The History of WTH (part 22): Stream of Tears

Stream of Tears is one of the first songs that I wrote. I
think this one was written in my bedroom at my parents’ place. I
must have been on break from college. I had originally intended
to have it orchestrated with a solo guitar and vocals. As it
turned out, the mandolin and violin [...]

More CustomD Recording

Yesterday, Jim Hill stopped by to overdub some guitar tracks on the
recordings we layed down last Tuesday. It went pretty well.
We pretty much finished two songs.
Here's what Jim was playing through:
Guitar: Schecter, I think S-1

 
 
 
 
 
Amps: Fender ??? (an old, but trusty 1×12, red knob amplifier) running through my '65 Fender Twin Reverb Reissue:
 
 
 
 
 
I'm not [...]

Unwanted ‘audible’ addition…

Well…I sprayed the hell out of this thing with some WD-40, however, a squeeking sound is still present (primary/right mechanism) – it actually helped the left-sided mechanism out…interesting…well, i guess it will add to the ‘fullness’ of all of my future music/recordings…reminds me of that squeeking fellow from that one X-files episode…pretty cool…

The Singing Bowl

So, I finally used it in a song.  My friend, Niels Klitgord, bought me a “singing bowl” for my birthday last year.  These things are pretty cool.  You can get a pretty cool resonance out of them.
The song I put it in is a very droning piece.  I was going for a 20th century composition [...]

The Cantab

Tonight, Krissy and I went to Geoff Bartley’s open mic night at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, MA.  This was singer/songwriter night. Geoff’s a great performer.
Bucky O’hare and I played a few blues tunes, one of which he wrote.  I was fortunate enough to have the sheet music that he had written out for me.  [...]

The History of WTH (part 21): Dreamstate

Dreamstate was another fairly progressive song that we came up with in the early days. This time, the influence was more of a Permanent Waves or Moving Pictures variety. Apparently I had progressed chronologically in my Rush collection.
The song begins with an effect laden guitar, playing a moderate tempo 4/4 rock groove. Vocals kick in [...]

The First Basement Recording Session

Saturday, Custom Deluxe recorded in the basement. Only two songs (or parts of them), but it marks a special occasion. This was the first official recording session in the basement studio.
The new monitors I bought sound pretty good. They are Event Tuned Reference 8 monitors. The music sounds a lot different coming through [...]

Morph the Cat

I finally got the latest Donald Fagen album, Morph the Cat. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge Steely Dan fan, so this was a real treat for me.
Obtaining this disc involved 3 trips to the music store since the projected March 7th release date.  I work next to the Watertown Mall, which [...]

The Fast

So, Chuck recently brought this to my attention: Our former drummer, Toby, is playing in a new band called The Fast.
It looks like they’re in the process of recording, but they do have some material up on their MySpace site.  Pretty bass and drum heavy.  I like it.    There’s also some programming involved.  [...]

The History of WTH (part 20): Toby’s Fear

Finally, Toby brought to this song an element of fullness. In the last WTH History post, we addressed the previous rendition.
This was one of the first songs that Aaron and I played with Toby. I remember trying to put together a three part harmony during that session. Toby sang a falsetto minor seventh over [...]