November Recording Trip: My Rediscovery of Emo

Way back in April, my parents took a vacation to Florida and I took the opportunity to use a free house to record music. Unfortunately, I was pretty new to recording, and just bought an electric guitar and bass while there. Although I did record some cover songs that I still haven't released to the world, I generally didn't do much. Having an empty house all to myself meant that I slept a lot, ate a lot, and watched a lot of TV. I was lame. This time was different.

I spent almost zero time outside (since it was November and cold and ugly), but I did get some nice instagrams of beautiful Sebago Lake:

And the biggest tree on earth (that used to be twice as tall) down the road from my house: 

(that's 1 tree)

I took in some lovely sunsets while buying groceries and pizza (LOTS of pizza):

This one has zero editing or filters. Pretty crazy.

And I even saw the first snow of the year, which was neat, but a tad disappointing since I thought it might be a huge storm and I'd be snowed in with music (an image I've had in my head for awhile- writing music with falling snow as a backdrop). Seems a bit silly to be upset that it didn't snow, since as I'm writing this, there's a shit ton of it outside and we still barely have sidewalks and can't park our cars on the road, but still. Back in November (I'll never catch up on posts), snow was a new thing. 

Here's how my trip worked out: I drove to Maine on a Friday night, then woke up at like 6:45 the next day to take my parents to the airport for a 9am flight out of Portland. I then drove to Mass for a party at Pat Mcmanamanamanaanan's house, then drove back to NH at 3 in the morning. I hung out in NH for a few days, then headed to Maine. Somehow this time, I was in an actually efficient mode and got my drums set up on day 2. Of course I lost hours of work when, after I set up mics, I realized that my bass drum was rattling like crazy. I completely took it apart and realized that the outer rim sounded like a marble was rolling around in it when I moved it around. I called a drum shop about getting a replacement and the super helpful dude on the phone said that it was more likely how I tuned the drum that was causing this. He said he's never seen a rim from that series of drums not rattle like that. And sure enough, when I took the other one off, it did it too. What a weird design flaw. So after hours of fiddling, I tuned up everything and was good to go. 

Now I just needed inspiration. And for once, I found it oddly easily by using a classic trick: tunings. I started messing with tunings to see if I could come up with anything neat in an obscure tuning, and eventually became downright prolific with a tuning I already knew I loved and had written stuff in before- the super emo tuning (it's what American Football's "Never Meant," a perfect model for emo music, is in): FACGCE. 

So my days fell into a pretty standard flow of: get up late, eat, watch TV, fiddle around on the internet, then fiddle around with my acoustic. I'd sit and just play until something good came out, and something always did (at least to my ears). I tried some other tunings, but FACGCE was the winner. I pretty much wrote something I liked every day, then went downstairs, recorded the guitar part, fiddled around with it and figured out layers, figured out and recorded bass parts, then played drums. It was awesome. The previous trip, I was all stuck on the idea that I had a limited time to record so I had to GET THINGS DONE, which oddly made me not do anything and avoid it like it was work. This time, I was just messing around and trying things, so it was fun. I figured out a few days in that my new goal was to write the basics for songs I liked and play with mood and beats and just get a basic recording of the basic parts done, then spend the winter and early spring figuring out structure, other layers, lyrics, etc- just basically put the songs together to the point where I'll know exactly how I want them to sound, then go back to Maine when my parents go on their yearly April vacation and attempt to record final, or at least waay better and much more complete versions of the songs. So it turned into a "try shit out and see if it sounds good" recording trip, and it was awesome. This was what I had always dreamed of when dreaming of having a recording studio in my basement- just the ability to come up with something I like and being able to record it on the spot and instantly hear what it sounded like. 

I took a break a few days in and headed back to NH to wait in line to get the new Call of Duty game. 

I will never do this again. It's stupid. We did it last year and it was fun, but I always wondered why we stood in line for an hour and dealt with a bunch of bullshit just to get the game that night when I could pre-order it and just buy it the next day, or wait a week and just walk right in and maybe even be able to get it cheaper. Not only that, but last year, the game was new- it was a whole new world being opened up to me after not playing any video games for like 6 years. This time, after 2 hours, I hated it, and have only played it one night since. So it wasn't hard to stop playing and get right back into make-music-mode. And I did!

I went back to Maine the next day and got to work. Here's pictures for the sake of pictures. Here's my odd-to-everyone-but-me drum set up. I'm a left handed drummer who plays open. Makes way more sense to me than normal drumming, but every drummer who sees it is very confused. 

