what is going on in your musical life

would love for you to elaborate on this.

i was recently talking to my gf about how i want to use a short sabbatical from work for a tour, and she was like "but i thought you don't love traveling, and don't care that much about playing live?" and those are very valid points.

i spent most of my 20s only going places if it was for a gig, so i got used to musical tourism. just taking a vacation without playing a show seems kind of anticlimactic, but i'm beginning to see the appeal.

Mm, it's tough to talk about. I could type for ages about it, lots of reasons, but in short the "moment of clarity" was recognizing that I do not wish to be a person whose occupation it is to play their songs from twenty-years-past to a crowd of nostalgia seekers. I respect those people, yes, but do not envy them, no matter the size of the crowd.

On a more self-critical note, I've had to tie my songwriting to a performance-practice that, although I've feel as though I've got to a point where the set is 100% winners, and I finally feel comfortable about my facility with the practice, I can't imagine the mindset of a person who would pay money to see a guy in his mid-30s looping his violin in 2015. Most of my irl friends haven't come to a show in eight years or so.

I bought a new cymbal (my first one I bought myself) today and changed my drum heads for the first time and I feel pretty stoked tbh.

I think touring seems extremely grueling but I love seeing live shows so ?! I've never played one locally or otherwise. Obvs I'd feel differently if I had had your exorcisms <--- I wrote experiences but it autocorrected lol

touring as a chorister rules pretty hardcore IMO

I've just got back from a short tour and it was awwwwwwwesome. I can see how doing long tours regularly would pale, I guess, as if you're doing it as basically a part of your job it isn't so much about going out and partying, but I love it.

I have been asked to play a "songwriter showcase" in about a month. The emphasis is on songwriters playing really stripped-down versions of their songs and talking about their "process" etc. I need advice on whether I should play by myself with acoustic guitar, which is the spirit of the thing but I am kind of uncomfortable with because it's going to be VERY white guy acoustic guitar singer-songwriter, or if I should cheat by having backing tracks of some kind to play over, which may be cheezy in its own way. I kind of want to have a big cassette boom box with my backing tracks on cassette, kind of like "Psycho Killer" at the beginning of "Stop Making Sense," but maybe this is equally pretentious and annoying? And I'd have to buy a boom box. I'm a little nervous about the whole thing bc I've never really played a set by myself, but also it's fun bc I haven't played live at all in a long time and it's nice to have something to work towards.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Monday, March 23, 2015 4:19 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is tomorrow and I'm pretty nervous about it. I don't usually get nervous about shows but I haven't played in a couple of years and am not used to playing by myself.

In other news, I'm supposed to record a theme song for a librarian podcast.

can you run through the set for any friends or strangers tonight? maybe do it over Skype/Hangouts for us.

just imagine that everyone in the audience is fully clothed, and you're naked

or something along those lines

Ha I actually played my set over Periscope a couple of times, it was funny playing to random internet people and a couple of Twitter friends. Maybe I'll do that again tonight or tomorrow. I half contemplated looking for an open mic to do while I was in Seattle to play live in front of total strangers but didn't get my shit together.

also, i assume everyone does this, but when i'm preparing for a big show or learning a song, i do a ton of visualization (not intentionally, just automatically). it cuts down on nerves a lot for me and makes the show feel like a familiar situation, unless something really unexpected happens. 'unexpected' always means belligerent sound people.

tbrr i would like to have a playing live experience so i can stop stressing out about doing it for the first time
i just wanna do it but i don't know how tbh -- are there open mic nights for drummers? looks like jazz dude workshop isn't the place for me, at least not right now. not sure how to proceed in a dignified manner.

you're gonna be fine n/a!!

looks like the spiritual ensemble I sing with is quietly imploding

:(

Aw man that sucks

I borrowed a mandolin and am now understanding why certain songs I'd tried to learn on guitar in the past all came out sounding wrong

Im taking personal info out of my lyrics cause screw that !

How did it go, NA?

tbrr i would like to have a playing live experience so i can stop stressing out about doing it for the first time
i just wanna do it but i don't know how tbh -- are there open mic nights for drummers? looks like jazz dude workshop isn't the place for me, at least not right now. not sure how to proceed in a dignified manner.

Do you have a set of material that you could do solo?

the first time I played drums live was on a radio show on a temporary station operating out of a storefront so people could come and watch. Maybe something like that?

Do you have a set of material that you could do solo?

good q -- i've been thinking about this and my answer is "idk". it depends on so many things -- is it acceptable to play drums over a bunch of songs that don't have drums if no one will recognize the songs because they are ancient (like hundreds of years old) or relatively unknown? (my guess is no) can i play originals with a backing track? (maybe?) i kind of can't get past the hurdle of what might be acceptable, but technically and physically yeah i could do this no problem.

i'd like to know how to use pedals and loops to layer sounds. one of the coolest solo drum shows i've ever seen was just one drum, voice, and layered sound. it was amazing. thank you for your help!

sorry about your spiritual implosion djp
i do like the phrase spiritual implosion though

Zach Hill has done shows where he plays drums with pre-recorded backing tracks.

How did it go, NA?

