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Radblaster vs. the Mojo Wire and Other Old Noise

2012-01-17T21:27:00.000-08:00

One of the many great things about making music with Adam, Bryn, and Kevin again, as Radblaster, is being able to go back and play some sick versions of selected Mojo Wire classics. Of course, Bryn and I did this frequently in Honey White, but only with the songs that we wrote. It would have been wrong and dumb to attempt "Key West Tapwater" or "Long Black Leather Boots" without Adam, but now we can do those very tunes.

One of the many great things about Bandcamp is that it allows me the opportunity to foist all this stuff upon the universe once we record it. Since Radblaster only has so many originals, I thought I'd put some of the Mojo covers up too. They were too much fun to keep to ourselves. I also thought our seven rabid fans might like to compare the latest versions to the originals, just for S&Gs, so here they are:

Key West Tapwater is my favorite Adam song. It was the kickoff track on the third Mojo Wire demo album back in 1999, a sunny little slice of surf-noir. Radblaster rocks it a bit more, not unlike the latter-day Mojo lineup of 2001. The cover is first (from Wall of Sound in Anaheim, 4/10/11), original version second:

Key West Tapwater by Radblaster
Key West Tapwater by The Mojo Wire

Long Black Leather Boots was the meanest Mojo Wire blues tune in the set back in 1997. We recorded a blistering version of it for our first demo album the same year, and it lurked deep in Mojo Wire live show sets until the band fell apart in 2001. The new version here is from a December 2010 rehearsal at Adam's house in San Clemente. The original version follows it:

Long Black Leather Boots by Radblaster
Long Black Leather Boots by The Mojo Wire

Blue Lantern Cove was originally recorded solo by Adam in 1999 or 2000. We tacked it on the end of the final Mojo Wire odds-and-sods CD in 2001, but it always deserved better than that. Radblaster plays it as a full band, complete with "Pulp Fiction"-style mellow menace. The new version is also from Adam's on 12/18/10; the original follows:

Blue Lantern Cove by Radblaster
Blue Lantern Cove by The Mojo Wire

We initially played several other Mojo tunes in our first few rehearsals of 2010—"Fatal Flaws," "One Last Hallelujah," "Margarita," and more—but once we got them out of our system, new Radblaster originals and some other unique covers showed up. It's nice to have the old stuff ready, though. Just in case.

Honey White/Neuro Farm Rehearsal Audio, 12/27/11

2012-01-16T22:17:00.000-08:00

So, as usual these days for Roland/rehearsal recordings, I've been a total slacker as far as getting them together and making them presentable. This time, the victim was the joint Honey White-Neuro Farm jam session we had right after Christmas in Santa Barbara. It mostly involved Bill and I backing up Brian (vocals, guitar) and Rebekah (vocals, violin), acting as their rhythm section and playing whatever they needed us to.

That amounted to many more Neuro Farm songs than Honey White songs, but who's counting? Especially considering that we 1) were minus Bryn and I had a slight cold (and therefore in no position to sing), and 2) it was fun to basically invent rhythm parts on the spot for all the Neuro songs.

On top of that, Brian taught us to play another Neil Young song. We sort of turned "On the Beach" into a combination of Honey White's "Sweet Oblivion" (i.e. a long, twelve-bar-ish jam) and the sounds from side 2 of Camper Van Beethoven's classic 1989 album "Key Lime Pie" (stark, violin-fronted folk-rock). We also took a jammy stab at Phantogram's "When I'm Small" and several Honey White songs—but of the latter only "One Last Hallelujah" came anywhere near close to presentable.

The overall vibe was mellow, surreal, and slightly dark—though never cold—with occasional bright bursts of light and color. In a very general sense, that describes Brian's music to me, both in Honey White and what he makes with Rebekah in the Neuro Farm. We played about thirty songs over two days, but my picks are all from the second day (Dec. 27):

Setlist: Dreams - DC Dead - Violin Jam 1 - On The Beach - Invisible - One Thousand Years - Perfect Blue - Happy - Bubble - One Last Hallelujah - When I'm Small - All I Have - Violin Jam 2

Quick note about the "violin jams" - I didn't know if they had titles, so I didn't give them any, but to me the first one sounds very Camper Van Beethoven, and the second a dead ringer for "Desire"-era Dylan, like "One More Cup of Coffee." Very cool.

This was the second year in a row that we reconvened, in some form, to make music at the gallery after Christmas. Sounds like a holiday tradition to me. It was great to see Brian again and meet Rebekah for the first time. They make a great musical team and cute couple and we wish them all the best. Billy and Marika were their usual honorable and generous selves, too.

And then there was cruising through Santa Barbara for lunch with Brian at the wheel, blasting Rammstein all over upper State Street. You've never experienced S.B. until you've done the German Metal version of it. Yikes.

Honey White, Radblaster, & the Neuro Farm Snubbed in Best-of-2011 Lists

2011-12-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

Predictably, taste-making music blogs and pompous critics of all stripes failed to recognize the low-fi, shambolic genius of my two bands' digital-only E.P. releases in 2011. Obviously, they're all short-sighted fools and hopeless wankers. The proof is in the data, my friends:

Hecho en Naranjastan by Radblaster
Corcoran (E.P.) by Honey White
Well...maybe not—they DO both start with versions of the same song, of course—but all those people are still unbelievably stupid for ignoring Brian's new Neuro Farm project, who released their own digital-only debut album this year as well (and yes, it shares one of its songs with Honey White too):

Blissful Isolation by The Neuro Farm
On the other hand, our collective 14-year streak of zero nominations has yet to be broken. So...yeah.

Yet Another "30 Songs" Info Dump

2011-11-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

The crazy train rolls on. Here's the 11th to 15th posts in my Dubious Ventures blog series:

11 - The Peak of My Career: Sloppy Ironic Titles Won't Save You 10.9.11
12 - Sweet Oblivion: Enhanced by Extended Epic Endings 10.14.11
13 - Famous Last Words: Gimme Two Chords, and Get Two Melodies 10.23.11
14 - Island Fever: Epic Minimalism and Other Contradictions 10.30.11
15 - The Lightning Rod: From Alpha to Omega with a Boss DD3 11.5.11

Read the whole series in reverse-chrono order here.

More "30 Songs" Wisdom

2011-09-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

"Wisdom" being a relative term, of course. Here's the 6th to 10th posts in my Dubious Ventures blog series:

6 - Blacking Out: Bad Trips, Freaky Times, and No Catchy Chorus 9.4.11
7 - Hold Still: Too Much "Sabine Women," Not Enough "Guernica" 9.10.11
8 - Winner Take All: Desperate Driven Delusional Dreamer Ditty 9.18.11
9 - Water Into Wine: Jesus Complexes, Disney Films, and Other Gateway Drugs 9.26.11
10 - One Last Hallelujah: Blood of Ice, Brain of Mud, Liver of Steel 9.30.11

Read the whole series in reverse-chrono order here.

New Series: "30 Songs" on Dubious Ventures

2011-08-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

I've started up a new series at the Dubious Ventures blog, called "30 Songs," about my song lyrics from 1996-2011. Inspirations, observations, etc.—all with accompanying audio/visual stimulants. The first four entries went something like this:

Introduction to "30 Songs" 7.25.11
1 - Fatal Flaws: In The Beginning Was The Riff 7.29.11
2 - Mercy Rule: Chugging Candy-Coated Castor Oil 8.7.11
3 - Dilemma by Design: Disjointed Down-Tuned Decision-Making 8.14.11
4 - The Shivering Sand: Neo-Victorian Surf-Noir Love Letters 8.21.11
5 - Pisces Lullabye: How to Use and Misuse Your Empathetic Impulses 8.28.11

Neuro Farm Debut "Blissful Isolation" on Band Camp

2011-06-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

So we recently told you all about Brian's new sonic adventures with Rebekah Feng in the Neuro Farm - well, now they've posted their debut recording "Blissful Isolation" on Band Camp.

Go get it. It's rad. My favorites so far are "Bubble" and "Dreams" (the latter of which Brian taught Honey White to play; listen to it here).

Ten YEARS Man! ("You're On Your Own" Edition)

2011-06-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

The Mojo Wire's final album. Click on the link below for a big fat essay. Listen to some audio below that.
The History Mix: Things Fall Apart

When rock bands destroy themselves on record, it's usually a group effort. The Beatles bickered like babies on Let It Be. The Eagles slouched into the sunset on The Long Run. The Police drove each other crazy making Synchronicity. Some musical self-immolations, however, are the result of one band member's driven, monomaniacal fixation on Finishing The Project At Any Cost. Elvis Costello did it to the Attractions on Blood And Chocolate, and David Lowery did it to Camper Van Beethoven on Key Lime Pie. On a much smaller and, probably justifiably ignored scale, Keir DuBois did it to The Mojo Wire during the making of You're On Your Own, a slab of vintage indie-rock that would prove to be their final album. More...

Play this album (with 5 bonus tracks!):

Ten YEARS Man: Giovannis Edition

2011-04-12T07:26:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago tonight, the Mojo Wire played Giovanni's Pizza in Isla Vista, for the first and only time. It was our second-to-last show and probably our best show. Sadly, the existing recording doesn't do it justice, since ye olde Tascam 4-track crapped out immediately and we only got good signals from the vocals, bass, and drums. However it was a typically scattershot, beer-soaked show, so maybe I'm not remembering things properly. Honey White played three Gios shows of their own, but the Mojos were the groundbreakers here. Clearly, it was the first stepping stone to certain world stardom and glorious adulation.

The Neuro Farm is Coming For Your Delicious Brains

2011-03-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, Honey White guitarist Brian Wolff has been PhD-ing it in Washington DC since the 2007/08 school year. When not plumbing the mysteries of human neuroscience, Brian has been playing guitar and singing in a new indie-psychedelic duo called the Neuro Farm that he formed with singer-violinist Rebekah Feng.

He had been sending us teasers of their tunes throughout 2010, most notably the epic "Bubble" featured in my "new songs" post here. Bryn, Bill, Marika and I got to put a Honey White spin on their song "Dreams" when HW reconvened in November and December.

Well, now Brian's telling us that "we're getting close to finishing a short album, and I'm so excited about crossing the 30-minutes-of-music threshold," and he sent us a link to some tunes. They're pretty rad:

The Neuro Farm on MySpace

Rough mixes of Radblaster practice 2/19/11

2011-03-05T23:28:00.000-08:00

So...it occurred to me that I hadn't yet posted recordings of our last rehearsal at Wall of Sound in Anaheim. Almost a month later. Personal fail. Anyway, here's the best of some very rough takes, including passes at works-in-progress "Superconductor" and "Maintaining Grace," as well as new instrumental "Llúvia de Jalisco" segued into "Nero":

Practice set 2/19/11: Blue Lantern Cove/Tempting Fate - The New Normal - Stranded - West Basin Water Wars - Winner Take All - Superconductor - Maintaining Grace - Llúvia de Jalisco/Nero - Stagnation Blues - Becalmed - Key West Tapwater

Oh, and Radblaster is now on Twitter @RadblasterBand. Enjoy.

Fifteen Years of Rock in One Ugly Flow-Chart

2011-02-21T20:50:00.000-08:00

That's a lineage of all the bands and friends of bands I've been connected to (some with one obvious degree of separation) since 1996. It's a (thankfully) simpler version of something David Lowery once sketched for his band Cracker:

Because it's Rad and it's a Blast.

2011-02-19T22:53:00.000-08:00

The '90s gave you the Mojo Wire. The '00s spawned Honey White. The '10s will now inflict upon thee the blues-roots-surf-rock of Radblaster. You're welcome.

New (and new-ish) Honey White songs from December 2010

2011-01-27T22:19:00.000-08:00

Via the magic of YouTube, six new song demos from our 2nd practice in 3 years, recorded live in rehearsal at the Corcoran Gallery on Milpas in Santa Barbara, 12/27/10. The cruddy iPhone camera stills were a necessary evil. You're welcome:

Two of these, "Becalmed" and "Tempting Fate," are doing double duty in both Honey White (v3.0 with Bryn/Brian/Keir/Marika/Bill) and the still-nameless Mojo Wire legacy band (Adam/Bryn/Keir/Kevin). Once the latter gets some nomenclature, I think we'll see some similar, Mojo-flavored cheap YouTube thrills. That's a promise, boys and girls.

December Rehearsals Yield More New Songs for Both Bands

2011-01-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

2010 was an ugly and vicious year around the globe in many ways, but here at My Band Rocks World HQ, it was pretty awesome:

After a decade-plus layoff, ex-Mojo Wire bandmates Adam, Bryn, Kevin, and me got together throughout the year to rehearse in San Clemente. The Mojo-legacy band is still nameless (though not for long; we answer to many things - Contact Hangover, Radblaster, and even The Clap), but thanks to Keir's trusty Roland VS-890 recorder, lots of old and new song demos were captured for posterity in March, June, September, and now December 2010.

The most recent was definitely the most interesting, so I've assembled it like a concert setlist for your listening pleasure (note that vocals are a bit gritty since they were piped through a guitar amp). It's still a bit shaky, and you may recognize some old Mojo tunes in there, but most are new from this year:

(audio link):

Practice set 12/18/10: Blue Lantern Cove/Tempting Fate - The New Normal - Stranded - West Basin Water Wars - Winner Take All - Nero - Stagnation Blues - Becalmed - Long Black Leather Boots - Key West Tapwater

This year was relatively big for Honey White too, considering we'd been basically inactive for over three years. One rehearsal in November and two in December were almost enough to bring us back to stage-worthiness, or at least studio-worthiness; HW tackled lots of new stuff (and some ancient Mojo tunes) too. This shortened set from Dec. 26 and 27 has the highlights, including Brian singing "Dreams" and Marika on backing vocals, keyboard and melodica:

(audio link):

Composite practice set 12/26-27/10 (newer stuff first): Nightfall - Tempting Fate - Dreams - Historical Friction - Green Hills - Becalmed - The Shivering Sand - The Lightning Rod - Island Fever - Let Go - Keep Moving - Mercy Rule - Unprofessional - How Far Away - My Second Shipwreck - One Last Hallelujah - Sweet Oblivion

That version of the old Mojo song "Shivering Sand" is a weird reggae/swing hybrid (we did a classic surf take too); also, "Tempting Fate" and "Becalmed" are doing double duty in both bands—and doing it well.

Anyway, 2011 looks like it may see some serious recordings at some point. Shows seem like a more remote possibility, but I wouldn't rule them out. Happy New Year everybody.

Ten YEARS Man! (Mojo Comeback Edition)

2010-12-15T19:01:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago tonight, the Mojo Wire rose from the grave, stinking like Lazarus, and destroyed the backyard of 6710 Sabado Tarde in Isla Vista.

The "big Mojo Wire comeback show" was at a home-thrown kegger and opened by Sean and Adam with a 30 second boxing match. Sean won instantly, and while Adam recovered, Bryn and Brian played a few acoustic tunes before Joe, Keir, and Bryn played as a power trio, debuting several new songs, most of which had been put together during the past year's recording.

Power outages toyed with the show mercilessly, but soon Adam was back for a romp through the old Mojo back catalogue in a fairly comprehensive set. After that everyone ended up on stage and unspeakable things ensued. Or so the legend goes...

Honey White Breaks a Three-Year Silence

2010-11-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's true—Bryn and Brian boomed into town yesterday, and so we all got together at the Corcoran Gallery in Santa Barbara to rock out and shoot a video. Bill's wife (and longtime #1 Honey White fan) Marika joined us on keyboard, and we ran through (and I recorded) a whole day's worth of songs, including new one "Historical Friction." Then Bill's brothers Justin and Chris broke out the heavy equipment to film a new clip for "Let Go" (those are makeshift green screens in the photo). Non-musical highlights for me included a return to Garrett's for great grub, scoring something called "Banana Bread Beer" at BevMo, and demolishing everyone else at a game of HORSE in the backyard.

2010 has been a banner year for band resurrections—as you may know, the original Mojo Wire has reassembled for 3 rehearsals this year as well—so hopefully we will get new gigs and/or recordings for both bands in 2011. Cross your fingers and toes.

"Dead Man" Free Download on Band Camp

2010-11-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

What with Brian returning to Cali briefly in a few weeks, I think it's high time to re-release this monster—Neil Young's theme to Jim Jarmusch's 1996 film starring Johnny Depp. Honey White recorded it in 2004 for "How Far is the Fall" and I'm still kicking myself for not putting it on the final album:

Audio Archives 24: Before and After Neuroscience

2010-09-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this recent Retro-Mojo behavior to focus on some previously unheard gems from the recent past. You see, it's been about three and a half years now since Honey White guitarist & abstract sonic genius Brian Wolff moved way over yonder to Our Nation's Capital, where he remains a busy little bee.

