A Letter to the Bees

Before we bore you to death with all the blah blah blahing about recording and our lives, we thought we should actually put up a song.  This was one of the first created for the album, although that’s not entirely true.  It was actually created for a project that was going to be an EP.  Each song on the EP was going to contain a deconstruction of our song “Good Morning, Bubblegum“.  Everybody loves “GM” so I thought I’d try and figure out why scientifically.  Plus, you know, it seemed like a good exercise in po mo bullshit.  The project lasted about two songs until I moved on to something else (the other one being “Caerse Muerto,” which also ended up on this album).  Anyway, the “GM” part won’t be apparent until you hear the finished version, so you’ll just have to believe me.  Basically, it’s a loop of the drums from the song with this guy who used to whistle ABBA off key in the cube next to me recorded on the sly.

The other song “A Letter to the Bees” mimics is one by the band Teriyakis.  I was in the Teriyakis and the song is interesting in that it was recorded on a boom box in my parent’s garage, probably around 1993 or so (I could be totally wrong on that). The other guys had come down to my parents house where I was living at the time, in Erie, KS. We woke up kinda hungover with coffee in hand and this song came out in spontaneous fashion. We were actually pretty good at spontaneous songs (and we all loved Can, so maybe that helped?). It was on our album Haunted Hungarian Sauna. If you feel the need for a copy, just let me know. I’m sure someone has boxes of them left somewhere.

“Happy in Erie”–Teriyakis

The reason the Teriyakis song is relevant is because the story of “A Letter to the Bees” deals with my thinking of my old bandmates while I was sitting at work watching the sunrise one day.  I worked on the 10th floor of an office building with a great view of Mt Hood on one side and I-84 on the other side.  Since I had to be there early (somewhere near the buttcrack of dawn), beautiful sunrises occurred pretty much every day, especially in the winter.  One day as I was getting prepared to go play some shows in Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle, and I kept thinking back to all the tours the Teriyakis would go on and how I felt kinda utterly ridiculous to be doing this again in my mid-30s (don’t tell pitchfork how old we are, they’ll never write about us then…).  Add in some patented moves of mine of circular and surreal lyrics, some borrowed lines from other songs to further the story along, and you’ve got the song “A Letter to the Bees”.

It’s not so much nostalgia as just remembering (I fucking hate nostalgia–as Melissa reminds me, “you don’t have a nostalgic bone in your body”).  Or maybe it is. I could and maybe should let you in on another hint: lately I’ve been writing personal lyrics without covering them in so much surrealism that you have no idea what they mean. A good example of this being our tune “All Yer Water’s Turned to Rope,” also from the album Blabber ‘n’ Smoke. It’s a skewed love song for Melissa and even contains our pal Billy (from the Teriyakis) reciting a poem. The lyrics for “All Yer…” also contain my side of the argument against writing from life (“don’t get caught in the art of the mirror”), an argument that Melissa and I have had in our approaches to poetry/song since the beginning. Well, not really an argument, just a matter of writing style. It’s what happens when you get two Lit majors in the same household/band.

Anyway, both of these songs lean toward more surrealism than confessional, so it’s not exactly Adrienne Rich or Robert Lowell. Probably the most personal lyrics I’ve let into the world were for our EP An Uncloudy Day. If you’d like to know more about those, you can write me. It’s a very sad story.

Below are two versions of the song, one played live on KUPS radio in Tacoma and one video live at the Red Room in Portland.  Here are the lyrics.

A Letter to the Bees [the title is a play on words, the original core of the Teriyakis all had names that started with the letter B]
Here I am back to the Velvet Underground
Back to the floors that I love [double homage!: These two lines are from Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy”. The Velvet Underground reference by Stevie isn’t to the band, but I thought it was fitting since it seemed my songwriting at this point was heading back into the direction of VU.]
In the land of idiot boys… [from “Phenomenal Cat” by The Kinks]
Oh just stop quoting and start saying.
Oh just stop quoting and start saying.
I’ll take the level and survey the land
You take the rod and go on up ahead
Step lightly ’round those mannequin hands [injoke about people at a show we played sitting like mannequins]
Holding plastic flowers above their heads
Heartbroken art was your first mistake
And how do they hold anything anyway?
Oh just stop thinking and start saying.
Oh just stop thinking and start saying.
The sun shines behind Mt. Hood at dawn
The cars move along like a toddler in pain
I think I’ll sit down and write a letter to the bees
And just tell ’em how much they meant to me.

