Been a while, sorry. Been a bit busy, you know. Anyway, a lot of stuff has happened.
Overdrive - the vinyl "The Angelmaker's Daughter" has been released and is already almost sold out! We just recorded a new song, "New Beginning (Arata Na Stato)" for a Lion Music Japan benefit compilation. It was mixed by Pelle Saether last week.
Locomotive Breath - It's been awfully quiet, but also we have recorded a new track for the Lion Music Japan benefit compilation. Recorded the drums last weekend, guitars and bass two days ago, vocals yesterday and it will be mixed by Johan Blomström tonight. Title: "Rise Up".
Zoom Club - Working on new songs, planning a recording session.
Constancia - Still working on guitar arrangements for the second album!
The Encyclopedia Of Swedish Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Vol III - Continuously working on it! The plan is to be ready by July. Not sure if I can do it, but I will sure try!
FUZZ Magazine - Done a bunch of interesting interviews lately with Doug Aldrich, Mick Box, Evergrey, Ghost etc.
So, spring is here, life is good!
Visar inlägg med etikett constancia. Visa alla inlägg
Visar inlägg med etikett constancia. Visa alla inlägg
torsdag 5 maj 2011
onsdag 29 september 2010
Looking for a deal...
Well, first of all sorry for being such a slacker (thanks, Dave ;-)).
The world is not fair. When people like Jason Bibier and Håkan Hellström can get a record deal, and we seem to be all out of luck. I'm talking about the new Overdrive album. We have 18 tracks recorded, mixed and ready. This feels, by far, like the best album we've ever made with the best production, the strongest tracks and our best musical and vocal performances. Still, it seems noone's interested... I mean, I've sent out around 25 promo packages. I've received two lousy deal proposals and three "thanks, but no thanks". Well, maybe it is actually better to take matters into our own hands, set up some good distribution and release it ourselves? We've already more or less decided to make a CD and a vinyl version, with different tracks (just to confuse people :-)). We've put up some medleys from the new album on our MySpace and Facebook and the response has been great. Seems at least we have some fans out there. Too bad the labels aren't among them... Well, since I'm also the only one in the band engaging in trying to get us a deal (and in most things for that matter...), my patience is starting to run low. Right now I feel more like, fuck it, I'm moving on! We'll see... a miracle may happen...
On the other hand the Guts train has now seriously started moving! We've got a shitload of great songs already written, and this feels really really exiting! The plan is now for me to get my butt up to Stockholm for a weekend of rehearsals and recording! Drummer/singer Peter Hermansson is one of the most prolific persons I've come across in years! And I thought I had a lot of extra hours on my day!
On the third hand, I will now also start arranging and recording guitars for the new Constancia album! The material I've received from Mikael sounds great!
Well, if one train has stopped moving, the best thing is to try and get on another one. Who knows, it may be an express!
Here's some new great stuff I've picked up lately:
BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION - s/t - The album Chickenpox... sorry -foot, should've made!
RAZR13 - s/t - Dug Pinnick doin' the King's X dance with some other boys, sounding great!
PRETTY MAIDS - Pandemonium - Their best in years!
SHARKATTACK - s/t - New great CDBaby discovery! Cool rockers!
THE NAUGHTONES - s/t - see above!
måndag 3 maj 2010
Overdrive, Guts and gardening!
Long time, no lake. Well, here I am again. Starting at the beginning I've found myself very much and happily involved in a new band. This time it's a trio that gues under the name Guts. Drummer/singer Peter Hermansson (220 Volt/Norum etc) and Johan Niemann (Therion/The Murder Of My Sweet/Mind's Eye) are the othet two members. Stylewise this is what I've been aching to play for a long time, the stuff I grew up with - 70s influenced hard rock! This is fun! We've already written several songs together and this can definitely be something!
Overdrive is finally in the studio recording the new album. The past weekend Kjell and Kenta were supposed to lay down the drums for Kjelle's songs, but after the 4th song on the Sunday, Kjelle had to take his dog to the vet. A phone call later (I was in the garden covered in grass and moss at the time) I took over and we managed to lay down another four tracks. We're continuing tonight. I'm not exaggerating if I say this will most likely be the best Overdrive album ever! We've selected 20 songs to record and they all feel strong! Stronger than ever! This is pure classic metal once "invented" by the likes of Judas Priest and Accept. If it works, don't fix it! Mix is set for July and hopefully the CD and vinyl versions will see the light around September.
At the same time TrumPeter Svensson has laid down drum tracks for 10 new Constancia songs! Man, this is gonna be a busy, but fun, summer/fall!
Listening to:
RAZR13 - "Reflecions" - King's X but not. Dug with a new crew sounding awesome!
STONE AXE - "Stone Axe" - Holy crap! The 70s revisited. Killer CD!
RAWBURT - "Muskedunder" - Only a demo, but better than a lot of albums!
THE SWEET - "Live in Kopenhagen 1976" - Still love these guys!
Overdrive is finally in the studio recording the new album. The past weekend Kjell and Kenta were supposed to lay down the drums for Kjelle's songs, but after the 4th song on the Sunday, Kjelle had to take his dog to the vet. A phone call later (I was in the garden covered in grass and moss at the time) I took over and we managed to lay down another four tracks. We're continuing tonight. I'm not exaggerating if I say this will most likely be the best Overdrive album ever! We've selected 20 songs to record and they all feel strong! Stronger than ever! This is pure classic metal once "invented" by the likes of Judas Priest and Accept. If it works, don't fix it! Mix is set for July and hopefully the CD and vinyl versions will see the light around September.
