Stormcellar: Swamp Monster Videoclip
Ask and ye shall receive..or something like that.
Well, hot on the heels of Doing The Right Thing and requesting permisssion to use some footage, I got a very nice email back from We Saw That saying 'ok'. 1 down, 1 to go...ooh...now I only have 4 seconds risk, which is great, considering Rosie's verdict on the new clip is 'best Ever'. I told him to wait for the Island Time clip. He didnt offer to hit me, so I am doing well!
Thus, our gratitude and respect goes out to We Saw That for Internet Nobility! Check out their Blog and show the love
Boy that took me a while. I am reminded of Valve softwares press release 'Newflash: Making Games is hard!', but in this case, it's Videoclips.
Yep, after several months, multiple scripts (write'em, cost'em, figure out we can't afford'em, forget'em, write another one) I have finished the Swamp Monster videoclip! Hurrah!
But I cant show it to you.
Well...yet. I am using a bunch of public domain footage but opted to use 2 X 4 second shots licensed under Creative Commons, but I am waiting on the Official Permission of them what made the footage. Its not that tough to replace the bits but I am hopeful that the folks who posted their stuff online will see clear to letting us use it. Fingers (claws?) crossed.
Failing which, I will need to find 8 seconds of footage...so if Spongebob turns up unexpectedly in the clip you'll know why. Oh...that's copyright too? ARGH! Foiled again!
Stay tuned, it should be online this week, one way or another!
MJEB
Happy long weekend y'all. Hope you're traveling safely and avoiding Double Demerit points.
Double Demerit Points? Yikes! What a scary concept. It had me managing my speed and driving carefully, which is more than I can say for the owner of a large blue sedan who was tailgating people at 110 on the way to the gig on Saturday.
I was behind him for a bit and he jammed on the brakes and i thought 'WTF?' so I changed lanes and saw that he was less than half a car length from the car in front, obviously trying to bully his way past.
Its just poor form and downright dangerous. Anyway, after my rant about the poor driving manners of some folks, on with the gig report.
Oh almost forgot to mention, Elsa lent me a copy of Fettlers new album 'Fiddle:The Devils Instrument' which I was listening to on the way to the gig, its terrific. Jeez, the Banjo./Manodlin player (John Kane) is brutally good, not to mention some outstanding Fiddling from Fettler. Hmmm..that sounded kinkier than I had planned...but, I digress, right, back to the gig report.
A shout out to Smokey (thank you for your service), Chris, Geoff, Pete & Rani & family, mika and all the folks who spent the evening with us.
A special huge thanks to Henry for coming and helping with the P.A (we misss you carl, come back soon) and to GC for reminding me what the combination was to the mike case :-)
With Redline (Mike Rix) back in the Bass chair for the evening I decided to try and use our nifty new technology to record demo's of the new songs live at the gig - ah - that leads me to another huge thanks to Monte, who surpasses even me in Jedi Geekiness.
I spent the afternoon preceding the gig with Monte working out the vagaries of the Tascam US1800 and Windows 7 - for all you folks who wind up trying that bit of gear, so far its great but make sure you get the Win 7 64 bit drivers!!! (thats if you're running Win7 64bit or Vista 64, if you don't update the drivers the playback doesn't work properly)
Thank you Monte for the loan of the Laptop and the brainpower for the fiddlier bits I couldn't work out.
I suppose we should have considered our desk placement a little more carefully, no this picture is not me trying to crack an ATM with Cubase :-)
The Riverside Inn is definitely more family oriented since Chris took over, and it turns out that we are playing music that appeals to the prime 3-12y/o demographic. I suggested to the boys that we learn some wiggles songs, but it seems our present material is perfectly fine.
Naturally, Little Big Bird proved popular, even without the puppet :-)
Between doing the music stuff and running back to mess with the mixing desk, I didn't get too many shots in for the evening but take it from me, we had Dads dancing with kids, Mums dancing with kids, kids dancing with kids, Mums dancing with dads, People dancing on their own; in summary, there was a lot of dancing.
Of course, the minute we added the recording equipment, the boys stress levels went up, but they'd better get used to it, we'll be recording as much of our live stuff as possible over the coming months as we work towards SC5 and SC6. Despite some degree of 'we'll kill you later MJEB', we even tried Black Crow, unrehearsed, and by and large it wasn't bad. Still some arrangement issues but it's nice to have a new song with Cojones Grandes (as those of Spanish heritage might say), however, even the slightly more 'romantic' songs (as Mika would say) proved popular, with The Way That She Smiles and Sunshine In The Rain (from Carl's Chair) receiving an excellent response.
