I took the week off teaching to focus on the album for a while and to get some much-needed work done. We have gotten into a pretty nice rhythm over here. He works, I listen; I work, he listens; and so on. As I type, Tony is combing through backups making sure all is tidy for final mixes.
When we both need a break we have a game of chess. Palate cleanser for the brain.
The main focus right now is backup vocals. Once those are in place, Tony and I take turns applying further tweaks to the overall mix. It's like building an onion one layer at a time.
"The Arc," "Follow My Lead," and "Chicago" are likely to be the next songs you hear. Stay tuned for the first week of January.
Happy New Year and Thanks for the love and support!
Happy Holidays, folks. It's Christmas Eve and I hope everyone is feeling warm and merry in this, our darkest time of year.
Our gift to you, as we feverishly work to finish our album, is this track: "Winter Wonderland / This Christmas," performed by Anthony and Jody. The groove is classic Christmas. I grew up listening to Christmas carols performed on acoustic guitar, courtesy of my dad and his exceptional music taste. Anthony and Jody capture that spirit perfectly in my humble opinion. Pure X-mas.
The track is available to download and listen to at your leisure on our bandcamp page, where you can also listen to our preview tracks and works-in-progress. Please enjoy it this year and for many to come. If you like the video, please click the thumbs-up and share it with your friends if you feel so inclined. 'Tis the season for sharing, after all.
The Live Debate is still hard at work putting the finishing touches on the rest of the album. If you havent gotten the chance to check out the 3 song demo on our previous post, take a listen now and tell us what you think (Click me to hear music). We plan to have the next 3 songs finished within the week and we will share them with you as soon as they are done. Here is a live video for "3 Strangers" that we recently shot and we hope that you will enjoy it.
Also if you live near Chicago you should check out The Nutcracker at The Chopin Theatre, this is Matthews second year playing piano in this production. The show runs until Christmas Eve!
Hello Blog, family, and friends! Nice to see you again. We missed you guys. Don't worry. We come bearing the gift of new music to listen to:
Sorry we've been so distant lately, dear Blog. There has been a lot going on. Since we last spoke, our vocalist Anthony moved here to Chicago, we've tracked drums with our dear friend Jonah David, tracked piano at the loveliest and most welcoming little church on the Northside, tracked a big ol' pile of vocals in Tony Berg's living room, and did all this while holding down reasonably challenging day jobs.
When I haven't been working on the album, I've been teaching like crazy. Need piano lessons?
Jody, when he isn't busy being the Buddha of this band, has been putting in hours helping set up the new and improved Bass Club Chicago in the Lincoln Square neighborhood.
Anthony has been acting his ass off - he's been an extra in the late "Playboy Club," and is starring as Frank in a new production of "The Rocky Horror Show" which opened LAST NIGHT at the Underground Lounge. Go. See. Him.
Tony has been learning to sail on Lake Michigan, growing huge amounts of jalapenos and okra, and has been working like a fiend on our album. Even more than he used to since we're beginning the mix process.
Since we're getting to the end of this thing, we thought it was about time we let you guys get a taste of it. These three songs are among the "early finishers" on the album, which is to say, they're the closest to being done. All of the songs are nearly finished now, but these few tunes have been there the longest. The next time you'll be hearing these songs they'll have another layer of gloss or two before the final album release, and you'll likely be able to download them and show them off to your friends in the schoolyard.
We're proud of these tunes. They're the result of a lot of hard work from a lot of really talented people. We're lucky and thankful for every member of The Live Debate Orchestra and the many folks who helped these songs come to life. As many of you know, this album has been a lengthy project, but we're pleased to say that we're rounding the home stretch. Stay tuned!
I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful holiday break. As I am typing, I am dealing with my annual battle with the common cold. Not to worry, I am already stocked up on Mucinex.
Since the last time we posted, Matthew and I have finished all of our string and brass recordings for the album. This was a big hurdle for us and thanks to help of some great friends, the sessions turned out amazing. Tony continues to be a huge help in and out of the studio, he has become another member of the band. Tony not only works wonders behind the board but hes has also been integral in facilitating these sessions. Tony "make it happen" Berg must have a magical beard or something because I'm not sure where we would be without him.
