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.

Such beautiful words

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

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!

Vacation

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