Author: h

Church Photo Directory Starring: Benjamin Axeface has been at FuriousSound in Kansas City this weekend, recording for their upcoming EP. Cory and James rolled in to town Friday night, and spent Saturday in the studio (currently located at KCSPUCC) with howie tracking guitars, bass, vocals, and a few synths. Cory also sang backing vocals for echoes’ Be A Ska Rat EP (tentatively scheduled for a January release at MFR) and fleshed out demos for the Ventura EP.

Some photos from the session (click for full-size image):

Benjamin Axeface (with flash)

Axeface (without flash)

Cory Alan

Cory against our light source

James Tucci

Those are the facts. Subjectively, I think it was a great session; we had a good time, accomplished our goals (and then some), and the music is sounding solid. About Axeface’s “debut”; I write it in quotes because Cory, James, and Annie are moving pretty straightforwardly from the territory mapped out by Shacker’s The Dimly Lit Room and Beach-Puppy’s Creepy Eepy. The new EP has the live, full-band sound of the former (with a few extra touches) mixed with the overall tone of the latter (though a little cleaner). Cory’s songs are an extension (not repetition) of these recordings. The lyrics can’t be ignored; though the music is folky, the words can’t be left in the background but confront listeners; I mean this is a straight-up compliment, not a backhanded one.

The backing vox for Be A Ska Rat really helped bring the songs to life; I’m excited to finish it now, where in the middle of last week I was feeling pretty beat-up about the whole thing. I know I have a history of suggesting release dates, then not meeting them, but January is entirely possible for this. It will make sense from nickel, but represents both growth and distillation I think.

We haven’t said or posted much about Ventura, but it’s actually as important a release as any of these other things. I wrote a good chunk of it, and Cory the rest, and it’s six or seven songs of vaguely 70’s-influenced acoustic music. It arrived kind of spontaneously… several songs and ideas were floating around, not quite fitting in with other projects, and one day they collapsed into Ventura. I think of California with the 70’s for some reason, the songs are appropriate beach music, Cory’s from there, and it’s a weird place I’ve never been to but still have a connection with somehow. As I get in gear, I’ll be playing probably all of the songs at my own shows in the future, and maybe Axeface will tackle (!) them live as well.

Massive post; enjoy. And HOLLA! -h

Having a conversation with Kris (who runs MFR’s MySpace) the other day, she asked how traffic at Mr. Furious Records was coming along.

The way downloads are tracked has changed, since we moved the music over to archive.org. The Internet Archive tracks downloads somehow, but the details aren’t published. For example, today it says that Sally M/S Ride has been heard 22 times; if a user listens to one song, is that counted? Does “hearing” take the whole album being streamed/downloaded to count? Who knows. We used to measure bandwidth transmitted from audio files and get an idea of direct downloads from that, but that method doesn’t work any longer.

The best snapshot I can find comes from our “unique visitors” each month. Meaning (I assume) unique IP addresses; if Kris visits mrfuriousrecords.com six times, that counts as “1” under unique visitor. Here’s 2005:

Jan – 89
Feb – 101 (Beach-Puppy, Creepy Eepy)
March – 232
April – 346
May – 347 (GiLMO, Points of Parallax)
June – 267
July – 266
August – 305 (D-Rockets, Matt Wisecarver’s Secret Fantasy)
September – 340 (MFR, Nebraska Verses)
October – 395 (Bike, Stroke Me Gently, Lady Luck)

At MFR, we don’t succeed or feel validated based on these numbers. I don’t know how you will feel about them, but personally I think it’s fantastic that almost 400 people visited our site last month.

