My thoughts on "The Mannequin EP"

I hope everyone has gotten a chance to read the formal announcement about the release of The Mannequin, If you haven't yet, It's worth a skim. In a nutshell it says we have made the EP available through Bandcamp, blah blah blah, fundraser, blah blah blah, recording equipment. Anyway, I'm here to give you some thoughts and insights to the EP.

The writing and recording of The Mannequin started in earnest in mid to late July and ended in early August. I had to start Cute Scenarios from scratch because my hard drive with the album and a half that I had recorded became useless from a slip of my hands. Hold on to those hard drives with a kung-fu grip, Y'all. That among other bonehead mistakes, (all my fault, By the way), is why that album won't see the light of day for a while.

Once I decided to start fresh, I recorded a song that never, ever got it's due. From Here has been knocking around for four year before getting properly recorded. Even though it was an old song, it got the recording juices flowing.

Once I got done doing the preliminary stuff on From Here, I wanted to experiment. I had heard that the super fast synth on Pink Floyd's On The Run was made by recording it as slow as they could and then speeding it up as fast as it would go in the synth...not on tape. So that's what I did. I set the recording tempo to as slow as I could, played a pattern for fifteen minuets and then sped it up to as fast as it would go. The end result after adding and adding TONS of stuff is the last track Down The Rabbit Hole.

Right now, I'm going to go track by track and give you a sentence or two about the songs:

1. The Mannequin: An instrumental piano rocker. Ben Folds was a HUGE inspiration on the piano playing.

2. Arbitration Cinema: The coolest drums I've ever programed. The lyrics were all made up to be the worst B-movie taglines ever.

3. The Fingle Dopple: If you truly get the reference and don't have to look it up on the internet, I'll buy you a drink.

4. From Here: We do preform this song every once and again. When we get the recording equipment, We'll get you a version with joie on it because she adds so much more to this song.

5. Her Knight in Black Armor: Written RIGHT after The Mannequin. I wrote this to score the video I made. Check it out in the Videos section.

6. Down The Rabbit Hole: It was crazy working on this. It's actually a Frankenstein's monster of it's self. Every sound except the drums, the birds and one synth sound are disfigured versions of the first musical line.

Well I hope that was at least a little informational. I really hopeYou decide to spend the five bucks and help your new, favorite, local band record. *wink*

The Mannequin EP Anouncement

     Today, we have an exciting announcement, The first Cute Scenarios EP,  The Mannequin, is now up for download on the Cute Scenarios Bandcamp page. Jono had some trepidation about making people pay for this seeing as 1) It's not an accurate representation of where Cute Scenarios are as a band right now. Which leads me to reason 2) The recording process for this EP was basically done before joie became a member of the band.
     Those sound like major reasons to put the breaks on releasing the EP, right? Well joie & Jono thought it was the right thing to do...as a fundraiser. See, right after mixing the last song on The Mannequin, Jono's computer started acting up and shutting down once his laptop got too hot. Multiple computer repair shops could not diagnose a problem, Even though it persisted. Now it's in a sort of Computer Limbo where it's just stored and not even used anymore.
     Neither Cute Scenarios as a collective entity nor personally can afford to pay for a new computer or recording time with even a neophyte producer/engineer so we are coming to you, our amazing fans. We are asking you to help fund our next album/recording career.
     If you decide to buy our EP on bandcamp, it will cost a flat $5.00 for six songs. You can also buy a limited edition physical copy* which will cost $6.00. To buy a physical copy, Please get in touch with us through Facebook or you can Email us.
     joie and Jono are, as we speak, planning more fundraising opportunities that will go towards getting recording equipment so that we can get some music to you as fast as we can. BUT that doesn't mean that you should pass on this chance to get an awesome EP and a vital part to this bands history! It may not be around forever...just saying.

P.S. Jono will post a few words on the EP later today.


*how limited? Only 10 Copies were printed. GET ON IT!

The Creative Process

If you've checked the site for the past month (and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't because this thing is H A R D L Y ever updated) you may have seen us mention that we plan on writing new songs. But up to this point it's been all conjecture and you've seen no hard evidence that music making is going on.

