Guitar Heroes

Hullo,
Interviewed 3 amazing guitarist/composers yesterday at Princeton U- Steve Mackey, Mark Dancigers, and Andrew McKenna Lee. Topic of conversation: electric guitar's role in classical music. Is the individualistic nature of the guitar (think Jimi Hendrix's national anthem) antithetical to the subtler paradigm of chamber music, where all the instruments are similarly loud (or quiet), and contribute to the piece with more or less equal importance? What is it about our culture that led popular and rock musicians to have such a different way of thinking about instrumentation; one or two voices taking the lead role (guitar, vocals) and the rest (bass, drums, rhythm guitar, keyboard-usually) just supporting cast? And why do audiences feel somehow let down when a guitarist DOESN'T take this role? Why is music where the guitar is quiet really weird? Cool shit... you should check out what they had to say when the podcast comes out this week on the New Amsterdam website.

All this talk of lead guitars got me thinking about whether we need an electric lead in the Gets the Girl live show. We worked with an amazing guitarist on Just Pretend, Tyler Roberge... it definitely adds a level of virtuosity and musicianship that is otherwise lacking in our stuff. But I wonder if virtuosity is really what the band is about. It remains to be seen. Check out "So Well," "Half a Heart," and "Talk Me Down" at our myspace to check out what I'm referring to. What do you think?

Photoshoot soon. Ideas for iconic/dramatic/interesting places in NYC or wardrobe suggestions are much appreciated.

<3

Infernal Machines, Fair Weather Feelings

Hey-

Just got back from working at the New Amsterdam office.  The highlight of the day was interviewing Darcy James Argue, a contemporary big-band man who won "Emerging Composer of the Year" at the National Jazz Awards this year.  He is whip smart, makes really honest, compelling music, and has an excellent blog which, coincidentally, was nominated for "Blog of the Year" at that very same awards ceremony.  He calls his music "steampunk," which is usually a term used for fictional literature, but in his case refers to the fact that he is taking something old (the big band) and using it to make something futuristic (his weird, heavily indie-influenced, highly-produced album Infernal Machines).  In our interview, we talked about the juxtaposition of old/new, the relationship between notated and improvised material in his work, and the isolated mentality that many jazz composers have in regards to the rest of the music world.  The podcast will be up soon... in the meantime, you can stream his music from his page on the NewAm website.

In other news, I just finished a piece for string trio and bass yesterday which will be played by  the 5th House Ensemble at Yale in the fall.  It's going to be great, though a little difficulty I encountered when I ran it past my cellist roommate is the coordination of playing and stomping (there's a percussive aspect that runs through the work).  I'm thinking about having the cellist or bassist actually play a kick drum during the live performance... might be fun.

In GtG news, Allen is currently writing a duet for male and female voice.  We have a few prospective girl singers-- more on this later.  We're going to record it later this summer and release it on iTunes along with new versions of "Slow Song" and "Lullabye."  For now, here's some lyrics from our last duet, "Where We Land":

"So beautiful with your face and your eyes tossed aside

The ready-yets and the get-sets are safely inside

I'll admit to pretending you wouldn't ask to stay

But silly games, as you can tell, take both of us to play.

The fair weather feelings were bound to end

So take your time in feeling like more than just a friend

So stand your ground, dig into the sand

And let it get quiet where we land" 

You can download the song with the rest of our Where We Land album for FREE  here.  And you can get our newest album Just Pretend here, also free.  If you like it, please share it-- click the button below:

 

<3

ELL

A Television Landscape

Hey all,

I'm currently sitting in Studio B at Clinton Recording Studios in Hell's Kitchen.  We're listening to rough edits of tracks from William Brittelle's new album Television Landscape, which will be released on New Amsterdam Records this Winter.  It sounds like it's going to be an amazing album, and what's especially cool is that I've been able to see the whole process, from printing the scores, to hiring the musicians, to recording, to editing.  I've been pretty involved with it for a while, doing pre-production editing in Logic, working as a techie at the live show, lending an extra ear in editing, buying food for the players, etc.  I've even been involved in the promotional planning, researching how other Indie albums succeeded, the best websites to promote it to, etc.  It's encouraging that both Bill and the producer, Lawson, seem to go through a similar process that Allen and I do.  They start with pre-recorded vocals that Bill sang at home, then craft a sound environment around it, finding players who fit the parts, re-writing little things, running out for Milano cookies, etc.  Though they have things a lot more set beforehand than we do... Bill had mock-up Logic files complete with software instruments playing all the parts before they even hired the musicians, whereas Allen and I often write our shit in the studio.  One of the benefits of playing most of the instruments ourselves, I guess.

