Lately I feel like all of these entries are beginning with my standard apology – sorry for the infrequent updates. Things have been hectic but fun on tour. This is our first legitimate national touring experience, and god damn are we getting an education.
The northeastern dates were an absolute blast – Detroit, Lansing, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, Philly. We were opening for Under the Influence of Giants and Young Love, with occasional appearances by Play Radio Play who we joined up with later full time. Not the most gargantuan shows we’ve ever played, but great venues and great audiences of music lovers. We’re meeting lots of people and getting out in some cities that we’ve never seen.
The bands are great, and sonically right up our alley. It’s the next level of professionalism and killer stage shows. I enjoyed rocking out every night to Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love. And they like to party. It can be tough keeping up with their tour bus with our zigzag tour routing, they drive through the night and we do our best to keep up but we made it work and still had time to bond.
Then things got complicated.
After an awesome Boston show, the Giants had to pull off the tour for an undetermined amount of time due to a family emergency, and Young Love had to do the same. That left only us and Play Radio Play for the rest of the tour.
We had a few days off in Philly to take care of some business, which was nice. I caught up on some backing vocals, and we traded in our Ford Expedition and trailer for a sweet new van. Despite the lack of headliners, our Philly show was amazing. We were so thrilled by the great turnout and want to thank everyone for schlepping out to the North Star to rock out with us. We had such a great time, and played our first real, unplanned encore. We were completely unprepared, but it made us feel like rockstars. Thanks again to everyone from Philly / NJ / DE for making it out! We’ll remember it forever.
The next day, our van wasn’t ready until 3pm and we had to leave for Boston late. Leaving with the trailer, we realized the van didn’t have the proper hitch height and had to turn back, reacquire the Expedition, reattach the trailer, and run like hell for Boston. We barely made it, but the show was great. We saw a bunch of our D.C. friends and got loaded with some hot moms in the parking lot. We didn’t make the Virginia Beach show, unfortunately, because corrective work on the van took too long. We made it to the venue on time to play, but the club didn’t want to have us load in late despite PRP’s accommodating offer to let us share all their stuff. Oh well.
In the Southeast, we’re driving a lot, and sleeping little. But the crowds have been awesome. Charlotte and the ATL were amazing shows where we met many fine Americans. Play Radio Play cleans up around there, and put on a great show.
So now we’re in Florida by ourselves, as PRP are at the Cornerstone festival. Mikey Hynes is keeping us in very high spirits. Its tough finding space and privacy to do the backing vocals, but here and there we’re able to set up in weird places – our new friend Aaron’s bedroom, our van in a parking lot, 20 minutes in a hotel room. Trying to save money, we tried sleeping in the car today between 7am and noon in Florida heat. It was generally unsatisfying. And sticky. If we do that we’ll have to do it at night.
So there’s the update. We’ll try to be on top of it in the future.
See you soon,
Matt
Showing posts with label Vocals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vocals. Show all posts
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Recording Ends - Tour Begins
Dear all:
Recording is unofficially over, and thus begins the tour blog. I had a grueling week of vocals with mixer Christopher James, getting through all the leads and the vast majority of backing vocals. Everything sounds great, and without the rest of the band I was able to eat at Taco Bell every single night. Delicious. However, we completely ran out of time without finishing six backing vocal tracks. Not wanting to cancel or delay the tour, I will do backing vocals for the remaining tracks on my own in Philly.
In my downtime I had some nice lunches with Peter Torres and manager John Davis. Our friend Jeremy Levy was in town on business and pleasure, and I got to hang out with him on occasion as well. It was during this time that I was pulled over for the worst traffic stop clusterfuck of all time:
1: I pulled into the wrong driveway of a hotel by accident. In attempting to back out of the driveway and onto the street, I was stopped for making an illegal U-Turn (which I wasn’t actually doing)
2: Our rental car had two of three brake lights out, which I am theoretically liable for.
3: I was not carrying my insurance card as again, I was in a rental car. Apparently this does not matter to the state of California.
All told this may add up to $500 + dollars in fines and points on my license. Hopefully the judge will be understanding at my court date.