At the same time TrumPeter Svensson has laid down drum tracks for 10 new Constancia songs! Man, this is gonna be a busy, but fun, summer/fall!
Listening to:
RAZR13 - "Reflecions" - King's X but not. Dug with a new crew sounding awesome!
STONE AXE - "Stone Axe" - Holy crap! The 70s revisited. Killer CD!
RAWBURT - "Muskedunder" - Only a demo, but better than a lot of albums!
THE SWEET - "Live in Kopenhagen 1976" - Still love these guys!
söndag 3 maj 2009
Today's the day!
It took almost two years to get the baby off the ground (if you can get a baby off the ground...). I'm talking about CONSTANCIA! The multi-nation band I'm currently involved in! Geographically spread out in Sweden and Germany, but we still managed to get it together and make it sound like a band. Thanks to the internet and PhotoShop!
It all started one day when Token/Scudiero keyboard player Mikael Rosengren asked me to add some guitar to some songs he had written. I really liked what I heard. It reminded me of the good old pomp rock of the late 70s/early 80s, but with a modern twist. Melodic, a bit progressive and alightly aggressive... "melogressive", I thought! New genre - tadaa! Well, I started arranging and recording guitars and got more and more into the songs, helped out with some lyrics and did some re-arrangements. Now, programmed drums suck. I talked to my friend Peter "TrumPeter" Svensson, once a member of my bands Overheat and Locomotive Breath, plus he played the majority of the drums on the Mountain of Power CD (a new one in progress, but I'll get to that later). Mikael came to think of Jaded Heart bassist Michael Mueller and asked him if he was into it, which he was. We tried out some different singers, but after one test round with Andromeda vocalist David Fremberg (who had also conributed to my MoP disc) we figured he was the one.
Now started a year of demoing, recording, sending files, re-recording etc. At first we finished five tracks "Shadows", "Save Me", "Wish I Could Fly", "I Never Said Goodbye" and "King Is Calling". These were quite roughly recorded, all guitars done with a Pod XT, I recorded some bass and one song even had programmed drums. We tried different producers, taking on one track each;
Beau Hill - killer 80s producer who had worked with Europe, Airborne etc etc)
Pontus Norgren - Sound engineer/producer who has worked with Thin Lizzy, Talisman etc
Pontus Lindmark - Roasting House producer; bands like Cloudscape, Planet Alliance etc
Pelle Saether - Studio Underground founder whom I have worked with on Locomotive Breath, MoP etc.
Johan Blomström - Local knob wizz who mixed the latest Overdrive album
We of course also had to find a label! We sent out demos and received some great interest from a couple of labels, but they all wanted a finished CD to consider. We figured, ok, let's finish it and shop it around. However we had not even finished the recording when Italian label Frontiers made us an offer we just couldn't refuse. Some quite smooth negotiations later we had inked the deal.
Now we started considering who should mix the album. At this stage, as a late contestant, Mikael came to think of Fredrik Folkare, his former Scudiero guitar colleague who has produced bands like Eclipse, Unleashed and Siebenbürgen. He did a test mix and we bought it! It had all the elements we wanted - the heaviness, the fat sound and the ambience.
We now started re-recording all the basic tracks. Mikael had already recorded most of the keyboards to a click track and programmed drums, so Peter did the drums on top of this. I now re-recorded the guitars using my Hughes & Kettner Trilogy amp (miked up with an SM57 and a big membrane mike), Mueller recorded his bass in Germany with Michael Voss and David recorded the vocals in his own studio and at a local studio in Malmö.
It the came down to me to collect all the tracks, merge it all together and make it work. After getting all the vocals, keyboards, bass, drums and rhythm guitars in, I actually re-recorded some guitar parts as I had got some new ideas, especially since the vocals came in, but also I wanted to enhance some drum/bass riffs. I then added the guitar solos, all except one which I actually kept from the demos (not saying which one :-).
I then bounched down all the tracks, burned them onto a couple of DVD records and sent the stuff to Fredrik with some instructions and "wishes". It was an impatient wait until we received the first couple of tracks a few weeks later. I was quite stunned! He had actually exceeded my expectations. Besides getting a fat, big and great sound, he had added his own twist on several spots, which finally made us state him as co-producer, because that's what he did!
The mastering was made by Dennis Ward (PC 69), recommeded by Frontiers, and he did and awesome job giving the album that final push!
Now we also needed to come up with which track to use as a Japanese bonus track, and of course, the track order... At this point I felt I was way too "involved" to be unbiased so we let the label decide. The track "Wasted" will be the Japanese bonus track.
During the mixing period we also started thinking about the whole artwork thing. I had a couple of ideas which I made drafts of, and at the same time David came up with a great looking logo, which corresponded nicely to one of my ideas. The cover depics an old world map, a log book and a comapass. The title is "Lost And Gone", where the lyrics are really about the internet and getting lost there, but I though the world map, compass etc would serve as a nice metaphor. I also made a slightly different version for the Japanese release, adding a twist to the front cover (not telling what).