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Saturday, April 25, 2015 11:25 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pretty good! Here's my set, if you want to witness the most awkward stage banter ever and how I wince literally every time I make even the smallest mistake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp17iu4TSgs

We played our first live show since NYE at the weekend and I had a great time. The set was easily twice as long as we're used to playing - 12 songs long - so that was a nice revelation as well. It was in a busy pub on a Saturday night and our music isn't necessarily suited to that kind of thing. There was a group of people dancing frantically to even our slowest song but I spoke to one of them after and it was clear she was on a pill or something. Lots of people said they liked it but I'm never sure if it was out of politeness or not. Someone I sort of know had written 'please turn this band off' on FB at the time so evidently it wasn't to everyone's tastes, but I guess if everyone liked it we'd be doing it wrong. Fun times!

i kind of can't get past the hurdle of what might be acceptable

i think anything is acceptable once you do it. and playing drums over ancient + unknown songs is way better than doing it over new + known songs.

ok! that helps! i'm going to try to put something together and maybe i can find some regular weirdo performance series that will let me do it.

NA it was not that awkward, it was pretty normal for stage banter! The worst is when someone just sits down, starts playing, then says thanks (maybe) at the end and walks off.

co-op space i help run got broken into and robbed twice in the last week. none of my stuff got taken, but the boutique record store up front got cleaned out.

!! where was this?

West Oakland

:( sorry

Wow, that sucks.

proggy guitartronic thing

I think this master sounds better, although I feel like I play it much better now than when I recorded it (always seems to happen that way). I performed on the 9th and felt like that was probably the best gig I've played, even with a couple of glitches from my aging Macbook. It was a really good night with a couple of out-of-town performers and beer and pie. I imagine that it might be the last gig I play for a little while.

Just sang my last church gig of the season: went out on a Finzi piece I hadn't sung since college, which was fun

I'm really mad that I packed my microphone away so well because I've been dying to record some vocal stuff that's been spinning around in my head and I refuse to buy another mic just because I can't identify which box has my current one.

A new guy started in our band! We've been looking for a fourth person to get involved for years now with literally no takers. out the blue, this fella about the same age as us, sends an fb message saying he's just moved to the area, played in bands since 2000, written songs, likes our stuff, happy to get as involved as we want him to, got his own rig, transport etc.. So we all met up and had a pint and then a jam and it all went remarkably well!

La Lechera and I made a tune! She posted our gong and theremin jam here:

https://soundcloud.com/marshmallowy/gong-song-hieromax

nice! LL, you in Maine now?

No I was just there on vacay and there was a gong in the cabin we stayed in! It was a small one but the first gong I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

:D

carlpalmer.jpg

Years ago, I started a band with some of my co-workers as a fun thing to do for a company talent show. Our bass player, who didn't work with us, had been in a bunch of Boston-area bands and had enough connections for us to play out a few times; this led to us writing a bunch of songs and working with a local producer to record a bunch of them before a spectacular implosion led us to break up. (To be clear, said implosion was all situational and had little-to-nothing to do with how we all got along; in fact, it's probably the most spectacular amiable breakup story ever considering it involves two separate hospitalizations and the dissolution of a marriage.)

Our musical influences didn't overlap very much; I was the industrial/dance/goth dude who didn't actually play an instrument, the guitarist was a big Van Halen/Foo Fighters head, the drummer was a big metal dude (think Enslaved/Opeth/Satyricon/Therion) and the bass player used to be in a swing-ska band but was currently spending most of his time rerecording 80s post-punk/alternative songs as mellow synth pieces and was super into Christian rock bands. Our songwriting overlap led to relatively generic garage rock with a couple of trick things here and there, layered in with lyrics that got increasingly more despondent and gothy as we went along; we started out writing relatively generic unrequited love songs and then I started writing songs about amoral murderous monsters, suicides, and in one particular case a bouncy, happy love song that was all about how awesome meth is (note: not written from personal experience). Also, as a nod to our original incarnation before we started writing our own songs, we did a goofy cover of "Creep".

I was listening to some of our demos recently and I think there are nuggets of good songs buried in some of the stuff we did; a lot of it is kind of generic but (I hope) not offensively so. I reached out to the other guys and found out the guitarist had thrown all of our stuff up on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/jorcutt/sets/smile

Have at it, guys. I have my own sentimental favorites but I'm curious if anyone else likes any of this stuff.

I did karaoke last night and it made me really miss playing shows/performing.

that's how i feel every time i've ever done karaoke, only it's longing not missing
in other news, today is my 2 year drummiversary!

congrats!!!!

like the album, DJP. you can sing. sure wish I could sing. the melody on 'smile' has a nice contour.

I've rediscovered playing solo after a long stretch of mainly doing collaborations. I had burned out in a big way on audio collage, but all those iOS synthesis apps have me constantly jamming & evolving these little patches and suddenly there's this interesting freeform live set that sounds sufficiently different from the old stuff. Serious relief to be playing solo again.

relief in what way? as in confidence in your ability? sense of control? optimism for the future?

Thanks, Milton! "Smile" is the guitarist's favorite song. Mine is either "Gold Rush", "Amnesia" or "Turn Away". "Seeing You There" is actually a super old song I wrote when I was 16 that I resurrected for the band but, since it's loosely about my dead brother, I hesitate to call it a favorite.

know what you mean there

xp couldn't turn down any of those band projects from the last few years, but I was beginning to feel a little subsumed. it's mainly fun to be playing with a completely different concept and still have it turn out recognizable

we're now at a stage where we're near to completing about an hour's worth of finished music and wondering what to do with it. we're keen to get ourselves heard but knowing the best way to do this is tricky. we love all the material, but it's highly eclectic and the style switches from song to song - some have rock backing, others electronic backing and others a more acousitc backing - although maybe that's part of us and what we do (it's all our work at the end of the day).

so i'm wondering whether to just release this digitally on bandcamp and do a name your own price thing, or get some cds burnt and somehow send these out to blogs, record labels, festivals, venues etc. like, is it even worth doing the latter these days?