that nov 4th show

so like we played at el rio last monday. a fair amount of people came, but we didn't make any money, haha. we played:

persona
fem politique
don't you wanna play with me
fear of death
you don't love me anymore
369
the escapist
undercover lover
birthday suit
anal fixation

we played pretty damn well i think so thank you very much. the power was cutting out for the first third of the set due to power strips foolishly plugged into power strips. it was pretty fucking retarded. but the sound overall was pretty good. people said it sounded perfect from outside, haha. anyway, we played with Street Pyramids and the New Agents, who were both pretty cool. unfortunately everyone who worked the door let all the friends in, so not enough money was made to pay the sound guy, so we were like - gotta go! when it's our event, we at least break even, haha.

anyway, we're playing next on black friday, nov 28th, at the goddamn retox lounge with our buddies the gibbs, and their buddies the prey (from san diego). we're trying to get 2 or 3 new songs ready by then, hopefully they'll be good to go!

seven

so we got seven mixed now. they sound pretty good. at this point we're just rehearsing a bunch for this show on nov 3rd. after that, full speed ahead on more new tunes.

six down

six songs mixed and done so far. three more of this batch to finish. jimo and i got more, just need more time for the band to learn them...wish we had more time to do this stuff.

recording and mixing

so we've been recording. a lot. we have 3 songs completely done (which are on the myspace page), and 6 more almost all done or done and ready to be mixed. i've been procrastinating a bit on mixing, cuz it is just such a tedious process. having jimo help is really good, but it's still painful trying to figure out how to fit everything together sonically. especially with the song 369. so at this point, we're kinda stuck for recording anything else, cuz we don't have anymore songs ready that the whole band can play. we have about 2 1/2 half that we've been working on, but they've still got a ways to go, and while i've got like 3 or 4 more that we could start doing, and jimo's got a bunch too, it's just a matter of finding time work them out and still rehearse the ones we have so we can play live and sound decent. probably we're going for more than we're able to do, oh well! hopefully we can get the next 5 or 6 sorted out over the next few weeks and start recording again by november. our goal is to have a 7" by our show in december, and the record done by january or february, and try to do some kind of southwest tour that hits las vegas and los angeles around then. also gonna try and get us into SXSW and Noisepop, cuz we're like noisy pop...sorta.

nick's palace or worms cd is now available at amoeba and aquarius records here in san francisco. so yeah...i'm credited with recording and mixing, but let me also say that i produced the fuck out of that thing.

should have some pics up in the next few days of our latest drunken adventures.

sept 4th @ the stork club

gonna make this short cuz i'm not feeling to good right now, kinda sickly. anyway, we played:

fem politique
don't you wanna play with me
inspire
birthday suit
fear of death
the escapist
persona
anal fixation

thought we played more than that, but i guess we decided to quit while we were ahead. it was really hot and sweaty, i even took my shit off. we were getting electrocuted by the stage equipment like a motherfucker, i could feel current going through my arm whenever i held onto the microphone, and corey got shocked real bad a couple of times when he bumped into me. good thing we were drunk! i thought we played really well, consistently full of energy throughout, no trainwrecks. balanced sound - not so much. i was really unhappy with my guitar sound, way too trebly. i had just gotten my amp back, and then i let the other bands borrow it cuz their amp blew a tube or something. so my settings were all fucked for a club. we ended up with a soundboard recording of the show. turns out i was over singing again, but at least mostly in key. there were no stage monitors to speak of, so we could barely hear vocals on stage. anyway, we ended up playing last, cuz the bands that invited us wanted to go first. none of their people stuck around for us. and my coworkers and boss that came all had to leave before we started playing around midnight. fortunately corey's gang of richard, gilbert, and david were with us and they were a lot of fun!

anyway, since the show, me and jimo have been doing a shit load of recording everyday. we're moving full speed ahead on the record, so perhaps it might actually be close to finished around my birthday after all! we now have five songs pretty much all recorded, and just did drums last night for two more.

new song up

at the myspace - don't you wanna play with me? pretty good, maybe almost final mix. oh i hate mixing, thank goodness jimo is here to help!

oh and we're playing the stork club in oakland this thursday sept 4th!!