I didn't bother setting up my keyboard this time (actually I did one day and realized I left the cable I needed in NH, oh well):

Wider angle. I love this set up:

And here's an absolutely horrible 360 Panorama of the room with me at the drumset. Good work, 360 Panorama app- your accuracy blows me away:

(click to make this big, it's hilariously bad)

Another thing I did right this year that I screwed up on last time was to set lights up around my drums. Back when Hilton and I had our first practice space, I had it set up so I had foot pedals (light switches) to control a series of like 8 different light set ups. Every song had its own colors, and it was extremely awesome. I stopped being that ridiculous, but every practice space since has had lights of varying colors. I can't explain how much that helps me to get into the zone to make beautiful epic music. 

Who wouldn't want to play drums that practically glow?

So, it was an awesome trip. I wrote a bunch of stuff I liked, I recorded an electric-and-with-vocals version of a song I wrote like 10 years ago and have never heard, and most importantly, I accomplished what I wanted while having fun. It's so awesome having your own studio. I wish I always had this set up. 

So here are samples of every song. I have to warn you though- these are not only not professional sounding recordings, but I haven't edited anything other than basic volume levels. Some guitars were done a few times, but mostly everything is 1 take, and all drums are 1st takes without even really writing much for beats beforehand other than maybe 1 or 2 play-throughs. I'm not trying to make excuses- just saying- these are DEMOS. These are "I want to hear what this might sound like if I did this" parts of songs that I decided to share with the world. I also recorded basic vocals and some harmonies for most of these, and no way am I sharing those yet. I did something that I imagine a lot of bands do, but it's still pretty hilarious- I sang gibberish and words that don't even make sense. I did this back when I was the singer for a nu-metal band but I did it while practicing by basically just not fully singing into the microphone. This may have been the first time I recorded gibberish tracks and even tried out harmonies with them. It makes for a hilarious and frustrating listen (since I'm not saying anything and some of the notes are HORRIBLE), but I can't even explain how much it helps. I now know where the big hooks on some of these are going to be, and I now can hear melodies in my head that weren't necessarily there before. Unfortunately, I can also hear a bad one that I absolutely despise but can't seem to forget, but whatever. I even have to figure out how to use lyrics like "I should have waited for the rain" because I ended up singing that as the huge hook in a song. Weird how those things happen. When these are done, I may release the gibberish vocal tracks for a laugh, but we'll see. 

The songs mostly took on a late 90s/early 2000s midwest emo sound, like mineral, pop unknown, cross my heart, american football, or the appleseed cast. I love this stuff and am psyched music was coming out of me sounding so much like that specific sound. I'd like to make it weirder and less straightforward with time, but for now, I'm very happy that my solo project is going to end up being an homage to that sound I miss so much (nobody seems to make that kind of music anymore). 

Anyway, here you go, all 3 of you who care about this:

November song 1:  

There's promise for some good noodly emo here. This one is in FACGCE with a capo on the 7th fret, and although I love the feeling, the recording is pretty much 4 minutes of the same thing. I'm finding it pretty hard to find chords that work with such a high tuning. Maybe I should get over the idea of chords... american football barely ever played chords.

November song 2:



I love the verses and I love the chorus more, but unfortunately they don't have much to do with each other, which is something I always try my hardest to fight against. A song with good flow is key, so I may end up having that chord progression just happen at the end of the song... We'll see. I came up with some almost-screamed super high vocal melodies and background "ahhh"s I really liked at the end of this. This one also has a particularly noodly and way-too-hard-to-play part in the middle that's either gonna get cut or turn into a much longer, more epic part... I've been brainstorming in my head and it could end up being awesome. I just need to learn how to play guitar first.

November song 3:



This one is based on an acoustic guitar line that you can barely hear (I played it horribly anyway) that I wrote yeeeaaars ago, either on the deck of the apartment I lived in in Somerville, or on a chair in the woods in Missouri when our van broke on our roadtrip so long ago. I've always remembered it (but forgot the end, and I think I finally fixed that), and it goes into a guitar line that I love even more. The 16th note (and messily played) lead was written on the spot and I love it, but I feel fairly confident I accidentally stole it from someone. The vocal melody I came up with is the most natural melody over this, and I'm pretty sure I stole that too. I hope I didn't, because I love it. I recorded about 4 minutes of this just building louder and louder, and I have no idea where I'm going to go with it. This one will be a lot of work. And it somehow sounds better than any other one... not sure why. The drums are very crisp.

November song 4:



This one is quite different, clearly. I've always wanted to make a folksy/americana-esque song in the vein of The Snake The Cross The Crown or The Head and the Heart. Unfortunately, that requires the ability to play quick finger picking guitar cleanly, which is something I was working my way towards at one point, then completely lost. I don't even remember how to play most of this, it sounds completely different from anything else I've come up with lately, and it's in a very weird tuning (F#A#C#F#A#F#), so it may be a lost song that I never do anything with. But who knows. I feel like the main line sounds like a happier, less good version of this, so who knows, maybe with some work, I could clean it up and turn it into something good. But I'm not too psyched about it, so that's probably doubtful- just wanted to include it.

