A Band In A Month

FAWM

2006-05-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

I got to meet the other "FAWMers" tonight, and they rock. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out HERE! Come to the show. It's gonna be a blast! I guess we're gonna decorate the stage like a living room, and we're all gonna sit up there and take turns playing songs. Sweet! Catch a rare acoustic performance by myself, with Wendy from Sunspot on violin for a couple tunes! It's gonna be a good time. And if you want to help me out, feel free to download this FLYER for the show, and hang it up where people will see. Hopefully we'll get a good crowd to come out and chill with us on a Sunday night (May 21st). It's from 7pm to around 10 or so. So, not too late for you folks that gotta wake up early (most of us). It'll be laid back, fun, alcoholic if you so prefer, and musical. The cover is a measly 6 bucks. Hope to see you there!

ps- to listen to a few of the songs I may be playing, go here.

Anyone Have Photos?

2005-08-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

So if anybody at the show last night has photos they could share, that would be super rad. Email me at thestintrocks (at) gmail dot com and we'll come up with a way to get 'em up on the official site...

Thanks!

--Dan

Thank You and Goodnight

2005-08-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

I am completely thunderstruck by the attendance at last night's show. Thank you all so much for coming out to witness the conclusion of our experiment. Thank you thank you thank you!

I'll post more coherently later. Promise. For now I'll just echo everything my Uncle Timmy had to say and try to survive my workday.

--Dan

Holy fuckin shit!

2005-08-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

You know, I don't swear often. Well... yes, I do. But there aren't any clean words to describe how awesome tonight went. The Stint played their one and only show (pretty much) and for some strange reason we PACKED the bar, everyone was really into it, even though few were drunk (Thursday night and all), the booker at the Klinic (Trevor) practically took me home and adopted me, he was so happy with the turnout and the concept of the band, and we even made a very small profit! The guys in Mary Ellis are kick ass beyond belief because they refused to take any money from what we made. I TRIED to give it to them, too. Bless their little hearts. I still have to get a hold of A Gnarly Swell, who impressed the shit out of me. They deserve at least a little cash because they made me think "Why wasn't I that good at age 20?". Dan played awesomely, and for being a dude with a bad-ass cold, he sang great! Bill rocked the drum set like I knew he would (the weird drum part in the middle of "You Don't Know Me", the Ray Charles cover, came out perfectly!). I think I did pretty god damn well, too, if I say so myself. Which I do. It was great to be on stage again and get that feeling back (it's been so long!). The crowd was so great. They were really into the songs, even though they hadn't heard them before. But even a few were singing along, since we put the 4 mp3's online a couple days ago. A lot of people were really upset we were breaking up, which was another huge ego booster (did we really NEED more?). Trevor at the Klinic was under the impression we would do this EVERY month, and kept telling me to come back in September and October and November, etc. I think he may have been drinking. haha... What a good guy. And thanks so much to Erika for filming this. She will hopefully teach me to edit, so I can help with that (the hardest and longest part of this whole thing!) and get a video online before everyone forgets what we just did. Everyone was uber-impressed, and they weren't just blowing smoke up our collective asses. It felt great to get that recognition after doing something so tedious and difficult. Not like it was a horrible thing to do (obviously, we loved it), but it really was difficult to do it as well as I think we did. I try to stay humble most of the time, but for right now, I'm riding this out because shit... we rocked. Thank you Dan, for making me do this, and thanks to Bill for agreeing to play with us. We probably would've been completely fucked had we not had him as a drummer for this. Thanks to all the people who came out on a Thursday night. The turnout was incredible, and even though the QUANTITY was great, it was the QUALITY of the fans that really meant something. In the words of Andrew W.K.---- I love music. :)

I Am Sick And I Don't Like It

2005-08-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I suppose The Stint experience wouldn't have been complete without someone getting ill at a very inconvenient time. Namely me, and now. I'll be alright for the gig tomorrow, but it sucks to be missing rehearsal tonight. Yuck.

MP3s are up on the official site. I would've had 'em up sooner but I was...um...busy. At...work. Yeah.

--Dan

Demo!

2005-08-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

The 4 songs we recorded will be on the main website soon, but Dan's a busy guy at work, so I put 'em online here, too...

http://www.bordfans.com/SummerNight.mp3
http://www.bordfans.com/FlipACoin.mp3
http://www.bordfans.com/NothingPersonal.mp3
http://www.bordfans.com/21000Miles.mp3

Enjoy, and hope to see ya at the show in TWO days!
Tim

By Jove, This Just Might Work

2005-08-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

Well, the recording is all done, and I think what we've got sounds terrific given the amount of time we had. We started recording at like 10:30 or so Saturday, went 'til like 5:30, then did 11-2:30 and 3:30-8:30 tonight. So that's four songs in, like, what, 16 hours or so? I'm impressed we knocked everything down that fast. I'll do some backseat mixing with Eric tomorrow and let him master it Tuesday, then we can Burn, Baby, Burn Wednesday night so we have discs to give away on Thursday. And the show is going to have a kick-ass lineup, too! First it's A Gnarly Swell doing good, fast, hard, dark punk, then us (The Stint), then Mary Ellis, Madison Rockstars Extraordinaire. It's gonna be fantastic.

--Dan

A Momentary Low Point

2005-08-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is wearing me down. I think last night was the low point for me: I was utterly exhausted, and felt like I was just trying everyone's patience with my wild mood swings. I have no legitimate reason to have felt that way, so I'm blaming on the fact that I was so god damn tired. We made it a good ways through our recording process, today all that's left is my guitars on one song, solos on another, then all my vocals and a little bit of clean-up singing for Tim. I'm really hoping to be through with it by 1 or so, but we shall see. After that we take quickie mixdowns to another studio for drums, where at least I can just cherry-pick and not have to do the work. So that'll be okay, anyway. Somewhere in here I also need to do normal life stuff, too; like buy food.

Well, 10:00, time to get Wonko up and get back at 'er.

--Dan

Sounding Good

2005-08-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight's practice went great! Bill really had things down well (or he faked it marvelously ;-)), and everything is starting to tighten up. In fact I played the stinkiest out of all of us; need to get my shit together a bit more. Granted none of our songs are going to be as airtight as they could, but given that we'll have had four full-band rehearsals, tops, by the time the gig rolls around we're gonna sound really, really good.

So yeah, I have no worries at all about the gig. Tim and I will finish some writing on Friday then we should be able to sneak in a couple more practices on Monday and Wednesday. The only real question mark that's left for me, at this point, is the recording part of things; it's going to be a real squeeze to get the discs done in time.

It was also really fun to do the "reality tv"-style one-on-one interview things with Erika. I'm juiced to go back and watch this when it's all said and done to see the progress from me and Tim on the couch with Acoustic guitars to an actual band wailing away on stage.

--Dan

The rock never stops!

2005-08-08T22:04:00.000-07:00

Well, tonight it didn't. We had a pretty long practice session, which we needed, because it was drummer Bill's first time with both of us (ooh, kinky!). I showed him some songs the other day, and tonight we went over everything. We've got 8 songs now, and they all rock. We're gonna play some weird cover, too. Probably a song you really like that you never wanted to hear done punk EVER, so I will apologize ahead of time. Dan and I are planning to write one song together in the next couple days, too. And it's even possible we'll have one of two MORE songs by the time of the show. I think 10 minutes before we hit the stage I'll say, DAN, BILL! Check this out.. and I'll be all ready to show them a brand new song I just came up with 4 seconds ago. Then, when I attempt to strum the guitar, I will completely forget how. Come on, now, you don't wanna miss that! haha.. Anyway, Bill's drumming blows our balls off, so to speak. I think if we played the show right now, we'd be a lot better than some bands I've seen that have been together for years. And if we played the show 3 weeks ago, we'd be better than Dave Matthews. Well, we've got a recording schedule down, mostly, so we should be able to pull that off. Unless Dan decides during mastering that the new ballad "really needs an orchestra, and possibly a ditchery-doo." And then I come in with "no way, all that's missing now is the chorus of small children in the background." WE ARE THE WOOOOORLD... or something. yeah. So, make sure you come to the show next Thursday, 'cause it's the only one, folks. ROCK!

Where'd That Last Week Go?

2005-08-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

Woof. We have less than two weeks to go, and here's the schedule of events:

Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th: Record vocals and guitars for four songs at Makeshift Studios

Monday the 15th (evening) and Tuesday the 16th, if necessary: record drums at a different studio whose name I can't recall

Thursday the 18th: gig at the Klinic

So that doesn't seem so bad, but our set isn't done, I'm still not sure about the drummer, though I'm very hopeful about our current prospect (c.v. Tim's previous post), and plus somewhere in there after the recording we need to get some CDs burned for distribution at the show. It still doesn't seem that bad until you factor in that I'm also preparing for a national tour with Stromkern, and that's eating up 2-3 days a week. This is actually turning out to be more challenging than I thought it would it be.

The good news is that working with Tim is a blast. It's almost too easy, so we're going to make it harder by trying to actually do a full collaboration on a song, and maybe writing words over each other's changes for a couple others. Don't know how that'll fly just yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it.

Oh yeah! The official site is up. Check it out!

--Dan

"I haven't invented any time machine!" - Doc Brown

2005-08-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

A time machine would be useful for this project, but not completely necessary. I've got the show officially booked. Thurday, August 18th, at the Klinic on Park St. in Madison. And my main band, Government Zero, finally got a drummer and bassist. The drummer has a good chance of being The Stint's drummer, too. So cross your fingers! The only thing is I may have to help him move out of his place (on campus). I hate that! But it'll be worth it, because he rocks and would fit in perfectly. So, Dan and I have 6 songs total, and we need about 4 or 5 more by like Monday (one of which we plan to write together), plus one cover. Any cover suggestions? Nothing punk. Nothing EXTREMELY obscure. Not more obscure, at least, than say, Sleater Kinney. :)

Comin' along

2005-08-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

16 days until the gig we almost have with the band we have two thirds of and the songs we have half written. And the demo that doesn't exist. Most would be worried. I think we're right on track! No problem. Right now I'm goin to get a haircut, come back home, take a shower, pick up Chris and take him to this drummer's house for a Goverment Zero tryout. (if you listen to the demos on that site, keep in mind they're one-take demos intended only for tryout people to get an idea of our crap!). Dude's roommate plays bass, too, so hopefully we'll hire 2 birds with one tryout. Or kill 2 punks with one stone. Then I'm gonna come back here, email Dan lyrics for what I've got, and write two or three more songs. The quicker the songwriting is done, the faster we can learn and master those songs, so we can record them after teaching a drummer how to play them. Speaking of, I may or may not have Eric from Mary Ellis interested in playing. He's a good drummer. Loves Tre Cool. Has huge red spikey hair (at Mary Ellis shows). He'll be a good fit, if he's up for it. Cross your fingers. I'm callin him today.

2005-08-02T06:42:00.000-07:00

Got a third song underway last night, a little more like my old-school (read: Rattbelly) style than I'm maybe comfortable with, but it's a good track and it'll serve. I've one other thing in the hopper right now that I'm working out in my head, and I'm making a conscious effort to change things up a bit and force myself to stretch out in the area of songwriting style and not just rely on the old tricks to help me bang out songs quickly. So far I'm batting 1 for 3 in that regard.

In other news, I've almost got the official Stint website (as opposed to this blog, which is just an ongoing status report) done and ready to roll, which is good. I'd really hoped to have it done by now, but I got wrapped up in writing last night and lost track of time.