assorted recordings

so we're recording our record thing. right now, we really only have six new songs that we can play. we each individually have enough material, like another six or ten songs...just getting everyone on the same page is kinda tough. it's really kinda hard to focus on new material with five people in the band at once. anyway, as for the recording, it's going pretty well i guess. drums are done for five songs, synth for three, bass on two (we were gonna do more bass the other day, but corey fucked up his finger somehow while wrestling with his friends...i don't know either...) i did guitar and vocals for don't you wanna play with me on thursday, so that one just needs lead guitar and it's totally a hit single.

nick's black metal record is still being mixed. i've got rough mixes for 6 out of the 7 songs, though they all still need more work, mainly with getting the drums to sound right at the proper levels of compression. basically, he wants the guitars to be really fucking loud, so that's what i'm trying to give him, really fucking loud guitars. but i don't want the drums to be completely buried, otherwise it'll just sound like total guitar wankage.

also on thursday night i started recording four songs for two star spark, my friend charlie's pop rock band. this went really well, we managed to record all the drums in 45 minutes, cuz elliot was able to do each song in one take, with just one overdub of a section total. he really had his shit together and impressed me. and he's a very dynamic drummer too. after that we did all of the bass, and then a few flourishes of keyboards. so all that's left to do are charlie's guitars and vocals. i think it's gonna come out really nice. i honestly wasn't terribly impressed by the tunes from the scratch demo tracks we had done, but once we started tracking the drums and bass, the songs really came alive and are definitely gonna sound really cool.

first song done

so the first song recorded and finished for the record is now up on the myspace. it's called Anal Fixation, it's the one corey inspired, haha. we recorded it on sunday and basically played it live and over dubbed the vocals. i think it took about four or five attempts before we got a clean one without any mistakes. we wanted it to sound live and full on energy, and i think that was definitely captured. so even though it's somewhat muddy sounding, it sounds real and fast!

we've done bass and drums now for two other songs, and are well on our way to making a record. the god damned jazz club is closing in a week, so me and jerry are gonna hit up the piano at the club before it's completely shut down early next week and record as much as we can with what has already been demoed and requires piano, cuz fake piano sux.

currently mixing nick's palace of worms black metal record and started recording some songs for two star spark. buy mainly focused on making our record and getting a bakers dozen of songs done by my birthday at the end of october.

started recording

so yesterday was the first day of recording some of the new tunes. started with tommi doing drums for two of the tunes, don't you wanna play with me, and you don't love me anymore. of course my damn computer software was still refusing to work properly, at one point the entire OS X operating system failed and the computer insisted that it had to be restarted. it was pretty fucking retarded. and all my plugins for mixing weren't working, but i got that fixed finally this morning by pulling off all the various version of digital performer on my computer and doing a clean reinstall of the software. so unless it starts crashing again once i start piling the effects on, we should be good to go.

as for the recording of the drums, for once, (once!) we got the mic placement just right in all the sweet spots. of course after we had broken down all of the mics and run through one of the songs we did with the band, tommi was like, oh i played that chorus part wrong, i actually do it like this! so now we gotta redux it. anyway, hopefully i can get it all to match up soncially! damnit! anyways, the drums were sounding really good, jimo was with us for most of it and said that they sounded really professional. they definitely sound better than the stuff i did with nick's black metal project (!) i think i've just finally really found the proper spots for the overheads and the bass drum. it's like the overheads need to be about 2.5 feet above the top of the cymbals (about half way between the drums and the ceiling (which is only 8ft high). and then the main bass drum mic just right at the edge of the tip of the hole, with a 2nd mic on the back end by the beater (to get more of a popping sound, or nail in the hammer). suppose we should get some grease for the beater at some point still, since it does have a tendency to squeek a bit.

anyways, once the rest of the guys showed up for practice, we did a few live takes of anal fixation, and overdubbed the vocals on top, with everyone doing the chorus part. it sounds pretty raw, but is full of energy. gonna have jimo help mix it, i think his ears are maybe less damaged than mine, and he's got a good sense of tone and how things should sound and fit in a the mix. we also attempted to record our band version of fem politique, but i don't think any of us were too happy with what we got. it wasn't bad, but there were some minor mistakes. it might still be usable though. recording five people at once live in a small room was definitely a first, and it's really not a technique that i see us doing too terribly often. really only for the songs that seem well suited for more of a live type feel. anyways, hopefully we'll get that song mixed and posted up on the myspace within a week or so. it's ridiculously short, at under 1:15. i suppose we should do more minute long songs! maybe that'll be my new thing, ha!