For our string recordings we were eager to work with our old friend and violin shredder Carlos Villarreal. Matthew and Carlos are old high school friends who have worked together on various projects throughout the years and whom I met a little over a year ago when Carlos brought his quartet to play with James Mitchell. Carlos was quick to jump on board and he brought with him another great violinist Emily Norton and viola virtuoso Eddie Nicholson. Now all we needed was a cello player to round out our quartet. At first we had a little trouble pinning down a cellist but Trevor Kazarian stepped up and blew us all away. The string sessions have been some of my favorite so far. Within 5 minutes of playing together Matthew and I both knew we had picked the right quartet and we were lucky to have them. Standing next to them while they are performing is something that is hard to describe, it provokes emotion that is not easy to put into words. The sessions exceeded everyone's expectations and we can't wait to share them with everyone. I am excited for the day we get to perform these songs on stage together.
Shortly after our strings were finished we started our brass recordings. We were able to track all our horns at our home studio, which made it way easier to schedule everything. We invited back Justin Amolsch to finish french horn on the rest of the album. Justin is always a pleasure to work with and if you haven't heard him play with Mucca Pazza yet, do yourself the favor and click the link. We made a few new friends with trombonist Jack Beshoar (Black Umbrella Bridgade), trumpeter Joshua Jern and Tuba player Matthew "Wally" Wallrath. Both Jack and Josh are local musicians with tons of stage experience but Wally is a old friend of Tonys who was in town for the holidays from Orcas Island. All these guys were not only stellar musicians but all just great people to hang out with. I was amazed the first time I heard the horns layered over the strings, they complemented each other so well. Everyone was a blast to work with I must also give a special thank you to Mike Pryzgoda for giving us such awesome performer recommendations.
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We are excited with everything we have tracked so far and thankful for the new friends we have made the process. Our songs are blossoming into a record! We recently started tracking in drum parts and have a few more sessions coming up in the next couple weeks. Our goal is to have everything tracked in by Feb 1. and then starts the mixing and mastering phase...yay. . .I promise to share some new music real soon as well as some more vids. In the meantime, we post updates with pics and stuff regularly on our facebook page.
Matthew most certainly would want me to recommend The Dirty Projectors (Bitte Orca) is a pretty awesome record.
Its been pretty hectic for The Live Debate in the last few weeks. First, we welcomed Tony Berg to The Live Debate family and he has already been a tremendous help in the studio as well as providing us with some great home cooked dishes (Risotto was killer). Tony brings great vibes and many years of recording experience that have allowed us captured some beautiful strings and brass for the album. We were only able to accomplish this with the help of another dear friend of ours, Tristan James who graciously offered up his personal studio to do some of our big ensemble recordings. Tristan, Tony, and Matthew are old friends from back in the ol' college days and we are so happy that Tristan has opened his studio to us. We are scheduled to be back in early Dec. to finish our string sessions, followed by brass recordings. Speaking of brass, we made a new friend with Justin Amolsch (Mucca Pazza, 7th Kind) who came in and laid down some sweet horns for Going Up. We knew Justin was going to be a blast to work with as soon as he pulled up on his bike that had custom holsters for all 3 of his horns(French Horn, Trombone, and Trumpet!). We look forward to working with Justin in the upcoming weeks and hopefully we will be able to get him on stage with us. Finally, we were lucky enough to get Anthony D'Amato back for a few days to do some more vocal tracking. Matthew and I are consistently surprised by the talent that is Anthony D'Amato. The music is sounding better then ever and I cant wait to release this record!
We are currently polishing up what we have and prepping for the upcoming sessions. I promise we will be sharing some more music just as soon as its ready. Besides our upcoming ensemble recordings we are re-tracking bass, guitar, and some drums. The checklist is getting smaller everyday for completing this album.
The leaves have fallen and the cold has arrived in Chicago this week, which makes for good times inside a warm studio. I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend and check back soon for some new music and video.
While everyone has been carving pumpkins and watching The Bears (0-12 on 3rd down conversions...really!?), we have been busy in the studio preparing for some big studio sessions coming up in the next few weeks. We are scheduled to record our string, brass, and horn ensembles for the whole album and Matthews been locked in the studio like a mad scientist transferring the arrangements to sheet music for our performers. We are excited to have our buddy Anthony (Tony) Berg coming into town to help us track everything. Tony has many years of experience in the studio and has previously worked with Matthew on several projects including Harvest 10 by James Mitchell. We are really looking forward to these sessions as it will be a major hurdle in finishing the album. Be prepared for some upcoming audio/video from our time in the studio...
