Dayman

I spent an hour or two last night recording a cover version of 'Dayman' from the Its Always Sunny Musical 'The Nightman Cometh'. It can be heard on the Colorfield Bridge myspace.

Music and food....

Well, it has been a while and a lot has happened. Sort of. I just got back (a few days ago) from Santa Cruz, CA. I flew up there to mix the Glider album that has been sitting in limbo for months and months. I flew up Thursday night and got in around 11:30pm. Upon arrival we tracked vocals to one of the two tracks that was incomplete. The next three days were spent mixing for 13 hours a day. We lost 6 or 7 hours due to computer problems on Saturday which put us behind schedule. All in all though, things are sounding great. I have high hopes that we can get the album sent off to be mastered in the next few weeks. I have also more or less finished the Colorfield Bridge and Narrator Is Lying discs. They are just awaiting art design and release.

In other news: I start Culinary school this Sunday! I'm so excited! :) I've been cooking a lot lately anyways and I look forward to learning more about the subject. Two nights ago I tried a new (to me) way of cooking pasta: you cook it in water and red wine (1:2). It gives the noodles a red color and infuses them with a great flavor. I then heated up some oil and tossed in garlic and crushed red pepper and cooked the spaghetti (after draining) in the pan with a 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid, until the liquid was gone. It was then tossed with Olive Oil and Italian Parsley (chopped). It turned out pretty good. I think next time I am going to use much more garlic and add in some shallots and red bell pepper. It had a great buttery consistency but lacked some flavor depth. I think the addition of the shallots and red pepper will help bring out some of the flavors and will pair well with the wine. I will likely start writing updates about school and my cooking adventures (as well as continue my boring updates about music).

General Update: Vacation and Music

I spent last week in San Francisco. I had a good time. I initially choose San Francisco as my vacation spot because I have so many friends in the area. All of them (with the exception of Jenna, who I stayed with) were out of town while I was there. I spent a week alone riding trains, buses, and walking about the city. I had a great time. I mostly just wandered with my headphones on. Miles Davis and Nick Drake being the two most played artists on the iPod during the trip. I visited two museums there and saw some great art. including a few pieces by one of my favorite artists: Richard Diebenkorn. The De Young Museum also had an Andy Goldsworthy installation that was neat.

I spent a good amount of money at Amoeba Records (I got records by Bill Evans, Low/Dirty Three, Wayne Shorter, American Football, Robert Fripp and Andy Summers, Weather Report, Boards of Canada, and Peter Gabriel). Jenna took me to an awesome French-Vietnamese restaurant that was mindblowingly good. I am sad it is there and not here. I ordered a ginger lemon grass chicken with brown rice, and Jenna convinced me to get a soup that she likes...it was the best soup I've ever had, sweet spicy goodness. Vegetarian, with tamarind in it. Delicious. Jenna was a great hostess and I was happy to get to hang out with her more, as we had only hung out in person a few times previously.

Once I got back I managed to get to work on music again pretty quickly. I have 3-5 tracks in varying stages of completion. Christopher should be coming over to drum on a few of them in the near future. They range in style. I'm really starting to get excited about this album I've been working on. It feels like an album full of intros and outros but with very few full songs, lol. I like that. Just pieces of moods and sketches of ideas. Honestly, its the best I'm able to do right now, and that is just fine. Talked to Janessa today and with any luck she will be coming over sometime in the next week to finally finish up some Narrator Is Lying tracks. At this point I still expect to release that as well as the Colorfield Bridge album by the Fall/Winter this year. This has not been the best or most entertaining update ever, I'll try harder next time.