the retox show

well, we'll probably never play there again. four bands, no turnout. it was pretty ridiculous and pathetic. at least we brought our own booze to drink in the van this time, rather than give the damned bar all our money. they made us go last, so that all the people wouldn't theoretically leave for the out of town bands, ha! i was like, ok, but we'll be drunk, ha!

mountain animal hospital from santa cruz played first. they were really cool, like a mix of mew, sigor ros, and a little bit of the mars volta (but in a good way). they all had a mountain of pedals and the singer sang really high with lots of reverb all castrato like. plus they're drummer was really fucking good.

martyrs of the apollo guild from seattle played second. they were about what i expected. everyone liked the cute girl on keyboards. i think they'd have a lot of potential if their songs were half as long and consisted of more than one riff or groove. i left to go drink after two tunes.

light leaks actually did get people to come, about 5 or 6, ha! that's 4 or 5 better than us. they were really good, a couple of our guys had a little crush on their drummer. anyways, i'm biased, i think they're a really good band and i like their angry style of guitar rock.

so we played last, and we weren't too hammered. some of the other bands had already taken off, so whatever. we played decently for the most part. we did fem politique, inspire, busriding, popstar (jimo ran to the bathroom), birthday suit, anal fixation. and then we were gonna stop, but the four people in the audience were like, play some more, so we let corey go get a drink and played the gwen stefani cover and charisma. and they were like play one more, so we attempted to do i don't love you anymore, and it totally fell apart after the first verse. it was pretty annoying, so i was like, that's it, fuck this shit, let's get the fuck out of this dingy ass basement bullshit. the joke was that we were having band practice at the retox, ironically enough, last night at band practice, about the same amount of people stopped by to hang out as those who sat through our performance on monday night. anyway, regardless, no one in the group seemed too bummed out about the show. we just came to the conclusion that we probably shouldm't play on monday nights where we are expected to do all the promotion for two out of town bands, and where we didn't do shit to promote, cuz we were too elated over having actually played in front of people the week before, so like fuck it. it's not like the bar didn't make money off of the 15 people in the bands that played, so like whatever.

anyway, got one more day of black metal record, then we start recording stuff on sunday. gonna try to do a couple of tunes mostly live in the studio. and now my buddy charlie of two star spark has asked that i record his band a demo with their new bass player, so i'll probably start on that next week and hopefully hammer that out over 2 or 3 days.

repot on the transam show

it went really really well. we played: fem politique, birthday suit, inspire, charisma, busriding, what you waiting for (the gwen stefani cover, ha!), and anal fixation. we were pretty damn solid for the first five tunes, a little shaky on the cover, and finished loud and quickly on the last tune. billy and george, the guys running the party were really cool, and the drag performance by kegel kater (i think that's how it's spelled...) was really amazing and disturbing performance of terminal hiv set to a horrible killer song. it was pretty fucking hilarious, though i think jerry was a little spooked with his recent drama at home. anyway, we all pretty much proceeded to blow the $200 we earned at the damn bar after our drink tickets ran out, but hey whatever. it was a rather light turnout for the party, i guess they were competing with another event, but a lot of our friends came out (although about a dozen of them were on the list, ha!), and i left out a big stack of cds that mostly disappeared. at the end of the show i was like, hey if you took a cd, cool, if you got ten bucks to spare, even better. i think around $40 was collected, so that all went in the bank for the next cd. anyway, it was all a good time, i don't think anyone got laid, haha, but aside from a little crying and hugging at like six in the morning (not me, my bitter heart don't make no tears anymore), it was probably our best sounding and most consistent show so far. and jimo was definetly the missing piece in our gang. we got our next show a week from right now - next monday - over at the retox lounge. i doubt anyone will show up, but it should be alright. we'll be playing with three other bands, so we just gotta get a couple more songs together and just bash through our set again.

