This past week was a surprisingly quiet one at Ghost in My House Studio. I wasn't able to teach my Monday lesson in Decorah because the snow-storm started early and made me want to get on the road home before dark.
The snow continued through Tuesday forcing me to stay home from work. Besides a fair amount of shoveling I continued working on new songs and spent a portion of the day cleaning and reorganizing the studio. With such a small space, every items needs to have a place.
I was back at work Wednesday and only got a little time in the evening to work on some new song ideas.
Thursday was spent working as well and I headed over to Blooming Grounds in Winona to perform a solo-acoustic set with Adja Gildersleve and Corey Koehler. The show went pretty well, there is no P.A. there and it is actually pretty fun to play directly to a small audience with no amplification, seems a little more relate-able somehow and the audience can hear the lyrics better.
Friday I had the day off and thus had some time to mix "Each & Every Night", from the forthcoming Brillant Beast debut album. Also, finished up mastering the songs I have so far for that project. In the afternoon I spent a little time working on a bizarre video to promote Animist that is viewable below.
My wife and I spent the whole day Saturday installing some laminate floor in the upstairs bedroom. It came out good but we have been sore for the last couple of days.
Besides giving a lesson Sunday afternoon, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Spent the majority of it recovering from the flooring project and hanging out with the wife.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Weekly Update - February 1st - February 7th - Ramping Up
After having a nice break to recharge the musical batteries last week this week was a little busier and a good warm-up for a musically active February and a very busy March.
Monday - Was the official release date of my new double-album, Animist. The album is available directly from me, at Dave's Guitar Shop, Deaf Ear Records, Kephart's Music, iTunes, Amazon etc... If you are going to download the album I would recommend getting it directly from me as it is cheaper, includes lyrics in pdf format and album artwork in jpeg format. You can also download in high quality Wave or Flac formats as well. The day went well and I had another fun lesson with my Decorah guitar student. He is coming along really well so I think we will start trying to help the young rocker pen some songs of his own next week.
Tuesday - Jaran Carson was over again for another rehearsal in preparation for the Friday show at JB's with Porcupine. Now that Jaran has become more familiar with the songs and we are getting more used to playing together we are having a lot more fun.
Wednesday - Fortunately I had the day off of work so I was able to spend most of it working on a new song, Reactions Inertia. The track has a pretty 80's techno song to it, but I tried it with just acoustic guitar and drums and I like the keyboard version better. Sort of learning on the keyboard as I go so it should be interesting to see what happens with it once it is more developed. Ended up finding some time to post the first in a series of blogs entitled "Thoughts from Ghost in My House Studio" regarding the concept of less is more. Check it out at Driftless Music by clicking here.
Thursday - After work I worked on Reaction's Inertia some more but actually ended up coming with part of new song, The Will of The People and spend most of the rest of the evening working on that.
Friday - Got some time to work on mastering about half the tracks from The Brilliant Beast's debut album. The material is really cool and I am looking forward to getting the rest of the tracks finalized. Found some time in the afternoon to post a another blog from the "Thoughts from Ghost in My House Studio" series that explains some of the concepts of audio mastering and dynamic range. Check it out by clicking here.
Performed a 10 song set of Brahman Shaman songs with Jaran at JB's Speakeasy opening for Porcupine and Dream 13. The show went well and we had a lot of fun. Porcupine killed it, one of the best shows I have ever seen of their's and they just keep getting better and better. I highly recommend taking the time to give those guys a listen. Dream 13 followed Porcupine and it is always a blast to watch Jeff Sherin play guitar, I affectionately refer to him as Honky Hendrix.
Saturday - Joe Dawson was over in the morning and he got bass and acoustic guitar tracks done for 2 of the 4 songs he is currently working on. The material is sounding really good and I am looking forward to hearing it with vocals soon.
Sunday - I made the trek over to Rochester in the morning to help my good friend and Rearview Mirror band-mate Jason Ptacek get his home recording set-up working correctly. It was good to see him, he played me some great riffs and I am really looking forward to hearing some of his new ideas recorded.
Until next week....
BRAHMAN SHAMAN
Monday - Was the official release date of my new double-album, Animist. The album is available directly from me, at Dave's Guitar Shop, Deaf Ear Records, Kephart's Music, iTunes, Amazon etc... If you are going to download the album I would recommend getting it directly from me as it is cheaper, includes lyrics in pdf format and album artwork in jpeg format. You can also download in high quality Wave or Flac formats as well. The day went well and I had another fun lesson with my Decorah guitar student. He is coming along really well so I think we will start trying to help the young rocker pen some songs of his own next week.
