Oh, and the Beta Safari seems to have issues w/ the wordpress wysiwyg.  If you know what that means, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Otherwise, feel free to ignore. (needless to say, I’m re-typing this on firefox)

On another note, while Tim was over on sunday we put scratch tracks down for Sin the Skin so the count for recordings is back up to 20.  I still think that it would be a little much to do a double album (and though I’ve got an ego, it ain’t that big).  So I’m going to have a lot of work to do figuring out what makes it and what doesn’t.  That’s where you fine people will come in.  Once I’ve got everything to a good place I’ll throw up (not really, it’s a figurative throw up) everything in MP3 format and let you all bash away at what a suck-ass waste of time I can be.  Or you could just be nice and say that it should really just be an EP.

Anyway that’s it for today.  Hopefully we’ll have some more info coming up shortly

I’ve enlisted the help of quite a few friends and this recording adventure has become an international affair as well as a bit of a Maximum Bob reunion.  Dave Avillion and Bob Troia the drummer and bass player from MB have agreed to help out.  Dave’s in Las Vegas and will be doing drum tracks remotely.  Bob is in NYC and will be doing bass parts there.  Tim the guitar player from Sweetwood Groove is going to be doing some of the guitar parts and I’m recording a number of songs that he and I co-wrote so that’ll be pretty cool.  A friend that I’ve done a couple of online collaborations with over the last 2 years will be helping out with keyboards and sound design.  He’s in Australia (hence the international part).

So far things are going fairly smoothly.  The timeline so far has been:

• Early January, I decided I was going to do this.
• Figured out what songs I was going to do, there were 23 on the list initially.
• Spent a couple of nights figuring out tempos for the songs and annoying the hell out of my wife while I tapped away listening to headphones… (there’s nothing more exciting in the recording process than just listening to some idiot tap out tempos trying to figure out BPM (Beats per minute).  I have a very understanding spouse…
• Went down in the basement and fired up the recording gear to get moving on scratch tracks.
• Gear shit the bed, so I had to figure out a new way of recording.
• Again, said spouse was awesome and agreed to let me purchase a new recording rig.
• New rig was delivered and spent a day and a half learning how to use the damned thing (plug and play my ass…)
• Had a gig right about this time (this is still mid-january).  Played a bunch of the songs that I’m planning on recording, too much crowd noise on the recording so I couldn’t tell if they really sounded good or not.  The applause was really good for them, but the amount of talking during the playing makes me think that maybe no one was really paying attention anyway
• Spent a week getting scratch tracks down to cheesy drum loops and just playing my acoustic and singing.  The cheesy drum loops help in that they’re better than just playing to a click track so that I keep everything on tempo, but they’re fairly annoying to listen to for anyone who’s not all that accustomed to them.
• Posted all of the tracks for the core participants to listen to and so far we’re fairly happy.  I only ended up doing 19 of the original 23 because there were 3 songs that I had either recorded before or in one instance sounded too similar to one that I knew was going to make it on the final recording so I figured I’d save it for a later date.
• This past weekend I started recording electric guitars and overdubbing the acoustic.  Again a very understanding wife because in order to get decent tone out of the amp I need to have it fairly loud…
• With 5 songs as a start, Bob and Dave are beginning to do the overdubs.  One song in particular of course proved a bit of a challenge figuring out a good drum pattern for it, but Dave has already been more than cool about it.

So there’s the beginnings of the recording processs.  I’m pretty psyched for it, and I’m pretty sure that I’m going to end up with 10-14 songs that I’m really proud of.  Not to mention the fact that it’s very cool to be playing with Dave and Bob again albeit from a fairly large distance.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7665747.stm

No, really I’ve got a lot of respect for the banjo, it’s just that every time I hear one I think of that kid from Deliverance (and TomDog coincidentally)

On another note, SWG has a new bass player and we’re working on new music so hopefully we’ll be playing out shortly.

And another other note, the Choral Arts Society is singing this weekend and I’ll be singing with them (provided my clothes have arrived by then, have to call the Tux shop and make sure they’re there…)  It’s a pretty cool program so check it out if you’re free saturday night or sunday afternoon.

And finally, something for the creative in you, Nike’s new ad campaign is pretty sweet. http://www.youtube.com/nikefootball 

The first programming I ever did was on that thing as well, i wrote a little GI Joe game, that was basically a choose your own adventure. I learned however, that it’s not that fun to play games that you wrote, because you always know the ending…

I also had a typing game where you were given a word to type and if you typed it fast enough, you’d kill the spaceship coming at you. If you didn’t, the space ship would kill you. I actually had a really good time with it and appreciate the skills that I learned with it even today. So I’m sure you sitting there asking yourself, “what the hell is Josh going on about now”. I’ll get there, keep yer skivvies on…

I know that there have been a number of games out there for people to learn piano via the computer in a similar way as the typing game. And then there’s the popularity of Guitar Hero (which is a hell of a lot of fun). So then I see this: http://www.guitarrising.com I’m REALLY excited about guitar rising. Not only does it make things a little more interesting (and useful) for the people that play guitar hero and the like, but it also I think will be VERY interesting for people that know how to play guitar. Having something like that could really “improve the chops” as they say.

• Swimming Just to Drown this is a new one, I wrote in may of this year (i’d posted it on my myspace page, so some of you may have heard it acoustic before)
• Happier to Go Away this is another new one.  It worked out nicely, I had the lyrics for a while and in about 5 minutes at practice one night I had the verse and chorus worked out.  Tim came up with the break and solo part and in about 15 minutes we had the full song fleshed out.  I think it really came out well and right now it’s my favorite tune that we’re doing.  I screwed up a couple of times as can be expected, but you get the idear…
• Marmalade > Stasis  Not actually a segue i just couldn’t find a good spot to split them up.  Marmalade is an old one of mine that we’ve definitely made our own.  Stasis was the first song that we all wrote together.  Charlie, one of the people that came out was playin’ tamborine.
• Riverside  This is another one that we’ve written together.  Tim wrote the chords and I did the lyrics and melody.  It’s a very different tune from what I’d usually write and I’m really psyched about the different directions that we’re going.

There’s a nice little sampling for you.  We had a nice little Soul Kitchen > At least Not Tonight > Sympathy for the Decible to close out the night but it was a little over 20 minutes and might be a little long to post here.

We’re also working on recording a 5 song demo/EP and are looking to have that done by march (well at least 3 of the songs).  I’ll post some of what happens tonight up here as soon as I can.

In other news, I’m leaving for Raleigh on sunday and will be there, then columbia SC monday then Charleston SC tuesday, then back to Raleigh on wednesday and flying back on thursday.  So anyone down that way who wants to get together, gimme a call and we’ll grab some drinks!

http://www.thesixtyone.com