http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 7 May 2004 08:53:06 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/07/085306.php AndyI've been most absent as of late. It's not that band life isn't keeping me busy and there's nothing to write about. It's just hard finding things to write about that won't be the typical "we played a show last night" and all that garbage. There are a few updates in the world of rock and roll however. One major thing is that my blog site(http://www.xanga.com/suburbanrock) now features more than one blogger. I am encouraging other band members to go onto the site and blog. This is a real stretch for them since none of them are really internet junkies like myself. Still, I've managed to get at least our lead singer to start posting and I expect that our guitarist will start soon.Another new thing is that we have some new songs over at PureVolume. You can check them out here: http://www.purevolume.com/thesuburbansound This Saturday night is our 2 hour set at that bar where we did the open mic a few months ago. You remember that post right? A few of our street team members went down there last night to promote. The staff there is expecting a full house. My ass. I'll believe that when I see it.This isn't really a post as it is a quick update. So until I find something "creative" to write, check out the songs and if you live in York or Lancaster PA, check out the show Saturday night. More info at www.thesuburbansound.com. Music15462@blogcritics.org Fri, 7 May 2004 08:53:06 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/11/164520.php AndyAt what point is the line drawn between taking influence from bands and ripping them off?This is a question I'm constantly asking myself with our music. At what point do we draw from Led Zeppelin or The Who as influences and when do we borderline rip off? This question is really quite relative. Last night our drummer was arguing the point that he thinks creativity has sunken in the band and we've become a Zep rehash. However, I am comforted by people who will watch a show and say things like "you remind me of this band or that band". In fact, I can count the number of times on 1 hand that I've heard a direct referrence to Zep. We get everything from Chicago to The Doors to The Jam. Some people hear our punk rock roots. At shows, the comments are all over the place.And that's cool. That's how it should be. We don't want to be anybody's rip off. Especially great bands like Zep. There was only one Zep and we by far are not it. Thank God for that.I think what scares us about being a rip off of something is the fact that all around us we see tons of crap bands doing covers of Superman or Puddle of Mudd songs. That's the last thing we want to be. Music13625@blogcritics.org Thu, 11 Mar 2004 16:45:20 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/10/005556.php AndyFor those of you who read up on what's going on in my little world of underground rock and roll, you may be interested in previewing some scans from the prints of our photo shoot. I wish the scanner did justice to these photos, because the real deal looks so phenominal. You get the idea anyway.here here here here here here here here Music13565@blogcritics.org Wed, 10 Mar 2004 00:55:56 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/08/010902.php AndyWe got invited back to the Tourist Inn where we did the open mic last week. They booked us for 2 dates in May and June. They're headlining shows, which is cool. However, we have to play 2 sets of 1 hour in length each night. Now, we grew up playing the punk scene. Bands there do 40 minute sets at most with just about all original songs. We are plum unprepared to do a 2 hour show. We don't get many shows though so we can't pass this opportunity up. Unfortunately, the time has finally come for us to do some cover songs. Luckily, we have about 12 originals to play and we think we can make that last an hour, so we're looking at only having to do 8 cover songs, 4 in each set. We'll do 2 sets of 6 originals and 4 covers each. We can rise to this challenge.The hard part is doing this in the time we have. Tonight we wrote 2 songs in practice, which is phenomenal for us. Being an 8 piece band, song writing takes time. Sometimes weeks. Something clicked tonight for us though, probably divine intervention, and the songs came together well. So after wrapping up loose ends on these songs this week, we can get to work on the covers. The songs we're thinking of doing so far is as follows.The Who-5:15 and Behind Blue Eyes Heart-Crazy On You Ramones-Bonzo Goes to Bitberg Fleetwood Mac-Go Your Own Way The Doors-Touch(Definately debateable...I don't think I can pull off the sax solo in it) MC5-Kick Out the JamThat's what we're thinking so far. We'll probably do a different Doors song and a Tom Petty song as well.I'm not looking forward to putting time and energy into learning other people's songs, however I'm up for the challenge of making the songs our own and arranging them so they fit our style. Horns in that Heart song would rock so hard. You can go 2 ways with covers. You can do carbon copies and try to recreate what's been done, or you can pay tribute to the song by