“A Letter to the Bees”–The Harvey Girls live on KUPS, Tacoma (there’s some static in the recording, but it adds authenticity… we all need that, right?)

A Letter to the Bees, Live at the Red Room in Portland, OR
–Hiram

RIP Howard Zinn

The US lost a wonderful American yesterday.  Howard Zinn, a man who once said he was to the left of Mao Tse Tung, wrote The People’s History of the United States, which you can find online in its entirety.  There are several of his speeches on YouTube as well.  He championed the working class and minorities and believed in believing in yourself and that history comes from the bottom up.  He will be missed.

Thank you, Mr. Zinn for all that you did to make this world a better place.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About a Harvey Girls Recording, Pt. 2: Recording the Album

Below is a list of the equipment used on I’ve Been Watching a Lot of Horror Movies Lately (IBW) followed by our different recording locations.  I’ll get into different techniques and other stuff in the next installment. Melissa is editing and offering her two cents behind the scenes and did I mention I am a giant weiner.

I’m putting this here for a couple of reasons. First, I get asked a lot how we record and how we get certain sounds.  I’m not sure I can cover the how of the way we get a specific sound without knowing the actual specific sound, and then it’s usually a guess, but I’ll tell you some tricks I’ve learned along the way in the next installment.  This installment will deal mostly with the physical details of recording.  Now, whether you want to use these tricks and locations is up to you.

I’ve found that what works for me may not work for others and there’s a lot of convoluted stuff I do that may be easier or more automated that I haven’t spent the time to figure out yet, but that’s the fun of recording your own stuff.  Also, if you haven’t, and you live in the US or the UK, sign up for a free subscription to Tape Op here.  The rest of the world has to pay for shipping, but if you can afford it I would do it.  Also, you can find copies of Tape Op: The Book About Creative Music Recording for pretty cheap in the US.  The book covers the first issues of the magazine and relates info about recording with four tracks and the like and not digitally and is full of great info for budget recording folks.  The later issues deal with people who work in professional studios, so I’ve found the book to be a really great reference.

I’ve also found the boards at homerecording.com to be helpful. This home recording primer seems to be good for beginners, as is UNSW’s music acoustics page, and some of the posts at hometracked.com.  Really, I’ve bookmarked a ton of places in a folder titled ‘recording’ to reference later and those are just a few.  I’ve been lucky enough to be able to talk to people who record for actual money about how to use the software or different recording techniques.  For us, it’s been our pal Steve Squire who has helped us out tremendously and has mastered our last couple of albums (and is mastering IBW as well).

Anyhoo, yes, we’re proponents of DIY culture and have participated in it since the Stone Age, from making hand-stapled poetry mags and zines to recording on borrowed four tracks and crappy jam boxes to growing our own food.  We want others to do so if they feel the need, so I’d say that’s the main reason this is all here–to help anyone with questions try to figure out how to do things.  We’ve got a few more toys now, so our sounds will be a little cleaner–hopefully a lot cleaner–but recording shouldn’t be scary.

The second reason is much simpler: it’s to remind myself of what I did, which is what a recording diary has always been about for me.

Equipment used on IBW

Computers/Soundcards/Interfaces/Recording Devices
We record on both PC and Mac. Why? There are peripherals and programs we like in both platforms. And as should be crystal clear by now, we have built up our studio from castoffs, refurbs, donations, and pure luck or noticeable lack of same.  I’ll explain how this works in practice more fully after the list of gear.

