Well, it looks like maintaining this site won't be all that time-consuming, other than sifting through the mass of demo tracks that have accumulated over the last several years, in search of the handful that don't feature embarrassingly off-key vocals or otherwise cringe-worthy performance elements. Problem is, I've never been one for doing "full production" demos, and instead have always favored the quickie approach of just dropping in a drum track(if even, more than half of the stuff is just live vocal & acoustic guitar), adding some guitars, plunking away on the bass in such a fashion that it sounds roughly like a bass-player did it for me, and finally adding whatever vocal ideas I have...usually all in a single pass for each, or until it doesn't thoroughly agitate me to hear it in playback. 99.9% of the time, I'm not that concerned with the overall presentation, so long as whoever I'm attempting to interest in performing the song(usually my band at the time) can wrap their head around the idea, and appreciate it's eventual true worth. These are rarely designed to ever be consumed by any other listeners. That leaves me with the task of selecting unique content for this site, in order to keep it interesting, without offending anyone's selective tastes with a bevy of lo-fi ear-turds. This is more difficult than you would think, but as a man on a mission, I will persevere until said task is seen through to completion.....even if it means dusting off some potentially shameful oldies and compromising my long-standing cool. ;)
Since my inaugural post, fORMER have been busy, dealing with the business of getting together the pieces that will make this new record complete. We shot new photos with Gabe McCurdy on Saturday. Gabe did the most recent pics for The Great Affairs and Henry's other band Katie Kerkhover & The Die Nasties. Billy has cooked up a cool concept for the cover art, and these shots were designed to tie-in with the television mock-up some of you may have seen on our FaceBook page or elsewhere. Things ran smoother than Henry's newly-waxed chest, and we should have some proofs back in a week or so, that Billy will be able to work his editing magic on.
In the meantime, after a couple of rehearsals this week, we're back to work at The Switchyard, cutting what will likely be the last of the tracks for the new album, "Drown", "Head Light", & "Fix You", as well as "Do It All Again", a track for our buddy Shane Tassart of Best Of Seven, for a project he's working on.
From there, we'll get down to the business of putting together our set for Nashville Rock: Stripped on the 15th. Yes, Henry will be playing an old-school upright bass for most, if not all, of the set, and we are going to play songs from the first record that we have NEVER played as a full band....songS, as in plural, so you know that this will be one not to miss, because once the new record is out, we're going to have a lot more tunes to choose from, and some of the usual suspects are going to be seeing the bench, or maybe even the shelf. I'll be sad to see some of them go, but we have to make room for the new kids.
In other news of interest(to me, at least) The Great Affairs "Happy Ender" digital EP has been selling well, according to a small deposit made to my bank account recently. I thank you all for that. In fact, I just got off the phone with Kool Kat Musik, and they are going to press a physical exclusive of the EP, expanded to LP with yet-to-be-determined bonus tracks. These might be demos of songs that didn't make the record, live tracks, or most likely a combination of both. I just need to weed through the archives to see what we've got that fits the bill. I'll post a release date as soon as the details are worked out.
I spent the weekend drinking too much, and eating far more than my body required to sustain itself, but managed to survive nonetheless. Caught the NY Dolls/Poison/Motley Crue show on Sunday, where I was able to hook up with my former Best Of Seven bandmate Mr. Rob(The R.O.B./Bullit) Wood, who was working the tour, and my buddy Robert "Ragman" Long, who scored us some amazing seats. Looks like I'll be seeing these guys again in late August when I head back out to L.A. to pick up work on Joshua Ketchmark's record. I'll be out for 4 or 5 days, writing and demoing the next batch of tunes for that, and hopefully catching up with a few other folks and projects while I'm there. At the bare minimum, I'll be getting some In N Out Burger, and Del Taco, so it's a win/win, whether a single song gets finished or not.
I hope everybody had a good 4th of July, I know I did, courtesy of Sea Dog Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale, and some great company. See some of you on the 15th.
Denny