Friday, April 28, 2006

Jen: We ordered more shirts - show tonight!

.. from what I've heard, you can take bottles in!

9 Man of Sorrows

10 Innervoid

11 Angerkill

12 Deadpool

1 Doctura

Rock City Bar - Ages 18+ - $6 cover

Hope to see you guys out there! We have a "rockstar ending" competition.. AK vs DP. From what we hear, they're not ready, but they're not going down without a fight! We'll be playing a full 45 mnute set tonight so come out and hear the new stuff that'll be on the album!
I placed an order for 36 more shirts of the same design. They'll be in next week.

We've been (still) practicing a lot and trying to get the pre-production recording done and to Keith. It's really helping us to solidify parts. I am about 80% finished with my bass parts. My fingers are killing me - the tips of my index and middle fingers on my left hand are pretty bruised up. Practice last night actually hurt. Jared is now doing his solos and layers and they're coming along great.. just taking more time than expected at this point. After he finishes up, we'll throw down some vocals, get the piano laid down and it's done. I told Keith we'd have it to him first week in May (any later than that and it really serves no purpose because we go in the first two weeks in June - and he needs time with it) so I suppose that we'll just get it to him at whatever stage its at. We DO plan on posting some of this preproduction stuff online, but only segments for copyright reasons.

We're planning on recording a couple of covers, not for inclusion in the album, but to be released later. One for sure is "Davidian" by Machine Head. Frank and Dave are contemplating "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads. Anyone have any suggestions, we'll take em!

Jen

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Jen: Studio progress, Metal show tonight!

Forgive me people, for its been 8 days since our last blog.

We've been working like crazy. Practice last week was 4 days straight (Tuesday - Friday) with a big ass old-school BBQ with the crew here Saturday, Easter Sunday with Dave, Frank, kids and my family on my mom's property on the Guadalupe, and Monday off, then back to work yesterday. Beginning Tuesday of last week, we started that pre-production work we have been talking about. We routed all the drums and guitars through the mixer, then went to track one of our Boss BR-8. It took a few tries and experimenting with mic placement & EQing to get it solid. I then put a track of bass down - ran through my Line 6 Bass Pod. Dave started laying down an additional rhythm track for added definition last night. I have to go back and do all my bass effects and layers, then Jared's up next. We hope to finish up all vocals and extras and have the final package to Keith by May 1st so he has a month to let it fester.







Is that metal or what?!?! I slapped my bass and it slapped me back.


The stuff is not perfect - we were just trying to capture the groove for tempo maps and to give Keith a platform to jump off ahead of time for some creative recording/mixing ideas. Dave is set to keep recording rhythm tracks tonight. The cool thing with all this is, for me at least, I can feel myself becoming more in-tune with the songs the more I play them and can feel them tightening up. I'm also happy to have something solid to write my basslines too. Because I'm unable to practice as much as the guys, it's been a little tough to keep up from a creative aspect, but having this HELPS A LOT.

The plan is to head out to Kristal's tonight to check out Course of Ruin, Brotherhood, Lokey and Before the Bloodshed. It's a task to get out these days though - Frank has his daughter all week and we expend all our babysitting for practices. We'll see what happens - we're at the mercy of my sister. Anyone who feels the need for a good metal show should go to Kristal's to check out some talent! Dave and I haven't been there yet but look forward to hearing this grand sound that promotes - it's the old Sneaker's on Perrin-Beital. It should be good - we're heard nothing but great things about Kristal's.

Happy 420!!!!

Jen



Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Jen: "I just need aaair!!"

... pleads a sweaty, dehydrated Jared in the middle of our 100 degree sauna of a practice last Friday.

It's been a while since our last blog. There's no good reason for that.. Dave is too lazy to write one (he's not really into the internet unless it's to download music), Frank doesn't have access to a computer on a regular basis anymore, and well, Jed chooses to be silent and save his wit for hair blogs.

We had those two shows - our first show back in Austin and then set here at the Bleed the Sky show.'ve got to start by sending our most sincere thanks to everyone at those shows.

We had a blast in Austin! Man, it was awesome to play alongside such a great line-up. Jared experienced for the first time how Austin embraces AK. We get more interest in Austin than we have here at home! I can't explain why - for whatever reason it's just always been like that. We must have gotten 10-12 new Myspace add requests the next couple of days because of our 30 minute set that night. Thanks to Pure Metal Sickness for filming our set and the interview afterwards and for being so supportive of METAL!!

SA was great too. That show made us realize one thing - how many very true friends we have. All the old school crew were out there! I can't name you all, but you know who you are. Thanks for taking time out of your hectic weeknights to come and support. Again, it was nice to be a part of such a good bill and it was wonderful to see you all.

I posted pictures on our website from both of these shows.. and really everything involving Jared to this point. You can check them out HERE.

We have a show coming up in a couple of weeks at Rock City Bar. Please help us promote it. The code to copy and paste is below:


METAL for the art of music




..and last, but definitely not least, we are making progress towards the goal! We have nine songs completed and ready for recording. The guys finished up the last song on Friday. Dave and Jared started writing it 2 years ago and we adopted it, worked on it diligently for about a month and a half and finally got it down. What was frustrating about this one is that the song was all written except the ending - we could never get it right!!!! We were making it too difficult - too many changes. It FINALLY came in the form of perfect collaboration: Dave asked Jared to write a variation off one of the other riffs, Jared belted it out and Frank added some massive drums on top (I follow his double bass), then Dave completed the soundscape with a layer. It took everyone focused to get this one done, but I LOVE how it came out! Hopefully we will debut it April 28th. It all depends on whether Dave gets the lyrics penned by then.

Another cool thing that happened at practice tonight was that Dave and Frank figured out how to run the two kicks, overhead and guitar cabs through our mixer to the recording device (Boss BR-8) as 1 track so we can add bass, lyrics and layers on the stuff we're writing. It actually sounds pretty full and should help our writing progress along better. Jared can actually hear the guitars to write his solos and layers now and I can solidify my bass lines on some of these new ones before our recording sessions, which are set for the first two weekends in June with Keith at Monster Music Studios.

Not too exciting, huh?! Well for us it is, dammit! We're seriously determined to make the best piece of art we're capable of.

- Jen

Monday, April 3, 2006

Jen: Set time and info for Bleed the Sky tonight

30 minute sets.. we're on from 8:45-9:15

Here's the mainstage order:
Plague

AK
Americult
Silent Civilian
Bleed the Sky

..and thats all I know. I know the backroom is loaded with bands too.. there's something like 13 bands on the bill!

All ages, $7 at the door at the White Rabbit here in SA TONIGHT!

Thanks for the support, guys

Jen
ANGERKILL