Howdy All!
Just a few quick updates for ya...
1) We are nearly done writing our new tune called 'Again...' There are still a couple small details to sort out but it's basically complete. I need to spend a little more time fleshing out the lead guitar melody that keeps haunting my mind, and Jake will be stepping up to the mic on this one for some backing vocals which is a big deal and will add a lot to the song, especially live performances. But at this point we all feel we could tackle this one at a show. Very cool song and it's very much in the FP vibe of things. Can't wait to start recording this one!
2) Another new song we are calling 'Softer' is coming along nicely. We have some basic chord changes in mind but need time to iron out the individual details in a full-band context. Also I still need to finish the lyrics on this one but the main melody is there and ready to go. That all being said, I actually used a free M-Audio program called Ignite as I was coming up with some of the basic ideas for this one...I wasn't actually trying to write a new song per se but things just kind of happened. At any rate, I think this song will be one of our more 'catchy' tunes if you will. Not intentionally catchy but that is definitely how it has evolved thus far. It's a really fun and interesting arrangement and there's some really cool interplay going on between everyone's parts. I especially love the bass lines in this one. Reminds me a little bit of the bass lines from classic Hall & Oates stuff. Very central to the song's vibe and something that will make people hum along...
3) I know I have always made a point of stating that we are not 'into' doing covers of other people's stuff, but we have actually started messing with what could be termed as a Double Cover of sorts. I'll refrain from saying what song we are messing with but we are actually doing a cover of someone else's cover of a particular song. The original song is definitely cool and all, but we are all really smitten with another person's cover of this particular song and we'll be leaning more towards that newer version as we sort out the details. At this point, due to copyright clearances and royalties and such, we have no plans of recording our cover version of this song, at least not at this time. If for some reason that move would make sense at a later date, we might rethink things, but at this point it is merely a 'live performance' thing only, especially as we just really love this song and it isn't the typical cover that people would expect from us.
And that's all I have to say about that... :-)
4) Currently we are also digging into a song idea we started back in 2011 called 'The Antebellum' and I think we stumbled upon some good ideas last night that will bring it a lot closer to being a complete song. We've had this really sweet bass/guitar/guitar interlude idea floating around and it just needed more ideas to support a verse and chorus. It's pretty mellow so far but we may be building up the bridge quite a bit to 'bring things home' so to speak. But this one actually had its beginnings back before Robert came into the band. Whenever Jake and I initially showed Robert the bass/guitar parts that we had up to that point, Robert came up with another guitar part that I'd describe as 'nothing short of brilliant'. It's beautifully melancholy and it reaches pretty 'deep' as far as the music vibe goes. It's fairly simple but it is just lovely in its own dark and intimate way. Sometimes it reminds us of old Eagles ballads just from the way that Robert's guitar lead lines stack on top of mine. As to subject matter, it's probably lyrically most akin to 'Sycamore' in that it is very 'relationship' centered with all of the subtle burrs and unspoken flaws that can beset the best of us...
So that's all for the moment. It's been a busy couple of months for us and we are loving it! Good things to come!
~ Todd
Friday, April 19, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
FP Update: 4-4-2013
Howdy Ho...
Just wanted to drop in and let folks know that we are gearing up to start recording again. Today Robert and I took some time to dial in some tones with his amp (see below) and we're pretty sure we are going to retrack most of our rhythm guitars on 'Rabbit Hole' and then we'll jump into 'Getting Away' from there. Can't wait to get these recordings going again and knock them out. Time flies by so quickly these days...
Anyhow, I caught a cool setup pic that I wanted to share (complete with grit and dirt added via a fun photo app on my iPhone!)
We'll post more soon...
~ Todd
Just wanted to drop in and let folks know that we are gearing up to start recording again. Today Robert and I took some time to dial in some tones with his amp (see below) and we're pretty sure we are going to retrack most of our rhythm guitars on 'Rabbit Hole' and then we'll jump into 'Getting Away' from there. Can't wait to get these recordings going again and knock them out. Time flies by so quickly these days...
Anyhow, I caught a cool setup pic that I wanted to share (complete with grit and dirt added via a fun photo app on my iPhone!)
We'll post more soon...