Before he took the PhD Plunge, however, he saw fit to not only record oodles of awesome stuff with Bryn, Bill and I in Honey White, but also periodically unleash some uniquely weird and beautiful music of his own.

I can give a little background for each, but I won't spoil it with too much over-analysis (I've already done that too much to my own songs), so you can play the tunes below and perhaps the Wolff-man himself can elaborate on each song in the comments:

E-Waltz: I recorded Brian and Bryn jamming one afternoon in summer 2003. This was the result. Slightly loopy, and for me a fun way to kick this off.

Dropped-D: This one is one of my favorites of Brian's solo songs. I've been trying to put lyrics on it for about 5 years, and I'm this close. All it needs is a vocal take and presto: new instant classic.

Evil Guitar: Name says it all, really. It's a guitar. That's evil.

The Fear and Asleep With the Sunrise are, if I recall correctly, from when Brian was living in San Francisco. "Sunrise" is very Eno to my ears. I also sampled "The Fear" for the song "Backwards Fear" on the "Weapon of Young Gods" CD in 2008.

Happy: Honey White's taken a few stabs at this one, I think. Billy's also added some drums, too—but this is the original take Brian sent me in 2005, notable for Brian's first lead vocals. Am I remembering that right?

Drunk Walk/Arpeggiator, Backwards Sample, and Acoustic Groove: A second wave of Brian's S.F. demos, from I think 2007 (built with help from Billy's 2005 drum samples), that I know a bit less about—but that doesn't make them any less creepy. Or less cool.

Bubble: Newest of the bunch here and, for me, this one's the best, edging out "Dropped D" because 1) it's complete, and 2) Brian sings a perfect vocal take of a great lyric. Nice job, man. I can't wait to play this.

Like I said, these tunes remind me a little of music by another brilliant Brian—Brian Eno. And you know what? Brian Eno's name is an anagram for One Brain. Now that's a kickass fact you'll never learn in school, kiddies.

Yeah, unless you end up in one of Dr. Brian S Wolff's lectures on the various vagaries of the three-pound electroshock-batteries we call cerebrums. That's when you stand back and watch how the big boys do it.

Slow Food on a Hot Stove: New Honey White Songs & More

2010-08-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

...and when I say "New" I mean "after 2005," or something like that. Also, many more new Adam songs than represented here in these quick snippets of 12 new (sort of) demo songs from 2006-2010. Some are future Honey White songs, some are not. Some are so new they don't have titles yet. They are:

Nightfall
This is one of Bryn's that was done just after Honey White finished our "How Far is the Fall" album in 2005. Bryn has a knack for writing further good songs even after recording is done—a habit that goes back to the Mojo Wire days. "Nightfall" made it into several HW shows in 2005 and 2006, and kicked off our "Deluge and Drought" live album, but to date has not been recorded in a studio.

The New Normal
Another one of Bryn's, of more recent vintage (2009 I think). Honey White had already hiatused by this time, of course, so Bryn brought it to the March and June rehearsals he and I did with Adam and Kevin in the Clap (or Contact Hangover, or Worst Birthday Ever, or whatever the hell the name is). Bryn cited the Black Keys as an influence on this tune, and Adam takes a swaggering solo in this clip.

Bubble
This is a demo of Brian's that he made earlier this year while toiling away at that PhD in Washington DC. We've been trying to figure out the time signature for months and still don't have a clue. I think it's 17/4, but I'm not a real musician, so what the hell do I know? Anyway, I think it's my favorite Brian song ever, and did my best to add a (very) simple bass line to the demo he made.

Winner Take All
Bryn led Honey White through this rootsy jam in March 2005. I added lyrics and a wobbly demo vocal to it 2 years later. "Winner Take All" could go well in either band, I think, but we shall see where it works best.

Historical Friction
This one's all mine, done in April of this year, and based on a 20-second loop of Bill's electronic drum kit. The chords are based on the themes I used on the "Weapon of Young Gods" book soundtrack CD in 2008, which I figured was appropriate since the lyrics poke fun at the idea of "writing what you know."

(Adam's New Song)
I love this tune, and when Adam brought it to the March 2010 rehearsal I jumped at the chance to give it a lyric. I'd only had 2 verses done by the second rehearsal in June, but the band played it even better. Now it only needs a chorus…

Hold Still
Bryn first played me this tune in July 2004, and Honey White took a stab at it while we were in the San Francisco studio doing "How Far is the Fall," but I didn't finish the lyric until about September 2005. This snippet is from a demo I made off the studio jam, but Honey White's rehearsed it a few times, and it's probably another song that could fit well in either band.

Tempting Fate
Another one that's all mine, and that's worked really well in the Adam/Bryn/Keir/Kevin band. I finished it around Feb. 2007, and used some drum sample bits on the above-mentioned soundtrack CD, but (like some other songs) it didn't really work until Bryn rebuilt it from the ground up. This take is from the March 2010 rehearsal, with a deft little solo from Mr. Hill.

Happy
Another Brian demo, from (I think) 2005. This was also made with some drum samples from Bill, and is the first demo that I recall Brian singing on. Honey White tried it in our last rehearsal, in May 2007, but along with "Bubble" I think it would be a great addition to a future HW album.

(Drop-D)
Third Brian demo of this set, and the oldest one at that, from 2004 or 2005. It's an entirely self-contained track—with Brian on every instrument—and all it needs is a few vocal tracks over it and it could be done, but alas its master tracks were wiped when Brian's laptop took a shit and died.

Green Hills
Bryn wrote this song under sad circumstances in 2005, and Honey White began rehearsing it in about October of that year, I think. We got it to a point where it even made it into a show (8/4/06), and I really like my bass part, but Bryn thinks it still needs some work in the lyrics department. We shall see.

(Brynstrumental)
A solo piece of Bryn's that he recorded earlier this summer, in the style of the Mermen's Jim Thomas. I included it here because I think it's pretty and 12 is a nice round number.

Who knows if or when any of these will be recorded—and which band will record them!—but it's good to listen through all of them and know we've still got it.

Long Overdue YouTube Upgrades

2010-08-01T19:18:00.000-07:00

So if you've seen the My Band Rocks YouTube page anytime within, say, the past few years, you'd have noticed how terrible the video quality is of the stuff I've posted there. Well, no longer. Sort of. See, I finally had some free time to begin uploading some replacement, higher-quality videos, starting with these two oldie-but-goodie covers:

More to come soon, promise.

Contact Hangover Strikes Again

2010-06-20T23:43:00.000-07:00

Well...something like that. The Adam-Bryn-Keir-Kevin band rehearsed again in San Clemente, yet again at Adam's house and yet again near a Los Sindicate gig. Bryn wrestled with Logic—on his Mac, that is—but otherwise it was a fun session. Band names are even being tossed about carelessly, since we can't be the Mojo Wire anymore and the Clap is just gross. "Contact Hangover" was the best one so far, which shows you how Serious And Professional we are. Ho ho.

Speaking of Miraculous Resurrections…

2010-04-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Since this is Easter Sunday, I figured reporting on another, much less religious but no less miraculous resurrection was in order. Yes, that blurry iPhone photo above does not lie: Adam, Kevin, Bryn and I got together to make music last weekend for the first time in about 10 years (or maybe more). That is indeed the original lineup of The Clap, from about 1996, and before we became The Mojo Wire. Apparently we only come out when Democrats are in the White House.

Anyway, it only took us about four songs to regain the old mojo, and we ended up playing for almost three hours in Adam's living room (as he said, we were always much more of a living room band than a garage band). The P.A. speaker didn't make the cut—its connection was D.O.A., so all vocals ended up piped through the second channel of Bryn's guitar amp—but otherwise it wasn't too bad. Naturally, there were lots of 12-bar blues and reverby surf instrumentals to play, and we blasted through a good cross-section of the Mojo Wire's '96-'01 songbook. Kev and Adam were even game for tackling a few Honey White songs.

To top it off we played three new songs: "The New Normal," a bloozy stomper from Bryn, "Tempting Fate," a chugging little thing I'd been developing for Honey White, and a new instrumental composition of Adam's that turned out so well that I'm totally gonna write a great lyric for it. We ended up doing between one and three takes of each song, which you can stream to listen below. Here's the "set":

12-Bar in E (sound check) - The New Normal - Blue Lantern Cove - Windward Mark - Long Black Leather Boots - One Last Hallelujah - Fatal Flaws - Tempting Fate - Bottlerocket - (Adam's new song) - Key West Tapwater - The Shivering Sand - Water Into Wine - Nightfall - Margarita

2010 may be a big Year of Music for other reasons too: last month Bryn, Brian and I got an email from Bill containing only this image:

That's Bill's new electronic drum kit, folks. We'd been looking for ways to record Honey White in a virtual setting for a while, what with Brian being 3,500 miles away in Washington DC, we think this is the key. Honey White has about 10 new songs in various stages of completion, including some we'd been playing live in the 2005/06 shows, so a new recording in some form has always been a possibility.

Brian's not just doing neurosciency-PhD stuff in DC, though—he himself has a gig there with another combo of guys in a few weeks. Details to come, in case you happen to be back east and in need of some rad riffage.

We All Go To Band Camp / Some Reassembly Required

2009-12-02T22:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, now that all the My Band Rocks bands are on Band Camp—hey, did I mention that enough already? Well, we are! The Mojo Wire, Honey White, and Low Tide all have pages with digital albums for sale at a "Name Your Price" price (that means $1 per song, $5 per album at the least).

Anyway, to celebrate that, I've re-compiled some of Honey White's old, gloriously messy live discs into a single album: "Some Reassembly Required: Live and Unprofessional 2002-2004." I wrote more about this stuff a while back here and here:

With only a few original compositions to their name at the beginning, Honey White fleshed out their live sets in 2002 and 2003 with anything that fit. This included a few of Bryn's solo instrumentals, some covers, and eight Mojo Wire songs, all re-worked to suit Honey White’s economy, speed and power. Some songs became more complete, a few still needed work, but each tune gained strength from the trial-by-fire exposure in myriad Honey White shows.

The album's tracklist is:

01 So Cold
02 One Last Hallelujah
03 Fatal Flaws
04 Windward Mark
05 Unprofessional
06 How Far Away
07 My Second Shipwreck
08 The Lightning Rod
09 Heart On A Platter
10 You Let Me Fall
11 Mercy Rule
12 Wayfaring Stranger
13 Polarity
14 The Shivering Sand
15 Pisces Lullabye
16 The Sandman

Yeah, it's a lot of stuff. Tracks 1-8 are from "Live and Unprofessional" (2002), 9-15 from "Epic Noise Now" (2003), and 16 is from "Saturated Songs" (2004). The shows caught on tape here range from the wilds of Del Playa and other Isia Vista keg parties, to the friendly confines of the University Center Hub, to the kitschy stages of local SB TV, to the dingy corners of the Wildcat Lounge downtown. So, are there any questions?

Why, Keir, why?
Because I wanted to offer some cool exclusive stuff on our Band Camp page. Plus these recordings make me go all mushy and nostalgic for the days when my second band terrorized the greater Santa Barbara area music scene with our ruthless friends and allies. We kicked ass and took names and never apologized and were mostly ignored anyway.

But…why a live compilation of, um, stuff you've already released?
Because I wanted to put it up for sale in these ugly recessionary times. And because there were only ever 50 copies of these things ever pressed.

But why not release all three complete live albums?
Because I'm too lazy to get sale rights to the cover songs on each of those CDs (which we always gave away anyway). And because most of the CDs are pretty much gone. If you've got a copy of either "Live and Unprofessional," "Epic Noise Now," or "Saturated Songs," well, it's a collector's item!

Uh, okay. But isn't this stuff already on the web?
Yeah, if you like the crappy-quality 128 kbps mp3 audio I uploaded to archive.org. Band Camp offers songs in formats as heavy as .flac for lossless awesomeness. I know most of you aren't audio nerds, though.

Why did the 2004 live album get shafted? Only one song?
Because every song on that one was done better on the 2005/2006 live album, "Deluge and Drought," which is itself pretty awesome. I think you should check that one out, too.

But I can hear pops and hisses and errors on these songs!
That's not a question.

But I can hear pops and hisses and errors on these songs?
Of course you can. The series is called "Live and Unprofessional" for a reason: I myself recorded and mixed every track, and I am decidedly not a recording engineer. That's why the price tag says "Name your price."

So why should we care?
You don't have to care, but I care, because Bryn's guitar on "So Cold," "Hallelujah," and "Windward Mark" will rip your head off. Because Bill's sick drums on all the fast songs sound (to me) like Stewart Copeland at his best. Because Brian sings backup on one song, and has never played rhythm guitar like this again (he has since become a great lead axeman). And because I tunelessly shout my way through some of my best lyrics and do a bad-ass echo-bass solo on "Lightning Rod."

What's with the title?
It's called "Some Reassembly Required" because 1) that's literally what I was doing in post-production of each CD, 2) it's literally what I'm doing now in a compilation, and 3) it's figuratively what we did in 2002/3 in making HW live sets (originals, Mojo Wire songs, Bryn's solo stuff, covers).

What's with the cover?
I dunno —it's…honey-colored? No, seriously, it's just another way for me to do some album cover design. It's a montage of all the gig posters I made for HW back in those days. Notice I said "made" and not "designed"—I was not yet a professional creative class yuppie; back then I was mostly wasting the University of California's time and money in the HR office.

Anything else? No? Well, that seems to have placated the internal-monologue peanut gallery. What about the rest of you?

Digital Release Re-Cap 2003-2009

2009-11-22T20:54:00.000-08:00

Regular readers of the "My Band Rocks" blog (all three of you) know that the "Audio Archives" column here has been the venue for unearthing and releasing many rare recordings from the Mojo Wire, Honey White, and other projects involving us guys from those bands. Before that, I'd uploaded every show we did to the Live Music Archive, so there's a substantial amount of music that has never been released on CD.

There were several re-issues (for lack of a better word)—the four Mojo Wire albums had digital resurrections, each with a slew of outtakes attached; the first Low Tide E.P. and Bryn's solo album also came back to haunt us via mp3 as well. For the most part, though, the digital items were all previously unreleased:

The Mojo Wire - Bedrock Crude (2003)
Companion to the CD best-of Low Fidelity Favorites, this was the first "My Band Rocks" release available only as a download.

The Mojo Wire - Honey White - Live Shows Archive (2005)
Tyler Huff pushed me to upload every Mojo Wire and http://www.archive.org/details/HoneyWhite live show to the Live Music Archive (20 in total), in a feeble echo of Pearl Jam's similar stunt with their own stuff. Formats are .shn and .mp3.

Honey White - How Far is the Fall Singles (2007)
B-sides to non-existent singles from Honey White's full length studio album.

The Mojo Wire - Rare and Unreleased Vol. 1 & 2 (2007)
Ill-advised barrel-scraping exercise of barfing up the good, bad, and ugly of Mojo stuff 1996-2001.

Honey White - Rehearsal Tapes Vol. 1 & 2 (2007)
Double-whammy helping of the best bits from HW practice sessions.

Honey White - How Far is the Fall Take Root Sessions (2008)
Two-volume release of each take of each song from HW's first weekend in the studio, July 2004.

Honey White - My Band Rocks! Sessions (2008)
Each instrumental take of each song recorded for HW's debut E.P. in July 2002.

Honey White - Secret Jam Band (2008)
Instrumental jams from HW practice sessions, 2002-2007.

Bryn DuBois - Alone and Bored (2008)
The HW frontman compiles some recordings he did back in the year 2000.

Low Tide - Washouts (2009)
Outtakes from Keir's side project's 2008 Weapon of Young Gods album.

There's not a lot left in the vaults after this—short of a few Honey White barrel-scraping posts and an albums' worth of Brian's solo stuff—so it's a good thing that we have all been making various "let's play again" noises at each other. You've been warned.

Be Careful Not to Touch the Wall

2009-11-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted from Dubious Ventures)

Yeah Bobby, cause there's a brand-new coat of paint going up over at ye olde My Band Rocks Dot Com. Mira:

The Honey White version of the site has actually looked like this for most of 2009, but I figured it was high time to re-vamp the rest of the bands' pages over there and effectively bring them into the year 2001 with some basic, gimpy CSS. Right now they look a little bare-bones, for sure—but the plan is to (relatively soon) integrate them with a relatively agile content management system like MODx.

Also, they're pretty dependent on social media tools for content right now. Those ugly little ShareThis! buttons are on every page, the HW news is piped in via FeedBurner's RSS thingy, all photos are in Flickr slideshows (and it'll probably use Lightbox at some point too), HW and Low Tide have small YouTube pages, and as always every album is streaming in the XSPF Flash players from archive.org. But it's a start. More as it develops...