--Dan

Just An Update

2005-07-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

In a fit of creativity, I managed to bang out two good tunes between Thursday and today, and get solid ideas down for two more. One of the tracks really surprised me; it came out very raw, like Social Distortion meets Molly Hatchet or something, not my usual M.O. Regardless, it works, and is a shitload of fun to play. Today Tim and I went over the four songs we've got thus far, and at the moment everything seems to be a keeper, though anything can change as new tunes enter the fold, plus there are still two extra Tim songs hanging around that we've yet to go through. On the administrative side of things it sounds like our one gig will be at the Klinic down on Park Street, probably on August 18th (it's a Thursday), plus we've got the recording details down and Tim and Erika thought up a few more good leads for drummers. I'll be knocking out an official band website tomorrow and will just host it on my server space, then if the drummer and gig fall into place, all that's left are the easy parts: the writing and the playing.

It's really satisfying to be doing totally guitar-driven music again, and, I gotta say, to be doing vocals. With Tim and I at the helm of this thing there's constant harmonizing and lots of countermelodies all over the place, which is lots of fun. More writing for me tomorrow, but for now I...must...sleeeeeep...

--Dan

The Things You Forget

2005-07-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

Man, it's like I've been writing for various electronic and goth genres for so long I've forgotten how to write a frickin' pop song. Sheesh. It'd better come back to me soon...

--Dan

My blog post

2005-07-25T22:36:00.000-07:00

Here I am. It's weird posting in the same place as Dan. It's like a cheap romance novelist posting on Shakespeare's blog or something. haha. Well, I've got some quick demos of songs I've started. One is pretty much completed, idea-wise, but obviously nothing is set in stone (or ROCK) yet. I'll meet with the infamous El Guapo (Dan) on Wednesday and see what he's pulled out of his sleeves. Or.. what he has up his hat. Something like that. I'm pumped about this, and I hope we find a drummer. If not, we always have my sub-par drumming skills and Dan's iPod!
--Tim

Off to a Good Start, Off to a Shaky Start

2005-07-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

For anyone who doesn't know, here's the deal: I'm a pro/semi-pro musician who also happens to be a consultant (I'm a programmer). I used to live in Madison, WI, and now live in Milwaukee. Well, the company I work for has contracted me to a BioTech firm here in Madison, and put me up in an apartment while I'm on the assignment. I have a lot of friends in Madison, and a LOT of those friends are really good musicians; most are professionals of one caliber or another. While here in town, I got the idea to try to do the whole "band thing" in one month. That means:
1. Get a line-up, minimum of three people.
2. Write a full set of original material, no more than one cover, and no recycled songs from past projects.
3. Have a website.
4. Record at least a demo, but preferrably an album.
5. Film as much of the proceedings as possible for posterity's sake.
6. Do it all while keeping our day jobs.

We've already started, though the timeframe is a bit shaky. Ideally, everything should be done by August 24th, but with scheduling problems that have already come up, we'll have to finish before that or after. Tim and I are meeting on Wednesday night to talk about that, among other things.

So here we are. Tim and I are going to bang out a band in a month. As I figured would happen, Tim's already sketched out three songs, and they're all pretty solid. I'm only halfway through one, but then I was trying to get ready for a solo gig so I was handicapped for a bit. I know: excuses, excuses. I'll catch up now. We've already hit our first snag in that the guy I thought would be available to play drums doesn't want to do it. We have four other people we can ask, so here's hoping one of them accepts.

So far the most interesting thing about the project is how little interest anyone has shown. Not a single person I've told (except Tim and the Ensign crew) have thought this was even remotely interesting or challenging. I wonder why. Maybe everyone just thinks I'm stupid for trying it. *shrug* I think it's going to be a blast.

Regardless, stay tuned! Tim will be posting here, as well, so I'll sign off as...

--Dan