Cory Kibler to Have CD Release Party

Permalink via the Lincoln Journal-Star

By ALEX HAUETER / Lincoln Journal Star

Friday, May 04, 2007 – 02:54:41 am CDT

A career in music is hard, and getting started can be expensive, so Cory Kibler is in it to just enjoy himself. In fact, he has no problem just giving away the fruits of his labor.

Although the recording industry and established artists have objected to the spread of music online, the Internet has been a valuable tool for up-and-coming musicians to share their work. Kibler and his friend, producer C. Howie Howard, who works with local bands Skink, Robot, Creep Closer! and the Killigans, have taken that to another level.

The two friends started Mr. Furious Records in September 2004. In the label’s short history, it has released 19 albums.

Without pressing a single CD.

Mr. Furious Records takes advantage of the Creative Commons Public License to release its artists’ work for free online. The label was born out of a need for artists to be able to get their music out there without losing money.

“We felt it would make music a lot more fun if we took the monetary aspect out of it,” Kibler said.

Kibler, the frontman of Robot, Creep Closer!, used to play around Southeast Nebraska in a band called Shacker, but said it was frustrating to spend money on studio time and CDs that people weren’t interested in.

Howard has faced the same problem.

“The economics of selling music on CDs got stressful,” he said. Bands will often pay for 1,000 CDs but sell only 200 or 300 and barely manage to break even.

Something had to give, and the idea for the low-overhead Mr. Furious was born.

Howard runs the label from his home in Kansas City, Mo., pays about $160 per year for Web hosting and uses recording and mixing equipment he already owns for his for-profit work with artists.

Starting a Web label is something anyone could do, he said.

“Somebody could do it for a couple hundred bucks with a four-track machine,” he said.

Despite the label’s low cost and the free exchange of music it allows, Kibler stressed that the contributing musicians — mostly friends from the Midwest and his old home in California — all take it seriously.

“We want the recordings to be studio quality and the songs to be totally legit,” he said.

Howard added that the downloads are all variable bit rate mp3 files, which makes them of equal or better quality than music purchased from sites like iTunes.

Kibler’s new CD, “The Silent Woods,” will be Mr. Furious’ 20th release, and he’s celebrating Wednesday with a release party at Duffy’s Tavern. To keep with the spirit of Mr. Furious, he’ll be giving away copies of the CD, which consists of nine original folk songs he’s written over the past three years and recorded this winter.

For Robot, Creep Closer! fans, the release party will offer a look at Kibler’s mellower side. In his solo work, he attempts to tell stories that his listeners will relate to rather than being highly personal.

“The solo songs are so much more mellow, and not just because it’s acoustic guitar and vocals,” he said. “In Robot, Creep Closer! we’re all about being ridiculous. We try to put on a show so that people will be into us even if they don’t like all our songs.”

Reach Alex Haueter at 473-7254 or at ahaueter@journalstar.com .

Silent Woods Co-release

Mr. Furious Records and Lone Prairie Records will partner to release Cory Kibler’s new album The Silent Woods online May 9th.  Cory’s release show is at Duffy’s in Lincoln, NE that night with Gene Hogan and Dan Jenkins.

Lone Prairie has recently posted a six-song EP by Last Leg (Jeff Iwanski of Honey Stump), and is exploring further possibilities for online releases.

“We’re interested in reaching the most people possible with Cory’s record.  The partnership between MFR and LPR is a great step along that path.  This is our third point of contact, after Robot, Creep Closer!’s EP and album and the Killers in the Nebraska Territory comp, and I don’t expect it will be the last.

“In the mid- to long-term, we also expect an increase in web traffic to our sites.  Releasing music freely under Creative Commons license is obviously a viable artistic model; I believe it also has the potential to be a viable business model for bands and collectives, who can give their music away and survive on shows, t-shirts, and added-value releases such as DVDs.” -howie

After The Silent Woods, MFR’s next scheduled release is Sally Ride’s You Have To Wear the Boots, an album of cowboy songs in one act by Cory and howie.