Audio Archives 23: Keir's Demos & Outtakes 2005-2008

2009-09-18T21:31:00.001-07:00

I guess I lied when I said I'd post a lot more stuff. I've already used up most of my non-existent Friday night energy, so this edition of the AA will be pithy and lame. Fittingly, it's for songs that either (a) never got finished properly, or (b) were hastily assembled after the fact. Three are "Honey White songs," sort of. The other four are "Low Tide songs," but barely. So, without further ado:

Hold Still is a recording I did in about September '05 for a lyric I'd just finished that was nasty and mean and ugly. Funnily enough it was attached to a mellow, slidey song of Bryn's, that he first played for me on July 4 of '04. Honey White took a pass at the tune when we went into the studio for How Far is the Fall a few weeks later, and that take was what I spliced together as a backing track. And yes, horror of horrors, that's me singing. There's also some extra fuzzy bass guitar too.

Tempting Fate is from Feb '07, and a bit more manufactured. The lyric was hard to finish—not as much as "Lightning Rod," but more than (the Mojo Wire 2001 song) "You're On Your Own"—and though I think it was still tinkered with after this recording was made, some of the better lines made it into my Weapon of Young Gods novel. The instruments are me as well, which I guess is why it doesn't feel like a "real" take of it. Drums are my blunt, dumb attempts at sampling, from some bits Billy recorded in July '05 for me and Brian to use in this very way. Least complete of these first three.

Winner Take All is from Nov '08, although the lyric was finished about a year before that, and the tune (a rootsy/rockabilly jam of Bryn's) was recorded in rehearsal by Honey White around Oct '05. And again with the endurance test of Keir-vocals. The lyric is as finished as it's ever gonna be, and that's more than enough for now (kind of like the old quasi-Mojo song "Peak of My Career") considering my glacial output in that department since the last Honey White CD.

One of the things I used to do in between albums for both the Mojo Wire and Honey White is to make tracklists of stuff that I wanted to record for "the next album." These three would be on that list, plus another one I'm trying to finish right now (a Brian tune). Added to the two of Bryn's that Honey White's already played live ("Nightfall" and "Green Hills"), plus another one by Brian that we've also tried in practice ("Happy"), and that list begins to look hearteningly album-like. There's so much stuff HW hasn't even tapped in terms of leftover jams and ambient Brian-isms, after all.

But anyway, enough misty-eyed silliness from me. The Low Tide tracks are all instrumental outtakes from the Weapon of Young Gods soundtrack I released early last year. They're a bit too much on the ambient/easy listening/trippy side for my taste—the only burst of life is on Shatter the Surrounding Splendor, from drums by Billy that I recorded in Jan '04—but would have probably fit well enough on their parent album as interludes. Their titles (the others are Crippling Nostalgia, Fitful Mind Games, and Crushing Psychic Penance) are all taken from chapters that I thought would benefit from their vibes (which is how the ones that made the cut were named as well).

Jesus, only two beers and I'm already hopelessly adrift in another sea of what-ifs. I think I'd better pull together some of those ugly and cynical gonzo blogs of mine into lyrics before the muse totally deserts me in favor of some other pretentious fool. Stay tuned...

Audio Archives 22: We've Got You Covered Edition

2009-09-13T16:36:00.001-07:00

Yes, the archive-trawls are back, but I'll keep 'em on the short side, commentary-wise, so there can be less talk and more rock. I have at least 3 new ones to post, so if I can keep from rambling about this stuff, maybe we can take care of all of them this week. So here we go: selected covers by the Mojo Wire and Honey White, 1997-2007. Play the audio below, and scroll a bit further for some oh so lucid commentary.

Audio:

Driftin and Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out: Adam and Bryn swiped a few Unplugged- and From the Cradle-era Clapton arrangements of old blues standards. The former is a solo Adam piece, and the latter appeared as track 3 on the first Mojo Wire album.

Margaritaville and Wonderful Tonight: More Adam-influence on the selection of covers. We actually did a few more Clapton & Buffett songs sometimes—"Layla" and "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw", for example—but these two ended up on the second Mojo Wire album. Even so, the take of "Wonderful Tonight" hasn't aged too well, and "Margaritaville" was a bit messy too (here in its glorious, live surf-punk version from 4/7/01).

Wipeout and Pipeline: Thanks to Bryn and Kevin, the Mojo Wire had a whole arsenal of surf instrumental covers, including "Miserlou" as well, but that never got recorded like these two. "Wipeout" is from the third Mojo Wire album, and "Pipeline" is from the same era (though it eventually ended up on Bryn's solo album too).

The Night Before was a suggestion of Joe's, and the Mojo Wire covered the classic Beatles tune at several shows in 2001 (this take is also form 4/7/01). We never successfully finished a single performance, though—for some reason this song always fell apart halfway through.

Wayfaring Stranger and Dead Man: Honey White presented a whole new angle on covers, and we got some truly fantastic results in that band as well. Bryn had been playing the Johnny Cash arrangement of "Wayfaring Stranger" for about a year before Billy and Brian helped us record it for the first Honey White E.P. in 2002. "Dead Man" is a Neil Young instrumental from the Johnny Depp movie of the same name, here recorded (but not included on) Honey White's How Far is the Fall album in 2004. Brian's performance is truly awesome.

Lover, You Should've Come Over and Been Around the World: We were practicing the former, a Jeff Buckley song, at Earl's studio when Johanna Reed showed up and loved it so much that we kept it in the live set for the rest of the year (this take is from the 10/31/02 show). The latter is one of my, and Bryn's, favorite Cracker songs (here from the 1/30/03 show).

Karma Police and This Lullaby: Bryn has many Radiohead covers at his command, and "Karma Police" is a solo performance from 5/22/04. "This Lullaby" is a full Honey White pass at the Queens of the Stone Age song. It was from our last rehearsal on 5/27/07.

Okay, more goodies when I have the time. The vast majority of them will be decidedly weird, so hang on to your panties and stay tuned.

Consequences of Digital Packrat-itude, Part II

2009-09-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

Like the last post, this one's just a list of all the other recordings I've finally dumped onto a new terabyte drive, including Mojo Wire shows and practices from 1996-2001 as well as solo/side project stuff from me, Bryn, Adam, and Brian (1999-2007).

The Mojo Wire
1996-09-18 The Clap in Mono
The Adam-Bryn-Keir-Kevin lineup, in two separate sessions at Kevin's parents' house in Laguna Niguel (June and September 1996). Gloriously bad. I love listening to these—"Your Mama's a Ho," "12:15 Blues," "Wipeout"…it's like hearing something from 1953.

1997-07-06 Drum Machine Demos
Wherein Adam, Bryn and I (but mostly Bryn) record lots of songs using Bryn's keyboard drums to keep time. All the initial Mojo songs are here.

1997-11-24 Adam's Cassette Demos
Dubbed from Adam's tape of drum machine demo highlights. Many songs same as above.

1997-12-15 Battery Acid Blues
First real Mojo Wire "album," with Brandon playing drums. Well, a drum pad, but it rocked anyway. Click the link to hear the tunes plus bonus tracks!

1997-12-31 Loose mp3 '97
Lots of Mojo Wire cassettes are long lost, and only available to me as mp3. This is some of that (including the Dec. '97 "keg tape" and notorious intro to the Bryn/Adam/Ian "Further Adventures of Imran & Bjorn" show on KJUC radio).

1998-04-08 Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor
Second Mojo Wire "album," stranger and less coherent than the first. More here.

1998-12-31 Loose mp3 '98
The key find for me in here was a Keir-Bryn-Brandon jam from April '98. One which the Kristens from the next apartment surely remember as we were VERY LOUD.

1999-04-20 Seaside Hamlet Skids
Third Mojo Wire disc, muddier/surfier/more acoustic than the rest, but for some reason it still makes my heart mushy. Read & listen more here.

1999-07-05 Post-Seaside Recordings
All kinds of weird reverb-y half-songs and proto-tunes from the beginning of a long hiatus in Mojo activity.

1999-12-31 Loose mp3 '99
More random crap, including demo takes from songs that would end up as Honey White songs years later.

2000-12-15 Live 6710 Sabado Tarde
This Mojo Wire show famously featured the "opening act" of Sean and Adam boxing, and since Sean won in a horrible and brutal fashion, we had no frontman for the first 4 or 5 songs. It was a mess!

2000-12-31 Loose mp3 '00
The best stuff in here includes the only rehearsal at the Penthouse apartments (Adam/Bryn/Keir, Feb. 2000), where Adam effortlessly extemporized a song called "Broken Nail Blues."

2001-02-16 Live 6710 Sabado Tarde (Front yard)
A power trio lineup of Keir-Joe-Bryn careened drunkenly through 14 songs. I almost got in a fight with meat-heads, and this quote from Joe sums it up: "You know how hard that was, to keep a straight face?"

2001-04-07 Live 6710 Sabado Tarde
"Public rehearsal" with the whole band in the backyard, practicing for the Giovanni's show. It was cooooold.

2001-04-12 Live Giovanni's I.V.
According to Joe, this was the "best Mojo Wire show EVER." Unfortunately the guitars didn't get recorded too well.

2001-04-21 Random Jams with Kevin (w/future Sindicates?)
Bryn and I jam around with a visiting Kevin Nerison and his buddies (who may or may not have ended up in Los Sindicate with him, I can't remember).

2001-03-10 Mojo Wire Remakes
For a little while there, we tried re-recording some of our better songs digitally. It only sort of worked out.

2001-06-03 You're On Your Own
Final Mojo Wire album, released at our last show. This folder also includes a 2003 stereo remaster and 2007 mono remaster.

2001-10-29 Table Salt Jams
One of the first Mojo rehearsals at Table Salt in downtown Santa Barbara, with only Keir/Bryn/Joe checking in.

2001-12-31 Loose mp3 '01 (incl unfinished drum/bass tracks for remakes)
Most of these are unfinished bass & drum tracks from the earlier "Remakes" sessions.

2003-08-05 Low Fidelity Favorites 1997-2001
Mojo Wire "best of" remastered (poorly) and compiled by yours truly in summer '03, long after the band fell apart.

2003-08-05 Bedrock Crude
Companion mp3-only release to "Low Fidelity," this stuff is all our dumbest, grossest, and funniest songs all in one place.

Solo Stuff & Side Projects
1999-06-16 Adam's Acoustic Demos
Mp3 and wav files of the Adam-ballads "Anywhere but Here," "Breathe," and "Happy Birthday."

1999-07-26 Low Tide: Dive E.P.
My first foray into echo-bass-guitar side project self-indulgence, aided and abetted by Bryn on drums.

2000-04-09 My Second Shipwreck
Solo CD from Bryn, who pulls a Prince and plays everything. Some of these later ended up in Honey White live sets.

2000-09-10 Bryn's Alone & Bored Recordings
Also taped in the Sabado garage, Bryn wrote more about these tunes here.

2006-03-15 Brian's Solo Demos 2004-2006
I haven't highlighted these yet with their own post, but I hope to very soon. Brian has made some very cool, very weird solo recordings over the years, and this is a collection of them I like to call "Before and After Neuroscience."

2007-11-04 Keir's Demos 2005-2007
Multi-track demos for my songs "Hold Still," "Tempting Fate," and "Winner Take All." Hopefully Honey White will get to record them sometime.

2008-03-11 Low Tide: The Weapon of Young Gods
Multi-tracks for my second side project CD, done as a soundtrack for a novel I'm still trying to finish.

2008-11-08 Low Tide: WOYG Leftovers
4 or 5 weird out-takes from the above novel-soundtrack.

Consequences of Digital Packrat-itude, Part I

2009-09-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

Recent acquisition of a terabyte drive has allowed me to go back and do the audio archive-trawl again, mostly for the sake of organizing all the band recordings (and my design stuff, and text, and…). By far the most stuff is in the "Honey White" folder, 92 GB worth of live shows, jam sessions, and recorded practices—listed below since I have nothing better to blog about right now.

*** Complete HW mp3 ***
Everything. The whole shebang in low-fi 128kbp glory, with many recordings included that exist only in mp3 (such as the legendary Adam-Bryn-Brian-Keir rehearsal of 8/15/03).

2002-01-30 MW-HW Demos
Bryn and I made these in the interim between the Mojo Wire and Honey White.

2002-03-08 Practice - Table Salt
First practice with Bill and Brian. Horrible recording, but we did okay.

2002-03-14 Practice - Table Salt
Second practice with full HW lineup at Earl's studio. Better playing, worse recording!

2002-05-20 Practice - Table Salt
First multitrack digital Roland recording. Better playing & we used it for first demos.

2002-08-09 Live - 6664 Pasado I.V.
Good live show, bad recording. I mean, like Andy-holding-up-a-dictaphone recording.

2002-08-16 Live - 6643 Sabado I.V.
Subpar gig, in Shaun's garage. Didn't do so well recording it either.

2002-09-23 Practice - Table Salt
No, wait—I think this is the first Roland recording for practice.

2002-09-27 Live - Camino Del Sur I.V.
Good gig at Andy's in I.V.; we opened for his band The Hip Crowd. This recording also includes an aborted gig from the next night on Trigo, when the IVFP shut us down after only one song.

2002-10-31 Live - SBRHA Goleta
Honey White plays in an office parking lot. On Halloween, no less.

2002-11-16 Live - Del Playa
The legendary HW balls-ass freezing D.P. gig, where I failed to notice Emily being hit on by creepy drunks.

2002-11-26 My Band Rocks E.P.
Honey White's first studio recording, including every take we did with producer Mark Anthony back on 7/13/02.

2002-12-05 Live - Giovanni's 1 I.V.
CD release gig for MBR. Good show overall but we were a bit loud for the venue.

2003-01-28 Live and Unprofessional (Live 2002)
Compilation of our best live stuff from the year's gigs.

2003-01-30 Live - UCSB UCen
Live webcast from the Hub, thanks to Will Wood and his AP crew.

2003-02-20 Live - Giovanni's 2 I.V.
Second Gio's gig was less energetic, but we have Nicole Franz screaming on tape; what's not to love?

2003-04-22 Live - Musical Cafe TV S.B.
Our only TV appearance in Santa Barbara. They tested new mixing boards on us and demolished the live sound. Good camera work though.

2003-04-30 Live - Wildcat Lounge, S.B.
Our downtown Santa Barbara debut. Loud and crazy; my left ear suffered permanent damage from this show.

2003-06-10 Epic Noise Now! (Live 2003)
Second HW live compilation, from a smaller pool of (admittedly better) shows.

2003-12-04 Practice - Seville St.
First practice after Bryn came back from Europe. Reuss plays guitar on "Dead Man."

2004-01-24 Practice - Seville St.
Billy was miked really well for this one, but Bryn and I weren't (Brian was in Tokyo).

2004-02-26 Live - Giovanni's, I.V.
We had to follow a Lakers-Kings game for this one and the assembled masses were not amused.

2004-04-17 Practice - Seville St.
First of three warm-ups for the 2nd Wildcat show. Strangely, no vocals recorded on this one.

2004-04-18 Practice - Seville St.
The Seville room was unbearably hot. We got a good instrumental take of "Oblivion" though.

2004-04-25 Practice - Seville St.
Third verse, same as the first. We were ready for the Wildcat after this one.

2004-04-26 Live - Wildcat Lounge, S.B.
Best-documented HW show, with audio/video and a real live lighting crew.

2004-05-22 Live - Red's Santa Barbara
Bryn and Keir open for Earl and the Expanding Polka Funk Experience. Polka your eyes out!

2004-06-24 Saturated Songs (Live)
Compilation of the best live stuff from '04.

2004-11-20 Practice - Table Salt
Shambling takes of our new "How Far Is The Fall" songs, fresh from the San Francisco studio.

2004-11-21 Practice - Table Salt
Better than the night before, but only just.

2005-01-29 Live - Embarcadero Hall I.V.
My favorite live show recording, from the old bank building in Isla Vista—the one that burned down in 1970.

2005-02-26 Live - Campbell Hall UCSB
Q: Is it a good idea to be the only rock band in a multicultural talent show? A: No. God, no.

2005-03-26 Practice - Table Salt
Preparing for the Nicholby's show at the much-less-roomier t-shirt factory.

2005-03-27 Practice - Milpas Gallery
First time (I think?) where we rehearse @ Bill's parents' art studio in Santa Barbara.

2005-04-20 Live - Nicholby's Ventura
Really good gig. How do I know? I don't remember anything about it at all!

2005-04-25 How Far Is The Fall
Honey White's first full-length, recorded at Take Root in San Francisco (including all the original takes from August-November 2004).

2005-07-03 Practice - Milpas Gallery
Bill, Brian and I get abstract, under the influence of the gallery's current exhibit.

2005-08-07 Live - Red's Santa Barbara
Nothin' like an 11:30 am gig on a flatbed. Good recording, actually.