Before this we also had to take some band pics. Well, the geographical difference actually cause a slight problem, but we solved it. Three of us went into a studio, took pics prentending the other two were there. We sent them the pics, they had their pics taken with our "band pic" serving as a template (they used the same background, light setting, posing etc). Then David did his PhotoShop magic and here we are!
Today Frontiers will go public with signing us and that "Lost And Gone" will be released in Europe on July 3, in the US in August and Japan later on. We have also opened our (temporary) sites http://www.lostandgone.com/ and http://www.constancia.se/
Check it out!!
Listening to:
RICK DERRINGER - Knighted By The Blues
ROADSTAR - Grand Hotel
TRUCKFIGHTERS - Mania
It all started one day when Token/Scudiero keyboard player Mikael Rosengren asked me to add some guitar to some songs he had written. I really liked what I heard. It reminded me of the good old pomp rock of the late 70s/early 80s, but with a modern twist. Melodic, a bit progressive and alightly aggressive... "melogressive", I thought! New genre - tadaa! Well, I started arranging and recording guitars and got more and more into the songs, helped out with some lyrics and did some re-arrangements. Now, programmed drums suck. I talked to my friend Peter "TrumPeter" Svensson, once a member of my bands Overheat and Locomotive Breath, plus he played the majority of the drums on the Mountain of Power CD (a new one in progress, but I'll get to that later). Mikael came to think of Jaded Heart bassist Michael Mueller and asked him if he was into it, which he was. We tried out some different singers, but after one test round with Andromeda vocalist David Fremberg (who had also conributed to my MoP disc) we figured he was the one.
Now started a year of demoing, recording, sending files, re-recording etc. At first we finished five tracks "Shadows", "Save Me", "Wish I Could Fly", "I Never Said Goodbye" and "King Is Calling". These were quite roughly recorded, all guitars done with a Pod XT, I recorded some bass and one song even had programmed drums. We tried different producers, taking on one track each;
Beau Hill - killer 80s producer who had worked with Europe, Airborne etc etc)
Pontus Norgren - Sound engineer/producer who has worked with Thin Lizzy, Talisman etc
Pontus Lindmark - Roasting House producer; bands like Cloudscape, Planet Alliance etc
Pelle Saether - Studio Underground founder whom I have worked with on Locomotive Breath, MoP etc.
Johan Blomström - Local knob wizz who mixed the latest Overdrive album
We of course also had to find a label! We sent out demos and received some great interest from a couple of labels, but they all wanted a finished CD to consider. We figured, ok, let's finish it and shop it around. However we had not even finished the recording when Italian label Frontiers made us an offer we just couldn't refuse. Some quite smooth negotiations later we had inked the deal.
Now we started considering who should mix the album. At this stage, as a late contestant, Mikael came to think of Fredrik Folkare, his former Scudiero guitar colleague who has produced bands like Eclipse, Unleashed and Siebenbürgen. He did a test mix and we bought it! It had all the elements we wanted - the heaviness, the fat sound and the ambience.
We now started re-recording all the basic tracks. Mikael had already recorded most of the keyboards to a click track and programmed drums, so Peter did the drums on top of this. I now re-recorded the guitars using my Hughes & Kettner Trilogy amp (miked up with an SM57 and a big membrane mike), Mueller recorded his bass in Germany with Michael Voss and David recorded the vocals in his own studio and at a local studio in Malmö.
It the came down to me to collect all the tracks, merge it all together and make it work. After getting all the vocals, keyboards, bass, drums and rhythm guitars in, I actually re-recorded some guitar parts as I had got some new ideas, especially since the vocals came in, but also I wanted to enhance some drum/bass riffs. I then added the guitar solos, all except one which I actually kept from the demos (not saying which one :-).
I then bounched down all the tracks, burned them onto a couple of DVD records and sent the stuff to Fredrik with some instructions and "wishes". It was an impatient wait until we received the first couple of tracks a few weeks later. I was quite stunned! He had actually exceeded my expectations. Besides getting a fat, big and great sound, he had added his own twist on several spots, which finally made us state him as co-producer, because that's what he did!
The mastering was made by Dennis Ward (PC 69), recommeded by Frontiers, and he did and awesome job giving the album that final push!
Now we also needed to come up with which track to use as a Japanese bonus track, and of course, the track order... At this point I felt I was way too "involved" to be unbiased so we let the label decide. The track "Wasted" will be the Japanese bonus track.
During the mixing period we also started thinking about the whole artwork thing. I had a couple of ideas which I made drafts of, and at the same time David came up with a great looking logo, which corresponded nicely to one of my ideas. The cover depics an old world map, a log book and a comapass. The title is "Lost And Gone", where the lyrics are really about the internet and getting lost there, but I though the world map, compass etc would serve as a nice metaphor. I also made a slightly different version for the Japanese release, adding a twist to the front cover (not telling what).
Before this we also had to take some band pics. Well, the geographical difference actually cause a slight problem, but we solved it. Three of us went into a studio, took pics prentending the other two were there. We sent them the pics, they had their pics taken with our "band pic" serving as a template (they used the same background, light setting, posing etc). Then David did his PhotoShop magic and here we are!
Today Frontiers will go public with signing us and that "Lost And Gone" will be released in Europe on July 3, in the US in August and Japan later on. We have also opened our (temporary) sites http://www.lostandgone.com/ and http://www.constancia.se/
Check it out!!
