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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

January 12th, 2010 - Animist Pre-Order

I am excited to announce the impending release of my new album, "Animist",

in just a few short weeks, on February 1st, 2010. "Animist" is a double album consisting of twenty songs spready evenly over two discs. Pre-orders (which inludes immediate digital download) are available now by clicking here.

I have been working on this album steadily since the release of "Vision Question", in September, 2008, and am excited to finally release it. I will be playing a number shows where the album will be available

in the upcoming months.

Weekly Update - January 4th - January 10th

Finishing an album is always a painful process for me, especially when it is 20 songs on two discs. I have trouble calling anything done, but, I also cannot engage fully in new projects until I complete the current project. This is where the problem lies, as I feel that with more time I could always execute some instrumental or vocal performance better. I often forget that the any finished work art is nothing more than a snap shot in time, or in the multi-track recording world, multiple different snapshots of time layered on top of one another.

Having the artwork completed I determined that Thursday, which I had off from work, would be the day that the album must be completed as I would begin recording Nick Shattuck again the next day. While I started the day feeling I had side one of the album done, I soon found myself fixing vocals, tweaking mixes, mastering and remastering as I listened to the mixes on all of the music devices in the house. In the end, I just had to say done! Still spent the next 3 days second guessing myself, convinced I could fire off an emergency email to the manufacturer to halt the press until my improved masters arrived.

I guess in the end I will probably never be 100% satisfied with something I have recorded, especially if I look at the last 14 years are any example. Ironically enough this doesn't bother me. I have slowly learned to enjoy the process more and not take myself to seriously. While I still torture myself over some details I let some others go without a thought. Glad to be done with "Animist" and on to a rich musical year in 2010.

Friday, Nick arrived early at Ghost in My House Studio (a.k.a my basement) We set to work finalizing basic guitar tracks which took the first few hours of the day but went very smoothly. After the noon hour Nick basically killed it, knocking out the main vocal tracks for every song on the album. Not to be deterred by progress, he also completed his harmonica parts in one take. Called it a day in the late afternoon, happy to have gotten a large piece of the musical pie finished.

Saturday was mostly spent on errands, cleaning, relaxing and eating. Did get a chance to test out 7 different microphones on the snare drum. While I like the condenser at a close range the best, it would pick up to much hi-hat bleed to be useful, ended up deciding the SM57 still worked the best. I also taught my 7th lesson to my first guitar student. I have really been enjoying the process of rediscovering the guitar from a 10 year olds perspective, reminds me I need to get back to the basics.