Tuesday - Jaran Carson was over again for another rehearsal in preparation for the Friday show at JB's with Porcupine. Now that Jaran has become more familiar with the songs and we are getting more used to playing together we are having a lot more fun.
Wednesday - Fortunately I had the day off of work so I was able to spend most of it working on a new song, Reactions Inertia. The track has a pretty 80's techno song to it, but I tried it with just acoustic guitar and drums and I like the keyboard version better. Sort of learning on the keyboard as I go so it should be interesting to see what happens with it once it is more developed. Ended up finding some time to post the first in a series of blogs entitled "Thoughts from Ghost in My House Studio" regarding the concept of less is more. Check it out at Driftless Music by clicking here.
Thursday - After work I worked on Reaction's Inertia some more but actually ended up coming with part of new song, The Will of The People and spend most of the rest of the evening working on that.
Friday - Got some time to work on mastering about half the tracks from The Brilliant Beast's debut album. The material is really cool and I am looking forward to getting the rest of the tracks finalized. Found some time in the afternoon to post a another blog from the "Thoughts from Ghost in My House Studio" series that explains some of the concepts of audio mastering and dynamic range. Check it out by clicking here.
Performed a 10 song set of Brahman Shaman songs with Jaran at JB's Speakeasy opening for Porcupine and Dream 13. The show went well and we had a lot of fun. Porcupine killed it, one of the best shows I have ever seen of their's and they just keep getting better and better. I highly recommend taking the time to give those guys a listen. Dream 13 followed Porcupine and it is always a blast to watch Jeff Sherin play guitar, I affectionately refer to him as Honky Hendrix.
Saturday - Joe Dawson was over in the morning and he got bass and acoustic guitar tracks done for 2 of the 4 songs he is currently working on. The material is sounding really good and I am looking forward to hearing it with vocals soon.
Sunday - I made the trek over to Rochester in the morning to help my good friend and Rearview Mirror band-mate Jason Ptacek get his home recording set-up working correctly. It was good to see him, he played me some great riffs and I am really looking forward to hearing some of his new ideas recorded.
Until next week....
BRAHMAN SHAMAN
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Weekly Update - January 25th - 31st - A Break
The last week in January was relatively quiet at Ghost in My House Studio. This was actually a nice break after a few busy weeks completing Nick Shattuck's new album, Chorus & Verse. Nick has posted a handful of songs from the record on his Myspace, check them out by clicking here.
On Monday the weather was a bit unpleasant so I didn't end up doing my Decorah lesson, just spent extra time carefully driving home from work.
On Tuesday, Wigglepuppy drummer Jaran Carson came over for another rehearsal in preparation for our upcoming show on February 5th at JB's Speakeasy in La Crosse, WI with Porcupine, Dream 13 & ConQueso. I am really looking forward to this show and have really been enjoying Jaran and I getting more comfortable playing together now that we have had a couple of shows and few practices.
On Wednesday the physical copies of Animist arrived, so I spent a majority of the day distributing those to retailers and mailing out promotional copies. For more info on that check out last week's blog post "Animist gets Physical". I also received the additional external hard-drive I ordered for the studio and am happy to say that I am now double-backed up.
Thursday was spent working and Friday was mostly spent taking a continuing education test in Rochester. I did get some time in the afternoon to test out some new kick drum beaters I ordered and am really preferring the attack of the wood-beater at this point, haven't had a chance to record with it yet though. I also had time to continue working on a new song entitled Reactions Inertia. I can't decide if I should do it on guitar or the Casio keyboard as I do want to force myself to branch out musically as much as possible for the next record.
Saturday and Sunday were spent doing errands, chores and working on home improvement projects.
Balance is key to an enjoyable life and this week was a nice break from studio work that has allowed me some time to rest my ears and plot the next project.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Less Is More
Less is more. The less we have of some-thing the more we enjoy it. Whether that thing be music, relationships, food, alcohol etc... Contrast is the spice of our corporeal reality.
In our youth the value of a $ is much higher than in our adult life. Aging not only changes our value systems but also changes what we value.
I recently sold all my cds (those in good enough condition for re-sale) to the local Deaf Ear Records. I have about thirty cds left that didn't go to Deaf Ear or Goodwill. I got rid of the cds because the mp3 revolution reduced their use. Ironically, since I got rid of the majority of my cds I have actually been listening to cds more often. Because I have less choices it is easier to make a choice. I have rediscovered the value of the cd by having less of them.