Dell Dimension 4500 (this thing’s about as old as the band); associated peripherals listed below

• M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (PCI card)
• Mackie Micro Series 1402-VLZ mixer (used with Audiophile card; linked photo includes ART Levelar Tube Compressor, which has a really great name)
• ART Levelar Tube Compressor

Macbook Pro with M-Audio FastTrackUltra USB Interface

Field recording

• Zoom H2 Digital Recorder (also recorded one or two guitar tracks; a wonderful gift from our pal and former HG member Matt Barringer)
• Sony M-627V Microcassette Recorder (also recorded a few crazy backing vocal tracks)
• Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220 Black (my phone, also recorded an organ part)
• Sansa Sandisk m250

Software

• Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 (both PC and Mac)
• Adobe Audition 1.5 (on Dell)
• MiniHost from Tobybear Productions (ASIO host for VST plugins. This is a fantastic little piece that cost $20 years ago–and is now $30 US– that we’ve used to create effects that would otherwise cost thousands to create.)

Microphones

• Audio Technica AT-3525 (discontinued model and most expensive mic we’ve got–bought for $130 or so used five years ago–and I’m sure several recording engineers would shake their head in dismay over this fact)
• Shure SM-57s (a whole handful of ’em)
• built-in mics on H2, Sony Handheld, and phone

Instruments/Noise Making Devices

• Guitars:  Acoustic–Fender six string, Ventura 12-string (a gift from former HG Adam Bartell). Electric–Ibanez semi-hollow body, Gibson SG Junior Pro from early ’70s, Kansas Telecaster (this blog’s namesake!). Bass–Washburn bass (with all-important Star Wars stickers from Chris Gladfelter; borrowed back with permission after I gave it to my dad and then started The Harvey Girls with Melissa).
• Percussion: Yamaha snare, busted snare and kick drum from second-hand kid’s drum kit, Zildjian early 70s ride cymbal, bongos, shaker, tambourine, broken piece of tail pipe (found at bus stop at MLK/Ainsworth).
• Keyboards: Korg MicroKorg, Casio CasioTone CT-640, Hammond H-100 organ. (This was a gift from Adam Bartell and I’m not quite sure on the model number, but H-100 is my best guess. I should say “gift” since I had to help move it and will never do that again, but since it takes up space in the garage, I needed to make it feel useful.)
• Samplers and ephemera: Free VST instruments, mostly from KVR Audio, Boss Dr Sample SP-202, Roland Dr Rhythm DR-660, Electro Faustus EF-102 Photo Theremin, Fender Princeton Reverb amp (circa 1979 or so).

I think that’s it for this album.  Strangely, and maybe sadly depending on who you are, this isn’t even all the instruments we have.  I didn’t put any sax, clarinet, or “real” trumpet on this album.  No violin. No Yamaha Keytar *sigh*.  Et cetera, Et ceter-ah.

Recording Places
There were three main recording locations for this album, all of which are in our house: the dining room (1, 2), the basement (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and the extra bedroom.  The extra bedroom was only used for final vocals on a couple of songs using the portable Mac/Pro Tools setup, so you don’t get pictures of that, but there are links to a few pics on our flickr page about the other two.  The recording locations are separated into two categories, before Mac (BMa) and Anno Mac (AMa).

BMa, the recording was done on our aged Dell.  As I mentioned in the last diary entry, the Dell and our copy of Pro Tools didn’t get along well for awhile.  Then, for no apparent reason, they started playing nice together in spring of ’09.

The Dell also has our copies of Adobe Audition and MiniHost on it.  We’ve recorded everything up to and including Nutate on Adobe Audition or its predecessor Cool Edit so I know it pretty well.  MiniHost we’ve had since The Wild Farewell and has been a big part of getting some of the instrument sounds that we don’t have in real life.  It’s a Windows-based application, so that’s why it’s only on the Dell.  Here’s how it gets used in our stuff: after finding and downloading free VSTs from places like KVR, you open the VST instrument up with MiniHost.  You can then either use a midi in from a keyboard or other midi device to play the file or you can use the computer keyboard to play the file.  MIDI devices are recommended since you can get a better range and more control with them than you can with the computer keyboard.

