NOVEMBER 2010 UPDATE

Nancy and I are still on hiatus from arranging more shows. We've continued to attract more artists to the database, including hip-hop, electronica, and dance folks. A few of those are interested in helping with sound effects or adding atmosphere and texture to the background of a song. This will be particularly helpful for those looking to get a pop sound.

Old MacDonald
The highlight of the last month was the completion and posting of Old MacDonald. There is a lot of effort in this song and it shows. First I searched the web for free animal sound bites. It was actually more difficult than you might think. Many of the good recordings are copywrite and for pay. One group offers a CD with unlimited use for $499!! I should have recorded all my animals when I had the farm in upstate NY. I could have made more from that than my songs!

Anyway, I programmed drums which I spent about 5-6 hours. They are buried deep in the mix but I think the work really paid off, even though you can't really hear all the work I put in. You can feel it the way the song bounces along. I laid down guitar very quickly, but had to practice the mandolin an hour a day for about a week before I could play that so it felt good and natural. I used my synthesizer to put the bass and the banjo in and played both of those live. I decided which animals to do and spent hours cutting sound bites that I liked, cataloging and saving them. I cut the vocals including harmony in about an hour.

The majority of my effort went into getting my grandson's voice clips and mixing. We had a bucket of animals and I coaxed him into saying things. I have about 15 minutes taken over three sessions with him. It was really difficult to balance his bites because he did not stay still in front of the mic. Sometimes he was on top of it and even bumping it, while other times he was a foot or more away. I had to pull in the far stuff and back off the close stuff. I then cut out about 20 clips totaling about 1 minute. After choosing the clips I wanted, I decided where to place them in the song. I also had to add some speaking parts for me that went along with the clips. I did a lot of tedious cutting and pasting to get the clips to sound conversational. All in all I probably have 35-40 hours in this song spread over two months. I'm very happy with the result.

I've listened to literally hundreds of Utah artists posted on Reverb Nation, some on My Space, and some on Face Book. Not counting established acts, many are hobbyists like me, some are earnestly trying to raise their craft to a level to make a career. There are some very good voices, instrumentation, home production, etc. going on, but a lot of us are still trying to pull all of these together. That's one of our goals - to help people find others to compliment their strengths.

Here are a few real stand outs in my opinion:

Tim Pearce - www.reverbnation.com/timpearce Tim's music is very genuine, very refreshing and from the heart. He possesses true soul and it comes through in his writing, guitar playing, singing and overall performance. For home recordings, his production is very high quality as well. I can't put a genre label on his music other than acoustic. It's not folk, it's not rock, but it is personal and demands to be listened to on a personal level; a true natural talent. Someone I would consider an "artist' that has forged his on path in the tradition of Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and others that defy categorization.

Dusk One - www.reverbnation.com/duskraps this rapper is intelligent and his lyrics show that. He has something to say and is inventive with his beats and background tracks. I particularly like his haunting slide guitar in “Black Lungs”. Unfortunately about half the songs on the site are collaborations with others. Skip those and go to his solo stuff. He is relatively clean as far as this genre goes, but as a warning there are a few explicatives. Also, his recordings are professional studio quality; ready for airplay. My endorsement is all the more meaningful as I am generally not a fan of this genre.

Steven Halliday - www.reverbnation.com/stevenhalliday marry Jack Johnson with Jason Mraz and you get Steven Halliday’s pop sound. He’s not really an amateur as he is on the verge of breaking out. He has an album recorded with full band arrangements in a professional studio and he has started playing frequently in Utah and Idaho. His weakness may be his songwriting, although its good can be trite at times. I’m confident he will mature as a writer. His vocal performances more than compensate for any weakness in lyrics. He has a very radio friendly sound.

Honorable mentions:

Cache Valley Cartel (CVC) - www.reverbnation.com/cvctheband these guys have a unique blend of pop/rock/hip hop/dance/funk. Songs are a bit catchy as well.

Audible Static aka Russell Elliot - “Hot Girls Aren’t Worth It” www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfBS-k3s2Lg and www.reverbnation.com/audiblestatic This song and video is a lot of fun! He is techno, his recordings are professional, but so far a one-hit-wonder on my charts.

Stankbot Tryanny - www.reverbnation.com/stankbottyranny OK, these guys aren’t that great (sorry fellas). Their songs are a bit immature and they have a real garage rock sound. But hey, they are pre-teens; the drummer is just 10 years old and wails away like John Bonham! (Salt Lake Tribune) They are also masters at self promotion, quickly rising to #1 on Reverb Nation and staying there; and featured on Reverb Nation's home page (quite a feat). In just a few months they have garnered some 15,000 registered fans, radio airplay, and courtship with record labels.

As for me –
I am recording “State of Confusion” and will be adding Blake Smith’s harmonica to my backing tracks. I will also be posting a couple of songs from the tapes I recovered. I recently posted “Carry On” and will shortly post “Get While the Getting’s Good” and “Gone, Gone, Gone.”

OCTOBER 2010 UPDATE

My database of area musicians continues to grow and I have identified quite a few that are willing to work with other musicians. Also a lot that will do house concerts. 

The last show was a lot of fun. Not attended as well as we hoped with only about 50 people, but fun. We had Randy Moser, Austin Jones, Half Cowboy, Sons of Other Mothers, and me. Everyone had some great tunes.

Randy's got such a cool feel and does not do predictable stuff with the guitar. He played exceptional clean.

Austin was solid! He has a great country voice and presence. I did not detect any mistakes. He played one cover but his originals blew that away, especially a tune titled "Six String and a Strap".

Half Cowboy really tightened up their act and harmonies were nice and tight. Really love "Saturated" and they did an awesome job.