i got about maybe 4 or 5 days left of recording on nick's black metal record, so i'm gonna try and just bang that out as quickly as possible over the next week and a half, cuz i'm ready to start recording our new record. gonna try and drag tommi down to the studio friday during the day and hopefully band out the drums for one or two of the new tunes and pretty much take it from there.

this saturday

ok, so like this saturday we're doing the transam party, and we're desperately trying to get our shit together. we tried to practice yesterday after gay pride, but it was a drunken disaster, so we ended up going back out and drinking some more. we were downing beer the whole day. well really all three days. i even managed to keep up with the shenangins. me and jimo did get together and practice down at the studio saturday afternoon for a good three hours or so, and we're gonna get together again tomorrow night, so we might not be totally doomed. the real wild card is gonna be getting corey on board for the cover song. anyway, the plan is to rehearse as much as possible between now and saturday and then not get too drunk and blow it when it comes time to actually play, ha! and then we gotta keep pulling our shit together for the show july 14th at the retox. no resting on our laurels, that's for damn sure.

practice practice practice

so we are desperately trying to get our shit together for the july 5th show at transam, and the july 14th show at retox lounge. me and jimo have been getting together and working on tunes and stuff, and we had a good long rehearsal last night (sans corey - who had to work), and i think we've pretty much got it figured out as to what we're gonna play at the Transam gig. i figure we only really got about a half an hour to play, so we really only need about 7 songs to do, but jimo is such a quick learner and incredible creative force, it's really awesome having him in the band, we might have more stuff ready. the two of us are singing together on some tunes, and we're throwing charisma back into the set. i'm really excited to bring in some of the songs from his catalog into our repetoir too. and we've started with this really amazing cover that he has posted on one of his myspace pages. all i have to say is that it's pretty funny that a gwen stefani cover has me WAY more excited than a devo or t.rex cover, haha. but i think what i like best is that we're finally doing a cover that sounds different from the original and more infused with whatever our collective sound is. i mean, jerry still has to figure out what to do exactly, and coreycakes wasn't around last night, but me and jimo and tommi got our shit locked down tight on the arrangement. it's gonna fucking murder them faggots next week. at least, i hope - if we don't blow it, ha!

so we got a 5th

so there are 5 of us now, and we're like five times louder, fuckin' a. this kid JIMO has done been co-opted into the band as our new guitarist and vocalist and whatever else he wants to do. he's really cool. tommi met him at the bar on castro about a month ago, and then he came to our summer party a couple weeks back, and then he ended up at band practice last sunday, and we're all like join the fucking band already. i had heard some of the songs he had recorded, and they were really fucking cool. i mean, when i met at our party, i was like within five minutes, do you wanna join my stupid band? he's that cool. anyway, somehow he decided, sure why not? so yay! it seems like his two main influences are post punk DC dischord indie rock and singer songwriter folk, and he has a fabolous voice. so we got together last friday and hammered out a song together. i'm really excited, hopefully doesn't quit, haha!

so we were originally supposed to be playing at the RETOX lounge this wednesday, but then we disappeared from their calendar, and i emailed them and was like what's up, and didn't hear back from them, so i was like, fuck it, we're not playing that show then. we just got jimo in the band and he needs to learn the set and we got a way more high profile show coming up on july 5th at this transam event. anyway, i finally hear back from the retox guy today, and he's like, oh yeah, oops, i "accidently" deleted you from the calendar, yes come play on wednesday. so i'm like, yo dude, we just got a new guy in the band, haven't promoted the show for shit cuz we thought we were off of it, so like we'd rather not play. supposedly we're going to be playing there on monday july 14th, so i was like, hey, you got 3 bands already for wednesday, so unless yr really counting on us, we'd rather bow out and get our shit together and come do it next month. supposedly, we're getting to pick or help book the other bands for that july show which we're doing with a touring band from seattle called Martyrs of the Apollo Guild. so my goal is to get some other bands to play with us where we can all collectively get a decent turnout, like when we've played el rio, and not like when we played Kimos. speaking of kimos, the sound guy recorded the show off the board and sent me a recording of it. ironically, it's all mostly bass and vocals (with some drums), highlighting the two members of the band who happened to have colds. it sounds pretty fucking horrible. lots of flubbed bass notes and off-key vocals. i'm confident it sounded relatively decent from the audience, but this recording - ain't no one gonna ever NEVER hear, haha. anyway, aside from the distraction of gay pride this weekend (which i'm disapointed we're not performing at in some fashion), we're gonna be getting our shit together so as to totally level the ear drums of all the kids at the TRANSAM party on july 5th. that shit is a really big deal, and i'm really excited that we're playing it, and hopefully we won't blow it too badly, ha! fortunately we got corey planning to get pretty naked, and a cute new guitarist, so yay!

