The Fog People

Thanks everyone!

Tue, 26 May 2009 20:03:46 GMT

Big thanks for everyone who came out to support us at the Sepiachord benefit show.

We love and appreciate your support, and we apologize for our set being about half as long as it should've been. Circumstances beyond our control led to an extremely late start. We promise y'all next time you'll get a full dose of Fog People.

That show out of the way, we've got a ton of album-finishing to do, so we're gonna get to it. Reports expected as things happen.

DARK AVENUE

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:07:41 GMT

Well folks, the first show is done, and it was great. Thanks everyone who came out to see the show, and for those who didn't I put together a special treat at the end just for you.

I think having such a long run-up to a first show ended up being the best possible thing. Not only did it let us be over-rehearsed, but any nervousness was replaced by a raw eagerness to jump out there and start rockin' out.

Some of us (me) showed up at the venue ridiculously early to help build all the extra things we needed. I have to admit it and I don't care if anyone knows it: we're a high-maintenance band. It's true. We need awesome lights, we need things like curtains, and designers, and soon we'll need even more. I give all the props in the world to my friends who can just pick up their ukuleles and step onto a milk crate at the corner of Wherever and Nowhere and start playing. We, however, are just not that band.

So, we installed a front curtain and a full lighting rig with Jon Harmon, our "very over-qualified" lighting designer. Then after the rest of the band started to show up (the guys mainly) and drop off gear, our SECOND lighting designer, Sean, showed up. He helped finish the hang and focus of the gear while I was able to peel away and start setting up my music gear.

At this point something subtle but significant occurred. I made the transition from tech to talent, and suddenly people were asking me to sign off on things, and to stand in certain places for testing things, and reacting to what I said MY needs were. mwah ah ah ahhhhhh. (j/k)

Anyhow, the show finally got underway, and a few of us provided lite noodling underneath the tops of each act, but really just waited patiently (and by that I mean drinking PBR in the back) for our go at the stage. During our intermission we quickly setup behind the curtain (see I'm not crazy, curtains rock) and before we could even get confirmation from the sound guy we just let it rip.

Here's our setlist:

City of Night
Time of the Season
millermania (new song with a working title)
My Turn
...for no good reason at all. (special vamp version)
Way of the Dog
Kommoddities of the Fetish
Ms. Mad Love

Now we go back to album-finishing business until the ramp up to our 5/23/09 show at the Jewelbox for Sepiachord's benefit. See you there!!

Of course these things don't happen in a vacuum, so here's the skinny on who deserves some shout-outs:
The Team:

Trish - our beloved style queen
Jon and Sean - our lighting, production, and tech team
Jay - who is sort of on extremely long-term loan to us from the Deepsleep Narcotics Company

The Show:

The Venue (who were cool enough to let us drill into their walls for the curtain install. FYI, if you ever play there and need a curtain, the hardware is present...just talk to me to get a turnbuckle and cable):

The Funhouse

Rather than barrage a million pix from the show, I crammed them all into a small movie for your viewing pleasure. It's the entire night compressed into 43 seconds. Enjoy!

Until Next time!

MAR '09 UPDATE

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:37:17 GMT

It's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day and forget to update. Let's see what kind of new info I can share...

_____________________
SHOWS
Well we've finally gotten there. We've got two scheduled right now and here they are:

WED MAR 18th
Hands of Kali presents: DARK AVENUE - noir entertainment
Featuring:

Details: 3/18/09 At The Funhouse, doors 9pm, 21+, $8
We'll be busting out some songs and some backup for Hands of Kali's new noir-styled variety night. Expect a mix of brand new and as-yet-unheard songs and a couple of "classic" songs in addition to some random treats.

SAT MAY 23rd
Sepiachord presents: a Clang-Bang-Cabaret
Featuring:

Details: 5/23/09 at the Jewelbox, 10pm, 21+, $6
The day before some of us jet off to Sasquatch (to watch, not perform), we'll be anchoring a benefit for our friends at Sepiachord. Last time they did this we weren't able to make the show...this time we're gonna make sweet love.

____________________
RECORD
We're getting ready to go into the studio to record various overdubs for the album, most of which is complete and ready to mix. Scheduling and budgeting are really the biggest hangups at the moment. In this economy trying to scare up surplus monies to get studio time is a bit of a challenge but we're on it. Trust me.

In the meantime, the short wait has given me time to go over all of the songs in "microscope mode" and make tons of small-but-important tweaks. I'm trying to get as much of this done as possible so mixing goes quickly, instead of it being a 6-month process where I disappear for weeks at a time trying very arcane sonic experiments.

____________________
STUDIO (geek alert!)
I've made a small update in the form of a BCF-2000 (seen right). I already own a BCR-2000 and like it a bunch. What's even better is that in setting the two units up to work together I've managed to ressurrect and get my Trigger Finger working (also in pic). So I now have what I consider to be a pretty small studio setup but it I've got maximum functionality and really all the gear I want. Not seen is my desktop mixer (Mackie 1202) and a mic preamp (Art TubeMP). Well, and a huge wall of cables, mics, and a handful of guitars (2 electric, one bass, and one acoustic). But at any rate, the BCF has motorized faders so I've now joined the ranks of peeps who have cool space-age automations going on while I sit and drink.