Drift Theory video

So I finally decided to take a few steps towards starting a new company, sort of. Except this one will remain in my control and b what I want it to be: a hobby. Something fun, to release art that I enjoy, either by me or by people who's work I admire. Hopefully it will not stop with music, I'd like to do DVDs and books as well. Anyways, the company is named 'Drift Theory' or 'The Drift Theory Group', either way. I made a splash video for the website. The compression is problematic (as usual) and the youtube one makes it so you can not really read what is written at the bottom, but I'm posting it here anyways. The video is shot and edited by me and the audio is Nate (under the guise of his recording project Opilis.). I think it turned out pretty color. I like the look of the imagery. One of these days maybe I'll do a substantial artsy video that isnt just one subject treated in what I consider to be an interesting way. Some day maybe I'll move on to plot. We shall see. There is more and more talk of horror films lately. With various people. I'm not an overly devoted fan of the genre but I think it would be fun to work on one. Anyways, enjoy the video. I have not worked as much on my own video projects of late, music stuff has been going so well. My own project as well as recording Romak's solo project and I may engineer/mix an EP for my friend Jack. That'll be once I get back from San Francisco (I leave on the 14th come back on the 19th). I need to start writing again (words, not just music), I hope to have time and inspiration walking the streets of San Francisco. We shall see.

Ghosts, Christopher Bright, A Break from the Sea, and Redwoods

Christopher came over last night to track some drums for Colorfield Bridge. I played with Christopher previously in Glider, August Kelly, and C is for Carlo. We hadn't gotten together in a while and definitely had not played music in a long time. It was good to get a chance to catch up, hang out, and most of all get to work on some tunes. He set up a kick, snare, hi-hat, and crash in my room and we put up three mic's. The first song we tracked was just a few guitars that to me at least were too simple and did not amount to a whole lot. I played the track and he learned it quickly and had a solid take down in just a few tries. I have since added vocals and bass and am extremely happy with the result. I think it's one of my favorite pieces in recent memory, its funny how a few little touches can really just make something awesome. His performance on the track is great. The song is now titled Ghosts and can be heard on my myspace page.

After tracking Ghosts we moved on to a song called A Break from the Sea (which is a play/joke on the album title for the Glider album that has been in limbo for what seems like years). I had recorded the song about a year prior and had just recently done some re-sequencing of the audio. When I played it I played to a click but didn't bother to set the meter so when my time signatures changed it just felt natural to me....the count was incredibly screwy and it took a few hours to get drums learned and tracked for it. The count was so difficult to get we had to try for a long time to figure out how to break it up, eventually we got it and wrote the info on his snare head for easy access (lol/see image). We eventually got it all laid down. Im happy with his performance, but upon further listening I'm not sure about the song. I am going to work with it and see if I can get it to a place where I am happy with it, but I fear it will take a lot of work to get it anywhere close.

I also recently finished a song titled Redwoods (that has also been uploaded to the myspace). It is the second song to feature Amber Ormand (of Cloudcraft and Silver Pines) on vocals, the first being Sky Travel. It had been almost finished for over a month. I finally got around to fixing up the percussion and a delay problem with the horns. It now sounds great, in my opinion at least. Parker helped out tracking the percussion a while back when the song was still brand new.

Darn, I'm now listening back to Ghosts and it's overall level is too low in comparison to the rest of the tracks, I'll have to fix that later, but for now it is bedtime. Art Walk in Santa Ana and Violaine in LA tomorrow. Goodnight. :)

Recent Video Shoot

On Monday I grabbed my tripod and drove down to Parker's house, the location of the video shoot for Romak's Lady Gaga parody song. The concept is, as described by Romak, the music video for the Lady Gaga song Just Dance meets two girls one cup. The first hour or so was spent with people putting on make-up, chain smoking, and making fake diarrhea (chocolate pudding, ginger/hibiscus juice, frozen vegetables, crumbled rice cake, milk, and a bit of olive oil). I handled the camera work all day (including a makeshift dolly shot utilizing a skateboard and a box) and sort of shared directorial duties with Romak and Nate. Nate will be editing the video over the course of the week. The general mood of the video is a house party. Highlights include people getting pelted with fake excrement.We had multiple girls (in addition to Romak) dressed up similarly to Lady Gaga. The shoot was really fun. We all had a blast with the choreographed bedroom dance scene and the various party scenes. After the shoot we spent a long time cleaning chocolate pudding off of most of the house's surfaces.After all of that we all went to the jacuzzi to relax after a long day. I look forward to seeing the result of this silly/fun day of shooting. After seeing some test shots of the fake doodie Romak and I noticed that in some of the shots it looked more like fake blood which has brought up the potential of working on a horror film together....I guess we shall see if that pans out. To hear the song please visit the Lady Caca myspace page @ http://www.myspace.com/ladycacapwns , while its not normally my aesthetic it has been a blast working on both the song and the video.