making it your own, putting your own artistic input into it, and still do the song justice. We choose the later.I'll update everyone on the progress of this whole thing. Music13495@blogcritics.org Mon, 8 Mar 2004 01:09:02 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/01/124854.php Andy Last night we experienced our first professional photo shoot. It was um, interesting to say the least. I'm not sure how these things usually go nor am I sure how these things are SUPPOSED to go. Maybe I'll just share, and some of you with more experience than I can tell me if we're totally whack or not. The whole thing started around 3:30pm at the local Savemart. Apparently we had to buy make up to make our faces less glossy. Now...I'm not saying this or that or the other, but this band is getting pretty feminine pretty quick. First, it was girl pants. This was unavoidable. Playing rock and roll requires us to look good. Guy pants suck. What they call boot cut for guys is no where near what they call boot cut for girls, and well, the girl pants have bigger and better flairs. Bell bottoms if you will. But makeup? It was one thing to swallow my pride and shop in the women's section at K-mart, but standing with 7 other guys in the "Maybe It's Maibaline" section took the cake. Hey whatever. We gotta do what we gotta do I guess. It just seemed to me that some of us enjoyed the experience a bit too much. After the makeup excursion, we had about an hour and a half to kill, so we went to a bar, talked and drank, then headed to the location. Arriving at the location, we discovered the building was all locked up. Our photographer had to call the land lord and get it unlocked, so that killed another hour and a half. The location was pretty cool. It was an old run down apartment in down town Lancaster. It had a very historical look to it, and it was a great environment to work in. However, one had to watch one's step. There were boards with nails sticking up everywhere. Safety first kids. Finally the photographer got set up and we started the shoot. Now our lead singer is a graphic designer, and a damn good one at that. However, he's gotta stick his fricken nose into everything art. He has this underlined way of getting credit for things he had nothing to do with. Ehh whatever. I know you guys all love drama, but I won't bash one of my best friends...too much. I have to say though, his ideas along with guidance from the photographer lead to some spectacular group shots, ones like no one has ever done before. The photo shoot took about 5 hours. I don't know if that's long or short, but it seemed like an eternity. I got a ride with our drummer who fortunately had to get up early for work the next day. This meant that we got first dibs on our individual shots and we got out of there at a decent time. When we left though, several of the guys still had to do their shots. I'm guessing they were there for another 2 or 3 hours. Now might be a good time to tell the most interesting part of this tale. Our singer and lead guitarist had this idea of getting white doves for the photo shoot about 3 weeks ago. I blew it off as over the top and something they would never follow through with. Well I'll be damned if they didn't arrive on scene with a cage and 3 domesticated pigeons(domesticated pigeons are all white). A lot of the night was spent caressing these pigeons and training them to the point of where they would stay where we would put them, flap their wings when we wanted them to, ect. To me, the whole experience was over the top. However, I'm one who would much rather rock than worry about these stupid affairs. I guess it's good that we have some people who think about the image though and try to make us look professional. I reckon it's important. I just hope that if this band takes off I don't have to spend the rest of my career playing Dr. Doolittle. Music13290@blogcritics.org Mon, 1 Mar 2004 12:48:54 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/02/27/084830.php AndyI've been in a slump lately. I've not been active here on blogcritics for a while now. There are a few reasons for this. One is that I'm just not as active on the internet as I used to be. Another reason is that I feel as if I have nothing to write about. My passion in life is my band. That's what I like to talk about, it's what I think about the most, and I figure, why the hell would anyone care about a band they never heard of and probably will never hear of? However, expressing my feelings in a recent blogcritic thread, several people have told me to write about my experiences in a band. Well you asked for it so here it is. Below is the first of many insights into the world of a struggling garage band. Feb. 26th, 2004: Bar folk must be the easiest crowd to play to. We played at the Tourist Inn in York last night. It was sort of an open mic night so we were amidst loads of cover bands doing poor covers of Puddle of Mudd songs (not that the original versions are any better). We took the stage with our 3 piece horn section and proceeded to rock.... horribly. By the end of the first song alone, our guitarist broke a string and our bass player forgot to repeat the second chorus. Yet, strong applauds met us. Ahh