a 7 block walk

so we are 90% done with a bus called further and the changes that need to be made require a bit more recording, we thought we might get at a second song, "american loser". these songs are pretty different in tempo and arrangement so a good way to keep a cohesiveness to it all is to keep a similar tone for most of the instruments. that also makes things a little easier. rory and i edited a few (15-20) secs off either side of a 7 minute song - for now - to keep it moving. it's a slow-to-mid tempo song with a lot of samples, many from old television commercials that have been worked into the correct key and tempo (by scott). the cool part of this song is that it's actually a song with a 3 minute build up at the end which, musical, isn't anything like the rest of the song. it was super fun to play, now we just have to make it listenable.

the last week or so I've been listening to steely dan, why? (thanks rory), eric dolphy, the first and third peter gabriel solo records and that damn frankmusic song.

possible album cover, more editing

this is a possible cover of the new record. rae took a few pics of the corner of church and mcdonald. what do you think?
we are starting to make some real progress. one of the coolest things that we are doing is that for at least part of the song, we're not using the drums that we recorded but more a distortion of the echo of the drums. more erasing than I thought. clean and clear (at least until the jam)

this week listening to blood, sweat and tears, deerhunter, dj/rupture (pretty incredible - thx pfrk) and devin davis.

cab

rory got hit by a cab. not to make light of the sitch but it's not clear whether this will make us work slower or faster. i'm moving on dec 1st to a block from peter lugers. it's not clear whether this will make us work slower or faster. hopefully we'll post some music in the next 14 days. the hopw train stops for no one. just like a cab.
thought that chairlift was interesting, poppy as madonna but with 8 bit beats. saw the hold steady on friday. i cannot let their amazing choruses enter my thought process while i mix. must resist.

editing.

got the mbox, dumped all of our poconos and seaside lounge recordings into our recording software. now, it's just figuring out what we have and what we need. rory is adding some keys this week, maybe some noisy/funky guitars.
i'm sort suprised how much gets revealed about your own song that you didn't know during this process. it's prince-y but definitely a little psych as well. i'm reading mccarthy's the road, so I read, rory tinkers then we both listen…. rinse, repeat. we're thinking of shooting a video, using some cool, unnamed as yet, ideas to keep it cheap. we have a bunch of friend who are gifted with film so that's helpful.
i'm listening to the new(ish) deerhunter, king's x, some big star outtakes i downloaded (e-mail me if you want a link) and lana is recomending that i listen to some chairlift, so that's my assignment this week.

so 4th (berry and wythe)

ok. week 3.
we've decide to start editing with a song called "a bus called further" it's about ken kesey and the merry pranksters. I have a more than passing interest in kesey, leary, owsley stanley. etc. one of the weird things is the song had a different subject and title until about 2 months before we started recording but the lyrics felt forced so we changed them. another heroes' heroes are the mighty, mighty steely dan. the outro of "abcf" has a similar chord progression to the outro of the dan's "kid charlemagne", so we decided to mod the outro a bit to even further homage "kc". a spirited discussion occurred at the session as to the meaning of "kid charlemagne", one wiki later we found out we were all wrong but maybe the spirits were right. that's right, it's about owsley stanley!!! spooky, right?
enough of the ghost stories. rory edited while I read magazines and listened, chirping in when necessary. i think rory got a cool feel, editing scott's live drums, almost giving them a dance feel. rory really knows what he's doing. then, we ate delish thai. sunday night, we bought a new mbox on ebay (that's essentially a way to make computers read sound files) so we should receive it end o' week and can start mixing the guitars and vocals then. It has been a real cool experience so far.
Been listening to lots of talk talk, early chicago, a bit of big pun and all those crystal bands that a the kids are talking about

in the poconos

rory and i spent a week up in the poconos at my friend don's velvet elk studios . we tracked a lot of guitars (that's rock n roll talk for recorded), some drums, some keyboards and sitars and most importantly, weird noises. if buttons and lights impress you, look at the nifty attached pic.

it's mostly just files. we'll start editing/breathing/awesoming all over those tracks and hopw the expletive out of them soon. there are still some cool backups and rae's keys to do, but we'll start editing in about a week.

also, some asked what i was listening to these days. do you like to hear stuff like that or is that just self indulgent, uhhhmmm... poop? well, for that guy; some coltrane, some beach boys, the new tv on the radio, some podcasts of thich nhat hahn speeches, frankmusic's "in step" and a lot of clash.

thanks for checking this out. talk to you soon.

brief synopsis

hey.
my name is stephe. in some circles i go by the blueeyeddevil. i've been singing, playing guitar, writing songs and djing for a long time. a year ago some friends of mine and i recorded a couple of songs and played a couple of gigs, we called it the heroes of popular wars or hopw. some blogs wrote some nice things (which is nice of them). one of my partners, rachel (the elle-oner was her tag growing up in brooklyn, that seems cool to me) still wanted to make some music and make some cool art (rae is a grad student at pratt). so, an old friend scott and i made some beats. i wrote some songs for those beats, another scott played some drums (which we recorded at the seaside lounge in brooklyn). now, a dear friend rory has been contributing invaluable creative inspiration: making beats, engineering, playing tons of instruments, whatever it takes. i've decided to sort of keep a diary of the last weeks/months and hopefully it will come out cool.