So Hype came over on Wednesday to record a few tracks, which, in the past few weeks, we haven’t been able to do because of conflicting schedules. It feels good to get back to work though. We’d recorded the final sets of vocals for two songs: Murderous Intent and Tha Chambers. Murderous Intent will take a while, as the beat needs some touching up with another layer or two, as well as some work on the drums. The beat for Tha Chambers is done, as far as I’m aware, unless Peter wants to make anymore changes. He recently switched up the piano, which suits the song a lot better. The beat is smoother now, if that makes sense. Even though our lyrics are aggressive in this one, they really work a lot better on the new version. So, all I have to really do is mix the lyrics, link up a few effects with the backing vocals, get a wav version of the beat for re-encoding, and it’s pretty much a wrap - or rap.

We’ve also done the scratch vocals (again) to Thru Time and Space. We’ve done scratch vocals… I think twice before for this song, but it’s not a song we often rehearse, so the scratch vocals initially didn’t serve their intended purpose of hearing the flow of the song. We nailed it this time, obviously a good thing for us, but the backing is a far ways away from being completed.

So, In spite of the lack of significant progress within the last year or so, we’re finally catching up. I’d say around six of the months wasn’t our fault. There was about half a year of time where we had no choice in the matter. The computer wasn’t recording properly, or the computer was being sent in for repairs, or our schedules were conflicting. The other part of that year, I have to honestly look back and say it’s my fault. Looking back, there’s no way that I can look at the slower than desired progress we’ve made, and come up with any other answer. Hype’s always been doing his part, when he’s here, he’s ready. Admittedly, for this album, I do have the bigger share of the work, but that’s not an excuse at all. Hype comes over once or twice a week for recording. I have the entire week to “catch up”, but I generally didn’t. I’d play TF2, or I’d go on youtube, or post on forums. The forums one I’ve already gotten a lot better at, I’d be posting 2-3 hours a day, getting into these huge discussions, and although they were very entertaining for me, they weren’t doing anything for our common goal.

I’ve given up quite a few vices in the past year. I use to be addicted to MSN messenger, now I rarely ever use it, maybe once every few months or so. I don’t watch a lot of TV, mostly just MMA and a DVD series with my girl. I’ve also recently stopped playing TF2 (for the most part, an hour every few weeks is all I allow myself), and really cut down on youtube. The only thing I really have left is google reader, which I still consider an essential. I keep up on lots of music blogs, and a lot of personal ones as well. The difference between a month ago and now is that I’m a lot more selective in what I read. I skim for a bit and if it’s interesting I’ll read the rest. I’ve realized that I don’t have to read everything.

The biggest change I’ve made - which was very recent, probably within the last few weeks - is that now I meditate. I know mediation is supposed to be spiritual and yadda yadda yadda, but my version just means I concentrate on my goals. I think of things that will help me reach my goals, and any thought that conflicts with that, I “throw it away”. It’s a nice exercise that helps me realize my desires and to go after them. I don’t burn candles or hum or anything like that, I just think. I do it in public even. Waiting for a bus, maybe I’ll take two to three minutes to think about things I can do to reach my goals, again just throwing the other thoughts away. All I can say is that it works. When it comes time at home to make a choice on what to do, I know what choice I’m making, because I’ve already done the work earlier in the day. I’ve already made the choice to work on a goal, all I have to do is follow through. Every time I’m faced with a choice between a goal and something that distracts me from a goal, from sheer repetition, I now choose the goal.

And you know what? It feels good.

So the last time I posted I mentioned that I would be releasing an EP; I’ve been basically working on the flow of my lyrics with the insane beats that Resin made for this EP. I had a plan when I was working on it that I would have just six tracks. I have totally changed my mind and decided that I’m going to have seven tracks on the EP instead. The plan was that I would use 5 of Resins instrumentals and one of mine, the Simplicity beat. But now I’ve decided that I’m going to scrap one of resins beats so that he has 4 instrumentals and I have 2. So I’m using the Simplicity beat for one of my tracks called “Random Shit” and I still have to write a track for my other beat called Haunted House. But enough about the EP, I have another beat that I would like to showcase as well that I will probably use for a solo album. I call it Serious Erie.

Also I made some revisions to the Simplicity beat but this will be for another track all together. This one is called: Simplicity: The Assassins Handbook.

Enjoy

I wanted to write about an oddity concerning last.fm. Our group has a page on last.fm, and one of the features of a group page is something called Similar Artists. Here’s the thing, the artists listed on that page are not similar at all! It should really be called “People who have played your track play these songs”, except that, even as an acronym, that sucks.

Pretty much everything that was on the page was pretty cool though, so that’s a bonus. Hexes and Ohs are pretty awesome, they’ve got an electronic indie rock vibe to them. Bran Van 3000, which I’ve mixed up countless times in the past as Bram Vam or Bram Van. K-os and Mood Ruff are there too, I kinda figured K-os would be there. Obviously, the more times that the songs play, and the more people who listen, the more accurate the list will be.

I’m probably going to do a bit of integration on the next redesign of the website to include a playlist function on the side that will include a listening lounge of some sort, so it will be easier to hear our stuff as well as some fun stats from last.fm. It’ll be fun! In the meantime, a listening post with “Similar Artists” as us. Most of it’s pretty good. It’s kind of funny in the way, one of the reasons I make music is so that I can have something super-duper hot to listen to, but now all I have to do is listen to stuff like us instead.

…Get it???
short post tonight. First up shout out to hype for hittin me up with the original track. heard him play the track over the phone and i instantly felt like i had to do my thang on it lol.

the simple: same beat, 2 different flips

check check it out:
Flip 1
Flip 2

peace.

ay yo, someone hit me up on how to link these posts to facebook pls. email, wall post, whatever. thanks.