alcohol. The rest of the set went better considering the situation. The sound sucked. Standing on stage left, all we could hear in the horn section was one guitar, the muffled snare drum, vocals and ourselves. It was hard to feel the music to say the least. Getting off stage, we knew we played like crap yet, the audience, they must have been listening to another band.... or else totally off their rockers.... because we received strong praise for our rocking. We even got invited back to the venue with the possibility of a headlining spot. Friends, I learned this. Drunk people who love classic rock are the best people for us to play to. Music13198@blogcritics.org Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:48:30 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/11/04/194332.php AndyI work in the music department in a small bookstore here in Lancaster county PA. While small in comparison to stores like Barnes and Noble or Borders, our store is actually one of the largest Christian retailers in the nation.Today Gotee Records, a Christian "alternative" label owned by DC Talk's Toby Mac, released a Christmas album by the pop punk band Relient K. Not a bad idea considering their fans are youth group "punks" who like hokie crap like that.Here's the kicker. The only way to get the new Christmas EP is to buy the band's latest album, "2 Lefts Don't Make A Right But Three Do," an album that has been available since March of this year. Now, we've sold over 500 of that album already. Am I supposed to believe that those same kids, fans of that band, are gonna come right out to my store and buy the album again, for the same price, for 9 new songs? Am I really supposed to believe that those kids won't go online to Kazaa or something and just download those songs? Hell, if I was a fan of the band, I would feel ripped off and go online too, and I'm totally against illegal downloading.I asked our EMI rep (they distribute Gotee Records) why they rip these kids off this way (they did this before with the band's last release, except it wasn't a Christmas EP. It was all totally unreleased material) and he said, "hey it boosts album sales." This is the same rep who constantly complains about downloading. The same rep who blows me off when I say, "don't you think high prices have something to do with the decline in the industry?" Oh no it couldn't be anything the industry's doing. That's just ridiculous.I truly feel sorry for the 10 year old kid who loves Relient K and finds out he has to buy a CD he already has just to get a new release from the band. Music9830@blogcritics.org Tue, 4 Nov 2003 19:43:32 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/28/190543.php AndySeveral of us here on Blogcritics dabble in the art of home recording. Hopefully we can use this as a forum to share tips of the trade. Here's a tip I stumbled across during the past week or so. Maybe you other home recording buffs have heard of this before, but it was new to me.I've always had problems recording drums. My problems with drums usually aren't in mixing or tone. I've always been able to get the sounds and mixes I want, even recording onto 2 tracks I've been happy with my sub-mixes. My problem comes with capturing the fatness of drums. I love big fat sounding drums. Especially snare and toms. The only time I ever really was pleased with the drum sounds I got was when I tracked on a 2-track reel to reel recorder. I'm timid to do that though because I suck at lining up the tape right and I can almost always count on one of my tracks being muddy. Usually the right channel. Maybe I need my heads cleaned.Either way, a friend told me of a great easy way to capture the fatness of drums without dicking around with reel to reel tape decks. He said that if I have a Hi-Fi VCR with stereo inputs, I can use that to record drums. He said that because VCR tape is so thick, 1" tape I believe, it really makes the drums sound fat. Now, I was a bit skeptical about this. My main concern was with input monitoring. How do you monitor a VCR to make sure you aren't peaking out? Duh!VCRs are built with an automatic volume setting. It's impossible to peak it because it has some sort of built in compression. I don't understand it really, but I know that when I tape something on my VCR, I don't have to worry about setting the volume too loud or too soft. I also thought, well why is a VCR going to get a warmer sound than say, an ADAT recorder that uses the same size tape? Duh again! Adat recorders, although they use tape, are digital recorders. VCRs are analog. I love me analog drums! Now I realize some of you are slow to do drums on 2-tracks. I mean, once you track the drums, you're stuck with that sub mix. For some of us, that's not a problem. For some of us, it's an issue. I found a solution. Most of us are using computer based programs like Sonar to record anyway, so there's no reason why we can't gather several VCRs and track drums on a bunch of machines running at once. Hi Fi VCRs are common, I'm sure everyone in your band has one laying around their house.Granted, there will be serious timing issues in play back, so the best way around that is to dump the tracks into your computer and use the