Another Monday has rolled into town. Did ya have a good Cinco De Mayo celebration? Did you do anything? Are you even familiar with the fact that it’s a Mexican holiday? I only mention that because I did have someone ask me on Myspace what Cinco De Mayo is/was. It’s often easy to forget that many people are in tune with holidays outside their country or culture. It’s good to explore the world and understand more than your own safe little world.
I didn’t end up doing any drinking for Cinco De Mayo. Instead I spent the day working on music. I had a client in the studio then I spent time on my writing and recording. I’ve got a strong collection of songs building. They run in a much wider circle of genres than I’ve tackled in the past, the common thing through them all is that I’ve written them, and so far all of them are musically interesting and dense. I plan on spending a good deal of time on the words and melodies as well. Overall I want to have about 40 songs to sift through on the next CD. I’m currently at 15 nearly done and another 10 roughed out.
Yesterday I went mountain biking. Either I’m getting into better shape than I thought or I had help getting up the hill. I was able to use harder gears than I normally do. I felt stronger. But boy did I have to take a moment at the top. Lungs gasping, heart pounding, stomach churning. That’s a friggin workout. I’m not sure why I felt like I was on the verge of tossing cookies, but it eventually subsided and I was able to finish out the ride in true form, zippin along the single track all the way down. Everytime I go out to one of my favorite spots to ride, something along the trail always seems to change. I like that. Keeps the ride fresh.
To further the exploration concept. I like to explore in music. Hopefully that’s obvious if you’ve been following Single of the Day, or even my career for a while. Recently I did some exploring of the recording/mixing kind. I attended a Logic Pro users seminar featuring a producer by the name of Blumpy. Turns out he’s a Logic Pro user, has lots of big credits for things he’s done, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, the great thing about Logic is that when you watch someone else work you always see something that you can use in your own workflow. That’s the beauty of Logic, it’s so deep there’s no way you could know it all.
Blumpy happened to be explaining his recording and mixing process for an album by a guy named Joe. Joe Hedges actually. I had never heard of Joe, but Blumpy spoke really highly of him as he described the working process of putting the album together. Then after some explanation of the the locale and instrumentation used, Blumpy pulled up a video and let the song play. Guess what? You’re hearing/watching it now. There were things that Blumpy was doing with the mix that were right up my alley as to some of the things I’ve done on Practical Insanity, A Natural Leap Forward, and E.A.R. What concerned me the most though was the vocal and how it was being put into the mix. That and Bass have been the last two issues that until recently had been eluding me. After watching Blumpy, I know I’m on the right track to be producing things at Major Label quality on my terms.
Unfortunately when you’re in a seminar situation you don’t get to ask a lot of questions. Often times you’re subject to the whims of the other attendees. Everyone has their own two cents to through in as to how they’d do the mix, or what they use. It’s unfortunate because I’d rather be hearing and picking at Blumpy’s brain to understand his choices – not the audience’s (for if they were such masters, they’d be the featured producer). I still found it educational and did pick up some tips in terms of mix ideas. Which is a bonus.
The added bonus was hearing someone creating some very cool music. Joe Hedges very likeable. In fact, I was taking lots of mental notes about this song. It’s got a great vibe. It’s also bizarre in that it’s a real human condition – Mitral Valve Prolapse. I don’t exactly know what the condition is, but I am aware based on Blumpy’s comments that Joe actually has this condition. How’s that for taking something that sounds medically scary and turning it into a really sweet idea for a song.
I liked it so much I contacted Joe to see if he’d be willing to allow me to blog about the song. I didn’t know if it was available yet as Blumpy wasn’t sure if it was out yet on iTunes. Fortunately for you and I, the song and the CD are out and available. Though Joe isn’t using CD Baby for selling his CD, he is selling it off his own website and it is on iTunes. He’s kindly allowing me to link to his video, which again is cool in it’s own right. There’s a scene in it where two cars collide. I’m actually amazed by that, I wonder how they set that up, if it really happened, or they actually spent money on crashing them. I don’t know. It is a question I’ll have to ask at some point.
Anyway, I’m really juiced on the song. Joe comes off as being a cool guy. And Blumpy did a great job at putting the music together in the process. I urge you to explore the rest of the CD and show Joe some of your heart, just as he’s putting his out there for you.