The mp3, ipod, web 2.0 revolution has altered our experience of music in amazing ways. One now has the ability to store hundreds of albums worth of music in a handheld device, purchase music online and discover and enjoy millions of artists from around the world. In other words there is more music available, more ways to hear it and more ways to store it for later listening. This "more" has altered our perception and enjoyment of music.
The iPod and similar devices are great tools for musicians. The ability to store and have ready access to the entire catalog of music I have written all on one device is very useful. Besides my own music, I have hundreds of my favorite songs and albums on my ipod. While very convenient, this has reduced the value of any one album, artist or song because there is always more to listen to. For example, I often find myself downloading a new album I am interested in, loading it on the ipod, I will listen to it once, but, if it doesn't grab me right away it inevitably becomes lost amongst the hundreds of albums already on the ipod as I choose something more familiar.
Any independent musician would be a fool not to embrace the web for networking and promotional reasons...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
January 27th - Animist gets Physical
The physical copies of my new double-album, Animist, have arrived. I had been checking the FedEx tracking updates daily since the limited run of 100 copies shipped last Thursday, so I decided to call and have them hold the package at the nearest FedEx. I awoke early this morning (5:15am) from an anxious sleep, not unlike a child on Christmas morning, and rushed to the FedEx center in Holmen, WI where the box was waiting.
I am really happy with how the package turned out, thanks to the finding of Ernst Haeckel's old illustrations online. The package is a 4-panel eco-wallet that folds open to reveal a disc on each side. I spent most of the rest of the day mailing out some promotional copies and dropping them off at a couple of retailers in La Crosse, WI.
As of right now, Animist is available at:
Deaf Ear Records in La Crosse, WI
Dave's Guitar Shop in La Crosse, WI
Kephart's Music in Decorah, IA
or directly through me at www.brahmanshaman.com.
I am really happy with how the package turned out, thanks to the finding of Ernst Haeckel's old illustrations online. The package is a 4-panel eco-wallet that folds open to reveal a disc on each side. I spent most of the rest of the day mailing out some promotional copies and dropping them off at a couple of retailers in La Crosse, WI.
As of right now, Animist is available at:
Deaf Ear Records in La Crosse, WI
Dave's Guitar Shop in La Crosse, WI
Kephart's Music in Decorah, IA
or directly through me at www.brahmanshaman.com.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Weekly Update - January 18th - 24th - Good Job Done
2010 continues to be an extremely busy and rewarding year.
Monday - Had a great lesson with my new guitar student in Decorah on my way home from work. Drove home from there and headed down to Ghost in My House Studio where the very talented, and all around good guy, Joe Gantzer (T.U.G.G) stopped by to add some of his electric guitar magic to a couple of the tracks on Nick Shattuck's upcoming debut album, "Chorus & Verse". Joe did an excellent job and it is always nice when a guitarist brings two cool small amps and a splitter box to run them both at once.
Tuesday - Jaran Carson, a good friend and often 1/2 of the Brahman Shaman Electric Duo, stopped by to do a quick preliminary rehearsal for our upcoming show opening for Porcupine and Dream 13 at JB's Speakeasy on February 5th. Now that we have had a few rehearsals and a couple of shows together things are really starting to gel and we are both having more fun because of it. A couple of more rehearsals and we should be all ready to roll on the 5th.
Wednesday - I had the day off and spend most of the morning working on mixes for Nick Shattuck's "Chorus & Verse". Nick stopped over after lunch and finished some vocal and harmonica overdubs as well as experimenting with some potential harmonies. Although I have been trying to take a break from writing any new music for a month or so, to clear the mind after the extended Animist writing/recording project, I did start work on a new song. You just have to follow the ideas when they arrive and let them take you where they may.
Thursday - At work most of the day but did have some time in the evening to tweak the mixes and the mastering templates for Nick' album in preparation for the listening party on Friday morning.
Friday - Got up early and spent a portion of the morning working on new songs. Nick arrived at 10:00am and we listened through a nearly completed copy of his upcoming debut album "Chorus & Verse". The listening session went well and Nick took a copy home for a more thorough review. The rest of the day was spent working on the new song and preparing the studio for Joe Dawson's arrival at 5pm. Joe stopped over after work and we set about laying down the basic tracks for two more of his new songs. The live tracking has been going really well and I have been having some good luck with some experimental room mic placement.