Lately I've been paring down the gear, especially since we have band practice and despite being an electronic rock band, I want as little things to tinker with and think about as possible. Currently we're running playback off of my MacBook using Ableton Live... and I'm even considering going to iPod so I don't have to worry about another set of knobs and I can separate playback tracks from my own live triggering (which is mostly a Fender Rhodes emulation on the keyboard seen above).

Finishing a studio record and rolling out a live show is truly a Jekyll and Hide affair. I don't know how most other folks do it but it's very hard to simultaneously build up layers and layers of yummy sonic goodness while at the same time strip everything down and have bandmates re-write parts.

______________________
MISC
Plans for photo sessions continue apace, with a talented and interested party now chatting with us about ideas. We're also in the process of trying to suss out our design needs. What with shows coming up, album art to be created, and generally some more Web content needed (and being a confessed design nerd) I'm eager to get that going.

Also, we got our hands on a video camera again whilst at our last rehearsal. So I leave you with this wonderful montage (yeah, I said "montage") from that session.

See you at the shows!

MAR 18th - in the flesh finally

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:23:03 GMT

Okee, time to get this rolling.

Yeah, we're still working on the album, mostly we're working out details for overdubs (studios, schedules, etc.). That leaves us with a little too much time on our hands. So yeah, we're using it to work on the muckity muck of putting a record out (marketing plans, photo shoots, videos, etc.) but even still, we're music peeps, not project managers. That means the "antsy" level is high.

So, we're doing a show! OUR FIRST SHOW. Our sisters-in-arms Hands of Kali have a new night called Dark Avenue, a noir-infused variety show of sorts. The first one is WED FEB 11th (tomorrow,as I write this). So that's pretty cool.

But even cooler: we, the Fog People, will be playing at the second Dark Avenue on WED, MAR 18th. Here's the details in cut/paste friendly format:

Hands of Kali present: Dark Avenue
WED MAR 18th 2009 9pm, $7
@ the Funhouse
appearing:
Cherry Manhattan
Fog People
Gale Force
Hands of Kali
dress noir.

We're not entirely sure what we'll be asked to do, since we're just a layer in the pleasure-cake that is the night. But we'll be doing a small batch of songs off the new record we're just dying to road test, and generally just letting loose to blow off some steam before we start mixing the record.

Beginning the begin...

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:47:10 GMT

Well, a brief holiday respite for the band (not for yours truly, who managed to complete the writing of the record), and now it's back to work!

April came over the other day and we worked on keyboard parts for a song we're working on, which you'll be able to experience when you SEE US LIVE. Oh I know, "when when??" you cry. Well, give me one more post for that, details are still slightly in flux and the date is gradually getting ironed out, but rest for sure we are finally pulling out of the stable with some shows. It's just simply time to start rocking out and that's all there is to it.*

Also had a meeting with a friend about doing some graphic design for us. Hoping she sticks around and can produce something for us. Which brings me to tonight's Word... or something like that.

In our world, in the arts, in the POOR arts, you usually operate under the maxim that no one is ever successful without a team of people all working towards a singular goal. There's two ways to get that team together: you pay them, or you PAY them. And by that I mean you either are filthy loaded and just buy the professional version of what you need.... and there's MY level.

At our level you barter and exchange a gratis task with some kind of vague hope of something later. Now a wise mentor once told me: "Always pay your team SOMETHING. It may be cab-fare, it may be a joint, it might just be nice dinner... but always give them something in exchange for their time and ideas."

I usually operate on the "something + a future chance" model. So, coming back to my designer example, I've been cooking her dinner in exchange for her time and ideas. If the relationship/exchange works out, I'd want to talk about putting her in charge of, and funding the manufacture of, merch and the album cover (and subsequently, the overall design of the record release). Yeah, that's also more work (which does mean more dinners), but sheesh, who gets to get someone to pay for their design to pop up all over internets and for sale? And to get more-or-less free reign to shape an image? Remember the "OBEY GIANT" shirts/stickers/posters/etc? Imagine getting someone to foot the bill for your own version of that!

But, back to album stuffs, I'm currently listening to the demo mixes all over, making some notes about some small changes, but otherwise and very excited about them. It's now making a huge list, flipping my studio around to make room for the guys to bring in their rigs, and starting overdubs. Oh yes.

*Of course by that I mean we have a shit-load of work to do and details to work out for a show... but you know what I mean.

Is it DEC already?

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:54:15 GMT

Well well, so much time has gone by!

Currently we're winding down a short holiday hiatus after a long round of rehearsals. Jay from the Deepsleep Narcotics Company has been sitting in with us, and having a live drummer has rocked our world's so hard we've been reconfiguring things slightly. We're just shy of basically being a show looking for event to barnstorm. Hopefully more news on that soon, as we're pursuing all the irons we got in the fire.

The record reached a major milestone this week, in that primary composition has been completed. Basically the record is now written, especially musically. For me personally it's a big frickin' deal, as now I can shift to engineering and producing overdubs, finalizing lyrics for master vocal tracking, and prepping to mix. For you people... it doesn't look that much different. The band now have to do some various replacing of sequenced parts, and we prep to track a few important things. The songs... are awesome. 12 tracks right now, we may throw a surprise on there when we go to master though. I've been listening to the recent final demos in sequence and getting wet in all the right places, so we're "go" for the record.

And, just to show I'm not batshit crazy, here's a little video snippet that I've been promising since the dawn of time.

You get a sneak peak at "My Turn" and "Way of the Dog" in there, as well as us rehearsing with the ultra-fabulous Hands of Kali.