In the past month or so, besides writing and arranging for the album, we have also worked on some different music to help build our portfolios and we even got a call from an old friend of mine Jon Wain to help out on a couple of tracks for The Oprah show. We had a blast having Jon in our studio and we are planning on working together again very soon. One of the tracks we did to help out our portfolios is this Soundtrack piece. We resurrected the song from some writing Matthew did last year and it turned out sounding pretty great. We have a couple of ideas for what to do with the track but those are going to have to wait for while until we finish some more of this album. Either way its a great jam and I particularly enjoyed listening to it while cruising down Lake Shore Drive with the sunroof open the other night. We would love to hear what you think of the track.
So this is what I see when I blink, rub the bio-crust out of my eyes, and stop staring at my computer screen for a second:
The Looming Composers. Jody brought them in from God knows where - a dusty curio in Chinatown? An estate sale at a creepy Victorian mansion? Perhaps a gypsy pressed it into his hands as revenge for him hitting her with his car. I have no idea. But I'm cursed with them.
I actually like the sketches themselves. The frame matches the table well, and having something on the wall goes a long way toward classing up an otherwise crowded studio. It's just the composers. They LOOM. I mean, look at the puss on this Baroque badass:
That's Bach (or John Belushi in a wig). See that expression? He knows he's a better composer than you are.
Under the arrogant eyes of old J.S., the stern eyes of Wagner, and the prissy effeminate eyes of Mendelssohn, I have been working on my own orchestra piece, "American Terrorists." For one week of work, I'm pretty happy with it. If you've made it this far you deserve a preview:
It gets bigger! Expect drums, vocals, and bass before long.
As always, I hope you all are doing great! Have you checked out our bandcamp site? You can listen to two or three full-length songs, and some other works in-progress. Let us know what you think!
This is Jody. As I type, Matthew is working on a full orchestra composition for the album. Its a beautiful epic song with a bit of a controversial title, "American Terrorists." Once its done, it will melt faces. Matthew considers it to be his Magnum Opus! Its nice to hear this song come to life in the studio because we have had some what of a rough relationship with this track in particular during the writing process. I cant wait to post it to get some feedback. Im hoping to have something up by the end of the week. Im sure you'll love it...
We have been getting a lot of great feedback aboutThree Strangers, which we posted last week. I want to thank everyone for their input and encourage you to continue to do so. At this point, all the songs for the album have been tracked into our studio and are at varying degrees of being finished (As shown below with our very organized colored folders). Here is a screenshot of what will be the track listings on our album, which is listed under Operation Codename: Shopping for Shotguns:
Matthew and I have been juggling different tasks in hopes of meeting a couple of large goals that we have set for ourselves. We are on track to have the album finished and close-to-release by the end of the year. We are planning on tracking all of our live horns, strings, and brass in the second half of October and shortly after we plan to have vocal specialist Anthony D'Amato come back out and lay down some sweet melodies for us and I cant wait. In the mean time, we will continue to post our progress on this blog and we love the support and critiques.
This tune is called "Three Strangers." It's the rough cut. The album version will feature live strings and a few more fresh coats of paint. Comments, ideas, and critiques are not just welcome, but really useful. Please keep 'em coming.
You will also notice the lush vocal stylings of Mr. Anthony D'Amato on this track. Anthony is considering moving here to Chicago some time between now and January. He has no idea, but his move is already a done deal. My tazer and chloroform just arrived in the mail.
Here also is a fresh mix of "The Fisher King."
I have always been fascinated by ancient mythology, since childhood. The Greek Gods were an early fave, like I think they still are for kids. One of my piano students dressed as Athena for Halloween last year, after all. But I enjoyed the Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, and African tales quite a bit too. They made an early impression.
So now I write music that is tinged with the religious, or at least, the mythic. This song is about the swift, unyielding passage of time, directly written as a complaint to the goddesses that govern it. Time goddesses are pretty common, even in cultures separated by a lot of space. In Greece, these were the Moirae; in Rome, the Parcae; Japan has a mother-maiden-crone equivalent; as does Norse mythology, the Norns. There are more. All of these civilizations represented time as three women, usually as future, present, and past. They are often depicted smiling, but equally often described as cruel.
In the past year or two, my life has changed dramatically. I've moved in with my true-love boyfriend, I grew a beard, left boystown; I have a shiny new home studio and a new band to use it for, I am jobless and searching in a very uncertain economy, yet I'm more certain than ever that music is my destiny. As much as I love my life and love what it (and I) have become, time moves mercilessly quick, changing my shape, my emotions, my work, my friendships, my flesh. Perhaps I won't be happy forever. It feels out of my control when I consider it, even though I never felt out of control any step along the way.