~ Todd
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
FP Update: 2-27-2013
Howdy All!
Lots to cover here so let's get down to it...
1) FP is writing a lot of new material right now. We've been unable to have full-blown band practices as often as we'd like due to crazy schedules and such...so on the weeks where the four of us can't all get together at the same time, whoever is available to get together usually spends the time writing new ideas and whatnot. We've been stockpiling the new song-starters by scratch-recording them as we go and it seems to be working quite well. We're all really excited about having new material on the horizon. Likely we'll focus on getting them to a 'recordable demo' stage and then polish them up to where we can start playing them for live outings. Plus that's a perfect way to test certain ideas versus spending serious studio time trying to sort out too many details while recording. But on the other hand, since we have our own studio set-up it's kind of a moot point how we go about it all... :-)
2) In spite of limited full-band rehearsals, we have 'Sycamore' probably 90% ready for live shows. So that means we'll have a five-song set of all originals ready here shortly. Also, another new song (one of the ones alluded to above) is something I've been calling "Again..." It's a 6/8 number that Robert started on his guitar last week during an impromptu writing session. Shortly after Robert and Jake headed home I started having a ton of solid lyric ideas and now I just need to wait for chorus lyrics/melody to float through my head, jot down a basic chord arrangement for the words, experiment with the guys on song dynamics, and voila we'll likely have a new song in our repertoire. Pretty sweet when things come easy...
3) I mentioned a few months ago that we were picked up by a big NYC-based Film/TV/Multimedia publishing house. Recently I've also been doing some side-work as a composer for a similar company that is based out of Singapore. That being said, one of the perks of doing freelance work for this new company is that they will likewise pick up any other material that I'd like to contribute for distribution through their networks. Of course everything is based on commission of sales, etc, but they are planning on expanding their distribution and publishing services on a much larger scale over the next 2-3 years. Needless to say it is pretty cool to know we'll have an East Coast distributor Stateside as well as another distributor on the opposite side of the planet. As such, the Singapore outfit is targeted more specifically at Bollywood/Hindi demographics, especially in India, Singapore, and parts of China. Got to love the fact that the world keeps getting smaller every day...
4) On a more personal note, I just recently wrapped up a series of guitar demos for Vibrance Guitars and you can now see all of the demo videos over at their YouTube Channel. Two of my personal instruments were also featured (for the sake of demonstrating the different tonal variations based on wood species, varying electronics, differing hardware, etc). My two guitars are serial #004 (an Ambrosia Double-Cut) and serial #007 (a Padauk Single-Cut). I've also added another Vibrance guitar to my collection, serial #021 (a Bubinga Double-Cut) that was also custom built for me by Craig Collins. We don't have any pics or videos of this particular guitar yet but it is quite amazing, and each Vibrance Guitar I own has its own unique personality. So much variety...and I'm really loving my rig these days. :-)
5) I also have a local Cigar Box Guitar maker, Ascendent Instruments, working on something special for me. If you don't know what a Cigar Box Guitar is (aka 'CBG'), it's simply a wooden cigar box that gets converted into a body for a make-shift guitar of various sorts. CBG's have been around for ages but they've seen a strong resurgence over the past few years and they are a real hoot to play. My CBG will have only three strings (aka a 'Three-Banger') without any frets on the fingerboard (my preference there), so I'll likely be playing a lot of slide stuff with it, but it will also be good for slippery sounding stuff with my fingers. It'll also have a hand-wound pick-up, a nice Luxe Bumblebee paper-in-oil capacitor in the tone knob circuit, and a kill-switch for chopping up my notes at the press of a button. I can't wait to start using this new CBG for upcoming FP stuff!
6) I still have a couple odds and ends to wrap up (as far as freelance stuff goes) and then I truly do hope to finish up the recordings for 'Rabbit Hole' and 'Getting Away'. Last year (2012) simply got away from me time-wise and I don't have any excuses for not getting these last two songs finished other than I've been spread out too thin with work-related stuff. That being said, it has been nice not having deadlines to fiddle with while still trying to pay the bills. We haven't thrown in the towel...we've just been pretty busy with life in general. Like I always say, it'll be worth the wait...
Hope everyone reading this is doing well in their corner of the world. We'll be in touch...