2005-10-23 Practice - Milpas Gallery
I was sick during this one so we played some weird versions of So Cold and Shivering Sand.

2006-03-18 Practice - Lounge Pop Ventura
Bill was forced to not use cymbals so much because of the tight, tiny room we played in.

2006-08-04 Live - Ocean Institute Dana Point
Our belated O.C. debut, starring screamin' Steve Foster.

2007-05-26 Practice - Table Salt
Acoustic, mellow jamming the night after I moved into my new house.

2007-05-27 Practice - Milpas Gallery
Owen took tons of photos at this one—to date, HW's last get-together for rehearsal.

2007-07-03 Deluge And Drought (Live 2005-2006)
Compilation of our better recent live recordings.

Next up, the Mojo Wire stuff from 1996 to 2001. Yes, that's reverse-order, and no, it doesn't matter.

The Pick of Silent Awesome

2009-07-03T20:14:00.001-07:00

Honey White frontman Bryn DuBois checks in with yet another brilliant anecdote:

At long last, here is something I had meant to document weeks ago.

This is the coolest gift I received from my students this year: I have dubbed it the Pick of Silent Awesome. Conner and Ian from my 6th period class presented it to me on the last day of school so that I could use it to "shred it up with the band."

Which is, of course, yet another reason that the band should get together some time in the not-too-distant future. There has not been enough shredding in the world of Honey White recently, in my opinion. The upside, of course, is that the lack of shred has given me the time to become a Teacher.

Fine work all around, gentlemen.

Bryn ("Mr. DuBois")

The Three-Decade Mark Marches On!

2009-05-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

Another denizen of the My Band Rocks world has passed the age of 30: erstwhile Mojo Wire frontman Adam Hill did so this week. Happy birthday Adam!

This spate of inexorable shattering of the 30-mark has been going on ever since Bryn smashed it back in October, and Billy demolished his own marker earlier this month. It will continue apace late next month, when it'll be Brian's turn, and then (I believe) Joe is next up after that in September. I, of course, pioneered this ugly reality almost three years ago. Ye gods.

But right now belongs to Adam—because he is also the only one of us degenerate rock stars to choose fatherhood. I met baby Sarah for the second time last weekend and she is already a budding rock star. Adam and Marie will have much Sarah-related stardom to contend with in the future.

Honey White Drummer Takes Out a Rabbit's Heart

2009-05-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

Because that's what you do when you're a professional kick-ass mechanic with some free time. What, you thought this would be his Ozzy moment? Well...we shall see. Happy birthday Billy!

Ten YEARS Man! ("Seaside Hamlet Skids" Edition)

2009-04-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

The auspicious date of April 20 is a legendary one here at My Band Rocks World HQ: the first Honey White show in history took place on this date in 2002 (Roma's in Santa Barbara, with Norm and Johanna Reed's mighty Buttcheek Doofus), and one of the best Honey White shows ever also happened on this date in 2005 (Nicholby's in Ventura). However, ten years ago, on 4/20/99, my first band the Mojo Wire released its third album, Seaside Hamlet Skids. For whatever reason, that poorly-recorded, muddy little album still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and this third entry in the "Ten YEARS, Man!!!" series highlights the Mojos on that goofy acoustic slice of surf-noir. Click on the link below for a self-congratulatory, pretentiously vain essay by yours truly. Listen to some audio below that.

The History Mix #2: No Lifeguard On Duty

Let's face it- "trouble in paradise" is probably the oldest and most banally superficial cliche in the history of popular songwriting. It is initially, however, a real kick in the head when you happen to notice it. Exposing the nasty, poisonous underbelly of some idyllic Shangri-la is one of the first rebellious impulses that anyone learns, and if they're lucky, they won't forget to apply it to any subsequent promise of perfection. Righteous anger doesn't exactly have much of a half-life, of course, but it tends to go down easier with a nice slathering of sweetness on top. That was the eventual modus operandi of the Mojo Wire on their third album, but the mostly acoustic, folky surf-noir of Seaside Hamlet Skids doesn't easily place itself in the canon of pretentious bubble-bursting, despite some loosely-focused effort. More...

Play this album (with 4 bonus tracks!):

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 7: Keir's List of Listyness

2009-04-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

OK, my turn for a top tunes list in Bryn's and Brian's categories and then some. You may guffaw and cringe whenever necessary. I decided to not use the same songs from my last list, and ended up careening through my iPod in a roller-coaster ride so great that it reminded me how much of a rut I can get stuck in, listening-wise.

Guitar
"Left On," Sea and Cake. S&C does a Mermen-goes-to-Gaviota impression.
"Took out a Loan," BRMC. Great first riff/note/song on a hit and miss album.
"Zoo Station," U2. Edge tries to make his guitar a percussion instrument. And fails.
"The Rolling People," the Verve. Nick McCabe almost makes up for Richard Ashcroft on vocals.
"Waka" and "Sweethearts," Camper Van Beethoven. Viva Greg Lisher.
"Lief Erikson," Interpol. The proverbial reverb-nostalgia sound.
"Skin Diving," James. The wettest guitar that's not surf guitar.
"Top Yourself," Raconteurs. Acoustic slide awesome from Jack White.

Drums
"Seven Days," Cracker. Just my favorite drum sound is all.
"Dress," PJ Harvey. It's the semi-syncopation that gets me here.
"Murder by Numbers," the Police. Obligatory Stewart Copeland entry.
"Song for the Dead," Queens of the Stone Age. Obligatory Dave Grohl entry.
"Brecon Beacons," Supergrass. Another favorite drum sound song.
"Finest Worksong," R.E.M. From back when Bill Berry powered the engine.

Bass
"Spiderwebbed," Tortoise. I can't have a bass list without Tortoise, that's why.
"Lipstick Vogue," Elvis Costello & the Attractions. Bruce Thomas was so good that Costello couldn't stand it and kicked him out.
"Iiieeee," Tori Amos. Big, thick, and creamy. Mmmmm.
"The Way," "Quentin Mack," and "Dead Nigga Blvd.," by Meshell Ndegeocello. See note on Tortoise above.
"Jeremiah Blues Pt I," Sting. Yes, I just put Sting in there. No, I'm not sorry.
"Sixty Seconds in Kingdom Come," U2. Obscure B-side that rocks the echo-bass. Seriously!
"Three Days," Jane's Addiction. Prototypical circular bass line in 10-minute epic form.
"Rain," the Beatles. Perfect B-side to guitar-driven "Paperback Writer" single.
"All Your Way," Morphine. Same as Meshell and Tortoise. Great Morphine riff.

Vocals
"God is in the Radio," Queens of the Stone Age.
"Isla de Encanta," Pixies. Black Francis + Spanglish + screaming = awesome.
"Switching Off," Elbow. Guy Garvey is my favorite singer these days.
"Comfort Eagle," Cake. Truly the fusion of epic and deadpan. Genius.
"It Wasn't Me," Jenny Lewis. "It wasn't me, I wasn't there, I was stone drunk, it isn't clear."
"Prison Girls," Neko Case. Neko got good once she stopped trying to be Patsy Cline.
"The Seed 2.0," the Roots. Both Cody Chestnutt and Black Thought effortlessly kick ass.
...and every Tricky song that features Martina Topley-Bird, just on general principles.

Keys
"St. Petersburg," Supergrass. Shuffly piano drives the whole song.
"100% Dundee," the Roots. Wet echoey keyboards = win.
"Chopsticks," Liz Phair. It's the inverse of the Chopsticks scene in Big. In a good way.
"Emily's Theme/White Rabbit," Nathan Johnson. The "Brick" riff on piano. Gorgeous.

Random Crap
"Tania," Camper Van Beethoven. For Jonathan Segel's violin.
"15 Step," Radiohead. For the sample of the schoolkids. This could go on the bass one too.
"Turd on the Run," Rolling Stones. For Mick Jagger's harmonica.
"Tonight," TV on the Radio. For the wind chimes.
"The Devil You Know," Jesus Jones. For the backwards-loop sitar sample. Good vocals too.
"I Miss You," Bjork. For the accordion sample.
"The Birth and Death of the Day," Explosions in the Sky. For the whole band's warm-bath-of-noise intro.

Honey White stuff:
Guitar: Brian on "Dead Man" and "Oblivion," Bryn on "Keep Moving" and "Let Go," both on "Blacking Out."
Drums: "Lighning Rod," of course, but I really like how the "Blacking Out" drums worked out. And "Sandman" too. Having Bill as a drummer definitely made me a better bassist.
Bass: Personally I really like my simple "Nightfall" line a lot these days. It's so much fun to play. I'll also take both versions of "Lightning Rod" plus a side of "Island" and "Mercy Rule."
Vocals: I agree with Bryn—getting bent definitely helped him pull off a great "Island Fever" take.
Keys: I think the aforementioned "Let Go" and "Keep Moving" entries have this one covered.
Random: What else could it be but the "Sean Goes to Africa" theremin?

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 6: Brian's List of Listyness

2009-03-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

In which Brian takes the bait and responds to Bryn's List of Listyness:

Awesome! After a long day, I've been looking for something fun and non-sciencey to think about. My list:

Guitar:
"Cortez the Killer" Neil Young... I'm thinking of the Weld version, but all versions of this song I've heard are tremendous
"Dead Man Theme" Neil Young... the perfect blend of distorted messy echoey guitar with acoustic strumming
"Shine on you Crazy Diamond" Pink Floyd... nearly half an hour of awesome guitar playing
"Time Trap" Built to Spill... the intro to this song is one of the best 30 seconds of music ever
"Contra - Alien's Lair and Boss Music" The Advantage... I realize it's a little ridiculous to have Nintendo music on this list, but I'm doing it anyway

Drums:
"Night Light" Sleater Kinney... there are half a dozen tracks on this album that could go on this list. Janet Weiss is awesome.
"The Funny Bird" Mercury Rev... big loud reverby drums of awesomeness
"Are You a Hypnotist??" Flaming Lips... drum machine / drum hybrid, but it sounds great... all produced by Dave Fridmann so far
"Y Control" Yeah Yeah Yeahs... something about the slightly-off timing of the rapid-fire high-hat sounds just awesome
"National Anthem" Radiohead... straight-forward drumming, but it sounds so nice

Bass:
"As Sure As the Sun" BRMC... bad-ass riff. enough said
"Airbag" Radiohead... ultra-minimalist, but perfect for the song
"Gronlandic Edit" Of Montreal... love this band's poppy basslines and dance beats
"Hanging On A Curtain" Morphine... I agree with Bryn, the bass on this song rules
"Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" Flaming Lips... the whole Yoshimi album revolves around awesome bass lines

Keyboards/Synth:
"The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" Of Montreal... the keyboard solo at the end is so amazing that I had to include this category
"Zero" Yeah Yeah Yeahs... holy shit, their transition from hard rock to dance pop actually worked
"Everything in its Right Place" Radiohead... one of the coolest keyboard sounds ever
"The Rip" Portishead... the second half of the song has such a beautiful keyboard sound
"Old Shit New Shit" the Eels... love the keyboards in the chorus, though I could say that about a lot of Eels songs

Vocals:
"Do the Evolution" Pearl Jam... best voice in the business, I still think
"Zero" Yeah Yeah Yeahs... sexiest voice in the business. I've been kind of obsessed with this song recently.
"The Penalty" Beirut... for a crooner, he ain't half bad
"For Reverend Green" Animal Collective... rapid switching between subdued, yelling, and falsetto, and it somehow works
"Half Day Closing" Portishead... great vocal sound, and that reverb-coated wail at the end sounds amazing

Honey White:
Guitar - Bryn on Let Go. I love tremolo. I should have used it more.
Drums - Drumbot 3000 on Lightning Rod. I love the rapid high-hat hits. No, I mean I LOVE THEM. Runner up: Polarity, I love where the drums took that song.
Bass - Blacking Out. The bass has such a dark vibe that is absolutely perfect for the song.
Keyboards - Keep Moving. I still love tremolo. Plus, it's me!
Vocals - Keep Moving. I think it has the biggest dynamic shifts and the most feeling. Runner up is Let Go when the backing vocals show up in the last chorus. Man, that sounds awesome.

So there you have it. I was tempted to add a "theramin" category, but I could only come up with three songs. Unless you count that guy on youtube with the bow tie playing that song for his mom. That guy rules. Seriously, he does.

So far Bill and I have resisted the temptation to yet again listify ourselves, but I already feel my willpower growing slack and flabby.

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 5: Bryn's List of Listyness

2009-03-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

In which Bryn checks in with yet another fanboy list of his favorite musical music, "High Fidelity"-style:

I put this together the other night on the way home from UCI after 4 hours of teaching and 6 hours of sitting in college classes; basically, with my mind wandering helplessly from overwork the thought occurred to me that a few of the songs that had been playing had, for example, one of my favorite guitar or drum tracks. So I decided to expand upon that and come up with my top 5 for guitar, drums, bass and vocals.

Guitar:
"Time," Pink Floyd. (On the strength of the solo alone.)
"Goin' Against Your Mind," Built to Spill. (There is no guitar in this song that is not awesome.)
"And the Flowers They'll Bloom," the Mermen. (How does he control feedback so well?)
"Either Way," Wilco. (How had I never heard of Nels Kline before?)
"Little Wing," Stevie Ray Vaughan. (Regardless of what you think of his other stuff you should give SRV's version of this a listen. It's amazing.)

Drums:
"Driven to Tears," the Police. (Best! Drummer! Ever!)
"When the Levee Breaks," Led Zeppelin. (I don't care that the drum tone & speed was changed in the studio -- they still sound great.)
"Hornet's Nest," Los Straitjackets. (Jimmy Lester is a fucking monster.)
"Secret for a Song," Mercury Rev. (Perfect drum tone, in my opinion.)
"All There Is," Bad Religion. (Precision & speed.)

Bass:
"Fear of Fireflies," Calla. (Hypnotic!)
"Lipstick Vogue," Elvis Costello & the Attractions. (This almost made it into the drum section too.)
"W.M.A.," Pearl Jam. (Simple bass lines can still be badass when played right!)
"Hanging on a Curtain," Morphine. (Best! Bassist! Ever! ...Also, his voice is pretty awesome. This was a contender for the vocal category too.)
"Cheapskate," Supergrass. (A cool circular-sounding bass line.)

Vocals:
"Exit Music (For a Film)," Radiohead. (More or less the full range of Thom Yorke awesomeness.)
"Mojo Pin," Jeff Buckley. (More or less the full range of Jeff Buckley awesomeness.)
"I Know," Fiona Apple. (Mmmmm.....)
"Prenzlauerberg," Beirut. (I have no idea what the words are here. But it doesn't matter.)
"Grounds for Divorce," Elbow. (Guy Garvey = amazing vocalist.)

And just for the hell of it, I'll include a special Honey White section. Because really, why not?

Guitar: "Dead Man." You probably guessed this already.

Drums: "The Lightning Rod." What else could it be? Bill, you fucking rock on many other songs too, but I gotta defer to Owen on this one. You do sound like "a drumbot 3000 from some awesome rock future"!

Bass: "It's Quiet Up Here." Runner up: "Sweet Oblivion." The track from your Low Tide soundtrack is just effin' sweet, Keir. The backup bass lines that you do seal the deal, for me. Though I have always loved that "Oblivion"'s bass line reminds me of a ship rocking back and forth at sea.

Vocals: I think I have to go with "Island Fever." I was pissed off over some pointless argument we were having in the studio regarding the vocal melody ("pointless" as in, I was completely wrong in the first place and shouldn't have argued) so when it came time for the final chorus after Bri's solo I just yelled it as powerfully as I could into the mic. And what do you know, it turned out pretty well.

And by the way, Brian took the bait. His entry will be posted...soon.

Because Not Enough Writers Play Fender J-Bass Guitars

2009-03-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

So about a year ago I released a CD for my Low Tide side project. It was nominally a soundtrack to a novel I was (and still am) writing. For a while there I thought the tunes would be the only worthwhile thing I got out of the whole process, but some of the chapters in this first draft are surprisingly non-awful. Some are pretty bad, too—but who cares. It's a first draft. Anyway, CD Baby just informed me that the "Weapon of Young Gods" disc has sold out, and that I should send more. Well, I hand-made those, so I'll send more when I feel like it. I mean, the thing is on iTunes, and it's not exactly chart-busting material, so I won't bust my ass pressing more CDs when there's a book to finish. You'd think that would be easy, when 44 of 48 chapters are done, but it's really not, so in the meantime, why not listen to some weird ambient post-rock echo-bass instrumental noise from your favorite egomaniacal bass player? Ably assisted of course by his genius friends the guitarist and drummer. No, really—give it a whirl. It's right down there in the Flash player:

When In Rome, Part II

2009-01-20T23:01:00.001-08:00

We could have totally rocked the Lincoln Memorial.

