Progress Shmogress: Rushing Art

“You can’t rush art -” is what I keep hearing in my head over and over again – The quote comes from Toy Story 2. Why I keep hearing it is a two fold booty: 1st booty fold – My first album when all is said and done is going to take a year longer than I wanted it to and the quote helps me feel a little better about it. Plus I know when I am finished I will be 99% happy with the final product, which is much better than sending music into the world that blows. 2nd booty fold – I recently saw the Toy Story 3D double feature with my wife for a date. Now that we have those out of the way on to the good news!! ….

All mixing and mastering is finished!! Anyone that has been working on something for a long time, whether art, a business, making babies, or whatever it is – will know what it is like to experience a positive end result/effect of the work. It was an exciting day! Now all the details of the album art need to be put together and I need to round up the funds to make all the CD’s and we are in business! After that look out for a release party! I plan on renting out a cool venue and having free food and stuff. Rock on amigos!

Les Paul Dies at 94

I had the amazing pleasure of sitting down next to Les Paul and talking with him just two months ago after one of his famed concerts at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York. While I was one of many standing in line to meet him, I am still astounded how welcoming he was. At 94, at 2am in the morning he was as courteous as anyone could ever be taking the time to ask me questions about my life. I feel very honored to have met him and be lucky enough to enjoy one of his shows.
When I heard the news of his passing today I was of course saddened, but not shocked because of his age. However I feel connected to him somehow. Out of pure chance last night I told my wife I wanted to put on the movie “Les Paul: Chasing Sound,” which I still hadn’t seen entirely. The more I learn about Les Paul I am in awe. This man changed music as we know it, and holy crap he was a phenomenal guitarist.
If you don’t know much about Les Paul I seriously recommend you read up.  If you are a musician buy Les Paul: Chasing Sound, and it will help you realize what we owe to Les Paul. I love how he called Monday nights at the Iridium the best therapy. I hope to be that cool if I make my 90’s.

I know you will keep rocking on the other side Les. We’ll try and make some good music over here in the meantime.

Meeting Les Paul In New York

Band Names Blogging Extravaganza 2.0

For this second installment of The Band Names Blogging Extravaganza I thought I would dig down to my roots and see what people think of I band name from high school days. For your consideration I give you the name:

Swedish Apple Dogs

I rate it a 6 out of 10 for insanity and the ability to use a cool acronym-dealy   S.A.D.

Big updates on the first Wesly album coming soon chankers…

Shout Out and Album Progress

I would now like to shout out to everyone related to Billy Bob Thornton. This shout out has now concluded. Thank you. Now go home, dress up like Cindy Lauper, and cry your self to sleep.

The album is rocking along – I am getting close to setting an official release party chank day. Aside from a few other little things that need to be recorded I’m now moving forward with the design of the CD which is fun. Andy Bean finished his painting of my man mug… that sounds weird.. and a friend and coworker of mine Josh Derosa is helping me with the design of the CD. With his design and a bunch of other art from friends the CD will make you all warm and tingly before you even listen to it. Rock on amigos!! P.S. if you’re asking “why the Billy BT shout?” – then let me tell you.. why not?

Gospel Choirs, stuff taking too long, and a picture to display my overall confusion

Goodnight chank basters it’s the of end April already! So much for having my first album done by January! Maybe I wasn’t being very realistic about how long the project would take due to the number of songs I am doing and everything I want to do with them. Plus I guess real rockers stick it to the man and quit their day jobs for the glory of rock, but I guess I am just not to that level rock face yet.

There is one song that I think my friends, and people who have heard me play around in local venues are sick of – so I want make it sound very different on the album.  I have played around with a number of different ideas and the winning idea is to have a gospel choir sing in parts of the song. Believe it or not it is a little difficult finding a good gospel choir in Utah. After several months of contacting different people I was reminded that a friend of mine Ammon Kamai used to sing in a choir. Well hallelujah – he was still in it! The Divine Heritage Choir has agreed to sing on my album. So far the choir has heard the song, and with a little direction from me the section leaders are making parts for the song. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get into the studio with them. Then I will be ready to mix these tunes and send them screaming into the world to bust many a gut and burst a million spleens.

Done better see some live music son

If you are a music fan, particularly a live music fan then you must have your reasons for forking over $20-200 to see a group play. Now keep in mind when I say “live music” I don’t consider New Kids On The Block, or any other group where the lyrics say things like *”I’ve been waiting for you to get naughty” and song titles like **”Sexify My Love” as music. My next door neighbor is a die hard “Block” fan, so without trying to bash her or the group too much – for the purposes of this discussion lets focus more on live rock music and move on from talking about lame kinds of groups before I get into a rant.