Listening to:
RICK DERRINGER - Knighted By The Blues
ROADSTAR - Grand Hotel
TRUCKFIGHTERS - Mania
torsdag 19 mars 2009
Japan - here we come!
Around this time next week, I and my fiancée are on a plane to Narita, Japan. After having been to the US (San Fransisco and New York) three years in a row we figured it was time for something different. I've always been interested and fascinated by Japan, ever since I ordered my first Lazy, Bow Wow and Flied Egg albums from Heavy Sound Records. Then when we (Locomotive Breath) finally got a deal with Avex Records in 1997 we figured there may be a chance to get our asses over there. Didn't happen. So, when planning our vacation my fiancée suggested Japan. Great idea! The trip was quite affordable and so are the hotels (about same, even a bit cheaper, than New York). Fortunately we have some friends to help guide us in this mysterious country (Thanks in advance to Naoko Furuhashi, Mitsuhiro Nishida and Yasu Fuji).
Our (Overdrive's) Japanese label Soundholic has set up some interviews while I'm there (Burrn!!, Captain Wada) which will be great. My friends Mitsuhiro and Yasu have promised to find us some nice record stores in Yokohama and Osaka. The only concern may be overweight, but there's always the option of posting some of the purchases back home.
Last weekend I spent in Stockholm with Micke "Nord" Andersson and his lovely wife and author Karin Alvtegen. Mikael and I are writing songs for his forthcoming solo album. We managed to get five songs roughly demoed and stylewise we ended up somewhere between early Aerosmith, AC/DC and Robin Trower with a twist. Writing with Mikael is highly rewarding!
The Constancia album is now mastered and ready, we're just waiting for some input from the label on which song to use as bonus track, plus we still have some band pics to finish up.
New recommendable stuff I'm listening to:
ELECTRIC MARY - "Down To The Bone" - Thanks to Joe "The Groovayard Dawg" Romagnola for puttint me onto this gem!!
ROGOSONIC - "Leave The World Alone" - Great riffing Americans!
TY TABOR - "Balance" - What can I say? Ty rules as always!!
COLDSPELL - "Infinite Stargaze" - One of the best releases so far this year!
Our (Overdrive's) Japanese label Soundholic has set up some interviews while I'm there (Burrn!!, Captain Wada) which will be great. My friends Mitsuhiro and Yasu have promised to find us some nice record stores in Yokohama and Osaka. The only concern may be overweight, but there's always the option of posting some of the purchases back home.
Last weekend I spent in Stockholm with Micke "Nord" Andersson and his lovely wife and author Karin Alvtegen. Mikael and I are writing songs for his forthcoming solo album. We managed to get five songs roughly demoed and stylewise we ended up somewhere between early Aerosmith, AC/DC and Robin Trower with a twist. Writing with Mikael is highly rewarding!
The Constancia album is now mastered and ready, we're just waiting for some input from the label on which song to use as bonus track, plus we still have some band pics to finish up.
New recommendable stuff I'm listening to:
ELECTRIC MARY - "Down To The Bone" - Thanks to Joe "The Groovayard Dawg" Romagnola for puttint me onto this gem!!
ROGOSONIC - "Leave The World Alone" - Great riffing Americans!
TY TABOR - "Balance" - What can I say? Ty rules as always!!
COLDSPELL - "Infinite Stargaze" - One of the best releases so far this year!
fredag 27 februari 2009
Interesting problem...
We've just recorded an album with the band CONSTANCIA where the members live in Sweden (Malmö, Stockholm, Karlshamn and Mörrum) and Germany (Münster). We've also just signed a deal with a great Italian label! Now, the twist to the story is that all the members have actually never met! For instance the drummer and singer have never met the bass player and vice versa. The singer hasn't met the keyboard player. Still I think we've really managed to get a great band-feel to the album, basically because we have recorded and then re-recorded some stuff to adjust to what someone else has recorded. I re-recorded a lot of my guitars for the third time after all the vocals were done. It has really paid off!
Now, here comes the tricky bit! The label now want 10 band pics! Uhuh... We managed to get it down to five at this stage, but we still have to fix 5 band pics! So, this weekend I, the drummer and the singer will meet and take a bunch of pics which we will then send to the drummer and keyboard player so they can have their photos taken in the same style and with the same background (preferably white...) and try to "pose" to make it fit with our pics. After this our singer David (who is great at Photoshop) will merge us all together and fix 5 band pics!
The beauty of today's technology :-)
Currently listening to:
CLUTCH - "From Beale Street To Oblivion" - Great riffage!!
COLDSPELL - "Infinite Stargaze" - Swedish debut of the year so far!
BLACK PEARL - s/t - Lisa Tingle rules!!
BLACK SABBATH - "Tyr" - Not their best, but just had to listen to it again
Now, here comes the tricky bit! The label now want 10 band pics! Uhuh... We managed to get it down to five at this stage, but we still have to fix 5 band pics! So, this weekend I, the drummer and the singer will meet and take a bunch of pics which we will then send to the drummer and keyboard player so they can have their photos taken in the same style and with the same background (preferably white...) and try to "pose" to make it fit with our pics. After this our singer David (who is great at Photoshop) will merge us all together and fix 5 band pics!
The beauty of today's technology :-)
Currently listening to:
CLUTCH - "From Beale Street To Oblivion" - Great riffage!!