I also missed Dan Brown’s bachelor party in Vegas, which was disappointing. Rumor has it there was wall to wall gambling and drinking with very little sleep.
But all inconvenience aside, we started our tour on Saturday, which is fucking awesome. I left the studio at 1:30 am Saturday morning, packed my bags, and was picked up to go to LAX at 4am. McKenzie and I met up at the Detroit airport and cabbed it to the venue there. Larkin and Briks, having spent the week at home preparing and gathering supplies for the tour, had driven from Philly the night before.
Its great to be playing live again. We’re on tour with Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love, two IDJ bands who are right up are alley stylistically. Later we’ll be joined by PlayRadioPlay! from Philly back to LA.
I’ll give you a more complete update on the first leg of the tour after the Philly show…
See you soon.
Matt
Recording is unofficially over, and thus begins the tour blog. I had a grueling week of vocals with mixer Christopher James, getting through all the leads and the vast majority of backing vocals. Everything sounds great, and without the rest of the band I was able to eat at Taco Bell every single night. Delicious. However, we completely ran out of time without finishing six backing vocal tracks. Not wanting to cancel or delay the tour, I will do backing vocals for the remaining tracks on my own in Philly.
In my downtime I had some nice lunches with Peter Torres and manager John Davis. Our friend Jeremy Levy was in town on business and pleasure, and I got to hang out with him on occasion as well. It was during this time that I was pulled over for the worst traffic stop clusterfuck of all time:
1: I pulled into the wrong driveway of a hotel by accident. In attempting to back out of the driveway and onto the street, I was stopped for making an illegal U-Turn (which I wasn’t actually doing)
2: Our rental car had two of three brake lights out, which I am theoretically liable for.
3: I was not carrying my insurance card as again, I was in a rental car. Apparently this does not matter to the state of California.
All told this may add up to $500 + dollars in fines and points on my license. Hopefully the judge will be understanding at my court date.
I also missed Dan Brown’s bachelor party in Vegas, which was disappointing. Rumor has it there was wall to wall gambling and drinking with very little sleep.
But all inconvenience aside, we started our tour on Saturday, which is fucking awesome. I left the studio at 1:30 am Saturday morning, packed my bags, and was picked up to go to LAX at 4am. McKenzie and I met up at the Detroit airport and cabbed it to the venue there. Larkin and Briks, having spent the week at home preparing and gathering supplies for the tour, had driven from Philly the night before.
Its great to be playing live again. We’re on tour with Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love, two IDJ bands who are right up are alley stylistically. Later we’ll be joined by PlayRadioPlay! from Philly back to LA.
I’ll give you a more complete update on the first leg of the tour after the Philly show…
See you soon.
Matt
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Days 29 - 40 - The Home Stretch
Dear all –
Once again I apologize for the tremendous lag in our blog postings. I promise that in the future I’ll be more on top of the ball. Things have gotten a little crazy and busy. Maybe a lot crazy and busy. I’ll boil down some of the recent happenings:
April 18th: We played our first show in a month, and our first official non-showcase LA gig at the Viper Room, the Sunset Strip’s famous decadent rock club. It felt great to play live again, despite our studio rustiness. The label types, producers, and booking agents all showed up in addition to many strangers, all of which had very nice things to say. It was also nice to drink again. We drank many tequila shots, which I hereby christen the Liam and Me party drink of choice. This should come as no surprise to most of you.
April 20th: We’re hardcore into the vocals, and a bit behind schedule. Jeff and Matt have gone above and beyond the call of production duty, investing time and energy to the point where it’s encroaching on upcoming projects. Thanks to flexibility and improvisation, we have an extra week of studio time where I’ll do vocals with Christopher James in his studio space, freeing up Matt and Jeff to play catch up and do some edits. Mr. James is our mixing engineer, who also did the Hellogoodbye record, was Self’s keyboard player, and has a long and rich pop /rock /R&B pedigree, including a little platinum on the wall.
