Strings, Brass & Drums

Happy New Year!

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.

jody

Friends, Family, and Recording!

Hi everyone,

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.

Album recommendations = Cee Lo Green-Lady Killer and Kanye West-Dark Twisted Fantasy

jody

Updates and some other music

Hey Everyone, its Jody!

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.

We hope you enjoy!

American Terrorists & the Looming Composers

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!

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

"Three Strangers" and the Passage of Time

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?

Adam's Castle and "Vices"

Hi everyone!

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.