Meteorites and the Origin of the Solar System

Cory went to New York a while ago, and this happened:

 

SRCKNYC-400.JPG

 

Who knew?

His record is coming right along; I think we hope to have it out and up in a couple of weeks.  It has the magic.

5*Joel is coming over in a bit here to work on a killer new demo-jam we wrote at practice Thursday night.  ALSO: Duane, our engineer, found the stem-mixes from our Sleepless Nights EP, so Joel and I anticipate re-recording the guitar and key parts only very soon.  This project, with the new Red EP, would build toward a full-length with one more 2-3 song recording session.

IF YOU ARE NEAR LINCOLN, NEBRASKA TONIGHT, THE KILLIGANS ARE RELEASING THEIR NEW CD ONE STEP AHEAD OF HELL AND ROBOT, CREEP CLOSER! OPENS AT KNICKERBOCKERS.  Check out tracks at www.thekilligans.com.  Early (6PM) and late (9PM) shows: Robot! is at the late show.  -h

5*C Red EP

New Five Star Crush music is up at our myspace:

myspace.com/fivestarcrush

Hear “Ms. Trouble” and “Black Machine” from our new Red EP, which also includes “Transient” and “Aasta (I Miss You).”  This is what has basically occupied the last five weeks of my life; it’s been trying but I can’t imagine being happier with the finished work.  Last night’s gig with Bowling for Soup went.  We have a short break before three big weekends of shows in May.

I played some keys for Cory’s record this morning.  I’m most happy about “Success,” everything else is either subtle or kind of weird and I want Cory to hear it before deciding whether to like or not.  He’s in San Fransisco.

And, apparently, “howie-rocks”:

 

HowieRocks

 

Thanks, Jill. -h

Message from Cory Regarding His Record

Cory sent me the below to post this morning early, so I’ll do that and add below.  -h

—-

The new Cory Kibler record, tentatively titled “Due To The Nature Of The Dart Itself,” or possibly “Pass Me That Ruler, I’m Gonna Measure Some Shit,” or maybe even “Some Asshole Pretending To Party,” is without a doubt the best record ever to come out of the Kibler District of Lincoln, NE.

I suppose it’s the only full-lengthish solo record I’ve ever done, so that’s why it’s the best. And the Kibler District is just anywhere where I am, personally, so that’s how that goes.

Basically, it’s got the same ingredients as some of my past jamz: minimal guitar, or simple guitar, anyway; my soft girl-voice swearing from time to time, usually because my mic was buttered improperly; etc. No, but it’s sounding great so far; if I were to describe my songs on this record, I’d say they were to-the-point, catchy, bittersweet, soft, and perfect music for a movie soundtrack. I actually kind of think that last bit is pretty spot-on. “Violently Real Reality,” one of the hit-joints off of the record, would be a bona-fide tearjerker at the end of some Zach Braff movie. Maybe Wes Anderson, if I’m lucky.

Usually, I stick to sounding as much like Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliott Smith and Death Cab as I can without getting sued, but according to Howie, I’m getting better and better at sounding like “me.” Which is nice. It’d be nice to write a song so uniquely your own that people would know it was yours even if they heard someone else perform it. Like, when people hear my other smash-single “Joanna (You Forgot The Time)” covered by Dylan in concert next year, I want them to think, “F*ck! I wish it were REALLY Cory up there! This Bob guy’s a jokester!”

Really though, I’m incredibly excited for this record to reach your ears. I feel like I’ve honed my lyrical abilities better on these songs than with other songs I’ve written, and I feel like there’s a lot of variety and somehow also a lot of cohesiveness. I think it’s a pretty record (“pretty” being a vague modifier, but guess what? I don’t give a dang-dang!). I hope that when people listen to these 9 songs, they desperately want more. Or at least, I hope people don’t barf into their own hands after hearing it!

Love, Cory Alan

—-

Cory actually does need an album title, so think on that if you like.