finally, things are going well recording nick's black metal album. we have guitars now finished for 4 out of 7 tracks (bass and drums are all done), leaving just vocals, synth, and any post production effects to be added. it's not seeming like it will be too difficult to mix. the drums are bright and clear, the bass real low, and the guitar tinny and razor sharp. i actually feel like the guitars are a bit too trebly, but nick says he wants it to sound sonically similiar to black flag and greg ginn. regardless, the guitar playing really sounds fantastic and the musical arrangements and songwriting with the guitars and bass is very very strong with some excellent melodic and dissonant interplay between the instruments. i really think that all them black metal poseurs on internet message boards will really like this record (if they ever get a chance to hear it).

post mortem on the june 10th show at Kimos

ok, so Kimos was a fucking rad place to play. wish more people had been there tho, ha! the sound guy was really really good, and the guy who booked us, chad, was super nice. the first band was the girl with violent arms, and that was just one guy. but he was really really good, i totally enjoyed his set of bass and vocals and drum machine with keyboards and lots of loops. metroid from southern california were second, and they were as i predicted. radio rock or something. they played with precision. i kept hearing keyboard, yet there was no keyboard on stage, and it seemed like the bass player wasn't actually playing about half the time. plus they a big fat guy sitting on stage holding a shot of liquor hollering backing vocals. later on, after our set, apparently he puked all over tommi's arm at the bar. douchbag. before we played, the bass player and his afro came over to talk to me and a very sick corey about how to properly pronounce our band name. corey explained that it's like, you say, "part gay", parae! i was like say it a la espanol! and he was like are you guys gay? and corey was like, i'm straight, but the other guys are, yeah? and then after an momentary awkward pause he was like, oh we're all gay, hahaha. douchebag.

so we played. cheryl brougth me some colored lights to put on my fingers that she got at a party store in the mission. me and jerry split the four pack. fucking brillant, really! i put them on my right hand, so my strumming was like lightning bitches! we played: fem politique, persona, inspire, popstar, busriding, you don't love me anymore, don't you wanna play with me, fear of death, birthday suit, anal fixation. i only fucked up during the first verse of popstar of all things. tommi felt that the drumming was too slow on many of the songs, but while we were loose and full of energy, i thought we had hard shit locked down pretty tight. especially with corey being super lethargic from being hella sick, and myself having had a runny nose all day trying to recover from a cold. we some issues with the keyboard amp. i guess we gotta upgrade jerry pretty soon, not sure how i'm gonna finance that, been buggin him to save up some money instead of buy $80 import cds and such! as has become the pattern, yet again we lost something at this show. this time, instead of equipment, it was an article of clothing belong to tommi. yes, some asshole stole tommi's perfectly fitting jacket (the kid has long alien arms). and in the jacket was tommi's id, bank card, and money. it was really fucking lame. and we got into a huge fight at the end of the night that involved my hot dog getting doused with whiskey because i didn't wanna hear it anymore. fucking girls. oh well, the show was cool, cuz we won over a random ass 80 year old man. he was like, i just turned 80, and you kids were awesome, all full of energy and such. that made my day! i gave him a cd, he was really genuine and nice, so i guess we must have been doing something right!

anyway, our next show is in just under two weeks at the Retox lounge over in the dogpatch neighborhood by potrero hill. not sure if we'll be able to coerce anymore people into coming out. but i guess the new plan is PROPS PROPS PROPS. gonna go hit the party store for more low-tech pyro, haha. and hopefully this time corey will be well enough to sport those tight red short shorts he promised he'd wear before he got all sick and shit. i'm trying to finish the words for a song idea i've had gestating for like two fucking years, so tomorrow's my day off, and i'm not recording with nick, so hopefully i can not get distracted and get all my shit together proper.