Miranda

http://www.reverbnation.com/mirandaband

Harrison in the digital age

“Miranda” my band. Recording and questions on releasing anything new.

Band Web Log (Miranda)

My band is in the process of recording our first CD, in the basement, with a Mac Mini, and a few cheap mics. We’re recording all of the music live, in one take, in hopes of avoiding too much of a layered sound – which I think can sound thin without the right soundboard and equipment at your disposal.

With thousands of bands seemingly forming every day, how does a band go about convincing new ears to listen? How do you pitch your music, when there are really only several popular formats to use? How do you blend into the white noise of new sounds, retro sounds, remixed sounds, and dubstep sounds? I don’t know, that’s why I’m throwing these rhetorical’s your way, “avid anonymous blog reader.” (Comment below with suggestions) This is a kind of call, because right now there’s a kind of wild west, DIY mentality a foot, which I think can be beneficial to those that are truly creative and willing to format/present their sound uniquely.

I suppose the most creative froth has always found its way up, however this froth is metaphorically multiplying, in many different directions, as I speak. We’ll play shows at local bars/clubs, but the crowds are mostly made up of other bands in similar situations. So how do you get people from off the street to come and listen? Especially when you’re 30, not in college, and have no real college base to draw from; I don’t know. You just keep writing, producing, playing, recording, and promoting through facebook/word of mouth. This isn’t a race. This isn’t a race to get on the radio, a radio that is dying or has been looping the same playlists for the last 20 years. This isn’t a race to get a 3 record deal, that don’t exist anymore, and mostly  big labels are probably always picking out their new acts 10 years in advance.

Even the act of writing about music, always strikes me as funny, but I’m bored and feel like typing something. If you feel compelled in anyway after reading this, check out our live videos. It’s what we enjoy doing, so we do it, anything that results after the fact should always be viewed as spontaneous, fleeting, but appreciated too.

http://www.youtube.com/mirandasongs

The Beatles Cross or 4 paths

Also found this sketched into a notebook, about 3 years old

Rufus Wainwright – Agnus Dei

Amazing vocal performance

Where I was 12 years ago, when “Kid A” was released

I remember where I was in 2000. I was pumping gas at main street sunoco in Leominster, MA. Mike G. had recently turned me on to the greatness that is Radiohead. He would burn me copies of CDs and talk passionately of how great a band they really were. Discussing song lyrics, certain musical changes, and just why they were such an important band for our time! He was a somewhat practicing vegetarian and most nights ordered spaghetti with sauce, “make sure its not the meat sauce!” he’d bark into the phone. He also had this kind of lingering, foul odor to him, but that’s not why I’m writing this dispatch.

It’s just that so much has happened in the last 12 years, from the age of 17 to 29, as this is such a pivotal period for anyone. Kid A was something so huge, so dense, so intense, that I was really only trying to grasp alternating programmed beats and general absurdity of the lyrics.

2001 was my first time seeing them live at Suffolk Downs and I really have to give Mike G. the credit for opening my mind up to them 2 years prior. A part-time job pumping gas, for the most part screwing around when our bosses left at 5. So from 5-10 we played CDs in the little store, while switching off who would get the next customer. Sunoco in Leominster being really only 1 of 2 Full serve stations, so later on at night you’d get stragglers, nothing too steady.

Even listening to “National Anthem” now I’m reminded of Athens Pizza, the distinct smell of their sauce, and the blue, greasy counter top I ate on. Leaning over, watching the gas meter which signaled when the car outside was done. Soon enough I plastered a Radiohead bumper sticker on my ’89 Honda Civic and to my friend Maki I was only ever known as “Raaaadioheadd!”

So 12 years removed from the release of “Kid A” and having seen them at least 4 times live, I understand the power of speaking passionately about a band you love to someone else. Especially to an already impressionable 17 year old.

Shara Worden

No more effort, I’ve handed the keys to spirits. Gonna glide like a flock of the finest mockingbird troops around. Disappointment not allowed, in this statistically drawn parallel stone land. Forever dissecting melodrama is a full-time game, I’m surely awash in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrf57VszTak

Performance art is simply amazing to my eyes now. Those of Shara Worden, musical nymph of the highest degree. One day we’ll meet, either astrally or earth-grass bound. She’s exquisite, refined, savory, and tastefully present in my computer screen tonight. Want to know someone as magnificent and expressive as her. I’m virtually in love, so removed, but am endeared by her passionate movements.

I wonder what her sweat tastes like after a long performance on some chic Parisian stage? How the mind wonders. Sweet savory muse in human flesh. Shara, Shara, Shara

http://www.mybrightestdiamond.com

Sam Francis – Dharma face

http://youtu.be/F5MOdJIdtt8

You wont recognize my face, years of reincarnating in the outer space

Once fought by myself, on a planet full of apes
Fought hard to survive, by 30 I had died

So if I’m withdrawn and hardly awake
Surely, you could give me a break
From knowing where I’ve been, I wanna know where you’ve been
In your last life, In your last life

Do you believe in eternal soul mate?
I don’t believe
Do you believe in eternal soul mate?
I can’t buy in
So if you believe and recognize me
Won’t you shake
Oh if you believe and recognize me
Won’t you shake, shake my tree

You wont recognize my face, years of reincarnating in the outer space

Once fought by myself, on a planet full of apes
Fought hard to survive, by 30 I had died

So if I’m withdrawn and hardly awake
Surely, you could give me a break
From knowing where I’ve been, I wanna know where you’ve been
In your last life, In your last life

Musical dispatch from the middle of massachusetts

Cover bands and DJs are taking over. They are similar to a kind of spreading virus that seeks to numb our ears and make our tastes complacent, tired, and worn out. They are safe and they represent a determined dollar figure that club/bar owners can rely on, as the now tired mantra post-economic collapse of 2008, “but the economy is so bad right now” is repeated and playing it safe has never seemed so appealing. You have your chinese restaurants, your bars with several karaoke nights, tribute bands that sometimes pay tribute to acts that are no older than 10 years, and several places trying out the DJ angle. (Or primarily drawing in more females, to then draw in the male dollars.)
 
