I decided to start a blog to keep track of the making of 2 Tone Runts new album. Mostly so I can learn from the experience, and look back at what I liked and didn't like. I've tried keeping journals before. They never really lasted. Mostly filled with lyrics and poetry, hopefully this will be better.
We had our first meeting last week with our engineer, Andrew. He's really cool and we've known him for awhile. He works for Radio K and is in local punk band The Supersmashers. He's got a lot of great ideas for the album. We're trying to figure out which studio to use to record. Our practice space is a fully functional digital studio, but it's small and cramped and the acoustics are far from perfect. Andrew is building his own studio which he has designed to have great drum acoustics. It should be ready to go by the first of the year. We may use both studios. I hoping to help him build the studio. I could learn a lot.
We will be starting pre-production this week! Picking out the songs we want and setting tempos and laying down rough recordings. We need to finish that before Tony goes back to Michigan for the holidays. I feel pretty confident about the songs we have picked out, they've done really well live, but it's the new songs I'm worried about. It's extremely important to me to have an album that can be listened to all the way through, no filler. I hate albums where I have to skip from song to song to find the ones I actully like.
As far as releasing the album goes, we talked to Andrew about releasing it on vinyl and download card initially and then releasing it on cd. There's a guy in Minneapolis who presses red vinyl, not that it's important, but it would be awesome. We're also trying to figure out how much money we can spend on this album. I would like to do everything for less then $1500. But who knows? I definitely don't want money to get in the way of quality. This album should be something that can be listened to in 5, 10 years and still be enjoyed, not saying to myself "oh, we were so young and stupid." The EP, which was recorded by an engeneering class for free, doesn't reflect how we sound at all. I'm dissapointed in how that turned out. I may end up producing the album, but Tom, the bassist of Umbrella Bed, has offered. He definitely is an extraordinary bassist, but the last Umbrella Bed album, which he produced, was stuck in the past. It was very reverby and didn't sound raw and organic like the 2 Tone Runts sound live. I want to capture that on the album.
We're trying to find an artist for the cover. Tony has a friend that might do it. I saw some of her work and I wasn't terribly impressed, but well give her a try. With such a political album, the cover should reflect that. I'm planing on learning screen prining over the holidays with my friend Dezee, it would we a lot of fun to screen print the cover on. Combining radical politics with art is necessary to help fuel the movement. We still don't have a title for the album. I'm going to keep brainstorming.
3 comments:
Dude. The new Umbrella Bed CD was fucking amazing and you know it. There is nothing wrong with "the past" truth be told its way better than the shit that's out now!
Yo Tyrus,
My advice: Keep it simple dude - how many of your fans have a record player they could even play vinyl on? It'll just end up being a headache, don't you think? Much better to put that money into my "Men of 2 Tone Runts" calendar idea.
Also, in my opinion, all your songs are good, there won't be any filler, the key is just to get them to sound as good as they do live. That's my two cents.
Oh and freaking blogs are awesome! I gotta get me one of these things!
I agree with Dan. Although records are cool, I personally would only be able to play it at my parent's house because they are the only people I know with a record player. Chances are that's the case for a lot of people.
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