Sons of Other Mothers were missing one son, but Alan Sanders carried the load very well. Their playing is always tight and Alan does such sweet things with the acoustic guitar.

I played fairly well but did flub a few obvious places. I played "Army Man" and "Blame it on the Woman", two songs I have not played for a while. I played a new one "State of Confusion" and Blake from the Sons joined me with his harmonica. That song was a blast.

We may not do anything until after Christmas. Meanwhile I will be focusing on the choir for Christmas and  I am recording a bunch of my tunes as simple acoustics exactly the way I perform them by myself. I've laid down "Blame it on the Woman" and "Army Man". I posted Army Man. I'm redoing "Blame it" in another key to see if it sounds better. I'm also working on "Old MacDonald" for a collection of songs from my grandsons. It will be called "Pop Pop Sings!"

Excitement!! There's gold in that there box!!! I found a box in storage full of old tape cassette recordings! I thought it had been lost forever. It is tapes of my original songs over the years, covers, practice sessions and work from my bands Millenium, Blackstone, and Man Overboard. Also some choirs I sang with, some collaboration with Dan Pellitier and Doug Parrish. And professional recordings of my dad's fiddle tunes and his bluegrass band Kinfolk!

Tapes piled all around the mixer! I'm transferring some of these to digital.

Most importantly I found 10 tapes of my "bits and pieces"!!! These are ideas and thoughts I put down over the years. There is over twelve hours of ideas! I'm sure this will get my juices flowing so expect a lot of new stuff to start coming out.

The stack on the right is my original songs, back left is covers, and the front stack is "Bits and Pieces"!

IDEAS!!!

SEPTEMBER 2010 UPDATE

I've decided to post once a month. This past month I've taken a new direction. I have long been trying to figure out what to do with my music. It's something inside me that I have always had to do and will just keep doing. I have to write and I have to perform and I want to improve. But I don't intend to make a living off music. You have to be great; better than great. I'm good at writing, good at performing, but not great. And I am old :)

I was inspired at Summer Jam West by Michael Azcon's story. He is an entertainment lawyer. As a kid he loved music, but he was not a good singer or musician and couldn't write, but he knew he had to be involved with music. He found out that there was a profession in the industry for lawyers, so he became an entertainment lawyer working with artists in that capacity.

So what can I do? Well, Nancy and I have seen some performers and songwriters that have potential. We have also met some very nice people. These people need to come together and help each other and take their songs, their recordings, and their performances to the next level. Perhaps a group might be formed that would have never met otherwise. I know for me that I can only get so far by myself. So our goal is to organize one concert a month to showcase performers and bring people together. We can all work on more than one project; help each other with writing, recording, etc.

I've sent invites to a lot of area musicians on Reverb Nation and had a fairly good response of about 30% joining up and interested. Are next show is again at the Larsen's big backyard this Friday 9/24. We've lined up Half Cowboy, Randy Moser, Austin Jones, Sons of Other Mothers, and me. I had hoped that Tim Pearce, Whitney Blaine, and JC Cody might do a few tunes and I could opt out if needed. But they have other commitments.

I've also been working on some older songs and one new one so I can play some fresh material this week. I will also be recording these in the basement in a live acoustic format before the performance. Hopefully I'll be happy enough with these to put them on the site. I will be pulling off some of the songs on the Reverb Nation site and putting up some new ones to keep it fresh.

Preparing set list for Larsen show Friday

I brushed off some older songs and I will definitely be playing "Hidden Meadow Song" which I have never played on stage before. It hasn't been recorded either. My voice isn't able to sustain the high notes in the chorus of "Coming Home". I can if I drop the guitar down a step or two, but I don't have enough guitars to have one ready in that tuning and I don't want to waste time detuning on stage. I'm considering "Where You Are" but I am reworking the bridge because I can't sing it the way it is written because a few notes are too high. Dang how age plays with your vocal range. However I met some vocal coaches at Summer Jam West that teach SSL (speech level singing) that say they can increase my range. I should take at least one lesson with Dean Kaelin.

Summer Jam West was a blast!

A lot of top industry people came out and spent valuable time visiting with us and teaching us various aspects of the music industry, production, singing, writing, networking, and on and on. There is no way I could have gotten all the personal time I had with these people through normal channels. I made some new friends and reacquainted myself with some old ones; a great networking opportunity. I don't have aspirations to be a star, but there is something in me that says I have to write and perform regardless and it is extremely rewarding to make a connection with someone through my music. Summer Jam solidified what my goals are for the next little while. Number one is to help build a thriving music community in Salt Lake. Number two is to keep learning about writing and production and perfecting the craft. I love it!

Lowdown Choices to make!

I've been playing with the compressor, reverb, and room effects on my TASCAM recording console. I'm getting some things that I like and some I don't. One thing I am learning about mixing is that the input signal needs to be good first. When I record my vocals I need to make sure I have an even line level. Lowdown has a few spikes in it and compression can help even that out, but it can only do so much. The more I record the better I will be at evening my vocals. This is also improving my singing all the way around and my mic control.

So I made about a dozen mixes of "Lowdown" and posted them on DropBox to get opinions. Check these three out and tell me what you like or don't like in these or which one you prefer:

1. Lowdown Choice #1
2. Lowdown Choice #2
3. Lowdown Choice #3

Mixing Mixing Mixing

Mixed several versions of "Lowdown". I mixed 4 of the takes, but I am working with only 2. One is a live take with vocal and guitar recorded together and one with the parts recorded separately. I've got 3 or 4 mixes of each one. I'm working with chaining effects and doing different things on each channel. I will be posting a few versions soon to solicit opinions about which sounds the best.