The winter Chills

Quick update.

I've now moved house, out of Telford, and I'm in the midst of wiring up the studio in the spare bedroom. This is going slowly due to a) other house things to sort, b) other social commitments c) been putting it off since it is a pain to do. Been doing a little bit each day, so hopefully by the weekend I can start recording again.

E has sent me a new song he has been working on, in the meantime.

E and I checked out a local (to me) Open Mic night a couple of days ago. Hopefully at the next one we will either get up and play a few tunes together or I'll get up on my own. (Depends on E's work pattern).

So we are going to rehearse this weekend, ready to ramp things up again in the new year.

Later

Rollasoc

All Systems Go

Quick update since it appears we are not up to much.

Humm, we are not up to much. Basically, I am moving house, out of Telford, just down the road to Bridgnorth on the weekend of 18th / 19th November, so almost all of my musical equipment has now been packed away.

So we will resume writing, recording and rehearsing at the end of the month.

We have started rehearsing the first three songs for an acoustic set. So at some point in December or the New Year we will go out and play somewhere. Quite looking forward to that.

I'll post again, when I'm back up and running in a new weeks.

Later

Rollasoc

Shirtbuttons

Tomorrow Chris and myself are off to the NEC for Music Live 2006. I've got a few things to look at this year, mainly I hope to pick up an Epiphone Valve Jnr amp. I might also keep an eye out for some cheap monitors to plug into my Toneport. Plus I will inevitably buy loads of strings and things.

The Hair Thieves have spent a few hours rehearsing some songs in an acoustic stylee. It is entirely possible that we will one day soon be playing in front of an adoring crowd. Or possibly two old drunks and the barmaid. With Chris moving house soon we haven't ben able to do much towards recording the album but we are both working on material for it.

Now I'm off to the pub for my lunch

E

Brief Update

Still quiet on the Hair Thieves front.

The video for Shorewards is now complete and can be seen on the main Hair Thieves myspace page or at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awTr1sRIygk

I'm very happy with how it turned out, but due to the song's short length a lot of material had to be cut out. Maybe I'll do a directors cut extended edition at some point in the future.

E is working on a video for one of our other tunes, using a different package. He did show me some of the ideas he has for it last week.

We had a little rehearsal / writing session last week, which went quite well. 3 songs were rehearsed, and didn't sound too bad. Just need to practise them a bit more.

We played with a new song E is in the process of writing. It is coming together slowly but getting there.

Recording of the album has temporarily been mostly suspended until after I move house. Haven't got a date yet, but I am viewing a property in the next few days, so hopefully it should be sorted very soon.

So whilst we are not recording I am using the time to research a few lyrical ideas for the songs that need lyrics. More on that at a later date.

Later,

Rollasoc

The Western Front

Not much to report on the Hair Thieves front. Things a bit slow, with me busy packing for my impending house move, and looking for a house to move into and E having his shifts moved around.

Guy has supplied the lead vocal to a track called "The New Opportunist". I had a brief go at editing it down to fit the track today, since the version Guy sang over is longer than the current version of the song. It just needs mixing, so that will be the first new finished track for the album. Hopefully the mixing will be done in the next week or so.

I have been working a bit, on what will hopefully be the first track on the album. It is in essentially two separate parts, that merge into each other. Part 1, has been written and demo'd for about 15 months now. It just needs actually recording properly. The 2nd part was just a verse part only but I've added the initial chorus to it. At the moment I'm thinking this chorus will be different to the other choruses sonically. So there is much to do. Lyrically, the concept is there and I have a load of research papers and the like on the subject matter and a few mind maps on directions it could take. I just need to get down and write them now I have a sort of direction the music is going. Musically, it is quite a departure into sort of industrial dance, but hopefully with melody. We shall see.

This week, I also started re-recording Apotemnophila for the album. I love the original but it is full of little mistakes, the obvious one being, if we do it live, Ian will play the arpegiated bit and me the leads. The EP1 version was recorded the opposite way around, since I had recorded most of it, as E joined the band, so I'd like to rectify that in the new version.

I have also been working on a video for the lead track off EP2, namely "Shorewards". I have about 20 minutes of video material, that I just need a spare day to sit down and edit it, now I have it in a format that my video editing program will allow me to use.

Humm.. Reading through the above it appears I've done a bit more than I thought. Oh well.

Later

Rollasoc

All Quiet

Not much happening on the music front right now. We have plans and good intentions to start recording the album and work up a live set however progress on both is minimal. Chris has several real-life issues to deal with that are keeping him away from music and I am tied up with work / too lazy to do anything. We did meet up last night but then spent our time in the pub.

We did talk about recording something next weekend though so progress will be made. Oh yes, one good thing: Guy has given me his vocal for New Opportunist.

Spent a bit of time today making up a circuit board for an auto-wah pedal. It is inevitably going to be called the "Phunc -E" and will be available for sale in a couple of weeks no doubt. And it is purple!

E

Rehearsing and everything.

Well, a very quick update, now EP2 is out and things.

"E Weird" has been getting mostly, good reviews on Garageband and was played on the Radio Ophans podcast last week (Episode 63)(http://radioorphans.blogspot.com/).

Today, we have finally started cobbling together a live set. At the moment this will probably entail 4 songs off EP1 & EP2, two brand new tracks we are working on (one for EP3 and the other an album track) and 4 or 5 non obvious covers.

We shall see over the next month or so, how we get on with the cover versions to see which ones stay and which ones go.

Also, I've started cobbling together the various bit of music we have written towards EP3 and the album. So we can in the next few weeks assess where we are at with both of them.

Later

Rollasoc