We'll be starting overdubs as soon as people return for lands beyond, I'll update as they occur. Next time maybe I'll do an "all-geek" behind the scenes technically. Though not exciting, it's still interesting to see the songs deconstructed.

So I spoke too soon...

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:08:13 GMT

I wish this was the post where I at least delivered on some video... that will have to wait a tiny bit longer, we've been too busy with other things to complete that and this info is important.

It turns out we're NOT going to be performing at the Sepiachord benefit show on 12/20. A tough decision, and we're bummed about it all around. Basically the Sepiachord folks were forced to change venues and we won't be able to bring what we were hoping to bring to that venue.

These kinds of negotiations that result in "factors beyond our control" type posts from bands can mean a great many things, and usually are meant to explain something rather dysfunctional in terms as diplomatically as possible. I'd like to step through this one to show a peek behind the scenes as to what it's like putting these kind of events together.

In the "small scene", which a newly live band like the Fog People is and is in, there's no such thing as tech riders (your "must have" document), sound checks, load-ins, and fees. Instead there's opportunities, best hopes, and some good 'ole faith. So in many ways you've got to be more flexible, but it also means some serious logistical hurdles can come up.

In all seriousness, we ARE in fact pretty bummed about the gig. We're all big fans of Sepiachord and getting to "come out" under their umbrella was something we were very excited about. We had brought in our entire support team and all the factors lined up beautifully. Unfortunately they were all tied into the venue the show was going to be at. We knew the sound guy, we were familiar with the lighting system, the stage had not only a stage entrance but a front drape to sequester the stage, there is a projector already hung for visuals. And most importantly, the Hands of Kali, who would be dancing with us, had space in front of the stage where they could be comfortable and be seen by everybody.

So when we found out about the venue change, me and Kendra from Hands of Kali hustled our butts down to check the venue out that very night. I had seen a show or two there before but had never thought about it from a technical standpoint. Don't get me wrong, the venue is a great place, and awesome saloon/roadhouse feel to it. But it's exactly that, a bare wooden platform in a decent-sized back bar room. If we had a stripped down acoustic set ready we'd be perfect for it. But a tech-heavy show with a dance troupe? No way. So Kendra and I sat there sipping Miller High Life's in the empty room (no shows that night). We had asked the bartender to turn the lights on so we could check it out so we're under these god awful flourescent lights trying to figure out if we could section off an area, if it would be possible to come in early and hang some lights, maybe work a mini-drape to get some kind of isolation for my girls, the whole thing. In the end we realized there was no way to do it without re-designing our entire concept.

That's the problem with being a semi-theatrical concept band, you just don't roll-up and rock out. So we discussed all-around, and I broke the news to Sepiachord, who though they had added a clause about it being okay to not participate with the change in venue I don't think were seriously expecting anyone to pull out. The rest of the bill is a scrappy set of mostly acoustic performers, and they'll actually thrive in that venue. As it is, we'll be there as paid guests instead, which is only other support we can offer for this particular show, and we're committed to figuring out a way to work with Sepiachord to deliver the goods.

So, although most times posts like these from bands or venues or promoters are code for an ego-clash, diva-like behavior, or just shady business practices, I wanted to spell it all out to show that sometimes it actually IS about logsitics like floor space and the afforability of large lighting and video rigs.

A little thing got in our way... we call him the President.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:19:10 GMT

There I was, sipping whiskey with some of my friends at Annex Theatre, a great place where great people make great art. We were watching the election returns on a big screen and the news had just called the election for Obama. I was feeling jubilant (okay, drunk), and realized our current (for the month) rehearsal space was only a block away.

So I contacted the band about getting together to jam, if they were up for it, for fun. Well, overwhelming response later, we all descended upon our rehearsal space with friend and exotic musician extraordinaire Sky Darwin in loop pedal percussion and did an impromptu show. Bottles of whiskey later, and we were still playing.

There's nothing like a sea change in politics to inspire you to rock out (drunk) for a few hours. And having a rehearsal space to support such a thing is pretty awesome too.

So, video next time (again). I promise. I'll work on it tonight while nursing this hangover. And, it turns out whiskey doesn't really help the vocal cords... if you were wondering. But we did have half of the Hands of Kali and some of their apprentices along to bust out some moves with us. Ah good times.

No, you're not hallucinating... 12/20 10pm

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:37:52 GMT

Our good friends over at Sepiachord have done a few great things for us. They used "..for no good reason at all." as song of the day way back when, and they came and snapped photos of our last open rehearsal.

So when they approached us about playing at their upcoming fundraiser, we were only too happy to say "YES!". It was only AFTER saying yes that I realized a few details of note: no drummer, no complete set list, still busy mixing the Deepsleep Narcotics Company album, and oh one more thing: the event is a steampunk cabaret. Er... steampunk eh?

Well, turns out we'll be the "band from the future" (that is, if you count the 1940's as the future). Someone has to represent the future after all. :-)

Also, Jay from Deepsleep is going to help us out and sit-in with us, a big thanks for that.

So, the gory details:

12/20 10pm, 21+, $7 ($5 in costume)
The Jewelbox
Sepiachord's Steampunk Cabaret featuring:

Nathaniel Johnstone
The Fog People
Superfluous (the ukulele tribute band featuring members of Miss Mamie Lavona's Band and "Awesome")
Golden Robot Army Light Brigade
Toy-Box Trio

We're gonna stress-test a heap of our songs and generally speaking get our "electro-noir" jam on. See, I don't update for a while and then suddenly it's nothing but treats.