Do you ever look in the mirror, see the skull behind your face, and suddenly glimpse a person you've never seen before? Perhaps a spectre you'll look like at sixty, or a ghost of what you looked like at six? Or what you would look like if you had chosen everything differently? Did you ever have a choice? Is the person looking back at you from the mirror the person you were always meant to be? Or is the person looking back just a passing stranger, someone you will only be for an instant before the goddesses of Time put all your cards back in the deck and shuffle you up?
Do you ever look in the mirror and feel like a stranger to yourself?
Just wanted to write a quick post about some friends of mine in New York. They have a great label, Triple Down Records. There is some awesome talent behind the label, including one my favorite bands of 2008, The Forms. Everyone on the label is great though. Real musicians.
I really wanted to write about Adam's Castle though. Adam's Castle is the beloved flagship band of Triple Down, and they have a new album, Vices, coming out October 19th. What's awesome is, every week or leading up to the release, they'll be giving away a track or two, along with some original art to complement the tunes. It's an exciting, DIY kinda way to do a CD release; precisely the kind of thing Jody and I sit around every day and talk about doing. It makes the experience of finding and enjoying new music something of an interactive event. Very, very cool.
If you sign up early for their "Rollout Club," you get the tracks and art emailed to you, along with some other goodies. You can check it out and sign up here. I hope you do! Support your DIY, homegrown musicians! We are the free therapy of the universe.
Hi everyone! First of all, thank you so much for your feedback on "The Fisher King." We love the comments and the criticism. It's really helped me make some great changes to the song. Expect to hear a fresh, re-arranged, re-mixed version of the tune soon.
Album update: we have nearly half the album done. We have lots of tunes that we're planning on letting you hear as soon as possible. More on that later.
Mr. Anthony D'Amato's last visit was only five days in the middle of July, but in that time, he laid down vocals for four tunes: "Follow My Lead," "Catch Fire," "Going up," and "Three Strangers." I'm really excited about these songs. They are, respectively: a jazz tune, a band + chamber orchestra rock song, an electronica / orchestral dance song, and a ballad. I consider myself truly lucky to be a composer in this era of mutable, multi-genre music. Composers today can, with only a decent computer, make music with more authentic, electronic, and inventive sounds than ever before. Think of what Bach would have done with a mac pro! Probably would have melted my brain, is what.
In the meantime, we've entered the very early stages of an artistic collaboration with a very talented gentleman and longtime chum, Mr. Adam Watts. Adam is one of the geniuses at Travesty Games, an indie game development company just hitting the scene. As a game nerd, I'm thrilled for his new business and his debut appearance as a company at Gen Con Indy this year. As an artist, I'm thrilled to get a chance to work with him. He didn't just design the rules of two new games this year, Kill Ball and Psiduel, he's also the talent behind the gorgeous, funny, shadowy art design of both games.
He also has a degree in animation, just in case you were thinking someone needed a nomination for Renaissance Man of the Year. It's that talent we're hoping to capitalize on. The Live Debate debut music video anyone?
Hopefully our next post will give you something to listen to. We just have to decide what to release and when. Hope you all are well and happy!
The studio is officially "finished," which is to say that we've spent as much money as we could on it without scaring our significant others into breaking up with us.
For a couple of bum composers assembling their first home studio, it ain't a bad setup! A shiny new mac pro (in a ghetto-rigged case), the novation SL62MK1 as our MIDI controller, a beautiful Project Mix ProTools I/O (thanks to James), and a host of really powerful, really versatile programs: Native Instruments Komplete and Superior Drummer, just to name a few. We also got to use a wonderful Blue Cactus mic, on loan to us from the very generous, very dear Tony Berg.
Only two days after we installed the last program, we took the studio on a test run with a new friend and extra-super awesome vocalist Anthony D'Amato.
I seriously believe it was destiny that drew us to Anthony. In the course of auditioning vocalists, we came across a Craigslist ad Anthony had recently posted. He announced himself as a singer passing through Chicago with just one free day. After listening to his voice on a fewyoutubevideos, we had to meet this guy.
