I just got an email from my brother Cory saying that his group The Groanbox Boys now have their mp3’s (ahem…that I engineered and co-produced…) up on iTunes!
In celebration, we created a new page for the three Groanbox Boys remix tracks I recently did, one of which I’ve already released on this blog. Here’s another one for you podcast subscribers:
Just before I left for Edinburgh I made some recordings on the piano at my parent’s house. This is a song I had been working on for a few weeks. Very old fashioned (in a good way, I hope).
The other night I was listening to some early Louis Armstrong recordings…the old Hot Five and Hot Seven stuff is completely amazing.
The song “Oriental Strut” caught my ear and I absolutely had to remix it right then and there:
The Amazing Rolo – The Oh Be Gentle Strut
(I also put in some samples from Alban Berg’s Wozzeck)
In other news, I’m now in Edinburgh. So far I love it, I think I will be very happy here! I should be posting lots of projects here, so check back often.
I’ll be playing a show with my brother Cory at Andy’s in Chestertown, Maryland this Friday August 25th. Click here for a poster!
To whet your appetite, here’s a Seznec Brothers song from a few months ago: Seznec Brothers – Sez Bone Howl
(you all may recognize this song as our version of the Groanbox Boys song “Sea Bone Howl”)
I’ve often mentioned my brother’s band The Groanbox Boys, and their album that I was lucky enough to record and co-produce.
In my free time over the past few months I’ve done a few remixes of their songs. I even performed a few of them at the last show in London a few weeks ago! Here’s the first one I did, hopefully more will follow soon (you can listen to a sample of the original on their website):
I’m back! It’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks, what with the musicking and the travelling and the recording and all. But now I’ve got a whole boatload of music for you.
I’ll start with a song I recorded with Rebecca a long time ago. I was unhappy with it and I put it away, until a few days ago when I felt like making some electronic music again. I pulled this one out and polished it up and now I quite like it!
Enjoy:
Here’s another Seznec Brothers song, one of two we recorded today:
Seznec Brothers – My Boat
[edit: that link works now, sorry about that]
Some of you may remember the “original” version I recorded on my own in March…this new and improved version has vocal harmonies and a gourd banjo (and we sped it up a bit). I think it’s much better, but you can compare and see for yourselves, if you like!
I bought a microphone stand the other day…I decided to test it out by getting my brother to play in front of my microphones. Here’s one of the songs that came out, some good old fingerpickin’ blues:
Cory Seznec – Search the Ocean
(this is also available on the Seznec Bros site)
Also, you may have noticed that I’ve redesigned this blog a bit. I found the old design a bit hard to read…please let me know what you think! Does it work in Windows? Does the header font look cool?
Here’s a new Seznec Brothers tune for you, recorded yesterday in our bedroom. We’re not sure if it’s finished yet, I might add a piano track one day. More is coming soon!
As you can see from the picture, my page hits have multiplied in the past few days (possibly after being linked by AudioMastermind).
To give my newfound audience something new to listen to, here’s a remix I recently made of a Beastie Boys song:
Beastie Boys – Stop That Train (Rolo Remix)
I’ve been on a bit of a hip hop kick lately, and fellow electronic musician Deltasleep recently posted some mp3’s from a great synth demo record on his blog that I just had to use…
Occasionally, while looking for something on my hard drive or in a closet or in a pile of old tapes, I will run across something I recorded a long time ago and be pleasantly surprised. This happened to me yesterday, and I thought I would share it with you all.
When I’m working on a song I tend to listen to it obsessively (like most composers, I imagine). I listen over and over, partially as a way to figure out how to make the song better, but also because it helps me understand myself. Even when a song is totally finished I like to listen to it nearly every day for a month or so…the birthing process of the song is still fresh in my head, so I feel a special connection to the sounds coming out of the speakers – I can still remember recording that guitar track, or programming that drum beat, and I can still remember everything I did to produce and mix the song.
There’s a certain point, though, where that new song will get pushed off to one side and forgotten, stuck in a folder or on a CD and filed away. Usually by that time I’ve decided that I don’t like the song after all, that what I’m working on now is way cooler and better and this one will take me to the top.
And then, as I already explained, I will rediscover it. I’m usually disappointed that it’s not as good as I remember it being, but sometimes I end up thoroughly enjoying it…most often it’s the songs that I paid the least attention to at the time that age the best! This one is a perfect example. I don’t really remember recording it at all…I don’t know if that’s me playing the piano, or if it’s something I sampled. I vaguely remember calling it “Street Robots” because it contained samples of a street band in Avignon as well as a robot fighting club I went to in Pittsburgh. The “file info” tells me that I started this song on June 29 2003 and finished it on August 2nd 2003 at 4:25 am. That means I wrote it in Avignon, in the little studio apartment I was renting for $200 a month in an 18th century mansion in the middle of the old town. What was I doing up at 4:25 am?
I guess I was writing weird dark electronic music, that’s what! It’s funny to hear something that I have a hard time believing I wrote. It’s like looking at an old photograph and not recognizing yourself.
Today my brother Cory recorded a charango track, as well as some backup vocals, for the version of “Down in the Willow Garden” that I recorded in January. Give it a listen, and you can compare it to the old version if you like!