I DO have video, but getting everything on track for this show took precedent. Next time I'll have some, promise.

A momentary distraction from the obvious goal

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:50:50 GMT

I recently completed a sound design project that hijacked my schedule for a time. I posted a little about the details of the project here.

This here is the audio operator's position in the booth. Note the computer, the keyboard controller, and the stack of (brand new!) audio processing gear.

But really this post is a stall. Tune in next time for video snippets and some honest to goodness SHOW info.

HAHA, I'm smarter than the Wall Street Journal...

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:56:52 GMT

Well, a look at my bank account will reveal that to be false (the first sign is that my bank account is a WAMU account).

But, check this, their story on overcompression using the latest Metallica album as an example:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122228767729272339.html#project%3D%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive

This is gonna be all the rage this year I hope, returning to normal dynamics. Yay little things in our ears that are destroying our hearing.

I ain't playin'....

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:40:23 GMT

I'm SHREDDIN!

I'd just like to point out in this picture that it looks as though I was born to hold a guitar. I think all those adolescent evenings spent alone in my room with Prince albums and no friends have really honed my "looking like he's playing" skills to a fine point. Though fun, I only know about 6 chords on guitar, so I leave that work to the pros most of the time. But on this jam I bust it out.

Well, here's the skinny: we don't play shows in regular venues. We don't even REHEARSE in regular venues. This pic is a hint of why. L-R: Emma, Michael (me), April, Kendra.

We had a wonderful rehearsal with Hands of Kali. We practiced for a while and then the girls showed up and traded back and forth for a while. Lemme tell ya, if no one ever picks up on our electro-noir styled debauchery we'll still have enough peeps in our own club to do some pretty amazing stuff.

Don't believe me? Try these:

I believe we're running through a new song called "Way of the Dog" here. Hands of Kali have just made up a routine about 60-sec before this happened.

Hey, it's all of us! L-R: Devin, Emma, Mike, April, Michael

And, since we've never gotten proper introductions out of the way, here we are:

DEVIN

EMMA

MIKE

APRIL

and MICHAEL

We rehearsed on a partially constructed set for the next play at Annex Theatre, hence the wacky levels and odd things.

Everything else proceed apace. A small slowdown while some things occurred: late summer vacations, sound design, some lighting gigs that took yours truly out of reality for a while, and various tasks. But the studio is back to normal and another song may make it into rotation quite shortly.

Oh, and we got picked up by another licensing organization! More on that next time.

We are fam-i-ly...

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:20:35 GMT

Recently, the Hideout Studio had an end-of-summer BBQ social.

We've been doing work in the studio on various things, notably tracking parts for The Deepsleep Narcotics Company record. Since all the ties are close, it was a great opportunity to hang out with fellow players, and a long overdue formal intro from DSNC to the Fog People was a core motivation.

Of course, after cocktails and food it didn't take long before people started taking turns wandering down to the studio to muck around. The three lady singers from each band led the charge, doing their own impromptu jam from which these pix prove. Shortly afterwards, everyone started piling into the room until a full-on musical orgy was going down.

So, what happens when the nine musicians who constitute Deepsleep and the Fog People start jamming? Well, turns out we sound a little like Earth Wind and Fire meets Sky Cries Mary.

Don't believe me? Well judge for yourself:

The Fog People vs. The Deepsleep Narcotics Company - 1

The Fog People vs. The Deepsleep Narcotics Company - 2

The Fog People vs. The Deepsleep Narcotics Company - 3

The Fog People vs. The Deepsleep Narcotics Company - 4

The benefit of jamming in an actual recording studio means you're playing with the biggest, best toy ever. So of course Al and Jim lit up some mics and we let the tape roll while we took turns playing just about every instrument and piece of furniture on hand.

Of course, being jams they were all far longer than the snippets here, but a major hoot. And it turns out when left to our own freestyling devices, we like to sing about: BBQ sauce, money, sex, power, Jesus, sex again, some kind of dance steps, and stalking people.

Just remember I tipped you off about this before...

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:03:06 GMT

The "Loudness Wars", remember those? Still going on, too.

The latest chapter: Metallica's Death Magnetic. Hailed by some as a return to form after the palette-cleansing and somewhat confounding St. Anger, the record is mired in controversy. Namely, that it's had the life squashed out of it using extreme compression to make it "appear" significantly loud(er).

Fans complained that the record sounded distorted and just plain awful on its release, prompting nothing less than a full on recall of the record. The mastering engineer even responded to complaints online to basically "wasn't me" and blamed it on the final mix of the record, pretty much the jurisdiction of Metallica and producer Rick Rubin.

This probably would've stopped there, filed under "you can't please all the people all of the time". But due to a product tie-in with Guitar Hero Metallica made the entire album available in the game. The odd thing is, the game version is NOT decimated with extreme mastering, and is hailed by many as the far superior version. So now everyone is in a tizzy.

I don't have screen caps of both versions, I'm just listening to the record for the first time as I write this, but here's a little example one of my peers cooked up. This is an analysis of the sound from Death Magnetic and another from Master of Puppets. Notice anything odd?

And yes, the new record is the bottom green/red waveform. Wooo! Talk about crunched to the wall. Apparently the Guitar Hero version and the CD version of the record differ by as much as 10 decibels. For those in audio, we're talking a significant difference.

Oh, here we go, same song, different versions:

Sheesh man, that's practically white noise!