Audio Archives 21: Alone & Bored Edition

2008-12-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

Honey White frontman Bryn DuBois checks in for a second go-round with Audio Archives (first one is here), this time highlighting his garage days on Sabado Tarde. Play the tunes and read on for exclusive liner-note commentary from the man himself:

Audio:

I recently stumbled across a handful of self-produced recordings I made during the spring of 2001 which, as always, have proven to be an interesting (to me, that is) audio record of what I was up to at the time, what I was listening to, and what my musical skills were like. Half of the material here is made up of covers, and the other half re-recordings of preciously written material, so there is nothing new, really, and nothing mind-blowing either. But it's not bad, and with the exception of one song it serves as an excellent offering to serve up at the eternal altar to my own ego, since every single instrument was played by me.

These were recorded in my "room." It had been a garage originally, had no insulation and it wasn't legally permissible to rent it out as my landlady was. Ah, those college days of hedonistic luxury! Come to think of it, that was the last place I could keep my drum kit permanently set up, since few neighbors worried about noise violations in I.V. I have dubbed the collection "Alone and Bored," which seems to capture a college student's reason for doing most things pretty well. (Another reason being typified by "Drunken Peer Pressure," I suppose. But that would be a whole different set of songs!)

I Fly Free
This is probably the gem of the songs here. It's played reasonably well and captures a lot of what I'd originally had in mind for the song. It's only comparable to the Mojo Wire version from "Seaside Hamlet Skids" due to the latter's recording quality, though—my general Rule regarding my own recordings is that they are always better when played by a band rather than just by me. But this one makes me proud nonetheless, and is one of the few recordings where I'm actually pleased with my backing vocals, since harmonizing is one of my weaker areas.

Love Sick
A Bob Dylan song I still love. I sang it an octave high (you can tell I'm still learning how to sing here) and played it twice as fast, but trying to out-do Bob on his own material just doesn't work. Unless your name is Jimi Hendrix.

Whitecap
This one is a pretty solid version of my ancient instrumental. (I wrote this my senior year in high school, if I remember right, so it's about twelve years old now.) I'd still put the Mojo Wire version as the definitive one, 'cause hey—I'm no Brandon Klopp. But this represents pretty much the apex of my drumming skills, which makes it an interesting listen.

Kite
The redeemable song from U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind." I probably should have left this one behind myself, but it was fun to play at the time.

Wayfaring Stranger
This is the first time I ever attempted to record it. It's not bad, though the Honey White version would turn out better. It's interesting, though, to see which aspects of it remained the same and which changed.

Hallelujah
Leonard Cohen's old tune, which was masterfully covered by Jeff Buckley. My cover is less than masterful, but it's not too bad as long as you don't compare it to Buckley's version.

My Second Shipwreck
This one is, unfortunately, incomplete—the last third of the song is still on a CD buried somewhere in our storage unit, if the files still exist anywhere at all. Which is too bad, because otherwise it might have become an exception to my Rule listed above. Fun to listen to: the heavy, out-of-tune drums and echoey clang of the cymbals work pretty well, and the guitar tone is surprisingly good (in my opinion) considering the equipment I was using at the time. No fancy echo pedals were at my disposal back then; if I remember right I used an old multi-effect pedal given to me years earlier by my uncle. I think I still have it somewhere, actually.

The Lightning Rod
A proto version of the first Honey White attempt on this song. That is, its lyrics were nearly completed to Keir's satisfaction (after, like, three years), it has yet to acquire the "Whatever Gets You Going" badass echo bass intro, and doesn't end on the chorus. But it is still an interesting listen, and Keir somehow got a really cool sounding echo on the drums during the verses. Keir sang it and provided bass, making this the only collaborative effort here.

More Audio Archives will be on the way in 2009, gang, so stay tuned...

Inexplicably Deleted Videos Now Back Up on YouTube

2008-12-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

....or something. Just wanted an excuse to post these two old slideshows: one of Honey White photos taken by Marika and Shaun back in 2004 at the Wildcat, and the other of Mojo Wire-related history-mixy stuff (1996-2001).

Anyway:

The things you find on the web these days...

2008-12-21T00:55:00.000-08:00

Well this is news. Marie Hill, wife of Mojo Wire frontman Adam Hill, discovered this on youtube: a 2007 video that swiped an old Mojo Wire instrumental for its soundtrack. Seems to work pretty well...

Audio Archives 19: The Biggest Balls in Keir's Canon

2008-11-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

I make no apologies for this one—it's my birthday weekend, so the entire universe shall validate my ego. Therefore, in honor of ME, I will make a short audio archive post of MY favorite lyrics that I'VE written for the Mojo Wire and Honey White. Now, obviously the music for many of these was written by one or more of my illustrious bandmates, but I have no problem spreading the wealth of awesome around for something like that. I will, however, be keeping all the lyrical awesome for MYSELF, since in the end this post is all about ME.

So, what we have here is my favorite versions of songs containing my best lyrics, and today's "awesome quotient" dictates that usually they're Honey White versions, even if the songs were originally recorded by the Mojo Wire. In the interest of posterity and fairness, then, the second playlist of this post will contain the original and/or an alternate take of each song, because it's always nice to see where a song came from before it grew up and terrorized the world, right?

Right. Let's get to it, then--click on a song in the playlist below to download/play, and scroll down for some written tidbits about each (the date in parentheses after each title is when the lyric was completed).

Audio:

01 The Lightning Rod (Dec. 2001)
This is the studio version from Honey White's My Band Rocks E.P., released in Nov. 2002. As many of you know, it's my best lyric, it took a long time to finish, and my awesome echo-bass part isn't even the best part of the song--as Owen once noted, it's the truly Herculean drumming performance by Billy that steals the show.

02 The Shivering Sand (Aug. 1998)
My best bass line (that isn't an echo part) powers this one. "Shivering Sand" was originally recorded by the Mojo Wire for their third album Seaside Hamlet Skids (1999, see below playlist), but this take (in mono, sorry) is from Honey White's first appearance at the Wildcat in April 2003, so Bryn's singing (and transposing the verses, but whatever). My lyric isn't truly awesome, but the fact that the whole song came together in about six hours is definitely a big deal.

03 Mercy Rule (Aug. 2002)
Studio version from Honey White's How Far is the Fall album, released April 2005. "Mercy Rule" is a perfect example of how being in a band makes a good idea into a great idea. My lyric was a clever, but bitter and resigned bit of "boo frickety hoo" nastiness, attached to a sluggish faux-reggae groove--and the song got five thousand times better when the rest of Honey White had their way with it in practice.

04 Island Fever (Aug. 2004)
Live version from Honey White's Jan. 2005 show in Isla Vista's Embarcadero Hall (and also appeared on the live album Deluge and Drought in 2007). "Island" is one of my stabs at lyrical minimalism, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, but that doesn't really matter when Brian's guitar solo hits the stratosphere and Bryn's vocals get at least that high too.

05 Unprofessional (Jan. 2002)
One of my very favorite lyrics, "Unprofessional" injected instant spastic energy to every Honey White live show. We weren't quite able to capture that on the studio version (from My Band Rocks), so for this list I took the Dana Point show version, also from from Deluge and Drought.

06 Blacking Out (Sep. 2004)
Studio version from Honey White's How Far is the Fall album, released April 2005. Can a song be good without a chorus or lyrical hook of any kind, and if the vocals don't start until more than a minute into it? Well yeah, when you have gazillions of cool sounds on it, which Bryn and Brian tend to do what with the arsenal of effects pedals at their disposal.

07 One Last Hallelujah (May 2000)
Many of my Mojo Wire songs became live workhorses for Honey White, and "Hallelujah" definitely fit the bill in this recording, from Honey White's Nov. 2002 show on Del Playa (and the Live and Unprofessional album). The Mojos played this song as a stomping monster, but thanks to Billy's Strokes-tempo, Honey White made it leaner and meaner, and the guitar solos in the middle (Brian's sly and cool, and Bryn's white-hot crazy) more than make up for my vocal incompetence. The song got mellower with age, and appeared on later HW live albums as a ballad.

08 Sweet Oblivion (Feb. 2003)
Studio version from Honey White's How Far is the Fall album, released April 2005. A lyric from me about being lazy and bored was going nowhere until I attached it to a languid psychedelic groove of Brian's, and the extended instrumental ending was icing on the cake. Bryn's vocal tops off a good studio take.

09 Fatal Flaws (Dec. 2000)
Neither band did a full studio version of this song, but a live version did appear on the final Mojo disc You're On Your Own in 2001, and Honey White played it reguarly in their shows until sometime in 2004. Otherwise, everything I said about "Hallelujah" above also applies to "Flaws," even the recording (it's also from Honey White on DP in '02), with one exception: Brian's solo outdoes Bryn's. And yet, and yet, Brian has no wah-wah pedal, and Bryn does.

10 How Far Away (May 1998)
I always begin my "real" list of lyrics with this one, cause for many reasons the lyrics I wrote for the first two Mojo albums either aren't really "mine" (i.e. collaboration with Bryn & Adam), or aren't really any good (most of my stuff from Rocket Fuel). Also there are two Mojo Wire versions of "How Far Away," from 1999 and 2001 (see below), but I have to highlight this live Honey White version from 2002 for Bryn's ass-kicking solo.

11 Pisces Lullabye (Feb. 1999, Aug. 2002)
"Pisces" was an entirely different song for the Mojo Wire than it was for Honey White. I re-wrote the lyric completely, and we basically re-arranged the whole thing in rehearsal. The Honey White versions (like this one, live from 2003) never really got the right atmosphere, though- or at least it wasn't the same as the moody Mojo Wire version from 1999's Seaside Hamlet Skids album (see below).

12 Hold Still (Sep. 2005)
This is a demo jalopy built in 2005 from a 2004 Honey White studio instrumental jam. The song isn't exactly "new" anymore, but it hasn't appeared on any official Honey White recording since I finished it. We've done it in practice, though (2007). It's a vicious, mean lyric, and needs a good delivery that I don't give here, but I like the band's dynamic changes to what was a passable demo (see alternate playlist below).

13 Famous Last Words (Feb. 2004)
Studio version from Honey White's How Far is the Fall album, released April 2005. Depressing lyric from me, for a tune from Brian, but we had some fun with it in the studio, and thanks to Jon the engineer and Bryn's E-bow pedal, put together a trancey, wall-of-sound bit where the guitar solo's supposed to be.

14 Heart on a Platter (Apr. 2000)
This lyric hasn't aged very well for me (it first appeared on the Mojo Wire's You're On Your Own album in 2001), but it's crazy fun to play and sing, and Bryn's major-key solo is a big reason for that. This version is from Honey White's appearance at the Ucen in 2003, and also from the Epic Noise Now live album that same year.

15 Sunset Down (Jun. 1998)
Musically, this all-Keir echo-bass demo of "Sunset Down" from 2002 isn't anywhere near as good as the Adam-acoustic version from the Mojo Wire's 1999 Seaside Hamlet Skids album, but I re-edited the lyric a little for clarity and I feel that this version's lyric is more "done." See the list below for Adam's take on it.

Alternate version playlist::

01 The Lightning Rod (Mellow live version, 2006)
02 The Shivering Sand (Original Mojo Wire version, 1999)
03 Mercy Rule (Live at the Wildcat, 2004)
04 Island Fever (Studio take, 2005)
05 Unprofessional (Studio version, 2002)
06 Blacking Out (Live 2005, Isla Vista)
07 One Last Hallelujah (Original Mojo Wire version, 2001)
08 Sweet Oblivion (Live 2005, Santa Barbara)
09 Fatal Flaws (Mojo Wire live version, 2001)
10 How Far Away (Mojo Wire studio remake, 2001)
11 Pisces Lullabye (Original Mojo Wire lyric version, 1999)
12 Hold Still (Original demo, 2005)
13 Famous Last Words (Live at the Wildcat, 2004)
14 Heart on a Platter (Original Mojo Wire version, 2001)
15 Sunset Down (Original Mojo Wire version, 1999)

The rest (all Mojo Wire songs) just didn't make the cut: FM Blues (Sep. 1996), Can't Keep Warm (Mar. 1997), Wishing Well Blues (Sep. 1997), Kid Icarus (Nov. 1997), Under the Sun (Dec. 1997), Blackout Baby (Feb. 1998), Wound Down (Mar. 1998), Water Into Wine You're On Your Own (Dec. 1999), and The Peak of My Career (Sep. 2000)...but that doesn't mean they're not awesome in their own ways. In some cases (Icarus, Wound, Wine), they're awesome cause Adam wrote such great tunes, but I didn't quite write to that standard lyric-wise.

Okay, that's enough ego for one day. More next week, maybe.

Honey White Frontman Mocks the Passage of Time

2008-10-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say that Honey White's fabulous frontman turns 30 tomorrow, and I shall be there when it happens. Happy birthday Bryn!! May we all be as un-hungover as we were hungover last year.

Audio Archives 18: And Then We Became a Jam Band

2008-10-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

I used to hate jam bands. I'm indifferent to them now, but I used to hate them. I mean, really hate them, with the heat of 10,000 supernovas. See, back in Santa Barbara we were often surrounded by them- all these goofy, happy idiots and their noodly musical appendages who worshipped the Grateful Dead and Phish and String Cheese Incident and whatnot. Naturally, I failed to see how completely harmless they were, and loudly projected my own musical insecurities for all to hear: "JAM BANDS SUCK!"

But I had a secret- a deep, dark, shameful secret: I played in jam bands myself.

Yep, sad to say, but it's true. Always had been in jam bands, and probably always would, even though none of us had long hair or beards (at the time), and Honey White never got stoned before gigs. Oh sure, we had songs that contained interminably long instrumental passages, and some songs that were in and of themselves interminably long musical passages, but we rarely played in happy major keys or even thought about using major chords--in public places, that is. In rehearsal, though, it was...a bit different.

See, we would jam at practice. Constantly. Granted, much of this jamming was not instigated by me, and it was often openly conducted while I did things like set up microphones or other recording equipment (cue Billy and Brian cackling with glee), but I am not untainted by the impulse to jam. Indeed, I often happily participated, and now at long last I feel I can come clean, and post some of Honey White's more endurable random practice jams.

Many of you will recall that I used to record everything: shows, practices, whatever. So there's a ton of stuff in the Honey White vaults. Many of our random practice jams have indeed gone on to become "real" songs in their own right, or at least have been more finalized in one way or another. Some of these have, too. Mostly, though, they haven't, and have never been named, either, so I felt at perfect liberty to--in the spirit of the jam--make shit up. Yes, the titles are brand-new, but the recordings are old. Have a listen, and as you do, scroll down for the all-important Liner Notes of Wisdom.

Audio:

The first three jams are from September 2002, the nights we'd practice at the Table Salt rehearsal room in downtown Santa Barbara. The Sandman Swings is a short little thing that Brian and Bryn did while Bill played the drum part from "The Sandman." Slouching Towards Lompoc is a country-ish jam of Brian's from the same night, and Life Before Rejection is a relatively harmless ballad. There are 3 takes apiece of those latter two songs, so maybe we thought we'd get somewhere with them, but apparently it was not to be.

The next 7 jams are from the Seville Street practice room (pictured above) in Isla Vista, two from 2003 and five from 2004. The Seville Street Stumble is one of about a million waltzy jams that Brian coughed up over the years (my theory is that Brian's entire life is in 6/8 time), and First Launch Into Oblivion is, I think, his first epic swipe at the extended instrumental part that we'd eventually tack onto the original "Sweet Oblivion." Yeah, it's another Oblivion jam, but I can't resist--I love that damned thing.

We had a manic run of rehearsals before our second Wildcat show in April 2004, and in between "real" songs there was of course much to be jammed. Someday This Riff Will Be Evil is another one of Brian's, which he has since tweaked considerably into something he simply calls the "Evil Guitar." Post-Oblivion Giddyup Dose is what happens to Bill when he's played "Sweet Oblivion" too much--he gets stir crazy. Weird Dreams and Morning Routines is an interesting recording, and I can't remember if we did these two back to back or if I'd fused them later, but they're two very different pieces that still seem to work well together under that title.

Last but not least from the April '04 stuff is a random happy jam of Spoiled White Kid Music, that mellow trustafarian sound, and another one I've called Walk For Your Fun, Run For Your Life, because even though it starts off with the same spoiled white reggae vibe, Billy decides to take it somewhere else entirely, and takes it there very fast.

The final four jams are recordings from the Milpas Street art gallery, where we'd practice from 2005 to 2007. Not Yet Winner Take All is a semi-jam of a new Bryn tune. I eventually wrote lyrics for it as "Winner Take All" but in March '05 it was still new and jammy. No Law Against Wah is something that Brian, Bill, and I jammed out later in July of that year. From the same power trio session, The Mermen Would Sue is a quickie, surfy, quiet jam that I eventually transmogrified into a Low Tide track called "It's Quiet Up Here." Honey White Can't Hold Still is from October '05, when we were trying to find the right tempo dynamic for my song "Hold Still."

