Also Snowed In

I started writing this entry and then realized that Peach posted one earlier today. He pretty said everything I was going to say....so......

Yeah we got snowed out. I wasn't bummed until about two hours ago. I was bummed because I realized if we had been playing tonight, we would be playing at that moment. What was even more bumming about the snow situation is even if we wanted to get together, we couldn't because of the damn weather. Snow is nice, but not that nice.

A sneak peak of the back cover was sent out to us. It looks cool! I like the colors. I think we should put an outdated bar code on the back that rings up a sale date of 1793.

It dawned of me after this last show at Liquid Smoke that it has been almost a year since we started down this road. It always weird playing a song for that long. "Whiskey Rebellion" was written on January 2nd of 2009. Do the math. This record has more lasting flavor than the last. I honestly feel tired of playing Paid in Cocaine. Right now, in this little bubble of a set we've been doing, it doesn't seem to belong. Neither does I Married A Zombie anymore. I really only enjoy doing the "old" songs off the cuff. You know, a situation thats like "hey! why not?" Make sense?

If I didn't have my Wii hooked up, I probably would have written the entire next album today. I went back and forth to the guitar and piano in between games of Wii Sports and Zelda. Yesterday I was granted an early day off and went home and hammered on the piano for a few hours. I worked on some new stuff but nothing work talking about yet. I don't feel rushed right now, so i can take some time and really put alot of thought into some of my newest creations before anymore gets to hear them. I've been tinkering with a new Midi controller lately. I got it so I can trigger casio samples for a possible series of songs using casio keyboards but lately i've been using it to program drums. now I can set a solid beat to work with and make better demos. Still using the 4 track though. I've decided that stays for now.

I've been listening to the Replacements all week. Makes me wish we were playing "Gone To Texas" live. The more I think about it, it sounds more like Paul Westerburg than Roger Clyne. Glad it's not on the record though. There are too many upbeat songs. We should have added one more slow song.

Snowed In

Saturday. The snow caused our show tonight to be cancelled. We hope to re-schedule, hopefully for March. Maybe we can make it our release show? Who knows?

At any rate, I'm home today, not wanting to go out and do anything in the snow. This gives me a chance (esp. since I doubt I'll have school on Monday) to work more on the website. I'm very unhappy with it in its current state. I modified this blog to match the new url, but I think both are about to get a big change.

My other project is that for the first time in months, I have a new song that I really want to write. I don't know what to do with it at this point, but I'm going to mess with it over the next few days. It probably couldn't be a great live rock song, but I may make an acoustic demo of it. If I can add a history theme to it, I may send it that way to help bolster the waning force behind making a bonus history EP. I figure, I don't know what else to write it about, so why not make it a history song? We'll see what happens.

The other good news is that being snowed in gives Rex L. Camino, the newly commisioned artiste for our artwork, more of a chance to get that finished. I saw a draft of the back cover last night, and I immediately knew he was the right choice.

Daniel Rice returns Monday. It's hard to believe how fast this month went by, but I'm happy that the artwork may be finished about the time that the record is.

Preliminary Feedback

We now have 8/13 mixed tracks completed and just received updated mixes (at various stages of mixing completion) of the other five completed tracks while our mixer extraordinaire Daniel Rice is in New Zealand until February. This has given us enough to really get a feel for what the record is going to sound like, and we now have enough of it to begin to play it for close friends.

Daniel said that he will be happy with this record if only his longtime friend and collaborator likes it. Said friend was rather pleased with what he heard. I wanted my dad to like what he heard, and he immediately went on and on about how much more listenable it is than the last record and how good everything is.

Kelly was at a party over Christmas where they asked about it, and since he had it in the car, he played the completed mixes. Their response was positive, adding alongside it that it sounded like R.E.M. With all the styles we've flirted with on the record, that one is the most consistent. I pointed out that the 7 he had were the ones that most exemplified our R.E.M.-ness. The comparison between Michael Stipe's voice and Kelly Kerr is always more apparent on our records than live, and I think that is the other grounds for their comparison. Musically, we did little that sounds like R.E.M., but his voice is what carries that image the most. Kelly's responses: 1) "There are worse bands to sound like." 2) "They're due for a revival."

We got feedback of a different sort last night at our show. I was looking forward to playing the venue for the first time since the sound guy there was once at another venue where I saw some great shows. His working relationship with Mike Watt and Fluid Ounces and other bands was enough to make him someone I was hoping we could impress and turn into another ally in town. Well, he completey pissed us off first thing, and that didn't help. As the show was ending and he was helping to un-mic the drums, he told Josh, "You had me until Eli Whitney." Three songs in. It left a bad taste in my mouth since I was hoping he'd receive us like the guy at the French Quarter. It was also interesting because it was the first time we really got hit by negative feedback, especially bluntly, in any real form. Plenty of people come to see us and tell us how great we are after the show. Plenty of people clap and all, but we never get much in the way of criticism, good or bad. Some work friends of Kelly's have some problems with some technical aspects of our show, but it was the first time we faced anyone who either treated us like an asshole in a show setting or gave us negative feedback. I guess it shows that we're all going to have to develop some mighty thick skin if we're going to play more shows and try and push this record out to the far ends of the earth.

It All Sounds Good To Me

We have final mixes for 8 of the 13 songs!

The first 8 sound quite wonderful and only a few minor details need to be changed or looked at. Other than that, those are ready to be mastered.

The other 5 is a different story. Daniel Rice tried his best to finish what he could before taking off to Middle Earth. He has done quite alot of work on the other 5 songs and they sound delicious. The levels are all off and tracks are buried behind others. This is a sign of someone who has been putting alot of attention to every track. Kudos. Personally, the other 5 songs sounds great and just need the levels adjusted and panned out. It sounds as if he has finished all the editing and just needs to find the right balance on the tracks. As we have said before "this sounds great! and its not even mixed!!"-

I imagine the final mastered version will be in our hands in Feb. We are still looking at a digital February release and a march/april physical release. Just in time for my graduation! Weird isn't it?\

I cut my finger doing some work on my house and had to get stiches. This has kept me from playing guitar. I hope this won't impact our upcoming show next friday. It certainly didn't impact our practice. We were pretty kickass minus a guitar!

There are 3 shows for the month of January! Check our facebook and myspace for details!