The record is a natural step forward to my ears; on the surface level, it’s like a mix of Creepy-Eepy and the little guy’s solo songs from Shacker’s The Dimly Lit Room.  But I think it shows cool growth in terms of diversity in the songs’ rhythms and lyrics.  I don’t think Cory can hear how far he’s developed in his own way from that Neutral Milk-thing; I’m mostly thinking of the fingerpicking style on songs like “Easy Kill” and “How We Can Know” (to pick two you might have heard by now on the Lone Prairie murder ballads comp / XMAS).  I haven’t heard anyone compose and play guitar quite like that anywhere.

Time passes very quickly when I put the record on, so I must be getting really into it.  I think we’re going to work on it for a few more weeks; we want to try some keyboard stuff, and I’ll mix/master but that won’t take long.  (Actually, in the mastering stage I’m going to replace Cory’s record with acoustic Avril Lavigne recordings!  He probably won’t notice!)

-h

Completion of the Act

At five minutes to midnight last night, I found myself in the unlikeliest of situations; onstage with Distance to Empty, rapping “Shoop” to a crowd of high school students at Shawnee Mission West High’s Rock 4 Hope concert.  It was a moment that perfectly completed the act of this week.

It started Monday night as 5*C moved in to Westend studios to record our new EP.  We were there through Thursday, and have finished all the music.  Vocals and mixing remain, hopefully Wednesday-Thursday this week.  We’ll get stuff up on MySpace ASAP.  We’re also playing tomorrow night (Sunday) at RecordBar, that should be a pretty good show.  Come early and eat, too!

Even with that not-quite done, I am back in the mastering saddle with Lincoln NE’s own Skink.  They have a freaky-rocking record up their sleeves, and I’m pretty pumped about that.

Finally, I am hiding in the batcave today, and starting harmonies for Cory’s project will probably happen.

-h

The first 98 of you get a treat this morning

http://download.yousendit.com/A6F076905CDF67D4

(Just click the link.  Right-click+”save as” will not work!) 

Surprise, and best wishes for a Saturday morning.  5*C is confirmed to record four new songs at West End Studios this week, M-Th.  The “Black Machine” demo will be available for 7 days or 98 downloads, whichever comes first.  Thanks, regular readers.

Listening to: Lemonheads It’s a Shame About Ray, Matthew Sweet Girlfriend, TV on the Radio Return to Cookie Mountain.  -h

SxSW Radio and Cory Kibler Record

Uno: The South by Southwest conference has a great streaming radio-thing up – click here to pop it up.

Dos: We are working on a new Cory Kibler record.  “Working” means “Cory recorded nine songs with Matt Wisecarver, and sent them to me for background vocals and bits of keys here and there.”  Songs include:

Joanna
Easy Kill
The Lonely Lumberjack
The Silent Woods
How We Can Know
Top Secret Pizza Party
Violently Real Reality
Into The Fire
The Fast Track To Success

I think I’ll record some vocals tomorrow.  -h

True story

Subject: DUDE
From: Cory-Kibler@education.edu
To: howie@work.com

Dude, I just read the second interview of the new Arcade Fire, and both Spin and P-Fork compared the lyrics to The Boss.  What is it with bands these days and Bruce Springsteen?  I like it, though; The Killers and the Arcade Fire have been accused of bullsh*tting their audience, but it’s hard to be insincere when you have working-class lyrics.  It helps balance the fact that there are at least 4,576 instruments on each Arcade Fire song.

The new one, Neon Bible, did get 4 1/2 stars from Spin and an 8.7 or something from the Fork.  Buy it, and tell me what you think!  I think it came out today, so I’ll probably snag it.

What else should I buy????  Should I buy TV on the Radio?

What else???

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: howie@work.com
To: Cory-Kibler@education.edu

THE HOLD STEADY “BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA”!!!!111111

It’s the best thing in my life since Common in December ’05!

-h

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: Cory-Kibler@education.edu
To: howie@work.com

Okay, I will!  They are getting the Springsteen comparison, too!  I will buy it!