I think it comes down to choice and the ability to get all of your musical needs met via your iphone, itunes, and the internet at large. Pre-internet, let’s say 1995 and before, people wanted more than what was on the radio, and had a more flexible attitude towards discovering new acts. I think there was an open mindedness that was more rampant and ironically, as we evolve as a people, maybe we’re becoming less open minded and more into the idea of having a “closed circuit” approach towards entertainment and media. We all plug in our favorite bands into pandora and a self-generating web of related artists can play on for us for as long as we like. Why step away from the screen? Surround yourself with strangers, with an unpredictable environment, and pay too much for drinks? Hell no. The “I” generation model is taking over and it’s much more preferable to hear music when you want to and to know exactly what you’re getting into beforehand. This is similar to the online dating model which seeks to pinpoint everything down in such a precise way/essentially acting as the human resources department for your heart/mind. Leaving anything to chance is quite intimidating as we continue to morph into a partially robotic society.
 
But I have to say, this great access we now have, being able to play virtually any piece of recorded music from the last few hundred years, will be a good thing in due time. It forces bands and musicians to truly bypass the tired routes of promotion that acts have been using for the last 50 years. It forces musicians to be just as much businessmen as they are creative entities. It forces you to create your own, self-sustaining musical empire, without a staff of people that are really only their to leach off of your talent and success anyways. Sure it’s all in its infancy and we all cried the most when we came out of the womb and took our first falls.
 
So what does any of this have to do with live music? Gone are the days of idolizing musicians, as everyone can be in their own rock band via playstation. Everyone can at least work on their vocals and maybe try out for american idol or another talent show in the area. Gone are the days of not having enough outlets to explore your musical side. And when life becomes fairly normal and humdrum, all people want to do is hear the songs of their teenage/college years. They don’t want to chance one of their only nights out on a developing act. They either want to drunkenly grab the mic and belt out some Journey or dance to some ZZTop while sucking down Mai Tais. Gone are the days of the tried and true rock band that plays in the suburbs and builds up any kind of grassroots following. The larger cities have been and still remain the only areas to play to a large group of people on a consistent basis. Rock music is about the youth market, playing to college aged kids, and capitalizing on that energy and expendable cash. It’s not about serving up alternative/progressive music to people that only yearn for traditional means of entertainment and something that is safe.
 
I guess it comes down to being a 28 year old playing original music in the suburbs, but stuck here because of my job. I guess I play it safe as well, as I could hypothetically move closer to a larger city and pursue music more directly. I’d say writing original music is similar to painting, or at least it should be viewed in this manner. Most famous/successful painters aren’t discovered until after they’re dead. And while they’re alive the focus is less on just getting large amounts of paying crowds to constantly view their work and more on just having the time/freedom to create what is relevant to them.
 
I’d say it’s the act of creation that is much more of an orgasmic payoff, then a few hundred bucks per gig. However this naive approach fades too, the longer you live in the great united states of america. Our society is so wrapped up in rapid progression and if progressive dollars are not tied to a creative act, then we view it as failing or falling behind. Of course some kind of payoff is expected, when considering the amount of time/energy/emotion put into anything in the art realm. I just think that art has become too tied in with commerce. I think the fact that music is free in so many ways now, will be a good thing for the industry moving forwards. Bands will really only be able to make a living off of live shows and this will seperate the legits from the studio fakes. This will bring music back to the 60s when it was more about the community and less about just listening on your own. Recorded music should be free, it should act as a gateway drug to see someone live. Record companies were the real devils in disguise as they packaged music as commodity from day one, rather than an experience that should be available to the most amount of people. My hope moving forward is that the “live, be here now, kind of experience” is placed at a higher premium and we revert back in this way as music listeners.
 
Or we just wait for a grand EMP attack and everything electronic is fried, forcing all of us to start over with bare bones acoustic tools, coupled with a 21st century mindset.

Band memoirs via podcast

apslee.podbean.com

Entering into the realm of podcastistry. The art of podcasting. The idea being that a microphone or camera would reveal more than just casual conversation held in private, is intriguing. What details will you remember, or choose to remember, knowing that what you say will be immortalized by the web. I just started a podcast with a friend and we plan on hashing out the last 10 years of playing music together.

How it all started, band tryouts, various venues we played, our first time recording in a professional studio, playing talent shows, band rivals, and much more.

A few of my favorite podcasters include: Bill Burr, Adam Carolla, and Joe Rogan. I think it’s natural for a stand up comedian to transition into podcasting, as it gives them a chance to stay current with their fans, hype shows, and let the casual listener behind the scenes, without commercials and censorship to worry about.

I’d say that I consume more podcasts than I do tv shows and really think that this medium will only grow as it becomes more refined and there’s more of a fanbase for it. The important thing is to keep the ads to a bare minimum. Adam Carolla aired his own podcast for free the first year, totally devoid of ads. Over the last year he’s dropped several spots throughout his show and this has irked some fans. I understand both sides. But at least Carolla does all of the ads himself, plus he gave away 5 podcasts a week for a whole year, so the idea of cashing in on your audience a bit after this long of a free trial, is pretty well justified.

More to follow..