April 21st: Today is my birthday. This morning I drove the rest of the band to the airport. Larkin and Briks are returning to Philly to prepare for our tour, and McKenzie has his grandfather’s funeral. After dropping the rest of the band off, I returned to our now empty hostel suite to enjoy some rare privacy. It was great. I lounged around all day, read books and drank coffee. Later that evening I saw my friend Sam’s band The Jackal Headed Front play, which I’d been looking forward to for about three years. It was a great time with lots of prog production trickery. Then I had some Whiskey drinks. Delish.
April 23d: Started vocals in Chris James’s place. It’s a great studio that used to belong to a film scorer. Huge SSL board, great outboard gear, a custom designed space with sexy dimmers, and a massive screen for projecting films, TV, or protools sessions. It was slightly unusual adjusting from Jeff’s production style to Chris’s, but were tearing through at record pace and getting some good shit done.
April 26: The producers and managers (John Davis, Jeff Surnow, Gary Richards, Matt, Jeff, Chris) all got together to listen to the tracks and talk strategy. I was forbidden from attending (they didn’t want to have to coddle sensitive artist types). Apparently everyone was extremely excited about the material, and we’re going to have a finished product by June 1st. Excoiting stuff. Had lunch with Davis, Jeremy Levy arrived in town to hang out before our friend Dan’s bachelor party.
There is much work to do and a relatively short time in which to do it, but everyone should expect a great record with fabulous sounding tracks.
Updated celebrity encounters: Shirley Manson, Alain Whyte, and that guy from that one movie you know, yeah, that one.
More updates soon. I’ll see you on the road…
Matt
Once again I apologize for the tremendous lag in our blog postings. I promise that in the future I’ll be more on top of the ball. Things have gotten a little crazy and busy. Maybe a lot crazy and busy. I’ll boil down some of the recent happenings:
April 18th: We played our first show in a month, and our first official non-showcase LA gig at the Viper Room, the Sunset Strip’s famous decadent rock club. It felt great to play live again, despite our studio rustiness. The label types, producers, and booking agents all showed up in addition to many strangers, all of which had very nice things to say. It was also nice to drink again. We drank many tequila shots, which I hereby christen the Liam and Me party drink of choice. This should come as no surprise to most of you.
April 20th: We’re hardcore into the vocals, and a bit behind schedule. Jeff and Matt have gone above and beyond the call of production duty, investing time and energy to the point where it’s encroaching on upcoming projects. Thanks to flexibility and improvisation, we have an extra week of studio time where I’ll do vocals with Christopher James in his studio space, freeing up Matt and Jeff to play catch up and do some edits. Mr. James is our mixing engineer, who also did the Hellogoodbye record, was Self’s keyboard player, and has a long and rich pop /rock /R&B pedigree, including a little platinum on the wall.
April 21st: Today is my birthday. This morning I drove the rest of the band to the airport. Larkin and Briks are returning to Philly to prepare for our tour, and McKenzie has his grandfather’s funeral. After dropping the rest of the band off, I returned to our now empty hostel suite to enjoy some rare privacy. It was great. I lounged around all day, read books and drank coffee. Later that evening I saw my friend Sam’s band The Jackal Headed Front play, which I’d been looking forward to for about three years. It was a great time with lots of prog production trickery. Then I had some Whiskey drinks. Delish.
April 23d: Started vocals in Chris James’s place. It’s a great studio that used to belong to a film scorer. Huge SSL board, great outboard gear, a custom designed space with sexy dimmers, and a massive screen for projecting films, TV, or protools sessions. It was slightly unusual adjusting from Jeff’s production style to Chris’s, but were tearing through at record pace and getting some good shit done.
April 26: The producers and managers (John Davis, Jeff Surnow, Gary Richards, Matt, Jeff, Chris) all got together to listen to the tracks and talk strategy. I was forbidden from attending (they didn’t want to have to coddle sensitive artist types). Apparently everyone was extremely excited about the material, and we’re going to have a finished product by June 1st. Excoiting stuff. Had lunch with Davis, Jeremy Levy arrived in town to hang out before our friend Dan’s bachelor party.
There is much work to do and a relatively short time in which to do it, but everyone should expect a great record with fabulous sounding tracks.
