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Long story short I’m recording 10 tracks with producer Jose Cuenca of the Spanish band Marlenne. My choice to work with him was easy, he gets results out of every band he works with. Are the bands he’s produced world famous, part of some huge tour? No, but he get’s a certain sound out of bands that sounds like a world class recording, just check out his work with his own band, the bands Wayne, and Cuming Soon. I had been talking to him for a while with regards to recording material, but I kept putting it off, mainly because I was sort of stuck, and had a massive case of writers block. For years I had been thinking how unmetal some of the music I was coming up with was. How can I put this out, when I have a metal podcast, and I’ve reviewed, and criticized others in the past. Then I watched the Foo Fighter’s Back And Fourth, and came to the realization that as long as I like the music, and it’s rock, who cares what subgenre of rock it might be or metal or whatever. Chances are a handful of people will listen to the tracks and that’s it, I have no disillusion of grandeur, don’t think I’ll sell a copy of anything, there will be no world tour (hell their probably won’t even be a single show) and I will probably just post the entire album here to stream or download.

So once I realized this riffs, and lyrics started flowing out of me, I’d say I was going to work on my new house, but had secretly setup a room with an amp and a Les Paul where I would just jam, and record on my iPhone whatever I thought sounded halfway decent. Some days I’d be there for 20 minutes, others for four hours. At the same time I was working out the drum tracks in my head, for those of you that know me from way back I was drummer first, so I figured, ok this will all be a piece of cake. Wrong, I would jam away, and the computer would run out of memory, my recording software would stop detecting my kit’s brain, etc. It was a nightmare. So I decided, screw it I’m using Superior Drummer to convert my electronic set’s sound to the sound of an authentic acoustic drum set, why don’t I just program the drums with Superior Drummer? So that’s what I’ve done, it kills me to not record the drums live, but the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. I also injured one of my ankles, which made it impossible to play for the most part, so that made the decision even easier.

From there I had a vision, ok, these are the foundations of the songs, but they need to improve, they need to get better. So I set out to contact people that I had interviewed both here in Spain, and in the States. Response was luke warm at best, I tried to explain “look this is a rough demo, the end product will be a million times better”. Some people balked, some people asked for money some saw potential, and others came on board and have been working with me on tracks for the last two months. I don’t want to name anyone because I want it to be a surprise and don’t want oh it was only him? Or who the hell is that come up. I want people to objectively listen and say wow I do or don’t know who it, but track ended up sounding really cool.

One of the other issues I ran into was that I purposely wanted to make an album with various styles of music. The album format is dead, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that no one records sold albums anymore. If you’ve heard the best track off of the album everything else is a b, c or d version of that song. There is no more originality. I’m not saying that my material is original, but I’ve tried to make it entertaining, and make is so that it’s 10 different courses of food, not just one long drawn out boring meal. That’s also why I don’t think I’ll ever play these tracks live, because it would be very difficult to put a band together that consists of musicians open enough to want to play set of tracks so varied.

There is still quite a way to go to finish everything up, some of the tracks are close to 100% others are closer to 80%. Some lyrics have to be re-written, some melodies have to be modified, and Mr. Cuenca is the perfect man to get the best vocal performance possible out of me. My voice is where I lack the most confidence, and also where the most amount of work needs to be performed. My soloing leaves a lot to be desired, but I think I’ll have most of the solo’s covered by guest musicians. The bass will be handled by guests as well, some guitar parts, and some backing vocals.

I know I’m going out on a limb here, and one man’s treasure is another man’s turd, but here are some snippets of five songs, note that these are basic demos, the mix is off, the bass is not present on some of these tracks.

The Talking Metal Forums are shutting down. The Forums are where I first met Mark Strigl (co-host of Talking Metal along with John Ostronomy), who gave me the kick in the ass I needed to get my podcasts going. I’ve also met so many cool other people on the forums as well, it is a shame they’re going away. But with the changing times the forum platform is almost dead, sites like Facebook have taken over, so I will continue to visit Talking Metal’s Facebook page and comment on music there.

