New Release – Page 4 – Small Glowing Pig

The final hour… challenge(s)

A few weeks ago I took a look at the small glowing pig discography page and was immediately saddened. As of even this morning, the only release this year was an album written and recorded over two years ago that finally saw overdubs, mixing, and mastering in May of this year. Had we really not completed anything new? Was this really the most musically devoid year for small glowing pig since 2006? How did this happen?

Before building a resolve to right what was wrong, I reflected upon the causes. Surely much of the blame can be laid upon the doorstep of SpaceBase’s continued expansion into it’s third production year. Having a one and a half year old with a 7:30 bedtime also didn’t encourage late night rock and rolling. For most of the year, Steve was also busy playing in approximately three dozen bands ranging from renaissance and Celtic to blues rock. Jefim had moved to Boston and Devin and Angello continued to be busy working a ridiculous schedule and shredding the Les Paul in a new band, respectively. So, considering all this, what was to be done?

How about release that six month old two hour challenge and then do another one last minute when Jefim comes to town? Yeah, that sounds alright.

First, take a listen to “Parcel Octopus” by Parcel Octopus off of their album Parcel Octopus. We random band name generatored the name and then surmised that they were a punk band that had expanded into psychedelia and left behind their days of protest on route to their eponymous album and song. Nailed it.

Two Hour Challenge – Parcel Octopus

Next, it’s about time we released a song that Jim Hernovic and I put together about six months ago. We started by feeding the lyrics of the then-current top 10 pop songs (“Get Lucky,” “Radioactive,” etc.) into a word cloud generator.

Two Hour Challenge – Bones are Radioactive

So what’s next for us? Maybe some The Name. Maybe a new Vacation record. Maybe we’ll even get around to the Small Glowing Pig 10th Anniversary Album (13th anniversary?), who knows. I’m pretty sure that we’ll hear from Predicament again soon, and that Blonski and I will bang out at least a few more frames of SpaceBase before having a catastrophic hard drive failure that drives us to the brink of suicide. Whatever it is, hopefully it’s more than a two year old album and two challenge songs.

Well, until next time. See you next year. Ha!

-Mike

Posthumous Black Velvet album release!

We can now move Reserved from a category that contains this to one with this and this. Our thanks go out to Carmen for her artwork, Pete for his spectacular mastering job, and to anyone who still has a t-shirt or sticker. Enjoy.

Download the entire album or individual songs on our Bandcamp page.

-Mike

Black Velvet live recording…

BVshow — A photo of Black Velvet totally not at Sully's Pub

In order to properly gear up for the release of Reserved, the posthumous album release from Black Velvet, I dug up some recordings of the final show at Sully’s Pub in Hartford. It’s incomplete and poorly recorded, but we did get some guy to move his truck. I think. Enjoy!

Black Velvet – Aeroplane Live

Download the show here.

-Mike

One Hour Challenge: Free Max -B

We’ve taken a week off from SpaceBase after finishing the first scene, but found the time to write and record a protest song for wrongfully accused rapper Max -B. We’re not sure of all the details… he may have organized a homicide, he may have done something terrible to someone’s grandmother, and he may be an unexcusably dangerous mix of rappers Notorious BIG, Jay-Z, and Tupac Shakur… but we’ve got his back.

Friend of the label, Jim Hernovich, helps out on the first song written as part of the One Hour Challenge. Technically, this one clocked in at about 1:15, so I suppose we failed.

One Hour Challenge – Free Max -B

New single release from Predicament

Last fall, Jefim Piekarz (friend of the label and singer of Black Velvet and Corona of the Sun) and I got together for a dozen or so sessions to record his solo album under the moniker The Wayward Soldier (many demos of which can be found on his site). He had been kicking around a bunch of songs he wrote before, during, and after his time with Black Velvet, and we holed up in my basement in Newington to track the drums. I was working on Meat Without Feet‘s WPOP at the time, and was loving the freedom that comes with recording digital instruments. Naturally, I hard sold him on using the MIDI drum kit. We laid down drums and vocals before he split for Cambridge, MA, but even though the fruits of those sessions remain in the oven a bit longer, we do have something to show today for our efforts.

While working on The Wayward Soldier, we penned one complete track and a few half-baked ideas for a new, untitled project. The first fruit of that collaboration is Predicament‘s “Crossroads.” It’s not an Eric Clapton cover, seeing as Jefim and I play guitar. Reflecting on it now, the lyrics are clearly prophetic. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” and all that…

Predicament – “Crossroads”

You can also rock to some lossless goodness if that’s what you’re into over at bandcamp.

Hopefully more tracks to come in the months ahead!

-Mike

Meat Without Feet WPOP Release!

It’s that time in an EP’s life when I give up trying to improve the vocals and throw my hands up in disgust. With that in mind, I present to you: Meat Without Feet‘s latest release: WPOP. It has some of the cleanest singing and production of anything I’ve done so far, even if I’m never actually happy with it. WPOP, named after the former radio station located in Newington, CT, contains four new MWF tracks for your listening pleasure. I don’t know which is the single… how about… the last one!? Enjoy!

Download [Here] or stream each track:

01 – Introduction

02 – Technology Approaches!

03 – While on Top

04 – The Process

-Mike

The Name EP Release!

At long last Small Glowing Pig presents The Name EP, a different sound and feel from past projects on the label. On this album, musical duo The Name experiment with sampling their own music and incorporating live performance elements into a very groove-oriented sound.

Check our main website or click here for more info and a link to download the EP. Possible live performances to follow, most likely in the greater Hartford area. Stay tuned!

-Steve

New Website Kickoff

The new Small Glowing Pig website is finally here. Be sure to update your bookmarks to smallglowingpig.com, as it’ll be our home for the foreseeable future. On to the celebrations…

First up is a new release from Steve Blonski & the Victor Frankensteins. It’s the first proper followup to a “Steve Blonski & the” album. It also marks a return to a band last heard from way back in 2000. Two tracks from that year’s Not Gonna be Splitting the Atom Any Time Soon are featured on the new release, Antimony. Enjoy!

Steve Blonski & the Victor Frankensteins: Antimony

Next is the first release from Vacation. Meant to be a catch all “band” for all the random nonsense I come up with during my breaks from school. Think Desert Sessions but generally alone and not as interesting. It was originally intended to have a real “band” feel, so I restricted myself to one acoustic, one electric, drums, bass, and vocals. I don’t remember if I kept it up throughout the seven tracks, though. I did, however, only use one microphone for the whole thing – including the drums. Craziness!

We’ll have more news about The Name and about a new project soon. The 10th Anniversary album seems to be on hold. It’s already the 11th Anniversary, so what’s another year?

-Mike