Musician Diaries

I've noticed a terrible affliction in some "extreme music" albums I've been listening to lately. It's about yelling/growling. Put in a nutshell, I've noticed plenty of vocal passages, in plenty of songs, where the expression used is way bigger than the actual sentiment it is intending to convey. That, if I'm not wrong, would be a good definition of the word "affectation", which is always a sign of bad art. Of course things are always multifactorial, and I can detect this kind of flaw in a piece of music that is, still, crazy good in other areas, with great chops, instrumentation, general lyrics, etc. It's just a matter of listening it for what it is and not fooling yourself about it (in my case, those moments sound to me almost "cute", as you would feel in front of a kid struggling to tie his shoes: "aaaw... so big and they struggle to express emotion..." And if this sounds too condescending of me, let me add that I'm ...

All along these process-focused series, I have been singing the excellencies of the TWI Job Breakdown list, and I thought I'd discuss in some more detail my experiences with such a deceptively simple and powerful tool. Firstly, here's a bit of (50,000 ft) history: the TWI (Training Within Industry) program was created during WWII by the US to face the sudden need of training huge masses of inexperienced population, in a way as quick and efficient as possible, in making war machinery. The bulk of those trainees happened to be women and child, as men in those days were busy... well, using the machinery. (This is one of those cases of that frequent historic phenomenon where the biggest achievements of the human race have to come attached to the worst of its moral bankruptcies: a war; humans killing humans. Another more audio-related example of this sad phenomenon would be the sturdy SM58, microphone of choice even to this day for millions of musicians -me included-, in its mom...

Here is "Zombie Barf", a song that has taken me a particularly long time to finish due, I think, to the combination of the (unofficial but very real) upgrade of equipment and systems I've been through in the latest 1.5 years, plus the intricate nature of the particular song. As I've mentioned in former posts, the songs in the upcoming Black Sheep Riot album will show a series of different layers of technical proficiency. This one would be in the layer 2, with 4 being the most modern. In other words, sonically, there are things about the final result that don't make me very happy (as a consolation, I try to think that perhaps this is the way it always is with your music; the stuff you put through the door is never the most perfected, because you already have something else in the works, and now you know how to do things better...) But this song was way past overdue the "it it what it is" stage, and I decided to keep it and release it wit...

I thought I'd discuss a couple more details about my system that I couldn't address in detail in my previous, more overview post. Those not interested right now in putting some kind of system in place for their music will probably find nothing of value in here (and perhaps dismiss the whole thing as something in the nearby of OCD land, I'm afraid). But for those who feel it's time to add some "bone" to their "muscle", I think these additional details can perhaps inspire you and shave valuable hours off your learning curve. A few cautions, though, before starting. 1) My system is a dynamic entity, changing as I write. This is not about putting a machine in place and then sitting on your fat butt and "let the cash roll in"; every experience, every situation you encounter as you use your system will teach you something, and it will serve you well if you get in the habit of incorporating the new lessons back into the process. Other...

I've discussed several times in this blog the need of a certain periodic "cooling down" that seems to go with the territory when you're writing, producing and everything else your own music. I've found this kind of "cooling down" is necessary in, at least, two areas: 1) "Cooling down" of a particular song: as in "no, I cannot work on Song A right now". You've listened to it too many times in a row, and you simply cannot tell right from wrong in it at this moment (and by the way, what a delicate torment for the DIY musician this is: you get your biggest kick out of blasting your way through a song, always different, rejoicing in the uniqueness of what happens... and immediately after comes your biggest torment: having to relisten to the same thing time after time after time after time...) 2) "Cooling down" of the process you're currently in : maybe you still can listen to a certain song with a modicum of o...

I didn't pay much attention to these guys at the beginning. I have to admit that the singer's style at first seemed to me a bit of a gimmick or a simple "whim", more than real substance. Something like "OK, let's see, what can we do different to stand out from the rest of black metal bands?" However, as I've listened to them more, I've found there is an appropriate combination of elements in what these guys do, something that feels very authentic (and creepy) to me. In some songs like "Magnificent glorification of Lucifer" or "Ominous doctrines of the perpetual mystical macrocosm" (it's not the kind of band you play at your nephew's party), the drumming has a quality of "stubborn machine" that makes you think of some sick and incredibly perverted AC/DC or Prong; add to that the despair of the raspy guitars, put on top the monotone, ugly voice, and it sounds like music for slaves, with a mum...

With certain loses you die a little, a part of yourself goes away. This is how I feel about Chuck Mosley's passing away. I know he wasn't a mainstream musician anymore, and all I got to know of his work was two albums, but I consider him a big influence of mine and always respected him as a very original artist and free spirit. As most of my peers, I got to know Faith No More through "The Real Thing", and later "Angel Dust", both already under the Mike Patton mantle. A bit later, in summer 1993, I made my first big travel abroad, to a town in Maryland, US, and one of the first key locations I pinpointed after arriving was the record store. That summer for sure created the foundation of my musical taste. Among the myriad of records I acquired that summer, I grabbed and listened with great curiosity "Introduce yourself", FNM's second and last with Mosley's vocals, to find that FNM had replaced a singer of great personality with a...