The simple truth as to why we haven't said anything about it is because until just Tuesday night no songs were written. For me, it's really hard to write music after a long while of not even thinking of a musical idea. I'm sure some people ((cough)) joie ((cough)) would call bullshit on that but I bullshit you not. It's a little daunting to write music. Sure, there have been tons of things* that have made me want to get off my ass and pick up a guitar or keyboard and get to it. But I psych myself out and think that I'd just make the same folk songs and blah, blah, blah...so what would be the point.

All of that was just a roundabout way of saying that I wrote a song! Yay! ((confetti rains down)) What happened was On Tuesday I was hanging out with joie and we were watching a TV drama and she was talking about guys that caused her some problems in the past. I thought the conversation was more or less an "airing of the grievances" until I was driving home and POP!

A melody came into my head. and a few seconds later I thought of two lines almost simultaneously. I tried to develop the kernel I had while driving the rest of the way home then the second I got inside my room, I picked up my guitar and tried to figure out what chords went to the half remembered (now nearly completely forgotten) melody. After working for about an hour and a half, I was able to get some lyrics and a structure by 1.30 at which time I grabbed a Futurama DVD and went to bed.

When I woke up The next day I fleshed out some things and then all of a sudden I realized that my work on it alone was finished. Now it's up to joie to put her fingerprints on it.The music sounds like Foo Fighters covering Hüsker Dü. You might be saying that Foo Fighters already sound like they're doing Hüsker Dü covers to which I say You'll just have to listen to the song, then.

The weird thing about Wednesday is that almost immediately after finishing the song for joie, I wrote music for another one. I can't explain this one to you. The only thing I can tell you about it is that we're finally working with dynamics. I've never done that as a songwriter, it feels really good.

We're not even done yet. joie has a song or two that we're going to get to work on whenever we can. The Cute Scenarios universe is very exciting now. So my hope is that we can finish these songs and play them for you in a manner most pleasing to you, whether Live or on re-chord, sometime soon. Ultimately, I would like to have an EP written and ready for recording by the start of Fall.

...We'll see if that happens.

*Lykke Li, Jon Hoppkins, The new Of Montreal record: False Priest, The new Arcade Fire record: The Suburbs

It Wasn't the Fire, It Wasn't the Flood

The Tutu 5K is now safely laid to rest until next year. As some of you may know, Mr & Mrs. Smith (Hollis) played that show. The event was the first time ANYONE had seen the act in person before. It was such an amazing set.

So Friday I went to joie's house where Hollis was staying and just played around for a few hours. After the awkwardness of not knowing what to play was too much to stand, I suggested we come up with something. I called out a chord structure and then lyrics came. Coming up with the lyrics was hard because almost everything now is played out...and we got sidetracked by conversations.

When it came time to record the song, we thought the best place to do it would be the cab of Hollis's pick up as to not bother anyone in the apartment and we wouldn't get background noise from doing it in open air.

So Hollis in drivers seat facing back, making her leg fall asleep, and me in the back facing front, having trouble closing the door...did I mention that the truck was on a sideways incline?

The only thing I personly regret was not getting joie on the recording. While we were writing she came up with some growls and things but when it was time to record, she had a migraine and had to lay down.

Check out It Wasn't The Fire, It Wasn't The Flood by Jono and Hollis. More songs are sure to come but maybe not for a while what with the distance between Texas and Florida.

Mixtape time 1: Love In A Hole

I spent the past hour making a mix and I want to share it with you. It tells a story of guy who gets out of a bad relationship (we don't know how exactly). But he tries stuff, he runs into his ex and then realizes a lot about himself.

Love In A Hole

2/4/11

01. Learning The Game : Buddy Holly

02. Knock Your Self Out : Jon Brion

03. Time to Pretend : MGMT

04. Always for You : The Album Leaf

05. Lover I don’t have to love : Bright Eyes

06. Walking With A Ghost : Tegan and Sarah

07. Some Time Around Midnight : The Airborne Toxic Event

08. The Last High : The Dandy Warhols

09. The Party is Crashing : of Montreal

10. Fences : Phoenix

11. Keep Yourself Warm : Frightened Rabbit

12. Foreground : Grizzly Bear

If you listen to it, I really hope you enjoy it.