His Goal In Life Was To Be An Echo

So, November, a new month, it's hard to believe we started working a month ago, already! We've almost completed our first song...that's how long it's taken, It's gonna be epic.

but we decided to start another one before we finish the first, we wanted to give it some time to grow, especially before completing...I hope to go back and finish it sometime next week, then we'll have two, hopefully do one more, and then start practicing for our show coming up, and refining instrument skills.
Recording has been going well, lots of little things have happened that I don't quite remember, some more pictures and video were taken, new parts here and there. Lots of guitars for the new song, it's pretty exciting, sounding really great...like the old version, just bigger and louder, and a tiny tiny bit faster, we're really going to make this one shine I hope, well...I hope to do that with all of them.

We've been lucky to have a lot of outside input on whether we're on the right track with the songs, trying to stay true to the original idea while adding things and making it all better.
Our friend Jesse has been rather helpful at taking our mind of things at the end of the day with some epic matches of Starcraft: Evolves...so much fun.

Also Tugrul, Jordan, Jesse, and myself went to see Apocolyptica last weekend, Jesse and I had never heard of the band and didn't know what to expect in the least.
If you have the chance to see them ever, do it. They're amazing, youtube videos and their albums don't do it justice.

I'll try to keep more updated as we finish up the songs.

maybe some videos for you all to see as well!

All My Lies Are Always Wishes

Little bits are coming together, slowly.

Slow seems to be the key word in a lot of things lately.

On Friday, Tugrul and I were fitting together missing pieces of the song, it's a long process, one that probably won't take so long on other songs, but its hard to fill a song thats supposed to be empty. I sometimes wonder if we waste a lot of time, or if it will all be worth it in the end. I spent a lot of Friday lying on the floor with my camera, thinking and not saying much at all.

At home I've been re-working/thinking some of the older songs, ones that I'd like to record, ones that I thought I would toss, new drums bits, new parts replacing old parts, hopefully I can bring it all together, like I had in my head a year or two ago.

Thats my goal....

I'm also writing a completely new version of a song, one that will hopefully present the whole idea of the album in one song, the way I wanted it to be.

Plus it will be nice to record something fresh, I'll be doing that one last I think though. I won't say anymore about that though.

I've also been writing bits of new songs, and getting ideas for the new couple of albums.

Although it's hard to keep track of ideas when my brain is filled with the songs we're recording now.

I can't exactly come home and write a lot because there's only so much my head can handle, I don't want to stress like I used to about music. There will be plenty of time to write new music, I just don't want to pass by any solid or special ideas.

I'll be back with more pictures and info on the weekend.

Hope you're all well!

I'll See You Soon, Or Maybe Never

It's been a bit since i've updated, I'm going to try and remember what we've been up to lately.

We did some guitar work recently, trying out some ideas, some I loved, some I didn't...and some just didn't fit the song, now that I think about it we've been working on this song for over 2 weeks, some people have finished albums in that time, I don't know if its a good or a bad thing.

I just know the longer it takes the more time I want to spend on it because right now, saying we spent 3 weeks on a song it's gonna have to be perfect in my mind, and it's far from it at the moment. It's got some solid ideas, but when I hear it I don't get chills and I don't get excited, I just start analyzing things and want to fix them, that's not a good way to finish a song.

So I'll have to find good ways to fill it out and give it the feel i'm going for without doing much to it, which takes an amazingly long time. Plus as I might have said before, me and Tugrul had never worked together or barely played together before this, so we're always learning about eachother, and it takes me a while to open up, especially when it comes to music.

I've always been used to working by myself, especially when it came to things I wrote, I was and am always very protective over it and when anyone comes in and tries to change anything I get a little insecure.

So it's going to take some time to find a delicate balance between our ideas, and it seems everytime we change something I want to change it back two days later, which might be a clear sign we're drifting too far from what I wanted it to be, infact I know that's what it is.

Now not to say it hasn't been fun, we're trying so many instruments and adding many epic sounding things in, and it all sounds real, and fantastic. I hope we make people wonder how we got a hold of so many amazing instruments and really wow them on what we've done with such little gear and many computer problems.

And I invited my best friend Jesse over to play some Age of Empires afterward, we had an epic 5 hour match, It had been a while since we'd played, so that was great to unwind with.

And we are getting lots of solid ideas out there, we might do alternate versions of some parts as well which should give us a good idea of what to actually do with it.

I think I'm going to throw in a bunch of mistakes (don't take that word to literally) into the song on purpose, just for the hell of it.

It's lacking human feel, thats what I think it is, It doesn't have this raw feel the original had, the random noises, wrong notes that somehow mix well with the song, it's too perfect that its almost boring, or it will be if I don't fix it, atleast to me anyways.

It doesn't make me feel like this anymore:

It makes me feel like this:

But that will all be fixed

Just another days work, and I know it'll be amazing when we're finished!

P.S.

Copeland

You Are My Sunshine

Album of the Year, please go buy it!

I Am Just A Stain, On The Dress You've Made

So the last few days we've just spent mostly fixing little bits up, minimizing, and filling the song out, also every day that we look at the song the first thing we seem to do is take something out and add something different in, simplifying...It's a very good thing.
I'm glad that we've taken this much time with this song, it needs it...it needs to grow as we create it, and I'm happy taking as long as we need to get it done right.