Saturday - Tried to take a little break from the studio but still ended up working on refining the new song through some keyboard experimentation. At 8:30 I headed down to the Popcorn Tavern to set-up drums to play for Nick Shattuck. Once we got all the musicians there and found all the necessary P.A. cables everything came together and we had a great show, unfortunately the last one with bassist Andrew Wild who is heading West in the near future. Margit Severson also did a great job of adding violin to some of the songs, much to the audiences delight. All the time spent recording and listening to the songs has really helped tighten up the sound and the set which definitely makes me look forward to the many upcoming shows. The more I play the drums, the more I like it.
Sunday - I had a good guitar lesson in the afternoon. Nick came over about 5pm and we made the final edits on the "Chorus & Verse" masters. We are both really happy with how the album turned out and I really enjoyed the process of helping another musician capture their creativity in a recorded format. I think this is a good omen for an increasing number of exciting recording projects at Ghost in My House Studio.
Monday - Had a great lesson with my new guitar student in Decorah on my way home from work. Drove home from there and headed down to Ghost in My House Studio where the very talented, and all around good guy, Joe Gantzer (T.U.G.G) stopped by to add some of his electric guitar magic to a couple of the tracks on Nick Shattuck's upcoming debut album, "Chorus & Verse". Joe did an excellent job and it is always nice when a guitarist brings two cool small amps and a splitter box to run them both at once.
Tuesday - Jaran Carson, a good friend and often 1/2 of the Brahman Shaman Electric Duo, stopped by to do a quick preliminary rehearsal for our upcoming show opening for Porcupine and Dream 13 at JB's Speakeasy on February 5th. Now that we have had a few rehearsals and a couple of shows together things are really starting to gel and we are both having more fun because of it. A couple of more rehearsals and we should be all ready to roll on the 5th.
Wednesday - I had the day off and spend most of the morning working on mixes for Nick Shattuck's "Chorus & Verse". Nick stopped over after lunch and finished some vocal and harmonica overdubs as well as experimenting with some potential harmonies. Although I have been trying to take a break from writing any new music for a month or so, to clear the mind after the extended Animist writing/recording project, I did start work on a new song. You just have to follow the ideas when they arrive and let them take you where they may.
Thursday - At work most of the day but did have some time in the evening to tweak the mixes and the mastering templates for Nick' album in preparation for the listening party on Friday morning.
Friday - Got up early and spent a portion of the morning working on new songs. Nick arrived at 10:00am and we listened through a nearly completed copy of his upcoming debut album "Chorus & Verse". The listening session went well and Nick took a copy home for a more thorough review. The rest of the day was spent working on the new song and preparing the studio for Joe Dawson's arrival at 5pm. Joe stopped over after work and we set about laying down the basic tracks for two more of his new songs. The live tracking has been going really well and I have been having some good luck with some experimental room mic placement.
Saturday - Tried to take a little break from the studio but still ended up working on refining the new song through some keyboard experimentation. At 8:30 I headed down to the Popcorn Tavern to set-up drums to play for Nick Shattuck. Once we got all the musicians there and found all the necessary P.A. cables everything came together and we had a great show, unfortunately the last one with bassist Andrew Wild who is heading West in the near future. Margit Severson also did a great job of adding violin to some of the songs, much to the audiences delight. All the time spent recording and listening to the songs has really helped tighten up the sound and the set which definitely makes me look forward to the many upcoming shows. The more I play the drums, the more I like it.
Sunday - I had a good guitar lesson in the afternoon. Nick came over about 5pm and we made the final edits on the "Chorus & Verse" masters. We are both really happy with how the album turned out and I really enjoyed the process of helping another musician capture their creativity in a recorded format. I think this is a good omen for an increasing number of exciting recording projects at Ghost in My House Studio.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Weekly Update - January 11th - January 17th - ssstudio
January continues to fly by. The week started out great as I began giving guitar lessons to a new student in the Decorah area who is conveniently located on my way home from work. He has a good basic understanding of the instrument and seems to know a majority of the open chords so I am looking forward to working on more lead guitar and songwriting stuff with him. I have determined that if I am ever going to make 100% of my living off musical endeavors that giving lessons will inevitably be an essential part of that. Though I am sort of testing the waters and starting out slow with only two regular students, the process has been very rewarding so far.
On Wednesday I was fortunate to have the whole day off of work so I got up early and spent the whole day tracking drums to a number of songs on Nick Shattuck's debut album, "Chorus & Verse", which I am producing. While my drumming has certainly improved greatly in the past few years it still takes a fair amount of effort and a number of practice takes to capture a performance I am happy with. However, I am really enjoying playing the drums as of late and the more I play the more comfortable I get which makes playing all the more fun.