~ Todd
Lots to cover here so let's get down to it...
1) FP is writing a lot of new material right now. We've been unable to have full-blown band practices as often as we'd like due to crazy schedules and such...so on the weeks where the four of us can't all get together at the same time, whoever is available to get together usually spends the time writing new ideas and whatnot. We've been stockpiling the new song-starters by scratch-recording them as we go and it seems to be working quite well. We're all really excited about having new material on the horizon. Likely we'll focus on getting them to a 'recordable demo' stage and then polish them up to where we can start playing them for live outings. Plus that's a perfect way to test certain ideas versus spending serious studio time trying to sort out too many details while recording. But on the other hand, since we have our own studio set-up it's kind of a moot point how we go about it all... :-)
2) In spite of limited full-band rehearsals, we have 'Sycamore' probably 90% ready for live shows. So that means we'll have a five-song set of all originals ready here shortly. Also, another new song (one of the ones alluded to above) is something I've been calling "Again..." It's a 6/8 number that Robert started on his guitar last week during an impromptu writing session. Shortly after Robert and Jake headed home I started having a ton of solid lyric ideas and now I just need to wait for chorus lyrics/melody to float through my head, jot down a basic chord arrangement for the words, experiment with the guys on song dynamics, and voila we'll likely have a new song in our repertoire. Pretty sweet when things come easy...
3) I mentioned a few months ago that we were picked up by a big NYC-based Film/TV/Multimedia publishing house. Recently I've also been doing some side-work as a composer for a similar company that is based out of Singapore. That being said, one of the perks of doing freelance work for this new company is that they will likewise pick up any other material that I'd like to contribute for distribution through their networks. Of course everything is based on commission of sales, etc, but they are planning on expanding their distribution and publishing services on a much larger scale over the next 2-3 years. Needless to say it is pretty cool to know we'll have an East Coast distributor Stateside as well as another distributor on the opposite side of the planet. As such, the Singapore outfit is targeted more specifically at Bollywood/Hindi demographics, especially in India, Singapore, and parts of China. Got to love the fact that the world keeps getting smaller every day...
4) On a more personal note, I just recently wrapped up a series of guitar demos for Vibrance Guitars and you can now see all of the demo videos over at their YouTube Channel. Two of my personal instruments were also featured (for the sake of demonstrating the different tonal variations based on wood species, varying electronics, differing hardware, etc). My two guitars are serial #004 (an Ambrosia Double-Cut) and serial #007 (a Padauk Single-Cut). I've also added another Vibrance guitar to my collection, serial #021 (a Bubinga Double-Cut) that was also custom built for me by Craig Collins. We don't have any pics or videos of this particular guitar yet but it is quite amazing, and each Vibrance Guitar I own has its own unique personality. So much variety...and I'm really loving my rig these days. :-)
5) I also have a local Cigar Box Guitar maker, Ascendent Instruments, working on something special for me. If you don't know what a Cigar Box Guitar is (aka 'CBG'), it's simply a wooden cigar box that gets converted into a body for a make-shift guitar of various sorts. CBG's have been around for ages but they've seen a strong resurgence over the past few years and they are a real hoot to play. My CBG will have only three strings (aka a 'Three-Banger') without any frets on the fingerboard (my preference there), so I'll likely be playing a lot of slide stuff with it, but it will also be good for slippery sounding stuff with my fingers. It'll also have a hand-wound pick-up, a nice Luxe Bumblebee paper-in-oil capacitor in the tone knob circuit, and a kill-switch for chopping up my notes at the press of a button. I can't wait to start using this new CBG for upcoming FP stuff!
6) I still have a couple odds and ends to wrap up (as far as freelance stuff goes) and then I truly do hope to finish up the recordings for 'Rabbit Hole' and 'Getting Away'. Last year (2012) simply got away from me time-wise and I don't have any excuses for not getting these last two songs finished other than I've been spread out too thin with work-related stuff. That being said, it has been nice not having deadlines to fiddle with while still trying to pay the bills. We haven't thrown in the towel...we've just been pretty busy with life in general. Like I always say, it'll be worth the wait...
Hope everyone reading this is doing well in their corner of the world. We'll be in touch...
~ Todd
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