November song 5:



My recording of this song currently stands at 10 minutes with lots of buildups, dynamics, etc. But I'm still not psyched about the main chord progression. When I put vocals to it, I realized where the heart of the song lies and what I need to do to make it epic, I just am not sure how much involves re-writing progressions, just moving things around, or coming up with a better bass line. I wrote the most with this one, figuring out how many times each progression is played, etc, before I recorded it, but it clearly is waaay too long and there's waaay too much. This could end up being the one I'm the most proud of for being the sound I'm looking for, or it could end up meandering, 10 minute disaster. We'll see!

November song 6:



This was the simplest song I recorded, and the quickest. I pretty much came up with the main line and said "ok, let's go record." The layer makes it, and that was written pretty quickly too. This one is another example of a song with awesome verses and a horrible chorus/chord progression. And I came up with vocals over it that I absolutely despise now and I can't hear this song without hearing them in my head. I have to figure out how to write something that's the complete opposite to fix that. I love the dark, head-noddy groove of this though.

November song 7: This was me trying to figure out how to write a song around a part I have/remember what I wrote before. Not really enough to share.

November song 8: This was me recording a song I wrote 10+ years ago that I've never recorded, solely to hear it with vocals and drums to see if it's worth recording. It may be, if I can learn to sing first. It probably doesn't fit with these other songs though, since it's in regular tuning and is pretty dark. It was a great release though, to finally sing lyrics I've heard in my head for years.

November song 9:



Haha, horrible recording, I know. This was an attempt to do something with no real dynamics or parts, just a flowy feel and a song that is the same chord progression over and over again for 5 minutes, just slowly building. I layered vocals (just background ahhhhhs) and then ended up oddly shouting a part over and over again. Layering drums (although fairly disastrous here) ended up being pretty neat. I played the whole thing for 1 person and they said it needed dynamics. What it needs is a better recording with better playing, an actual line in the background instead of just me fiddling around. I loved playing it though, and it got stuck in my head like crazy. It was the last song I wrote and recorded on the last night of me with my own studio, and it sounds like the end of an album- just a slow, zone out, head nod song. For some reason, it reminds me of a Taking Back Sunday or Straylight Run song. It sounds awful here, but I like it and there's definite promise there if I can clean it up.

So there you go 3 people who stayed this long and listened, these are the songs I'm currently working on. As expected, I haven't really worked on them at all other than listening to them randomly, and the only music I've done in the last month was to record the basic parts for an entirely new song that sounds way too much like some of these. But now that the Christmas mess is over, hopefully I start figuring these out so I can record them in April, edit them/ignore them over the summer, and release them in the fall, when all the best emo music should be released.

My Recording Vacation/Seclusion/Millionaire Fantasy Camp

Many moons ago, my parents told me that they would be heading to the Masters once again (as they always do), and this time would be going to Florida after, extending their vacation. "Can you check on the house a few times?" my mom asked. "Sure... how long are you going to be gone?" "Two weeks."

Holy lord, I thought- I can have an entire house on the lake in the middle of the woods all to myself for 2 weeks? Some people would see this as a formula for enormous parties, or romantic getaways, or drug-induced freakouts. I saw it as a way to finally, FINALLY learn logic and start recording music again. And I did. 

It was incredibly weird to be there alone, and I'm not ashamed of admitting that I was a bit freaked out pretty much every night for the first week. I bought a humidifier solely to add noise to my room at night, and most lights and at least one TV were on at all times. Call me a wimp all you want, but the house is old, SILENT, and in the middle of the woods. I was 100% completely alone. I've heard some weird animal sounds before (possibly a squatch), had a few "someone is definitely watching me" moments, and whether it's ghosts or just animals outside, I was praying I wouldn't hear or see anything while I was there. It's amazing how quickly one can revert to being a little kid afraid of the dark when you go from living on a busy street in a ghetto to trying to live in a huge house in the middle of nowhere. 

It was beautiful though- this was the moon one of the first nights:

My mom even left an easter basket for me with like 5 cadbury eggs (yes, this was that long ago- I'm pretty behind on blog posts):

So what did I do for 2 weeks? On the negative side, not enough. I got caught in too many sleep, internet or TV traps and didn't work as much as I should have. I'm a huge celtics fan, and there were like 14 games in the time I was there, so I watched a ton of celtics games, relaxed like a king, and ate like a champ. I took most of these for FATGUYFOODBLOG, but I never posted any of them since they are kind of just ghetto little creations rather than things people can go out and buy. Here's a few of my better meals: 

I had a bunch of these ghetto pizzas. I created these bad boys over one summer vacation in middle school when my mom was working, and I've missed them. White bread, spaghetti sauce, chopped up pepperoni and cheddar and montery jack cheese, toasted. You have to cook it a lot to make it crisp and avoid soggy bread, but these are so good, and the pepperoni spice really comes through. 