If you’re wondering why I don’t use another recording program to do MIDI stuff, like Adobe or Pro Tools, it’s because our version of Audition doesn’t accommodate them and Pro Tools generally uses RTAS plugins.  There are ways of doing this stuff with Pro Tools, but as I said before I generally work with what I know and add to it later, convoluted as it may be.  Luckily, I’m recording myself and not someone else, so there are no time or performance constraints.  Oh, and if you don’t know what VST and RTAS stand for, it’s OK.  I didn’t either.  Wikipedia actually does a decent job of explaining both (VST and RTAS).

So, with MiniHost, you can record what you’ve played with the VST instrument.  The instrument can be a keyboard or drum machine or sampler.  Usually, I tend to use keyboards and drum machines.  Generally, after picking a VST to use, I’ll play along with what I have for the track already while recording it with MiniHost.  This usually takes a couple of run throughs because the part is mainly in my head (or doesn’t exist at all) and this is the first time I’ve actually played it.  I’ll then drop the recorded wave file  into Audition for editing.  This may be to cut out parts I don’t like or to add effects.  You probably don’t really need to do this, necessarily, but I do.

Because the MiniHost can only record in 16 or 32 bit bounce (just like Adobe Audition), I’ve found that you can up the bit rate with some free converters online or do it within Pro Tools.  Most people will tell you this is bad.  I agree, somewhat.  However, it also adds some very minor noise to the tracks and that’s part of what I love in recording, so I still do it.  I can then drop the track recorded with MiniHost into whatever program I am using to come up with a final mix.  In our case, it’s Pro Tools.

After finally getting around to getting a Macbook, I moved the operations to our extra room in the basement.  I’ve set this up as a studio before, but have found that the sound isn’t as good as the hardwood floors and taller ceilings in the other areas of the house, at least for vocals.  I added foam to the walls and ceiling to absorb some of the sound and to try and make it sound a bit less like a basement.  The foam was purchased at Fred Meyer, the NW equivalent to whatever chain grocery/miscellaneous/clothing store you have in your neck of the woods.  As an aside for the Kansas people who might be reading this, I found out when moving to Portland for the second time that Freddie’s (as the locals have named it) is actually owned by the same family that owns Dillons.  Man, and here I thought we were getting away from Kroger!  Damn you!  Anyway, you can buy much more expensive bafflers/sound traps if you’d like.  I’ve also left some of the boxes and stuff we were storing in the room, as well as using some table leaves left in the house by a previous occupant to cover the fireplace, to make it less like a four-walled room so that sound has more places to bounce.  I’m no physicist, of course, but I’ve found that these things have made the room sound better when I record in it.  Of course, using a regular living room with chairs and a couch or a second bedroom with books and office equipment have worked fine in the past for us as well.

Each setup is different in terms of room sound and ambient sounds as well.  When recording, I usually use close micing techniques (basically, sticking the mics close to whatever is being recorded).  But, you can put the mic farther away to pick up reverb or room sounds.  Just be careful, sometimes you may pick up noise that you don’t want.  We have a particularly old and noisy refrigerator that comes through when recording in dining rooms.  You can also try recording in the bathroom if it’s tiled.  This is a great way to get natural reverb.  The vocals on our track ‘sherlock jr.‘ were recorded in our bathroom.  It’s also how a lot of Johnny Mathis’s vocals were recorded by Mitch Mitchell, adding to the warmth of his voice.

If you have any questions about our recording setup, please feel free to comment or send an e-mail to theharveygirls AT gmail.  I’ll list some tricks that we’ve used in recording next time.

