Chasin shootin stars
03-16-2012
, 06:40 AM
03-16-2012
, 04:16 PM
Holy testicle tuesday thank you for the epic response. I feel like being able to focus on tone is the reward after practicing technique. I look forward to that in music someday 
. Overall I was really stoked that a lot of your "definition" b/w good and great for all things falls in line with my views, and it gives me confidence to continue working in the direction I am. Also, thanks for teaching me the word axiomatic . Cheers
. Overall I was really stoked that a lot of your "definition" b/w good and great for all things falls in line with my views, and it gives me confidence to continue working in the direction I am. Also, thanks for teaching me the word axiomatic . Cheers
03-17-2012
, 05:50 PM
03-21-2012
, 02:58 PM
Where we left off- you can view the rest of the photos from our last show here: Rockin out at Trois Minots
Things with the band have been pretty busy lately; we are trying to get ready to record, i have been working on my singing, we have played a few gigs here and there. The biggest thing coming up in the future is a show we're playing April 5th at Cafe Campus in Montreal. The lineup includes a couple more established bands but somehow we got involved which is nice since i've actually gone to see some good bands at this venue before. One of the funny things associated with playing here was that we got sent our first performance contract…
Performance contract for show on April 5 w/ a few other bands- tickets $15, $20 at door COME CHECK IT OUT!
So that was an interesting milestone. Seems funny to be happy to get some kind of contract since it is just annoying filling this stuff out normally (and naturally you are pretty on edge with any kind of contract in general). It also sounds like we will get paid to play and thought i doubt it'll be much, there is a large difference between some money and no money. Most the other venues we've played at have been pay-for gigs but often for fundraisers, McGill events, etc so we haven't really gotten anything out of it besides free beer and the opportunity to play (which is good but unsustainable if we want to tour obviously!).
The other major event coming up (besides recording May 2nd in Chicago) is one of my friends bands mentioned that he would like to tour across the US and Canada in July, as he was planning to move to Vancouver when his lease expired and would like one last bash with his band. After asking if i'd like to be involved (obviously!) we started the rather exciting task of working out a route last night over a few beers.
The Argyles, pondering our route across the US and Canada
Obviously this is a plan in it's infancy, but we know a few people along the way and the Argyles have enough recorded music that we should be able to get some venues to let us play some dates over the next few months. If anyone has any suggestions, for bands that want to share shows, places to play, your favourite bar in Fargo, etc, please let us know! We expect to play a combination of some events we organize ourselves with mostly friends, some semi-decent venues in the major cities like Toronto, Vancouver etc, and some random stuff that just sort of happens spontaneously; it sounds like we might chuck a PA in the van in case the opportunity for an impromptu concert comes up etc.
After deciding we'd like to tour for the whole month, a cursory route with some tentative dates in the bigger cities (planned around weekends) started to look like the following:
Montreal (Prob try to book La Sala Rosa for a going away concert the 29th June) -> Ottawa (July 1st)
Ottawa-> Kingston
Kingston-> Toronto (5th and 6th of July)
Toronto -> Kitchener
Kitchener -> London (ontario)
London -> Ann Arbor (cross border into the US)
Ann Arbor -> Indianapolis
Indianapolis -> Chicago (13th and 14th of July)
Chicago -> Madison
Madison -> Minneapolis
Minneapolis -> Fargo
Fargo -> Winnipeg (and back into Canada)
Winnipeg -> Regina
Regina -> Saskatoon
Saskatoon -> Calgary
Calgary -> Kamloops
Kamloops -> Vancouver (26th July)
Vancouver -> Victoria
Victoria -> Vancouver
All in all about 7000 km. We've just started looking into the issues with crossing borders w/ 7 people and a trailer full of gear, as well as specific dates, so obviously everything is subject to change. Like i said we have some friends in a couple of these cities but all in all we are just starting to look into venue options, options for people who want to trade shows in the future, that sort of thing. Whatever the case, it sounds like a blast regardless. Time to design some t-shirts to try to beat fuel costs (lol impossible).
If anyone has any thoughts or you're from any of the cities i've mentioned, please feel free to reach out and give us a hand, the ALEXEI MARTOV ARMY NEEDS RECRUITS and if we had a bunch of people along the way that were eager to come watch us rock the f- ck out, it'd be tip top.
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT!
03-21-2012
, 06:07 PM
03-21-2012
, 07:01 PM
04-19-2012
, 04:29 AM
As i was being ushered onto the ice I felt a strange combination of feelings. One of them was how unusual higher stakes performance is. The mundaneness of what people are usually doing behind the curtain, sitting around eating, having a beer, talking about nothing, making sure their equipment is ok. Vs the mental feeling, that, hey, 'i'm staring out the exit door of a plane and i'm pulling my own chute this time'. And then from the first note suddenly having all that disappear and entering a kind of gaussian blur.
I was lucky enough to have 2+2er PickyTooth shoot me a msg the other day asking if i could play the anthem at a hockey game his team was playing. A cool thing to do on my quest to play in Japan. Sure, i said, agreeing. When? This weekend. Sure that works. So then i spent a bunch of time practicing the same notes again and again and again until i had them under my fingers, and then worked out a little shredtastic exit at the end. Never really did get to play that one.
We headed up to St-Jerome from Laval where i was planning to eat a **** load of lamb for Greek Easter. They had the lamb off the spit by the time we got there (they cooked an entire one on a spit!) so i stuffed my face and focused on avoiding alcohol which only slightly dampened my afternoon. I ate almost a kilo of lamb to compensate. Anyway, thats neither here nor there. The tzatziki was ****ing amazing though.
This represents an insignificant portion of a total lamb animal and yet, a strangely insane amount of total deliciousness?
Jumping in the car that my friend was so kindly manning for this adventure, we headed off a little early, to see what the situation was like. Everything seemed well organized although there was no mic stand, despite the amp needing to be miced so everyone could hear. I said no problem, we'll just dangle it from the top of the amp, but this is when i was informed the mic was wireless! Maybe one of my friends could hold it? Erm, that might be weird… We fuss around with the idea of taping it to a chair or something… Heart rate slowly climbs.
Then someone jumps in with a stand and suddenly all is well.
We fuss around for a bit, have a beer, and then next thing you know its on. I'm standing next to all the players as they get ready to head out onto the ice, the lights go dark, and there's a bunch of horn beeping. A photographer comes up to me and says 'he'll get me some good shots!'. The gear is sitting out on the ice and i'm bumbling around with my guitar. I should have plugged it in and sat it on the amp i think. Then i could just walk it up and pick it up. I catch myself thinking "good learning experience, i'll remember it when it's the Habs at the Bell Centre" then realize how ridiculous that thought is. Then i find my thinking "Is that really such a ridiculous thought". Then i realize how ridiculous that thought is.
Fortunately my head avoids exploding (death by infinite recursion loop). I can hear what sounds like a a french voice. Through mic. It sounds like "Ygajkg;lja agdjklgj; MARTIN BRADSTREET djakl;dgajl;gk ALEXEI MARTOV". The crowd gives a clap and a reasonably short applause. It's time to walk on.
As i look at the ice, plenty of people are moving around on it. Some skaters, a photographer, etc. They've rolled out a red carpet for me, but its about the thickness of my amp. Without really thinking about it, i see that the carpet in front of me is covered with my stuff (but only at the very end), so i simply walk out onto the ice as the crowds clapping dies down and salute pump my fist in the air. The crowd gets louder and the clapping resumes. But quickly turns to laughter. What happened? Oh, i'm lying on the ice. Guess its not good to walk onto ice wearing dress shoes. Whatever the case, i do a kneeling double fist pump like **** YEAH look how heroic that was. It seems to be about as good a response as is manageable. Something always goes wrong. Always. It's how you recover that matters. Just keep moving forward. Enjoy yourself.
It's at this point that i just DIME the amp which is an 80w fender reverb running through a EH Boost Pedal set to 10. I don't really think about it, i just spin the volume knob from 0 because i wanna get started. So basically i've now set my amp to 11.
This turns out to be reasonably loud.
From the first note i can hear the reverberations in the arena. I find myself thinking "this is the loudest i have ever heard a guitar played". Man i would get a wild sustain if i always played like this. No wonder people said Hendrix sounded like he was playing a f4cking Cello. Then i'm like; i wonder if i can play for a sec just tapping out the notes, while i turn it down. Nope, i don't think i can pull that off in this exact moment. Playing 11-56 tuned down. The actions a little high. Too much variance if i haven't practiced it. Guess i should have chosen Vai over Hendrix when i setup my guitar. Ah well. It's all good. Anyway, **** turning it down.
