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Updates on Recording and Current Live Shows.
Current mood:  cheerful
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural
Hello gang. I've missed you all…been busy lately, no time to really catch up with you fellas. Here are some updates with the band.
On recording, we're still pretty much NOT working on any of our tracks at the moment until we sort out some stuff. Yeah, we were quite busy with some shows here and there, a couple of shows scheduled for June. I guess its time for us to pick up the pieces and restart the program. For starters, Aie (our timekeeper drummer) will be moving into the room with a window and a view, next to the control room. Once we sort him out, moving his AV hifi set into the new room, we're gonna lock down the drums right in between the rooms. Of course, with some room to allow occupants to navigate in and outta the rooms, we're gonna establish a proper place for the drums and the microphones to enable us to record anytime without needing to move the drums, reposition the mics, the cables, check signals….and the list goes on.
The next session, it's all gonna be laid with metronome. It's easier for me and the crew to work on their parts without needing to worry when and where to attack. We've pretty much done our work with Arise and In Pieces, completed recording the music, well almost as some parts on In Pieces, still not too happy with the guitars, but it will be adequate for Eu Jin to sing over it. So while he is looking into his options, me and the rest of the crew gonna start working on getting the other stuff on disk.
We're gonna redo Sunday again. We had 2 versions to this track; the original is pretty dark in the intro, slow swirling reversed guitars while the latter is the live version we play, its more upbeat, lively. For the record, we may redo the original version, I don't know, depend on the crew on how the feel the track but personally, I love the original version for the record. It gives me much more avenues to explore other sounds like strings and synths to build the track before the break. See la how.
Our current TO_RECORD list in no particular order;
1) Hill Of Hopes (done)
2) Arise (music done, pending vocals)
3) In Pieces (music 80% done, pending vocals)
4) Sunday ( re-record the music)
5) After Me (to initialize)
6) Fallen Angels With Broken Wings (to initialize)
7) Reversed Prophecy (needs attention)
8) Our Song (needs more attention!!!)
9) Drowning High (exploration needed for more tightness)
10) Untitled (William's new song)
We are very much ready on track 2 to 6, the rest we are still deciding how we wanna make these tracks "flow" and come alive. There are many things we still have to work out with the songs; we'll just take it as it is. One good thing being an unsigned band we sorta have the luxury to chill and work on our stuff without needing to worry about studio time. Got good, got bad la. Start with the bad, getting lazy, no discipline, do-it-later-attitude; it goes on and on la. The good, no worry on studio time, no one to boss you around cuz we are the boss (except when William is bossing us around: p)
Of course if time permits us to be full time musicians, that would be a different story………………………….
We all have day jobs…not pushing the blame la, its all about time management right? It's just so much easier if we were to do this full time, but I got a wife to feed and a mortgage to pay….ugh…
Anyway, that's about it on recording. Oh yeah, one more, we need to clean up our control room.
On our live shows, we have some coming up. Don't ask me where and when, check the site. Aih, this ole man getting old, a lot of stuff can't remember. Play badminton also body aching the next day, haihyo…most of the time I'll hassle William (we call him bass) for the dates. He is like that Sergeant running the platoon. Aie is the demolition expert; Eu Jin (we call him Bruce, one day I'll tell you why if you buy me a beerJ ) is the rifleman….I, is the sniper…hehe… Anyway, as I was saying, Bass is like the mom for the band. He takes care of us, make sure we are doing the right things, make sure we don't look like fools, and generally takes care of the band like a manager.
So, on our live shows, we've done quite a number of shows. Not a lot la, but it's a good start for us since we're only 1 year old with the current line up. Rock The World 7 was great; don't get me wrong, it was one of the best shows for the band. For me, Nottingham Uni's charity event "Songs For Life" was kick ass, together on the stage with Silent Scream, K Town Clan that night. We just rocked it out and I wasn't worrying about how I'd look, if I' m playing everything correct. For the first time, I was actually having fun! The organizers (thanks Patricia!!!!!!) did everything so professionally. I thought we were being treated too nice for a local indie band!!! We love to be appreciated. We're not rock stars or anything like that, we're just 4 simple average people with day jobs, bills and our fair share of problems in our daily lives. But what Patricia and her team did that day really made me realize when you wanna do something, do it with commitment and passion. Maybe not everyone will know how to appreciate, especially if you have haters lurking, but someone will notice your merits.
Anyway, that night, we have never gotten a crowd like that. Most of our shows, we play to an empty audience. Crowd? What crowd? Where? No la, don't get me wrong, I' m not complaining about our previous shows no crowd and all, but that night, I had so much fun cuz it's the first time I see people jumping and dancing to our tunes. The Bus Company crew (one of the performers from Nottingham) was practically head-banging to Sunday on the right side of the stage. I was like "woah, I never kena crowd like that before, so supportive wan arr".
That show will always have a special place for us.
Our subsequent shows are less merry la. But its ok, we still enjoy ourselves. Crowd or now crowds…we will play anywhere…yes, ANYWHERE….for feasibility, kindly contact William…hehe….this is old news la, most bands have shows from KL right up to Kelantan or down south to JB.
Our most recent show was the 1st edition of Fly FM's Campur Charts showcase held at The Laundry @ The Curve last Thursday (24th May) which was pretty cool. It was a fun show, but the stage was a tad small tho. I was bumping into Bruce a few times when things got outta hand with the adrenaline. As a band, I felt we are now getting a feel of each other on stage, especially when there are parts where one of us could potentially screw something up, for me, it may be some of my lame solos or timing. The rest of the crew turned up for sound-check (except for me, got work la, and can't take last minute leave)
According to them, during sound-check, the monitor levels were ok. During the performance, the leveling wasn't there, no one could hear anything. It wasn't that bad tho, as the stage was small, I could constantly check with Aie on our timing. Other than that, the stage was lovely; Eddie did a good job with the sound. But most of all, we were playing our hearts out, not only cuz this is a Fly FM show but for our friends who was there to support us. Yes, these are the people who has been there supporting us back then even before I joined the band. Along the way we picked up many new supporters and friends liking our music. I wouldn't go calling them fans la. We where got fans? We have lotsa friends! I was really surprised to see many of my ex colleagues (my wife's current team mates) turned up. Our special Japanese friends (with their boyfriends and husbands) were there as well. It's a warm feeling, knowing that we pulled a good show. This is dedicated to them and you (if anyone is reading this la..Hehe) this is also the first time we shared the stage with OBS, Transient Vortex and Vandals. The Vandal guy's got some maddening skills on the human beat box (I really tot they were playing something from cd until I see them with my own eyes!!!) and freestyle rap. Loved the little collaboration they did with Transient that night. It was also good to see Sam of Transient Vortex again after so long. I used to sell some audio stuff to Sam back then when I was doing sales and we were both hanging out on this Electronica music forum when I was making hard trance stuff for fun.
Ok, I guess that's it for this time. We are looking forward to the next show. Crowd or no crowd, it doesn't really matter to us. We only look forward to hit the stage again to hone our ESP amongst ourselves. Even if it was only 1 person in the crowd, I promise you, we will do our best to win you over to our camp of friends. Cheers!
The old man…
2:58 PM
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