In other news, the Colorfield Bridge album is coming along well. Christopher is coming over to track drums on two or three songs. One of which is titled A Break from the Sea, another is not yet named as there are no vocals yet, I think I want Janessa to sing with me on it. I finally fixed up the track Redwoods (featuring Amber Ormand on vocals). I need to get things going with Guyton,a s I want him to do live drums on Kiss. Other than that I have one song that is in the works, I just need to track the chorus and bridge vox and guitars. I amy be releasing a split 7" in the not too distant future with Brandon's project Goodnight Mechanical Dinosaur. More on that later. Also, I have to remember to blog about it, but we are going to be starting a monthly series of concerts in my apartment. I'll explain later though, back to the day job.....

Windy & Carl

So, last night I drove up to LA with two friends (Brandon and Melissa) to see Windy & Carl at a venue I had never been to. The venue was called Synchronicity. It was a gallery space. Very small. I liked it. When I arrived I ran into Ned Ragget (who's photos I jacked for this posting cause my phone takes horrid photographs) and Windy Webber. We chatted through the first band and had a lovely time out front. Then Brandon, Melissa, and I went in to watch a band called Nudge, who I had never heard of. Their set was fantastic. Mostly instrumental drone stuff with synth, electronic drums (used pretty minimally) and guitar. A lot of the patterns that emerged really reminded me of the earlier works of Philip Glass and/or Steve Reich (in different ways). What I most loved about them was how they had all this sound going and manipulated the whole wall of it in varying ways, deconstructing it with stutters, slow downs, stops and starts. It was great. Next up was White Rainbow, who unknown to me has a ton of associations with other acts that I was familiar with. His set was really great as well. It sounded like he was using one of those Boss slicer pedals or perhaps one of the Linn guitar boxes that do rhythmic stuff, he was very good at what he did. After his set I bought a limited edition tour 12" Windy and Carl were selling, as well as a tour EP by Nudge. Windy and Carl's set started with a few shorter, for them, pieces with vocals. They were nice and set the mood perfectly for the epic bliss out drones that came in waves at us over the next....what had to have been over an hour. At varying points I almost fell asleep, or closed my eyes and just felt the music, or watched enthralled by the pulsating wall of sound and the beautiful photographs being projected with the set (courtesy of Christy Romanick, who if you have not seen her photos....you really have to). It was a fantastic time and I highly recommend seeing them live to anyone, it is great. I only wish I could have gone tot he show in Big Sur (outdoors in the redwoods, people brought sleeping bags and just lay down on the grass to their set). Black moth Super Rainbow is playing tonight and I'll likely post a brief play by play of that as well. Till next time.....

Photoblog: Recording Space

Colorfield Bridge + Thoughts on music listening environments

So, I said I would post more once I had a name to the project. Well, the new band/recording project is called Colorfield Bridge. I have also solidified the idea behind the project a little bit. It is meant to be raw short songs. I don't want to record more than a take or two for everything. I want there to be flaws in the music. I want it to be human and a real performance. I don't want to edit everything into perfection. I want it to be spontaneous (start and finish a song in the same day as much as is possible). I want it to sound like it was made in my bedroom (which, for the most part has been and will be the case). Lastly, I want to collaborate with as many friends as are willing. I have two tracks with Amber on vocals (only one currently posted, I think I'm going to try to get Carlo to play drums on the other). Anyways, I hope to release a 15 - 20 song album in the winter of 09/10 sometime. I have the album name picked out already (Without the Horses). It will likely be the first release on the new label I am starting (now that I am pretty much fully removed from my former record label The Gaia Project). Anyways, enough about the new projects. TO hear tracks please go to myspace.com/colorfieldbridge. On to other thoughts.....