Sidenote; our fall release schedule just sort of jumped out at me. Add Sally M/S Ride (Oct. 30 – basically November) and we’ve had albums out four months in a row, with the XMAS compilation set for Dec. 1!!!111. Rad. With an echoes EP, a debut from Benjamin Axeface, and another EP (Ventura) that I’m doing with Cory coming up… Bike’s hard at work on The Last Desperate Act…

-h

From; Cory_K_69@hisalmamater.org
To; howie@mfr.com
3:12 PM
Subject; Your Ball

I can’t figure out why people constantly confuse our voices either- we don’t sound particularly alike (you are usually dead-on pitch, I waver; you can hold a note for longer than a few second without coughing up a lung; when I try to go above a certain note, my voice crackles like a 12 year old’s, etc.). But I know at least a few other people who have. Why is that, I wonder? Do we sound alike but not know it? I guess to us, it’s obvious who’s singing. Especially when you examine the lyrics:

Howie: “Important universal theme explained in abstract metaphors!”

Cory: “Waaaaaah! Drinking too much! Girlfriend dumped me 5 years ago and I still whine about it! WAAAAAHHHH! DRINKING!”

BFF, Cory

From; howie@mfr.com
To; Cory_K_69@hisalmamater.org
1:07 PM
Subject; Did you see what Uncle Dave wrote about SR vocals?!

SO MANY PEOPLE MIX UP OUR SINGING VOICES!?!?!?!? what is it!?!?!
we’re both fairly straight-tone choir boys, but i mean, c’mon! my throat is
unmolested by alcohol, direct cigarette smoke, rush chants, and repeated
bouts of clamidia! you’ve got to be like lemmy k. to my antony!

w/b soon! -h

From; DJ_Dave@wakn.org
To; howie@mfr.com; Cory_K_69@hisalmamater.org
11:23 AM
Subject; Don’t Let Them Take Us Back To AKRON!

Howie,

You morbid bastard! How dare you name your band after that poor woman!

Okay, seriously? Anyone dumb enough to confuse the two doesn’t really merit a whole lot of your attention anyway. Duh. Hello? Jr. High History class? Were you there? (actually, I’m old enough to remember both of them being in the news!)

The album sounds great! I made the family listen to it on a road trip a week or so ago. The songs are really well written and is that Corey singing on them? He sounds great!

-Dave

From; howie@mfr.com
To; DJ_Dave@wakn.org
8:44 AM
Subject; not Christa McAuliffe

Uncle Dave; I’m assuming you got the Sally M/S Ride disc. Anxious to hear what you think.

For the record, tons of people ask us if the band is named “Sally Ride” after the woman astronaut who died in the Challenger explosion. It isn’t. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, in the early 80’s. Christa McAuliffe (I think I spelled right) was the woman teacher/astronaut who died in the Challenger accident. Just so you know. Naming a band “Christa McAuliffe” would take an Iggy Pop-level of punk-ness.

-howie

Sally M/S Ride’s Don’t Let Them Take Us ALIVE ended up being a completist record. There wasn’t much question of which tracks to include or how they should be ordered, given the nature of the album. 1-10, there you have it, all the songs from first to last.

But listening is a bit of a different question, much more today (in the era of iTunes, filesharing, etc.) than Hank or Uncle Charlie would have thought. Some listeners I know have already picked out a couple tracks that deviate from SR’s typical modus operandi: the slower tunes, “R Tone L” and “The Knot.” These songs don’t have the hooks or the steady, down-beat pulse that drive the other tracks. Nick is skipping them; I’m guessing he’s not the only one.

So the question for you is how do you listen to Sally M/S Ride? Is the record improved by skipping “R Tone L” and “The Knot”? Do you pick favorite tracks, skip the interview bits, or re-arrange the order? I’m curious to know. I listen to the whole thing, but I always do that, and it doesn’t mean you do or should. How do you hear Don’t Let Them Take Us ALIVE?

New CDs at FuriousSound:

Doves / Some Cities – Doves occupy a niche between old Motown records and modern Britrock. Their previous album, The Last Broadcast, is a favorite of mine. This one has some great songs, but isn’t as fleshed out sonically, or in terms of song development. It has some characteristic sounds though; most every song has a part, usually guitar or piano, that has been processed to sound like it has been sampled from old wax. Several songs have a warbly treble line (keys or vocals), which I am not a fan of. Maybe 3/5 stars or so overall.