I get through the anthem just fine. After all its not exactly difficult, but for some reason i go down instead of up on the second last note and have to improv my way to the finishing note which is an octave low but sounds just fine thank you very ****ing much. I briefly consider what the consequences for my actions would be if i just started playing some hendrix and didn't exit the stage until i was dragged off by the giant mascot bear-thing whose ears are now bleeding but i decide that that's probably a little rude and so walk off the ice.
Someone carries my gear off, which is nice. Normally its like the curtain thing except now it's the opposite and the curtain isn't there. You've just poured out your soul and then you have to deal with the bland minutiae of unplugging things, making sure you have everything, carrying things. You build the illusion and then the second it's complete, when at least a few people in the audience are drunk enough to think you are actually from a different planet than them, one that is more awesome and where people just flip the **** out, you have to get on your knees and go "coil some ****ing cables, bitch" while they watch you sipping their beer. "Oh, well… i'm standing here drinking beer while he's about to ignore all his buddies to carrying some heavy looking square thing from pluto 10 blocks home" they get to think. Ah well, worth it.
Besides that, we're gearing up to record. Just 12 days. We've started doing some recording rehearsals, tightening things up.
You can check that **** here: http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/ .
Just single take things cos thats the E.A. way. Get it down in one and put a couple bandaids on. Don't assemble a human soul from a bunch of organs and limbs. Wonder if Dr F would be a Pro Tools junky these days. Probably. This isn't unadulterated human emotion they'd all say, and he'd tent his fingers and be like NEIN ES IST NICHT!!!!! ICH HAVE ADDED 3 VOCAL BOXES AND 2 EXTRA HANDS SO HE WILL SOUND BESSER ALS JIMI. GHAHHAAHA. I gotta say thats how i learned to do it. Laptop effects are just the same as fuzz boxes. At least if you can work out a way to do it live. Though i never had a fuzz box that could make me sing in tune, and i'm getting dangerously close to simply learning how to do that and be damned with the hypothetical tuning box. Hell, classical and jazz singers never get tuned and sound better than everyone when it comes to 'tuning'. On the other hand, you're more likely to hear a slightly out of tune note from a classical prodigy than a song on the radio these days. So there's that. But then, it doesn't always have to be fun to be fun, and it doesn't always have to sound perfect to be perfect.
I was lucky enough to have 2+2er PickyTooth shoot me a msg the other day asking if i could play the anthem at a hockey game his team was playing. A cool thing to do on my quest to play in Japan. Sure, i said, agreeing. When? This weekend. Sure that works. So then i spent a bunch of time practicing the same notes again and again and again until i had them under my fingers, and then worked out a little shredtastic exit at the end. Never really did get to play that one.
We headed up to St-Jerome from Laval where i was planning to eat a **** load of lamb for Greek Easter. They had the lamb off the spit by the time we got there (they cooked an entire one on a spit!) so i stuffed my face and focused on avoiding alcohol which only slightly dampened my afternoon. I ate almost a kilo of lamb to compensate. Anyway, thats neither here nor there. The tzatziki was ****ing amazing though.
This represents an insignificant portion of a total lamb animal and yet, a strangely insane amount of total deliciousness?
Jumping in the car that my friend was so kindly manning for this adventure, we headed off a little early, to see what the situation was like. Everything seemed well organized although there was no mic stand, despite the amp needing to be miced so everyone could hear. I said no problem, we'll just dangle it from the top of the amp, but this is when i was informed the mic was wireless! Maybe one of my friends could hold it? Erm, that might be weird… We fuss around with the idea of taping it to a chair or something… Heart rate slowly climbs.
Then someone jumps in with a stand and suddenly all is well.
We fuss around for a bit, have a beer, and then next thing you know its on. I'm standing next to all the players as they get ready to head out onto the ice, the lights go dark, and there's a bunch of horn beeping. A photographer comes up to me and says 'he'll get me some good shots!'. The gear is sitting out on the ice and i'm bumbling around with my guitar. I should have plugged it in and sat it on the amp i think. Then i could just walk it up and pick it up. I catch myself thinking "good learning experience, i'll remember it when it's the Habs at the Bell Centre" then realize how ridiculous that thought is. Then i find my thinking "Is that really such a ridiculous thought". Then i realize how ridiculous that thought is.
Fortunately my head avoids exploding (death by infinite recursion loop). I can hear what sounds like a a french voice. Through mic. It sounds like "Ygajkg;lja agdjklgj; MARTIN BRADSTREET djakl;dgajl;gk ALEXEI MARTOV". The crowd gives a clap and a reasonably short applause. It's time to walk on.
As i look at the ice, plenty of people are moving around on it. Some skaters, a photographer, etc. They've rolled out a red carpet for me, but its about the thickness of my amp. Without really thinking about it, i see that the carpet in front of me is covered with my stuff (but only at the very end), so i simply walk out onto the ice as the crowds clapping dies down and salute pump my fist in the air. The crowd gets louder and the clapping resumes. But quickly turns to laughter. What happened? Oh, i'm lying on the ice. Guess its not good to walk onto ice wearing dress shoes. Whatever the case, i do a kneeling double fist pump like **** YEAH look how heroic that was. It seems to be about as good a response as is manageable. Something always goes wrong. Always. It's how you recover that matters. Just keep moving forward. Enjoy yourself.
It's at this point that i just DIME the amp which is an 80w fender reverb running through a EH Boost Pedal set to 10. I don't really think about it, i just spin the volume knob from 0 because i wanna get started. So basically i've now set my amp to 11.
This turns out to be reasonably loud.
From the first note i can hear the reverberations in the arena. I find myself thinking "this is the loudest i have ever heard a guitar played". Man i would get a wild sustain if i always played like this. No wonder people said Hendrix sounded like he was playing a f4cking Cello. Then i'm like; i wonder if i can play for a sec just tapping out the notes, while i turn it down. Nope, i don't think i can pull that off in this exact moment. Playing 11-56 tuned down. The actions a little high. Too much variance if i haven't practiced it. Guess i should have chosen Vai over Hendrix when i setup my guitar. Ah well. It's all good. Anyway, **** turning it down.
I get through the anthem just fine. After all its not exactly difficult, but for some reason i go down instead of up on the second last note and have to improv my way to the finishing note which is an octave low but sounds just fine thank you very ****ing much. I briefly consider what the consequences for my actions would be if i just started playing some hendrix and didn't exit the stage until i was dragged off by the giant mascot bear-thing whose ears are now bleeding but i decide that that's probably a little rude and so walk off the ice.
Someone carries my gear off, which is nice. Normally its like the curtain thing except now it's the opposite and the curtain isn't there. You've just poured out your soul and then you have to deal with the bland minutiae of unplugging things, making sure you have everything, carrying things. You build the illusion and then the second it's complete, when at least a few people in the audience are drunk enough to think you are actually from a different planet than them, one that is more awesome and where people just flip the **** out, you have to get on your knees and go "coil some ****ing cables, bitch" while they watch you sipping their beer. "Oh, well… i'm standing here drinking beer while he's about to ignore all his buddies to carrying some heavy looking square thing from pluto 10 blocks home" they get to think. Ah well, worth it.
Besides that, we're gearing up to record. Just 12 days. We've started doing some recording rehearsals, tightening things up.
You can check that **** here: http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/ .
Just single take things cos thats the E.A. way. Get it down in one and put a couple bandaids on. Don't assemble a human soul from a bunch of organs and limbs. Wonder if Dr F would be a Pro Tools junky these days. Probably. This isn't unadulterated human emotion they'd all say, and he'd tent his fingers and be like NEIN ES IST NICHT!!!!! ICH HAVE ADDED 3 VOCAL BOXES AND 2 EXTRA HANDS SO HE WILL SOUND BESSER ALS JIMI. GHAHHAAHA. I gotta say thats how i learned to do it. Laptop effects are just the same as fuzz boxes. At least if you can work out a way to do it live. Though i never had a fuzz box that could make me sing in tune, and i'm getting dangerously close to simply learning how to do that and be damned with the hypothetical tuning box. Hell, classical and jazz singers never get tuned and sound better than everyone when it comes to 'tuning'. On the other hand, you're more likely to hear a slightly out of tune note from a classical prodigy than a song on the radio these days. So there's that. But then, it doesn't always have to be fun to be fun, and it doesn't always have to sound perfect to be perfect.
