Last night I played at The Coffee Hag in Mankato with Laura Schultz from Goodnight Gold Dust and Fox News Mankato came out and did a little interview and filmed some from my set. You can watch the clip here:
Top story on Fox News
Upcoming Ohio dates and Scene magazine!
I’m in the Buckeye state! That’s Ohio for all of you who are not familiar with this somewhat weird nick name. I actually had to look up what it means and here’s what I found out. Not only did the state have a lot of Buckeye trees but William Henry Harrison who ran for president in 1840 used a log cabin made out of buckeye wood his trademark and the name of the tree itself comes from the markings on the nut that resembles the eye of a buck, the Indians called it “hetuck” or “buckeye.” So that’s today’s history lession for you. Now, let’s focus on what’s yet to come!
I’m doing a bunch of gigs here in the Buckeye state and I hope to see you there of course! Here’s all upcoming Ohio dates:
Monday, 07/09 Cleveland, OH Barking Spider Tavern
Wednesday, 07/11 Akron, OH Acoustix Cafe
Thursday, 07/12 Akron, OH Annabells Bar and Lounge
Friday, 07/13 Columbus, OH Woodland Tavern
Tuesday, 07/17 Cincinnati, OH Sitwell’s Coffee House
Wednesday, 07/18 Cincinnati, OH Mayday Northside
Thursday, 07/19 Dayton, OH South Park Tavern
For times and ticket links please visit my gig page here!
Cleveland’s Scene Magazine hooked up with me a while ago to pick my brains about the gigs here in Cleveland and you can read all about it here!
Driving’ & Dreaming Episode #6
The New York episode of Drivin’ & Dreaming TV is finally up. Come with me to the museum of National History, check out the 100th gig on the tour and hear what NYC cab drivers have to say about capitalism. This is the best way for you to follow me on tour and see all the behind the scene things that’s going on every day.
Did you miss any of the previous episodes? You can watch them all here!
You can see pictures from all my shows on my Facebook page here!
As usual all music in the episode can be found here! Help me keep the “Drivin’ & Dreaming Tour” on the road. Donate Gas, Food and Beer – Click this link and follow the instructions http://pic.twitter.com/7dEothYK
RV Design Magazine ;)
It’s been almost three months and it’s about time I post the before and after pics of the RV. It might show that I’ve got a history being Art Director for an Interior Magazine… haha.
As you know we bought this old beauty in FL in November to become our home for the next two years. Naturally we weren’t keen on keeping the turqouise carpet. And when pulling off the old pinkish wallpaper a whole bunch of waterleaks apperad as well. But most of it has been taken care of now. We spent two weeks rippng everything out and putting in new floors, wallpaper, tile, the lot. And here’s how it looks now. For info about each and every photo click “show info” on top right side of the page. And if you don’t want see this as a photo slide you can click here to view the images in your own pace.
Interview with Akribi
Soon the last part of H.A.T.E will be released by Swedish metal band Akribi. We managed to keep them still for a few minutes to ask them some questions about the meaning of life and metal…
Hi Akribi! You guys are doing “E – Part Four of H.A.T.E”. How has the experience been so far?
Definitely different. We’re not at all used to interpreting other musician’s materials, nor working with such tight deadlines, but it’s been a very fun and rewarding experience so far.
Great! Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
We’re a female-fronted progressive metal band based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The band started out back in 2003, based on the idea of playing ambitious metal with strong songwriting. It’s an ideal that has remained intact through countless lineup changes over the years. As a consequence of this, we like to work with a slightly expanded palette of scales, chords and time signatures in our music. Oh, and let’s just get one very common misconception out of the way… “female-fronted” in this case does not mean “gothic” or “operatic”.
Just like Badmouth you’re releasing this EP only a few months after your
album release. Are you always this productive?
Given the right circumstances, sure. As hinted above, the band has had a bit of a rough history with lineup changes and whatnot. We have begun writing the next album and it’s going surprisingly fast so maybe we’ve learnt a thing or two about efficiency.
Did you think it was hard to interpret Sofia’s songs into your own style or did you get ideas straight away?
We decided to transcribe the chords and scales that Sofia used. After we had done that we stopped listening to Sofia’s versions and began working. We sent note sheets with ideas to each other; “Could this be something?”, “Would this passage sound better if we changed scales to Lydian?”, “What happens if we add this chord there?” and so on and then we tried playing the ideas. We changed a lot, added riffs and details to make it more Akribi. It took us about a month and then we recorded it, sent it to our mixing guys in Brazil and voilà.
Which of the songs are you most pleased with and why?
It’s difficult to pick a song. It sounds weird but when you live with a song in the intense way that’s required for writing and recording it it sort of becomes your baby. The song we play the most often nowadays is The Garden. The guitar solos are great and Alexander gets to play his Chapman Stick and that always makes him happy. Our songs are usually pretty long and that makes set lists tricky to do so it’s good to have a shorter-than-four-minutes-song up our sleeve.
What’s your favorite gig memory?
That must be the first time we were on stage and the audience sang along with our song Carry the Rain. It’s an incredible feeling. But if you’re looking for an awkward anecdote it must be when the guards didn’t let our drummer back into the building after a sound check. He tried to convince them that he was in the band but the guards told him “yeah right, that’s what everybody says”. The rest of us were backstage ready to go on stage not knowing where he was.
Can you tell us a little bit about the recording sessions and what was most fun with being a part of this project?
Well, the recording workflow was the same that we always follow. When we’ve written the chord progressions, melodies and overall structure of a song, we record (or in this particular case, program) a drum track and have everyone record their parts individually to that. All recordings are then assembled in a sequencer and a rough pre-mix is done. Feedback is sent out, obscene words are exchanged, and adjustments are made. When everyone is sufficiently satisfied, the tracks are sent away for mixing. The most interesting and fun part of this project was that is was far out of the realm of what we usually do. Apart from on a few auditions, we don’t play or record external material. Oh, and we finally got to put a growling part in a song, courtesy of Rafael Basso of “Unlit Face”.
What’s next on the agenda for Akribi this winter?
In October we got a new drummer and we’re in the process of getting to know each other musically and he’s learning all our songs. Parallel to this we’re in contact with booking agents and promoters around Europe. Music is always better live and life on stage is great so we’ll play live as much as possible.
If you would record a Christmas metal album, which three songs would be on your list?
Hey, we’re a metal band! We don’t do Christian things 😉
Thanks for hanging out! We look forward to hearing the songs 🙂
Listen and pre order E – Part Four of H.A.T.E by Akribi here! You’ll get an instant download of one of the songs! The EP will be released December 1st.
Listen to all the EPs of the L.O.V.E vs H.A.T.E saga here:
