Good lord there are a million things going on here at Casa Nova Studios, and we have some big news we will be announcing soon as well…..but I want you to know we’re not hiding in the shadows, we’re just really that busy! We’re sorting through thousands of photos, organizing our digital life, and making some really exciting music. Yee haaa!!
Well, its 9ish in the morning, and I’ve been up all nite working on various things. While I take a break, I feel I should update you on what’s been happening!
Here’s a (not so) brief update on what the hell we’ve been up to!
I am proud to announce that we just finished a live record for the mighty Earl Greyhound, which we recorded in two nights @ The Calhoun School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was in their great auditorium that a wonderful stage was set and a very attentive crowd witnessed one night of electric EG and one night of acoustic EG. A good chunk of the material was new, and I will tell you that they are spreading their wings wide and writing some interesting songs….maybe not quite what you’d expect if you only know their electric material, but Matt and Kamara play around NYC in various groups and solo doing acoustic numbers quite often, playing much more folk singer/songwriter oriented jams. They are a very versatile bunch, and if you’re a fan you’ll most certainly enjoy that some of that is seeping into the Earl G. I spent a couple of days in April with them in a Conn. house recording demos for their new record which they’ll be recording in LA in December, and I must say that the new material holds up quite well to their previous efforts. There are full on rockers in “Oye Vaya” and “Sea of Japan” giving you that trademark EG rock sparkle, and others like “Shotgun” and “Holy Immortality” which are very moody and brooding, stretching their sonic spectrum.
The live album selection, however, is comprised entirely of their acoustic evening, which for a good portion features Matt on a beautiful Steinway grand piano. If you catch them on tour you can purchase one of these bad boys, freshly burned from Matt’s laptop….hot off the presses!
In other news, Jenda Wight’s record is being finalized for mixing and an early 2008 release…we’ll keep you posted, some very exciting things happening!
We’re also nearing the completion of Anna Marie Ayers record, which we’ve been working on since the end of summer. Nick is waist deep in string arrangements and preparing scores for some string player(s) to come in and lively up Miss Ayers beautiful songs.
While we’re on the subject of strings, our friend (and first call session violinist) Caleb Burhans was just featured in the NY Times in a 4 page article, showcasing an extremely talented musician and the many sides of his madness. He played all the strings on Jenda’s upcoming record, and plays in many ensembles, my favourite being ITSNOTYOUITSME, a two piece group which includes Grey McMurray, from Bermuda.
Thanks to all who came out to see us play in the freezing cold @ the NYC Marathon. We played a couple of sets, digging into some older material and dusted off a few covers, while barely being able to feel our fingers. Good times! Nova Clutch has a wealth of new material we’re going to start digging into (and eventually recording)….but for now, you’ll have to catch these new nuggets live. Our next gig is @ Mercury Lounge December 18th w/The Dirty Pearls….its a fundraiser for Toys for Tots sponsored by The Village Voice. Its sure to be a pretty raucous evening…we’ll keep you posted when we know more.
We’ve also been frantically rehearsing two sets of music for our friend Gif, who is putting on a hip hop/musical sort of fiasco at BAM Cafe on Nov. 14th. It will feature myself, Nick, and Scott as the 3 piece backup band, along with vocalists, percussion, and saxophone. Gif will be performing as an MC and giving monologues in a two set, one night only performance. And its free! I’ve been playing a ton of keyboards for this one, so its been extra challenging as I haven’t played the keys this much in a good long while. Starting to get the swing of it again. I’m going to bring out the Fender Rhodes for that gig, which is a pain in the ass, but SO much more fun to play than a damn midi controller. That show is on November 14th. Check www.bam.org for details
But I will say, none of that even comes close to being as important as today’s landmark election. I won’t get deep into a political diatribe here, but I will express my excitement in Obama’s very spirited and well run campaign. He has made believers out of many doubters (and many Clinton supporters), and my heart tells me that his is the man that can at least get many of the things wrong with this country back on track. Charisma goes a LONG way when you’re in the public eye, and he’s got it for miles. But charisma won’t bring on change, big ideas will….and he has plenty of those he’s been fighting for.
We can only hope for the best in all of this. Godspeed Obama!
This was truly one of the best shows I’ve ever played in my life….maybe the best. But getting up to the point where we played was a test in patience, and physical strength.
First, I should tell you that we were also helping put on this show by running and setting up the sound in conjunction with our friends @ Symmetry Sound. The way the day was supposed to go was that we were going to go there, utilize the sound system that was there, augment it with our own stage monitors, and rock the night away. This is not what happened.
In the morning, we were informed that the sound system in the space was insufficient for band rocking, so the Hall procured one for us. There was a catch of course, and that catch was that this sound system would need to be carried up a couple of very large flights of stairs. Along with all of our gear. The OTHER catch was that instead of getting in at 1pm to setup the show, we’d be getting in at 8pm because they had double booked the room and Teen Vogue’s fashion show was using the room as a “changing room.” I’m going to leave that alone.