Maybe it's just me but have you ever noticed how certain albums are great for listening to with a bunch of friends, some are great for putting on at work with co-workers, but some are really just for you.....songs or albums that you only listen to when you are alone? I have a lot of albums/music like that, they just aren't things that are good to listen to around even one or two other people usually. I think these are my favorite albums, they always end up being so personal, so much a part of my day. I listen to them driving my car, or on an iPod while I shop for groceries, or on my record player while I do the dishes. They comfort me in ways that the music I play when around other people can't/doesn't. What are your favorite albums to put on when you are alone, but never play around many other people? My least favorite listening environment for music is at work. While there is some crossover between my co-workers and I (we can always agree on Jazz or anything by The Weepies/Deb Talan) most of what I listen to (even beyond the aforementioned alone music) is not stuff that I can play around them. Even if some of them liked would like it I can't manage to put on a Sunny Day Real Estate album or Daft Punk or even Nick Drake. I put on Nick Drake one time and just felt wrong listening to it with them there. It's funny how music can be like that, demanding a certain environment, a certain level of comfort with your surroundings. I had just been thinking about this and thought I'd type it up.

New musical avenues.....+ art purchases.

So I spent yesterday helping Romak (of Romak & the Space Pirates) record a parody/cover version of Lady GaGa's Just Dance. I think it came out really well. We tracked to a really cheesy midi version of the song, and layered on 4 vocal tracks. I will be helping him film a video for the song this coming Sunday evening. We got to talking, as we had not hung out much in quite some time, and it seems like we work pretty well in the studio together, so I am going to be helping him with a solo album. I'm pretty sure in addition to engineering the solo disc I will also be performing on it and helping with some writing, which should be a blast. Romak's music has a certain sense of humor that I never have in my own music, I just don't know how to include humor in my music, so it should be a fun project to be working on, and will hopefully help me grow as a musician. After he left I dug out the first Space Pirates album.
Years ago Rory, Daniel, and I helped produce/engineer the record. I had not heard it since it's release. I played on one track, Daniel played on one, and I did some edit or other on another. I really enjoyed listening to that album after all that time, it really was a good album. Of all the music I've recorded, albums I've worked on, etc. recording that album was the most memorable experience of recording. It took weeks, working every day at the peak of summer in a boiling hot room. There were always tons of extra people just hanging around the studio or out front, we all ate together, chain smoked cigarettes together, played monopoly while others were tracking, it was a blast and I hope to never forget how fun it was.



In addition to working with Romak, I have begun work on a solo album of my own. I have two tracks demoed out. One is in a shoegaze style and the other is somewhat reminiscent of late 90s indie rock such as Owls or American Football. I don't know exactly what I want to do musically with this solo release and it will likely be a hodgepodge, chock full of friends helping out. That is my hope anyways. I'll post the two demos just as soon as I think of a name for the project (I don't want to use my name).


Lastly, in this long update: I attended the opening of Inside the White Cube at The Box Gallery in Costa Mesa. The show featured white on white works by Joseph Hawa, curated by my friend Johnny Sampson. It was a pretty good show. I hadn't expected to, but I ended up buying one of the pieces. My small collection of art is growing! I got one of a series of four titled 'Geometrics'. I'll recieve it after the show is over (I'll post a picture then). Here are a few pictures from the show:

Books and Movies.....

