Track Listings and Pending Releases

Hi everyone!

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 about Three 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.

Jody

Excuses, Excuses

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?

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Additions to the Great List

Here are a few more songs from this week's Great List discussions:

A few of mine:
Astor Piazzolla - "Muerte Del Angel"
Tori Amos - "Muhammad, My Friend"
Sting - "The Lazarus Heart"
Aaron Copland - "Appalachian Spring"

A few of Jody's:
Black Crowes - "Cursed Diamond"
Led Zepplin - "Ramble On"
The Antlers - "Wake"
Milosh - "You Make Me Feel"

And a few others:
Jeff Beck / Tal Wilkensfeld - "Cause We Ended as Lovers" (submitted by my musicophile uncle, Mark)
Sufjan Stevens - "The BQE, Movement III: Linear Tableau with Intersecting Surprise (submitted by friend and colleage, James Mitchell)

So far, I love every song on the list. What do you think? Any examples of "greatness" here?

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The Live Debate

Hello everyone. This is Matthew.

Jody and I are starting a band and we pretty much want to take over the world. I hope you will want to help us.

We spend our days working on projects of various sizes. We want to complete a fantastic album this year. We plan to challenge ourselves with occasional mini-projects to keep our ears fresh and our skills sharp. And we will be exploring music, new and old, to try and pinpoint what it is that makes some music great, and some music merely good.

We're making our music from scratch; at the moment we only are two people in what will eventually be a four-person band, and we only have six songs written of the twelve we plan to finish by the end of the spring. But we've only just gotten started.

I'm excited to share as much of this experience as possible with you. Jody and I love the process of making music, and as we work, we'll be showing you as much of that process as we can (and you can stand). I'm excited to hear your thoughts, your comments, and your contributions as The Live Debate grows.

What is the greatest piece of music you've ever heard?