Tom

Photo by Kate Eldridge

Quiet on The Front #5

Here is the latest version of Quiet on the Front. As a side note I've been pushing for a name change to "The Black Cowboy", it doesn't look promising. Corey discovered a way to use the MIDI application in Garageband to create a flute track that sounds like a mellotron. It really gives the song a refreshing, psychedelic sound; changing it up at just the right time. We also added sleigh bells to the section between the horn parts. Thanks to Hillary of No Disassemble for letting us borrow the bells. This song is now all but done; a few tweaks in mixing then off to mastering and that will be that.


QUIET ON THE FRONT 5.mp3

We're interested in hearing what you think about the new song, the process we go thru, whether we overdid it or if it still needs more. Shoot us a line and we'll discuss it over tuna fish and crackers.
Expect My Emails,
Mike

Gifts

We received a gift the other night. Some friends of ours, Matt and Snoop, brought over a stand up piano for us. That's Snoop standing next to Corey and John and our new piano.

It works great and just needs some slight tuning. Plan on hearing some non MIDI piano on some up coming songs. John is now thoroughly addicted to it, and I would venture to say that all of us are at least enamored with it. We've already taken it apart to allow for better access to the strings for recording.


Respectfully Yours,
Mike

Links and Links and Links

Liz from Deus Ex Machina PR has gotten us some good pub lately.
Thought I'd give her some love while linking you kids with all of these other blogs.

OHM Park
Atlanta Music Guide
Large Hearted Boy
Squirrel Food

Here is a picture of Alex Trebeck

Blast from the Past

The picture above was found lurking in my inbox today when I woke up. An old friend, John Reddock, sent it over as he was apparently going on a stroll down memory lane via old pics.

The pic is of me (mike) and Craig Hill at Craig's 1st wedding. The memory has always stood out to me because One: it was held underneath the Hunan Village Chinese restaurant, and two: because the bride walked into "All you Need is Love" by the Beatles. As you can see I was the single male who caught the garter (which i was presently wearing on my head) and was about 12 years younger. As I remember it there was no booze at the wedding and after a respectable amount of time we all headed back to my house (read-parents house) to make merry.

Differences between the man in the pic and who I am now.
19 year old mike - Has every answer to life's burning questions, weighs about 140 pounds, acne.
32 year old mike - Knows that he knows very little, weighs about 185 pounds, no acne.
I still have the hair though and that's enough.

Thanks for the memories John,
Mike

Back Issues

As we move forward towards the release of our new record, we decided that it might be time to offer our limited pressed EPs as one easy to download file(s). Hence "The First Four". We've sold out of "There Goes the Neighborhood" (100 copies), "The Kissing Bandit" (250), "Live @ ISP" (250) and "Getting Used to Decapitation" (250) at shows and thru the Web o Sphere.
You can now buy the whole 'album' for $10 or the individaul songs for 99 cents.

You can also go to sites like I tunes, Rhapsody and Napster to get the same songs if you already have accounts there.

We're also resetting our My Space player and posting 2 songs off WARFACE there, "Monster Cable" and "Yellow House". You can also get "Yellow House' from Largehearted Boy.
Respectfuly Yours,
Mike

3 Bullets is Updated

Our 'official' website has been updated.
Gone are the lovely pages covering "Getting Used to Decapitation"...
And on comes the new site to go with the new record.
It's quite simple as it stands, mostly there for journalists and other press folks.
The plan is to keep adding to it over the next few months until, when the record comes out, it's a fully operational Death Star.
Respectfully Yours,
Mike

Quiet on the Front session #K

Pics from the session 1/14/09

Tom Pollard getting ready for work...
"Must have at least 3 smokes and 2 beers before I can properly use this instrument to it fullest potential."

Since we record in a basement, we deal with none of those pesky distractions like having the control room in, say, another room. If you want to go over your part repeatedly it's most often easier to sit right in front of the computer and start and stop your own tracks.


But when punching in and out to do pickups and use pedals, a man...manning the boards is quite useful.

In this session we laid down a slide guitar melody and Tom's lead between the horn parts. Everyone was happy with the slide parts but upon further listening we decided that the guitar lead between the horn sections was a bit too 'happy' for this tune, so we dumped them. The night was wearing on we decided to come back to it with fresh ears another day.
Coming along just fine though and we're interested to hear what you guys out there in cyberspace think of it. Listen to the link below for the latest version.


QUIET ON THE FRONT 4.mp3

Learning to Fly

This past summer myself and my lady (Karen) went hang gliding in the mountains of Tennessee. I got a call 3 days ago from the guy who took us and he informed me that the video of my flight was in the mail and would soon arrive. Overjoyed I spent the next few days waiting in rapt anticipation.

The disc arrived this morning and after 38 seconds of viewing my flight I knew that I had to post it up here so everyone I've been telling about the magic of hang gliding could get a little taste of my madness.