After work on Thursday, my good friend and great musician Joe Dawson made the trek to Ghost in My House Studio and we set to work getting basic tracks for two out of four new songs he wants to demo. Already having the drums miked up from Wednesday's drum-tracking session cut out some serious set up time and we were able to get rolling right away. Joe's Savage Rohr 15 combo sounded great and we are both looking forward to fully utilizing it's capabilities during the guitar overdub phase of the process.
Friday turned out to be an amazing day in the studio as Nick was able to schedule four of the five musicians (besides myself) who are adding instrumentation to the album all on the same day. We got started at 8 am when local violinist Margit Severson came in and tracked her violin parts for four of the albums songs in under 2 hours. Next we had Andrew Wild, of local punk band Here's Johnny, in at 10am and he also did a great job, adding bass to a handful of songs. After lunch I had the pleasure of recording T.U.G.G drummer Ben Rohde as he added a killer beat to one of Nick's songs. It is always fun to listen to and record a great drummer as I get to spend a little more time focused on the mics and levels when I am not jumping back and forth between the computer and the kit. Ben also does this great groove on the hi-hat that slays me and really added a great feel to the song he was drumming on. We finished out the day by 5:30 or so with Gigi Galle coming in and adding some great backing vocals to a track from the album.
Saturday night I headed down to the Root Note to play drums for Nick during his headlining set. Andrew Wild was there on the bass as well and we had a great time playing his new album in it's entirety as we were all feeling that we had a much better grip on the material after working on it so intently in the studio during the week.
On Sunday I had another good lesson with a 10 year old guitar student. You can tell he has been practicing and it is always fun to see a young guitarist get more comfortable with the instrument.
All and all it was a great week of music, with the lessons, live performance and diverse recording sessions at Ghost in My House studio I couldn't be more satisfied. Helping people record their music is very satisfying, especially when scheduling works out as well as it did. It is great to be able to record other musicians using a variety of instruments and equipment. This feels especially good after spending a good portion of the last year toiling away alone in the studio working on Animist. Until next week.
On Wednesday I was fortunate to have the whole day off of work so I got up early and spent the whole day tracking drums to a number of songs on Nick Shattuck's debut album, "Chorus & Verse", which I am producing. While my drumming has certainly improved greatly in the past few years it still takes a fair amount of effort and a number of practice takes to capture a performance I am happy with. However, I am really enjoying playing the drums as of late and the more I play the more comfortable I get which makes playing all the more fun.
After work on Thursday, my good friend and great musician Joe Dawson made the trek to Ghost in My House Studio and we set to work getting basic tracks for two out of four new songs he wants to demo. Already having the drums miked up from Wednesday's drum-tracking session cut out some serious set up time and we were able to get rolling right away. Joe's Savage Rohr 15 combo sounded great and we are both looking forward to fully utilizing it's capabilities during the guitar overdub phase of the process.
Friday turned out to be an amazing day in the studio as Nick was able to schedule four of the five musicians (besides myself) who are adding instrumentation to the album all on the same day. We got started at 8 am when local violinist Margit Severson came in and tracked her violin parts for four of the albums songs in under 2 hours. Next we had Andrew Wild, of local punk band Here's Johnny, in at 10am and he also did a great job, adding bass to a handful of songs. After lunch I had the pleasure of recording T.U.G.G drummer Ben Rohde as he added a killer beat to one of Nick's songs. It is always fun to listen to and record a great drummer as I get to spend a little more time focused on the mics and levels when I am not jumping back and forth between the computer and the kit. Ben also does this great groove on the hi-hat that slays me and really added a great feel to the song he was drumming on. We finished out the day by 5:30 or so with Gigi Galle coming in and adding some great backing vocals to a track from the album.
Saturday night I headed down to the Root Note to play drums for Nick during his headlining set. Andrew Wild was there on the bass as well and we had a great time playing his new album in it's entirety as we were all feeling that we had a much better grip on the material after working on it so intently in the studio during the week.
On Sunday I had another good lesson with a 10 year old guitar student. You can tell he has been practicing and it is always fun to see a young guitarist get more comfortable with the instrument.
All and all it was a great week of music, with the lessons, live performance and diverse recording sessions at Ghost in My House studio I couldn't be more satisfied. Helping people record their music is very satisfying, especially when scheduling works out as well as it did. It is great to be able to record other musicians using a variety of instruments and equipment. This feels especially good after spending a good portion of the last year toiling away alone in the studio working on Animist. Until next week.
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