Stormcellar Band Home Page

Calm descends, writing resumes, mixing continues

The guys, and Jo, have worked tremendously hard this year. Pretty much for the last 4 years solid.

It's time to take to the foreshores of Botany Bay, pitch a tent, careen the vessel and scrape the barnacles off whilst drinking rum.

Except without Rum, Ship or Barnacles. But it's a nice metaphor.

We've been busy as the year winds down.

Adding the songs from KC Gold and SC9 to the live show has been completed. Rearranging and rejigging the sets has been attempted, tested and will be attempted again.

Mix notes on SC9 have been arrived at and now we begin the process of selecting a starting track to commence mixing. We knocked out another video and finished the pilot of our project to help some of our muso mates.

With all that done, with time off for everyone except the Rhythm Section, who just won't quit (lol), we're free to take our leisure by working on new material.

Yeah i know it sounds like you work to work, but getting to do the actual creative part is the bonus you get for all the others bits :-) #selfpropelledartist

Songs have been stockpiled whilst we've been busy. There's both inspirationally acquired and the intellectually desired.

I've got a real ping on for working on new songs for Jo, writing to spec, but there's plenty of other unexpected stuff too. This is the fun bit.

I've been game enough to propose some of the more out there ideas that have come my way of late.

Mr Wizard remains unconvinced :-)

Don't worry, plenty more where that came from!

I've set a goal of writing 6 songs for Jo, plus we're working on ideas from the backlog. Ahhhh...so relaxing.

BTW if you notice a general theme of Calm and Lowering Anxiety of late, yep, that's my thing right now.

We're going to be doing that a bit for the time being, because we have gratitude for the blessings we collectively find in the work we do.

Come by when you need some time out of the storm.

Frying cheese equals mixing start, or band meeting, or just a good sandwich

Haloumi!

Yes its a fryable cheese and makes for regular band sandwiches.

Band sandwiches are a vital part of our job.

Y'see, trying to get dinner arranged for 5 men with different opinions can be the most difficult thing about a mixing discussion/band meeting and may take longer than the actual meeting.

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I am not above resorting to Mediterranean style cheeses and Sourdough.

With sandwich made, we reviewed the new album, made notes, some of which are contradictory, listened again, went back and forth and finally typed it all up.

Where our opinions co-incide, it's easy. Where we disagree, it's fun!

Ah yes, seeking uniform opinion is not our goal.

We have operated under a pirate ship charter since we first took to the high seas in search of booty. Sea booty.

heh.

Mr Wizard once quoted an artist saying 'it's the spaces what rock' and I've extrapolated that out to 'it's the tensions what drive the band'. We don't suppress dissent, we revel in it.

I read, some time back, in New Scientist (shout out to my Nerds!) that confronting small issues immediately prevents them becoming bigger issues later. Learning how to disagree and to argue your point without throwing your nice fresh Haloumi sandwich is a big deal. For one, if you mess with my sandwich, I won't make you another one.

I am repeatedly surprised when the other chaps embrace ideas that I think may be a little 'out there'. To be fair, that's a smaller subset of the Out There ideas that I may put forward.

There's a great deal of synchronicity as I tally up the notes from each person. It's nice. There's a wavelength and a vibe, not a perfect answer. On this voyage we have also invited our fellow gentleman of the coast, AJ, to add his vote.

We have several months of fix, mix, review, edit, discuss, change, revert, and potentially several sandwiches/side salads ahead of us as we mix our ninth album.

Good times :-)

Kansas City Gold continues to pick up airplay in Aus and The US

Shout outs to Smokestack Lightnin', Mad-dog on WITR in New York , Dana at WCNI in Connecticut, and Nick at WVKR in Poughkeepsie NY.

SC9 Desk mixes V2 in

Hey there, thanks for stopping by.

I've been listening to the glorious sax of Mr Rob Dixon on Heavy Weather. Ah.

We have the desk mixes (version 2) that now contains all the instrumentation we planned on.

Mr Wizard cautioned me years ago against 'Demo Love', falling in love with the first take/desk mix before having a chance to let the piece mature and get mixed properly.

How'd that work out for you?

Yeah.

I'm having some issues with the vocals on Chase the Dragon. I liked the first, flawed, guide track take. The master take we've used had better technique, but less colour. Bugger. I've already been through this process with AJ and we picked the current master track over the original guide after much review.

Now I've changed my mind again. Oh noes.

With the revised desk mixes in, it's once again time to take the mix away, listen and make notes.

These secondary mixes have now got harmonies, choruses and the solo's added.

Now it's about refining, and often that means removing things rather than adding.

Unless someone has a bright idea.

Then there's the problem of having too many bright ideas. Adding too much stuff.

The discussions, arguments and back and forth is part of the fun and makes ongoing blog fodder.

There's no rush to release, we're dropping stuff out at a rate of an album a year at the moment and I guess i shouldn't mention that we're cooking up another batch right now.

I'd expect to see SC9 out sometime Q2 2017 but the songs are in the set so there you go.

Listening to Jo sing right now. Ahh. I like this bit. got to run. I wanna make some notes.

:-)

The Last Gig in Sydney Pilot Episode from your friends in the stormcellar

SLIGHTLY NSFW (not suitable for work), a bit of swearing, you know how polite we are here normally.

Anyway, I got sick of hearing the same stuff from all the muso's about how hard it is to get a gig. IT IS HARD. For true.

But the world moves , and we with it.

There is some top aussie talent right in your backyard. Allan, Eli, Jim, Mick, all of them, they're all naturals. Bloody hard to get all in the same place at the same time, but they took to this story like fish to umbrellas.

This project is giving a few of them a chance to get some exposure and me a chance to be a harmonica ninja.

If you combined the elements of spinal tap, Cheech and Chong and Houso's and you've got - The Last Gig in Sydney, courtesy of your friends in the stormcellar and their friends in the Sydney scene. This is what we do when no one's looking.