Just a quick post as I’ve run off my feet trying to get things finished before I take off to Dubai for 3 weeks.  Last year I didn’t set any New Years resolutions again, but if I could go back in time and set some these are what they’d be

1.  Leave my job and have a go at being a self employed freelancer

2.  Take up piano after my 10 year break and learn Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# minor

3.  Get an full length album 75% finished (I’ll finish it off when I get back I promise!)

4.  Finally fix up that bass guitar that’s been sitting about in the corner not working for years

5.  Visit the Maton Guitar Factory to learn more about guitar building/repairs and get some hands on experience.

6.  Go seriously blonde

7.  Play a few acoustic gigs

8.  Ah I’m all out of ideas.  Maybe I didn’t get much done this year

9.  Though number 1 was a biggie so it more than makes up for everything else

10.  Rock on!

Ok, I’m gonna break tradition and set myself some goals for 2009.  That way I can’t just make them up at the end of the year and pretend I’m awesome.  So in no particular order…

1.  Finish that darn album!

2.  Be calm and cool at the end of the financial year, stay self employed and don’t go running to beg for my old job back

3.  Host some successful art gallery nights at The Manor

4.  Finish a couple of paintings

5.  Get back into gigging and… Go on tour!  Preferably summer tour, but who knows…

6.  Finish that awesome guitar I started building in 2007

7.  Run a marathon.

8.  Learn another Rachmaninoff piece (not decided which one yet)

9.  Write music for a film

10.  Make a music video

Ok, I might even print that out and stick it on my wall for the purpose of proper motivational cliché

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, have fun at New Years and stay safe.

Catch ya on the flip side

Here is a sneak preview for Meatmarket.  This is just a premix so don’t start getting all picky on it just yet

It’s 7:30am on a Saturday morning.  I resisted the urge to sleep till 11 since I have a friend coming to record some bass tracks this morning and I need time to clear the myriad of coffee cups that litter my desk.  And time to write another long overdue blog.

Drum tracking is finished, a couple of songs have all the tracking done however most are still waiting on bass.  I am trying to nail a tough guitar solo in one particular song which is giving me grief.  I mean I can play it, but I just really want to play it solidly.  I just can’t seem to get that magic take.  Vocals are done on most of the songs, bar a couple.  Robin Liu (Infinite Flying Kick) came in to record some guitar parts and brought with him a new song he’d written for the album.  I need to write vocals and other parts for that too.  A few tracks have moved on to the mixing stage.  I had planned to do the mixing myself but at this point I’m so sick to death of my own music that I really felt I needed to get a pair of outside ears in.  In fact I’m getting two pairs of outside ears with David Edtmaier of Miscreant Recordings and Michelle Klaessens from The Rock Factory doing some each.

A quick shout out to those who have contributed so far…

Mike Johns – Guitar

Tory Staples (Battle Circus) – Drums

Christina Chunks (Infinite Flying Kick) – Piano/Synths

Robin Liu (Infinite Flying Kick) – Guitar

James Dudley – Guitar, Backing Vocals

Dave Edtmaier (Miscreant) – Guitar, Bass, Mixing

Anthony Corban (The Mysterons) – Bass, Guitar (Yet to be tracked)

Harry Champion (The Exiles) – Bass

Michelle Klaessens (The Rock Factory) – Mixing, and no doubt she’ll throw in some piano and backing vocals

 

 Meat Market Pre-mix [3:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Spent a large part of the weekend recording drums for my album.  Got in Tory Staples, the drummer from my old band Amperzahn.  He’s currently playing for a few other artists including one of my fav NZ bands ‘Battle Circus‘.  I had planned to record drums at our fav recording studio The Rock Factory, but I soon realized we wouldn’t have enough time there as we had done no pre-production and had never even jammed on most of the songs.  So we ended up setting up for a three day recording/learning session in a rehearsal studio.

Starting early and finishing late with short breaks to catch the Santa Parade as it went past and to play an acoustic gig, the weekend went by in a blur.  I will be really interested to see how my drums tracks sound in the mix.  With no engineer on hand I was a little worried at first but everything seemed to go pretty smoothly.  I haven’t loaded all the tracks off the computer there yet.  I’m not used to using a Mac so I got a little frustrated with all the shortcuts being different.  I recorded in Logic which I have used a little before but such a long time ago that it may as well have been not at all.  However by three in the morning on Sunday I was starting to get the hang of it and even remembering to press Apple+S for ‘Save Project’ instead of Ctrl+S for ‘Solo Track’

Also by three in the morning on Sunday; Tory had blisters on his hand and the rehearsal room floor was decorated with a sprinkling of sawdust from hacked away drumsticks.  A china cymbal that had been bit damaged on tour was now completely history, and we had consumed enough caffeine to wake a drowsy elephant.  In my case that was only just enough coffee to combat the few unwise vodkas I had after the acoustic gig.

The acoustic gig on Sunday was interesting,  I was very unprepared (story of my life) having spent most of the week stressing about getting this album finished before Christmas break, and generally running about like a headless chicken (the metaphor not the band).  Played partly solo but mostly as an acoustic duo with  friend of mine Mike Johns.  Had good feed back after the gig so either we played well thanks to our 20 minute practice before the show or all our friends are sweet kind liars