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: