http://hvunderground.ning.com/
Remember HV SCENE? They used to put on shows, write articles, I’m not sure what else because I was pretty young and it seemed to linger around Mid-Hudson. I definitely saw the banner at plenty of shows that my friends’ moms drove us to at The Chance and Club Crannell. That group seems to be dead now and merely reduced to a vintage forum. The shows listing and interview archive appear to be buried in the sands of the interwebs… Sad.
But, there is a new movement. The Hudson Valley Underground. The group utilizes Ning… which is a site that lets niches create social networks. So that means, users can sign up, create a profile, and share content. With a profile you (as a fan, band, venue, recording studio, producer, filmmaker, photographer) can post events in the group calendar, write blogs, submit photographs to the gallery, add your video links to the pool… It’s a great local resource, and after a little exploring around, pretty simple to use.
Here’s my profile > http://hvunderground.ning.com/profile/Neesh
I’m also a member of MYFUNK network, Friends or Enemies, Rosendale Street Festival on Ning.
The Broken Radio airs every Saturday night at 10PM Eastern Standard Time on AM 1230 WBLQ in Rhode Island and certain parts of Connecticut… and Norway?… but the majority of us tune in on our computers and cell phones by visiting http://thebrokenradio.com/… and while the show is on air a few of us join the host, Lorren K., in an online web chat.
July 15th is a day that goes down in thefamily3 as the most commonly shared birthdate. Celebrating their birthdays today are John Eppard (John The Baker of Instant Asshole), David Parker (Wavis of Weerd Science stuff) and Spider Barbour.
If you click the "Wavis" and "John The Baker" tags you'll see that there's a few articles in the database about the two artists. Spider, on the other hand, has yet to be mentioned, but certainly is not a talent to ignore. His songwriting has served as a tremendous inspiration to the original 3. Instead of writing an intro to Spider's career, we're going to let Jimmy Eppard take care of that. Before the copy/paste, aKt would also like to take this opportunity to welcome the tiniest new additions to thefamily3- Gracie and Julian.
The Curmudgeons
I first heard James 'Spider' Barbour when I was playing with the Crows in the late 80s. I was at Crow's bassman, Mike Dunn's house one day listening to some music when he pulled out a cassette of "Dog's Life". I was completely blown away by this tune. Mike told me that he was a local guy that he had played with a few years back in a group called "Imago". Back in 1968 Spider had a deal with MGM for his band "Chrysalis". The Chrysalis record was being recorded @ Electric Ladyland in NYC. Another band that was also there recording @ the same time was The Mothers of Invention. Spider, being the crazy brainiac biologist that he is, became fast friends with Frank Zappa. They spent hours recording free associative conversations under the lid of the studio's grand piano...'Pigs & ponys don't understand the BIG NOTE!'... Many of these raps became incorporated into Frank's material. I made Mike promise to introduce me to Spider asap. A few weeks later the three of us became the original Curmudgeons.
We would get together twice a week & learn Spider's 'book'. I would chart out the tunes & we would arrange them. Spider has a unique way of voicing chords & the way his melodies flow through them is truly mesmerizing. I can honestly say that going through this process has given me a more complete understanding of music which has carried over into every project I have been involved in since. The greatest thing about Spider's music is that, when it's done right - it sounds completely simple & straightforward. When you try to play along with it, then you'll realise what a completely twisted genius he is!
About a year later I had gotten involved with Michael Birnbaum - a talented, young engineer who wanted to build a recording studio. I had cut some tracks in his home studio when I was singing & playing guitar with the Crows & was very impressed by his drive & focus, in addition to the high quality of his engineering work. Since I had a pretty extensive carpentry background, he asked me to check out an old barn he was thinking about renting with the idea to turn it into a real studio. The place was interesting. A wall would have to come down & a couple more would have to go up. A booth & a control room would need to be built...it could happen...There was no budget, of course, so I opted to do the work in exchange for studio time. Spider had some construction experience as well so between the two of us we got the job done in a few weeks. There were several 24 hour work days involved in making that deadline, but it was basically happy work. Having this opportunity to make a professional recording for our sweat equity motivated us to begin pre - production using Mike's old Tascam 40-4 & Spi's Kelsey mixer @ Mike Dunn's house. As fate would have it, some of these demos turned out better than the 'real' studio!
We cut: 'Dr. Root's Garden', 'Chilicothe Wind', 'Dog's Life', 'Storybook Windows', 'Lime Kiln Road' & '(let me) Hibernate'. These 4 track tapes had a significant effect on my 2 young sons. I swear that they, & all their friends, knew these songs better than we did! This collection of demos really helped inspire them to write their own songs. Today they both have careers in music. Joey is making his 6th record. (1 - solo, 5 with his group '3' ) to be released summer /07 on Metal Blade. Josh, after cranking out 3 certified gold discs for columbia/equalvision records with 'Coheed & Cambria', is finishing up his 2nd 'Weerd Science' hip hop release for EqualVision. This isn't just me being a proud parent, it's a living, breathing, WORKING testimony to the inspirational power of great music. Either one of these guys will tell you that Spider is the MAN!
The Sleeping at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY working on their 4th LP coming out this fall.
After recording their last album (What it Takes, 2009) in Baltimore with Brian McTernan at Salad Days Studio, the band is back in Woodstock at Applehead Studios where they recorded their first two records (Believe What We Tell You, 2004. Questions and Answers, 2006) with Michael Birnbaum and Chris Bittner.
Vocalist, Douglas Robinson, announced that recording for The Sleeping's fourth album began June 25th, 2010 via this post on tumblr. According to posts on the band's twitter and facebook profiles, they finished tracking the drums on July 1st. The Sleeping posted the video above to celebrate and give us a glimpse into what the Long Island, New York band has been doing Upstate.
Victory Records' The Sleeping formed out of the ashes of Stillwelle and Ferret Music's skycamefalling in 2003.
It's official... Codeseven is reuniting this fall! Exactly what that entails is still unknown, but there are severe hints at some new (DIY?) shows and maybe even a new record! Codeseven rocked the world from 1995 to 2005. They announced their myspace account will no longer be used (facebook and twitter links are in this post) and the band also put up every single song from their 3 records for streaming via soundcloud. I embedded all three albums in this post. You can embed any of the players (or even individual songs) on your own tumblr/blog by clicking the "</>" button, grabbing the code, and pasting in your blog's "edit HTML" section. SoundCloud makes it even easier to share if you want to use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, Delicious, StumbleUpon, or email by just clicking the corresponding link in the "</>" window and following the detailed instructions.
Formed in the summer of 94 under the name "Oppression" (which was basically a Fear Factory/Pantera rip off band). The following year Jeff and Big D joined, changed the name to Codeseven and decided to rip off some new bands. The name comes from a mix of Snoop Doggie Dog and Downset lyrics. We wanted a name that didn't sound Metal or Punk so you would have to listen to the music before you judged us. Hmm, not sure if that one worked or not.
We recorded an EP that we hand dubbed on cassette called "Paper Or Plastic" in 95 that was only meant to help get us on local shows. Huel Records liked it and too our dismay, released it onto CD the following year. It was pressed 3 times with 3 different color schemes. It's been out of print since 96 and we hope to keep it that way. It's terrible in a "we're only 16 kind of way".
After that we almost signed to Earache (being on the same label as Anal Cunt was a big deal to us) but decided to go with The Music Cartel. Looking back ...it was a bad move to sign with either of these labels and really held us back as a band. Ohh well......we put out 3 records on TMC (Sense Of Coalition, Division Of Labor, and The Rescue) and every record sounded like a different band. This resulted in having to rebuild a new fan base with every release. Probably not the smartest move but creatively...it was so much fun. When The Rescue came out and the hardcore was gone, we we're getting death threats which kept things interesting.
Move ahead to 2003. We signed with Equalvision (which we wish would have happened in 98) and started the writing process. Our sound evolved as always and we released "Dancing Echoes Dead Sounds". It was an awesome experience and the tours we supported were really fun.
Needless to say we went on hiatus a year after that release. I think there is two kinds of success in the music world. Creative success and Mass Appeal success. Our goal was to have our peers dig us and push ourselves to the limit with what we could write musically and I think we accomplished that. This route also means bills pile up at home and emotionally you are put through the ringer. It's not very sustainable, and sadly...it had to end. Get a job. Replenish the bank account. Pay some bills. Become friends again. I call this going back to civilian life. It's not easy but had to done.
As far as the C7 story goes....that sums it up in as few words as possible. Hope you enjoyed my brief take of our journey and maybe at some point this story will continue.
-James Tuttle (guitar/keys)
> http://facebook.com/pages/Codeseven/264417361599
> http://twitter.com/codesevennc
Dancing Echoes Dead Sounds by codeseven
Division Of Labor by codeseven
Craig Owens (Isles & Glaciers, ex-Chiodos, Cinematic Sunrise, The Sound of Animals Fighting) gives a glimpse into his untitled project with former Matchbook Romance & God Or Julie drummer, Aaron Stern. Also involved in the project is John Feldmann, the singer/guitarist of Goldfinger. I learned that John Feldmann has done A&R for Warner Bros signing The Used, Story of the Year, Foxy Shazam and Mest among others. He’s also done songwriting and production work for Good Charlotte, The Used, Mest, Story of the Year, Ashlee Simpson, Hilary Duff, Cute is What We Aim For, The Veronicas, Anthony Green, Escape The Fate, After Midnight Project, Saosin, Panic! At The Disco and Foxy Shazam. Nick Martin (Isles & Glaciers, ex- Underminded, Cinematic Sunrise) is one of two guitarists (the other hasn’t been revealed yet).
I really dug All’s Well That Ends Well and would even consider it a masterpiece, among my favorite albums of all time. The Sound of Animals Fighting album that Craig Owens is on is also an album I hold near and dear to my heart, Lover, The Lord Has Left Us… But the rest of Craig’s releases I couldn’t get into. I’ve read a tweet and article here and there telling the story of Craig Owens’ semi-public unraveling, but really I’ve been waiting for him to get back on his feet and do what he does best. Watching this video and reading the recent interview with Alternative Press makes me feel real empathetic. He’s doing the right thing. The best thing an artist can do when they fall is just “take some time off” and bury themselves in their heartwork, even if their efforts result in a fleeting project. Nothing can compare to the overwhelming beauty, power and happiness of truly realizing you love what you’re doing. Nothing can compare to the intense excitement of loving that you’re doing something new.
I like the way Craig is handling deadline questions. That stuff is pretty scary and can strip the organic nature and drive away. (i.e. “Pre-production will be from this time to this time. That will leave this time for production. We’ll be mixed by this date and mastered by this time. Artwork will be completed by blah-blah-blah, giving us a release of so-and-so month, so we can tour here-and-there to support it.) It’s pretty cool that Fueled By Ramen/WMG would pick up a project in this state. I do find it rather humorous though that premature news of a Pete Wentz/Craig Owens collaboration overshadowed the announcement of Josh Eppard joining Initials… since Initials has come such a long way and both Pete Wentz and Craig Owens are pursuing other projects. Initials has become Terrible Things, they have been touring non-stop since the completion of their record, and will see a release August 31st on Universal/Motown.
Matchbook Romance will always be among my favorite bands of all time. The Getaway and MBR have been there with me through what felt like the hardest times I’d ever go through (even if that was just normal teenage self-indulgence). Thankfully I still have West For Wishing, Stories and Alibis and Voices for bittersweet nostalgia.
All the best to these guys, and I look forward to hearing how some of my favorite music meshes together.
Alternative Press: Q&A: Craig Owens opens up about life after Chiodos > http://www.altpress.com/features/entry/qa_craig_owens_opens_up_about_life_after_chiodos/