COLDSPELL - "Infinite Stargaze" - Swedish debut of the year so far!
BLACK PEARL - s/t - Lisa Tingle rules!!
BLACK SABBATH - "Tyr" - Not their best, but just had to listen to it again
onsdag 11 februari 2009
The pre-mix/demo disease
Right now the CONSTANCIA album is being mixed by Fredrik Folkare. We have just received the first version and it sounds awesome! However there's always one disturbing thing, which is my own fault. When I've finished a recording I make a, very rough and very raw, pre-mix. It's not even worth calling a mix actually, more like getting the levels up, some odd delay and compressor on some tracks. It's more of a rough mix I do to check that everything sounds fine before the final mix. Sitting in the mixing room and finding out parts are missing, files are corrupt or there are clicks on the tracks, is not good (to put it mildly). So, I compile all the tracks, clean them up, bounce them to one nice file per track starting at the same starting-point. Then I mix it down to a track, burn it onto a CD and listen the hell out of it to detect and remove any errors before it's too late.
The problem is, when I get the final mix my brain is so set on the pre-mix sound I tend to listen for the wrong things. I've grown to love that really dry and in your face sound, so when I get the final mix I need at least 4-5 times before I "adjust" and reset my brain. Then I can listen unbiased.
It sort of the same way with demo-solos. Some of the best guitar solos are on demos and it's totally impossible to recreate them in the studio. Therefore I now always record the demos with a proper solo sound and to a click, so it's possible to use it in the final recording. Sometimes you get that special feel, tone, lick or whatever that just seems impossible to recreate.
Favourites of the week:
WOLF - Devour - Classic metal!
OPETH - Watershed - Damn this is a great album!!
BLACK PEARL - s/t - Forgotten gemm with Lisa Tingle on vox!
IL ROVESIO DELLA MEDAGLIA - Io Come Io - Killer Italian prog!
The problem is, when I get the final mix my brain is so set on the pre-mix sound I tend to listen for the wrong things. I've grown to love that really dry and in your face sound, so when I get the final mix I need at least 4-5 times before I "adjust" and reset my brain. Then I can listen unbiased.
It sort of the same way with demo-solos. Some of the best guitar solos are on demos and it's totally impossible to recreate them in the studio. Therefore I now always record the demos with a proper solo sound and to a click, so it's possible to use it in the final recording. Sometimes you get that special feel, tone, lick or whatever that just seems impossible to recreate.
Favourites of the week:
WOLF - Devour - Classic metal!
OPETH - Watershed - Damn this is a great album!!
BLACK PEARL - s/t - Forgotten gemm with Lisa Tingle on vox!
IL ROVESIO DELLA MEDAGLIA - Io Come Io - Killer Italian prog!
måndag 26 januari 2009
The pros and cons of having the studio at home
I have my own studio at home. It's no grande pro equipment, just the stuff sufficient enough to record guitars and, if needed, vocals. When I demo stuff I just plug in the POD XT and I cand go all night. It's quick and dirty, but the sound is good enough. I often use it when I sit and noodle around with solos for records I'm working on. Some of them have actually stuck and ended up on an album. I do admit when comparing the sound to recording with a miked up Hughes & Kettner there are a lot of frequenzies missing.
To the point, the pros about having a studio at home is I can write, demo and record whenever I feel inspired, be it 8 in the morning or 2 at night. I can go on for a couple of ours, take a break and watch some TV, eat or go out in the garden, my own garden. This is quite refreshing compared to being locked in a studio with the pressure to perform all the time, seeing the clock (= money) tick away.
On the con side, I have a tendency to overwork things. I'm currently working on the Constancia album, and to be honest I think I've re-recorded the rhythm guitars three times in some songs, I hopa dn believe it's all for the better. Yesterday I received the final vocal files from David and when adding them and listening back to the complete songs with vocals I felt, hmmm... maybe I should change that solo to do something cool together with the vocals? Knowing myself I know exactly what to do tonight (before and/or after I've interviewed Herman Frank for FUZZ that is). It's hard to put the foot to the floor and say stop when the possibility is right before you. I guess we all chase for perfection. Well, as long as someone sets a deadline it works out.
When this is done I will start working on the new Mountain of Power album. Yes, I have a sort-of deadline on this one, so I can't really keep noodling around too long. Tempting though :-)
Listening to:
HERMAN FRANK - "Loyal To None" - Not bad at all! Classic Acceptish metal
STORM - "II" - Re-issue of the female fronted US band. Great forgotten gem! Thanks Rock Candy!
SANTERS - "Top Secrecy" - Another band that deserves to be resurrected!
STEFAN ROSQVIST BAND - "The Guitar Diaries" - Great Swedish player!
To the point, the pros about having a studio at home is I can write, demo and record whenever I feel inspired, be it 8 in the morning or 2 at night. I can go on for a couple of ours, take a break and watch some TV, eat or go out in the garden, my own garden. This is quite refreshing compared to being locked in a studio with the pressure to perform all the time, seeing the clock (= money) tick away.
On the con side, I have a tendency to overwork things. I'm currently working on the Constancia album, and to be honest I think I've re-recorded the rhythm guitars three times in some songs, I hopa dn believe it's all for the better. Yesterday I received the final vocal files from David and when adding them and listening back to the complete songs with vocals I felt, hmmm... maybe I should change that solo to do something cool together with the vocals? Knowing myself I know exactly what to do tonight (before and/or after I've interviewed Herman Frank for FUZZ that is). It's hard to put the foot to the floor and say stop when the possibility is right before you. I guess we all chase for perfection. Well, as long as someone sets a deadline it works out.