It turns out that Anthony D'Amato is awesome,and by awesome, I mean EXTRA awesome. What a nice guy, and what an incredible voice! After a happy first meeting we invited Anthony to come and stay with us for a few days to record some vocals and to have a lot of fun making music. The product is this: "The Fisher King," now freshly redone with lots of bold voices. We have a few more in the can we'll be working on for Mr. D'Amato's next visit in a few weeks. Stay tuned!
We now graduate from having a Burgeoning Blog to the next stage of blog-evolution: the Neglected Blog. And in only one month! We are quite proud.
There is good reason for the neglect, though! Jody and I have seen the end of a major project, as our dear friend James Mitchell heads to sunny California. I've worked closely with James on a metric ton of music for 5 years now, and I'm really sad to see him go. He was just accepted to one of the nation's most competitive art schools, so we are sad to see him go, but thrilled for his success.
All of our work so for has pretty much taken place in James' apartment. Until last week, his attic was home to a world-class studio. Over the years James has let us camp out up there, sometimes for weeks. He's definitely going to Heaven. But since we knew that the studio wouldn't be in Chicago forever, we've been in there working as often as we could.
So... what blog-neglect excuses have I given so far? Job ending, tons of studio time... Right! Also, I moved. AND, we're going to try and set up a smaller, but similar studio setting to the one James had. Here's Jody chilling in the new studio:
Green! Specifically, Peppermint Leaf Green. So says the paint can.
After a couple weeks of moving and painting, we're finally ready to take a breath and work on whatever we can while we assemble our studio. Currently, we have everything but a computer. It's pretty sad: in 2010, a studio without a computer is like a shotgun without zombies. Fun, but pointless.
During the last rotation in James' studio Jody and I wrote songs at the rate of about one every three days. A few of these songs have lyrics and everything, all waiting for that magic vocalist to enter our lives. In the last two weeks, we created 5 distinct, semi-finished works. None got more than three days' work, so don't judge too harshly.
Please, as always, let us know what you think, of the music, the studio, anything! Thanks for stopping in to see what we're up to. What are you listening to right now?
We have a new toy. It records on 4 tracks seamlessly and quickly, for up to a day if we need it to. The H4N is just a handheld recorder, but it's been great for gathering audio and recording practices. Here's a sample of a new song we're working on, recorded, mixed and bounced out an hour or two ago. Easy as pie. More on this new song in a future post. The audio is pretty great! So great in fact, that you can hear my crummy little piano bench and Jody's bass make some squeaking sounds in there. It sounds a little like two mice having a knife-fight.
The H4N is about the size of one of those boxes that you get your checks in. I love living in the future.
Also, here's a rare picture of Jody, circa 1984, using the H4N to bust ghosts.
By the time Jody and I rolled around to this "Great List" idea, we'd been friends for a few years. Music industry friends, to boot. That means that we've been suggesting music to each other over the past few years regularly. A lot of what we both think is "Great" in contemporary music is music we've been talking about before the Live Debate began.
So, to honor THOSE great songs, I just wanted to throw up a few. I haven't consulted Jody, but I suspect each song listed below would meet his standards for the List. It's been a few years for each, and I love them all still. What songs have you loved over the last two or three years?
The National - "Fake Empire" Jody and I love this guy's voice, and pretty much every inch of this dreamy, heartfelt song.
Bat For Lashes - "Siren Song" Can you tell how sentimental and sappy I am? I love music that tugs at the heartstrings, and believe me, this one really does.
Beirut - "In The Mausoleum" The songwriter/producer is the today's composer. In Beirut, I hear the music Bela Bartok would be making today. I love how amazing they sound, just in a living room, just jamming, just on a handheld camera... The ultimate in Do-It-Yourself, right? You have no idea how much I want to be at that piano in this video.
Radiohead - "Reckoner" How on earth do you pick just one great Radiohead song? As I was trying to, I started up "In Rainbows" and I'm almost at the end of the album now. I think Thom Yorke will be remembered as one of this generation's greatest composers.
The first song we began our little adventure with is called “Catch Fire.” It’s a weird song. It starts off as stable, piano-driven rock. By the end, the song changes into something of a grand march, with horns blaring and cymbals crashing. The song is still a work-in-progress, and we’ll be posting videos and music clips as time goes on.
This clip is rated R for language. We beeped it, but you can totally tell.
The footage is all from the first week of January, when this project was just getting started. Hopefully the next time you hear the song, you’ll hear a longer passage of music and drums (maybe even vocals!). Let us know what you think!
