Victim of the Tiger

Same car, different striped polo.

Here is some more bumbling on about a Ryan Stevens-penned track that we will be recording for The New Album, and it's relationship to click tracks and "Eye of the Tiger":



Because it was raining, and there wasn't any low-speed traffic in the tunnel, I was more preoccupied with my driving this time, so if I was too distracted to make any intelligent points, here are my intended conclusions:

• "Eye of the Tiger" is an awesome song with a off-beat, quirky intro.
• "Victim, Himself, No Problem" is an awesome song that will have an on-beat, quirky intro and second verse.
• Time is like a clock in my heart.
  
• Pop into Pop-Up Video

Next episode: Someone else talking.

The Rabies of Oz

The recording adventure continues...

One thing we're trying to accomplish during pre-production is tightening up our songs by using a click track. It's the first time we've done the metronome thing as a band, so we spent some time last week experimenting with the logistics of it. We tried hooking up a clicking drum machine to Ryan's headphones, but it wasn't loud enough. Then we gave the headphones to Kirk and let Ryan play along with the bass that was playing along with the click in yet another set of headphones. This convoluted setup wasn't effective either. Then I recorded a guitar track with a click on the 8 track for Ryan to listen to while he played drums, but it ended up being too slow. We wouldn't be able to vary the speed without recording it several times, which was unrealistic.

Finally, Mike Moebius, Master of Moonlight Mile Studios said "Why don't you just play it through the PA, dummies?" So we did, and it worked pretty damn well. After playing each song two or three times, we got the hang of it and zeroed in on the exact tempos we wanted to the songs to be. The final breakthrough was changing the click sound itself to a much more exhilarating midrange snare beat. From then on it was fucking Dance Party PMF.

Here's a shortened, vocal-less version of "Rabies First Battle" that ended our Thursday night:

PMF - Albumbling

Ok, here is Episode 1 of the PMF new album adventure. More tomorrow.

Not Taking it EZ

PMF will be laying off the shows for a while in order to prep for album season. We may pop up onstage here and there in the next few months, but priority numero uno is completing a recording. There have been a million changes to this (dis)organization since its inception so we want to make sure we do this right.

And rather than keep this painful/fun experience completely to ourselves, we want to share it with youse. I know I've been making big promises all year about making PMF videos and photos and crap like that all year, and then never actually doing it. Hopefully, I won't be bullshitting us all again. The camera is fully charged and ready to capture candid moments of the recording process, both pivotal and pretarded.

Until I start actually doing that, you can check this out the PMF video bar, newly updated with old videos. I don't know how I forgot to post the video clips from that Zac made of our infamous July Groove on Grove show, but now they're there, so there. The clips up are "Dog Milk" and our WJ & the Sweet Sacrifice/Faith No More/Tim & Eric/etc. mashup, "It's It." There's also an accompanying write-up in the JC Independent where you are free to leave comments, hint-hint. Don't worry, we're not getting invited back next summer.