So them's the jams, folks. Sorry for the missed week- I was on vacation. Perhaps we'll have some more interesting stuff up around Halloween.

Audio Archives 17: Quick and Dirty Edition, Part 2

2008-10-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

The Audio Archives first had a Q&D edition quite a while ago, but I've been writing all weekend and watching baseball playoffs, so this is the best I have for this week's post. I know I promised some studio demos from the "My Band Rocks" sessions that Honey White did back on July 13, 2002, but there's not really much to them. They're all-instrumental (Bryn would overdub vocals later) and may not seem that interesting on initial listens, but again, I'm a posterity guy, so as historical documents of our first "first time" in a studio setting, it's an interesting collection of takes.

For me the real story here is Bill's drums; he and engineer Mark Anthony spent a good hour or so setting up the kit and mics and stuff before the rest of us got there, and that really shows in all the stuff here, most notably the two takes of "Lightning Rod."

We were originally gonna do three takes of three songs, but that only happened for "Unprofessional." Surprisingly, only two takes were enough to dispatch "Lightning Rod," but that was made up by an inexplicable five tries at "The Sandman," and I can't remember why it took that many. The day-long session was rounded out by our inability to finish a whole take of "You Let Me Fall" and two satisfactory tries at "Wayfaring Stranger."

A little more about the session itself: the studio, Santa Barbara Recording, was actually Mark's home studio, and he was nice enough to adjust his domestic fortress of solitude when Honey White invaded. Maybe he thought we'd be crazy rock kids, but we were already too old for that, so everything went pretty smooth. Since we were all pretty much engaging in an expensive hobby, however, overdubs, mixing, and mastering stretched further into the year, and the disc itself wasn't released until November.

So nothing's on tap for next time yet, but I'll be able to dig up something. You all have no idea how much is in the Honey White vaults. Seriously.

Audio:

Audio Archives 16: Best Seven Grand We Ever Spent, Vol. 2

2008-09-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

As promised, the second round of How Far is the Fall studio takes from 2004 is upon us. Unlike last week, I don't have extensive contemporaneous notes about the studio takes from either Brian or myself, and of the stuff I do have, it doesn't seem to have our thoughts on several of the songs: the theremin-powered "Sean Goes To Africa," two lackluster stabs at the old Mojo Wire song "Pisces Lullabye," and two formless jams (one of which became "Island Fever," and the other became "Hold Still"). But whatever.

Me:

Famous Last Words
Take 1: This take should work fine. So, nitpicking! overdub backing vox at beginning? Brian's guitar hiccups at 1:28. overdub Bryn's guitar? Bryn sings "but i get along here" instead of "cause I get along here" at 3:53. Otherwise his vocals are just fine. Stop repeat & fade ending at/around 6:30.

Bottlerocket
Take 1: Bryn: "what? Oh." Great round the kit fill at 3:50. I know Brian wants to overdub guitar, but this is a really good take otherwise. Bryn's vocals are perfect. Take 2: Brian's guitar fails to come in at its usual :025. Maybe an overdub can fix that, or even cut & paste. Ending isn't as good as the first time, but this is a good take overall too. I can't decide.

Polarity
Take 1: Drums come in a little sluggish. Brian and Keir both mess up notes at 1:58. Passable take though. Replace beginning drums w/2nd take beginning? Take 2: Drums in much better/tighter on this take. Brian hits a wrong note at 1:19. Drums are underplayed from 1:56 to 2:28. Maybe use the ones from 1st take.

Brian:

Distorchestra:
Bass and drums don’t come in together
My guitar sounds cool at 1:50
Bryn’s slide/ebow stuff sounds really cool
Riff on my guitar sounds muddy

Polarity
I hit a couple wrong notes during both takes (can probably be edited)
Bryn’s guitar has very little sustain on take 1
Drums sound better on take 2 (except 2nd verse maybe?)
My picking pattern is off on take 2
“Sounds cool backwards” -- this is what I wrote down last night… if any of you have any idea what I meant, I’d love to know
Double-tracking Bryn’s guitar might sound cool

There will be a new Audio Archive next weekend too, focusing on the initial sessions for our 2002 My Band Rocks E.P.

Audio Archives 15: Best Seven Grand We Ever Spent, Vol. 1

2008-09-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

So I thought a good way to revive last year's "Audio Archives" series would be to do it with a bang: two posts in a row about Honey White's studio album How Far is the Fall. Since I've written lots about it before, I thought it would be fun to post the initial takes of everything we did, warts and all. We overdubbed later, of course, but this stuff would be from the original July 30-August 1 session at Take Root in S.F. with Jon Mayer at the helm. I've already written about this album a lot, so I figured that a new way to look at it would be via our post-mortem notes that were exchanged by band members after the session. Mostly it was me and Brian doing the writing, so this week you get to see my notes (from 8/16/04), and Brian's (from 8/29) on the relevant songs. I'll put the audio up first, though, so you can play and then read:

Dead Man
Take 5: Brian might want to overdub guitar at 2:22. Or overdub feedback? Good take overall.

Mercy Rule
Take 1: Minor tempo variations throughout. Missing Bryn's whammy bar before bass solo (take from 4:11?). Keir omitted bass F note at 4:00 (overdub or cut&paste). Bryn's guitar sounds out of tune? Take 2: Keir omitted bass double A notes at 0:12 (overdub or cut&paste). Drums a little tentative at 3:48. Breakdown at 4:08 (before Bryn's solo) a little too empty. One of Bryn's strings sounds out of tune (does that matter)? Overall a good take, maybe the best one. Take 3: This is the one where Billy & I got lost. Brian's first solo is totally different- just saying. Rhythm section takes off around 3:12. Brian's solo a bit sharp at 4:16. Bryn's solo kinda goofy. Wrong bass notes by Keir at 5:29.

Sweet Oblivion
Take 1: Strong beginning from Brian. Bryn sings loud. Keir's bass lines are irregular. Weird bass notes at 1:46. Brian guitar slip at 2:07. Drums hiccup at 3:23. Brian falls out 3:26-3:30. Billy keeps going at 4:30 but should have stopped. Brian sounds tentative during instrumental. Small gap at 6:26. Good last G chord. Take 2: Ok start. Bryn vocals much better. Keir's bass still irregular. Billy a little fast with fill at 2:28. Bryn's has hanging "if" at 2:30. Small gap at 2:53 before Bryn's solo. Good replacement fill at 3:31. Bass is overplayed. Excellent breakdown at 4:35. Excessive bass swagger throughout instrumental break especially at 6:20. Weird fill at 6:22. Way too loud bass note at 6:33. Gap is too big after it. Another weird fill at 7:22. Great last G chord. This is the "dude Brian that was fucking awesome" take. Take 3: Another ok/good start. Fill a little off at 1:53 but actually up to that point the take is flawless. Bass hits A instead of E at 2:05. Drums hesitant at 2:53 right before Bryn's solo. Bass drum a fraction off at 3:29. Double check to find Bryn's best solo before he does any overdubs. Drums in too early at 4:03 (it's a snare, around "into sweet oblivion") right before the first chorus (replace w/same part from take 2). Another bass drum off a fraction at 4:30. Still, this is a good ending and Billy's best ending before the break of all 3 takes. Brian's tone is perfect during the instrumental. Sweet, sweet phrase from him at 5:48. Fluffed bass notes at 6:14. Another gap starts at 6:28 but it's covered well. The instrumental section is kinda shaky but overall I think this is probably the best take.

Let Go
Take 1: Bad bass note at 1:03. Another at 1:34. Bryn's chord at the end could be a little stronger and there are a frew minor tempo fluctuations (though they don't throw anything off) but that's about it. Good, good take. Take 2: One of Bryn's strings is a little out of tune for the whole take. This take has some samples on it and the big snare on a few just for show. Bryn's singing is a bit stronger in places. Tremolo falls out of time at 2:04 but resolves quickly. Bad bass at 4:26. More at 4:57 (the bad note which I played 2 more times to try and make it better). Not a bad take but not as good as the first.

Keep Moving
Take 1: A little disjointed when we come in at :20. Bryn flubs a note at :31. Brian's echo is a little fast. Rhythm section's a little outta sync again at 1:48. Again at 2:56. Bass note hits A instead of D at 3:16. Brian's bend at 4:04 is sharp. Bass notes fall a little flat in last vocal chorus. Great falloff and buildup to last instrumental chorus. Bryn's 3 quiet notes at the end are good. Take 2: Much better rhythm section in this one's beginning. All through too - it's the hi-hat or ride that helps. Big snare too. Bass misses A note at 1:39. Bass cuts out a little early at end of last vocal chorus. Out of tune? Snare echos work well. Good comeback here too for the last instrumental chorus. Bass a bit off on very last inst chor bar but it might be passable. Bryn's last 3 notes are not as good as the first take, but this is probably the better of the 2.

And here are Brian's thoughts on the same stuff:

Reading through your notes right now, Keir, I remember a lot of what you're talking about. There's one part of Oblivion take 2, however, that I don't: "Excessive bass swagger throughout instrumental break especially at 6:20. Way too loud bass note at 6:33." Man, I don't know what you were doing there, but I'm dying to put on the recording and find out. I wasn't aware bass swagger could get excessive, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Mercy Rule
Guitars not so good on take 1, don’t complement each other well on take 3
My rhythm guitar during the chorus of all takes sounds kind of lame
Comeback for instrumental part is good initially on 2nd take
Neither comeback is very good on 3rd take

Take 3 solos:
My 1st solo good except for 4th bar
My 1st 2nd solo hilarious
My 2nd 2nd solo starts well
Bryn’s 1st solo is cool
Bryn’s 2nd solo is not so cool (flanger)
Background guitar/keys would sound good as padding behind Bryn’s solo

Let Go (take 1)
Rhythm trouble at :50
Bad bass note at 1:05
Treble on my guitar takes off
Rhythm off when verse two begins
My guitar tone on higher notes lacks fuzz (see live version)
Bad notes on my guitar at 4:10, and at end
Rhythm off at ~ 4:25

Let Go (take 2)
Vocals off at beginning
Rhythm even farther off when verse two begins
My guitar tone is better but still not full enough
On parts of both takes, vocals and guitar don’t quite match in pitch
Rhythm is off at ~ 3:50
Bad note on my guitar at 4:10, again at end
Weird bass note somewhere around 4:25
Last verse falls off a bit

Second half next week...

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 4: Keir's Favorite Songs

2008-09-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

Yep, my absolute absolutes...as of May 3, 2008, when Bryn first circulated his faves. Brian responded in kind, and Bill threw down big-time, so now it's my turn. Oddly there's no Dylan on my list. He is just one example of an artist whose work I love, but it's not as personal to me as these below. (Update: Bob is actually in there now.) I will say the same for other classic 60s/70s/80s stuff (Beatles-Stones/Bowie/REM for 3 more). Plus there's only two women, but Bjork, Tori, and Fiona songs just aren't all-time faves of mine right now. Anyway, in no particular order...

01 U2/The Fly
Staggeringly obvious choice, for me anyway. For better or worse this song never, ever gets old for me, even 17 years later. I think it's the pivot of my musical fandom, the BC/AD changeover. Works the same as Goin Against Your Mind does for Bryn.

02 Radiohead/Subterranean Homesick Alien
Obviously there are better songs on OK Computer, but this one is still my favorite, the one that sold me on the album, the one just drenched, soaked, slathered in glorious womb-like reverb.

03 Mermen/Bondage of the Sea
Barely beats out With No Definite Future... in the evocative-of-Dana-Point nostalgia sweepstakes. This was a recent development, too, like in the past few years.

04 Jeff Buckley/Dream Brother
There are repeats of Bryn's songs on this list and this one is the first. It's far and away my favorite JB song. The narcotic pull is hypnotizing.

05 Elbow/Fugitive Motel
There are many Elbow songs that could crack my Top 50--Guy Garvey is one of my favorite lyricists--but this one is still as strong for me as it was when it demanded I delve deep into Cast of Thousands. Shit, that was 5 years ago.

06 Cracker/Big Dipper
It's hard to choose between this one and Seven Days and Around the World, but for me Big Dipper's the absolute perfect David Lowery tune and one of the reasons I consider him a major influence.

07 Bodie/Twilights
You can't go wrong with something that evokes the harbor at night. I will tell Bodie frontman John Kraus that very thing until he flees in embarrassment, but I will still be correct.

08 Elliott Smith/Between the Bars
For me Elliott's music is all wrapped up in those first few monts dating Em when she gave me all the albums to date (Either/Or) on tape. I love the later albums, but for me he was never better than this disc, and this one's my current fave from it.

09 Wilco/How to Fight Lonliness
Bryn pretty much summed this up just like I would.

10 Rilo Kiley/It's a Hit
RK front-woman Jenny Lewis is Elvis Costello in drag. Her best lyrics are razor blades buried deepwithin the cotton candy of her voice and her band's VH1 alterna-pop. "It's a Hit" is one of those all-purpose zingers that handily demolish a multitude of foes in a single blow, but all the sly wordplay is built around a mushy core: "Your writer's block, it don't mean shit/Just throw it against the wall and see what sticks."

11 Explosions in the Sky/First Breath After Coma
This one made the all-time list within the first minute of the first time I ever heard it. It will now stay there, for being the first song they played at the show Bryn and I saw.

12 Elvis Costello/Watching the Detectives
Obviously he's a major influence, but I mostly like Costello in clumps; there's so much variety with him that any given album will suit any given mood, more so than individual songs. Detectives, though, adds some uber-cool reggae bass, though, so that vaults it into this list.

13 Tortoise/Ry Cooder
Speaking of super-cool instrumental bass guitar...

14 Morphine/Like Swimming
Hard not to pick a track from Yes or The Night, but for me this one is perfect Morphine. Nice little compact metaphor, and the composition itself says a lot with very little.

15 PJ Harvey/Down By The Water
Making a faves list without PJ is criminal, but none of her songs really are capital F favorites of mine. I take them all as one big bucket of good. This one gets here cause it's my favorite song on my favorite PJ album and cause of the fuzzy bass.

16 Secret Machines/Sad and Lonely
Because they deserve to be on a list like this, and because this song is already big before it deploys the deadly accurate "you're still in love with me and you don't know why" line.

17 BRMC/In Like The Rose
I could also put Red Eyes, Stop, or Weapon of Choice in Rose's place here, but this one wins out and joins the all-timers because, well, it just does. And yet our "Let Go" still kicks its ass in terms of tremolo. :)

18 Oceansize/Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs
For all the reasons Bryn cites, plus the that of the band feeling so utterly confident in using only 2 lines of lyrics for the whole monster 8 minutes.

19 Supergrass/Cheapskate
This would have been on the list even before I got more into them in recent years. You can never go wrong with a simple funky bass line.

20 Sea and Cake/Four Corners
Sea & Cake music literally conjures the bright yellow light of SB County for me. That and the drive from Ventura to Carp. It's a contented happiness sort of sound, and they do it extremely well.

21 British Sea Power/Oh Larsen B
3/4 of the song is merely OK, but the last minute or so of building instrumental outro is simple and glorious. I've only recently appreciated it, but it definitely deserves a space here among other songs that do just the same thing.

22 Pixies/Ana
Odd choice for a favorite Pixies song, but again, there are other much better Pixies tunes, but this one is my current favorite, and has sneaked onto the all-time list not just because it's surfy but cause I also like it as a reminder that a lyric doesn't have to be anything more than a clever acrostic-anagram for "surfer." It's a goal of simplicity I have yet to reach.

23 Big Sleep/New Strings
It's that warm-bath of noise feeling I was talking about with Bryn at the Explosions show. And damn, this is the 4th instrumental on the list. Another recent fave elevated to the A team purely on umpteen million plays.

24 Interpol/Pioneer to the Falls
Yes, another repeat from Bryn's list. This position was previously held by an Interpol song, though (Untitled from their first disc), and since Pioneer is that to the nth degree, sort of, it's really no contest. Plus that thing Bryn said about the guitar.

25 Smashing Pumpkins/To Sheila
Unlikely choice for a fave Pumpkins tune, but that's what it is, mostly because of the pure, graceful calm. Well, that and it's fucking cool to have a banjo on a Pumpkins tune, isn't it? That's right, buddy.