All in all, a good night spent in good company, thanks to everyone for spending the evening with us.
We have the coming weekend off, which is good, considering that we then have a three gig weekend following on from that in Bathurst and Oberon, with a live recording session planned with 2MCE.
With 8 songs ready (more or less) for the next album, we'll be introducing another few each couple of weeks at the live gigs as we test them. Once again, we look for your guidance in the form of hoots, hollers or stony faced silence to determine how we're going, so come on out for an evening and let us know what you think.
Rgds
MJEB
Uh oh, someones raided the band bank balance and gone Gadget Shopping....Oh Noes!
Hmmm...whats this...a Tascam US1800 16 Port USB2 interface... I see.
To create the next two projects we have scheduled, we have to get something to allow us to record. Long gone are the days of Ye Olde Tape Drives (that was so 2009, see Spacejunk for details on what happened when we went the analogue route), we've ditched the Roland Desks we used for Carl's Chair (thanks GC) and gone for a direct to PC connection. How will it go? Who knows! This thing is 24bit sampling (ooh...nerdalicious) and has quite good reviews, and was recommended by Pete D.
We'll be using it initially to try and record some live gig stuff and then probably use it for the next location album recording. Thats if we wind up on location for SC5 (dont quote me it's all too damn random).
Now that we have the input side of things, what are we going to use to get the signal there?
Aha! A MultiCore! No more spaghetti leads for us at gigs! Also, this will allow us to get the separation we need for the live recording stuff (30 metres anyone?).
BTW this thing is Unbelievably Heavy. As Gray at Earth Audio says: thats a whole lotta copper.
As we start deploying these two new devices, I'll be sure to put up my impressions on the site so that those who are looking at similar gear can get a (kind of) unbiased assessment!
Oh, for no reason whatsoever, here's a sign I spotted when getting my haircut, funny as heck and I felt like sharing!
With now 8 songs ready for recording, we should be embarking on the next album shortly, now all I have to do is deal with the scheduling.
When we started the Carl's Chair project, we were aiming for a summer recording session. As things went, we wound up doing it in winter. Such are the vagaries of life, so I am tolerant of things I cannot control, which, to my enduring surprise, is rather a lot of things.
Right now we're still on the hunt for a location to record, following up on four prospective locations, we have arranged the equipment, the engineer, only need four more songs (no problemo) and then some luck to make sure everyone is available at the same time. That's slightly trickier.
'Roger' (and others) have also asked us to please, please not release Yet Another Album so soon. So soon? Its been almost 9 months! Ha! Its not my fault that the songs keep coming.
We have another experimental album planned immediately after SC5 (we're calling the next full Album SC5 for the present, as its the 5th album, not imaginative I know but its working title and I gotta call it something) and not getting SC5 out is putting me behind schedule for the next one after the one we havent released yet (SC6?). If that sounds confusing, well, that's also to be expected. We made Spacejunk whilst we were working on Nuevo Retro. That's just the kind of stuff we do.
Mind you, we were also not expecting Carl's Chair to be a full album, as it was originally meant to be another experimental EP, but again, randomness (our friend and guide) struck.
So at present, we have a bunch of songs ready to go for SC5 and SC6. My target for a September start for SC5 has been and gone, now October is looking shaky and November/December even more so. This means we might be pushing it back until January/February next year....noooooo!!!! (sigh) which would put us on track for a mid 2012 release.
It might be that we wind up recording SC6 before SC5, as SC6 was due to be a live EP anyway, which would then mean we have to change its name from SC6 to SC5 and...oh lord...its all too confusing.
On the positive side, it gives us a chance to continue to work on the songs for SC5, I was very pleased to see Black Crow (new song) turn up in rehearsal the other day and I'm looking forward to playing it live, maybe even at the 2MCE recording session (did I mention we're doing a live radio recording at 2MCE in Bathurst on the 16h of October? No? Oh well, there ya go).
Thus, its time, dear reader, to come to a gig when we're next in your sphere of influence, as this is your opportunity to hoot and holler for the songs you like and boo the ones that dont make the grade, before we get to recording, because even factoring in the randomness of which we are so fond, the minute a gleam of possibility opens up, we're going to nail this stuff to a digital file and move on to the next project.
Wish me luck, I am going back to the calendar to see how I can massage this stuff into being.
MJEB