with the sounds of sounds!
we would like to thank the following songs for getting us thru the hottest run of the year:
ballon man-hitchcock
best way-jazz butcher
breathless-nick cave
guns of brixton-jimmy cliff
call me-reigning sound
bank account, cheap thrill-teenanger
dadada-trio
earthquakey ppl-steve aoki
get ready for love-nick cave
im not down-the only band that matters
kill your tv-ned
equinox-skrillex
jesus bulit my hotrod- ministry
lose this skin-the only band that matters
its crazy, we know. slowly but surely (call me slowly but don’t call me shirley- RIP Leslie Neilson) the training wheels are coming off this bass playing thing.
we started learning the bass during the summer of 09. ever since our first onstage gig back in july 2010, we’ve always had a few sheets of paper up there on stage with us with various notes and scribbles in case we lost our way or forgot how something went in the heat of the moment. a backup more or less. just in case. the sheets were becoming the norm and one day it dawned on us that it didn’t “have to be” this way any longer.
ever since the local lads went and did 4 songs at an open stage, we’ve gone sheetless on stage. that night (it was just 4 songs was the thinking), we just reviewed what we needed to know before going on and just went up there and played our heart out. sure, we made a few mistakes but we were making the same amount of mistakes onstage with the paper with us as well. well worth the trade off of looking like we didn’t know the songs and having the associated clutter onstage.
that night was just 4 songs. last friday with TooNice was our new cd (12 songs) plus entire set of covers (another 12 songs) without sheets. tonight with the sweats, marks another 12 songs and misc. backup vox and also lead vox (for 2 of the 12) without sheets. sure, there were a few rough spots over the weekend and there may well be tonight but darling, the training wheels are off and we like it. we really, really like it!
btw, that was “sheetless” and not “shirtless” on stage! 
yup, those be our sheets at an august gig on the power mixer
so 2 days after our first ever recording session avec les sweats, we were off to record basslines with TOONICE. great studio up in barrie. nice digs and top notch equipment.
"amadeus" takes a recording brk
we brought out our fave bass, the Musicman Ray34 which hasn’t been used much of late. not on purpose, just so happens its been sitting nice and cozy in its case for awhile as we rocked out on our other 2 basses. the ray34 has a nice set of flatwounds on it for the warm reggae vibe we were looking for. the setup was similar to the Sweats one, just on a slightly bigger budget (ie: there is a budget). we recorded bass, drums and guitar together live off the floor and went back and punched in any mishaps. we got 2 songs into the can quite nicely but then the bass started to go wonky. it was then we realized it needed a setup and that slowed down the first nights recording speed. without a backup bass to use, we just had to struggle thru it all.
lessons learnt: bring more than one bass, try out basses before entering studio so u know all is well with them (even though u remember all being well-one has to wonder what goes on in those cases once the lid shuts?), be prepared for anything.
the essentials: bass, amp, notes, headphones, timmy's!
over the weekend finished putting the bass down for the Sweats and some songs we wanna use on the net for promotional use. t’was the first time we’d ever recorded ourselves in a studio setting playing the bass and overall… t’was a wonderful experience!
getting sweaty in the kitchen?
a total DIY effort for a totally DIY kind of band! even the delicious wine we had was DIY (u-brew)!
we ran our Epiphone EB-3(what u see being played on the header of the blog) thru a tubed Traynor bassmate. at first we also tried a direct line recording but the sound wasn’t quite what we were looking for so we stuck strictly with the bassmate miked. it was making a killer au natural sound that was perfect for the punky-rawky vibe we wanted. after about an hour of tweaking the bass sound, drum mics and guitar amp placement, we blasted thru 11 songs doin’ multiple takes sans vocals. the goal was to lay the basics down in one afternoon and then tweak the finer points of the songs later. goal achieved!
here’s a pic of the Sweet Sweaty setup:
will post the final results when they are done. can’t wait!
now onto the next session avec TOONICE, more on that in our next post… so stay “tuned”!
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The Sweats made their rawkin’, punky debut this past week. the reviews are in. we were TOO LOUD. ah, but live and learn i guess. that what this is all about. the venue was tiny but the music style itself tends to be loud so whats a band to do? next time, we turn it down to the venues standards and hopefully the vibe we are going for remains. other reviews we got went as such: “rad”, “you were playing?” and “we really dug your stuff”.
