Alive With The Glory Of Love

check the one:day:life YouTube profile!! There is not much there atm, but keep an eye out.

tadarr!!!

BTW
I've been in Bristol with Lady Jane. Had a damn good time. Im home now and im working hard again...honest.

dp

ODL on YouTube

Dan is setting up our YoutTube account right now, old videos posted up first, but I will make sure that some new studio stuff gets posted asap.

Max.

Where the hell is Dan?

So last night was a little frustrating....we laid some extra drum parts over a track called Dancefloor, which took a little while to get right...the pair of cymbals that Kev plays on his left hand side are called hi-hats, they can open and close to make different sounds and he plays a little rhythm on them that was tricky to get right.

So then we decide to finish the extra drums on the lesbian song (yeah, yeah, we still haven't got a name for it)....but then our PC in the studio starting freaking out. Me and Maunder had to sit for ages working out what was going on while Kev sat getting bored at the drums...it got way too late to be doing anything productive so we postponed it until tomorrow. Hope we got it fixed.

Drums almost done.

Has anyone seen Dan, coz I sent that kid messages and calls yesterday but he's not calling back...I think he's avoiding me....I don't blame him, but he's got my ticket for the show tomorrow...

Max.

"I hate this song, and I hate all of you...just kidding...I don't hate this song"

As promised, I grabbed a photo of Kev's hands between takes. He uses this Stick & Finger Tape so that he doesn't get bad blisters - it's not usually a problem on tour, cos he only does an hour or so at a time, but in the studio he plays for hours on end and it's messing him up a little.

So where are we up to? Well, pretty much all the drums for the album tracks are done - that's 12 songs. We, as usual, have a few extra songs and we chatted last night about what to do with them...I think only one of them will end up getting recorded...better luck next time for the other ones.

Dan and I are disappearing off to London for a few days to watch Hit The Lights and New Found Glory - they are some of my favourite bands and i'm looking forward to chilling out for a few days.

When we get back, we'll start looking at bass and guitar parts. In the past, we've done all the bass, then all the guitars...but that has caused a few problems (I'll save the delights of strumming patterns and on-beat v. off-beat chord changes for another post)., so this time we'll work together, like a well-oiled machine and get them all done.

By the way, if you are on our mailing list, Dan is gonna start sending you stuff in the next couple of weeks. Fish it out of your junk folder and read it so he feels less lonely.

Max.

SMTV

So it's Saturday morning, I skipped my trip to get a haircut in exchange for a lie-in (totally worth it). Was in the the studio with Kev last night, he came super-close to a take for 'the whoa whoa song' (we gotta start thinking of some names for these songs soon) but it wasn't quite there. Meeting him there in about half an hour to have another go at it (then we're gonna go get a subway, hell yeah).

I will get a photo of his hand, he has loads of blisters and has to tape it up like crazy to play. Not pretty.

Dan and me have had budget meetings this week, being in an unsigned band can be an expensive hobby. Budget divided into the following: Mastering, CD Manufacturing, Printing (Flyers, posters etc), Advertising and Merchandise. The advertising budget is my favourite - we're gonna be getting ad's in magazines I have read for years. They will not really sell any CD's and we pretty much have to write the money off as a loss, but it a)helps raise our profile and b)fulfils a little dream i've had since we started this whole thing.

Check out this photo that Kev's magic new phone took...I am everywhere...

too much way too soon

Ok, I know this is nothing new, but once again me and kev were in for hours over the weekend doing yet more drum parts. There are now a few stickers appearing on the progress chart on the wall. Kev finished the parts in 'Shakedown' and 'Caffeine' - his two least favourite tracks on the record....it's always harder to record parts for songs that aren't your favourites, so we got them out of the way.

Some of the drum fils are super-quick. Kev has been deliberately putting in parts that he thinks the drummers we've met on tour are gonna have fun trying to play along to. I can play a bit of drums, but there's no way I could attempt to pull some of this stuff off....the kid has got some talent...but don't tell him i said that, his ego is big enough already (plus I know he never reads my posts on here).

One more week of drums - three more songs for the album and then the extra tracks we're recording for website downloads/MySpace/whatever we use them for.

Also trying to put the promotion in action soon. We've given ourselves the deadline of January 31st for the street-team to be up and running...that'll probably be the basic version with more stuff for it being added all the time, but wish us luck either way.

Max

Update on me

I (and some maunder) have spent the last couple of days mixing 3 of the songs we records as "good quality demos" to send out to records label people as a taster for the album.

They sound pretty damn good already so the album is gonna be really good. I will pass it with the others to see if we can maybe put one on myspace we can see what they say.

dp

Hummm....

I'd like to point out that Dan posted we have half the drum takes finished now... We oly have 3 finished because of the extras that need to be put on some of the takes. It's my night off tonight cos it's been hard work the last 4 days, so i'm lying in bed and it's only 7pm.
Max is off to a work meal or something and i'm not sure what Dan's up to, not seen him since Sunday.
I found this video on the net, it might inspire some of you to work in an office. I don't work in an office and think thats why i'm no good at it.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1428906409
Much love,
Kevy.

Tape it up.

