what is going on in your musical life

:( 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?

I'm in mixing hell but with someone else's music this time. When I can, I'm working on mixing a recording of a jazz trio that I helped to record at a studio in Ottawa a few weeks ago.

i bought an ipad. excited to dive into the rabbit hole of drum and synth apps. already got the DM1 which is fun and flexible but doesn't seem to handle triplets well. i also have to figure out Audiobus and whatever audiobus-compatible DAW app seems best to get some external recordings thrown in. i'm psyched!

if anyone has any tips on the world of fast and cheap ipad programming & recording hmu

making music with an iPad

We did an evensong service at my church gig this past Sunday and I got to be the cantor. Apparently, singing a ton of text on one note is my musical sweet spot.

i met a cantor recently after his first gig at a new church and he seemed pretty pumped
i have too much to say so i will just post this weird new song i made yesterday
here

and ask how y'all doin
what is going on in your musical lives? ilx is so boring lately so i thought i would summon anyone willing to post to this thread.

do churches have cantors? i thought that was just a Jewish thing/term, but i haven't really thought about it since i was a kid.

Catholic and Anglican/Episcopalian churches can have cantors

Speaking of which I'm going to be cantoring one service a month on Wednesdays at my church gig

I am trying to think of the best, nicest way to extricate myself from a band that I don't really want to be in.

have or adopt a child, it's bulletproof.

or, tell them you're overscheduled and can't make them a priority

complain that someone appears to have unacceptably tampered with your gear and then say you will quit unless whoever's responsible confesses

oh also we have a concert coming up this Sunday of 20th century British choral music, some of which is terrible and some of which is holy shit amazing

for example, here is Paul Mealor's setting of "Ubi caritas", a song which apparently was also performed at the Prince William/Kate Middleton wedding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTrMIJKBwRU

fucking love this shit

i'm torn between saying that I'm just really depressed and don't really feel like being in any bands right now until I get my head sorted, which is kinda true,
or saying that I am not getting any creative input or gratification from being in this band.

the latter is most germane for my wanting to quit, but my bandmates are also personal friends, and I don't want to hurt their feelings more than I "have" to

will they try to get you to stay if you say you're not getting input/gratification?

the dynamic is that there are 3 of us in the band, and the singer is the leader, and she generally is open and appreciative of the contributions of the other two of us, but based on the "concept" of the band and the material she wants to do, there are very limited options for what I can do. For example, there isn't an option for "hey, what if I sang on this song?" because she can't play an instrument, so she would have nothing to do.

it is a cover band, and while we don't do the songs "straight," we don't experiment/fuck with the material as much as we could/as I would like. A few years back, I did express opinions that were at odds with what the singer/leader thought, and she kicked me out of the band, and then the band did nothing.

can you tell them that -- you'd like to stretch yourself a little more
i mean i don't understand "band dynamics" specifically but they're the same as human dynamics so considerate candor seems the best approach as long as it's not like an abusive or dire situation

considerate candor is definitely the way I want to go, and my friends/bandmates aren't stupid and can probably sense there's something going on. But, what I'd want to do, what would make me enjoy the band creatively, would entail a major revamp of what we've been doing, and that's not my call. It's the singer's band, and I'm just the bass player.

trying to guess what kind of cover band is comprised of a singer, a bass player and... a drummer (I assume)?

Morphine cover band

that's what I thought too lol but no saxophone?

Young Marble Giants?

we cover a variety of songs: singer, bass player, electronics is the line-up

sounds like you should just say that maybe you're not the right person for this job anymore, which is totally ok and a healthy thing to assert imo
i'm sure they can find another straight ahead bass player and you can do the things that make you happy and everyone can still be friends, no?

hopefully!

I put up a "single" for Halloween of two grim instrumentals:

(A side)
https://soundcloud.com/jon-lewis-37/stairway-nightmare

(B side)
https://soundcloud.com/jon-lewis-37/a-scratch-gives-away-the-lie

As with all the things on my soundcloud, written and recorded entirely in iOS using a mix of sample based instruments and synths.

(Idk if I have to remove the 'https' for soundcloud links like we do with YouTube links?)

Those links work, Jon. Great stuff!

My wife is singing the Pie Jesu from the Faurè Requiem tomorrow in church. I plan to record it. She doesn't know this yet.

I sang a solo last night from Mendelssohn's Elijah. It went pretty well, I think; one dude in the congregation asked me which conservatory I'd gone to because he wanted to know if I had ties to his, lol (in a roundabout way I do, since the guy who has been my primary private voice teacher is the head of vocal pedagogy at the place he had worked, but I was never a student there)

Also I've been watching the Facebook group of one of my former choirs work itself into a tizzy over how much they hate the auditioning conductor working with them on an 8 minute Bach motet because they feel he's talking down to them and belittling them and going super slowly with them... when a large number of them showed up at the first rehearsal not knowing how the piece went and being unable to sightread it. They are even now complaining about how he is workshopping notes with them and not letting them sing words when there are still sections where they are admitting that people are still making egregious note mistakes. Maybe I'm being snobby here but... it's kind of pathetic.