SO, needless to say our schedule was slightly pushed back. Doors were supposed to open when we were allowed to get into the place to start setting up! There was some confusion about how people were gonna get in, etc etc etc. All the while we’re running around like crazy people trying to setup a sound system. After solving a myriad of sound problems, I finally got 5 minutes to find a corner of the space and warmup for 10 minutes. For almost all of those 10 minutes I was hassled by the guy from webster hall….I got changed, sang my do re mi’s and then went up on stage.
For the next 30 minutes we played almost nonstop, and cut out any jams that we had planned. Bloody Social had a time constraint and had to be on ASAP. The room was filled all the way to the back, somewhere to the tune of 600+ people. By the time we got most of the way through our set is when I realized how much fun I was having and that things were going great! During Grenade Pin, I had my first true vision of what playing in a rock band is supposed to be like. There were cameras, there were people jumping up and down, it was loud, sweaty, and drunk!
Everything about the set was a success, and we’d like to thank the many people who came down to show their support and rock with us!
The rest of the evening was filled with whiskey and plenty of great bands! Bloody Social brought their heavy rock to the place, and kept the party going…but then The London Souls, who just might be my fav live band in the world right now, killed it yet again, and closing with a ripping version of Lucille. The rest of the night gets blurrier to me, as the whiskey kept flowing! It was awash with familiar faces and wonderful new friends. Most certainly the most fun I’ve had playing a gig in a long time.
Thanks again to everyone who came out, and a big thanks to Dave Delzio and Matthew Morgan from Afropunk for planning a spectacular evening, despite the logistics.
CMJ Night #2 began early @ BLVD on the Bowery, rocking with some good friends and making some new ones, then heading to 205 where things got crazy. Shortly after arriving, Mr. Funkadelic himself George Clinton decides to make an appearance, definitely setting the mood for debauchery! The place got packed real quick, and stayed that way all nite. There were a couple bands on Atlantic Records (if I recall), and one of them played drums and sang, the other played keyboards and sang. Both were two pieces, and both were great! My memory doesn’t serve me very well as to who they were! After that, it was back to the studio for a rehearsal with Jenda Wight, preparing for our showcase on Saturday @ Pianos Upstairs. And then maybe some rest for once!
We’ve been extremely busy here at Casa Nova Studios, and there are a couple of shows we are doing for CMJ we’d like to make you aware of!
Nova Clutch will be playing its first ever CMJ showcase @ Webster Hall next Friday Night, October 24th. We’ll be joined by friends The London Souls, along with Bloody Social and other guests…for updated info, please visit:
www.myspace.com/novaclutch
Jenda Wight will also be having her first ever CMJ showcase at Pianos, Saturday October 25th. For more info, please visit:
www.myspace.com/jendawight
More to come! This is just the beginning of a flood of wonderful news.
We’ve been planning and scheming for a while now, and we’re getting close to unveiling our master plan for our live music series which will largely take place in Brooklyn and a couple of different kinds of venues.
There will be two kinds of events: One, an acoustic/minimal series, concentrating on the song and its bare essentials. Two, the full on live experience, in our very own 208.
The first venue has been chosen, now we’re just working out the details, but have spoken to many excited participants! We are lining up some great talent from this city and putting them all in the same place, because that’s how it should be!
ALSO, we’ll be recording all of these shows and doing what all the kids are doing these days, and that’s podcasting so you can take these wonderful shows with you. I intend to interview these artists as well in an interview series we’re calling “Art and the Artist”
We’ll be posting a calendar in the near future on www.casanovastudios.com/208 and most likely the obligatory myspace/facebook/whatever else is new this week in social networking.
Also, a big thank you to all of you who have been downloading Nova Clutch’s album “The Death of Me”…we’re working up a bunch of new tunes, which we’ll be recording at the end of the summer. Be looking for some new one off recordings (aka singles) and some action at this little acoustic shindig we’re talkin about.
Keep rocking peoples….this planet doesn’t have too much longer. Get your kicks now!
Yesterday we were on location at the Highline Ballroom recording a very powerful political phenomenon, Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir. If you don’t know about them, do visit their web site at http://www.revbilly.com/ and check out what they’re doing. They are the stars of a recently well received documentary “What Would Jesus Buy?”, following them across the country spreading the word of the over commercialization of Christmas, and the world in general.
Not only was I impressed by the music, but the message they are spreading is well worth listening to, certainly making you reconsider what we in america perceive as “normal” and putting out a wakeup call (in a rather amusing away, mind you) to have you take action, or in this case, take inaction. Stop shopping, y’all!
