AUGUST 2009 SHOWCASE Thread :: Finished work, videos, promo, career news, gossip...

AUGUST 2009 SHOWCASE Thread :: Finished work, videos, career news, gossip...

Here's the Official Showcase Thread (AUG 2009) where you can post your completed projects, links to finished works you want your pals here in the SW forum to hear, promo videos, or just generally shameless self-hype that you're far too professional and courteous to post in the main forum.

POST 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM!

previous showcase threads

July 2009 [no posts]

June 2009

May 2009

April 2009

March 2009

February 2009

January 2009

December 2008

November 2008

October 2008

hypcollector and I have put together a little group called pg stackabones.

Here's a couple of tracks from our first rehearsal last Sunday. Mainly, we just talked through the tunes, played through them a couple of times, and then hit record (Zoom H4n). Mark Ball is on bass/djembe, hypcollector is on acoustic guitar, and I'm making the other noises.

An original of mine.

One of hypcollector's.

There are three others on the main page. If I'm singing, I wrote it. Same goes for hypcollector. These tracks to me have a bit of the Tulsa Sound/JJ Cale Naturally vibe, but you may hear something else. Let me know what you think.

First track in my player called "Time Won't Wait" on my page at http://www.myspace.com/InstituteOfNoise

This was originally an instrumental cue a did for an upcoming TV show called Cowboys on Discovery/Animal Planet, but I liked the feel so much I had my writing partner come up with lyrics and I completed it as a full song.

Where are Lou Reed's colored girls when you need them? I could hear those yeah, yeah, yeah's backed up by some soulful and sassy gals (or perhaps convincing cross-singing guys -- I'm not Bible Belt though my twang might sound it). Do them yourself, bare, the first time around and then bring in the b/u singers and... Anyhow, fun stuff!

pg stackabones has a kind of NY white boy soul feel, too, somehow. Despite Gorman's own twang. I just feel like I'm in a backyard party in some greater-greater NY suburb... Dunno. Anyhow, it's got an agreeably loose vibe.

A nice big rock sound with a nice downtempo-ish intro. The rhythm guitar(s) are a wee bit bright, even brash, on my rig but I thought all the individual guitar elements sounded really solidly conceived and crafted. [EDIT: I had, ahem, mis-set my PB controls. Oops. Never mind on the tone thing. These (doubled) guitars are bright but pretty much in the mode of the day.]

Sharply done!

Ps... I let your M/S player go on through a nice ballad (if the title had something to do with "Far Away" I might not be surprised) but then, wham bam, ohmygod, ma'am, on comes "Jesse James is a Dead Man." (Nice title.) About three times louder (RMS-wise, anyhows) than the previous song, which I had up at a comfortable/loud-ish kinda level. Holy wall of crunch. I'm not a crunch guy at this point in my life, left my Skinny Puppy/Ministry loving self behind. But, if you're worried about competitive loudness, I'm willing to jump out on a limb and say, don't be. )

Yeah, I gotta get some of the girls from the church to swing on by.

I'm down with the NY white boy soul feel. Suburban, oh yeah, we are suburban. Whatever works, works. Thanks for checking it out!

Got any contacts in NY? Looking for a gig, ya know?

Blue... Those were mixed on Dynaudio BM6a's. Not brash at all on those or some of the other monitors I reference mixes on. I can only surmize that it's partly due to the fact of uploading a 320k MP3, which gets re-converted to 96k on the myspace processing. Yes the ballad is So Far Away. Actually those first 2 are about placed in upcoming features.

What are you listening to them on? I'd be curious to know...

The Jesse James montage are a few of the cuts I've done for the TV show Jesse James Is A Dead Man on Spike TV.

In honesty, I hadn't tried to match levels since they were done over several months apart. I do agree that those are a bit hot, but that's how I needed to deliver them for TV.

Thanks for the input!

Oh yeah... I don't expect people's MySpace/etc players to have a nicely balanced mastered sound.

