Exciting things have happened in my life and I’m a bit lax doing other things at the moment, but I’ve got 5 minutes spare so I’m going to share our latest band product with you. It’s D4, our latest EP/album of many/no names. You can get it for streaming or download in several places, the major ones being:
Go give it a listen.
And watch this space as something else will happen soon…
Home work done! I’ve listened through the HowManyDevils back catalogue to see which, if any, of the tracks I’d like to revisit. I have a short list of ‘YES’ tracks and a much longer list of ‘MAYBE’ & ‘NO’ tracks. It was nice to revisit them with a critical ear. Brought back memories of reversing every other night in the old run down office block we had a room in. I wish I’d spent more time on the drums back then. Some of the tracks do sound like they need leaving in the past where as others feel they have unfinished business. There is still the case of getting a drummer type to join us. I think that might be better left till we have, as a band, got the set list decided and learned well enough to play through with hitch.
On a side note check out The Midnight. Amazing 80s sounds for your ears!
Things are going quite smoothly at the moment and this is a good thing. We have a couple of weeks break from recording and production which is a chance to ponder on what we’re doing next. Probably a couple of older tracks. Probably writing some new tracks. Definitely working on some mastering of the EP and also looking to play some gigs. Need a drummer for that bit. Which is always a sticking point. We’ve had difficulty with the job of keeping drummers in the past. Maybe we need some one who can play a gig or two and record every few months rather than a permanent fixture. On the subject of gigging we might have a crack at streaming a performance or two. See how that goes. See if there are any tracks we can do anything with acoustically.
Here we are at the mixing stage. All recording done. Little bits and overdubs added. Started the day with me adding other guitar tracks. Rob then added some guitar and percussion parts with Pete. Pete has been mostly ears today helping steer the good ship HMD. By the end of today we should have a product. Something for us to promote some how.
“Kill, Kill, Beer, Whisky” may be the name or our next EP. It could easily be “Your Face Is A Compromise” too. Or something else, it’s just too soon to tell.
Kill, Kill, Beer, Whisky is my summation of Motorhead lyrics. Pete was saying he’d been listening to them recently and the lyrics were actually deeper than you’d expect. ( And any opportunity for facetiousness will be taken, but I won’t detail the Record Breakers theme tune that followed here ). Your Face Is A Compromise is one of Simon’s lyrics that will actually be on the EP, giving it a little more chance of making it. It’ll be a little time before it’s done yet and I’m sure another name will come along. We know we have five songs for the EP now: How To Breathe, So Far From Me, Half-Life, Lover Best Forgotten, and Knock Me Down. And we intend to go professional for the recording. Step up a level from this DIY malarky. For now, watch this space.
Dogzilla versus…
This song is a expression of bass riffs against a giant Dogzilla. We asked Pete to play a few riffs along to a couple of patterns. Mixed them up a bit and then added some effected recordings of Pete’s dog to the mix as Dogzilla. The idea is of bass defeating Dogzilla and saving Tokyo(?) perhaps? OR is it symbolism representing our darkest selfish urges (Dogzilla) being kept at bay by the relentless pounding of day to day life that moves and darts in different directions (the bass). No, it’s just bass versus a big dog monster.
Enjoy!
Electric Eels is the next track from Space Cowboys Under the Sea of Japan that we’re looking at. This is another one of those random ideas that sprouted into a full track. Three basses at some parts. No real lead guitars. Weird lyrics that at first listen don’t seem to make sense. I tried to make them seem odd but (with any luck) if the idea is explained then the words start to come alive. It’s really an anti-consumerism song. About how everyone at some point is drawn into the thrill of buying stuff that is not important at the end of the day. How we put significance on things and objects and forget that there are people on this planet who have far less than ourselves and that if we took time to remember this then perhaps we wouldn’t feel frustrated that we don’t have an iPhone 26 or a BMW M62.
Musically this is the first (and only) track that we used my bass multi effects on. There is an over drive noise, a bit distortion and a didgeridoo simulator(?) in there. Also, we used the bass effects for some lo-fi vocals as well. Which I love! The drum patterns have some nice little noises and oddness about them. There some phased clean guitar on here (I think it’s the Dot I’m playing. Rob kept a log of which instruments were used for each track). Everything ties together really well. Weird song that is totally out of our usual spectrum, but works perfectly.
Today was a good day for bass playing. We started a track with all three of us playing bass. Not as crazy as it sounds. It’s turned out rather well! Lots of experimenting, lots of scratch pad stuff to play around with and at the end of the day we had Electric Eels. Not sure where the title came from. The lyrics aren’t particularly weird. Pretty impressive work today all around.
Here’s a chip butty in kit form.
I, Stumpy Boxhead, returned to my original, machine form today – and HowManyDevils started work on a new song: Village of Dolls. Pete had some music, and we built on that. Simon wrote some lyrics after reading an a newspaper article about a Japanese village where the dwindling population are being replaced with dolls by one of the residents. Rob made some feedbacky noises with a guitar and a fretless bass. It got a bit noisy.
The song is still a work in progress, but you can hear bits of it in todays Vlog.
Another Flesh Reunion done. Guitars, Bass and percussion this week. Things are sounding much tighter. We have some extra layers to the sound. For a while we contemplated going for 27 guitar parts in homage to the Blue Aeroplanes, but it is taking us long enough to record with 2. Not sure when we’ll get around to a release, we have vocal overdubs/replacements and another round of drums booked in. Maybe Pete’s digeridoo too…
HowManyDevils 