Last edited by alexeimartov; 04-19-2012 at 04:58 AM.
05-19-2012
, 01:45 AM
I'm gonna post an update to this thread soon chronicling our experience driving through Detroit, recording in Chicago@Electrical Audio, mixing down at Hotel2Tango and then finally mastering and releasing our ****, but for now you can check out one of the more happy go-lucky tracks here!
http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/
For those of you fretting your little phalanges with questions like "how can i get my hands on some of that illustrious looking Alexei Martov merchandise", well, don't worry i will update ya'll on that too.
My first attempt at making a t-shirt showed promise although in its current state is a little too blurry to be sold to anyone even remotely sober. I will start the bidding at $270!! (FREE SHIPPING, POKERSTARS MONEY ACCEPTABLE, USERNAME: ALEXEIMARTOV). The more savvy among you are already aware that it will clearly become a collectors item of impeccable taste.
I did a little better on this suit though:
If i started selling these though the Alexei Martov name would no doubt be compromised forever when a gathering at the Rhino was spotted fully adorned. And i'm still hanging out for twilight options here so for now thats just stage getup yo.
Until next time, keep the fire inside!
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/
For those of you fretting your little phalanges with questions like "how can i get my hands on some of that illustrious looking Alexei Martov merchandise", well, don't worry i will update ya'll on that too.
My first attempt at making a t-shirt showed promise although in its current state is a little too blurry to be sold to anyone even remotely sober. I will start the bidding at $270!! (FREE SHIPPING, POKERSTARS MONEY ACCEPTABLE, USERNAME: ALEXEIMARTOV). The more savvy among you are already aware that it will clearly become a collectors item of impeccable taste.
I did a little better on this suit though:
If i started selling these though the Alexei Martov name would no doubt be compromised forever when a gathering at the Rhino was spotted fully adorned. And i'm still hanging out for twilight options here so for now thats just stage getup yo.
Until next time, keep the fire inside!
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
Last edited by alexeimartov; 05-19-2012 at 01:50 AM.
07-31-2012
, 08:06 PM
Well i'm tired from touring and i'm basically staring through my laptop screen watching nosebleeds PLO. It feels like a lifetime ago i was playing those games but i've only been away from home for a month. Still, the touring life catches up to you fast. But thats today... first you gotta go back a bit... to May...
<BEGIN MAY 4 LOG- RECORDING OF SCENT OF THE WOLF EP>
We're heading home. The sound of heavily distorted guitar filtering through ear muffs has been replaced by the upbeat acoustic grooves of the Buena Vista Social Club and comments like "I94 east towards indiana right?".
I'm pretty ready to get back to Montreal. Like most experiences that crest the hill of importance, this one has left me with a mixture of feelings that i need some time to digest. After waking up, driving 6 hours, sleeping in Toronto, sleeping, driving 10 hours, sleeping in Chicago, waking up, setting up and recording from 12 until 11 (thats 11 hours!), sleeping again, waking up again, vocalizing, recording from 1 until 11 (thats 10 hours!), sleeping, waking up again, hanging out for a couple hours then playing a show that night, there has been a lot to digest, and it's time to whack the other book end on this experience and let the stomach do its work.
Just getting started
Despite being incredibly well rehearsed, it is amazing how woefully unprepared we all felt when it came to banging out a take we could all live with at Electrical Audio, the studio we would be recording our debut EP, Scent of a Wolf. It's not like we had to do take after take after take (although it felt that way even doing 5-6 instrumental takes of something). It's just that every little thing suddenly comes to light about your tone, timing, how in sync you are etc once you are sitting in a room after each take trying to work out what you could improve about these things. Continually switching hats. On with the playing and performance hat; GO. Get in the groove. Don't play methodically; but don't play hysterically. Just lock in. Relax. Go into a different room. Dissect everything that was wrong. Think about what was right. For example, i simply could not sync turning the wah wah pedal and a fuzz pedal off simultaneously to seamlessly switch to a clean tone.
Then there was the singing the next day. Recording the first song, "The Road" was easy. The second the headphones were on i felt intensely in the groove like i was born to do this. Pity we were just testing levels. Still, i kept up the intensity and banged out the vocal take on the 2nd try (the first real take i somehow just forgot to sing the chorus and blanked…). It's a pretty intense vocal and maybe a little hysterical, but on reflection i am psyched with the result. Still, i had picked this song because it was the easiest- there was no need for a polished vocal, that wasn't really the point, there were no super high notes, and it was pretty easy rock out to that funky groove. I sang it through an SM7 in a dead room (better for a classic rock sort of vocal tone).
You can check it out here: http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/track/the-road
The next song was Night Drive. I had picked to do this one as soon as possible but not first, as it is by far the most vocally demanding with continued high notes that aren't screamed (a clean tone works better on them), and plenty of falsetto, as well as being much more emotionally demanding than The Road. Although my first take had its moments, it was fully of hysterics. It was too over the top and a lot of this translated into a vibrato that sounded very forced (a combination of the high notes without a distorted vocal tone meant that the clean tone had a kind of hysterical vibrato sound). What this meant was that on future takes i would have to continually try to moderate how 'into it' i was. Try a little less hard. Let it flow. The problem is that its tough enough to sing that i can't really sing it casually. Taking 5 minutes between each take to drink tea, i wondered if i'd ever really get this one done.
Eventually i got something we were happy with and i did a few quick punch ins to fix a couple words that weren't great in the take.
After this we took a break.
The next song we did was Green Grass Blues as it also had a falsetto section we wanted to bang out before we moved onto Washed Up and Scent of a Wolf which have a more distorted vocal (which tends to make any ensuing falsetto sound very airy and strained). To be honest, i was pretty pooped at this point and was lamenting about how we couldn't comp vocal takes for Night Drive since we weren't able to use Pro Tools since i felt that we could easily have gotten 2 really great choruses out of the 8-12 i had to sing over the course of recording. Still, realistic is good. If Opera singers can bang out 98% takes 300 nights a year, i should be able to too.
Something to strive towards. Green Grass was ok. I did one take and at first there was some talk of either punching in for the beginning of the take or redoing it entirely but after a couple listens it was decided that actually the start sounded good and in tune and that really the only issue was the falsetto section at the end… which was too long and kind of over the top. But it was going to be basically impossible to just cut out the end of the take because there was an instrumental section.
There was some strained talking about what our options were and eventually Steve said, well, lets just try editing it the way you ideally want and we'll see if it works; "We can always stick it back together after". So he whipped out a razor, cut out 4 bars of music, then joined the takes together using tape. "It'll probably sound a bit weird because it hits a peak and then suddenly drops off in the last bar but we can try it".
Ninja splicing
Nope. The second we all heard it we were happy and amazed that such precision could be achieved using a razor. Mission saved. Like Night Drive we did this in the live room using an old Neumann 67.
The next take we did was Scent of a Wolf on the SM7 in the dead room. One take, no punch ins. Phew. A gift.
Scent of a Wolf: http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/tra...nt-of-a-wolf-2
Like most the other songs, there was a general glaze of inexperience but no obvious issues and the intensity and emotion was there without too much hysteria. We tried doubling the end to see how it sounded, and when we went to mix we eventually used a little of that.
Lastly we did Washed Up which was pretty easy. The end section i am starting to get a little strained after singing all day long with very little time to rest but that works with the lyrical content of the song anyway, so good work us.
Anyway all in all after a couple simple punch ins, we were pretty happy with the rough mixes we got. Finished at 11 pm that Sunday after singing all day. Was pretty spent at the end of it.
PLEASE HURRY UP AND BOIL I AM TIRED FROM PLAYING BASS ALL DAY, thinks bassist Matthew Dorfman
We're gonna cross the border soon to Michigan. Hopefully no dramas like the way over (despite not coming to play a show, bringing business to the US and having 2/3 people in a car be American, we were individually interrogated about our intentions, i was quizzed about my poker results, etc... it is not a pleasant thing at all these days to be a musician crossing a border sadly).
Overall we got what i think is a great recording in 2 days, no tuning, no comping vocals, nothing. Just pure rock and roll goodness.
<END MAY 4 LOG- RECORDING OF SCENT OF THE WOLF EP>
Get Alexei Martov's debut EP Scent of a Wolf here
<BEGIN MAY 4 LOG- RECORDING OF SCENT OF THE WOLF EP>
We're heading home. The sound of heavily distorted guitar filtering through ear muffs has been replaced by the upbeat acoustic grooves of the Buena Vista Social Club and comments like "I94 east towards indiana right?".