What's interesting about this is that even Yahoo! picked it up. Slowly this phenomenon is starting to get notice. I suspect it's that we are listening to music more and more on portable devices, with the speakers right up against our eardrums. Suddenly all that tiring sonic assault isn't as pleasing anymore. This is also why this topic fascinates me, because as an older guy my ears are slightly damaged, and I can't handle full concert volume for a whole concert anymore. Heck, we drive a Jeep and when the top is down I can't even handle the highway (highways are LOUD). And when I listen to music I want to be able to appreciate the dynamic ebb and flow.

I think what the loudness wars have done is remove the aesthetic pleasure of putting on a record and listening and instead made it a blunt-force-trauma commercial marketing on my ears. This might've been an okay idea in regards to radio (which is already so heavily compressed as to be unnecessary... and no actually is NOT an okay idea), but for the home hi-fi or iPod device is a horrible idea.

Personally, I want people to rediscover the album as a work of art, so I'm not down with the loudness, yo.

But, oh LOOK, I'm not alone!

Charles Dye, a great mixing engineer and overall sound critic, has helped form a loose organization/movement to champion to return of dynamics to music. Turn Me Up! is "a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records." Uh.... awesome! (I have no idea what it means but it's awesome anyway I reckon).

And as we round the final corner for a few records here in our extended family, I'm confident you'll receive a dynamic listening experience. Okay, enough soap-boxing for me today...

Next time: audio samples of something! Promise.

EDIT: UPDATE
Yes, it's official, after five tracks I'm totally exhausted. This record is pummeling in the worst way.

I'm not hatin', I'm just clueless (apparently)

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:54:25 GMT

I was asked recently, somewhat intensely, why I'm not more excited about the Decibel Festival (electronic music festival that happens in Seattle every year). The ensuing discussion and research was an interesting process I figured I'd share.

First off it's worth saying I think the festival is obviously successful and has an audience. I applaud their growth over the last 5 years. I just don't feel terribly connected to it. When you make music like ours, which straddles the Sepiachord/Decibel Festival crowd with equal aplomb, it means we don't fit in either.

I was here when the first dB Fest came through, in fact I was the Technical Director at the art space dB called ground zero. I ran a LOT of sound for nights that showcased many of the artists past and present in the festival. Personally speaking, it's not my thing. Even when I could appreciate it from a craft perspective I was just bored out of my skull watching a dude hunched over his laptop bopping his head hitting the next cue stack in Ableton Live now and again. Coming from the background I do, I share the same mindset as someone like James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem: If you ain't puttin' on a show you're wasting my time and should step off so someone else can have a go. (Murphy puts way more "fucks" in there than I do).

Eventually some of the laptop guys started working with video peeps, which helped, but that collaboration has yet to produce anything that blows my mind. Better successes are groups who start to deconstruct their songs or have live performers. Beehive, Foscil, and others come to mind.

The "laptop" scene, as it were, is a fairly closed society. And, as was pointed out to me, people who can do everything and do it in small box like that kind of music are not conditioned to conduct their music business as a social necessity. I'm fortunate enough that I can geek out with the best of 'em, but really why would I want to? If I'm at a bar there's not much point in talking effects presets or plugins. That's for the studio where you can actually play with stuff. A big question I get asked is "what do you use to do your music?" and while I'll almost always say "SONAR" (the truth), I often just want to say "the magic box" since it's pretty irrelevant. I know all the SONAR users in this city now, so we're not going to find any common ground in that conversation.

And laptop music is laptop music. Sure, some do different styles, but it all comes out of two cables and over the PA and that's it. I look at the lineup for the dB Festival every year and it looks like someone took a sci-fi superhero name generator and blasted the page with it. I prefer to see this not as a slam against all those artists, but rather that theirs is a scene that I'm not part of. If I were deeply interested in laptop music-making peoples I'd probaby be a lot more "in the know" about those folks. One thing I do notice though is that same names are on that list every year, and I've seen most of those folks before.

I WOULD be interested in the festival if there was a little more genre-bending, a little more performances, a little more blurring of the lines. In this day and age, with technology being so advanced and with cabaret-style variety shows happening all the time, I could be easily lured out to see something that promised something new and different.

here's the thing: people use electronics to make ALL kinds of music. ALL KINDS. And that's where our conversation took a small turn. In my mind a festival of that magnitude would celebrate that and showcase all that. But there's so many artists out there making "electronic music" that they don't need to. So reading a huge list of names of people I don't know from a Green Lantern Corps member doesn't get me going. Hearing about something like, say, a baker's dozen of electronic musicians each taking turns providing music for an interactive dance performance (of which Hands of Kali would be perfectly suited btw, and you DID hear that from me) would very much excite me. Having a slew of musicians interpret the works of a non-electronic music artist would also excite me. Piling on thirty "new school breaks DJs" in a single packed club night does not.

"But there's seminars, and other things too y'know." And they're right. I almost went to the Ableton seminar a couple years back (the first time they offered it) and regret not doing so. I can't comment on whether they're good or just the regular dog and pony show you get when any software manufacturer comes through on their road show, I hope they're not.

I also almost attended a seminar on digital distribution, and prolly should have. With this in mind I decided to revisit the festival web site and see what's on tap this year.

The first that jumped out at me is that Jeff Greinke is performing. An ambient powerhouse in his own right (His Cities in Fog double album is a classic), his project Hana (with Anisa Romero of Sky Cries Mary) is spectacular.