26 Police/Tea in the Sahara
For eons and eons Synchronicity II was my favorite Police song. Recently it's been more of a crowded field in that race, but despite his wankery Sting should probably be on this list because of being my first bass influence, and this one seems like the best fit right now. That and we ripped it off for Sandman's rhythm section. :)

UPDATE 9/12/08: Oh what the hell, let's throw some Bobby in there for shiggles. My gun-to-the-head favorite Dylan song will always be Like a Rolling Stone because, as I said--while Bryn, Brian, Shaun, and Em groaned with "overplayed"--on their lips, there's a reason that motherfucker was overplayed: it's his absolute best lyric of sneering, cackling fury, putting someone in their place who so, so deserves it. And for a million other reasons too tiresome and overblown to mention. So there.

UPDATE 2 9/15/08: Everyone else picked a Honey White song. so I guess I should too, but that's hard to do- choosing just one I mean. I guess my favorite thing is when we have a great 1-2 or 1-2-3 punch in our live sets, like Unprofessional/Heart On A Platter/Shivering Sand, Sandman/I Fly Free, Nightfall/Island Fever, that sort of thing. But since Bill didn't pick Mercy Rule, I will, and for basically the same reasons he did: that one is a great example of being a true "band" song that we all built together. There are many more, but that's my favorite.

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 3c: Billy's Favorite Songs #3

2008-09-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Bill's magnum opus of unrepetant fanboy-dom continues with his third and final installment, which he ends with an epic throw-down to yours truly. My witty riposte will have to wait until later, but it will come. Oh yes. For now, once again, here's Bill:

15) Qwel - Can't dream any longer
Many people do not know that Eminem, while being gifted in a respect, is a corporate sponsored playboy who was one of many that the giants at Death Row records saw as the most commercially digestable. Truth be told, Eminem was not the first white man with a very real gift for hip hop music. Coming out of Chicago, Qwel is a portly caucasion fellow with an extremely gifted mind for thoughtful and raw underground hip hop music. This is my favorite tune off of his album "If it ain't been in a pawn shop, then it can't play the blues"

16) The Specials - A Message To You
What needs to be said. The USA had disco.. the british had ska.. we totally got screwed. The group that is, arguably, the biggest band of the 2Tone era singing a song about kids needing to shape up. I loved this song when I was a total pothead, delinquent, and all around asshole kid.. I guess my sub-conscious was trying to tell me something. Glad I finally got around to listening.

17) Sublime - Saw Red
Speaking of that time in 'high' school when I was such a delinquent, I used to really love to listen to this group of junkies grooving out and singing all about how all they have is love for life but can't seem to get it right. This song is also accompanied by Gwen Stefani on the record version, but the live version that is just Brad has a sadness and tremor in his voice that makes it my favorite of the groups' hands down.

18) Bouncing Souls - Ole
From one of the greatest pop-punk bands ever to come out of southern California comes an epic and simple jaunt of a theme song. I've been re-visiting this group a TON as of late and can't believe that I ever stopped listening to them for so long. When the tune breaks in and the singer swaggers out the line "bouncing souls, no one can beat us, we drink beer and wear adidas!" I get a special feeling. The singer has a true gift for showing that he doesn't really take himself seriously, and has a great time doing it.

19) Assorted Jellybeans - BooshDuckDow
When this punk trio emerged from a garage in Riverside, California the major players in the punk community of the west coast were literally all lined up at the door to see them play. They had a style and a seemingly natural born genius that was really something. When I met them just before playing that same Club 154 in Boulder, where we met Rancid, they were just three totally un-assuming guys who pooled together enough buddies to make a road trip with and play a few shows outside of California. I remember we were waiting outside the back door to the place and these two white vans pull up and literally about 40 kids piled out of two vans. Immediately the majority of them took off on skateboards and we just sat there going, "is this them?" The band finally piled out of the van and started pulling there gear out.. just three young guys and some cheap equipment, it was awesome. We walk up and ask Wylie if they need help and goes, nah man but thanks. (think they thought we were gonna try and rob em) Kepa asked him what all the skateboards were about and they said that they had basically just hitched along with a group of guys making a skate video.

I remember thinking how fucking cool these guys were, just living the life as if it was the easiest thing to do. When the show started it was a weird scene as happens at Club 154 a lot, the audience was mostly regulars who just see anything that comes through that venue and are diehards for local artists. They basically didn't care at all or know who the band was, so me and Kepa just start freaking out singing the songs as loud as we can and just jumping around and flailing like drugged out psychos (which we weren't for once) People were kinda getting mad at us but we didn't care, and some people saw right off that this band was really good and started getting into it pretty good. I remember during the first song just locking eyes with the lead singer and screaming the lyrics of the song back at him and he had this look like, 'where the fuck is this guy from'. After that song, the band makes a snide remark thanking the venue for having them and "to our two fans in Colorado who came to see us". Me and Kepa wore that badge of honor for fucking years.

20) G-Love and Special Sauce - Willow Tree
This is the grooviest drumbeat I've ever heard.. this band are three total jazz-nuts that just exhude the blues and cool whenever they play. Seeing them once at Coachella just put me in awe at their dynamics.. like a total jam band but with seriously tight arrangement and subtle blues tinge. This song always makes me feel like I should be wearing sandals and just cruising in a lowrider down the PCH.

21) The Pillows - Ride on Shooting Star
So for about 2 years while I was living at my folks in Carp. and alone in Montecito (right about the same time we were playing our first shows until I started playing in Futureman) I was hooked on this anime FLCL.. I used to just have it playing on my DVD day in day out and I'd just watch it as I could. The pillows were the only band on the soundtrack and I totally fell in love with them.. I would TOTALLY say they are the japanese honey white, but somehow they do all this rocking without a bassist. They have a real range of sound and i literally see a lot of parallel between our bands at least in the types of songs and the way they structure tunes. This song in particular is a funny little tune and this video just makes me laugh at it's silliness and japanese culture cool.

22) Weezer - My Adeline
I can't say that much about this band.. I used to think they were gods gift to the world. A group of nerds making great rock songs that just loved music. After they split with the original bassist I started to lose interest but I still love their videos and the way they put a song together. This song is my favorite of theirs and it doesn't even highlight the awesomeness of Pat's drumming. Just a barber-shop quartet 23)ode that I'd bet was ripped off from some play or something. I think it's silly that they did it, but it's really good and fun to sing along to.

23) ALL - The World's on Heroin
This is the band that was formed when the Descendents lead singer Milo went off to college to get his PhD (hmm) It's basically the exact same line up with Chad Price coming in on vocals. Chad already had been doing backup vocals for Milo for years so it seriously sounds just like The Descendents a lot of the time. Although I love the humor in this band's tune, "She Broke my Dick", this song just says it all to me. A song about how it feels like everybody around you is on some sort of valium. "The world's on heroine, too many raging morons in my face, I try to go for all, despite all the under-achievers!" I just love this message and it always gets me pumped to handle whatever I need to.

24) Atom and his Package -Waiting Room
This guy is a crack up.. he's played in all kinds of bands and is currently in one now, but he made his following doing a college tour with just a casio keyboard that he pre-programmed to accompany him. This song is kinda the one that was his break out, and it was the last cover he did without a band backing him. Fugazi's version is great, this guy though is epic.

25) Voodoo Glow Skulls - Give Me Someone I Can Trust
This band is great. A bunch of overweight mexican-americans from Orange County who can throw down some of the fastest and most intricately arranged ska-punk I've ever heard. The singer has a very distinct voice and they put on one hell of a live show.. I remember seeing them live at the Ogden Theater (oh the memories there) in Denver. The drummer was doing this crazy fast part where he was hitting the bell of the ride cymbal kinda like I do in Lightning Rod.. well the thing was that just about every sixth hit the stick would slip and he would fling it across stage (I guess he had grown use to this cause he had a giant bag of them taped to his hi-hat stand) and he just kept pulling them out, and keeping perfect time doing it too.. it was crazy. I swear he must have gone through at least 20 sticks in just one half of one song. I thought that was totally cool. This is also the first song I ever heard on my own self-bought stereo in my first car. My girlfriend put it in there and me and Kepa were just blown away. I still have the tape (I just found it last year underneath the carpet of that car when i got it shipped out from Colorado)

26) NOFX - The Decline
It was only a matter of time before this band made it onto my list. Without a doubt the most talented punk band ever. period. This song is thee greatest punk song ever written. period. 18 minutes and 51 seconds of non-stop awesome fucking song about life. If you've never heard it I have failed you as a friend. I converted Marika's classical ears to punk rock forever with this one song. I left the cd in her car and after a few months of listening to it on the way to and from work she realized it was all the same song.. and that the group was the stuff of legend. Damn straight. I've tried to cover this song in three different bands.. never made it all the way through, but Futureman made it to about 11 minutes once while still sounding decent.. that's about all I could ever ask for I think.

27) The Planet Smashers - Wish I Were American
This tongue-in-cheek tune is classic planet smashers. The group of hockey loving, canadian, misfits have a giant catalog of songs I could put on this list, but for some reason this one makes me feel so good. I guess because I always wanted to cecede from the nation and the fact that these guys made fun of the mentality, of americans to think, that everybody would want to be a citizen of their country just echoes through my heart.

28) Arctic Monkeys - Riot Van
Yeah that's the same band that coined that annoying dancefloor song on the radio. I can't believe it either. Fact is though, that song is a fluke thank god. They have a large discography and all the other songs I've heard I REALLY like. This one is really great, has a weird little pause thing going on in it which makes me happy every time I try and tap along. Also the subject matter of being a bystander watching punk kids be idiots to riot cops reminds me of Halloweens on CU campus.

29) DanceHall Crashers - Cat Fight
This group has been a favorite of mine since I was 15. Hailing out of Op Ivy's home town of Oakland they brought a blend of fifties greaser cool to the third wave punk ska movement. Funny enough the band was founded and formed by Tim Armstrong of Rancid/Op Ivy fame and he left very shortly after. The two lead singers, Elyse and Karina, are two beautiful vixens with an amazing harmonic quality that they indulge in with every song. In their own words, "This song is about how guys love to watch girls fight, (and the crowd goes wild with applause) and how we think it's really fucking lame that they like to watch girls fight, yeah that wasn't exactly supposed to garner applause people.. maybe they're applauding for the song though, cause we think it sucks... the fighting, not the song."

30) 311 - Color
Yeah you knew there had to be a 311 one thrown in here somewhere right? you guys know how I could go on and on about this drummer and this band so I'll leave it at this. This is one of the songs solely written by the drummer. He did everything on it from arrangement, to performance and mixing. It is an instrumental that always makes me feel good and want to play music.

31) Honey White - Lightning Rod
Yes I'm going to put one of our songs on the list (hey if two of you can then I can too) I orginally was gonna put Mercy Rule down because I love how much we all had such a huge part in making that song come together (reads, I felt like I actually contributed a lot to it's overall feel) and it is so easy going and always good to come back too. The truth is though, that Lightning Rod is like my Stairway to Heaven. I listen to it and I thank god that I was able to find a group of guys cool enough to let me explode on the drums for a song like that. I listen and I can't believe that I did it, I can't figure out how I did some of it and the fact that it was recorded and will forever be archived away to show my grandkids means SO much to me. Not to mention the fact that literally when we are playing the slow version it puts me in such a state of zen, living in the now and just catching and holding on to each second, it's like a high that no drug could ever give you. I dream of being able to re-invent this song a third time.. I have ideas of what it would be like, I have the place now, and a little bit of the scratch.. and if I can just find a way to skim a bit more money together I'll get that electronic kit and give it a real go. It seems though, that whatever we dream or plan for, life always throws us curve balls that we end up trying to foul tip, or just bunting in desperation. Still it feels that if it comes to be in twenty years I can count on you guys to go above and beyond to help me realize that dream and to once again come together and be "the best music to ever come out of Isla Vista." hehe.

Anyway gents.. that's my list.. sorry it's such a novel but I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed reading yours. Now.. if only we could get the bassist to put down his novel for a minute and write us one we'd have something we could really blow minds with whenever somebody asked us what our influences were. We could just maybe kill that god forsaken question once and for all with this one.

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 3b: Billy's Favorite Songs #2

2008-09-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

Bill the Amazing Drumbot 3000x is back with the second part of his favorite songs, in which he and Kepa chase the Suicide Machines all over Colorado:

14) Suicide Machines - Hey Ska!
Without a doubt one of my top influences as far as drums go I can honestly say that without this guy I would have never have been able to play Lightning Rod like I did on My Band Rocks. I literally stole so many things I do on a kit from watching this guy it feels wrong.. but it's just right. This song gets my heart pumping every time with it's catchy and fragmented melodies, it's impromptu breaks into other genres of music and it's wonderfully fast paced and intricately layed out drum part. "HEY, what went wrong? HEY, what is going on? HEY, I don't know why. HEY, but I might as well try!"

Ok, so you have probably heard the story before, but I'll re-tell it for you. A friend and I got tickets to go see this band open for Weezer, with No Doubt playing second fiddle. This took place at Red Rocks Amphitheater just south of Boulder. We were just blown away that day with having seen so much good music and when Jay said that they would be playing a small high school gym just up the road in Ft. Collins and invited everybody down we just took it literally. SO that night we are all jazzed up and undecided if we were actually gonna go see the show the next day (a lot of driving) so we took some shrooms and started tripping out to the beauty of summer nights in Boulder (kinda seems like that happened a lot now..) with no sleep I went and got my first tattoo the next day..

Yeah so somehow the guy didn't understand why my arm was rejecting the ink (drugs maybe, i don't know) and he had to go at it pretty hardcore (his own words) so my arm was bandaged up like it had been cut off and was bleeding like crazy all day. Again on no sleep we finally decided to hell with it and made the drive. We get there WAY early and spent about 2 hours sitting around this playground in the back of a TINY middle school in the middle of a totally rich residential area. This little uhaul van pulls up with a chevy safari van behind it and out pop the suicide machines.. Jay sees us hanging on the swings and just struts over and pisses on the swingset and lays his ass down and puts his head in between his hands. "long drive eh?", I say. "Man, I'm wasted" he says.. "we just played this crazy 15,000 person show last night and I haven't been able to sleep a wink."

So I tell him "yeah we were at that, it was really great" At this, he looks up at me and kinda gives me this eye like, 'shit, I thought you were another band' and says, "yeah pretty different from this". My friend Kepa chips in with, "yeah but this is gonna be WAY better, no stupid no doubt radio fangirls" Jay just laughed and started going off about how he didn't have any clue how they got roped into playing this tiny school.. that there was supposed to be like 4 or 5 other bands there and he thought that the other bands were just fronting the money to try and get them to come headline a show for them. Said he'd be surprised if it even went off at all, and how it looked like there would be no audience at all.

We just replied "well we drove just as far as you on no sleep too so we'll help out" He let us help him carry in the gear from the van and then we basically got in without paying s we just sat around while all these bands showed up and started setting up. By the time the first band went on we were just dead on our feet and basically falling asleep in the bleachers of the gym. By then about three bands had shown up and there were maybe about 60 kids total there to watch, most of which were just hanging on the bleachers with us as I think they thought we were with the bands or something and just all started doing what we were doing.. it was totally weird. The first band had gone on, and literally maybe five kids were even on their feet.. Jay walks up to me and says "man this is gonna be one downer of a show it looks like"

I reply about how everyone there is around to see them and they'll all get pumped when they start up. He kinda laughed and said "well if all these kids bomb the stage, we're gonna get hosed. You guys are gonna have to act as a fence for all these kids since we let you in for free." Me and Kepa just laughed and said something about karate attacking anybody who messed with the band. Finally the suicide machines get setup to go and me and Kepa are now joined by my first band SKWI and we literally lead this entire pack of kids up to the "stage" (reads monitors sitting on an open gym floor right in front of some band equipment.) The show was by far the most influential and awesome musical experience of my life, I was literally arm in arm with Jay singing the songs into the microphone with him for 75% of the show.

Derek's kit was not even 4 feet from me and I could see first hand every intricacy and to say his level of genius behind a set makes me look like a frog with no limbs is a fucking understatement. The show and the crowd went off like mad and afterwards i walk up to Jay and just shake his hand and tell him how it was the best time of my life. He just smiled all huge and said "we haven't had a show this good in fucking forever, you guys were awesome."

As we drove away that night (it was actually still daylight out, haha) I looked down and saw that my bandage had come mostly off my tattoo'd arm and i was bleeding again.. I didn't care though and the fact that the tat never healed right and is totally discernable doesn't bother me one fucking bit to this day.

Conquering the World, One Nation at a Time

2008-09-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

That's right: Honey White, your favorite California epic-garage-rock-whatever band continues our glacially-paced campaign of global takeover, this time thanks to Krista of Oceanaria in the Dominion of Canada. Her new Honey White CDs were put through a rigorous International Customs inspection process, as you can see from the evidence photographed below:

Thanks very much, Krista. Now, the Great White North is of course a fine place, but it is not the first locale outside of the U.S. to endure the virtual rockitude of a Honey White merch item (or items). Bryn himself made a personal visit to Europe back in 2003, busking his way through the Old Country and the Mediterranean like a good American post-grad should do. Our rabidly enthusiastic Austrian and Polish fanbase did not exactly begin during that trip, but their loyalty is never in question, and is always appreciated.