So after hassling everyone else to post I am back...thank you to the emails I've had over the last couple of days from people who've said they can't wait to hear the new stuff...we appreciate it.

More drumming last night - Kev has put some killer fills in a song called 'cool. collected. calm.' so if you're gonna play along you better start rehearsing now. He gets tonight off to get some sleep and rest his arms. In order to play now he has to tape up his fingers with special drummer's tape due to the blisters and sore areas he gets.....ewww.

Max.

Working Flat Out!

Despite what some nay-sayers might say, my production/engineering role goes far beyond laying on the floor in a big fluffy coat!

Whilst doing this I also occasionally shouted the worlds "Yeah, I love the Spinal Tap fill, use that one!" or "Isn't the left rack tom a tad flat?"...

Just for all you budding music tech geeks out there of whom we met many on tour, for the album we've been messing around with putting the mics in an x/y pattern. This won't matter to most people, but its different to the norm and sounds ace! Also, I think the plan is to avoid over-processing the drums unnecessarily this time - I reckon the kit sounds way fuller and for lack of a better word, better than it did on the last E.P. already, and thats before mixing! Woo!

Anyways, I'm gonna get back to looking for a real job that pays real money. See you all soon.

Maund.

Hello...

Max told me to post something up here so it makes him look less geeky.

err..

basically were just plodding along with kev's drum parts, we have done most of about 6 now i think. kev has been working pretty hard every night so were giving him thursday night off.

Right now, I've just got back from a meeting with max about money and business. We are planning the promotion side of the album, assuming were going to be puting it out ourselves. We need all the help we can get.

If your interested in helping us the street team is coming together in the new year so go sign up at the the lifers website and we will be in contact soon.

dp

Geeks

Hi all, just to keep you all up dated, i'm still alive and drumming, and max has a psp now, so we are both gaming geeks... sweet.
I got a new phone last week so i'm going to take some more pic's of everyone and keep you up to date.
Love you all!
Kev.

and Maunder says hi too. :-)

How we get it wrong...

So Hicks dropped by the studio last night to watch Kev drum - his dad was around for a while too which was cool. Check out the sexy photo that dan took. We got a take for a song that is temporarily called "The Lesbian Song" done...the name will change before we're done. We also spent ages working out the drum part for a song called 'Shakedown'...we've been playing it live for a little while and Kev has been playing a basic drum part but is pulling out a few stops for the recording.

I just realised that I wanted to use this as more than just an update on progress...I was hoping to give you guys an idea of exactly what's involved in making some parts of the album.

Before our last few live dates we spent about a week tuning the drum kit, learning about how it can affect the sound of each drum etc. Most people think about tuning guitars but tuning drums is super-important too as they need to sund good together and not like Kev is bashing around on old tin pans.

When we talk about 'takes', that's just a name we use for someone attempting to play a part. We are always looking for a really good 'take'. To give you an idea, Kev will have four or five practice takes before he even starts to thing about getting everything right...then run through the song again and again until he gets a take we are all happy with. Recently that been about 2-3 hours of drumming (bearing in mind the songs are around 3 minutes long, that's a lot of drumming).

The most common things that mess up a drum 'take' are: going out of time (he plays a long to a metronome in his earphones to keep him in time, but it's still hard when you're playing something complicated), missing a drum, missing out part of a beat (like not hitting the bass drum in the right place), making a mistake on a drum-fill.

Ok, I hope that makes a little more sense out of what i'm talking about on here....ask me if you have any questions. I know 99% of you won't care at all, but i've always been a geek about this stuff and would love more bands to talk about how they end up putting songs together, recording etc.

Anyway, later,

Max.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Another song down last night by the drumming machine that is Kev...ok, so I wasn't actually there - I was out having fun elsewhere but I got messages telling me that work was being done so I was happy. Don't panic, i'll be back kickin' some ass tonight.

I think he is working on a track called 'Invincible' tonight..

Go listen to the Reel Big Fish live album.

Max.

More photos on Flickr

Holy crap, it works - someone other than me uploaded photos!!!

Ain't I a cutie???



Max x

Website update...

Ok, so I finally got round to updating the old site (the new one is just starting to be built in the next few days). I posted a picture from the photo shoot up at our new Flickr account, so go take a look at our friends who helped us out.

All three of us will be able to update the new site, plus other people who already help out with the site a little bit - so it should be a bit more interesting and updated more often. I am looking for ways to make it more interactive too...any ideas?

Studio stuff - was in with Kev drumming last night, another track done but he wants to go back and do everything again once he's been drumming solidly for two weeks as he'll be used to drumming super-fast and will get everything a little tighter (although last night's take to a song called Fireworks was pretty f'ing tight if you ask me.

Anyway, back to work,

Max.

This is how it starts...

So this is the new recording blog, all three of us can post here - so it's no longer my fault if the site hasn't been updated in a while :o)

I am posting this in a quick break from the studio today. This afternoon me and dan finished off the last of the guide tracks (guitar parts and vocal parts that kev drums along to, they then get deleted), so we are ready to start recording the drum parts tonight. I think dan has some photo's so i'll get him to post them up here.

Wish us luck, we're gonna need it.

Max.