So most of tonight I spent lying on the floor thinking of ideas for certain parts as Tugrul edited what we had done so far. I'm going to hammer some parts out at home over the weekend and do the rest with Tugrul when we get back to recording on Monday, hopefully anyways. We'll see how it developes in my mind over the next few days. I like taking time with it, sometimes its hard to get what we want from our minds and turn them into tracks, but we'll get there...we're still learning about how we work together and apart.

We also like to just jam out on the drums or the guitar and etc.

It keeps the atmosphere way more fun and relaxed, and we need that. Everytime we get overworked we both seem to get really tired and zoned out. Coffee and fresh air helps, and food...lets not the wonderful meals we've been having.

To sum up, things are going well, It'll all come together soon!

And whats even more amazing is that its been over a week since we've played any Age of Empires! It's good because it means we're getting work done.

Looks Like The Lovers Are Losing

So it's been a few days since I posted last.

Saturday was full of problems, we both arived with great attitudes and ready go roll, unfortunately some of our gear was not feeling the same way....So the day ended with tired eyes, food, Starcraft and no recording done.

Luckily! Monday held progress, we started some guitar stuff and everything was working perfectly again.

It's a weird process working with someone else, especially because in a lot of ways me and Tugrul are completely different when it comes to musical styles and the way we see and hear things.

I find I'm very raw and messy when it comes to songs, thats the way I like to play and write, I think it's what makes music and recordings human and delicate, and emotional.

Don't get me wrong, I need structure to a song, but I love the little mistakes that are made. They sometimes become my favourite part of a song or performance, especially when the mistakes are played so passionately like they aren't mistakes at all. There's something so beautiful about someone being so sure about placing notes and sounds where they shouldn't be, it convinces the listener that it's just the way its meant to be...I mean this within reason of course, I'm not saying I like listening to terrible sounding music, just raw music.

and Tugrul strikes me as very professional, neat and prescise. I think we're about to learn a lot about each other this way, I know we can mix the two to become something quite special. We'll both teach each other a ton about how to approach a song, an instrument and music in general, hopefully we can open our eyes a little wider to something we don't quite understand.

Tuesday I went out and got myself my very first real amp, a Vox AC30

Wednesday we got back to recording again.
I've spent most of our recording time analyzing things, not really speaking much.

Letting ideas come and listening to a lot of what Tugrul has to say, trying things I would never try myself, taking everything in.
Becoming very un-sure of what the song was going to become.

We continued recording things, as the day went on I started getting a clearer idea of what I need to do to get it the way I want it, realizing I need to speak up more, and remember my vision.

Not that I had much to say at first though, it was all just too exciting.

After some E-bow action we did a few piano bits, then the plan was to start recording electric guitar, but as soon as Tugrul brought out his SG I had to plug in and take my new amp for a test drive with all my pedals hooked up because I hadn't played it at all.

So once he started hammering out ideas I quickly got some of my own and couldn't contain myself, I quickly ran to set everything up and we ended up just jamming for a long time, making tons of crazy feedback noises and I started losing myself in a very weird mood and sound landscape, very noisey, very free.

We both agreed it was really nice to be able to make some noise and just play. Once I got home after having been playing lots of piano bits and quiet acoustic bits and just very structured little things so much, I realized how much the song needs to change in order to come back to what I want it to be, and It all hit me right as soon as I walked in my door.

I work best with images, and words.

So knowing that, instead of writing a bunch of notes on whats wrong and what needs to change, I found pictures that described the feeling of the song, I wrote words that best describe the feeling I need to get while hearing it, just like when I recorded at home.

I'm really excited to head back tomorrow and present all this to Tugrul and get the song really together and back on track.

I know you're probably all wondering what song it is I've been talking about.

Well, I won't tell you which one it is, but it's going to sound something like this:

And Then This:

My Mind Is Filled With Radio Cures

Second Day of Recording!

Tugrul and I were both feeling quite sleepy and a little under the weather it seemed, mostly mentally.
We ran into many glitches with things and spent most of the day trying to fix them, so that was a little frustrating and didn't really help the overall energy the day held (not that we really get worked up though) neither of us slept well and it was raining like crazy, but I find no matter what or where you're recording...something will always happen.
So after a few hours of fixing little bits of the song and adding a few things here and there we ordered some pizza and sat down with some Age of Empires (an intensely amazing match, I might add)






It's already weird walking into my room when I get home and having almost no instruments there

We'll be doing some more tomorrow, I'm hoping we run into less problems....I'm already looking forward to heading back to get some stuff done.

Now It's time to sit back with some Wilco, The Velvet Teen and get some sleep.

Everything Starts Where It Ends

Tugrul and I started recording yesterday.

I won't tell you which songs we've picked so far, it'll be a surprise...

But everything is going to be bigger and better than before, we're both very very excited.

I see my life being filled with lots of Tea, Age of Empires, Turkish Food and much Recording, and I couldn't be more excited.

Not much to report so far, we just got set up yesterday and talked over how to tackle the song, what to change, what to cut, throwing ideas around, and then dove right in, I'm looking forward to heading back on Friday, infact I'm just kind of killing time til then.

I haven't taken a lot so far, but here's the first of what should be many pictures...