Lyrically, Bill is all over the place.  His last album, Mohair Time Warp, was super spastic and just generally ridiculous.  This one is much more focused and (I think) enjoyable.  I don't want to disclose too much, but here's a snippet of lyrics from the title track, which we're listening to right now:

"beneath each moment, there's a television landscape"

The album is essentially an homage to 80s rock, but seen through the lens of a trained classical composer.  Bill used to sing lead vocals for a post-punk NYC rock band until he blew his voice out.  Now as one of the co-presidents of New Amsterdam, he's trying to synthesize the super-separate worlds of Classical Music and Everything Else.  To give you an idea of the score of TVL, he quotes Prince, the Beach Boys, and Ravel as major influences.

It's interesting to see how Bill has negotiated the weird divide between the notated tradition of Classical music versus the improvised tradition of Rock in this album.  He has scores for every song, but they're not very specific, especially in the drum writing, which is sparse and simple.  In order to make the whole thing work, he had to get versatile performers who could: a.) read music really well, b.) be open to improvising off a score, c.) blend all of these things together in a sophisticated but accessible way.  So like, the drummer read the music but added his own fills, etc.  So far, so good-- the level of musicianship on this album is pretty unbelievable.

Oh, Sting popped his head in the other day to say hi to Lawson, but I missed him!  I had been working on a new piece for string quartet and was a running a few minutes late.  Oh, the sacrifices I make for my art.

Gotta get back to work... more soon.

Ell

New York is a busy, noisy, ridiculous place...

... and I've been enjoying every minute of it, for the most part.  The only real problem I've adjusting to the city is the subway.  I mean, it's not difficult to navigate, especially in Prospect Heights and lower Manhattan, which is generally where I spend my time.  But it's so LOUD.  I've almost given up using my iPod for subway trips, because the squeals, rattles, etc. are enough to drown out most anything that's not, like, at a constant and high volume level all the time.  Pretty much, anything that's not Hip Hop or Pop. Which is shitty because I've actually been listening to a lot of somewhat subtler, dynamic-heavy stuff recently, like Nadia Sirota's new album for solo viola (yes, someone actually made an album for solo viola), first things first.  It was recorded on New Amsterdam Records, the record label I've been working for.  I got to do a podcast to promote its release, which was sick because I got to hang out/get drunk with Nadia, Judd Greenstein, and Nico Muhly, three of my musical idols.  Nico especially is doing big things.  He just got the grant to write the next Metropolitan Opera. And he's like, 28.  Fuck.  Plus he runs a sweet blog.  Funny thing, the three of them know each other really well from a while back, so the interview was super fun and easy to do.  You can hear it here, if you go to the top right corner of the page and click "podcasts."  (There's also a note talking about it on the front page.)

Anyway, things are going well in Gets the Girl-ville.  Met with Allen the other day to talk over some GtG plans for the Summer.  Looks like we're doing two short 3-4 day tours in August (the 14-17 and the 21-24).  Then we played some basketball at the NYU gym.  Funny, I kept getting smoked by this short, muscular black dude, which was frustrating the hell out of me until I found out he played point guard at Stanford.  I felt a lot less bad after that.  

Oh, and I played "So Well" for the dudes at NewAm today and they liked a lot.  Sweet!  Approval from one of New York's hottest/trendiest/most intellectual labels is definitely a good thing.  Right now we're trying to decide if "So Well" should be our single off the new album or not... I think we're actually leaning toward "Half a Heart."  I'll leave you with lyrics:

Half a Heart

She doesn't wear her glasses much

Likes to keep the world an arm's length away

Says she can focus when she wants to

Doesn't bother to keep in touch

Gets caught up in the day-by-day

Says she can unwind if she has to

She's got half a heart to give

I got half a mind to say

"hold on a little longer, I think we're better off that way"

She keeps me catching up when I thought I was ahead

Got an arrow through my heart

But she was shooting for my head.

She's alright with crazy, 

says its just how she gets by

Says she can fake it when she wants to

She fades out like a movie

I hang on but she just slips away

Makes it sound like she has to

Chorus

Luv

L