Win a Dream Date with Dethtron

“Who-so shal telle a tale after a man,

He moot reherce, as ny as ever he can,

Everich a word, if it be in his charge,

Al speke he never so rudelich and large;

or elles he moot telle his tale untrewe”

-Chaucer

Since contests are so de rigueur at the moment I thought I’d not hold one.  Bet that title made you think there was one, though.  I did want to announce, however, that under certain circumstances you may be able to meet me in person in the relatively near future- which will require only a minimal capital investment on your part*.  That’s right, I’m leaving the basement to come out and meet and greet the public. (more…)

Rock Out with Your Facebook Out

Hoagy and my band, Crusader now has a BandPage on Facebook.  Go there to stream 2 tracks off of our forthcoming EP, Rise of the Templars.  While you’re there don’t forget to like our page to be kept abreast of album release info, remixes (coming soon and free!), and upcoming shows.

For everybody out there in a band, go get BandPage for your own Facebook account.  It’s nice to finally have a music player available.  You can set it up for any combination of free/paid download and streaming, so yipee!  Yet another nail in the My[___] coffin.

Also, if I took Dick Move to Facebook, would anybody out there care?

Rock and Roll Diary- Behind the Music

Ever wanted to see what happens behind the scenes in a studio?  Curious to see video footage of me staring off into space, refusing to talk, and being in a generally bad mood?  Wondering where the fuck Crusaders’ ‘Rise of the Templars’ EP that was supposed to be out in December is at?  Fear not answers to all of those questions and more can be found in this making of Rockumentary!  Well except for the bit about the album release.  It’ll be out soon folks, we’re just trying to secure some funding after blowing our recording budget.

Also of note in this video is the one and only Hoagy of When Cannons Fade on vokills!  Enjoy the movie folks- details on the digital and physical release will be forthcoming, along with a special edition DVD featuring me being unknowingly recorded talking about picking up prostitutes by mistake.

Rock and Roll Diary- The EP is mastered and ready for print

Last night we wrapped on recording the Rise of the Templars Ep for Hoagy and my band, Crusader.  Unlike most of the days I’ve spent in the studio, I didn’t snap any pics and upload them here.  We were basically just adding synths, mixing, and mastering the 4 tracks, so I can assure you that it wasn’t so exciting.  No midget porn, strange donut frosting incidents, large body/regular sized guitar hijinks, or any of that- just 4 dudes sitting around a mixing board with my trusty MIDI controller in tow.  Trust me, as exciting as it was to hear the finished songs for the first time, it would only have ended in a “you had to be there” scenario. 

Other than being about 20 hours over budget, I have no real regrets about this recording session for the first time ever.  I think being a loud mouth jerk on the Internet has helped me to be more vocal about how I want things to sound.  It might be weird for a drummer to be so involved in the overall process, but I like what I do and I want that to come through in harmony with the rest of the band.  I’ve got to give it to the whole group, I think everyone was in top form. 

I was hoping to have more versions of 2 of the songs, showing how a track is built in the studio- from scratch tracks and demos all the way to the finished product.  Sadly, that would have eaten up a lot of expensive studio time that was already running very thin.  It’s too bad, as I set out on this endeavor originall to let you all share in the experience of hearing something come together, but I guess it wasn’t to be.  Regardless, I’ll re-post the original scratch tracks for 2 songs that I’ve put up previously set against the final versions from last night.  That should give you some idea of what a little spit and polish will do to a track.  Enjoy.

Here is the scratch version of track number one (labled as #3 for some reason)- the title track “Rise of the Templars”

03 rise of the templars unmixed by dethtron

…..and here is the final version

01 Rise of the Templars by dethtron

Now for track number 3, Asgard’s Fire, formerly known simply as the Viking song. I’m glad it finally found a name. This is the original scratch track

04 untitled unmixed viking shenaniga by dethtron

……and here is the final version. You may find that it ends a little abruptly, but it bleeds over into the next song, so it makes more sense in the context of the album.

03 Asgard’s Fire by dethtron

That’s it.  Enjoy these while they’re up; I will be taking the tracks off of Soundcloud in a while, but all of this should be on disc and iTunes by early December.  Feel free to comment, but if it’s about Hoagy’s voice sounding nasal, I think you might be smoking crack.  I’ve got 4 other bandmates and a very experienced recording engineer that will all disagree with you.

Rock and Roll Diary: Iron Forge

You can almost taste the maple shells and gold hardware- would you believe this kit’s 14 years old?

I was planning on returning to writing about gaming today (I still might later), but Hoagy just sent me another test mix 12 minutes ago- I’ve now listened to the song 3 times, so that’s how I know so specifically . Apparently he finished up his vocal takes last night under the radar. 

Unlike the last “finished” song I posted, this sounds a lot more like the rest of our material.  “Engine face,” previously posted, was written in the very early days of the group, so we’re probably retiring it soon.  It’s fun as shit to play, though, so we wanted to record it for fun and posterity’s sake. It will not be making it onto the full length album, sadly.

Anyway, here is the test mix of “Iron Forge” including the controversial new chorus*.

Iron Forge by dethtron

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*for an early demo featuring the original chorus, check this shit out, recorded 6 bass players ago when we were a 4 piece with a different name….

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