Ghetto nachos: Usually done with ruffles or wavy lays, I added a few tortillas to this to mix it up. But yea, it's just potato chips, cheddar and montery jack cheese, and instead of dipping in salsa, you dip in ketchup. So good. 

Here's my homemade Friendly's Turkey Club supermelt- turkey, american cheese, tomato, bacon and thousand island, fried up nicely:

And lastly, while a lot of you were having big meals with family on Easter, here's MY Easter brunch: 

My time there was basically "rich guy fantasy camp." I didn't have to do anything, and I had a big house on a lake. I  had zero reason to relax to the level that I did, but in this situation, it was really hard to get myself motivated to do anything. This picture says a lot- this stuffed animal known as Pillow Fighter, was a stuffed animal I grew up that was marketed to beat up. In recent years, he's become another pillow. One day that I got up way too late, I turned around and saw him gesturing to me, "come back mike- look at how nice this is..."

"go ahead, just lie down some more"

After a few days though, it started to hit me that I was wasting an opportunity, and I got my shit together- at least sort of. Here's a terrible panorama of the before and after of my Dad's office/mancave, which would become my studio:

I knew I wanted to buy an electric guitar for recording, as my current setup was a piece of crap. I went to guitar center and got an absurd deal that I couldn't pass up. I wanted a PRS like Hilton has, but his is like 3 grand. I had previously played PRS' cheap version of his guitar (the SE) but didn't love it. It felt cheap and the neck was really thick, making its play the complete opposite of what I liked most about Hilton's guitar. I had seen the Paul Allender model online and thought that it was pretty awesome looking- whereas Hilton's has beautiful birds on the fretboard, this one, since it was designed by the guitarist of Cradle of Filth, had bats. And it was deep blood red. I thought it was beautiful but kind of hilarious. And there it was at Guitar Center, for $350 bucks?! I picked it up, figuring it would suck, and was blown away. Truthfully, the action is too low and the top string buzzes, but a tuneup will hopefully fix that. Other than that, the neck was super thin and it was hilariously easy to play. A beautiful guitar that retails for 1200 bucks, usually sells for 800, and was in my hands for 350? Sold.

After initial recording and experimenting with drums and guitars, I finally admitted that I really truly did need to own a bass. So my new guitar got a brother a few days later. 

I eventually realized that since it would be easy to record piano at anytime and I was instantly so into playing with guitar sounds in logic, I put the keyboard aside and figured out how to record drums.

Here's the mess next to my computer- the mixer with a hundred cables next to all the stuff I had to move to make the studio, with a crate full of more crap, next to piles of papers to do taxes with (ppbbtt). 

And don't worry people who read this from apple, Deeteez came too. 

I had dreams of recording new emo songs mixed with some dongus bologna songs, but like my recording trip to Saratoga last summer, I wasn't prepared to do this. Except last year, I didn't know logic and tried to learn it AT Dustin's house. This time, I spent a lot of time before heading to Maine following the lynda.com training and basically knew how to record once I got to Maine. I figured out the rest of the key stuff as the trip went on, but I immediately realized why bands have songs already recorded in rough form before trying to do the real recordings. I always knew that, but it definitely hit me when I sat there wondering what to record that I had nothing. I had sketches of songs from waaay back, but hadn't played them in forever and didn't know exactly how to put them together now that I had everything in front of me. I also wasn't feeling quite stupid/hyper enough to make some really bad dongus songs. So, I kind of just messed around and hoped something would come to me.

The first night I found an amp setting I liked in logic (for those who don't know, logic is a recording program that is detailed to a level of true absurdity- you can do ANYTHING in it, and one of the highlights is the ability to play with preset guitar sounds, and adjust them by types of amps, types of cabinets, types of mics, mic placements, and can EQ everything to make a billion different types of sounds You can just plug your guitar right into the computer, no amp needed). I found a guitar sound that was very Brand New-esque, and wrote a crappy little guitar line in an attempt to turn it into something. I recorded a messy demo of it that night, then spent 4-5 hours the next day figuring out layers, beats, structure, etc. The rest of the details and the song itself are posted at the end of this incredibly long post.

After that, I decided the best way to familiarize myself with recording and to get back into playing music, writing layers and singing was to start a project I've thought of doing for years: record an album of covers of songs by women. Why? Not sure, I just thought it would be neat to limit myself to that, and to try and make songs I've always heard one way sound a lot different. I think the most fun way for me to bring these songs to the world will be to have a separate blog entry for each one once its finished, with all the disasters and details of the recording process. But I'll say this- the first one I did was of a Taylor Swift song, and it will be released in the next week or so. 

Here's what it looked like in the beginning. LOTS of vocal takes, and these weren't even all of them:

This turned out to be a fantastic way to get into recording again, and I recorded the basic parts to 3 different songs, nearly completing 2 of them. I guess I'll leave most of the details to when I post the songs, but boy, were they a learning process. From things like having ghost power on while recording vocals creating a buzzing, to learning to EQ things FIRST, then mix because EQing changes volume like crazy, to mic placement, the room affecting vocal takes, learning to record guitar both directly in to the computer AND with a room mic, etc, etc, etc. I'm still learning, but I'm getting there. 

This started to make a lot of sense after awhile- why make stupid mistakes and learn on my own songs that I'm investing a ton of time into when I can make them on stupid covers? 

As the days went on, my time spent working on music grew, but I learned that 5 hours was just about my limit before I hated everything I was doing. I also reverted to being nocturnal. Most of the ride home stuff was recorded overnight, from midnight to like 10 in the morning. By my last days, I went to bed at 6 or 8am, not really getting into the groove of music until around 12-1 after trying to start earlier. It's weird, but I've always kind of been at my best at weird hours. The last morning, I was belting out (fairly bad) vocals at 7 in the morning while our neighbors were leaving for work. Ahh, the life at reclusive millionaire fantasy camp. 

Here's Sebago Lake at 5:30 in the morning, saturated a solid amount by HDR: 

Here's completely blinding sun the next morning at 7- I literally couldn't even look at it:

And while I'm sharing HDR shots of beautiful Sebago Lake, here's the beach across the lake from our house. I pulled over for this one.

My last day ended in true Mike fashion, with me trying to record 4 takes of drums in the last 15 minutes I had before I had to go get Ben, my mom's cat, from the kennel. Once I got him, I began the sad process of cleaning up. It's been a dream of mine to have a studio set up like this for quite some time. I'm not good with taking advantage of a specific time- I am absolutely someone who gets randomly inspired- and the ability to just walk downstairs and play any instrument and record it/edit it, etc, was pretty glorious. It truly was living the dream, and I wish my Dad didn't use this as an office, otherwise I would have left most of this set up and headed home a lot more often. Maybe that elusive house with no neighbors and a nice basement will finally find its way into my life...

Here's a classic ball of wires that any musician knows all too well: 

Here's pretty much all of my musical equipment (minus mics and the mixer) in one picture. I have accumulated quite a lot over the years. It's kind of neat to look at this. I got everything other than the acoustic guitar for very cheap, but still- this adds up.

Before:

After:

When I was done, I went down to the lake to see the sunset and attempt to swim. I was sticky and disgusting, and exhausted from packing up everything. I swam in October last summer, so I figured April wouldn't be any worse- why not at least try to be able to say I swam in April? It turns out that having other people with you makes a big difference. This was about the same temperature as in Octobter, but with other people, it's a hilarious game of who can go farther, screaming obscenities at the pain, etc. By myself, it was just pain. So after 1 foot, I decided against it and headed out to get a pizza and watch the Celtics while Ben and I awaited my parents' return.

Satanic Ben:

I forgot to take a picture of my car loaded up, but with the added drum cases I bought, I was truly shocked that this all somehow fit in my Nissan Altima. An entire drumset, 8 mic stands, my imac (in the box), all recording gear, 88 -key keyboard with seat, drum throne, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, huge tote full of other things, an overflowing bag of laundry, and an LL Bean bag full of everything else. I am the master packer. Let's just say that driving wasn't exactly comfortable.

In the weeks since, I've spent many many hours editing everything, including several calls to Hilton for help, which I always took very seriously. 

For an example of how maddening this is, here are 4 comped tracks of drums, opened up. This means that I recorded a take of drums, then another, then another, then another, with each take on basically a drop down menu for each individual track/microphone. SO, 4 takes, each represented by 8 different mics. The point of this is to mix together parts of different takes to get the elusive, studio-trickery "perfect take." This is only half of the tracks, and is fairly simple, and this hurts to look at. I don't like doing this- it's smart and makes sense for getting good takes, but it's a nightmare. 

Here is a screen shot of the nightmare involved with adjusting volumes. When you suck at recording, you hit drums way harder one second than before it, or strum inconsistently, sing inconsistently or horribly, etc. The trick to making a song sound good is to adjust volumes like crazy, and it's an absolute nightmare. This is where not sucking at recording would help a lot- most of my time editing has been doing this. And with 6 takes of vocals, trying to figure out what best 2 or 3 (or 6) work best together, then figuring out which one needs to be loudest, then figuring out which part of each track needs to be turned down or turned up, or muted entirely (I've found that my throat makes a weird sound when I'm done holding a note), etc etc etc: Nightmare. 