I'm pretty ready to get back to Montreal. Like most experiences that crest the hill of importance, this one has left me with a mixture of feelings that i need some time to digest. After waking up, driving 6 hours, sleeping in Toronto, sleeping, driving 10 hours, sleeping in Chicago, waking up, setting up and recording from 12 until 11 (thats 11 hours!), sleeping again, waking up again, vocalizing, recording from 1 until 11 (thats 10 hours!), sleeping, waking up again, hanging out for a couple hours then playing a show that night, there has been a lot to digest, and it's time to whack the other book end on this experience and let the stomach do its work.
Just getting started
Despite being incredibly well rehearsed, it is amazing how woefully unprepared we all felt when it came to banging out a take we could all live with at Electrical Audio, the studio we would be recording our debut EP, Scent of a Wolf. It's not like we had to do take after take after take (although it felt that way even doing 5-6 instrumental takes of something). It's just that every little thing suddenly comes to light about your tone, timing, how in sync you are etc once you are sitting in a room after each take trying to work out what you could improve about these things. Continually switching hats. On with the playing and performance hat; GO. Get in the groove. Don't play methodically; but don't play hysterically. Just lock in. Relax. Go into a different room. Dissect everything that was wrong. Think about what was right. For example, i simply could not sync turning the wah wah pedal and a fuzz pedal off simultaneously to seamlessly switch to a clean tone.
Then there was the singing the next day. Recording the first song, "The Road" was easy. The second the headphones were on i felt intensely in the groove like i was born to do this. Pity we were just testing levels. Still, i kept up the intensity and banged out the vocal take on the 2nd try (the first real take i somehow just forgot to sing the chorus and blanked…). It's a pretty intense vocal and maybe a little hysterical, but on reflection i am psyched with the result. Still, i had picked this song because it was the easiest- there was no need for a polished vocal, that wasn't really the point, there were no super high notes, and it was pretty easy rock out to that funky groove. I sang it through an SM7 in a dead room (better for a classic rock sort of vocal tone).
You can check it out here: http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/track/the-road
The next song was Night Drive. I had picked to do this one as soon as possible but not first, as it is by far the most vocally demanding with continued high notes that aren't screamed (a clean tone works better on them), and plenty of falsetto, as well as being much more emotionally demanding than The Road. Although my first take had its moments, it was fully of hysterics. It was too over the top and a lot of this translated into a vibrato that sounded very forced (a combination of the high notes without a distorted vocal tone meant that the clean tone had a kind of hysterical vibrato sound). What this meant was that on future takes i would have to continually try to moderate how 'into it' i was. Try a little less hard. Let it flow. The problem is that its tough enough to sing that i can't really sing it casually. Taking 5 minutes between each take to drink tea, i wondered if i'd ever really get this one done.
Eventually i got something we were happy with and i did a few quick punch ins to fix a couple words that weren't great in the take.
After this we took a break.
The next song we did was Green Grass Blues as it also had a falsetto section we wanted to bang out before we moved onto Washed Up and Scent of a Wolf which have a more distorted vocal (which tends to make any ensuing falsetto sound very airy and strained). To be honest, i was pretty pooped at this point and was lamenting about how we couldn't comp vocal takes for Night Drive since we weren't able to use Pro Tools since i felt that we could easily have gotten 2 really great choruses out of the 8-12 i had to sing over the course of recording. Still, realistic is good. If Opera singers can bang out 98% takes 300 nights a year, i should be able to too.
Something to strive towards. Green Grass was ok. I did one take and at first there was some talk of either punching in for the beginning of the take or redoing it entirely but after a couple listens it was decided that actually the start sounded good and in tune and that really the only issue was the falsetto section at the end… which was too long and kind of over the top. But it was going to be basically impossible to just cut out the end of the take because there was an instrumental section.
There was some strained talking about what our options were and eventually Steve said, well, lets just try editing it the way you ideally want and we'll see if it works; "We can always stick it back together after". So he whipped out a razor, cut out 4 bars of music, then joined the takes together using tape. "It'll probably sound a bit weird because it hits a peak and then suddenly drops off in the last bar but we can try it".
Ninja splicing
Nope. The second we all heard it we were happy and amazed that such precision could be achieved using a razor. Mission saved. Like Night Drive we did this in the live room using an old Neumann 67.
The next take we did was Scent of a Wolf on the SM7 in the dead room. One take, no punch ins. Phew. A gift.
Scent of a Wolf: http://alexeimartov.bandcamp.com/tra...nt-of-a-wolf-2
Like most the other songs, there was a general glaze of inexperience but no obvious issues and the intensity and emotion was there without too much hysteria. We tried doubling the end to see how it sounded, and when we went to mix we eventually used a little of that.
Lastly we did Washed Up which was pretty easy. The end section i am starting to get a little strained after singing all day long with very little time to rest but that works with the lyrical content of the song anyway, so good work us.
Anyway all in all after a couple simple punch ins, we were pretty happy with the rough mixes we got. Finished at 11 pm that Sunday after singing all day. Was pretty spent at the end of it.
PLEASE HURRY UP AND BOIL I AM TIRED FROM PLAYING BASS ALL DAY, thinks bassist Matthew Dorfman
We're gonna cross the border soon to Michigan. Hopefully no dramas like the way over (despite not coming to play a show, bringing business to the US and having 2/3 people in a car be American, we were individually interrogated about our intentions, i was quizzed about my poker results, etc... it is not a pleasant thing at all these days to be a musician crossing a border sadly).
Overall we got what i think is a great recording in 2 days, no tuning, no comping vocals, nothing. Just pure rock and roll goodness.
<END MAY 4 LOG- RECORDING OF SCENT OF THE WOLF EP>
Get Alexei Martov's debut EP Scent of a Wolf here
Last edited by alexeimartov; 07-31-2012 at 08:16 PM.
07-31-2012
, 08:57 PM
07-31-2012
, 09:05 PM
08-17-2012
, 09:47 PM
You need a vacation. Get your unified self up. Get harmonic.
I go on a vacation all the time. A dozen times a day. My favourite spot.
It's my own private get away. Things get heavy for me, i take 5 minutes out and i just go there, and i just concentrate on absolutely nothing.
Here. Take it, cos you need it a lot more than i do. And it'll help you. I guarantee you.
Go get em.
In the movie Collateral, the protagonist is a taxi driver. Now i've never driven a taxi (actually i don't know how to drive a car at all ups). I imagine it's a little more enjoyable than working at Best Buy in the cell phone department. But still pretty monotonous as far as these things go.
The drivers strategy for getting zen at the driving wheel is based around regular visualisation of a perfect island in some distant future. I imagine he can feel the wind on his face as he wanders hand in hand around its polaroid circumference. It brings him peace and legitimizes his existence. Tom Cruise thinks he's totally full of **** in the movie, but does Tom Cruise know anyway. Not like his beliefs are more sane than worshipping a sunny island.
I mention this because at least a year ago, probably more, I was in a rather sad state of affairs at my inability to progress at music. Everything felt so far away. Once you have got from A to B and then B to C, getting to D or even X doesn't seem so difficult. It's just more letters. But for me finding the next step just felt like Chinese.
I would talk quite a bit about my woes on Skype to Krantz, and he would mention the scene i described above in Collateral. Keep your eyes on the prize.
For me this prize had always been to play in Japan to about 500 people. That was my maximum point, at which, even if nothing else ever happened, i would be completely satisfied with how playing in a rock band went for me.
"Martin! Your wolf scented CD is incredible! It makes me hungry for more! Come dine for free on all the Toro you can eat!!!"
I hadn't thought about this for a while, or anything more specific than "Japan, 500 people". Osaka was in the back of my mind as somewhere awesome to go and from my research, i thought i might like to play at BIG CAT in Osaka. I don't really know anything about that venue, i just liked the name.
Anyway, my brother recently went to see Radiohead at something called the "Fuji Rock Festival", which he has described as what seems to be the best concert going experience ever. It is one of the best organized, cleanest festivals, with at least 200 bands playing each year. In his girlfriends words "I now believe you have not truly seen a band live unless you have seen them both in your home town, and in Japan". From my short travels in Japan, this had always been my belief, but it was nice to have it confirmed. He described camping out on the side of the mountain as some kind of electric circus floated by in his sleep. Watching many world class bands. Notably he didn't mention how terrible it was to use the porto potties, or how much it sucked when he was sleeping in the mud. Standard American festival experiences this is Japan!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAyrPurTh-I
Muse at FUJI. They have smaller shows though! I'm not totally insane!