Why would you want to go see a group play live? For me nothing can beat the experience of watching a musician pour out their craft in a live setting – blowing your mind, melting your face, and busting your guts. To be a part of the process of art, whether its watching a painter make something amazing out of what was before just a white canvas and colors on a pallet, a dancer practice, or a choir rehearse – it solidifies the art and makes it more personal. If you can’t be with your favorite bands when they wrote the music and recorded it in the studio, which is likely – then the closest you can come to the raw art is going and seeing them live. Plus if the band can wail live  it will just make you love them even more. If they suck, oddly it is provides some sense of satisfaction that at least you now know they are only any good in the studio. It is simply just cooler to be a part of the process instead of only having the end product – the finished painting or the studio CD.

So go see some live music! The next time one of your favorite groups is coming to town save up and go see them!

*Actual New Kids On The Block lyrics
**Actual New Kids On the Block song title

Going the Extra Mile

Things are rocking along you little kitten wedges! I have 19.75 hours of studio time left before I have to start forking over more money (which may or may not happen depending on how long mixing takes). All of the main vocal parts are recorded, and I only have a few more harmonies left. Most of the music work left will be done at home – 12 more bass lines to record and a couple little guitar parts that will be fine from home. This post is dedicated to the musician that goes an extra mile like the picture of Wayne below. We were recording a song called Be My Own and there is a shift between the chill part of the song into mind blowing rock. The shift requires a classic guitar maneuver of dragging the pick across the frets creating a scratching noise. This man got down on his knees for optimal rock power leverage to drag the pick across the strings; like a lion dragging its last kill across the jungle floor. Give it up to Wayne for going the extra rock mile.

Magical Herbal Studio Tea Drinks

Last night after my last final I headed on in to Rosewood to keep cracking away at the vocals. I was a little worried because my voice was still a bit tight and scratchy from a recent cold. There was 3 songs for sure I knew I didn’t even want to try, but Guy Randall disappeared for awhile and brought me back magical drinks. It had like 4 or 5 bags of tea, with honey, brown sugar, lime, and holy motherless chank child yeah. It was thick, it was brown, it was strangely delicious, and it healed my voice. We recorded vocals for 6 songs in 3.5 hours, along with some other song clean up stuff. It was glorious! That means I only have one song left to sing main vocals on!

After some harmonies, bass lines, last minute additions, and mixing I will have 19 songs to go out and attack the world with! “I’m ready promotion… I’m ready promotion” – hope you know what thats from.

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Band Names Blogging Extravaganza

Howdy. So I am going to start a semi regular thing and just post up band names that I think are funny, cool, or lame and then give it my vote. If anybody has band names up their sleeves shoot um over once and a while for kicks. This time around I am going with a name that was in a list for possible names of a band I was in once:

Torgo and the Gentlemen of Ill Repute

If you know who Torgo is then you know whats going on! If not you better brush up on your Mystery Science Theater episodes. I give this name a 7 out of 10 for reminding me of Torgo, and because it has a good flow

Salsbury Pudding

It must have been around 8th grade a friend of mine (Cam) and I came up with the name of our band: Salsbury Pudding. The name stuck around longer than any other band name I’ve been associated with, mostly because for a long time it only represented a two man band – a guitarist/bassist/singer and a keyboardist/drummer/singer. However after several years passed the band increased with a couple more duders Wayne Powell (Guitar) and Devin Anderton (he ended up playing drums, viola, and the bass.. dang) It was really only a four man band for a few weeks, but for that short duration we wanted to see if we could compete in a local high school battle of the bands.

I wrote a song, and Wayne had some songs in the mix we learned as a band, then with a couple classic They Might Be Giants Covers we were ready. In the end we tied for 2nd place if I remember right, which we were cool with even though the prize was a piece of poop. After the intense battle for high school rock glory, Cam’s Dad was way cool and paid to have us go into the studio and record the songs we battled with. That was my first experience in the studio and it was a great one. So why all the reminiscing? Mostly because I just got a couple songs over to Salsbury Pudding’s old band member Devin Anderton to see if he could add some viola parts to this new project – and his response was pretty funny and it must be posted:

“Got the goods. Your stuff rocks my panties. I don’t own panties. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I haven’t erased that, yet. I’ll tinker around, see what I get. With your songs, off course, not my imaginary panties. Enough with the panties, already.
Devin”

Enough said.