Here's an example of what one project can look like. This is basically final, and this is a simple song. Some ride home songs had 100-120 tracks. A lot of that was one specific sound covering up another (which is easier to fix now), but still. I'm terrified of what my future holds. 

So, expect cover songs to be posted soon. Expect more dongus bologna songs (and a full album) by the end of the year. And expect new legit music that I really am proud of. 

First experiment:

I never got around to doing vocals (I will eventually), but I think the end result of this jam sounds like Brand New mixed with some sort of post-rock heavy band mixed with 90's grunge. I had a blast putting this together, even though the song itself isn't the best and it's still a bit messy. I had to do several takes of everything in order to get perfect takes, and drums were a BITCH. It turns out that not playing for a solid year, skill level goes down a bit. I couldn't do what I wanted at first, but eventually found my style and was able to play pretty close to how I did when I played a lot, only much more messy and terrible. It was a struggle, but it worked out, kind of. Here's the in-progress "final" version (instrumental):

(if it doesn't play, go here) 

I'm proud of this and think it turned out to be a nice little post-rock grunge jam, but clearly, I'm still learning. The first thing I noticed was that the way I play drums doesn't work at all for recording. Mic placement was a BITCH, especially using SM57s, which are longer/taller than a lot of drum mics, but I eventually figured that out by putting the main snare mic pretty much in my crotch. But after that, I immediately noticed (and you can hear it in this recording) that when I hit the snare, I let the stick settle on the drum head (rather than pulling back the stick). Live (which is all I've ever really done), you don't notice this, but in recording, it rattles and records every subtle rattle/bounce as the stick sits there. This is one thing I clearly need to work on. 

The next thing is volume. I think I have volume of mics pretty much figured out, but when mixing, I turn everything up super loud, and as the song goes, it gets louder. This is clearly a problem, and not just for the fact that it shouldn't be slowly getting louder as the song goes. It's a main problem because I won't hear clipping at all in logic, but once I import it into itunes (where there is an additional volume controller which is always up all the way for me), the song clips like crazy. I actually remixed this entire song (no- not remix like techno remix, remix like redoing all volume changes), and I still screwed it up. Hopefully I'll get my act together on that, and maybe recording a super loud heavy song wasn't the best thing to try first. 

I did figure out a nice little trick though- making track 1 (and 2 in this song) be songs I think my song sounds like, that way I can compare the volume and prominence of drums or bass in their song to mine. Like, does my bass volume sound right here? Let's check to see what it sounds like in this Brand New song. Oh, ok, mine is still fairly quiet. I like this, and wish I had figured this out right away, rather than now. 

I think that's about it for talking about this song- I definitely need to figure out WHERE sounds can go so I don't have to just keep turning things up and down in order to hear them better. Do I attempt to figure out how to mix in surround sound, or do I just get better at moving things around on each side?

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

While this recording trip wasn't as successful as it could have been on paper, it was HUGELY successful for me as a person. One of my goals I set out to achieve when I started this whole new life thing a year ago was to reignite my passion for music. I played more in the last year, but not a lot. I recorded nothing. Now, even though it's just cover songs, I'm working again. I'm playing again. I'm staying up super late looping parts and writing layers. I've played more guitar in the last month than I have in the last 3 years probably. And I LOVE playing electric guitar through logic and making weird sounds. I love trying to make up bass lines (although finding the right bass note is much harder than I realized). As much as I'm still having trouble accepting what my voice sounds like (more on that later), I'm singing more, and I love the moment where I realize a made-up harmony works perfectly. The feeling of creating layers has always been my favorite part of music, and I'm doing that again. I have not only reignited my love for playing/writing music, but I've stepped into the future and (basically) learned a program that is not only fairly limitless and used by a lot of my favorite bands, but I also really genuinely enjoy playing around with it and learning. 

It turns out that a lazy 2 weeks of sleeping the wrong hours and barely going outside, eating garbage and getting sucked into internet holes can be insanely beneficial as long as you have just enough passion for something and a studio in your basement with the ability to play a billion different sounds though your computer. More soon!!

currently listening to: Owen- "I Do Perceive"

D-Bone Fantasy Camp: The video

Ok, here's the compilation of all the music and videos I took during my week at Saratoga Springs. I officially want to violently murder whoever created iMovie, as I had to re-create the entire video after no matter what I did, every time I exported the video, all of the sound was missing. Thanks iMovie, way to be an easy program that "just works."

There's a good variety of stuff in here. I wanted to try a time lapse video, but instead of having my camera take a picture or video, I selected my own. Then I tried to make it look like I was good at drums or piano. I also, as you'll see, have added nicely to my list of different things I've videotaped with my GoPro. The real treat here is Dustin though- his performance of "Cheerios" is pretty special. Enjoy. 