So now that is my island in the sun. I think its totally possible and i plan to pull it off.
I am planning to begin my infiltration into the Japanese music scene with 4 times a year visits to Osaka and Tokyo. I have begun learning the language. To complete the plan, all i have to do now is dye my hair some crazy shade of awesome.
This might all sound pretty crazy given that we don't even have a physical CD but actually we do have a physical CD now, so you are wrong!
See:
Time to get hustlin:
In fact, Alexei Martov got a little air time on McGill College Radio (CKUT 90.3) 2 nights ago, which is basically the best College Radio in Canada. You can listen to us up 3rd or 4th, with "Washed Up" here: http://archives.ckut.ca/64/mp3.20120816.04.00-06.00.m3u. It's a stream so you have to RC save and play in VLC or something similar. Interesting choice imo, since i think the Road is better for Radio and Scent of a Wolf is a better track but there ya go.
I'll update y'all on how our month long tour across Canada and Indianapolis went soon
For now,
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
I go on a vacation all the time. A dozen times a day. My favourite spot.
It's my own private get away. Things get heavy for me, i take 5 minutes out and i just go there, and i just concentrate on absolutely nothing.
Here. Take it, cos you need it a lot more than i do. And it'll help you. I guarantee you.
Go get em.
In the movie Collateral, the protagonist is a taxi driver. Now i've never driven a taxi (actually i don't know how to drive a car at all ups). I imagine it's a little more enjoyable than working at Best Buy in the cell phone department. But still pretty monotonous as far as these things go.
The drivers strategy for getting zen at the driving wheel is based around regular visualisation of a perfect island in some distant future. I imagine he can feel the wind on his face as he wanders hand in hand around its polaroid circumference. It brings him peace and legitimizes his existence. Tom Cruise thinks he's totally full of **** in the movie, but does Tom Cruise know anyway. Not like his beliefs are more sane than worshipping a sunny island.
I mention this because at least a year ago, probably more, I was in a rather sad state of affairs at my inability to progress at music. Everything felt so far away. Once you have got from A to B and then B to C, getting to D or even X doesn't seem so difficult. It's just more letters. But for me finding the next step just felt like Chinese.
I would talk quite a bit about my woes on Skype to Krantz, and he would mention the scene i described above in Collateral. Keep your eyes on the prize.
For me this prize had always been to play in Japan to about 500 people. That was my maximum point, at which, even if nothing else ever happened, i would be completely satisfied with how playing in a rock band went for me.
"Martin! Your wolf scented CD is incredible! It makes me hungry for more! Come dine for free on all the Toro you can eat!!!"
I hadn't thought about this for a while, or anything more specific than "Japan, 500 people". Osaka was in the back of my mind as somewhere awesome to go and from my research, i thought i might like to play at BIG CAT in Osaka. I don't really know anything about that venue, i just liked the name.
Anyway, my brother recently went to see Radiohead at something called the "Fuji Rock Festival", which he has described as what seems to be the best concert going experience ever. It is one of the best organized, cleanest festivals, with at least 200 bands playing each year. In his girlfriends words "I now believe you have not truly seen a band live unless you have seen them both in your home town, and in Japan". From my short travels in Japan, this had always been my belief, but it was nice to have it confirmed. He described camping out on the side of the mountain as some kind of electric circus floated by in his sleep. Watching many world class bands. Notably he didn't mention how terrible it was to use the porto potties, or how much it sucked when he was sleeping in the mud. Standard American festival experiences this is Japan!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAyrPurTh-I
Muse at FUJI. They have smaller shows though! I'm not totally insane!
So now that is my island in the sun. I think its totally possible and i plan to pull it off.
I am planning to begin my infiltration into the Japanese music scene with 4 times a year visits to Osaka and Tokyo. I have begun learning the language. To complete the plan, all i have to do now is dye my hair some crazy shade of awesome.
This might all sound pretty crazy given that we don't even have a physical CD but actually we do have a physical CD now, so you are wrong!
See:
Time to get hustlin:
In fact, Alexei Martov got a little air time on McGill College Radio (CKUT 90.3) 2 nights ago, which is basically the best College Radio in Canada. You can listen to us up 3rd or 4th, with "Washed Up" here: http://archives.ckut.ca/64/mp3.20120816.04.00-06.00.m3u. It's a stream so you have to RC save and play in VLC or something similar. Interesting choice imo, since i think the Road is better for Radio and Scent of a Wolf is a better track but there ya go.
I'll update y'all on how our month long tour across Canada and Indianapolis went soon
For now,
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
08-18-2012
, 12:34 AM
09-28-2012
, 02:16 PM
Things continue to move along despite the constant feeling that nothing is ever moving along. We applied to a ****-load of festivals this year using sonicbids (the industry standard for Electronic Press Kits, or EPKs, basically your music, band photos, press etc) but didn't get into any (unsurprising as we are not on a label, have no press, haven't played any really noteworthy venues yet and have only written an EP of music), but i am confident that eventually we will start getting into some of the smaller ones.
The last 2 shows we played were the biggest and best yet, the first was for something called "OAP" (open air pub) which is hosted at McGill. It's about a month long event with live music etc. We had the luck of playing in the rain but luckily there were tents and still about 100 people in attendance.
Here's Matt (our bassist) waiting in the rain for a taxi cab (who will inevitably charge us an extra $20 on top of the cab charge for 'moving furniture'; MUST BUY CAR) while i hope a plastic garbage bag is enough to protect my baby.
That show went pretty well. Naturally i was completely drained afterwards and pounded beers and smoked cigarettes till i couldn't move. I really have to work on how i deal with feeling exhausted after a show. My pre-show game is pretty good, i get pretty in the zone and feel healthy etc but after carting all our **** around and then pouring it out on the stage then packing up, i just need to wind the **** down with some wine afterwards. Still, that's half the fun i guess.
The next show we had was at O Patro Vys which is actually a pretty decent venue that does good sound checks. We played with another band, Archery Guild, who have a pretty good pull, and we had someone working the door so i know that we got 85 paying people to the show on a Wednesday which is a pretty good pull actually. We had to pay the venue $300 after tax for the sound guy and girl to work the door which felt pretty steep but the sound was great and it was nice to actually be able to hear the vocal.
Playing at O Patro Vys
There were the natural technical issues like falling over guitar cables mid solo etc, but overall it was pretty good. I felt totally drained afterwards once again though and wasn't particularly happy with how the show went until a couple days later when the little niggling things that went wrong wore off. This is typically the case with anything creative (i definitely felt this way recording, where you are war with every tiny detail then reflect a week later and are like 'actually this is pretty good!').
Giant eyeball looks on in background.
We've been working on getting our live show a bit better using projections and such and i am working on learning After Effects to make our own stuff that fits into the aesthetic we have been working with (similar to how our EP cover is) but for now we just used some psychadelic stuff we found online and it looked pretty good.
Whole band in what looks to be a more chilled out moment...
Anyway, we are rehearsing/writing music a few times a week together and i am still working on my singing independently as well as the typical guitar and piano composition and practice so things are moving along fine. I recorded a little classical singing the other day that you can check out here:
http://martinbradstreet.bandcamp.com...ieta-signore-6
We hope to record a full length album some time in May next year since that'll give us some time to tour it that summer.
In other news we are playing at Il Motore on Friday, 30th November, with some other bands, 2 from Ithaca ( http://www.loftsband.com ), one of which i've been talking to as a result of 2+2 which is pretty cool. It's actually going to be the first time we've played at a venue that i've paid good money to see world class bands before. I saw this crazy ****ing japanese band Melt Banana there actually and it was really awesome. Turns out they recorded at the same place as us w/ Steve, which is pretty cool.
I guess the last thing to mention is that we finally got our music on iTunes where i know is at least the only place i pay for music, so if you've been waiting to get a hold of our debut EP Scent of a Wolf, you can check it out http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sce...ign-mpt=uo%3D4. Or just look up Alexei Martov in iTunes.
The last 2 shows we played were the biggest and best yet, the first was for something called "OAP" (open air pub) which is hosted at McGill. It's about a month long event with live music etc. We had the luck of playing in the rain but luckily there were tents and still about 100 people in attendance.
Here's Matt (our bassist) waiting in the rain for a taxi cab (who will inevitably charge us an extra $20 on top of the cab charge for 'moving furniture'; MUST BUY CAR) while i hope a plastic garbage bag is enough to protect my baby.