And there IS a seminar I'm interested in. So, to reach a true compromise in our discussion, I'm determined to check out at least one night of music in the festival this year (provided tix are cheap enough). Now I just gotta throw my dart at the schedule and see what I'm subjecting myself to.

Of course, this conversation REALLY eneded with us saying how the dB Festival fills a need that only overlaps with us slightly, and there's a need for an event that hits the bullseye with us and serves OUR needs and preferences. An "electro-noir speakeasy dark cabaret variety arts festival". Sheesh I smell another major project to undertake.... :-)

If you happened to be in SODO on SUN...

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:49:03 GMT

You would've seen these people...

We decided to have another open rehearsal this weekend, and this time we upped the ante a little bit and made it a full dress rehearsal. Here's Emma and April with our brand new stylist Trish. She took the girls shopping, helped design their outfits, and did their makeup. Whilst new band BFF Reyshard worked his magic on the hair.

We also raised the stakes by inviting Hands of Kali to come and play with us. Technically they were supposed to observe and start designing performances to integrate into our material, but that quickly became a full-on dance-fest.

Hopefully more pix and reports on it soon, but we tried out a new version of an old song ("City of Night"), and went through a power romp of first album and upcoming album tunes, and threw in a cover to boot.

Having integrated lights, styling, and now dancers, we're that much closer to finally bringing home the bacon. After mixing the show myself and also setting up and designing the lights, those are both duties I'm ready to hand off to some new team members, so we need to find those people.

After the rousing success that was the rehearsal, we all cleared out in record time and zipped over to Hanta Haus for a wonderfully generous after-party. Not bad for a rehearsal. Not bad at all.

Having to schlep gear all over for this meant I got to clean the studio, which puts me in great shape to finish the record as well as start mixing the Deepsleep record. So currently all is very well and moving forward in a noticeably sexy way.

Oh lookee...

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:31:07 GMT

When you put material out there to all umpteenth billion online music services you forget about it pretty easily. So today we got an email from Songvault telling us to check out our chart placement. Huh?

Well well well, Ms. Mad Love is at #32 on some kind of electronic showcase chart. It's always hard to enter Fog People songs into things like this because of their genre-bending, but at least it's holding up well. I think we win a toaster or something if we rank high enough. C'mon people, I needs me some toast!

Oh, hello...welcome to our rehearsal...

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:40:49 GMT

After some time off for a wedding we're back at work. Everyone's plate is pretty full but the girls have been spending gobs of time on the style front. Some performance fine-tuning, lots of shopping, and gobs and gobs of band bonding. Of course this has no immediate effect on you, but you'll notice it in the long run.

Record proceeds apace (how many times have I written that phrase?). Two songs left to finish writing and then onto final tracking and pre-mixing. Brought some demos on a road trip and they held up very well. This record is going to be fun, compared to the first it's more of a party record.

We're having rehearsal on AUG 31 and we've decided to have it in a bigger space so we can rehearse with the Hands of Kali, which prompted us to say "well heck, we might as well have an OPEN rehearsal!" So you read it here first: Open rehearsal on SUN AUG 31. Shoot we'll even provide some beer.

It's becoming slightly more apparent we need to overhaul our live rig, a thought which though I'm aware of I'm also pretending isn't real. that means: new computer, new software, completely re-thought playback process, and faster switch over times between songs. I'm assuming there's a fairy for that just like teeth and egg-laying bunnies...

Brief update....

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:29:33 GMT

I took a week off to go into a recording studio and help track vocals and drums for the Deepsleep Narcotics Company. The studio, The Hideout, was fantastic and an awesome experience all around. The long weekend was fun and we recorded a ton of material.

Back to Fog People business though, "My Turn" has been put to bed (for now) and I'm finishing up fine tuning on "Permission Withdrawn". A freak computer glitch cost me about four hours of work, a lesson in proper saving and backing of material was reinforced there.

Definitely in the home stretch for the writing section, doing all the fine-tuning and layering. Just a few songs left and then I get to "flip the room" and move my studio out into the salon for mixing and open up the main studio room for spot-overdubs and assorted additional recording (bass and guitar come to mind)

In the days of Motown, their performers attended charm school, dance lessons, and assorted other grooming in order to hone their superstar performances. Well we don't have access to that, but we DO have access to Hands of Kali and their arsenal of performance chops. So, the girls have been somewhat abducted by the badass sex witches in that troupe and are being taught who-knows-what. Being a guy I'm not privvy to the details.

But, I just got my hands on the piece of gear featured in the pic. We're in desperate need of some processing for vocals, mostly run-of-the-mill compression for live use, but also some additional yummy effects. It will take some time to work out but we're going to start with integrating this little dude into our rig. Ultimately we're hoping to add a live mixer to the team (that's a person, not a piece of gear...we already have one of those), someone who would have fun "playing" the live effects and assorted other triggering doo-dads. But for now we need to solve the problem of the fact I sing very quietly and the girls have some devastatingly loud vocal weapons in their throats.

Everything else continues apace. More news soon.

What is this? Progress? Why yes it is!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:07:15 GMT

RECORD
Having Mike and Devin write guitar and bass parts for a track ("millermania") I've been stuck on for ages gave me the freedom to put it down and move on to the next one.

Pleased to report, "let me" is finished musically. It's a new-wave/R&B type thing that is pretty fantastic. It joins a few others in the "ready for final vox and mixing" pile.

