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Freezing on getting the instrumental album out and Greenhouse 3 'meh' thinning

Ok so the robots work well for generating new stuff, but matching songs from multiple mixing and mastering engineers from 16 years worth of work?

Dion sent me a video. I am yet to watch it. I did all the stuff that I knew to do and...levels between the songs are still ...well...i might actually be sort of ok but I am kinda freaked out by it and to master a 20 song compilation right means listening to it over and over aaaand...ok so yeah I am a little concerned. God bless but we're not up for springing for the dough to get someone else to it for us. COVID etc meant low revenue times.

Soo...it's gotta be me (for now) and I think my last proper attempt at it was 4 weeks ago. Ok. i wanna get this done before our trip out west thats an excellent deadline, as ya know what, it sounds pretty nice.

My target is to start playing the album and not to have to touch the volume control, matching acoustics/electric instrument tracks is requiring more learning on my part. Oh the joys of growth.

I posted a sample on the patreon thing but it's way not ready for release. It'd be nice to have it for next week tho.

Meanwhile, Mr Wizard confused Greenhouse 3 with Greenhouse 2 because between listens, some of the songs we moved into 3 were 'meh' which is why they havent emerged yet. Ah! But one of Mr Wizard's other aphorisms, songs develop from Meh to Yeah! during play and production has already been proven to my opinion-changing-satisfaction. Soothesayer for example was a fleeping zombie fleeping song that WOULD NOT DIE!!! Just would not die. I tried to get out but it kept dragging me back. And it's a fave now :)

My Kung-Fu level of file management has meant we have been able to carry the seeds of ideas until they blossomed, like 'Brave with your heart' for example which took multiple approaches and I think almost 7 years to crystallise. Whenever we were jamming or travelling it was easy to grab the phone and capture stuff.

The Fix Is In which is a rebuild from 2017 that didn't make it to Rogue State is now actually right for the times, it's waiting on some last instrumentation. Psychedelic Surfer (guide track on patreon) is in production for a re-recording and there are 2 other newies that will fall in line shortly thereafter.

I think we're heading for 4 releasable tracks in the next little while so we are more or less on cycle for an "album's" worth this year, sort of, as I am not sure these are album, EP. singles or...I just dunno.

Since necessity dictated that we bring production mostly 'in house' it has influenced output styles and approaches. I'm totally ok with it because it feels like appropriate creative growth while maintaining the core of what we do - make what we can, when we can. I really think we embraced the 21st century options for making music.

We're in a way a period spanning band simply cos we're in C21 straight outta C20, represent!

Same time, Freedom is scary and not for the unwary ;) A certain God Fearing approach is wise.

Listening to that small voice in your head is our job and what we do comes about for its own reasons and perhaps purpose. I think it's more stewardship that ownership. We have been remarkably fortunate to find so much freedom to become ourselves, shh don't tell anyone. It's been nice out here on the perimeter, to borrow from the lizard king, stone, immaculate, amongst the stars.

If I had my druthers, i'd be glad to crank out a coupla vids as well. Plus the Stormcellar screenplay. I am testing the idea of telling our story as a band the way I did with Mallee Boy last year. It's cos I watched those Beatles cartoons as a kid, I am sure of it.

Baaarrrthoollllemeewwwww.

Meanwhile we're trying to get the backlog from COVID into the live show. Tracks from 'Sweet Grace of Mercy' and 'Signposts'.

If possible, I'll also film a buncha stuff while we're on the road for the mini tour.

Stay tuned, much happening, if you'd like to support us join our patreon and get all the work in progress for this year, plus some albums of your choice.

patreon.com/Stormcellar375

Mini tour, production flow and VALE Henry

Where's Henry? We would ask. The lights needed turning on. The sound desk needed knob twiddling.

Henry popped outside for a smoke, we expect we’ll see him at some point, when we all jam at the great gig in the sky.

Mini tour in 10 days. Much happiness. It’s the real stuff. Travelling feels like playing hookey.

Might get some multimedia capture going.

God bless the chaps for some new songs from the back catalogue omg. It’s a real bugger to try and figure out what to play when you like a lot of songs.

There are some from Rogue State, Signposts and Sweet Grace of Mercy that haven’t really come out to play yet. I am looking forward to seeing some of them emerge.

Production flowing at a positive rate – tide comes in, tide goes out.

Since Jan when we released Basilisk, we have put out 3 singles, waiting for bob, morning flame and two week millionaire.

According to my production spreadsheet we’re tracking around 50 songs. That’s why we started greenhouse 3, to further winnow stuff out and to encourage new growth.

We have a lot of ‘Ballad’ type songs on the list which is why they are left to grow for a while. Sometimes you want a little more upbeat stuff so it is a blending job as well.

I am expecting at least two songs to come out pretty soon tho – and I just don’t know yet if it’s Album’s or EP’s this year, the variation on theme seems pretty…um….errr…well…they’re all their own thing so who knows at this point.

It’s organic growth. Slightly irregular, in its own time, and just right.

For Patreon supporters I shared a close-to-useable-but-not-quite guide track for ‘Psychedelic Surfer’. I was hoping to be working on that today but the guys needed to take a raincheck on it.

I’m also having fun with STORMCELLAR: the Movie, although I guess it will be Stormcellar: The Manga ;P

It's coming up on a year since I did Mallee Boy, using the generative robots to storyboard it. Why not do it with our our myths? Hmm.

Good times in the stormcellar 😊 stay tuned.

stormcellar at miss celies, ashfield, sat 8 june

Stormcellar at the Peanut butter...oops...i mean Pyrmont Bridge Hotel, Sunday 2nd june

Development tracks from greenhouse project 3 available to patrons of the band

Wanna support the band, well we've sold out. Yeah. If no one's buying can we sell out?

After a long time resisting we've joined the subscriuption thing i mean god help us but anyway.

Once again, it's another experiment. 2024 seems to be the year of sharing.

So join us on Patreon to get the guide tracks! as well as Development tracks! Front row seat to the madness as it blossoms.

Become a subscribed cellar dweller! Do what you were doing anyway but give us money. Brilliant. boomshanka!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/first-guide-from-104847050?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

From Patreon:

Ok so I NEVER share this stage of making the song outside the band. This is sort of stage 2.

Stage 1 was the idea, capturing it on my phone. This is an idea from some time back. These things take time to mature.
Soooo this is super super super early and as a patron of the band you're gonna get to see this one go through the full run of stages - from guide track, to recorded track, to mixed track, to released track. As promised, when I start to share, you get it too, just like the cellar fellers do, with 1 exception - I won't share the raw first guides, it'd be like offering uncooked foodstuffs. tasting along the way is fine but let's not do the ick. lol.

Ok so - here we are with a 'guide track - Stage 2 is where I have enough lyric and basic stuff to put it into 'the machine' as we call it.

This is the stage at which we give it to the other players and say heeyyyyy what about this?

Now some reminders - things change a lot.
Things take longer than we expect

Things take less time than we expect
We really arent sure what to expect, that's why it's so much fun.

Lyrics change, melody changes, new parts, new stuff.

So - no complaining when you get demo love. As a Patron, you call always listen to the early demo's or maybe even get your own mix :)

this one will have to be recorded again from scratch which is a risk, cos capturing the energy is tricky, but that's the job. If the song's good enough it'll make it.

I am glad to see that there is a fine crop coming up in greenhouse 3, I expect a few more, in their own time, at their own rate.

greenhouse 3 divergent sandbox and other things.

This instrumental thing is taking some time. Learning curve. Practise curve.

Like a community college pottery course, some early works may be a little lopsided.

It’s been fun though and I have many nice things to say about it, which I will save until the marketing department needs some copy.

While searching through the back catalogue for instrumentals and unreleased stuff I took the opportunity to go through the guide tracks directory and pulled some stuff out.

Adding that to the existing greenhouses, Greenhouse 1 from Jan 2022 which yielded Basilisk, and Greenhouse 2 from Jan 2024 that has yielded some singles, we had a few sessions of reviewing it and consolidating it into Greenhouse 3 – Divergent Sandbox.

Rather than shy away from the variations in styles, we’re simply letting them build up and then they can go to one of a few different projects, which we defined by album concept names:

Untitled Sturmkeller album
‘Weather on other planets’
‘juggernaut’
‘An album named Bob’
‘bucket of blues’
‘café mikey’

Which of these gets finished is…to be discovered. They’re landmarks of thought rather than plans 😊

On very much the plus side though, we’re back at it. A little organization seems to be just the ticket.

No new guides to share yet for our Patreons, but getting close. There’s no hurry but it’s always nice to get a good vibe from the now.

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