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: howie@work.com
To: Cory-Kibler@education.edu

Yeah, Bruce is hot now.  It’s kind of cool; at least people are getting inspired by a truly good musician.  The Killers dressed him up as a Vegas show; I’m still debating how that turned out.  Haven’t heard any new Arcade Fire; I liked “Funeral” well enough, but not as well as Pfork did.

I’m liking TV on the Radio, but I’m not ready to recommend it yet.  But if you *already* want it, you’ll probably dig it.  It’s definitely not bad or dissappointing or anything – I’m just not sure its “Kid A” like everyone seems to think.

-h

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: Cory-Kibler@education.edu
To: howie@work.com

I haven’t really wanted TV on the Radio, so I think I’ll wait on it.

In the past few days, I’ve been thinking about Arcade Fire and other like-minded bands, and I have this weird love-hate relationship with these albums/songs.  When I listen to Funeral, I really enjoy it, and I think it sounds cool, but I feel like most of what’s likable about the record is the fact that it sounds “cool.”

There was this interview with Trent Reznor along while ago, and he was asked what he thought about Franz Ferdinand (the “it” band at the time of the interview) and he said something like “I guess I enjoy listening to them, but the entire time their record is playing, I can’t help but wonder if I’m being bullshitted.”  And I guess that’s how I feel about bands like Arcade Fire.  The songs sound awesome, and the songwriting is clearly
pretty good, and when I listen to the music without consciously thinking about it, I’m like “yeah, this sounds pretty rad,” but then when I ask myself, “Why this production?  Why these lyrics?  Why this vocal style?,” I find myself wishing that the earnestness in their record was more apparent.  Like, I want to hear the SONGS.  I mean, if they have so many instruments on each track and the lyrics are yelped, that’s fine, but I want to know that it would sound cool without all of the gimmicky theatrics.

I guess that goes back to our discussion a week or so ago, but I wonder if everyone would like the Arcade Fire so much if they were a trio (bass, drums, guitar) who dressed in t-shirts and jeans instead of huge pilgrim outfits and weird mortician hats, and played places like Knickerbocker’s instead of abandoned churches, and sang without all of the pained vibrato.

What do you think??

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: howie@work.com
To: Cory-Kibler@education.edu

A) I feel the same way do you.

B) At a meta-level, I wonder about / am concerned / feel a bit guilty? for elevating “songs” over “layers/production/style/mortician hats” as criteria for aesthetic value?

Is there a case to be made that “songs” carry more aesthetic weight than “not-songs” (producation/theatrics).

Is it already a pre-conditioned value judgment as to what makes up a “song” (chords, melodies, lyrics) and what is “extra”?  It’s an identity question; is it answerable in somewhat-objective terms?

-h

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: Cory-Kibler@education.edu
To: howie@work.com

I think you can and should elevate the value of songs over production/visual/style stuff.  I mean, if you take a hip song that people like(d), such as “Take Me Out” from Franz Ferdinand, and you play it on just guitar or piano and just sing it, will it still sound good?  I guess maybe there’s a difference between “cool” music and “good” music?  So if
you can play an Arcade Fire song minimally (just the chords and vocals) and you don’t like it, but you like listening to it when it’s all dressed up with cellos and accordians and whatever else, you must not like the actual song that much, but it can still sound cool, right?  Probably most of the reason I like listening to “Power Out” or whatever it’s called off of “Funeral” is because of the drum beat.  And you can take a song that’s not all that good and add a cool drum beat to it, and it’ll be fun to listen to.

I recently listened to LCD Soundsystem’s “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” for the first time because I’m going to sing it with Somasphere (Jesse Hodges’ new other band) in concert, and I found that although it sounded pretty cool, there was almost no actual song there.  The lyrics were kind of lame, the singing took almost no talent, the chords are predictable and kind of stupid, but because of the production, it’s fun to listen to, kind of.

When a rock song is cool and good, it sounds like Spoon!  Spoon is super cool sounding, and super good.  With hip-hip, it’s Common or Kanye or something; the beats sound really really cool, but the rapping is good and thoughtful and intelligent.