When this is done I will start working on the new Mountain of Power album. Yes, I have a sort-of deadline on this one, so I can't really keep noodling around too long. Tempting though :-)
Listening to:
HERMAN FRANK - "Loyal To None" - Not bad at all! Classic Acceptish metal
STORM - "II" - Re-issue of the female fronted US band. Great forgotten gem! Thanks Rock Candy!
SANTERS - "Top Secrecy" - Another band that deserves to be resurrected!
STEFAN ROSQVIST BAND - "The Guitar Diaries" - Great Swedish player!
onsdag 7 januari 2009
Recording guitars at 4.00 in the morning...
Christmas is over, new years eve has passed and I have finally recorded all the guitars for the upcoming Constancia album! I decided to try and give each song its own vibe and sound (which will of course be of great joy for the mixing engineer, hehe). I've used my Hughes & Kettner Trilogy with a H&K 4x12 cab (Vintage 30 speakers), miked with a Shure SM57 up close and a big membrane AKG at a distance. I've basically laid down two rhythm guitars with two tracks each for each song. Plus additional lead and harmony guitars. Some clean guitars I did with a Pod XT. Saturday night I recorded acoustic guitars until 4 in the morning. I used my old Washburn steel string, miked it with the same two microphones. It came out sounding pretty good I think. The only problem playing and recording yourself, is I have to sit by the computer to be able to record/stop etc without having to run back and forth. Plus I need to maintain the same position for the sound to be consistent. As the mikes are really sensitive, eeven though I have really tight and good headphones, I had to turn the sound (click in particular) down really low for it not to leak into the recording.
David has finished the vocals, too, so now I'm just waiting for the vocal files and I will have a listen to it all to see if anything needs to be added. It's really exiting to hear how it's developed since the first demos. It's so much fatter and heavier now. Feels great!
Me and singer David Fremberg have also been collaborating on a cover which can be quite cool, too.
So, life is good, and tonight my girlfriend's back from England :-)
Listening to:
Sky High - "Download" - Heavy blues rock the way it's supposed to be played
Rob Johnson - "Shredworx" - Great collection of Rob's nice shredding
Coney Hatch - "Friction" - What's up with Canada and all their great bands?
Santers - 4-CD box - Finally got this Japan release! Another great Canadian band!
David has finished the vocals, too, so now I'm just waiting for the vocal files and I will have a listen to it all to see if anything needs to be added. It's really exiting to hear how it's developed since the first demos. It's so much fatter and heavier now. Feels great!
Me and singer David Fremberg have also been collaborating on a cover which can be quite cool, too.
So, life is good, and tonight my girlfriend's back from England :-)
Listening to:
Sky High - "Download" - Heavy blues rock the way it's supposed to be played
Rob Johnson - "Shredworx" - Great collection of Rob's nice shredding
Coney Hatch - "Friction" - What's up with Canada and all their great bands?
Santers - 4-CD box - Finally got this Japan release! Another great Canadian band!
onsdag 19 november 2008
Getting ready for Kick-off!
Tomorrow it's time to go to Stockholm for this year's Sweden Rock Kick-off. Blackfoot, Hammerfall and Bullet will be on stage. I've just finished writing the presentations for the first bunch of bands to be presented, so I k n o w!
Managed to lay down guitars for another Constancia track two days ago. Slowly getting there ;-).
Found and received a bunch of Swedish stuff for the new encyclopedia I'm working on. Some stuff actually makes me wonder why they've even wasted any vinyl on. One band, called Blue Balls, was total garbage and if it wasn't for the book I'd probably throw it away. On the other hand getting new stuff like Ammotrack, Vanity Blvd and Urbandux made me feel a bit better.
Also managed to find a few vinyl goodies on Ebay, at very nice prices - Earl Slick Band - s/t, The Dodgers - "Love On The Rebound", Blackjack (feat Kulick/Bolton), Reggie Knighton Band - s/t and UK band Rage "Nice & Dirty" with a totally different cover.
Also, through my friend Joe Romagnola at Grooveyard Records, heard some new interesting stuff by Jive Mother Mary, Fall Of Envy, Black Pearl (from 1994), Ra, Earshot, Suicide Nation, Big Bad Bubba (horrible name, but a great album!) and The Showdown. All well worth checking out.
My current playlist includes:
Ammotrack - s/t
Diamond REO - "Dirty Diamonds"
Black Pearl - s/t
Managed to lay down guitars for another Constancia track two days ago. Slowly getting there ;-).
Found and received a bunch of Swedish stuff for the new encyclopedia I'm working on. Some stuff actually makes me wonder why they've even wasted any vinyl on. One band, called Blue Balls, was total garbage and if it wasn't for the book I'd probably throw it away. On the other hand getting new stuff like Ammotrack, Vanity Blvd and Urbandux made me feel a bit better.
Also managed to find a few vinyl goodies on Ebay, at very nice prices - Earl Slick Band - s/t, The Dodgers - "Love On The Rebound", Blackjack (feat Kulick/Bolton), Reggie Knighton Band - s/t and UK band Rage "Nice & Dirty" with a totally different cover.