–H (and M)

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About a Harvey Girls Recording, Pt. 1: Track Listing and Historical Information

Hello and welcome to the world of The Harvey Girls’ postdated recording diary.  We always mean to write about the experience of recording, but then become too busy actually doing the recording to add yet another layer of crap to worry about, so with this new record, I’ve Been Watching a Lot of Horror Movies Lately (shortened to IBW from here on out; to be released in either June or July of 2010), I am going to do it all after the fact. Melissa may jump in from time to time, but I’m guessing I’ll write most of it.  I’ll go over each song in due time, discussing the recording process and any meaning behind the text/subtext of the album, hopefully without being boring, pedantic, academically stuffy, too self-effacing/-deprecating (I hear I have a problem with that), or as close to king pretentious dipshit as it all is starting to sound to me.  We’ll see.  We’ll also offer you some special treats–alternate versions of the songs, live videos, songs that didn’t make it, albums we’ve given away at shows… you know, things that you can download and trade like Topps cards with your friends and enemies.

IBW track list:
1. The Body Without Any Eyes
2. FWIW
3. Puss
4. Only Apparitions on the Lawn
5. Smile Like Gwynplaine
6. A Letter to the Bees
7. Caerse Muerto
8. Monster
9. Alpha Invasion on Delta Waves (Lullabye of Brueghel)

Now that you know the track listing and actual titles (as opposed to the working titles most people who have heard this will know), I’ll take a step back and start at the beginning.

Historical Information:
This album has a long history, at least in band/internet years, starting back in early 2008.  Back then The Harvey Girls were functioning as an “actual” band with Adam on bass, keyboard, occasional drums; Hiram on drums, guitar, and vocals; Josh on guitar, banjo, occasional bass, and vocals; and Melissa on keyboard and vocals.  This was the best lineup since we’d left Lawrence several years before and we got along with everyone swimmingly.* We started recording a lot of the songs we had written at Adam’s house in his basement studio on his Pro Tools rig, working toward an album with the working title The Wolf Album along with a bunch of other songs.  We were also playing shows as much as possible.

Unfortunately, several things started happening in Melissa and I’s life that would distract and later kill the project.** First our male cat and band mascot, Mushi Mushi Gila Monster, somehow broke his leg and had to have it removed.  It doesn’t sound like much, but the vets weren’t sure he was going to make it because of a heart condition. Then there was his recovery period in which we had to keep him in our room and our other cat, The Big Delicious, out.  It was really expensive as well; he’s now known as the cat without the golden arm around the house (among other things like flopalong cassidy, turdy johnston the one armed fighter who never won a match but who had a lot of heart, thumpity thump, mu mu). Don’t worry, though, he’s fine now and is probably faster since the loss of the limb because he’s actually  more streamlined when it comes to running for food or up the basement stairs or walking under your feet.  He’s also more pathetic looking when he tries to tap you with his stump, which garners him a lot more food off the plate of Melissa and a lot more love from both of us.  Don’t be fooled, he uses it to his advantage.

Soon after his recovery, Melissa’s mother died after a long illness and in the saddest imaginable circumstances.

A couple of weeks after that, I started a new job that involved a lot more thought and effort on my part as opposed to the easily-forgotten-at-home job I had had before.  We also found out that Adam was going to be moving back to Milwaukee (the big one, not the one spelled -ie that’s the home of Dark Horse Comics).  All through the first half of 2008, and all of these events, there was recording on The Wolf Album with a newly purchased copy of Pro Tools, which only seemed to work on our PC about half the time,*** but that came to a stop soon after the hard drive holding the Pro Tools files died.  Completely.  With no chance of resuscitation.  The files hadn’t been backed up in a couple of weeks, the couple of weeks in which a lot of stuff was becoming finalized, and since these were all lost and Pro Tools wasn’t cooperating with the computer, it was going to be more months of re-recording and pain and sweat to get back to that place.