Updated celebrity encounters: Shirley Manson, Alain Whyte, and that guy from that one movie you know, yeah, that one.
More updates soon. I’ll see you on the road…
Matt
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Days 23 - 28 - Vocals / Piano / Guitar
Sorry for the infrequent updates. We're coming down to the wire, having finished out the guitars, adding the last few instrumental flourishes and ripping into the vocals and piano. We've been split up into two different studios all week, which has proven to be very effective.
Jeff and I are in the main studio working on synths, vocals, piano, rhodes, and assorted other stuff. Matt has Dan, Jon, and McKenzie in his fabulous home studio working on all manner of guitar craziness and elaborate percussion arrangements on certain tracks. We're operating at maximum efficiency.
The good news is, pretty much all the instrumentals are finished and sounding fantastic. The sound is rocking and powerful with an extremely diverse array of tones and dynamics. The guitar arrangements drive with synths and pianos filling in the gaps. A&R Peter Torres stopped by on Friday and seemed very happy with the sound of even the raw tracks.
The bad news is we have about a week to knock out vocals for 11 tracks, and under the studio microscope the quality of my voice can be hit or miss. I had a great day on Thursday and knocked the hell out of "Pretty Black Dress". Friday things weren't feeling quite as magical vocally, but we did git done the bulk of piano work.
This weekend our good friend and fabulous guitar player Aaron Kipnis flew out to LA specifically to play one glorious guitar solo on the record. I have yet to hear it, but apparently it rules so hard that no one will shut up. I can't wait.
Otherwise we've been workaholics, keeping our social lives responsibly low key. On Friday night we kicked it in the home of producer Jeff Turzo. We drank beer and wine, and Jeff was inspired to make everyone gourmet cheesesteaks at 1am, after someone made an offhand comment about Pat's and Geno's. Also, we learned that Jeff has not one but two hot wives. Who would have thought that the more demure producer maintains a harem? Later Larkin and I attended an after hours speakeasy in Silver Lake replete with secret password and attractive Japanese servers.
The rest of the weekend was spent quietly entertaining Mr. Kipnis, consisting largely of LA-only fast food joints, drugs, sex, rock and roll. He leaves tomorrow morning full of In n' Out Burger and happy memories.
Back in the fracas tomorrow morning. Wish us luck...
Matt
Jeff and I are in the main studio working on synths, vocals, piano, rhodes, and assorted other stuff. Matt has Dan, Jon, and McKenzie in his fabulous home studio working on all manner of guitar craziness and elaborate percussion arrangements on certain tracks. We're operating at maximum efficiency.
The good news is, pretty much all the instrumentals are finished and sounding fantastic. The sound is rocking and powerful with an extremely diverse array of tones and dynamics. The guitar arrangements drive with synths and pianos filling in the gaps. A&R Peter Torres stopped by on Friday and seemed very happy with the sound of even the raw tracks.
The bad news is we have about a week to knock out vocals for 11 tracks, and under the studio microscope the quality of my voice can be hit or miss. I had a great day on Thursday and knocked the hell out of "Pretty Black Dress". Friday things weren't feeling quite as magical vocally, but we did git done the bulk of piano work.
This weekend our good friend and fabulous guitar player Aaron Kipnis flew out to LA specifically to play one glorious guitar solo on the record. I have yet to hear it, but apparently it rules so hard that no one will shut up. I can't wait.
Otherwise we've been workaholics, keeping our social lives responsibly low key. On Friday night we kicked it in the home of producer Jeff Turzo. We drank beer and wine, and Jeff was inspired to make everyone gourmet cheesesteaks at 1am, after someone made an offhand comment about Pat's and Geno's. Also, we learned that Jeff has not one but two hot wives. Who would have thought that the more demure producer maintains a harem? Later Larkin and I attended an after hours speakeasy in Silver Lake replete with secret password and attractive Japanese servers.
The rest of the weekend was spent quietly entertaining Mr. Kipnis, consisting largely of LA-only fast food joints, drugs, sex, rock and roll. He leaves tomorrow morning full of In n' Out Burger and happy memories.
Back in the fracas tomorrow morning. Wish us luck...
Matt
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