That show went pretty well. Naturally i was completely drained afterwards and pounded beers and smoked cigarettes till i couldn't move. I really have to work on how i deal with feeling exhausted after a show. My pre-show game is pretty good, i get pretty in the zone and feel healthy etc but after carting all our **** around and then pouring it out on the stage then packing up, i just need to wind the **** down with some wine afterwards. Still, that's half the fun i guess.
The next show we had was at O Patro Vys which is actually a pretty decent venue that does good sound checks. We played with another band, Archery Guild, who have a pretty good pull, and we had someone working the door so i know that we got 85 paying people to the show on a Wednesday which is a pretty good pull actually. We had to pay the venue $300 after tax for the sound guy and girl to work the door which felt pretty steep but the sound was great and it was nice to actually be able to hear the vocal.
Playing at O Patro Vys
There were the natural technical issues like falling over guitar cables mid solo etc, but overall it was pretty good. I felt totally drained afterwards once again though and wasn't particularly happy with how the show went until a couple days later when the little niggling things that went wrong wore off. This is typically the case with anything creative (i definitely felt this way recording, where you are war with every tiny detail then reflect a week later and are like 'actually this is pretty good!').
Giant eyeball looks on in background.
We've been working on getting our live show a bit better using projections and such and i am working on learning After Effects to make our own stuff that fits into the aesthetic we have been working with (similar to how our EP cover is) but for now we just used some psychadelic stuff we found online and it looked pretty good.
Whole band in what looks to be a more chilled out moment...
Anyway, we are rehearsing/writing music a few times a week together and i am still working on my singing independently as well as the typical guitar and piano composition and practice so things are moving along fine. I recorded a little classical singing the other day that you can check out here:
http://martinbradstreet.bandcamp.com...ieta-signore-6
We hope to record a full length album some time in May next year since that'll give us some time to tour it that summer.
In other news we are playing at Il Motore on Friday, 30th November, with some other bands, 2 from Ithaca ( http://www.loftsband.com ), one of which i've been talking to as a result of 2+2 which is pretty cool. It's actually going to be the first time we've played at a venue that i've paid good money to see world class bands before. I saw this crazy ****ing japanese band Melt Banana there actually and it was really awesome. Turns out they recorded at the same place as us w/ Steve, which is pretty cool.
I guess the last thing to mention is that we finally got our music on iTunes where i know is at least the only place i pay for music, so if you've been waiting to get a hold of our debut EP Scent of a Wolf, you can check it out http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sce...ign-mpt=uo%3D4. Or just look up Alexei Martov in iTunes.
Last edited by alexeimartov; 09-28-2012 at 02:23 PM.
10-29-2012
, 07:24 PM
So we've needed press style photos for a while so that we can submit our CD w/ a one-sheet (promotional a4 piece of paper with details about your band) and i finally got around to setting it up myself figuring it was easier than getting someone else to do it.
They turned out ok:
Oops not that one...
There we go.
So now we can send out a whole buncha cds w/ our promotional material which i whipped up in photoshop. Makin' moves.
We also played what was probably our best show ever to about 100 people in a basement on St-Laurent, it was totally insane (Halloween Saturday), def felt the best i'd felt on stage and had a tonne of people give us positive feedback after. Naturally the post-show halloween antics were pretty epic as well.
We're hoping to record again early next year and i just submitted to SXSW although i really think we need more support to get into something like that, at least a full length album and possibly some people involved in the business (eg at least an agent or tour manager or something). Still, miss all the shots you don't take and all that....
I'm pretty excited for a show we got coming up November 30th where we've actually seen a bunch of great bands... And heading to Ithaca for a show November 17th as well. And another one Dec 12th here... so enjoying perform plenty and also spending lots of time writing new material.
Add us to twitter if you're into that and into this, @alexeimartov .
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
They turned out ok:
Oops not that one...
There we go.
So now we can send out a whole buncha cds w/ our promotional material which i whipped up in photoshop. Makin' moves.
We also played what was probably our best show ever to about 100 people in a basement on St-Laurent, it was totally insane (Halloween Saturday), def felt the best i'd felt on stage and had a tonne of people give us positive feedback after. Naturally the post-show halloween antics were pretty epic as well.
We're hoping to record again early next year and i just submitted to SXSW although i really think we need more support to get into something like that, at least a full length album and possibly some people involved in the business (eg at least an agent or tour manager or something). Still, miss all the shots you don't take and all that....
I'm pretty excited for a show we got coming up November 30th where we've actually seen a bunch of great bands... And heading to Ithaca for a show November 17th as well. And another one Dec 12th here... so enjoying perform plenty and also spending lots of time writing new material.
Add us to twitter if you're into that and into this, @alexeimartov .
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
10-29-2012
, 07:48 PM
12-05-2012
, 02:29 AM
So since the last update we've played what i'd describe as probably our best show ever at Il Motore. Certainly the most fun.
A couple US bands were passing through on their tour and we played with Les Monstres Terribles, a local Montreal band. You can check their stuff out here, it's pretty awesome.
I think this shot basically sums up my state of mind at the time.
As far as shots are concerned actually, i continue taking every one no matter how unlikely they are to swish and am surprised at how frequently they tend to hit the net at least. For example, a website that was listed on Craigslist as a music site that was looking to document some shows that i figured would be paid promotion ended up sending out a couple photographers and a press person to our last show. Cheers to them.
You can read that review and see some more photos here: http://theradiostation.tumblr.com/po...w-of-this-past
Things are starting to get pretty busy as the list of music related stuff that can be worked out becomes increasingly endless. I bought a van so we can start playing more frequently around Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa etc as well as East Coast US, rather than just Montreal so hopefully we'll be making it out to wherever HSNL resides. A few players were at the last show actually. I'm pretty sure i saw at least one person take a shot of Sambucca then light their mouth on fire so that they were eating a fireball. Guess that's the sort of show this one was.
Been learning Japanese pretty furiously and heading there for a couple weeks soon to watch a bunch of bands and see if i can watch Jiro in action. Looking forward to that a lot.
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
http://alexeimartov.com/ or check us out on iTunes.
A couple US bands were passing through on their tour and we played with Les Monstres Terribles, a local Montreal band. You can check their stuff out here, it's pretty awesome.
I think this shot basically sums up my state of mind at the time.
As far as shots are concerned actually, i continue taking every one no matter how unlikely they are to swish and am surprised at how frequently they tend to hit the net at least. For example, a website that was listed on Craigslist as a music site that was looking to document some shows that i figured would be paid promotion ended up sending out a couple photographers and a press person to our last show. Cheers to them.
You can read that review and see some more photos here: http://theradiostation.tumblr.com/po...w-of-this-past
Things are starting to get pretty busy as the list of music related stuff that can be worked out becomes increasingly endless. I bought a van so we can start playing more frequently around Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa etc as well as East Coast US, rather than just Montreal so hopefully we'll be making it out to wherever HSNL resides. A few players were at the last show actually. I'm pretty sure i saw at least one person take a shot of Sambucca then light their mouth on fire so that they were eating a fireball. Guess that's the sort of show this one was.
Been learning Japanese pretty furiously and heading there for a couple weeks soon to watch a bunch of bands and see if i can watch Jiro in action. Looking forward to that a lot.
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT
http://alexeimartov.com/ or check us out on iTunes.
Last edited by alexeimartov; 12-05-2012 at 02:43 AM.
06-21-2013
, 07:44 PM
Things have been hectic to say the least.
After a frenetic bender leading into the recording of the single "Way of the Crow" from our forthcoming LP ( http://www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ), "Neural Awakening", things had got a little dicey and there was more to come. We had to get that track down in the moment so headed back to record with Howard Bilerman at Hotel2Tango in Montreal to finish the job. That'll be available as a 7" single soon and on iTunes as soon as i deal with CD Baby's tomfoolery. For now you can buy that on Bandcamp, who are kind enough to charge us half the vig anyway ( http//www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ). I recommend it for when you are on raging tilt.
Anyway, i said there was more to come and more there was as we just opened a show called "Next Music From Tokyo" (http://www.nextmusicfromtokyo.com/). I had been interested in this event since i had seen Japanese Indie Rock gods "The Zazen Boys" headline the show last year, who, along with Charlan Po Rantan, (a band of Caravan Palacesque gypsy school girls in matching uniforms with some surprisingly amazing chops), rocked the hell out of the Divan Orange (thats Orange Couch for you guys, though i honestly thought it was Divine Orange until i just googled it now- a disappointing discovery!).