Also, through my friend Joe Romagnola at Grooveyard Records, heard some new interesting stuff by Jive Mother Mary, Fall Of Envy, Black Pearl (from 1994), Ra, Earshot, Suicide Nation, Big Bad Bubba (horrible name, but a great album!) and The Showdown. All well worth checking out.
My current playlist includes:
Ammotrack - s/t
Diamond REO - "Dirty Diamonds"
Black Pearl - s/t
onsdag 20 augusti 2008
BALLS mixed and ready
Finally the BALLS album is mixed and ready. The first "single" "Lover of the 3rd Degree" has been sent to some radio stations, so we'll see what happens. The aim is to have the album out in the fall. Listening to it now I must say it's one of the albums I'm most proud of so far. I think we managed to capture the simplicity we were after, but still with a twist. It was also both challenging and fun to play together with one of Sweden's number one guitarists - Micke "Nord" Andersson. Man, he's really got his shit together. An outstanding wonderful person and a truly amazing guitarist!
The Overdrive DVD went down the drain. The sound couldn't be saved and we refuse to make any post re-recording. We'll keep the film and use it to make some music videos to post on YouTube.
The Constancia album is also finally in the making. Michael Mueller will add his bass this weekend and David has started working on the vocals. Time for me to get the guitar work going then. Fuck, time just seem to fly... I promised some friends at work I would help out in our internal Avalon Rockstars band... which ended up in me getting all the songs and mucicians together and playing guitar. It's fun, I must admit, but i t t a k e s t i m e!! Time I don't have.
The encyclopedia is also coming along nicely. But the more information I find about "old" bands, the more NEW bands I find! I've now reached 2500 bands!! This will be a HUGE book. This time I also have to scan and re-scan ALL covers, as this one will be in colour. It's truly a labour of love.
When it comes to new stuff, I've received some really great stuff. Here it goes:
CLOUDSCAPE - Global Drama - Their best so far! GREAT album! Heavy semi-prog with great songs and hooks. Highly recommended!!
BLINDSTONE - Freedom's Calling - Danish heavy funk:sih riffsters! Killer stuff!!
BIG JIM SLADE - It's Delicious - Their fourth and best! Great riff-oriented southern oriented hard rock
HEALING SIXES - One More Friend To Ignore - Oustanding melodic southern oriented hard rock. Jason Bonham played drums on their two first albums, not on this, but the feel is still there!
The Overdrive DVD went down the drain. The sound couldn't be saved and we refuse to make any post re-recording. We'll keep the film and use it to make some music videos to post on YouTube.
The Constancia album is also finally in the making. Michael Mueller will add his bass this weekend and David has started working on the vocals. Time for me to get the guitar work going then. Fuck, time just seem to fly... I promised some friends at work I would help out in our internal Avalon Rockstars band... which ended up in me getting all the songs and mucicians together and playing guitar. It's fun, I must admit, but i t t a k e s t i m e!! Time I don't have.
The encyclopedia is also coming along nicely. But the more information I find about "old" bands, the more NEW bands I find! I've now reached 2500 bands!! This will be a HUGE book. This time I also have to scan and re-scan ALL covers, as this one will be in colour. It's truly a labour of love.
When it comes to new stuff, I've received some really great stuff. Here it goes:
CLOUDSCAPE - Global Drama - Their best so far! GREAT album! Heavy semi-prog with great songs and hooks. Highly recommended!!
BLINDSTONE - Freedom's Calling - Danish heavy funk:sih riffsters! Killer stuff!!
BIG JIM SLADE - It's Delicious - Their fourth and best! Great riff-oriented southern oriented hard rock
HEALING SIXES - One More Friend To Ignore - Oustanding melodic southern oriented hard rock. Jason Bonham played drums on their two first albums, not on this, but the feel is still there!
torsdag 7 augusti 2008
Short but sweet
The headline of course refers to the Swedish summer... Found a great new beach (not really a beach as it's an old quarry) which was awesome. Burned myself nicely and read a really awesome book I can recommend if you're into the quirky type of humor of, for instance, Douglas Adams, you may love this one! The author is Christopher Moore and the book is entitled "Lamb - The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal". It's totally hilarious!!
I've also spent quite a lot of time working on the new (and third) encyclopedia. Holy crap! I thought I had a pretty good view of all new stuff since my last book in 2002, but nope. There's soooo many obscure black metal bands that have had stuff released on even more obscure labels!! My estimation is there will be around 2500 bands in this one!
On the musical side of things we did a show with Overdrive on July 17, which we recorded on DVD + sound. The sound was a bit fucked up by a an ignorant sound engineer (not all his fault tho' as there were some mis-communication berween the stage manager and the sound company), but we'll see if we can use it. We've decided to go ahead and finish the Constancia album, so that's what I'm up to in the next few days.
Recently got my Orange Tiny Terror amp which is a little power pack, to say the least!
Listening recommendations:
Big Jim Slade - "It's Delicious" - Great southern-tinged ballsy hard rock
Healing Sixes - "One Less Friend To Ignore" - see above
The Muggs - "On With The Show" - The 70s revisited!
I've also spent quite a lot of time working on the new (and third) encyclopedia. Holy crap! I thought I had a pretty good view of all new stuff since my last book in 2002, but nope. There's soooo many obscure black metal bands that have had stuff released on even more obscure labels!! My estimation is there will be around 2500 bands in this one!