Maybe this “good” vs. “cool” distinction is why I’m so hesitant to give a shit about so many bands that people love these days.  And why I like folk music so much; there’s hardly a way to mask mediocre songwriting when it’s just vocals and guitar; you really have to be a GOOD songwriter for your songs to be good when played that way, because all that’s there is the song.

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: howie@work.com
To: Cory-Kibler@education.edu

I get the “good”/”cool” distinction on an intuitive level.  It makes a lot of sense.  It’s how I listen to music, definitely.

But does it stand up to serious inquiry?  What are serious grounds for the distinction of substance over style?  How do we know that lyrics are “substance” and tone/timbre is “style”?

(Are you interested in wading into this mess with me?)

I suspect it’s reductive to privilege the tools of rhythm and pitch (“songs”) over tone and production (“style”).  Let me amend; I’ll argue it *is* reductive, until we find solid ground for making the distinction.

And yet, with or without ground to stand on we’ll probably still care about Beethoven in 500 years, while Girl Talk (who is absolutely phenomenal at manipulating texture, timbre, and meta-level cultural associations) will be forgotten.  Why is that?  It appears that we value the manipulation of the more foundational elements of music, rhythm and pitch, over the secondary levels.  I think I can say “secondary,” because making music with rhythm and pitch is a necessary condition to making music out of tone and style.

Is that leading somewhere?

-h

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: Cory-Kibler@education.edu
To: howie@work.com

I think that this is leading somewhere!  I think we should keep talking about this.  As always, I’m approaching it with a “maybe I’ll say something right, maybe I won’t, so I’m just going to think thoughts and spit them out” attitude, rather than with a serious attitude, but I’m glad you’re interested seriously in finding out what the cool/good distinction is, what seperates them, whether they CAN be seperated, and which is more important.  I think there are necessary elements for music (what it takes to be a song and have a value of good or bad), and there are the extras(what it might take for a song to be cool or uncool), but I have no idea where to draw the line.  Obviously a few notes in a row with a relation to each other is necessary for music, but background crumhorn probably isn’t, I guess.  I guess it’s why pop music IS so popular (“Toxic” by Britney Spears DOES sound cool, and I think the music/beat might even be good) but there are some seriously good songs that no one seems to want to listen to on a mass scale because they don’t sound COOL.

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: howie@work.com
To: Cory-Kibler@education.edu

If I’m serious, it’s mostly because of self-interest; I want to make the best/coolest music I can!

Looking at my path so far is kind of illustrative, I think.  howie&scott v1.0 was all about rhythms, pitches, and lyrics – foundational-level stuff.  “Songs” trying to be “good” songs.  v1.1 went on to add the texture of electric guitars, a basic element of “cool.”  Tape/echoes attempts to up the catchiness factor, which falls under both substance and style I think.  Sally Ride pushes that farther, especially with It’s A Trap.

Now, Five Star Crush is attempting to maximize both categories, but actually prioritizes the “cool/style.”  I think our songs have good substance as well, but it HAS to sound cool to us.  And maybe as a reaction to that, You Have To Wear the Boots is relying completely, intentionally, on songs/substance.  There may be some cool sounds too, but they are only added to the best songs we can write.

I will have to look up the eight or so elements of sound the author of “Your Brain On Music” talks about – we might find a line between “core” (essential) and “secondary” (non-essential) aspects of the construct “song.”  Lyrics complicate things, but I think we can figure out something to say about them.  I think this way, we might be able to put together a reasonable defense of a distinction between “good/substance” and “cool/style” in terms of both description and value.