While all this was going on, Melissa and I both were becoming more and more unhappy with the band.  Not really the individuals who were helping us, as we said we loved and still love them, but the fact that for Melissa playing out was more and more horrifying and time consuming.  As for me, I was really coming to hate the poppier songs that I had written to make everyone else happy.  The experimental side of our music was gone and I was becoming bored. Switching to playing drums helped for a time, but its appeal was limited and made me a bit apathetic towards the entire enterprise.  I think the fact that we were trying to promote our album Nutate ourselves with absolutely no luck was also wearing on us both at the time.

So, as Adam was getting ready to move back to Milwaukee to be with family and Melissa and I decided to not play out**** anymore and I sat pulling out my hair about lost files and rerecording, we told Josh the band was over and I sent everyone involved what was left of the songs we’d recorded.  We were done with the band and it was kaput.

It took about three weeks to decide that there was no way to leave the band like that, so we reversed the earlier decision.  Of course, since Melissa didn’t want to ever play shows again and I did, I decided to come up with some new songs that I could play out on my own.  The idea of a one person band that wasn’t just a folky with a guitar (my nightmare, actually) is something that I’d wanted to do since the mid-90s after seeing bands like Drums & Tuba and Spaceheads with their live looping skills, along with countless hip hop acts, but never had the equipment or the money to buy it.  It was actually something I wanted to do with The Harvey Girls from the beginning as well, but since it was easy in Kansas to get friends to play and we had the wonderful Brent Piepergerdes to play drums, we went with a band.  I’d also by this time played/seen shows with Circle Into Square labelmate cars & trains, whose live looping skills are amazing.  But without a laptop or copy of Ableton, and no money to buy them (yeah, it’s usually about money, but what isn’t?), I started using the equipment I had around already.

At first I was using an old sampler (Dr. Sample 202) I’ve had for years as well as a drum machine for the backing tracks while playing guitar and keyboards on top.  This lacked any sort of spontaneity, not to mention if I screwed up the count of bars with the drum machine the song was quickly off track and worthless.  Because of the new job, I was able to finally buy a used RC-20, a looping pedal that could be used with a mixer in order to do live loops.*****  I started watching videos of Juana Molina live to see if I could figure out her setup (she uses two RC-20s to play her music).  I actually had figured out the logistics, but found it was harder than I thought to pull off the timing of live looping.  Mostly it was just frustrating to not get the loops correct, so I stuck with the prestaged tracks for a bit.  I did a weekend set of shows in Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle, and it was actually a show that I played with tUnE-yArDs in Tacoma that pushed me over the live looping edge.  I watched her loop all the instruments in a way that wasn’t necessarily a straight 4/4 and knew that I could do that.  I stopped playing shows for about a month, got a stereo memory man pedal to use as a second looper for the guitar, and settled into the basement to figure out how to time live loops.

And that’s where the songs on IBW come from.  With the exception of ‘Smile Like Gwynplaine’ and “Alpha Invasion…” these songs were worked out for the live show.  The only reason I never played “…Gwynplaine” live was because the logistics were too complicated.  “Alpha Invasion…” was actually written at the end of the recording process to replace another song. It’s a favorite of both Melissa and I’s called “Picher, Nowata” that just didn’t quite fit what was going on and will appear at some point somewhere.

The title of the album comes from the fact that during the last couple of years, I’ve started watching a lot of horror movies again.  As a teenager, horror movies were my favorite kind of movie.  I had a poster of Freddy Krueger on my bedroom door (which actually led to one of my younger cousins calling my parents’ house ‘Aunt Freddy’s’… my poor mother and the shit she had to put up with from me) and I can probably still  recite dialogue from movies like Creepshow and Psycho.  There was also a period last year where I began to listen to horror movie soundtracks a lot while at work.  It always made for some interesting days. Another fun soundtrack to a work day is listening to stuff like this.