I hope to post a lot more updates and podcasts here in the near future.

-VMR

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Reblogged from boxxtalk:

It's been a long time in the making, but our debut EP "Motorcycle" is out now! Please check it out and download for FREE :)

For the FULL EP download: http://www.mediafire.com/?c4p4ui7c164np2t

Listen via Soundcloud too: http://soundcloud.com/sing-gazelle/

Please like us on Facebook too! http://www.facebook.com/singgazelle

In any event I really admire her as a musician, and enjoy a lot of the music she released while in Hole. I do have to admit that I have not really followed her career since. Thanks to this documentary I will go back and check out some of the other albums she’s played on. Hopefully her story helps others that are faced with similar issues, inspires people to play music, inspires people to be who they are, no matter what their sexual orientation may be, and gives them an appreciation of someone who was very influential (even if it was in a subliminal way) to a generation of music lovers.

-VMR

I have actually been demoing songs for about a month now. The idea is to record these songs in a studio in the late fall or end of the year. I remember what it was like to get together with at least one other person in the bands or projects I played with, and connected when writing material. This time around I have roughly 16 songs that I could potentially record, but I’m shooting to do between 8 to 10.

The process has been interesting, and although I have laid some decent ground work for the majority of the songs, they still need a lot of work. Also, I haven’t made that type of musical connection that I mention above, I really feel that me coming from someplace very different has lead to me not “playing well with others” or others not giving me the opportunity to show what I’m capable of. As a result, I’m going to move forward and play and sing all of the material. I’d love to include people from bands that I’ve come to know from the interviews I’ve done, but I am not sure people would be interested, or have the time to get involved.

There is a lot of doubt involved in this process, again, would people be interested in what I’d like to put together, in the vision that I have in my head? I know that I can have people play that will play circles around me, but will the material then lose its essence? Will my playing live up to what I have in mind? It is important to me that I enjoy what I’m playing and recording, I honestly could care less if someone thinks it’s metal enough or not, if it’s heavy enough or not, cool or not. I don’t intend on putting this material out to sell money, play shows, or anything similar to that. It’s honestly just self gratification, and once it has been completed will either be available as a free download, or be connected to some sort of charity if I do intent on having people pay for it.

If you ask what it sounds like, it’s a mix of all things that have influences me, and that I’ve loved listening to since I was a kid, a little rock, a little metal, and a little bit of punk. I hear things like Kiss, Anthrax, Prong, Led Zeppelin, Monster Magnet, Misfits, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, and a various assortment of other things. I’m sure some people will listen, and think, “wow, what’s he smoking, it sounds nothing like that!” but that’s what it sounds like to me. As far as the lyrical content goes, everything from personal topics, to political things, to sci-fi type things, to themes touched upon in books and movies.

I’ve honestly thought of giving up podcasting all together just to focus on this as my main hobby, there is a lot less drama involved, but I do have a few interviews in the can, and have hours of material for my classic albums column, if nothing else, I’ll release that once a month till all 36 episodes are out. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll touch upon this further in the coming months.

-VMR

The one thing that seems odd (maybe just to me) is how the “carrot method” is still applied within the industry. Everything around the music industry is evolving, but you still have people that are steadfast to ensure that certain aspects don’t change. The carrot method is basically someone baiting you with their biggest band as a way to make you interview a much smaller band (usually only known to them or their immediate relatives, and friends). Which, hey, everyone needs to start somewhere, which is why I usually say yes. Anything to help a band whose music I enjoy. What bugs me (and you can accuse me of being a sell out, or whatever for doing the deed) is having a band forced on you, with an empty promise they’re reserving a big act for you. They never deliver that other band. I’ve even mentioned this to artists once I finally get to speak to them (usually setup through a third party, and not the person I originally dealt with), and most of them seem annoyed, or dumbfounded that someone they’re paying to help promote their band is doing this.

Now I’m not dumb, I realize that (as I mentioned above) I’m not the only fish in the water. If I pass, there are another 300 people waiting to do that very interview.

