Posts Tagged ‘bass’

Pay the Devil Releases “To Hell with Luck”

March 9th, 2019

Milwaukee’s favorite “shanty-grass” ensemble, the gruff and lovable, Pay the Devil, released their sophomore album, “To Hell Luck” last night at the Walker’s Point Music Hall. Though I don’t play with the group regularly anymore, I actually did contribute bass to all but one track, and played cello on three others.

The band recorded all of their parts at banjo-Ivan’s house (yes, there are two Ivans in the band, one on banjo, one on guitar), usually in a group setting with the vocals added later. I then rented a stand-up bass to lay down the bass tracks in my home studio, where I also recorded the cello parts. Harmonica was layered in all the way from Erie, Pennsylvania, performed by banjo-Ivan’s dad. Once everything was recorded and mixed by Ivan, he headed into my home studio where we sat down to a night of mastering and Thai food. It was a long but enjoyable and collaborative process.

A particularly collaborative song is “Buffalo Bill”, written by a friend of the band, Lucas Riddle. Banjo-Ivan plays guitar and performs lead vocals, I play cello, Ivan’s dad added harmonica, and the band’s new bassist, Jacqueline, provided backup vocals. The track turned out fantastic despite none of the performers actually sitting down to play the tune together!

A Life Elided Releases “Lear”

January 30th, 2016

ALE-album-artAbout a decade in the making, my long-term side project, A Life Elided, has released an official album. The 12-song debut, Lear, is the best of the 25+ songs written and recorded in between other projects since 2005. Some of the songs are so old that I no longer have the original recording files, which meant that wrapping up the release mostly consisted of adding parts as I could and remastering work. The age of some of the songs shows, but it felt great to finally put a bow on all of the effort in an official way!

{ELSE} Releases “Who WIll Cry”

March 20th, 2015

11034419_581041585366316_1258135275416596239_oAfter a ton of hard work which began all the way back in December of 2013, {ELSE} is releasing our debut album! It’s 8 songs long but still clocks in at 40 minutes and took probably hundreds of hours to finish. I laid down most of my guitar parts and recorded our bassist in December of 2013, and then things sort of stalled as our original singer quit and we hunted for a new one. During that hunt, I ended up recording ALL of the remaining guitar parts and added FX and mixed and mixed and re-mixed and mixed some more. Finally, in September of 2014 we had a new singer and new vocal parts so we recorded those. In February of this year, guitar tracks from our other guitarist and drums were finally added. I ended up going back and removing some of my guitar parts to add Nate’s in, and mixed drums for the first time in my life. There were TONS of mistakes and lessons learned along the way, including one frantic call to the CD pressing company to throw out a disc which had an error on it. We’re holding a CD release party tonight and I don’t think I’ve been more excited for many other things in my life, except maybe my wedding and the 1-year anniversary trip to Europe I have planned with my lovely wife!

Whiskey Doubles Available on iTunes

June 2nd, 2014

Bandcamp-CoverWhiskey Doubles debut effort, Honey Creek EP, is now available on iTunes and Spotify! We recorded, mixed, and mastered everything ourselves and are incredibly proud of it.

Buy Honey Creek EP on iTunes »

Heironymus Bosch – Garden of Earthly Delights, A Metal Tribute

February 21st, 2014

Last week, the internet, or at least the internet if a lot of your friends are musicians and historians, blew up with the transcription of music written on a man’s butt in the depiction of hell in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights. The hymn reminded me a lot of the stuff I heard in early music history, very simple, kind of plodding, and close to modern harmony with just a few odd cadences. It was definitely a decent minor key melody though, so I decided that given the melody’s history, I’d adapt it as an orchestral metal tune.

The melody was only available as an audio file, so I first had to transcribe the transcription. The only difficult part about this was that I wouldn’t exactly call the phrasing natural, or at least not as I’d like it, so I did slightly change some of the rhythmic values. I then determined what chord structure to put underneath the melody and started writing parts. The bass part, a bit more active than in traditional metal, came first. Rhythm guitars came next and focused on galloping rhythms, palm muting, and opened chords in the 2nd half of the progression. I was able to do all this between midnight and 2 last Friday, after I returned home after a party.

Saturday morning I recorded those and programmed the drums in FL Studio, then set to work on writing out the strings and brass. After rendering the orchestral elements with EWQL Symphonic Gold, I mixed what I had so far together. Then it was time for the leads.

I first wrote two additional lead guitars providing some counter-melodies and arpeggios towards the end of the song. You can hear those split hard left and right. The final piece was recording the hymn as the lead guitar part with a good dose of pinch harmonics and vibrato.

A few rounds of mixing, some quick intro and outro slides for the video, and it went up on YouTube. What a way to spend a weekend.

New A Life Elided Song – Skew

December 21st, 2012

An unused metal song, some slap bass, and some dub step elements, throw it all together and call it a techno song. Yet another scrapped Else song has been turned into something for A Life Elided. Check out “Skew” on the A Life Elided website »

New A Life Elided Song – In It Now

December 10th, 2012

As I’m burning some PTO time before the end of the year (use it or lose it), I decided to re-purpose an unused Else track for A Life Elided.

Check out “In It Now” on A Life Elided’s website »

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New Else Song – 2012-07-09

July 12th, 2012

I’m quite proud of this new song I wrote and recorded for Else. This track really displays the metal influences while maintaining the strong bass lines and electronic layers that have defined the Else sound. I’m really proud of the key changes in the bridge of this one. Take a listen on ElseTheBand.com »

New A Life Elided Song – Just This

May 25th, 2012

Another song that started off as an Else track, this heavy song is in drop D and 5/8. This song was sort of a flop in the Else playlist, but I knew it had potential. Some serious reworking of the guitar and bass tones, a new approach to the song order, and of course a heavy dose of electronics really turned this one around. Take a listen on aLifeElided.net »

New Else Song – 2012-04-26

April 29th, 2012

I wrote and recorded a new song for Else this week. It, like most of the other Else tunes, has the clever name of the date it originated. I’m really hitting my stride with the Else songwriting technique, and I really hope we find the rest of the bandmates soon. Listen to the new song at ElseTheBand.com »