Project 52, the podcast

Week 51, Get On

project52 — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:59:26 +0000

To listen on an iPhone, visit my Bandcamp site, or download the SoundCloud iPhone app.

Well it’s week fifty-one! I can’t believe it. I’m still running short on time and I have a lot of ground to cover with this post so I might skip on some of the regular stuff about the recording. A couple of notes about that – the female vocalist in the harmonies is my very own sister Brooke Layman. She deserves a much bigger part than buried in the mix, but that’s what was called for on this song. I was very happy that it worked out for her to be visiting while this was going on. We’ve had very few opportunities to collaborate in our adult years.

Show Flier

In just a few days I’ll be taking the stage for the first time with the new band version of Developer. I’m really excited about it. The show features some great local artists, and it’s at a great venue. The night will culminate with a live recording of the final song with audience participation and something like fifteen guest musicians by the end of the song. If you’re anywhere near Pittsburgh, please drop by. It’s easily worth the five dollar admission. But for all of you who’ve been following the blog for the last year and who aren’t in Pittsburgh, the whole show will be broadcast here as live streaming video thanks to the incredible folks over at Incredibly Thin! Just bookmark it and tune back in after 8 pm EST. The rough band start times are as follows: River is to Train – 8:30, Karl Hendricks – 9:10, Pairdown – 9:50, Endless Mike & the Beagle Club – 10:30, Developer – 11:10. I’ll hopefully be posting a remixed and recut version of the final song on Monday, September 6, which is the one year anniversary of the project, and yeah it’s my birthday too.

Front Cover

Inside Spread

The grand finale show doubles as a CD release for Another Song for the Weekend, a newly remastered nineteen-song collection of some of the best tracks of Project 52. I’ll get the CD posted on the Developer Bandcamp site in the days following the show for sale as both the physical CD package or as a digital download.

Now on to the song itself. This track was heavily influenced by the band Polvo. I couldn’t help it. I was so thrilled to have been able to see them live here in Pittsburgh on August 12 after having never had the opportunity before, and they killed it so hard that night, that it was inevitable that the Polvo sound would creep back into one of my songs. I say “back” because oddly enough, nearly a year ago I had just acquired the brand new Polvo album and had been playing pretty much nonstop. It’s subtle, but that definitely influenced the song for week two, “Left to Chance“. So, it turns out that both the second song of the project and second-t0-last song of the project were pretty heavily influenced by one of my favorite bands. It’s bears mentioning too that I credit that second song with setting the bar for the project and forcing me to take every week seriously.

Thanks again everyone. I’m thrilled to be sharing this all with you.

Week 48, To Sleep

project52 — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:45:54 +0000

To listen on an iPhone, visit my Bandcamp site, or download the SoundCloud iPhone app.

This week’s song is a little different. It’s pretty thick-sounding, but at its core is a simple little finger-picked guitar part. I recorded just about everything using the Alesis ProTrack. The acoustic finger-picking was with the built-in mics, though there’s way more hiss and noise than I would’ve liked. If I had more time I would’ve gone back and re-recorded the guitars, but I had a lot of humming to track. Many of the other tracks, including the drums, were recorded using the mic preamps on the Alesis. That continues to be a godsend. I’m sure the preamps aren’t of the highest quality, but to get a nice large-diaphragm condenser mic directly into my phone, I’m not complaining.

The details continue to come together for the grand finale show. It will be Sunday, September 5, at the Brillobox in Pittsburgh. The show feature local acts Endless Mike and the Beagle Club, Pairdown, Karl Hendricks (solo), River is to Train, and the band version of Developer. We’ll be performing the 52nd song of Project 52 and recording it live to post here the following day.

I hope to see a bunch of you there. Have a great week everyone.

Week 43, Firefly

project52 — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:48:44 +0000

To listen on an iPhone, visit my Bandcamp site, or download the SoundCloud iPhone app.

This week I broke full-on into the computer. I’ve been avoiding doing too much with computer-generated sounds for some reason or another. I think mostly because it hadn’t really been called for by the songs I’ve been writing, but also I’ve liked the idea that most of the songs have been live performances. In the case of this week’s song though, it just called for a simple beat and a little bit of horns. I can play a number of instruments, few of them really well, and I’ve made the most of the melodica over the year, but I don’t have any horns, and I can’t play them… at least not since I played the sax in 6th grade band.

Thanks to the great software Reason, I was able to drop in a nice tuba, a trombone, and a mellotron flute sound along with a touch of live melodica for good measure on top of a very simple beat, and I’m pretty happy with how it came out.

The acoustic guitar was recorded with the Alesis ProTrack using the built-in condenser mics, and the electric was recorded the same way as the last couple of weeks with the CAD E200 into the iPhone using the MultiTrack DAW app. The vocals were recorded with just the iPhone’s internal mic.

I only have nine songs left after this. I’m pretty excited about that, but I’m even more excited about the grand finale for the project. I’ll have more information about that in the coming weeks, but if you’re going to be in Pittsburgh over Labor Day weekend, leave your Sunday evening free and come out to help me celebrate.