I like playing Steve’s drums and the way that they sound and I like hanging out with Steve. I told him we should do those things. The text messages went as follows:
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get to his place before 8:30, and so I requested caffeine.
Steve obliged and also had chicken nuggets. Later, we reflected on what could be done better the next time.
Still, it’s worth watching at least part of.
-Mike
It’s not a challenge if there were never any failures. Besides CRAXYBRAIN, a few other one or two hour challenges have fallen to the wayside and were left unfinished for a variety of reasons.
The first is one written by Jim and I while messing around on my son’s guitar. Sort of a bossa nova, but the rhythm and strumming is a little wonky because both Jim and I played during different sections. In the end, we were out of time, didn’t have lyrics done, and weren’t totally happy with the progress so far, so we let it slip.
The second track is one that I wrote just after Blonski finished Blizzard last winter. I wanted to get back to recording live drums in the style of Vacation, but didn’t want to go through the trouble of setting up my full set. I resorted to using my son’s toy drum set. The results were predictable. Still, I like some of the guitar writing and Blonski’s bass and keys are solid as always.
I still have to get around to mixing down the initial unfinished WPOP tracks, but after that my vault cleanup should be nearly complete. Looks like my house is almost ready for Windows 10 clean installs!
-Mike
A month or two back, Steve and I attempted a one hour challenge. That in itself wouldn’t be much of a surprise, except that this time we nearly kept it to 60 minutes. That’s probably the reason this track never got finished…
There’s a few other interesting tidbits about CRAXYBRAIN, though. Most of which you can find out by watching the documentary of us writing and recording it. Eagle-eyed viewers will notice a tired basset hound throughout!
The documentary concept is one we’d definitely like to revisit in the future, and, if nothing else, we got a sweet video intro tune out of it!
-Mike
During a visit to Narragansett in preparation for the Newport Jazz Festival a week or so ago, the opportunity finally arose to put my new M-Audio M-Track II to use.
My three year old son was looking forward to seeing Robert Searight of Snarky Puppy. He’s already declared that he wants to be as good of a drummer as him, and I applaud his (extreme) ambition. The Puppies tightly funk-jazzed their way through a handful of instrumentals in front of Fort Adams as the sun threatened to set. We capitalized on the energy the bands brought by playing some music of our own.
What better way to celebrate modern jazz than to learn a Led Zeppelin cover and adapt it for two acoustics and a mandolin?
I plugged the M-Track II into my Surface Pro (1st gen) and ran everything off of battery power. We gave Jim one mic and positioned it so that it picked up more of his vocals than his guitar. The second condenser sat between Steve and I, slightly favoring Steve’s mandolin.
So far, I have two concerns with the M-Track II. First, it doesn’t have any MIDI inputs, which the competing PreSonus Audiobox USB includes. Second, the Zeppelin recording came out nicely, but the other two jams we recorded had a hiss on the mic pointed and me and Steve. This could be due to a number of factors not directly attributable to the interface (too hot with direct sunlight? bad cable? bad microphone?), but either way I’m leery.
Hopefully I’ll know more when I get to record something else. Until then, though, Steve has a few originals he’s been working on that might get some drum tracks later this week. In addition, I’m still telling myself I’ll rerecord some Rama Ram Jat. We’ll see!
-Mike