On the musical side of things we did a show with Overdrive on July 17, which we recorded on DVD + sound. The sound was a bit fucked up by a an ignorant sound engineer (not all his fault tho' as there were some mis-communication berween the stage manager and the sound company), but we'll see if we can use it. We've decided to go ahead and finish the Constancia album, so that's what I'm up to in the next few days.
Recently got my Orange Tiny Terror amp which is a little power pack, to say the least!
Listening recommendations:
Big Jim Slade - "It's Delicious" - Great southern-tinged ballsy hard rock
Healing Sixes - "One Less Friend To Ignore" - see above
The Muggs - "On With The Show" - The 70s revisited!
torsdag 21 februari 2008
Recording again!
The last two days I spent in the studio with Mikael "Nord" Andersson. We're currently recording the guitars for the forthcoming album by SALT (we may change the name, though).
I used my Hughes & Kettner Trilogy head, through a 4x10" Marshall cab (the same one that was used on the latest album by The Rasmus)¨and a TS9 Tube Screamer. The guitars were my two True Temperament neck guitars (Gibson Les Paul and an Epiphone Strat) and my Fender Strat HW1.
I'll start recording the solos next week.
Today we also received Beau Hill's final mix of the CONSTANCIA track "Save Me", which sounds really good! We've sent out four tracks to four different engineers/producers to try and decide what sound we would like on the album. They are as follows:
"Save Me" - Beau Hill (Ratt, Streets, Winger, Warrant, Alice Cooper etc)
"Wish I Could Fly" - Pontus Lindmark (Planet Alliance, Cloudscape etc)
"Blind" - Pontus Norgren (The Poodles, Talisman, House Of Shakira etc)
"I Never Said Goodbye" - Pelle Saether (Node, Locomotive Breath, Zello, Zeelion etc)
When we've received all four tracks we'll put them up on our MySpace (www.myspace.com/constanciamusic) for people to vote on which mix they like the most.
Over & Out
I used my Hughes & Kettner Trilogy head, through a 4x10" Marshall cab (the same one that was used on the latest album by The Rasmus)¨and a TS9 Tube Screamer. The guitars were my two True Temperament neck guitars (Gibson Les Paul and an Epiphone Strat) and my Fender Strat HW1.
I'll start recording the solos next week.
Today we also received Beau Hill's final mix of the CONSTANCIA track "Save Me", which sounds really good! We've sent out four tracks to four different engineers/producers to try and decide what sound we would like on the album. They are as follows:
"Save Me" - Beau Hill (Ratt, Streets, Winger, Warrant, Alice Cooper etc)
"Wish I Could Fly" - Pontus Lindmark (Planet Alliance, Cloudscape etc)
"Blind" - Pontus Norgren (The Poodles, Talisman, House Of Shakira etc)
"I Never Said Goodbye" - Pelle Saether (Node, Locomotive Breath, Zello, Zeelion etc)
When we've received all four tracks we'll put them up on our MySpace (www.myspace.com/constanciamusic) for people to vote on which mix they like the most.
Over & Out
måndag 28 januari 2008
OVERDRIVE release today!
Saturday we had a release party for the new OVERDRIVE album "Let The Metal Do The Talking", the first full length album since 1984! A great bunch of people showed up. We played the album, showed some old and new videos, gave away some stuff, got slightly drunk and had fun!
Today we also put up a new track on MySpace (www.myspace.com/overdrivesweden) - "Bring Me To Submission".
So what now? Promotion work, of course! Possibly try to get some gigs.
Otherwise it's CONSTANCIA that has part of my musical focus at the moment. David recorded the vocals for the track "Blind" yesterday. We've just sent off a bunch of files to Beau Hill (Ratt, Warrant, Winger, Europe etc.) who will re-mix the track "Save Me". We received the test mix of "Wish I Could Fly" from Pontus Lindmark at RoastigHouse last week. It sounded great!
February 18-19 I'm off to Stockholm to start recording guitars for the SALT album. Really looking forward to getting this wagon on the road, too!
Currently listening to: RTZ - "Lost" - Great AOR album featuring former Boston boys Barry Godreau and Brad Delp (RIP). Hadn't listened to this in years, but suddenly got into a Boston-vibe and brought out Boston, Barry's solo album, Orion, RTZ and the Godreau/Delp stuff.
Today we also put up a new track on MySpace (www.myspace.com/overdrivesweden) - "Bring Me To Submission".
So what now? Promotion work, of course! Possibly try to get some gigs.
Otherwise it's CONSTANCIA that has part of my musical focus at the moment. David recorded the vocals for the track "Blind" yesterday. We've just sent off a bunch of files to Beau Hill (Ratt, Warrant, Winger, Europe etc.) who will re-mix the track "Save Me". We received the test mix of "Wish I Could Fly" from Pontus Lindmark at RoastigHouse last week. It sounded great!
February 18-19 I'm off to Stockholm to start recording guitars for the SALT album. Really looking forward to getting this wagon on the road, too!
Currently listening to: RTZ - "Lost" - Great AOR album featuring former Boston boys Barry Godreau and Brad Delp (RIP). Hadn't listened to this in years, but suddenly got into a Boston-vibe and brought out Boston, Barry's solo album, Orion, RTZ and the Godreau/Delp stuff.
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