Me if You Can/Proclamation of Emaciation This one pushed the lyrical thing even further for me - I was gutted when this didn't make it onto Folie A Deux and just ended up as a track on the Gym Class Heroes album (it has different lyrics and production altogether). I like the fact that not only did it show how far FOB had come from their first album, but also that they were willing to use references that 90% of their audience will never get.
"Tell That Mick He Just Made My List Of Things To Do Today" I still find myself singing the first few lines of this song on a fairly regular basis and it made an immediate impact that first time I heard the album. I still love how it sets the incredibly dark lyrical tone over some super-happy melodies, I kinda miss that from the first album, but they're still doing something new which is worth the trade.
I could do this for a bunch of bands that have provided the soundtrack to my life, but they don't seem to take that flack that FOB do, so I'm just showing that there are real old-school (well, since TTTYG) fans out there, and I am one of them.
If any of you are into recording in any way, then you should definitely be member over at the Gearslutz.com forums - it's not obscene or anything, so don't worry about that. It's just people who work in the recording industry who offer loads of advice and cool stuff for recording music.
They have Question & Answer sessions with some of the worlds best mixers - you are allowed to ask them questions about their techinques, people they've worked with...anything really and they respond directly and try and help people out. This month it's Tony Maserati who has mixed some seriously cool sh*t - Notorious B.IG, Beyonce, Kelly Clarkson, Tupac, Jason Mraz, Pussycat Dolls...you can check out the full list here.
It's so cool that pro's are willing to help out people who are just starting out....and they have way better stories than everyone else. Check this out from this question.
"When working on the mix "One More Chance" for Notorious BIG at Hit Factory studio A (no longer in existence), I worked on the mix for almost two weeks. After about five days the track was printed and most of Faith Evans' vocals. Big was in an out during this time and sometimes would sit next to me and jus listen. For two days, he would jus say, play it one more time. I tried to keep myself busy by tweakin this or that, and he'd jus keep saying play it one more time... after sitting next to me for several days he finally said, "aiight, put up a mic". He went in (no paper, no pens) and knocked out his vocal and adlibs. Killed it. I don't think there were more than two punches on the whole vocal track!"
or even this...
"[When]Whitney Houston sang in studio D at Sigma Sound Studios (tiny little room) with Michael Masser producing. He never erased anything so we'd spend all morning making as many 'slave' tapes as possible to be ready for the many many tracks he'd ask her to record. She'd sing one after the other, with so much power you could hear the walls of that tiny room shivering when I walked in with her tea or water! Awesome. I think she loaded up 45 slaves (for all you youngins, that's 22tracks times 45 tapes) 990 takes!!!! try that and still perform yer ass off!!"
They may not mean anything if you're not into music, or into the process of how music ends up travelling from the imagination of a songwriter to your ears, but if you are, then it's stuff like this that makes you want to be part of one of the most unforgiving, least-likely-to-succeed, dream-crushing industries in the world.
So while I wait for photoshop to do something long and complicated, I've been filling in some gaps in my music collection that I got the other day but haven't put in my iTunes yet. My music collection is seriously well organised, I have hundreds of albums and each one is named and numbered correctly, usually with the correct release dates and all the other pointless information that nobody else cares about. It's vaguely OCD - it gives me a sense of comfort to know that it's all done properly.
Anyway, new stuff includes:
The first Kelly Clarkson album - Miss Independent is a great song, haven't had time to check the rest out yet.
The first Paramore EP - songs aren't as good as the albums, but hey, it's Hayley Williams singing so who cares right?
'With Hopes Of Starting Over' and the 'Make Yourself At Home' EP's from The Starting Line who are a great band. I had a few of these songs but finally bothered to get them all. Consistently great band.
The rest of the first New Found Glory album, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" - I only had a few songs from this and they remain one of my favourite bands of all time, hard working musical heroes who have never put a foot wrong in my eyes.
Go and check these bands/artists out if you've never heard their stuff.
Hey, so i haven't reeally had a lot of time recently, I am trying to get a bunch of jobs done before upgrading our studio PC to something that may actually be able to handle mixing a pop song. In the meantimes, I found the photo above while editing images for our new website intro video. That guy is Frank Turner. If you don't know who Frank Turner is, please go and listen to him at http://www.myspace.com/frankturner - he has released his new album along with a 23-track CD that includes a bunch of songs from earlier in his career.
I have also been listening to a lot of Huey Lewis & The News recently. Awesome. The new Lily Allen album is better than the first one. I also picked up a copy of the Jonas Brothers albumn - it's no McFly, but it's not bad. Been listening to the new Chase & Status album - I find I have the same problem with them as I do with Pendulum, they struggle to keep up the momentum and hooks across the whole album - some of it feels like it's just padding the gaps between the cool tracks.
