Sunday, June 28, 2009

Recording with Mr. Sears

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Yesterday we spent much of the day recording three new songs with our good pal, John Sears. Since he was my roommate when I was in law school, I’m pretty familiar with his methods / madness. Basically, in exchange for a six pack (and nothing else), Mr. Sears will come to a place of your choosing and record your band on his digital 8-track machine.

He usually records between three and six songs. Later, he’ll spend half an hour mixing it down before burning it to CD, which he will hand off to you at a local bar. Where everyone will enjoy a few more beers.

Having just recorded our songs yesterday, we haven’t yet heard the final product. But we’re totally excited to share the songs with you.

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In other news, we’re trying to get our act together with respect to our various social network profiles. We’re on quite a few different sites, and we’d like to once again use these powers for good.

If you are on the Twitter | Facebook | Blogger etc., you should shake our virtual hand. I promise I’ll be updating these places a lot more often with news of our goings on. If nothing’s going on (highly likely) maybe I’ll just share a few stray observations. Rest assured, you’ll want to know about it.

See you around.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

He plays guitar like a robot

That’s not necessarily true, but it’s a great title for Ben Murphy’s new cassette-only label. The Houston Press, who (lucky for us) seem to adore all things BDM-related have the scoop on our guitarist’s new side project.

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Friday, January 09, 2009

Finally recording again. Yay!

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We had an abortive start several months ago, but this weekend we’re finally starting our third record (counting our earlier CD, when we were called Chasmatic). We’re recording with my wife’s brother Jonas Wilson, who is an enormously gifted musician, producer, and engineer. We’re very, very excited.

The photo above includes a lot of the songs we’re recording. I took a picture at the space last night so I could make a list at home. With that all done, I’m about to leave for Austin.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Friday night at Rudz, we bring the Dad Rock.

We’ve got a small feature in this week’s Houston Press promoting our show at Rudyard’s this Friday night. It should hit the stands Wednesday, but you can read it right now online.

We’re pretty excited to be playing with our pals in Fired for Walking. It’s their CD release party, and they’re excited as hell.

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Here are the details:

FRIDAY, September 26
Rudyard’s (1020 Waugh)
$5.00
Mr. Castillo (d.j.) - 9 p.m. and all night
Novox – 10 pm
Bright Men of Learning - 11 pm
Fired for Walking - 12 pm

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Playing this Sunday at a “decent hour”

About a month ago we played at the Mink for the first time, and now we’re starting to make it a habit. First, I played a short set of Rod Stewart covers. Now, this Sunday, we’ll be throwing down with O Pioneers! and a couple of great bands who are visiting from Ohio.

The best part? This show actually starts kinda early. How does 8:30 p.m. sound? Perfect, right?

So you should totally come. Here are the details:

SUN / AUG 17
@ THE MINK
3718 Main Street
HOUSTON, TX
GHOST TOWN TRIO
TIN ARMOR
O PIONEERS!!!
BRIGHT MEN OF LEARNING
8PM $6

Friday, July 18, 2008

Custom Drinker as Rod Stewart? Who?

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So yeah, Twotenanny: Hootenanny Part Deux is going down next weekend. I’ll be playing some Rod Stewart songs (with Ryan Hull from BBTG helping me out), and there are a lot of other swell bands participating as well. This video gives but a hint of the awesomeness to come.

You’ll notice that every other band listed has a snippet of their music associated with their mention. Not me. As Custom Drinker, I demanded that ADR substitute my voice with crickets. He complied when I was late getting an mp3 to him.

If, in fact, you’ve never heard of Custom Drinker, HE is ME. I used to play solo shows under that name, and I wrote and performed a litany of sad bastard musics for electric and acoustic guitarz. Someone had the bright idea that I’d be great covering a bunch of Rod Stewart songs (her name rhymes with Mary Curphy), and so that’s what I’ll be doing on Saturday July 26 at the Mink.

To hear what I really sound like, I suggest you check out my online-only album, Instant Messages (here’s a link to new zipfile).

Monday, June 16, 2008

My favorite Tom Waits song?

The now-former Houston Press music editor John Nova Lomax asked me this question via Facebook the other day. He also posed the question to “tons of [other] local and national music figures” including people like Jesse Dayton, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Sadoff, Arthur Yoria, and (my favorite) former Houston Press music scribe Claudia Perry.

Here are all the answers he got, including mine:

Marshall Preddy, performer (Bright Men of Learning):

"Cold, Cold Ground" slays me; the skeletal live version in particular. On Frank’s Wild Years the production is too goofy and sly. But on a few live versions I've heard, Waits is deadly sad and serious. And lonesome. The structure of this song always reminds me of Leonard Cohen, and maybe that's why it sends me into sad-bastard heaven.

Sadly, the YouTube link he used for my entry didn’t work. :(