Sunday, February 7, 2010

adventures in demonic impersonation

Doggone it. This record is approaching the end of the recording process. Which means, in fact, the beginning of everything else...artwork, duplication, marketing, reviews, promotion...all in a giant snowball tumble towards a Release Show!

The record is now officially mixed, and almost ready to be mastered. Shane and I endured 2 back-to-back 10 hour mix-a-thons last weekend...between which I managed to play a late-night solo set at an art show in downtown Boston. When Sunday night rolled around, it was safe to say that my brain was a pile of melted garbage. But, I think we nailed it. We rolled through all 11 songs and Shane created some really cool mixes, with a bit of my feedback here and there.



Before we got to the mixing, some last-minute sounds were added to a couple of tunes. There is a song on this record called Dumbstruck (some of you may remember this ditty from my old band)...it was a song I wrote awhile back that has been re-adapted to a different groove and feel in DoTV. The plan was to take the DoTV vibe up a notch with a heavy-hitting blues-punk kinda thing, and this song totally fit the bill. Anyway, I wanted to add some spoken word to the intro, and Shane had recommended I borrow from the recordings of this woman named Jane Roberts...apparently she would get possessed by a spirit named Seth in the 1960s and 1970s, and she (as Seth) doled out self-help advice from the beyond. I initially thought this was a joke, but it seems New Age-y types take it seriously. Let's just say it's not exactly my cup of tea, philosophically speaking. Regardless, I liked how she sounded as possessed, with this eerie declarative rhythmic delivery. I wanted this sound to be the sound of the spoken word part on Dumbstruck.

But, then my practical side took over...I could put something together and do this spoken word thing myself. I grabbed some lines I had written a few weeks ago from a poem called "Fragments of an Alternative Bible" and added some more lines, in the spirit of the song. Then I got to stand in a room with a megaphone and do my best demonic impersonation. What fun! It's just a tiny detail when you think about the DoTV record overall...but it is all these details that add up and compose one entire project as a whole.



So things are getting to the point where a release show will soon be booked. Stay tuned for info on the upcoming release. DoTV is collectively stoked at the prospect of getting our music out there into the world! I think this record shows a band growing into multiple directions at once, taking every chance to evolve and benefit from all that surrounds it...like an expanding supernova bursting in the dark stretches of the universe. Like a giant sponge soaking in water. Like a pigeon trapped in a crouton factory.

OK...that last comparison might be crossing some kind of line. Sorry. I'm not even sure there are crouton factories. In fact, that might be pretty weird...an entire factory just making croutons. Let's just say the band is excited and can't wait to share our music...

1 comment:

TallSomeone said...

You'd do well to read the books of Jane Roberts. Tell yourself that the source doesn't matter -- it's the material being stated. See what you think and who you become.