Joining it tonight after I drop in a few small cymbals hits will be "My Turn", our floor-stomping album opener(at least right now it is anyway...)

The last few weeks have finally broken open from a lot of obligations and given me a clear shot at planting myself in the studio and actually aiming for the end of principal writing. W00t!

REHEARSAL
Last week we may had one of our best rehearsals in a very long time. We started late, and we really only worked on two songs after zipping through a few we know well to loosen up. But, we had some sangria and otherwise "loosened up", which we rarely do. Just the thing to get us working on our rapping (April and I) and harmonies (Emma, April and I). We added another Fog People song to the growing list and are most of the way through reconstructing another cover tune. An utterly high-energy and very productive fun-fest.

We're going to quench the gang's growing desire to get out and about by doing some rehearsals at a performance studio in the coming weeks, open to our peeps. We're still examining a few places that have a festive atmosphere, some lights, and rent by the hour (or a bitchin' package rate)...in-city. Suggestions are welcome!

I just want to make sure I get some badass bling.

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:02:40 GMT

Last night Emma and I met with someone we're hoping is going to anchor the stylist portion of our team. We sat on the trampoline (see previous posts) and combed through some books and fired ideas back and forth. Of course, the word "noir" was used about 800 times. Personally this makes me pretty happy because I'd much rather be in a suit than in some purple, fuzzy, assless pants. At least for performing, I like to save those garments for more intimate adventures.

Mostly these types of meetings with me are pretty simple affairs. In fact, I think as a ego-centric dictator I'm pretty slack. Mainly my goal is to make sure we're starting from the same place, and then I let them run with it. To me it makes sense, sure I have a passing interest in style, in bass guitar, in photography and filmmaking, but if I was THE expert I wouldn't be asking for help. If someone who IS an expert knows what I'm talking about to start from, it's really exciting to me to see where they go with it, and what they bring back. It's never been bad, and rarely does it need more than a few practical tweaks before it's perfect.

So let that be a nugget to share folks, joining our family is even better than getting a high-level job at an internet startup in the mid-90's. Well, you don't get the cars and houses and stocks, but you don't get dumped on your arse either, and you get free reign to actualize your ideas.

we'll just throw our own party then...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:02:58 GMT

Scattered update on things:

RECORD
Continues. The boys (Devin and Mike) have stepped up and written guitar and bass parts for a song I've been stuck on for a long time. We started hashing it out at rehearsal and is coming along very well. It's the first song we've worked on where something written in rehearsal has to make it's way back to what will be the actual recorded version.

Freed up from that musical roadblock, I've made progress on several other songs. I'm hoping to trim the fat and lock the arrangements for the remaining "easy" ones shortly, and then concentrate on the remaining songs that need large bits of help either because of their concept (doing impromptu vocals or live recordings) or the lack of focus. Pending all the other things on our plates, we may be able to prep for overdubs and final vox recording in the near-future.

BAND
Continues as well. We briefly contemplated moving our weekend rehearsals and realized there's not a single weeknight that would work. Of course the reasons it won't work are all pretty hilarious, the list topped with the activities "pickleball" and "volleyball", but hey, that just means we spend our sabbath playing sexualized noir-funk in West Seattle.

So we don't get totally stale while we finish the record, and move towards a performance-based model, we decided we're going to start having informal "party" rehearsals open to our peers and frenemies (I love that word, just rediscovered it). Details will follow, but within the month we should be doing our first one. More or less we'll bring some food and drink and take a few "pre-func" hours out of your lovely weekend evening and rock out.

We started "band-ifying" some more songs too, which is always more fun than re-hashing songs you've played a million times. In fact next week is almost entirely dedicated to breaking down those songs and rebuilding them with a new flavor.

OTHER
Meetings, ideas, and mouth-watering video stuff is all on the table and waiting to be attacked with extreme enthusiasm. We're just swamped and sweating with all the work we're doing. Details as they arrive.

Team-bouncing exercises...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:35:06 GMT

After collecting a bunch of feedback from assorted peeps and peers we all got together and went over it all. Like Devin says, this stuff is like statistics: you throw out the "your rule!" and the "you suck!" and concentrate on the meaty stuff. Taking that to heart, we are currently re-tooling a few songs and making some future plans based on stronger ideas. We drank a lot, and then we watched the video. Because nothing points out the painful and pleasant reality than a poor quality video of something.

When all was said and done we were pretty happy, and our next rehearsal was short an sweet as we began incorporating changes. Of course we managed to take a small break and go jumping on my trampoline. Turns out they're great for dealing anxious nerves. And somewhat surprisingly, no one was hurt... much.

This here is Emma, April, and Devin in various states of bounce on the cusp of the return of normal Summer weather to our humble burg.

New songs proceed apace, I've once a again torn the guts out of one, and I've enlisted some help to assist in figuring out what's wrong. A little perspective can go a long way when you stare at something for so long and can't make heads or tails. I've got some other tracks moving forward pretty well, next time I'll detail their progress.

We're also approaching someone in the extended family to possible do some visual work with us. Details to follow, hopefully a long thread that will produce some pix and other exciting news.

In my dream world, I would round out the team with the following peoples:

Drummer
Keyboard player
Art Director/Stylist
Lighting Designer
Live Mixer (sound)

We've got leads on two of the five, so we shall see.

And now a word from our sponsors...

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:43:11 GMT

Well, we WISH we had sponsors (Jameson whiskey I'm looking at YOU).