-h

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: howie@work.com
To: Cory-Kibler@education.edu

i looked at “Your Brain On Music”‘s discussion of the various aspects of
musical sound: tempo, rhythm, pitch, tone/timbre, reverberation, etc.  it
didn’t suggest to me a clear line between the substantiative and stylistic
elements of a song.

it did get me thinking back to “identity,” though, and i think a
resolution lies there.  whatever is essential to a song’s identity is
“substance.”  so, 84 layers of instruments in an Arcade Fire song is not
“substance,” because you could play the chords and melody of the song on a
piano and an average listener would recognize it as the *same* song.
however, if you changed the intervals of the melody, it would no longer be
the same song.

does that address our intuition adequately?  i think so – i think it makes
a clear enough distinction, so we can figure out what parts of a song are
substance and what parts are style.

is it sufficient grounds for a value judgment, that the substantial
elements carry more aesthetic weight than the stylistic elements?  the
words we’re using already tip us in that direction.  but i think it’s
deeper than that.  apply it to people; an decently moral citizen in dirty
sweatpants is still a better person than a mass murderer in a tuxedo.

???

-h

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: Cory-Kibler@education.edu
To: howie@work.com

I think you’re right; I think songs have a certain “thisness” that, if taken away, make it a different song.  I wonder if other things are like that?  I guess if you had a traveler mug for your coffee, and you took away its ability to actually contain coffee, it probably wouldn’t be a traveler mug anymore.  If you were to take a song and sing the same lyrics but change the music/melody, I’d argue that you’ve taken away one of the song’s essential properties, and so it’s not that song anymore, but just another song with the same lyrics as the first song.  I guess you could say the same thing if you took a song and changed up the lyrics ala Weird Al but kept the same music/melody; it’d be a different song also.

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: howie@work.com
To: Cory-Kibler@education.edu

Precisely!  Melody, lyrics, and harmonic structure are required for “same song” identification.  Some rhythms can, too (for example, the rhythm of the melodic line), but I think things like drum rhythms usually aren’t strictly necessary.

Weird Al is a great example.  Covers are, too; even where cover versions make changes, the changes have to be heard *in relation* to the original substance in order to make the proper identification.  I could change a chord or two (C to Am, for example) but I could not change every chord and the key and sing the original melody and qualify as an authentic version of the “same song.”

Is it OK if I edit this conversation and post it as this week’s MFR blog?

-h

Subject: RE: DUDE
From: Cory-Kibler@education.edu
To: howie@work.com

Dude, edit the crap outta this convo and blog the crap out of it!

Dude, I bought:  Arcade Fire, Fall Out Boy, The Hold Steady, and Joanna Newsom.  I’ve only listened to Arcade Fire so far, but it’s really good.  I recommend it.  I think it has more song-substance than their last.  And I think two good albums in a row helps convince me that their popularity/hype/success isn’t just a fluke.  But OMFG, these songs DO sound a ton like Bruce Springsteen!  If you get a chance, listen to both “Keep The Car Running” and “(Antichrist Television Blues)”.  “Keep The Car Running” is like the most Boss-like song that was ever written that the Boss didn’t actually pen himself.

Cory

4-Track

A couple weeks ago I purchased this little guy:

 

My 4-track

 

A Tascam Porta 02 MKII Portastudio.  I guess it’s very “porta.”

I did it because my MiniDisc recorder was giving out while 5*C was trying to record practice one night.  I’ve wanted one since I got the bug to record Tonight the Lone Wolf Rides… Alone about a year ago, so it seemed like a good excuse.

The first project done on it will be 5*C demos, which are planned for week-after-next.  We’re prepping “Black Machines,” “Transient,” “Ms. Trouble,” and “‘Love'” for the studio.

After that, Cory and I will be using it for Sally Ride’s upcoming You Have To Wear the Boots.  Sally Ride records are made with a self-imposed limitation.  For the first record, we had to 1) record only as many tracks as four guys could play live (so, only two guitars at any given time) and 2) make the drum beats from cut-up Shacker recordings.  On It’s A Trap, we used only drum sounds from my little keyboard, and no bass guitar (most of the low tones come from the organ parts).

On the third record, every song has to be based on a live take of the main guitar part and lead vocal part.  We can add anything we want after that, but the foundation is an unedited guitar/melody track recorded to my new MKII.  How fun is that?!  Should be cool.

Someday I’ll record a follow-up to …Alone too, with new songs and covers, but who knows when?  -h