It should be noted that I’m not the only horror fan in the house since Melissa is a horror geek as well.  She used to read Fangoria, whereas I was more apt to read Option or RIP.  RIP was a pretty bad magazine along the lines of Hit Parader, but they would have interviews with metal and punk bands–Anthrax and Hüsker Dü or the Cro-Mags and Ozzy. I may even still have those in a box at my parent’s house somewhere. To a 14-year-old in the sticks it was a way to find out about some of my favorite bands and new music pre-internet and it was on the shelves at the local grocery store for some reason.  Anyway, watching horror movies became a coping mechanism for what was going on in our lives and, as I said, I was surrounding myself with them.  Probably a strange coping mechanism for outsiders (although it shouldn’t be since psychologically it makes complete sense), but it worked for us.  We like horror movies that tend to be gothic in texture and are more atmospheric rather than the torture porn that tends to be pumped out by Hollywood.  And ‘Shawn of the Dead’ is brilliant and we’ll fight you if you disagree.

Finally, just to add a wrinkle, the title IBW was actually first used for a CDR that I’ve been giving away at shows since March 09.  You can download a zip file of the collection now simply known as THG Shows CD from that link.  The album/collection contains some demos of songs that will be coming out this summer on IBW, some cover songs, a collaboration with our friend Alantl Molina, and a couple of songs from The Wolf Album sessions.  Here’s the track list:

1. Monster (rock version, demo, also appears on the pop tomorrow comp that’s out now!)
2. Plastic deer (from an uncloudy day)
3. Ocean (demo of song that didn’t make it to the final version of IBW)
4. Denver (featuring alantl molina; this one was written by Alantl)
5. Lazlo, Buddy (slow tiger demo; original demo recording of the song from our Declinate album)
6. Slinky Saturday (an instrumental written for Nutate, but never released)
7. The Book of Love (Magnetic Fields cover we did for the It’s Meaningless compilation)
8. Watching E.T.’s Mom in Other Movies (recorded for The Wolf Album, never released)
9. Vigilant Always (The Swirlies cover, to come out on Reverse Engine comp at some point in the future)
10. Tickle (demo of song now titled “FWIW” on IBW)
11. Rod Carew (song recorded for The Wolf Album, never released)
12. Nothing New (Chisel cover; never released)
13. Lazlo, Buddy (stairstep version; never released)
14. When We Sleep (Butterglory cover; never released)

So that’s how this album came to be.

Next time, I’ll talk about the recording of IBW covering equipment, software, techniques, and all that good stuff.  Take care.

–Hiram

* The Harvey Girls have always had a fluid lineup.  We’re like The Fall that way, except with less speed, less alcohol, less accent, and people tend to leave because we move or quit or something, not because we throw them out or fight them or why the hell ever Mark E. Smith does what he does.  There’s a list over here of everyone who has been a Harvey Girl in some form, although that looks like it could use some updating.
** Our next album will be a revisiting of The Wolf Album project… we think.  That’s the plan as of 1/15/10 at least.
*** We’ve since gotten a Mac laptop and new recording setup, but the PC gets used a lot still for various other reasons/software applications.  I’ll go into that in another post.  Oh, and after not using it for a few months, when I began recording IBW, Pro Tools suddenly worked fine on the PC.  I hate you Pro Tools.
**** This happens a lot, to the point where people don’t believe us.  We’re in one of those times right now, made to look foolish because people keep asking us to play (like cars & trains for his CD release show on Feb 6!).  Yeah, we suck and can never make up our minds.  We know that.
***** You can check out my live setup over here at our flickr page.

Kinks Chronicled and Kliph Scurlock interview

Hey, just so y’all know, over at our music blog ‘sing a simple song’ we’re going through later Kinks albums and singing the praises of some of our fave songs and have some guests along for the ride as well.  The series is called ‘Kinks Chronicled‘.

Also, Kliph Scurlock was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer not quite 20 questions for Hiram on the Circle Into Square site.

Actual stuff about the band is coming very, very soon.  Dig it.

Lurve,
Hiram

The Jay Z Retirement Plan or “Yes, Tom, I’d totally love to play your record release show”.

cars & trains Record Release Show w/ Helios, Benoit Pioulard, and The Harvey Girls
Feb. 6, 8 PM
Backspace, 115 NW 5th Ave., PDX