There is also you’re not big enough card that is played all of the time. Hey I’d like to interview so and so. The response varies, a lot of times it’s remind me who you are again? In fairness to the person on the other end, they probably have hundreds of people contacting them on a daily basis. You also have them asking how many visitors frequent your site, again, their trying to weed out who they want their artists to speak to. Given my relationship to a certain big name podcast, I have been allowed to use their name in the past, and I’ve even received well if you can promise that the artist ends up on their show, I’ll allow them to interview my artist. This leaves you scratching your head wondering if the old “what am I chopped liver?” statement applies? Hello, I was the person making the request after all, I’m assuming if they had interest in interviewing this person, they would have reached out to you? It can all be discouraging at times. I’ve even had someone tell me flat that I wasn’t big enough to merit speaking to her artist. “My artist only speaks to national press”, huh? So, ok, it’s cool they spend 2 minutes with someone that doesn’t know who they are, doesn’t care who they are, hates their biggest hit, but is obligated to have them on their show because someone at the corporate office says so. I don’t know, this doesn’t make sense to me. Why waste someone’s time with a station that treats you like a token artist, and only dusts off your music when you’re in town? I can honestly say most of the people I speak to say they enjoy speaking to me, and thank me for not asking them the same old, same old. Maybe an artist being happy doesn’t sell, who knows?

I realize that I’m in a very privileged position to be able to speak to a lot of the people I do, and I’m very thankful for that, but seriously 500 fiery hoops every time? I am also lucky enough to count on being associated to a bunch of cool sites, and thanks to them they’ve given me the kick in the ass that I need to get things going again.

I’ll leave you with this, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal once told me, “I don’t get paid to play music, that I enjoy, I get paid to deal with all of the other shit!”. Which is a brilliant statement, if only I got paid!

- Victor

What I found was that the company offers the worst customer service I have ever encountered in my close to 20 years of being an internet consumer. After making my purchase I was sent an e-mail stating that due to my geographic location I would have to pay what I feel to be an extremely high shipping fee, $43. To be honest why would I pay a shipping fee that cost more then each of the albums on their own? Now I have mention that I started buying vinyl for the first time in 20 years after picking up Angelus Apatrida’s Clockwork at a show late last year. The floodgates opened and I started purchasing all types of albums, Mastodon, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Jane’s Addiciton, etc. Albums or boxed sets that have recently come out, or been reissued, and that I would have never purchased on vinyl back in the day. These orders have come from Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US, no other site has charged me even half of that in shipping.

So I left several messages, (I actually have a Vonage number here in Spain, and left a New Jersey number for them to call), asking if someone could call me to further discuss the shipping costs. I heard nothing back from them. A few weeks later I received an e-mail from a customer service rep saying that unless I paid these fees, the order would be cancelled. So again, I wrote this person twice, and receive an e-mail stating that my order was canceled! I called again, left another message, and again no answer.

So what did I do? I ended up purchasing these two albums on another site that offered them at a lower cost, and what a novelty $5 shipping!

The music industry is in down turn, and although I’m sure Acoustic Sounds has their niche customers, and possibly received a swell in business these last few years due to vinyl becoming popular again, but why not respond? Sure, what I was purchasing wasn’t going to put anyone through college, or help someone with their early retirement, but I’m a customer none the less, one that purchased 45 vinyls in the last month and a half. If nothing else, please follow up with people when they have a question or a concern regarding the products or services you offer, they are keeping you in business, and allowing you to celebrate your 25th anniversary. Also, be more upfront with shipping costs when customers are making a purchase, don’t bamboozle people with an e-mail out of left field with additional costs. Had I of seen these charges I would not have wasted my time.

With so many music stores (yes I know, they’re more than a music store) going out of business, you would think that more would be done to care for the business Acoustic Sounds has. Unfortunately, a lot of companies don’t tend to worry about things until it is too late. In the meantime everything is peachy, or “eh it’s just one customer” or “who cares, he’s overseas”, or whatever excuse was used when they chose not to follow up with me. Unfortunately, a lot of these companies don’t wake up until the carpet has long been pulled out from under their feet, and at that time it was everyone’s fault but their own.