The deal with Next Music From Tokyo, is this legend of a man, Steven Tanaka, is an anaesthesiologist without a cause (or any children), so his money burning endeavour of choice is to fly to Tokyo a few times a year, pick his favourites of the best indie rock bands over there that would probably never have a chance to play in the US, and make them an offer they can't refuse. "How would you like to play in Canada? Tour there? Without having to pay any of the expenses?". Clearly i had to meet this man who seemed to be even more heavily invested in the Japanese underground than myself. In January of this year i had headed to Tokyo with my girlfriend and while we were there, figured Steven could give us some tips on great places to check out.
Expecting a show recommendation or two, but instead receiving a 2 week itinerary with back to back shows some nights, it was clear that some negotiating about how many punk rock bands we could see on average per week would be necessary. Managing to ride the fine line of romantic Jazz dinners and noise punk shows was a challenge but we ended up pretty much hitting a show every night, doubling up on one of the last nights to see Muse at the Saitama Super Arena, then heading straight to 20000v (pronounced 'nee-man-volto) Live House for an all night tinnitus fest.
Upon my return i had to head through Toronto on the way to New York and decided to grab a couple brews with the man who had sent me to the depths of '20,000v' to see the band 'Groundcover' (undoubtably the loudest and one of the most epic bands i've had the pleasure of losing my ear calluses to).
As is often the case when beer drinking escalates and mutual passions are discussed, we had a great time culminating in Steven asking if we'd open the ensuing Next Music From Tokyo Volume 5 at Divan Orange. I told him that wasn't really necessary, it was his thing, and it was for Japanese bands anyway, but he told me that was no problem. Worrying that his over enthusiasm might be from imbibing and that that might lead to a kind of awkward feeling in the morning, i told him to sleep on it but the next day he told me his answer was the same and he'd love to have us open the show.
And that's how i ended up screaming MOTTO CHO DAI AKIRA, MOTTTOOOOOO relentlessly as Akira Kawasaki of the band Mouse on the Keys ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16g0M3lJvio ) launched into another drum solo that one could only assume was being channeled directly from some place deep beneath the stage, near the Earth's core. Where the devil likes to party on weekends and get away from the grind.
That was after we opened the show though, and another 3 Japanese bands rocked the house. There were a lot of Japanese people at the Divan that night (in fact 5 of them from the band "Hara from Hell" had been sleeping on my floor the previous night). Steven is pretty open about how it costs him around 40-50k a year to fly all these people to Canada to play, pretty much guaranteeing someone will engrave his tombstone with the word BALLER at some point.
On our end we pulled through pretty hard, and given an 8:30 pm opening slot ended up with a pretty packed house for an opening slot, with the whole show selling out in the end. Everyone after the show was pretty amped up, so naturally the drinking went on till 6 in the morning when Mouse on the Keys and the other bands of Next Music Toyko had to head to Vancouver for their next nights show.
I'm returning to Japan for a month in July where i'm doing Japanese school 20 hours a week and bringing my Nord Electro down- I look forward to Akira showing me "Paradise" there (after a stern look from my girlfriend Akira re-assured us, twinkle in his eye, that he meant taking me to his favourite Ramen shop- i do not think that one made it through the checkout). The dream of a 500 person show there seems more and more likely at this point- it could be time to escalate to a more realistic goal, like packing out Saitama.
Until next time,
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT.
After a frenetic bender leading into the recording of the single "Way of the Crow" from our forthcoming LP ( http://www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ), "Neural Awakening", things had got a little dicey and there was more to come. We had to get that track down in the moment so headed back to record with Howard Bilerman at Hotel2Tango in Montreal to finish the job. That'll be available as a 7" single soon and on iTunes as soon as i deal with CD Baby's tomfoolery. For now you can buy that on Bandcamp, who are kind enough to charge us half the vig anyway ( http//www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ). I recommend it for when you are on raging tilt.
Anyway, i said there was more to come and more there was as we just opened a show called "Next Music From Tokyo" (http://www.nextmusicfromtokyo.com/). I had been interested in this event since i had seen Japanese Indie Rock gods "The Zazen Boys" headline the show last year, who, along with Charlan Po Rantan, (a band of Caravan Palacesque gypsy school girls in matching uniforms with some surprisingly amazing chops), rocked the hell out of the Divan Orange (thats Orange Couch for you guys, though i honestly thought it was Divine Orange until i just googled it now- a disappointing discovery!).
The deal with Next Music From Tokyo, is this legend of a man, Steven Tanaka, is an anaesthesiologist without a cause (or any children), so his money burning endeavour of choice is to fly to Tokyo a few times a year, pick his favourites of the best indie rock bands over there that would probably never have a chance to play in the US, and make them an offer they can't refuse. "How would you like to play in Canada? Tour there? Without having to pay any of the expenses?". Clearly i had to meet this man who seemed to be even more heavily invested in the Japanese underground than myself. In January of this year i had headed to Tokyo with my girlfriend and while we were there, figured Steven could give us some tips on great places to check out.
Expecting a show recommendation or two, but instead receiving a 2 week itinerary with back to back shows some nights, it was clear that some negotiating about how many punk rock bands we could see on average per week would be necessary. Managing to ride the fine line of romantic Jazz dinners and noise punk shows was a challenge but we ended up pretty much hitting a show every night, doubling up on one of the last nights to see Muse at the Saitama Super Arena, then heading straight to 20000v (pronounced 'nee-man-volto) Live House for an all night tinnitus fest.
Upon my return i had to head through Toronto on the way to New York and decided to grab a couple brews with the man who had sent me to the depths of '20,000v' to see the band 'Groundcover' (undoubtably the loudest and one of the most epic bands i've had the pleasure of losing my ear calluses to).
As is often the case when beer drinking escalates and mutual passions are discussed, we had a great time culminating in Steven asking if we'd open the ensuing Next Music From Tokyo Volume 5 at Divan Orange. I told him that wasn't really necessary, it was his thing, and it was for Japanese bands anyway, but he told me that was no problem. Worrying that his over enthusiasm might be from imbibing and that that might lead to a kind of awkward feeling in the morning, i told him to sleep on it but the next day he told me his answer was the same and he'd love to have us open the show.
And that's how i ended up screaming MOTTO CHO DAI AKIRA, MOTTTOOOOOO relentlessly as Akira Kawasaki of the band Mouse on the Keys ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16g0M3lJvio ) launched into another drum solo that one could only assume was being channeled directly from some place deep beneath the stage, near the Earth's core. Where the devil likes to party on weekends and get away from the grind.
That was after we opened the show though, and another 3 Japanese bands rocked the house. There were a lot of Japanese people at the Divan that night (in fact 5 of them from the band "Hara from Hell" had been sleeping on my floor the previous night). Steven is pretty open about how it costs him around 40-50k a year to fly all these people to Canada to play, pretty much guaranteeing someone will engrave his tombstone with the word BALLER at some point.
On our end we pulled through pretty hard, and given an 8:30 pm opening slot ended up with a pretty packed house for an opening slot, with the whole show selling out in the end. Everyone after the show was pretty amped up, so naturally the drinking went on till 6 in the morning when Mouse on the Keys and the other bands of Next Music Toyko had to head to Vancouver for their next nights show.
I'm returning to Japan for a month in July where i'm doing Japanese school 20 hours a week and bringing my Nord Electro down- I look forward to Akira showing me "Paradise" there (after a stern look from my girlfriend Akira re-assured us, twinkle in his eye, that he meant taking me to his favourite Ramen shop- i do not think that one made it through the checkout). The dream of a 500 person show there seems more and more likely at this point- it could be time to escalate to a more realistic goal, like packing out Saitama.
Until next time,
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT.
06-21-2013
, 07:59 PM
Things have been hectic to say the least.
After a frenetic bender leading into the recording of the single "Way of the Crow" from our forthcoming LP ( http://www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ), "Neural Awakening", things had got a little dicey and there was more to come. We had to get that track down in the moment so headed back to record with Howard Bilerman at Hotel2Tango in Montreal to finish the job. That'll be available as a 7" single soon and on iTunes as soon as i deal with CD Baby's tomfoolery. For now you can buy that on Bandcamp, who are kind enough to charge us half the vig anyway ( http//www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ). I recommend it for when you are on raging tilt.
