Honest Engine - Combustion and Overhaul
Mr. Sunshine - Estranged
Points West - Tumble Down

It is just back catalog stuff right now, but new stuff is forthcoming. If ya dig it, write a review! If ya hate it, move along…  Oh yeah, you can like us on Facebook too!

It sat in its case for about seven years until recently my favorite luthier, Gary Rosier, struck out on his own and his lead-time fell to a reasonable time.  It used to be six to eight months(!) but now was six to eight days.  I gave him the guitar and told him what needed to be done.

He replaced the nut, fixed the gouge, and intonated the guitar.  What I got back was amazing!  It inspired me to continue the upgrades and I made the following list and started upgrading, I’ve checked the completed upgrades:

1. Sperzel Tuners ☑
2. Graphite Nut ☑
3. Graphite Saddles ☑
4. Straplocks ☑
5. Chrome Knurled knobs ☑
6. Custom Pickguard ☐
7. Dampened Tailpiece  ☑
8. Bourns 500k A-Taper pots ☑
9. Bourns Push-Pull Pot for Series/Parallel ☐
10. Gretsch Duo-Jet HS Case ☐

In the end I will probably spend nearly as much in upgrades as the entire guitar is worth, but nothing should stand in the way of great tone (and fun). I’ll post a pic as soon as it is finished.

Rhythm of the Tides

This one is a rollicking amalgam of funk, ska, rock, prog, and pop.  It makes me want to get up and shake my ass.  Keep an ear out for the funky clavinet that leads into the chorus, it makes me laugh every time.  The bridge is supposed to evoke the sun sparkling on ocean waves.

Falling Apart features Farris on vocals, she also recorded vocals for three other Mojo Philter songs and I’ll add them over the next few weeks.  Since Farris is currently living in Kenya, we are going to try to keep what we do musically as open as possible.  So we’ll have instrumentals, as well as various guest vocalists, and we’ll go where the music takes us.  We figure that since we are beholden to no one, why should we follow a formula?

Anyway, we really dug making it, we hope you dig it too.

The stars aligned and Mojo Philter had another vocal session today and we finished vocals for the last two songs.  I will have everything mixed and posted for all to hear by next weekend.  I think it is sounding really cool and I’m excited to hear what people think.

We also moved into a new practice space in hopes that it would be a little bit cooler, temperature wise, than Lucky 13.  It isn’t.  It is bigger, and sounds better (after I acoustically treated it) but it is still hotter than hell.  The real kicker is that it seems to be wetter in our new room, yes wetter.  We all sweat when we practice and in this room it stays, everything feels damp when we are done.  It is really quite disgusting.

Gotta go mow the lawn…

…Okay, I’m back.  So I’ve got to say that it is really frustrating to have all the music recorded for our demo in March and not be able to finish vocals until July.  The whole reason I have a home studio is so that I can record stuff whenever I want.  Now I’m fully aware of all of the legitimate reason as to why it took so long, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

I worked on What Happened to You? last night and it is sounding freakin’ epic.  Seriously, the last chorus is ridiculous, complete with harmonized guitar leads and a Big Rock Finish!

Adrenalin, now in song form!

All told, the troubleshooting took about 45 minutes…  Sigh.

Rhythm of the Tides

Falling Apart

Kingdom Come

What Happened to You?

We’ll lay down bass sometime next week. Atom took some photos, I’ll get them up as soon as I can. We decided to go for a rougher, more spontaneous feel instead of a produced sound. The music we’re doing kind of calls for that approach in my opinion. So in that spirit I used a three mic technique on the drums with a lot of room sound. Very much an old-school late 60′s technique. One mic in the kick (AKG D112) and a pair of condensers (AKG C451B’s) in an XY pattern (as well as some of my own special sauce) to mitigate phase errors . It sounds very Muscle Shoals. We had Reh and Atom playing along to further contribute to the more “live” feel.

My front room is an incredible sounding room and I usually record drums there, right in front of the rock fireplace. But instead of recording there like I did for Gina French and James Woods I packed up a mobile version of my studio and we recorded in our practice room. I’m really liking the idea of doing more down-and-dirty style recordings, it feels a lot more casual. Plus it would be fun to pack up the studio and record in some nice old church or something. Make recording more of a fun get-together, rather than a stressful event.

Photos:  Atom Holiday