My Chemical Romance / Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge – A cool record, plus the kids love it. The best thing about it is that MCR is telling a story; they’re not trying to share their diaries (weak) or send a message (pretentious). Three Cheers… is like a noir comic put to tape. Plus, it’s fast, catchy, and is filled with dynamic arrangements and voicings.

Ben Folds Five / The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner – Mary was the BF5 fan in our house, so I’m only slowly picking up their records for myself (though I know them by heart – same with Foo Fighters). I get the idea fans didn’t like this one as much, but I love it.

Bloc Party / Silent Alarm – Bloc Party has been a buzz band for a bit, but I didn’t listen to them until NPR broadcast their show from the 9:30 Club in DC (later, it was available for download). Silent Alarm deconstructs U2 into constituent parts (driving, organic drums / edgy guitars / a bit of sonic sweep) and reassembles them nimbly. I love the production on this record; all the instruments sound like instruments! Natural, warm, and with good bite.

Nine Inch Nails / With Teeth – This album feels like a victory. The packaging is completely minimal (simple art, a tracklist, and a photo of Trent decomposing into digital lines) placing emphasis soley on the music. Production = awesome. Did you know that Mr. Reznor has an inner James Brown? He channels it regularly here, writing soul-metal songs, using weird vocal “hey!”s and tics, and creating an entire performance by turning the phrase “with teeth” into four syllables; “with-ah! teeth-ah!”

Radiohead / OK Computer – I’m lame because I’m just getting into OK Computer… I didn’t really love Radiohead until Cory and I listened to Kid A on Thanksgiving break of freshman year. Since then, I’ve been a latecomer to every album since, and am just now beginning to work backwards. Thom has said their albums split in 3’s (Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer / Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief) so who knows what’s next.

Other FuriousSound Update: I am tracking guitars for echoes’ Be A Ska Rat and XMAS songs, and am almost done. I may (?) do demos for another EP (Ventura) at this time too. After they are done, I will move some gear to work (where it is quiet at night) to do vocals and a few acoustic parts. Also, a Benjamin Axeface session in KC has been discussed briefly; file it under “rumor.”

Jessie and I hit the Ray South football game last night specifically for Sarah and the band. As in, the award-winning RSHS Southern Regiment marching band, which is recently home from Clarinda, IA last weekend. There they were the top-ranked corps out of 53 entries.

After a big entrance, the first half included solid tunes and standard game-time rhythms from the band’s space behind the south end zone. I remarked to Jessie that I wished they were closer; in the stands next to us in the student section, perhaps. There was enough space, and last night in the chill it wouldn’t have hurt anyone to stand a little closer.

The full halftime marching show included several tunes from “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Marching with verve, the Southern Regiment was under the direction of their Senior Major (with the help of Junior and Sophomore majors); the band director was nowhere in sight (impressive!). Special moves included a Dixieland breakdown with a small New Orleans-style jazz combo in the center of the field, the Major’s various salutes coupled with an extended kneel-down/stand-up ending move, and just prior to the end the whole band kicking Broadway-style straight up the field towards us. It was a stylish, colorful show; it had personality.

Though it was the least formal part of the “show” (or maybe not part of the show at all), the best moment came early in the 4th quarter. After taking the 3rd off, the band reassembled in their end zone bleachers for the end of the game. The tuba section started up a little descending bass riff, the drums rocked a mellow beat, and the rest of the band started dancing. This dance is a low, quad-busting dance done with a wide stance, bouncing inches from the ground with arms outstretched. I’ve done similar things during the quietest parts of the breakdown to “(You Know You Make Me Wanna) Shout!”, or dancing borborbor in Ghana. But it was entirely spontaneous, done for its own joy; the Southern Regiment clearly loves being a band, and loves each other.