Anyway, i said there was more to come and more there was as we just opened a show called "Next Music From Tokyo" (http://www.nextmusicfromtokyo.com/). I had been interested in this event since i had seen Japanese Indie Rock gods "The Zazen Boys" headline the show last year, who, along with Charlan Po Rantan, (a band of Caravan Palacesque gypsy school girls in matching uniforms with some surprisingly amazing chops), rocked the hell out of the Divan Orange (thats Orange Couch for you guys, though i honestly thought it was Divine Orange until i just googled it now- a disappointing discovery!).
The deal with Next Music From Tokyo, is this legend of a man, Steven Tanaka, is an anaesthesiologist without a cause (or any children), so his money burning endeavour of choice is to fly to Tokyo a few times a year, pick his favourites of the best indie rock bands over there that would probably never have a chance to play in the US, and make them an offer they can't refuse. "How would you like to play in Canada? Tour there? Without having to pay any of the expenses?". Clearly i had to meet this man who seemed to be even more heavily invested in the Japanese underground than myself. In January of this year i had headed to Tokyo with my girlfriend and while we were there, figured Steven could give us some tips on great places to check out.
Expecting a show recommendation or two, but instead receiving a 2 week itinerary with back to back shows some nights, it was clear that some negotiating about how many punk rock bands we could see on average per week would be necessary. Managing to ride the fine line of romantic Jazz dinners and noise punk shows was a challenge but we ended up pretty much hitting a show every night, doubling up on one of the last nights to see Muse at the Saitama Super Arena, then heading straight to 20000v (pronounced 'nee-man-volto) Live House for an all night tinnitus fest.
Playing a little jazz at an open mic style jam session in Osaka
Upon my return i had to head through Toronto on the way to New York and decided to grab a couple brews with the man who had sent me to the depths of '20,000v' to see the band 'Groundcover' (undoubtably the loudest and one of the most epic bands i've had the pleasure of losing my ear calluses to).
As is often the case when beer drinking escalates and mutual passions are discussed, we had a great time culminating in Steven asking if we'd open the ensuing Next Music From Tokyo Volume 5 at Divan Orange. I told him that wasn't really necessary, it was his thing, and it was for Japanese bands anyway, but he told me that was no problem. Worrying that his over enthusiasm might be from imbibing and that that might lead to a kind of awkward feeling in the morning, i told him to sleep on it but the next day he told me his answer was the same and he'd love to have us open the show.
And that's how i ended up screaming MOTTO CHO DAI AKIRA, MOTTTOOOOOO relentlessly as Akira Kawasaki of the band Mouse on the Keys launched into another drum solo that one could only assume was being channeled directly from some place deep beneath the stage, near the Earth's core. Where the devil likes to party on weekends and get away from the grind.
MOUSE ON THE KEYS
That was after we opened the show though, and another 3 Japanese bands rocked the house. There were a lot of Japanese people at the Divan that night (in fact 5 of them from the band "Hara from Hell" had been sleeping on my floor the previous night).
Steven is pretty open about how it costs him around 40-50k a year to fly all these people to Canada to play, pretty much guaranteeing someone will engrave his tombstone with the word BALLER at some point.
Talk to me about being a boss.
Opening Next Music Tokyo
On our end we pulled through pretty hard, and given an 8:30 pm opening slot ended up with a pretty packed house for an opening slot (>100 people), with the whole show selling out in the end.
Everyone after the show was pretty amped up, so naturally the drinking went on till 6 in the morning when Mouse on the Keys and the other bands of Next Music Toyko had to head to Vancouver for their next nights show.
I'm returning to Japan for a month in July where i'm doing Japanese school 20 hours a week and bringing my Nord Electro down- I look forward to Akira showing me "Paradise" there (after a stern look from my girlfriend Akira re-assured us, twinkle in his eye, that he meant taking me to his favourite Ramen shop- i do not think that one made it through the checkout). The dream of playing at Fuji Rock seems more and more possible with each passing day.
Until next time,
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT.
After a frenetic bender leading into the recording of the single "Way of the Crow" from our forthcoming LP ( http://www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ), "Neural Awakening", things had got a little dicey and there was more to come. We had to get that track down in the moment so headed back to record with Howard Bilerman at Hotel2Tango in Montreal to finish the job. That'll be available as a 7" single soon and on iTunes as soon as i deal with CD Baby's tomfoolery. For now you can buy that on Bandcamp, who are kind enough to charge us half the vig anyway ( http//www.alexeimartov.bandcamp.com ). I recommend it for when you are on raging tilt.
Anyway, i said there was more to come and more there was as we just opened a show called "Next Music From Tokyo" (http://www.nextmusicfromtokyo.com/). I had been interested in this event since i had seen Japanese Indie Rock gods "The Zazen Boys" headline the show last year, who, along with Charlan Po Rantan, (a band of Caravan Palacesque gypsy school girls in matching uniforms with some surprisingly amazing chops), rocked the hell out of the Divan Orange (thats Orange Couch for you guys, though i honestly thought it was Divine Orange until i just googled it now- a disappointing discovery!).
The deal with Next Music From Tokyo, is this legend of a man, Steven Tanaka, is an anaesthesiologist without a cause (or any children), so his money burning endeavour of choice is to fly to Tokyo a few times a year, pick his favourites of the best indie rock bands over there that would probably never have a chance to play in the US, and make them an offer they can't refuse. "How would you like to play in Canada? Tour there? Without having to pay any of the expenses?". Clearly i had to meet this man who seemed to be even more heavily invested in the Japanese underground than myself. In January of this year i had headed to Tokyo with my girlfriend and while we were there, figured Steven could give us some tips on great places to check out.
Expecting a show recommendation or two, but instead receiving a 2 week itinerary with back to back shows some nights, it was clear that some negotiating about how many punk rock bands we could see on average per week would be necessary. Managing to ride the fine line of romantic Jazz dinners and noise punk shows was a challenge but we ended up pretty much hitting a show every night, doubling up on one of the last nights to see Muse at the Saitama Super Arena, then heading straight to 20000v (pronounced 'nee-man-volto) Live House for an all night tinnitus fest.
Playing a little jazz at an open mic style jam session in Osaka
Upon my return i had to head through Toronto on the way to New York and decided to grab a couple brews with the man who had sent me to the depths of '20,000v' to see the band 'Groundcover' (undoubtably the loudest and one of the most epic bands i've had the pleasure of losing my ear calluses to).
As is often the case when beer drinking escalates and mutual passions are discussed, we had a great time culminating in Steven asking if we'd open the ensuing Next Music From Tokyo Volume 5 at Divan Orange. I told him that wasn't really necessary, it was his thing, and it was for Japanese bands anyway, but he told me that was no problem. Worrying that his over enthusiasm might be from imbibing and that that might lead to a kind of awkward feeling in the morning, i told him to sleep on it but the next day he told me his answer was the same and he'd love to have us open the show.
And that's how i ended up screaming MOTTO CHO DAI AKIRA, MOTTTOOOOOO relentlessly as Akira Kawasaki of the band Mouse on the Keys launched into another drum solo that one could only assume was being channeled directly from some place deep beneath the stage, near the Earth's core. Where the devil likes to party on weekends and get away from the grind.
MOUSE ON THE KEYS
That was after we opened the show though, and another 3 Japanese bands rocked the house. There were a lot of Japanese people at the Divan that night (in fact 5 of them from the band "Hara from Hell" had been sleeping on my floor the previous night).
Steven is pretty open about how it costs him around 40-50k a year to fly all these people to Canada to play, pretty much guaranteeing someone will engrave his tombstone with the word BALLER at some point.
Talk to me about being a boss.
Opening Next Music Tokyo
On our end we pulled through pretty hard, and given an 8:30 pm opening slot ended up with a pretty packed house for an opening slot (>100 people), with the whole show selling out in the end.
Everyone after the show was pretty amped up, so naturally the drinking went on till 6 in the morning when Mouse on the Keys and the other bands of Next Music Toyko had to head to Vancouver for their next nights show.
I'm returning to Japan for a month in July where i'm doing Japanese school 20 hours a week and bringing my Nord Electro down- I look forward to Akira showing me "Paradise" there (after a stern look from my girlfriend Akira re-assured us, twinkle in his eye, that he meant taking me to his favourite Ramen shop- i do not think that one made it through the checkout). The dream of playing at Fuji Rock seems more and more possible with each passing day.
Until next time,
ALEXEI MARTOV -> OUT.
Last edited by alexeimartov; 06-21-2013 at 08:11 PM.
06-21-2013
, 10:19 PM