NS10M's -- but wait [EDIT: Wait all over again, see my note below!] -- I use a grille cloth (stock) and engage a fair amount of loudness compensation via a passive, continuously variable compensation curve that Yamaha was nice enough to build into this line of NaturalSound amps/receivers, which are from the NS10M era, which makes the normally testy little Yamahas behave much more like a balanced, music friendly bookshelf (probably close to what the designers had in mind). My 'full' rig uses Event 20/20bas, but right now it's dismantled and I've been working informally on the NS10M's with the comp curve engaged, including mixes of my own, informal projects [ie, too lazy to go get the Events out of the storage room and into my multi-use work area]. When I moved I had to give up a dedicated studio. (Or, rather, the bedroom I was going to use as a studio was too small and situated wrong and uncomfortable to work in and now that I've breached the workspace/living room "wall" (like the wall between editorial and advertising, yeah?), I can sit in front of the computer or by the 88 key and watch seagulls and the (very) occasional pelican fly across my over-the-roofs corner/picture window view [from my tiny flat over some garages, I hasten to add, for regular guy sake].)

I do know this set up pretty good at this point -- but, obviously, whenever you're using a non-linear PB system, no matter how 'musical' it sounds and how familiar you are with the general shape of your rig performance -- you just will not get the same kind of knowledge of your source material as you will with good, flat monitors in a treated room. Which is my long way of saying, Well... you know...

PS... plus, it's a bit of a hot patch here and I'm augmenting a fitful ocean breeze with [ugh] a noisy electric turbo fan. So... you know...

EDIT: Stop the presses! Forget all that yaddayadda about passive loudness compensation cuve dialed in -- ANOTHER great feature of this Yamaha NaturalSound receiver is a so-called straight-wire button -- it engages a direct path around all the EQ, comp, even that stereo balance control. The only thing between the source and the power amp is the gain knob in that mode -- and it was, natch, engaged. So I was listening to the NS10M's flat -- which, of course, puts them in cruel midrange-inspector 'mode' -- iow, completely 'uncorrected' and NS10M-like -- and, here's the crux, of course, if you're expecting your nice, warmed up, smoothed out EQ'd sound and you get naked NS10M... well... you know. OKAY... so now I'm listening with my normal EQ comp in and things sound a lot more tamed. They're still quite bright by my taste, but not out of step with the current conventions for pop rock.

Yeah, I gotta get some of the girls from the church to swing on by. I'm down with the NY white boy soul feel. Suburban, oh yeah, we are suburban. Whatever works, works. Thanks for checking it out! Got any contacts in NY? Looking for a gig, ya know?

Context? I got ya context right heah, jack... oh, wait. Contacts.

Only my homies on Law & Order -- but I've fallen out of touch with them since my TV died.

Did you know that Hulu doesn't have full L&O episodes? WTF?

Yeah, I gotta get some of the girls from the church to swing on by. I'm down with the NY white boy soul feel. Suburban, oh yeah, we are suburban. Whatever works, works. Thanks for checking it out! Got any contacts in NY? Looking for a gig, ya know?

Nice.

Homegrown music.

I get the JJ Cale thing.......the electric guitar helps.

Thanks!

I posted this in the "Did astronauts really land on the moon" thread already but as you're asking so nicely blue2blue I thought I ought to respect your request here too

This is my latest ditty, inspired by the aforesaid thread. It's not much like my normal style and my voice doesn't normally sound like this either. I took advantage of that early-morning-after-a-boozy-night voice (that it seems affects many of us) which I think suits the bluesy style:

0u4kyseBUlY

Heh.

I especially liked the dancing dinosaur skeleton (well, tail and head wagging, anyhow). I might have to get me one of those partial capos at some point. I hang my C-clamp style full capo off the edge sometimes for capo-drop-D and some others, but that use looks pretty natural.

I've been digging through old recordings and found this one, Sunbonnet Sue. When I wrote it, I had no idea that there was already a song called that (not that it matters) -- to me, it was just her email account name.

I think this is around four years old. Recorded on GarageBand, probably with a cheap Radio Shack mic and mixed through those little oreo cookie-sized speakers. I think there are about four guitar tracks and three vox tracks and maybe some egg shakers in there somewhere.