"A Week of Music in Saratoga Springs" from Mike Alexander on Vimeo

The whole video of Dustin and I performing our horrible cover song is on Shaun's vimeo page if you're interested.

I have not abandoned music

I'm in the middle of editing some stuff for a post that is now a week late. In trying to keep the blog alive, here are some clips of music to prove that I haven't completely failed at making music this summer. In the last few weeks, I've started playing piano more, and have the basis of possibly 2 songs written, plus the one I'm going to post here. Guitar has been a little more lacking, but I'm trying. I had a day where I really had no intention of leaving my room at all, and decided to just sit in the dark and try to get some of these recorded to A. prove that I haven't abandoned music, and B. have audio AND visual representations of these songs, so I won't forget them.

I have a week scheduled at the end of August to do some recording, so we'll see if anything takes shape, but I'm going in with a few ideas.

I wrote this at the beginning of the summer when I was playing around with a new tuning. It's the kind of tuning where just open strumming sounds wonderful, but it's hard to do anything with other than that. I'm clearly still figuring out parts, and this required some editing. I won't really know where this is going to go until I start recording stuff, but I like it so far, and it definitely falls into the category of "songs I wrote, loved, then nearly forgot and somehow saved." Unfortunately, there are far too many songs that are gone forever.

"Geetar song in the works" from Mike Alexander on Vimeo

This one was nearly gone forever. I wrote it in North Reading when I had my piano in my closet. I played more then, so I wrote harder stuff, and even tried to play a polyrhythm at the end. Over years of not touching my piano, it nearly disappeared. Last year I started messing around again and was determined to remember it. I couldn't even remember the first line. Somehow, through determination and endless playing around and trying every single possible note, I remembered it last week. It was a glorious moment, second only to when I remembered that an entire other part I couldn't get was gone because I had forgotten 3 bass notes entirely. 3 notes? Big deal right? Well, when they change the entire timing of the line, it quickly makes sense why I could never remember this song. I'm unbelievably happy that I remembered it. This required some editing, as I still can't play it perfectly, and would sound better if my stupid reverb pedal worked. And I still play it sloppy, but whatever, I WILL NOT FORGET IT AGAIN.

"Pianer song in the works" from Mike Alexander on Vimeo

July reflection/Mass trip day 1

It's been a long time since my last post. Where the hell have I been? Well, mostly Massachusetts, at bars with old coworkers, at old work, and at the place I used to live. It's been nice to visit old haunts for short times, and clearly I need to somehow try to sneak a blog into the middle of those trips. Otherwise, I go a week without one and it starts to look like I've abandoned my purpose.

After June, I did a reflection post, where I admitted to feeling like I hadn't done enough in June. I feel like July was much, much better. I saw a lot of old friends, swam a lot, went on some awesome trips, biked, hiked, made some changes and lived it up. Could I have done more? Absolutely. I need to make art. I need to make music (happening, but not enough). I need to hike again! Through being in different states or relaxing when I was at home or having a hurt back (the last 5 days or so), I haven't been on a hike in about 3 weeks. I think part of me is also dreading the challenge I took on (to get at least 4 4,000 footers under my belt by the end of the summer, plus Chocorua, which might as well be a 4,000 footer). I only got a few of my goals done, but July was all about embracing summer and having fun. And I definitely achieved that. August is set to be even better, with a trip to Maine in the next day or so, a possible trip to Foxwoods, and a week plus of recording music, biking, camping, swimming etc. already planned for the last week of August that I'm dubbing D-Bone day camp, as I'll be living with my lunatic friend Dustin in New York. I am running out of summer though, so here's to stepping it up!

There is one problem in my life that I am finally coming to terms with and am going to try my best at fixing- the fact that I'm late to EVERYTHING. Some stuff, I don't really care (as evidenced by every job I've ever had). But parties and get-togethers, I need to fix that. I always make fun of Rich because he likes to get to parties either early or right when they start- I say that nobody does that- that start times of parties are just suggestions and not only do people expect you to show up later, but it's better that way- give people some time to relax, get in their comfort zones, or just get wasted so that when you show up, it's a huge event. DUDE! MIKE IS HERE!!! AHHHHHHH! I am saying right now: Rich, I think you're right. I think my attitude applied to college, but not anymore. These days, people show up early to stuff. No longer are they doing a bunch of stuff and suddenly saying "oh yea, that party!" at the last minute- no, at this age (where Gcal and facebook events rule everything), the planned event is all that is important on that day, and you had best show up early or on time. Yamstein started hours before we got there, and we were only there a half hour after the facebook event page said to be there!