software to line up the tracks to perfect timing. I know what in Cakewalk and Sonar that's not a hard thing to do at all. Especially on something as hot as drums.I have yet to try all of this out yet, so if I were you I wouldn't try this technique on your next paying project, but it's definately something to experiment with. Heck isn't that what 90% of home recording is anyway? Experimenting? I plan to try this out this weekend because my band has some demos we need to finish before the end of November. I'll let you know how it works out. All I know so far is that my friend tracked his entire album on VCRs, and it sounds sweet. Music9584@blogcritics.org Tue, 28 Oct 2003 19:05:43 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/22/135747.php AndyTape Op magazine is absolutely amazing. I have paged through a ton of recording magazines, and Tape Op truely captures the spirit of DIY recording. For those of you not familiar with the magazine, it's a bi-monthly magazine filled with interviews of producers, engineers, musicians who have recorded their own albums, all in the DIY spirit. Very few of the people use hard drive based recording equipment, Pro Tools isn't praised as the god of record producing, and they never EVER tell you that your method is wrong. In fact, they encourage off the wall tactics. Those of you who record drum sets with 2 Radio Shack mics as overheads and a set of headphones pluged into a Line-In input for a kick drum mike will love this magazine.I've been recieving the magazine for a little over a year now, and I cherish every issue I receive. They are invaluable tools for the home recording scene. The other day I was poking around their website when I stumbled across their list of past issues. It turns out that the first 12 issues are no longer available. At first I was a bit discouraged because they had some great articles as well as some great interviews with the likes of Steve Albini and other pioneers in the DIY recording industry. To my surprise however, I read that the first 12 issues were compiled into book form, and I immediately ordered a copy of "Tape-Op the Book".Yesterday I recieved my book and I haven't put it down since. My mind has been blown away with every look at it. I haven't had the chance to sit down and read it cover to cover, but I did read a few articles. It includes everything from how to make great recordings on 4 track recorders to how to build your own microphone tube pre-amp. Some of the highlights for me so far have been the interview with Steve Albini and an article on microphones including detailed descriptions of a few popular and lesser known models.I have only been doing my own recordings for about 2 years now, and until I stumbled across Tape Op, I always felt as if I could never succeed at home recording without taking out a small business loan and buying a $20,000 Pro Tools system. I'm glad there's a magazine and book geared towards those of us who record for the love of music. A magazine and book that says, "screw technology, do with what you have and make albums that sound more real and BETTER than 90% of the "professional" records released." Whether you're using a 4-track tape deck, a computer based program, or work in a professional studio, Tape Op is geared towards your skill level and will ignite in you that passion that got you involved in recording in the first place. God bless Tape-Op! Books9407@blogcritics.org Wed, 22 Oct 2003 13:57:47 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/23/191039.php AndyThis weekend, 9/26 to 9/28, I'll be attending my first Celtic festival in Bethlehem PA. Let me tell you folks, I'm effing excited. In fact, I'm practically horny!It was about 5 years ago that I first got into my Irish heritage. My mother's family is of the name Logue. Our Logues came to America in the late 1800s and settled in MD. My grandfather was the first of the Logues born here in the USofA in 1915.Unfortunately both of his parents died when he was very young, and he was raised by aunts and uncles who had already at that time been in the country for a while (and, unfortunately, already Americanized). I often wondered, had my great-grandparents not died, if my grandfather would have been raised in a rich Irish home passing that sense of heritage down to my mother and her sisters. Either way, I am determined to break the trend and rediscover my roots, hopefully passing them on to my children, and them to their children. I find my Celtic background romantic and mystifying (much more so than my father's German background).Like I said, I have yet to experience a Celtic festival. I had always heard they were more of a novelty, much like a Ren Fair (or...is it Faire?). However, Bethlehem's is known for being very authentic. I look forward to the Highland games, live music, and of course the black and tans! If you're in the area and want to experience something grand, come check it out. Most of the events are free, and it's going to be a rockin weekend. While I'm there, I hope to also pick up a birthday present for me dear old muthar as well.For more info, check out The Celtic FestNext week I'll post a review of the weekend. Culture8617@blogcritics.org Tue, 23 Sep 2003 19:10:39 EDT