A high ranking contender, in my opinion, for best film of all time is Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. It is slow and cerebral. Taking its time with every step. Painting us a picture more than telling us a story (after all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words). I wont go into detail about my love for the way Tarkovsky makes movies, I could ramble about his ridiculous talents, instead I want to get to talking about what I set out to talk about:I love this movie, yet I had never read the book that it was based on. The book is called Roadside Picnic and is by Boris and Arkady Stugatsky. It has been slow at work lately so I read the book online (available through the Wikipedia entry for the book, as no english edition is currently in print). Having seen the movie and read the Wiki for the boak I figured I knew what to expect. It turns out that the movie really only encompases a microcosm of what exists in the book. I have been in the middle of 5 or 6 books for a while now, seemingly unable to finish any of them, then this came along and I read it in 1 and a half work shifts (all the while still getting my work done), I just couldn't stop reading. It is a rare breed of science fiction, much like Stanislaw Lem's Solyaris (also turned into a film by Andrei Tarkovsky and later by Steven Sodderberg). These are both books/films about humanity on human terms, not about the alien worlds they hint at. What it is to be human in the universe. They ponder reality, but not in very romantic ways. They both present us with a setting containing evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Both pose the question: would humanity even be able to comprehend this intelligence? In Roadside Picnic it is likened tot he idea of a roadside picnic: you pull the car off the road, eat, drink, be merry. After you leave frightened animals slowly start to come out of the woods and find a candy wrapper, some empty bottles or cans, oil that leaked from the car, a hair clip, etc. While some animals might even be able to make use of some of these objects in some way, none of them would have the foggiest idea of their actual intent or use, they can't comprehend it. I love that idea, that we just simply would not understand an alien intelligence at all, that we would be like those animals. Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

I think I will read Lem's Solyaris next, as I have not read the novel for that either. I highly recommend either of the films to anyone, both are fantastic, but you need to be patient. They are long and slow and moving and beautiful. They give you time, as a viewer to think and process, they do not hold your hand, they give you room to space out and formulate your own thoughts. I would also highly recommend the book, even if you are not a fan of science fiction as a genre. Both would fall, in my opinion, more into the realm of speculative fiction anyways (much like Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth or Carl Segan's Contact).

Sun Spots: Entry #37

A character dialogue segment of Sun Spots done in stop motion with spoken vocal, keyboard music, and stop motion imagery. This was my first attempt at using batch/action processing in photoshop to process the large amount of images used in this style of moving imagery. I'm not 100% happy with the result but it was good practice and makes sense in the context of the loose story at that point. I'll try more later.

The Narrator Is Lying

I recently spoke with my friend Janessa about finishing up some of her/our songs. We hope to release an album soon. If you are interested in hearing some of the demos the tunes can be heard here:

The Narrator is Lying

Dialogue With Giants

Dialogue With Giants (Originally titled T R E E) is another stop motion style video piece. I played around with dropping and reordering shots a lot more in this one. It makes the stop motion a bit more apparent and gives it a more manic sense of motion. The soundtrack was recorded shortly after the video and consists of various vocalizations (ie. there are no instruments, beyond the human voice, used).

This piece will likely be a part of Sun Spots, the long format work that I am planning. I have been writing a book for a while, the majority of it will be turned into a film called Sun Spots. The film will consist of a great many linked shorts in various styles telling a loose story based off of fictional journal entries. This segment (Dialogue With Giants) is meant to be a communication between the main character and a group of trees. The segment name comes from mythology and literature, in a way. I found out that the word Ent, from Tolkien's Middle Earth stories, was based on an anglo-saxon word for giant. I liked the idea of trees being giants in the classical/mythological sense.

W I N D O W

W I N D O W is a stop motion short film meant to give the experience of my bedroom window in the morning/early afternoon from both my and the windows perspective. The soundtrack consists of two layers: 1) A piano improvisation I recorded, the sort of thing that tends to play through in my head in the morning as the light shines through the blinds. 2) The sounds that could be heard from my window during the recording process (birds, cars, neighbors shouting, doors opening and closing, etc.).

I am really happy with how this came out. It totally captures the mood I was wanting. I feel like the show Seinfeld when I create stuff a lot of the time. Everyone's doing something and I do nothing. It feels that way a lot of the time anyways. I don't really feel the need to say something or have a stance or a message. I am not overly interested in filming people/characters. I just want to show things I see in an interesting way. The only thing I was not happy with in regards to this video is the compression. Especially the web version. The compression takes away a lot of the definition and color tone. I'm working on getting a decent compression setting for a full display version.

My name is Brian Michael Evans. I am an artist/musician living and working in Southern California. I create things in most mediums and will be talking about my own creations here as well as thoughts on art and other peoples works.