So we’ve been rocking an insanely steady schedule of muzak, and what’s even more exciting than being busy all the time is that a few of these projects are going to be finishing up soon! Almost totally done tracking is new CNS favourite Bermuda (ex-The Exit), recording their debut record since January this year. Its coming down to the final touches now, percussion, final vocals, and backgrounds. Technically, its the easiest part, but mentally, its the hardest. Its the last lap, when your brain wants to stop for a while. There have been some major hours put into this project, cramming a large amount of music into a short amount of time. Over the past month, we’ve had string players, a 4 piece horn section, tons of guitar, and some keyboard overdubs filling out the already rocking rhythm sections, most of which were recorded at a beautiful studio in Rhinebeck, NY called The Clubhouse, engineered by our good buddy Ross Petersen, who mixed the latest Nova Clutch EP. Out of the 18 songs tracked, 16 will be making the cut and divided into a full length album and a 6 song EP, to be released on the brand spankin’ new Green Owl Records. They are an environmentally conscious label and crew and are creating a great collection of music to be released and a hub which empowers the treehugger in all of us. Check out their new comp which features an amazing cast of artists, including Muse, Feist, Of Montreal, and many more.
http://www.greenowlrecords.com
In other news, we’ve been working on the final touches and vocals for Jenda Wight’s upcoming debut record as well. We’ve been working with Jenda for years now, working as her guide on her musical journey, and its safe to say that it has been one of the more rewarding experiences in my music making career. We have high hopes for her music, as it is both very moving and very unique. She has an old soul and capturing that in music that is modern has been quite a fun and challenging time. You can hear the demos we did for her on myspace, but its really just a tease for the record to come. Be looking for her this summer playing in NYC.
Also, within our own camp, Casa Nova Studios is putting the final details in order for our summer music series at our beloved loft in DUMBO, 208. There will be full details soon, including lineups and dates. Also, we’re getting our archives together from our many past events and will hopefully be sharing soon a plethora of images and snipets from the years at CNS. We have a web page up which will be handling all of the lofts event stuff at http://www.casanovastudios.com/208 Although its not officially launched, you can join our CNS mailing list there.
Now, time for rest. A couple hours is still a couple of hours.
Well, it doesn’t get to be much more of a rude awakening than that, but 4 flats really kinda kills the mood. I was on my way to the studio to record a lovely miss Kamara Thomas from Earl Greyhound doing a guest vocal on the Bermuda record (which is awesome!), and I come to find that in the evening someone had flattened all of my tires. Now I don’t know that they are slashed, but they most certainly are FLAT. So what good are they?
Oh well. If you know who did it, do drop me a line. And if you’re the person who did it and you’re reading this, you’ve already said all you need to say…I’d rather not hear from you again.
As a staunch mac user, after being a hardcore PC user for many years prior to that, you may be surprised to know that I kind of dislike the iPhone. Yes, is cool, yes it looks nice, yes, it integrates nicely with my new macbook pro (which is also AMAZING).
But it doesn’t have keys!
I’m all about being in the future, but typing on a virtual keyboard doesn’t feel good to me. And I have small fingers. But they’re fast. So if I have good keys, then I can rock pretty damn fast! I thought I had a great phone when I was using my windows mobile HTC 8525, and for the record, the keyboard is still probably the best one i’ve ever used. But the blackberry has made me in to a communications animal! Why I shunned the Blackberry Way™ I’ll never know. I mean, at one time, I can be writing text messages, emails, IM 3 people, and take a phone call, record a song idea, email it to myself, and check out my schedule. I don’t even need a laptop to get work done anymore. Its really rather amazing. And unfortunately, nobody has paid me to make these statements.
But enough about that. Back to the muzak.
Today we’re about a week away from being done tracking the Bermuda record, and its really been amazing the past week to hear songs with full vocals, getting all those little final ideas into the track, and just the thrill and pressure of finishing off something rather massive. Although the record won’t be this long, we have recorded 16 full tracks of madness spanning many genres of music, and squashing many together. Its been a rather large effort…many of these songs have tons of tracks, but its not bloated by any means. Just lots of musical ideas, and high fidelity! If the boys will have it, I’ll post a snipet or two. Stay posted!
In other news, Jenda Wight’s track Unstable Mind has been selected for placement on a European psychedelic compilation “Trip in Time Vol. 3″ From what I’ve gathered so far, these compilations feature both old out of print and new psychedelic artists. These are distributed throughout Europe and even in Japan! They must like her a lot because they have featured her prominently on their myspace page, http://www.myspace.com/tripintime Be sure to check them out! Congrats Jenda!!
My final point of interest today is a little app my friend turned me on to. Although it doesn’t (yet) appeal to the audiophile in me as it only records in AAC format, it is the most fun and quick recording software I’ve ever found. Its called Tape Deck, and its awesome. It also happens to be made by the best named technology company ever: SuperMegaUltraGroovy Check out the program at http://tapedeckapp.com/ and their company at http://www.supermegaultragroovy.com/blog/
We have some great shows and more music we’re making soon. More announcements will be made shortly.