Bompf Bompf Baby!

Jimmy King has returned from the west. The band had its first “full band” jam session since Jimmy left two months ago, on Thursday and it was to say the least; mindblowing. Therefore, the drive to make more music, and to finish the music we’ve started is even greater than ever. The new energy is exciting, and refreshing. Also, most of you know already (thanks to my Dad) that Wise, Young & King will be playing in Orangeville in July for the Founders Day weekend celebrations. More details like show times, dates and venues will be released once they are all worked out.

Regarding the bands studio work, we’ve had some rather large setbacks, as some of the drum tracks have been lost. So unfortunately we have to re-record the drum tracks unless they find them. This needs to be done for every song, and could take some time to do as well, since recording to a band is different than just playing out the song before the other tracks are laid down. I think that after we finish this demo, any future recordings will be done at a different studio, or we will learn how to do our own recordings. I’ve had some thoughts on the latter idea, and learning how to use recording software is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while. We would need to get a soundboard and microphones, and do some research into open source recording software for linux, as I would just use my laptop for recording and mixing. I think that in the long run, it would be much cheaper than constantly paying a studio to do the work. Something to look into though for sure.

Haven’t really had anything worth posting happen lately, plus I’ve been pretty busy with everything going on, so here is an update:

Wise, Young and King is officially out of prepaid studio time, so I guess we are slowing down. Doug’s parents said that they would pay for four more hours as a birthday gift to him, but then it’s finding the time that the other band members are available to get in. As said before, Bompf Bompf is the priority as the shoot for the music video is coming up. That’s where we stand right now.

School is going pretty good for me, and my attendance record is surprising (as I have a bad habit of not showing up for class, or sleeping in). I should definitely have all my high school credits before the March break is here. I’ve also found a one year course here at Algonquin - Pre-Music Production - that interests me. My long term plans are to go to Humber College in Toronto for music in the fall of 2008, so the Algonquin program would keep me busy next year.

Now for the touchy part; Thank you to everybody who has/plans to donate to the “Drum Kit Fund”. I’m extremely grateful. It means so much to me. As a matter of fact, I’m somewhat speechless. However, I refuse to link to it, because I feel that it would seem… well “greedy” is not the word, but something like that. It just wouldn’t feel right to me. On that note though, if you are considering donating, but have something that would make it more worth your while (eg. some form of work for me to do towards it), please let me know.

Other than that, I’ve been spending most of my time playing guitar. I’ve actually written a song, with lyrics. I’ve considered posting the lyrics here, but haven’t decided if I like them enough to post them. As far as they are concerned though, they are probably some of the best lyrics I’ve ever personally come up with, and the guitar riff that goes with them, is by far the best guitar playing I’ve ever done. Maybe I’ll get a cheep computer mic, and record an acoustic version of it. We’ll have to see.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for reading.

I figure it’s about that time now, where people start to wonder where the band is at as far as the recording process is concerned. Here is a quick update. This is also the unveiling of the track names.

We had Steve send us all copies of the songs without any post production work done on them. We went over them, and decided that there were some key changes- no pun intended- that were required for the sound we want. For the first song, which happens to be Bompf Bompf, we are doing a music video for it, so it is the priority track right now. The biggest thing was that the vocals need to be redone. We went ahead and did that yesterday.

The three other songs we decided on were; Birds and the Bees, Sweet Inebriation and Freakish Benz. As of right now, we aren’t sure what we plan to do with Birds and the Bees, as it did not come out at all how we wanted it to. The first recorded version was much better than the recently recorded version. Sweet Inebriation is a great tune, but we think that at least the vocals have to be redone. Freakish Benz is my favourite track I think. The vocals haven’t even been put onto this song yet, and I think that it sounds amazing.

All the final post production work like mixing, compression and all the other fun things, still have yet to be done before we have a final product. We are also thinking of taking a few of the tracks we recorded live the first time we went into the studio, and remastering them, maybe redoing vocals, or parts that need to be fixed, and using those as well to add as songs that we have. Possible songs are; Placticina, Federales, Birds and the Bees and Under Mischief.

Yesterday we decided that we were long past due for jamming, so within 5 minutes of starting to play together again, we were off in a whole new world. We have the basis of what could be a few new songs that have potential to be amazing. It was nice to get back into a creative mode. For me, playing music really does set me free from anything else, and when there is a session like the one we had yesterday, it’s just so refreshing and motivating for the band. Like all teams, bands have the moments where everybody is annoyed with everybody, for everything. Therefore making those jams that much more important for getting everybody back to working together. It definitely was a good feeling.

Well, maybe I’ll have more details about a timeframe for the release of the songs in the near future, but at this point in time I’ve no idea when anything will be ready for the public to hear and enjoy. Until then, you’ll have to enjoy it vicariously through my posts.