This is more about our partners, allies, and peers. A little bit of a detour in our usual ranting about our own stuff (though we'll include a brief update at the end).

ALICIA DARA
This week we went out and caught Alicia Dara at the Triple Door (the little room, ironically Paula Cole was playing in the big room).

Alicia's Fog People connection: she sang on the title track of City of Night (along with 12 other wonderful peeps, including current Fog People femme fatale April Kling). She also helped me (Michael) with his vocals on that record, and played impromptu tambourine at our open-rehearsal show a fwe weeks agao. Alicia and I also have a "sandbox" project for electro-vocal wackiness called Irresistible Animals that we'll one day force unto the world.

Her show was a pre-release party for her new record The Secret Dream of Tigers. She whipped through a baker's dozen of songs (which works out to about 9 using my own math) with a small group of backup folks while people like myself, Devin(bass), and Kendra(Hands of Kali) consumed copious amounts of swanky drinks. And good fortune for y'all, she's streaming gobs of new songs from that record off of her MySpace page.

THE DEEPSLEEP NARCOTICS COMPANY
I'm producing and mixing the first record from these fellow "electro-noir" groovesters and all-around swell folks.

DSNC's Fog People connection: Lead singer Lena Baisden guests on a new Fog People song you'll hear soon (like, when the record's done yo).

I've been meeting with the band in preparation for going into the studio to track material for their record. I've also been slowly "slurping" their songs into my studio, prompting me to learn a little bit about software-studio fave Reason. When you make music with computers, the ultimate compatibility test is what tools you use to make music. While I don't use Reason, I happen to know a bit about it, and also how to link it's brain to my own studio and make everything hunky dory. So in the "Geek" column we get a big fat YES.

Last night I met with Lena to specifically start talking about vocals and what she wants to accomplish and some ways we can make that happen. We mostly just talked through the songs and took gobs of notes, but a few ideas warranted some experimenting, so we fired up a mic and did some preliminary tests which were very successful, as well a heap of fun. With a great batch of songs and a killer rhythm section I'm sure their record is going to turn some heads. There's song samples on their web site, and they play out fairly regularly, with a few monthly residencies about town.

THE FOG PEOPLE
Oh yeah, this other band you may have heard about. (yes, that's me with an acoustic guitar, and April may or may not be flipping the bird to somebody or somebodies... what can ya do, it's Georgetown baby!)

More work work work. I spent a few hours tearing some of what's left of my hair trying to figure out why the current song I'm finishing doesn't sound right. I still haven't quite got it yet but I've got a few ideas now that I let it sit for a couple of days. I'm slightly blocked on this and the next two songs, which is very frustrating. I don't have as many long stretches of time to work on the record, so when I sit down to work on a track if I get stumped for an hour or two I'm pretty much done. On the first album I could task-hop because I had ALL DAY to work on it, so eventually something would happen. This time I need to be ready to pop as soon as I fire up the studio, a challenge I'm struggling with.

The songs are all in the 80%-99% done phase, so these final bits of writing are the ones that need to take the songs to a level of quality we can all live with. Hence the perfectionist anxiety.

Our next band practice is a group review of recent "accidental debut" show. I think the feedback we got is pretty strong and will help us make some tweaks to our formula, lay down a much stronger concept and blueprint for a real show, and give us all some homework. Then it's back to rehearsing and writing. And of course our ever-present quest for more bandmates and creative team peeps. If I had it my way we'd have an 11 piece performing band and a 4 piece creative team. No shit.

You're nothing in this town (or any other) without your peeps, so above please take note of some of ours.

Long lost update... but what's this??

Thu, 29 May 2008 19:17:35 GMT

Yes, it's been a little while since I updated on our progress.

Yes, we've got a lot of things "in progress", mostly they center around the next record and our live rehearsals.

We've also been working with some friends, on their records and band projects as well. Mostly lending vocals here and there and doing some production work. Details on those projects as they arise, but they're there.

So, here's a more nitty gritty version:

NEXT RECORD
Things are present. I had to do some radical surgery on two different songs and rebuild them, which took a lot of time and really just brings it back to where it was before, but with some important differences "under the hood". Computers, godsends though they are, are also quite fickle and odd. But now we can move ahead a little faster than before, so more and better updates as they arrive.

When last we checked, we had several songs that are finished with their main production pass and are ready for mixing. The next batch of tracks that come through will form the core of the record.

REHEARSALS
So, we did a private show for our stuffed animals, which was a hit. So we decided this time we needed to actually road test some songs in front of actual humans. We decided to do a small "friends and family" rehearsal so we could run through some songs in front of people we could then ask for critiques from. In typical Fog People fashion, this event soon grew out of control and after we had dragged our gear down to some friend's warehouse in Georgetown it was a full-on party.

Undeterred, we ran through our material and had a great time. Sometimes those kinds of events are the best ones, where the invite list is random, everyone is a little drunk and confused, and we just blast through the songs in short order. Of course, feedback was offered to us in doses ranging from lethal to timed-release. We took it all in stride, including several short manifestos of printed text detailing what our next major steps should be. Sheesh, if you know that you should just be our manager! :-)

So, here's a pic of the event. You can't really see us all, but yes, that's us playing music in front of humans. Yes, that's a trapeze hanging over our heads, and yes that hook is part of a 1.5 ton hoist system.

And if you ever wondered what I look like in the studio writing songs, look no further: