Thanks for Listening!

Thanks for listening!

I randomly looked at the stats for this page and I was like…wait a minute, someone may actually be reading this! So, I just wanted to make sure to say thanks for listening to the music. I’ve been writing songs for an eternity and it really means alot to me that someone out there is actually taking to the time to hear this material. Special thanks to Coda and Klayton for the recent support and interest!

I’m trying to get something decent recorded before the end of the summer. I go back to grad school in September and then I will be in educational servitude for another year. So….I’ve got 6 songs ready to record:

Who Bought The Sun
Death Woke On Saturday (Vulture of Man)
Moon Heard from Sun
Mesa Town
Hey My My
Hail Mary

Then I’ve got 2 that I’ve been messing with for a few weeks but still need a bit of work:
News from Saturn
Wait a Minute (working title)

Then I have to really kick my rear and get two more down so I can feel like I’ve created something that has at least 10 songs haha!

But I requested a week off from work (starting on August 10th) and hopefully that will be enough time to record everything. The arrangement should be pretty modest. Some minor percussion, bass, maybe a little keyboard or something to spice it up. I guess it depends on the time allotment. I feel pretty good with the crazy shaker action that I recorded with the first version of Death Woke On Saturday so I might just try to re-create that recording but with a cajon.  If…er..WHEN I finish it, it should be the 6th recorded body of work I’ve done.

The last 5 have been:

All Alone in Public Places
Pin Jacket Romance
When Will You Come Home
Roma
Trinity

This isn’t counting about 40+ songs that I recorded as weird little demos  and quasi completed ideas that never made it anywhere. And that isn’t counting the 100s of even sparser ideas that never made it in front of a microphone. I took my previous recordings offline because I felt the quality was just too subpar. I’ll always love the songs, but the recording quality makes them almost painful to listen to. And sometimes the performance as well haha! Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good about this new batch! But really I just wanted to say thanks for listening.

Oh yeah! And my friend Marcus looks like he is working on recording an album as well! So checkout

http://marcuseugene.blogspot.com/

for new info.

Also, the old duo of Steven Smith and Klayton Tietjen sound like they’re working on something awesome! But I don’t know what it is yet *sigh*. Still, I’m excited. Awesomeness is on the horizon.

Best of luck out there-
Richard

New Song: Death Woke On Saturday (Vulture of Man)

Okay, so I've been up to a little recording this week. There's a new song I wrote that I kind of like and I also have been experimenting with these new R144 Ribbon Microphones from MXL. Anyway, the ribbons have this cool figure 8 pattern that allows me to more or less play live while isolating each track! Which is pretty dang awesome. However, I'm not so sure I like the sound of the microphone as much for my style of acoustic playing. For example, compare the sound of the guitar in the Death Woke On Saturday Demo and the one in the song Caligula. Caligula was recorded one track at a time using the condenser mics on my Zoom H4 This is also totally different than the guitar used in the Who Bought The Sun song which is essentially a direct feed from an acoustic-electric. Not too shabby of a sound but I had to play with just my thumb on that one in order to avoid these horrible sharp sounds (well I don't like them at least) that I get when recording while playing with a pick. Anyway, all that being said I do like the new tune and I even got to use this cajone-bongo thing I got. Although I'm pretty terrible with it so it's buried in the mix under the shaker lol. New song is at Reverb Nation:

Email newsletters for bands at ReverbNation.com

Who Bought The Sun Demo

I’m procrastinating a research project. What better way to do that then to upload a song I’ve been messing with? As usual, my mixing and recording abilities are a bit sub par. Despite that, I still like this one so I thought I would upload it. Shazam!

Lyrics:

Well it’s not like I can complain.
Shiver red, Cold Blue to Green Again.
Words are hollow. Sound is close but, now as ever, truth escapes.

Gripping water, trying harder

struggle effort effort effort  effort effort effort end.

Who bought the sun yeah and who gets the rain?
Did you trade time for somewhere in space?
And who’s got a deal on the stars these days?

Watercolors
Bells and Hollers
Oil and Six and Simple
Strings

Jewels and eyelash
Makeup powders

Never rich but always vain

I don't know but
see the clouds?

Yeah?
Where's the effort effort effort effort effort effort yeah?

Who bought the sun yeah and who gets the rain?
Did you trade time for somewhere in space?
And who’s got a deal on the stars these days?

 

I'm not dead...I'm in grad school

I just wanted to say that I'm not dead. I'm just in grad school. Which is like a kind of death lol. Forty hour work week + full time grad school = near zero creative output. On the bright side, I only have 3 more semesters! YEAHHH!!! I never stopped writing but the oodles of half written songs and halfhearted guitar licks are starting to scare me. Anyway, just wanted to stop by and verify that I haven't been mauled to death by rapid antelope. All the best- Richard

Marcus Posted Music!!!!

My good friend Marcus posted some of his AMAZING stuff online! I can't wait for the final recordings.

Come on man!

Anyway, if anyone wants to check out his stuff, they can do themselves a favor by going to:

http://cllct.com/release/homerecordingsfirstdrafts

Click it. Now.

-Richard

Blogo Chango

The old background for this page kept displaying an error. So I changed it! Mwhahahahaha! Things have been going pretty great as of late. I've been playing everyday, messing around with Logic 8 and generally having a fun time.

A few artistic friends of mine have been pretty encouraging and I think I'm finally getting a proper perspective on all this stuff. I've been listening to a lot of Chuck Berry and Stacey has got me into the band Brown Bird. Brilliance!

Here's some linkage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoqH9irCn3o

Also, my friend Marcus keeps taunting me with recording some of his fantastic stuff. He's new to Pro Tools but I'm sure he'll get the hang of it in no time. Anyway, now off to listen to more Brown Bird.

-Richard

New "Trinity" EP

Sweetness! Well, I thought I would post these things online before they got lost in the morass of my hard drive lol. Behold! The “Trinity” EP…oooh ahhh…..

Album can be found at:

http://cllct.com/release/trinity0

Just for the record...the Reverb Nation Player (to the right) is playing the songs at a lower bit rate (128k) instead of what's at CLLCT.


Thanks for listening-
Richard