Hi, I posted here more frequently several months ago when I was working on my band's album. I posted a section of a song called "Collisions in the Offing" and got some real positive responses (which I do appreciate). Well, we recently released the album, which is now available on iTunes (apologies for the spammy after-taste). The whole album is streaming here. I'm really excited about this, because this is the first time my music is available commercially to so many people and its been completely diy the entire process until the physical and digital publication of the cd. Also, some of the songs may or may not be used in an indie movie. There are still a lot of doors to go through before that happens though.

Exotically Obsessed

http://schicksville.com/Music/ExoticallyObsessedNoPerc.mp3

Like all your music I've heard Johnny Boy, that is excellent.

It doesn't sound exotic to me though. It sounds very Western.

Here, you've landed on one of my favorite movies & favorite film scores!

In fact, I loved the movie so much, I wrote a song about it.

Suzy Wong is All Right

I tried to blend Asian tone scales with a Country chord progression & beat. And I think I did.

Suzy Wong is All Right

Nice tribute song to Nancy Kwan Marc!

Yes, we Westerners have our own ideas of Asian sounding music, as depicted in many American films.

I watch "The World of Suzy Wong" 3-4 times a year. Always good for romantic inspirations. Have you ever visted Nancy Kwan's site? http://www.nancy-kwan.com/ Lots of great photos.

Best, John:)

George Duning's score for that movie is one of my all-time favorite movie scores.

He was a very under-rated film score composer. He composed

that Picnic & Moonglow medley too. I'm not sure if he won

an Oscar for that. He also composed the original 3:10 to Yuma

score. I guarantee Morricone studied & was influenced by

that score. You can hear it in his early work from a decade

later.

Really, that little ditty is as much a tribute to Nancy Kwan as it is to Duning's score.

That's what really hooked me (after Nancy), about that movie.

Loved the music also Marc! They don't do soundtracks like that anymore. It's a shame.

John

In the career news front, I'm crawling out of my hidey-hole to do a live solo Sunday night (this) at 11 pm.

I made a point of picking a time when I hoped everyone would be free.

[The booker cold-called me (well, PMd) from my MySpace band page and gave me a couple of Sunday night options. I figured Sunday at 11 pm was pretty thankless territory (wind-down from a couple bands, apparently) but I'd been looking for a good, low-key open mic to get back in harness, so I figured this was manna from heaven.]

Stack will be pleased to note that I've actually been rehearsing my set and trying to get some of these lyrics into rote memory -- but it's really a trip up Glass Mountain in teflon slip-ons. I'm taking a music stand and slim binder with the set and a couple extras in it (for those encores as the soundman is packing up and the waitress tipping out the busboy).

Anyone flying in for the gig can check out the details here.

HEY-YUL YEAH, B2B!!!

If only I lived in the neighborhood, I'd show up and line the stage with shots of tequila.

For a moment while reading your blog, I thought it said, "Say you're hear to see TK Major and get in for $5."

I hope them tequilas are for the go go girls... I'm not sure we want to see me on my first drunk in 15 years... Although I always felt drinking brought out a certain edge in my personality. Uh... more edge. (At least I wasn't a weepy, maudlin drunk. I'll give me that.)

I changed the text a little on my blog to make it, hopefully, a little more clear that they weren't going to be charging you $3 extra if you were dumb enough to say you were there to see me.

I'll admit, I was kind of horrified to find that it was going to be $5 [before I wangled the fan discount to 2 bucks]... I mean, five bucks, and on top of it you have to go somewhere at 11 pm on a Sunday night.

That said, I may be living in the past a little on what I consider reasonable entertainment costs. I used to consider the shows I used to see at the local Catholic Church in the late 60s a bargain at $1.75 (when gasoline was 15-9/10 cents a gallon and a Big Mac was 19 cents). So... you know... Still, I'm used to folks getting in to see me for free... Free DLS... no door... story of my life.

You've got go-go girls at your gig!!!

Well... I just assumed... better not count on them, though, I guess.

Don't all the clubs still have go go girls?

I don't get out much anymore...