Work Hard! Play Hard!

I think I mentioned last time I posted that my righteous new phone can record video. Here are the first spoils of this new power. Two little movies of the Posters working on our new record.

In this first one, Dave and I are working on guide vocals for Tommy2K, bass for Sibella, and then acoustic guitar for Penmanship Brigade. I seem to remember that there was some kind of phasing problem with the acoustic guitar, and it may have to be re-recorded. I didn't actually set the mics up for the guitar, and whoever did (coughDave) may have forgotten to make sure they were more or less equal distances from the sound source.



A week later, we had a drum day and got like four songs done, two of which (Tommy2K and Gap Year) I got some video of. The other two songs were songs of mine, and so I had actually to be helping with the production instead of just standing there with a camera being in the way. We just got a new preamp and an additional SM57, so we were all psyched that day about being able to put a mic over the toms. In all the excitement I forgot to flip the phase on the bottom mic on the snare, and I've been kicking myself over it for the past three days! It was probably karma for secretly blaming the acoustic guitar phase problems on Dave the week before.





That's how we roll, though. When it's time to cut loose, we go mental! But when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work, we're all like "Get 'er done, hombre!"

Sam
(I had to sign in through the Posters' blogger account because the videos are still rendering.)

Diaspora

So I am in Portland, Maine, hanging with an ill and much loved family member. I don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore. Its upkeep has fallen mostly to me this year, and this summer I haven't been much in the mood for blogging.

The Posters played as a three piece the other night. I wasn't there to take pictures (though I did just get a sweet new phone last week and it takes video) but anybody who has them is encouraged to add them to the mix somehow. I did see one picture that showed the Posters taking advantage of my absence to use an amp from off the children's menu. Please! That amp's not even rated R, dude!

Love from Maine to anybody who reads this. Life is too short and too sad not to rock out.
ST

WTJU

Anybody who reads this blog I'm sure already knows about this (partly because most of the people who read the blog are in the Hilarious Posters) but I thought I'd give a shout anyway to WTJU in Crisis, run by Tyler of Posters faves Mss. Lots of changes are being proposed at TJU, and while the changers have been justly accused of mismanaging the transition, and the changees have been justly accused of some alarmist rhetoric, I think we can all agree that more (and more inclusive) discussion needs to happen at the station before any plan in finalized.

[Edit: Tyler has also started a forum.]

I did a weekly show on WTJU from 1998 until 2005, though I've kind of lost track of what's been going on there over the past five years, partly because I don't listen to the radio. (I'm too self absorbed.) From 2002 until 2005 I was in a band in which all four members were TJU djs, one of whom was rock director for part of that time. So while I'm one of the people who doesn't listen to the station, and therefore am I guess part of the reason the proposed changes appear necessary to some, TJU has been a major part of my time in Charlottesville, and a major part of my musical education. I can only assume that if it's true for me it must be true for many other people, and messing around with something that means so much to so many -- or even to a small crew of particularly dedicated folks -- is not something to be done quickly or lightly.

I hosted the last rock show at Peabody, I'm pretty sure. I was subbing for Paul Wilkinson, if I remember right. Chuck was standing behind me the whole time waiting for the dudes to call and nervously pacing. He said I might have to shut down quickly -- with only a minute's notice -- and that there were already people over at Lambeth waiting to power up the thing. He said the transition would be basically seamless, which blew my mind. But the call didn't come until 6 or so, about two ours after my show was over, and I think jazz was on or something.

Recording

I haven't blagued in a while, but we've been busy recording. I took some arty photos of us making our record.

Here you can see Kris rocking the drums hard. It's all blurry because that's how fast he plays now. It can't be captured by a camera. That image is actually from last Wednesday. I think he was recording Not the Strut (or possibly the all-new version of That Thing You Don't).


Here's one of Dave playing guitar on Not the Strut. It's from today.


Renee was reading on the stairs while that was going down.

We're getting stuff done a lot faster than when we recorded our EP, but we also have a lot more songs to get through this time. About three times as many!

I'm hoping we'll have a demo of Not the Strut -- finished electric guitar, drums, and keyboard takes with scratch takes for bass, acoustic guitar, and vocals -- to post here this week. It will also be on all the various pages we maintain (assuming it actually gets done).

We also worked today on some demos for songs of mine that I haven't played with the band yet. One is an old song I used to play with Dave and Justin, and the other one is a new song that I haven't played with anybody yet.

Happy Birthday!

It's the one-year anniversary of our blog!

Go blog!

Memorial Day Rockin' Eve-Eve-Eve

Yesterday was the Friday that led off Memorial Day weekend here in Charlottesville (and I guess throughout the rest of the country as well). We played the Tea Bazaar with Paper Fleet and Borrowed Beams of Light and a good time was had by all. All three bands were different from one another, but similar enough that people who liked one probably liked all three. I know I did!

The Posters played first, and we were a lot sloppier than usual, but it was fun and I think the general outline of each song still pretty much translated to people. I broke a bass string, which I've never done before, even just in practice!

Next up was Paper Fleet. Their singer / guitar player guy looked much like Jordan Catalano.


They should consider changing their band's name to Frozen Embryos. Or, you know, Residue. Also, they should get Rayanne to sing "I Wanna Be Sedated" with them. (Actually, no, they shouldn't.)


I'm sorry these pictures are so bad. I forgot my camera (which takes pretty terrible pictures anyway) and I was stuck with my phone. Renee took a lot of pictures with her new camera (which she claims is "almost as good as Josh's") and she'll probably post them on fbook.

The Beams were on next. Here they are tuning up.


I was pretty impressed with how many people in town know all the words to their songs. Admittedly about half their lyrics are just "ahh" or "ohh," but still, people knew all the other words too.

As you can see in the picture below, the whole band is saying "ahhhh." I think this was the beginning of "Thousand Year Powernap," the song with the bass line so infectious that Dave cannot refrain from playing it in practice whenever we're not practicing one of our actual songs.


Local photographer and video rental impresario Andy is taking a picture of the Beams here.


I went to the back of the room to get a shot of how huge the crowd was. I'm not sure if as many people were there for our set, but even if it was half of what you see here it was a pretty big crowd for us, and it was really fun to share the stage with the Beams. Adam is a pop songsmith of the highest order!


Anyway, that was a badass show. Other than breaking a string it was a totally positive experience. I still have "Kids Are Great" stuck in my head! At the moment we don't have anything lined up until mid July, so it's going to be nose-to-the-grind-stone recording for a while.

Tomorrow Is Gonna Be Psycho!

I finally got Photoshop at work again!


It's a few days late in coming, but I wanted to tell everybody that Renee had a cool (short) writeup in the C'ville this week. In the print version, on stands until the next issue comes out Tuesday, there is also a photo of her. Renee is indeed every boy's dream girl, which means that Dave is lucky for more reasons than simply having a cool job and being in a band with moi.

Also, don't forget that we're rocking the Tea House with our compatriots in the Charlottesville quirky pop scene Borrowed Beams of Light, and cool garage rock / slacker pop outfit Paper Fleet, from Brooklyn. I think they might know this guy I know named Chuck, who is good friends with my brother from art school and is (or was?) in The Bright Lights.

We're pulling out all the stops this time around. Dave is basically playing nothing but A-sides. I can't remember what songs of mine we're playing. I'm pretty sure they're good ones, though.

Hitch would like to remind you to be on time for the show, which will start at 9pm sharp, because we're going on first and, like Rachel on Glee (and Tinkerbell), we need applause to live.