The day after Yamstein, Tara from work was having a kickball party followed by hitting up some BAHS guy. I assumed that nobody would care about kickball- that it would be people standing in a field drinking, and it would end very quickly in favor of bars. So I didn't try to show up on time. I planned on being late. I also assumed that traffic going southbound on a Sunday night wouldn't be horrible. Oh yea, Sunday nights are when everyone leaves their happy NH vacations to return to Mass. Oops. So, an hour and a half drive turned into about 3 hours, which meant I showed up in Cambridge at 10pm, and to the bar at like 10:30, missing all of the kickball (which apparently not only happened, but was fun too) and arriving just in time to see people I liked leave.

It was still nice to see some people I hadn't seen in 2 and a half months though.

this seems to be the face I make in every picture

I also wear this shirt a lot.

Look at this guy's beard!

I managed to still have a good night though, and stayed over at Dan's house, where we stayed up until 4am talking. Dan and I used to have some epic conversations during our hour long food quart lunches. In fact, the seeds to this life change and blog were either planted or at least watered during those lunches. In talking, we figured out part of why I'm late to everything. Even before this big life change and new attempt at positivity, I have always been someone who doesn't want to stop having fun while I'm having it. Nearly everyone who hung out that night left while they were having fun. "I gotta go home, I have work in the morning" was the most common reason. I argued that this was crazy- that they were hanging out with friends on a beautiful night and seeing some people they never see. Why not stay out a little later? So you miss out on an hour or two of sleep. So? Make up for it the next night, when you're sitting in your apartment playing on the computer. Why not extend the fun you're having now and just replace some of the crap of tomorrow with it? Of course, everyone there said it was easy for me to say, as I didn't have work the next day. But I have always been that way. I am almost always the last person to leave. I was more tired the next day, sure, but big deal. I have always done what we all should do- maximize the fun, minimize the crap. 

Because of this idea, it's hard to leave something that's good to go to something which I can never know will be better. Because of this, I'm always the last to show up and the last to leave. So, the way I look at it, I got half of it right. My new goal in life is to not just do more awesome stuff, but to stop being late to said stuff. 

I slept fairly horribly on Dan's futon, saw him off to work, 

laughed hysterically as he ROLLERBLADED to work, 

ROLLERBLADES! AHHHHHHHH

wrote the roots to a song on his guitar,

"Dan's apartment song" from Mike Alexander on Vimeo
(not much, but a definite start to something folksy)

and took off to go mountain biking, which, because of how long it's taking me to edit the footage, will be a separate post, hopefully tomorrow.

currently listening to: The Mars Volta- The Bedlam In Goliath

Dongus Bologna

Did you know that I make really bad music? Well, I do, and it's done under the massively awesome name of Dongus Bologna. I had a myspace page for awhile (where you can listen to a sampler track I made featuring clips from every song I've made- www.myspace.com/dongusbologna of course) but no full tracks and myspace blows and I never checked it. SO, I finally simplified everything and made a bandcamp page where you can listen to 6 songs. 

Dongus started out as me just making horrible noises using garageband instruments and my own retardation, but I soon realized I could do more, and took the attitude of Ween, early Beck and a little Flight of the Conchords, and am trying to attack genres- do the best I can in re-creating (and making fun of) different genres of music. Half the songs I've recorded are all me and my computer, the other half were done in 1 weekend with my friends Brad Hilton and Jon Talluto. Hopefully, I can do something like that again, but I WILL make more, no matter what.

There's descriptions of the songs if you click on them individually (and lyrics!), but basically, "The Carolina Panthers" is me at 3am out of my mind, "Don't Mess With the Zohan" is Talluto being out of his mind, "Drink 'till We're Dead" is a hardcore/punk song about drinking with lots of OIs, "Nantucket Pottery" is a really messed up mix of death metal, funk, and push-button kids guitars, "Sandwich 2000" is a garageband chill techno jam set to me eating a sandwich, and "Raining Outside (live from Singapore, 1984)" is a love ballad mixture of Poison and Nickelback. There are 7 more, and 3 or so in progress. The album will be done on December 3rd of this year with MANY more songs. More songs may be up soon, but I may just leave them until the ALBUM RELEASE, we'll see. Anyway, to check out this awful stuff, go here:

http://dongusbologna.bandcamp.com/

GEETAR SESH

Retroactive post from 5/28:

Blackhead and Caveman kick out some jams

Hilton and I jammed on the geetars for hours. Not a big deal to most people, but we haven't played guitar together for like 2 years, and haven't played as much as we did for much longer than that. We relived all our old solo jams, songs we wrote together, some creed covers, some phish songs, etc. It was something really nice that somehow I just stopped doing entirely. My fingers burned and I remembered how much I like playing guitar. And I remembered how nice my guitar (that I spent 34873874893 dollars on last summer) is. Here's a happy ditty we accidentally wrote in the last 2 minutes we were trying to stop playing. It sounds to me like a theme song to a kid's show.

A Life More Awesome from Mike Alexander on Vimeo.