I could spend a lot of time explaining what we were talking about and the moves the glider made while flying but it doesn't compare to the actual flight. I will say that we jumped off the mountain side at about 6 in the pm and that the sun was just beginning to set. There is a little talk at the top of the video (scared as hell) and my reaction to the flight at the end (delirious and ecstatic), the rest of the time was all wind noise so I decided to slap an old track of Corey's on the video. It's called "Reincarnation Song", it's about 4 or 5 years old and it's never been out there for public consumption. It's beautiful though and it captures the feeling of flying for me. Maybe we ought to bring it back into the mix, what do you think? Only rub is that the song runs out about 45 seconds before the flight ends, but that just means that you get to hear the landing in all of it's glory.

The guy who I was strapped to was Clarke Harlowe and he runs TAM Sports. He is the only hang gliding operation that runs out of this launch site and a cool cat to boot.

If you're interested in having an experience that will dwell in your memory sac for years to come...go jump off a mountain strapped to a giant wing.

Respectfully Yours,
Mike

Warface Release Date

Our new Album 'Warface' will be officially released April 25th.
Here's the cover!



And since we've sent out the 1st single to the press, I figure that we can share it with you as well. It's called 'Yellow House'.


04 Yellow House.mp3

Quiet on the Front Update #2

We added a few more tracks to Quiet on the Front last night at Shabbey Road. I (mike) put down a bass line for the entirety of the song, only took 12 takes. I played direct into the computer to get a warmer, rounder sound with a good low end. We've had some success with micing up the bass cabinet, but for this particular track we thought it best to go direct and avoid any signal distortion. This is what it looked like.


We laid in a cymbal 'ping' to the 1 and 3 beats, added some harpsichord strokes at the same beats and tried to lay down some shakers but they just didn't fit tight.


After listening to it several times over we've decided that all the tune needs now is for Tom to lay a lovely little lead in between the horn sections. And maybe a little single note wah pedal guitar underneath the high octave piano lead. But you never know what idea might rear it's ugly head when all of us are together. Check out the evolution of this song at the link below.
Respectfully Yours,
Mike


QUIET ON THE FRONT 3.mp3

Quiet on the Front

Hi folks, this is a new song that i've just written and I'm gonna now give you the run down on the tune. It's basically part 2 of a song that was on our first album "The Last Fiore" entitled "This Means War" in which I had the great pleasure of getting Tom Pollard to write and record a cello part for. In this new song "Quiet on the Front" our hero is still equating love with war and vice versa but now he's fuckin' sick of it and is ready to lay down his arms and give up his hard won spoils to the one he both loves and has been embattled with. The drums for this one were programmed and fed into our "garageband" program to start with. after that it was just adding the tracks I've recorded so far. First off was a classical acoustic guitar track and then I added a tremeloed out electric guitar track with my rickenbacker for some extra texture. On to the next track I hooked up the Rhodes electric piano which came out nice and then did my vocal. finally I put a Gurio track on in a couple places to add a little more drama to the song. I'm going to set up the drums after we get back from Nashville next week and add true drums to this and Mike is coming by tomorrow to lay down a bass track. After that i think this song will be pretty much in the can. What do you think? Any suggestions? Look for it's official release sometime this year. Hope you dig it. Bye.

Pallon

Quiet on the Front

IF I WENT AND WON IT ALL

I'D GIVE MOST BITS AWAY TO YOU

MOST OF IT AWAY TO YOU

MOST OF IT WOULD GO TO YOU

BUT WHEN I CALL WILL YOU ANSWER FOR ME

I'LL SUE FOR PEACE NOW IN YOUR ARMS

AND ALL THE SPOILS CAN GO TO YOU

I'LL GIVE IT ALL AWAY TO YOU

ALL OF IT AWAY TO YOU

CAUSE NO ONE WINS IN A WAR OH NO

BUT LOVE COULD BE THERE TOO

YEA LOVE COULD BE THERE TOO

YEA LOVE COULD BE THERE TOO

YEA LOVE COULD BE THERE TOO

YOU DON'T KNOW HOW THIS FEELS TO ME

I DON'T HOW IT FEELS TO YOU

BUT YOU AND ME DON'T NEED TO LOSE

WITH ALL OF THIS WE HAVE TO LOSE

CAUSE NO ONE WINS IN A WAR I KNOW

Am E Dm Am

C E Am Dm E7

Am E Dm Am

C E Am Dm E7

Am D7 Am D7 G C G C G C Am D7 Am D7 E7

Am E Dm Am

C E Am Dm Am E7 Am

QUIET ON THE FRONT 2.mp3


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Dysfunctional Family Portrait

Circus Night

Here's some video of the DVD Release show this past Friday night at the Star Bar.
Thee Crucials were great getting the crowd into the music and then AEW closed the night off with wild abandon. We're done with Atlanta for some time now, waiting for the new record release before we play again in town. That said we're lining up some dates to play out of town that we hope we see you at.

As a side note, we're still trying to get the audio embedded for our song project into this website. We're not the most tech savey folks and we're looking for the right ap.
Wish us luck or send your solution.
Respectfully Yours,
Mike