Bryn in Venice:

Other Honey White artefacts have slowly made their way to other exotic locations: Jeff Ross, the Sailing Mechanic, wore a Honey White "My Band Rocks!" t-shirt each and every day of his extended New Zealand odyssey in 2004, and Sean Blaschke, he of "Sean Goes to Africa" fame, ran his own "HW" shirt ragged on a trek through not one, not two, but eighteen African countries during 2005.

Jeff in New Zealand:

Sean in Africa (clockwise)--Senegal, Namibia, the Gambia, and Angola:

That's four continents right there--also counting Bryn's acoustic-strumming visits to tiny Mexican villages in 2005 and 2007--so don't be fooled by our humble, do-it-yourself ways: Honey White is a World-Conquering Force of Nature, unencumbered by silly logistics like time and space.

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 3a: Billy's Favorite Songs #1

2008-09-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

Honey White's fearless drummer was not to be outdone by Bryn and Brian when they opined on their favorite tunes. No, Bill positively exploded with faves, so much so that this is only the first of THREE parts of his absolute absolutes:

Oh my guitarists.. this was such a cool email to send. Totally reminds me that we have not had a chat about music in a long while (or a chat of any kind for that matter) Life has been crazy lately.. I now hold 4 ASE certifications and am getting a little better at fixing the autos.. and, a lot better at building things. I've been doing a TON of welding, cutting, bending, grinding and just all around metal fabrication. I'm thinking about buying a welder for the house and starting to do metal sculpture.. If I think of it I'll send you some links to cool stuff like that, that has me inspired. I am also taking more classes at SBCC besides autotech stuff.. I have entered the fantastical realm of Network Engineering and Electronics.. BUT!!

On to the matter at hand. These lists you two have compiled are awesome! So much so, that I feel compelled to do the same. I will warn you, I was procrastinating writing a paper on the top 5 operating systems and server systems in use by corporate america today so, I have QUITE the list. It is, in fact, too long, but it gets better the farther in you go..probably. The funny thing is I could have kept going and going with it, but eventually I will have to face up to my deadline. Actually,I like to think that we have moved far beyond the capabilities of triple-cd best-of compilations and now are firmly embedded in the new technologies of .mp3 and hi-bandwidth .wav files that allow for gigantic personal catalogs at the touch of a button. So my list is of perfect size, as long as you don't go into a coma trying to finish it. If there is anything on here that you would like to experience and cannot find, let me know as I will copy it down into a small and awesomely high quality format and digitally zoom it to you free of charge!

Now onto the "you have been warned" list of Billy's must hear songs. In no certain order they are:

1) Mad Caddies - Polyester Khakis
Long before I even thought of moving back to California I used to sit in my room and sing along to this band as loud as I could. This song is all about the struggle against conforming to the workplace and a life of normality. Naturally I identify with it profoundly. I also used to scream along to a song of theirs entitled Goleta. It's all about a hellacious place filled with diseased people that the singer really wants to leave. I liked it then, I LOVE it now.

2) Bob Marley - Trenchtown Rock
So yes, before you go into a "oh god it's one of these lists" feeling, of course I had to put some Bob on the list. As you all know this song sings about finding ways to combat the stresses of everyday life in poverty and oppression. In particular it speaks of music as being the only thing needed to help lift your spirits when you are down. I think Bob was onto something when he coined, "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain, so hit me with music."

3) The Strokes - Is this it?
So one day back in 2002 I was back in Colorado on a visit and I found a burned disc in a friends car that said simply, "Strokes". I wondered what it could be and, as my little perverse mind naturally went to scenes of me listening to scores from a really bad porno, I popped it into the cars CD player. By the time my friend got back to the car from running inside I had listened to this song two and a half times and I had tears in my eyes. Ok so I was a little depressed anyway, but the combination of; Jules melancholy and droll tenor, Nikolai's perfect tone and simplistic sliding bass line, Albert's hack at it percussive guitar, Nick's ridiculous control of retro-sounding tone, and Fab's retro-cool and simply driving beats, made me swoon. This is not my favorite song by the group, but it is definitely the most memorable to me.

4) James Brown - The Big Payback
Ever since listening to James while tripping shrooms, in a park, in the pitch black darkness of Boulder Colorado, on a summer's eve filled with stars, I have felt the funk. That was one heck of a run-on sentence, huh Kier? Seriously though, I started loving this song when I first saw 'Payback' with Mel Gibson. Then, later, when I started playing a lot of pool this song seemed to emanate from the speakers every time I had a cue in my hand. It became a song I always heard when relaxing, so naturally it is once of my favorite grooves.

5) The Descendents- Thank You
This band is definitely one of the most melodic punk bands ever. They also were basically the first band to put a song, well organized enough you could actually hear, to album that was over 185 beats per minute. In short, Milo is a ridiculously smart man and a total science geek (much like Bad Religion's Greg Graffin), though he is somewhat of an emotionally charged romantic. This song is an ode to the bands that made him want to be a musician and love music, as is witnessed in the chorus line, "Thank you for playing the way you play!"

6) Jason Schwartzman- Ethan's song
As you guys no doubt know and would probably attest to, Jason Schwartzman is a very under-rated actor and comedian. He is also one kick ass drummer/song writer, so naturally I like him a lot. He penned this song for the movie "slackers", a great tale of intelligent collegiate level cheaters trying to get by in an unorthodox manner. He plays a pretty creepy roll, which he's pretty good at, which I think anyone can identify with to an extent and I really like the humor in this one.

7) Operation Ivy- Smiling Friends
A great song from the gutters of Industrial West Oakland. This band spawned MANY great band leaders and one of the all-time greatest disappearing acts in rock, when the singer decided he was going to become a monk instead of a punk. This band hit the west coast punk scene like a ton of bricks when they meshed ska and punk together to form a very original sound. It didn't hurt that the two guys writing lyrics were die hard reggae fans and just wanted everyone to be happy, but it definitely made for some interestingly open songs. This one is all about people who put up fake walls of bravado for their "friends" so they don't know how unhappy they are. It really hit home in my high school years.

8) Mighty Mighty Bosstones- What Are These Noises?
This band is the stuff of legend. A motley crew of hipsters from the most impressive music school of the east coast and self taught brigands from the irish bar scene of south Boston, these guys absolutely tear up a room. After a 4 year hiatus starting in 2003 the band re-emerged to live on last year. There first show back was their "hometown throwdown" which they would do every year since 1985, playing an exhaustive set comprised of EVERY one of their songs in the first venue they ever played live in. This is the song they lead with on that night, and it's imagery always makes me smile. It's all about a "mad" doctor who lets the band practice their crazy music in the basement while doing his work upstairs.. only in Boston I guess.

9) The Aquabats- Pirates
In my mind, this is the most fantastic piece of story-telling via music that has ever been. Every time I would hear any mention of Bryn out at sea this is what would pop up in my head, literally. If you guys haven't heard it, damn I have failed you. It is so ridiculously good I can credit it with getting me laid. Yes, I am serious.. after singing this song from memory to a sleepy eyed vixen I had a full on pirate lovin' experience. This band has put out numerous little tunes that make me smile and their live show is like watching blood-lust crazed care-bears hitting each other with pillows shaped like chainsaws. yeah, like that.
I am literally beside myself with anticipation of going to see them open up for Rancid in San Fran in September.. it will be monumental ! speaking of Rancid..

10) Rancid - Radio
remember what I said about the two main lyricists from Op Ivy being heavily into reggae? The lead guitarist from that group is Tim Armstrong, a straight up gutter punk with a crazy life story and a speech impediment which is as endearing as his lyrics. I met this guy outside a tiny show at the CU campus when Rancid played for a packed Club 154 (aptly named thus because it was the name of the room in the recreation hall at CU .. AND the maximum capacity for the venue.) He was so down to earth and cool, and literally had so much love in his heart for his fellow man, it made me feel like a schmuck and gave me hope all at the same time. This song is Tim's answer to Trenchtown Rock in a way and hints at how he used music as an escape from his abusive childhood, The chorus line simply states "Radio, Radio, Radio, when I've got the music I've got a place to go".

11) John Farnham - Break the Ice
You know, I almost did put send me an angel on this list. The truth is, though, that I would have had to put my punk band's cover of it cause it was so much more to me than the movie version. Break the Ice, however, literally gives me chills every time I hear it. You know a song has something if it can make a kid wanna go out and hurt himself on his bicycle for days on end. It's another thing entirely when that same song can bring a late 20's guy to his feet only to fall trying to do a 360. Cru Jones is Teh Aw3sUmz !

12) Kimya Dawson - Loose Lips
Ok, by now you've all seen Juno. If you haven't, seriously, shame on you. It has won it's way past Rad and Hot Rod to be my favorite movie of all time. The soundtrack has a lot to do with it too. I've kind of actually been on a lo-fi kick for a while now and this song couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Go to youtube right now and listen to this amazing girl sing out her guts.. she is ridiculously cool.

13) Matt Costa - Mr. Pitiful
Ok I'm gonna put another recent find on here. This guy was one of my favorite professional skateboarders when I was in high school. Then he quit skating and started messing with music, fast forward ten years and Jack Johnson decided he wanted to be credited with the kids genius and put him on his label. This song and, honestly more so, the video is a quirky bit of awesomeness I haven't been able to go two days without watching lately.
I'll make this one easy for you guys.

INTERMISSION - just a short break from this list.. I told you it was long (and you'll believe me when i tell you that it's not even half over muahaHAHAHA). I'm still so jazzed about making electronic music over the web with you guys and I truly hope I can get my head out of my butt long enough to put something down soon.. life being what it is it may be a bit longer before I get the ability to pick up the sticks again. :(

...and we'll bring him back for more, very soon!

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 2: Brian's Favorite Songs

2008-08-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

In which Honey White's genius grad student guitarist takes his turn on the rock & roll soap box:

Excellent choices, Bryn! I was reading through your list and thought many time, "oh, that song's awesome". And thanks for the complement on "Dead Man"... I listen to that song and all the things I did wrong jump out at me, so it's nice to know it isn't like that for everyone. Plus, that was a hell of a lot of fun to record.

So in spite of the lack of popular demand, here's my list:

1. Race for the Prize: The Flaming Lips
Neat synth line, bouncy drums, lyrics about scientists, and the opening number for several of the best shows I've ever been to. I'll always associate this song with the live Lips experience, with balloons and streamers and aliens and Santas and Wayne Coyne in a big plastic bubble. Seriously, it's is an experience I'd recommend to anyone even slightly interested in their music.

2. Bridges and Balloons: Joanna Newsom
The first time I listened to this song, all I really noticed was her weird-ass vocals. I thought, "I'm going to have to try this again later", and put the album away for a month or so. Then, once mentally prepared for it, I put this album on again and was absolutely blown away. Her harp playing is amazing; the rhythms are always very interesting and fit so well with the vocal melodies. She is incredibly unique as an artist, and I think this song exemplifies all her best qualities (exept perhaps the singing, but I particularly like the lyrics to this one).

3. Y Control: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
This song rocks: Karen O's voice is amazing, the drumming is fantastic, and the guitar sounds are coated with beautiful distortion. The song has such a cool, dark vibe, I love it. I also never thought I'd be so enthralled by over 30 seconds of distorted guitar and amplifier feedback, which you hear at the end of this song, but in this case it sounds crazy awesome. Spike Jonze's creepy video is pretty cool too.

4. Do the Evolution: Pearl Jam
Another rocker. And you really can't rock much harder than this one. Eddie Vedder has the best voice in the business and can scream like nobody's business The lyrics are great ("I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah"), and so is the guitar playing. It's also got a neat video to go along with it.

5. The Flying Club Cup: Beirut
I don't know what it is about this song, but the first time I saw the video on their website, I was damn near in tears. Something about the melody, the horns, the marching drums, and the image of a chorus of people looking upwards in a church singing in unison. Absolutely beautiful.

6. Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor - Going to Your Funeral pt. 1 - Cancer for the Cure: The Eels.
Okay, so this is cheating, but none of these songs are long, and all three fit together so perfectly. It's got to be the most heart-wrenching opening to an album ever, with E's subdued singing about his sister's suicide and her funeral in the first two songs, then a big loud rocker about his mother dying of cancer. Gives me chills just thinking about it.

7. Paranoid Android: Radiohead
It's really difficult to choose a representative track from this band, because holy crap they have a lot of good songs. This was the one that got me really into the band; I knew it was something extraordinary the first time I heard it. That moment when the big loud distorted guitars come in and play the main riff completely blew my mind. All parts of this multipart song are done really well, and the transitions are fantastic.

8. Half Day Closing: Portishead
Another difficult band to choose a favorite song from, but I'd go with this one because the ending is so powerful. I love the way her voice slowly morphs from a passionate cry into this synthetic wall of distortion and chorus and reverb and echo. Plus, the drums sound awesome, and I've always loved those meandering basslines.

9. The Funny Bird: Mercury Rev
Not a huge fan of this band, but this song is amazing. I think this is my example of the perfectly recorded and produced song. The rhythm section is up high in the mix, with the drums sounding perfect, and the simple but perfect bassline always driving the song. The chorus effect (or whatever it is) makes Jonny Donahue's voice sound a hell of a lot better than it actually is, and the background atmospheric keyboards sound so cool I can't even attempt to describe it.

10. Shine on You Crazy Diamond: Pink Floyd
Okay, so this one's way too long to fit with the others onto a single CD... so if I had to pick only a part of it, I guess I'd go with part 6. But this song is the best guitar playing of all time, in my opinion. In my wildest dreams, I play guitar like Dave Gilmour played guitar on this song. It runs the gamut of emotions, from soft and mellow to crazy intense, and every note feels perfect. I can't remember who said it, but some Jazz musician said something about soloing being about the notes you don't play. This song proved the truth of that stament in my mind, as quite a lot of tension builds in the moments betweem phrases. And from my experience, that's a hard thing to do.

11. The final untitled track on Sigur Ros' untitled album (aka Parentheses)
This song is beautiful, and just builds and builds and builds, until the tension is so great you can barely stand it; then, it releases all that tension in a climax that Owen Salisbury perfectly described as: "in the coolest possible way, like a choirboy being hurled into a stack of cymbals."

Bonus Track: Wayfaring Stranger
I guess I'd choose the Honey White version for the sentimental values, and because I love the way Bryn sings it and the way the whole band came together. But this is such a great and profound song about the most profound of all subjects, with a really somber tone but without too dark a view. Picking up my guitar and playing this song always feels comforting to me.

Valuable Artifact Discovered by Bassist

2008-08-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

The great Norm Reed, he of BEER:30 and Buttcheek Doofus fame, had a pleasantly surprising discovery recently:

I picked up my old CD player today and look what I found in it!

Awesome, Norm. That's like finding ten bucks on the street!

Unrepentant Fanboys, Part 1: Bryn's Favorite Songs

2008-08-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

So one day a few weeks ago, our frontmanly singer-guitarist felt compelled to share his favorite songs with us bandmates. This naturally precipitated an arms race of fanboy-dom among Honey White, with all of us naming our current/past/whatever favorite songs and expounding upon them. Billy's were best, but let's start at the beginning, shall we? So, like Bryn said:

Predictably, I couldn't compress my favorite songs down to the length of one album. So here are the liner notes, such as they are, for my double album of favorite music.

Part I

1. "Goin' Against Your Mind," by Built to Spill.
Difficult as it is to narrow one's opinions regarding something as important to their lives as music has been in mine, I still feel that I can unequivocably state that this is my favorite song. I have listened to this one in all emotional extremes, from anger and unutterable sadness to joy and excitement, and it not only feels appropriate each time, but gives comfort. (Overanalysis of these songs is what I'm here to do right now, after all, so be prepared!) From a technical standpoint, the guitar is phenominally good, and the overdriven but echoey tone is wonderful. The rise & fall of the song's intensity allows us to rise & fall with it, a dynamic that is important, I feel.

2. "Weapon of Choice," by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
This song is my definition of sounding badass. If I want to be in a swaggering mood, this would be what I'd listen to. During the blackest depths of my shit-pumping, frustration-swallowing, emotionally draining time as a Maritime Co-ordinator at the Ocean Institute this is what I would blast out of my truck's stereo as I tore out of the parking lot at 10am (or 10pm, come to think of it) after having worked for 24 hours in a row, and knowing that I'd have to be back the next day. It was my song of temporary freedom and flipping the bird to the people I felt were contributing to my frustrations.

3. "How to Fight Loneliness," by Wilco.
Such a beautifully sad song. The lyrics have an appropriate feeling of trying to convince yourself that things aren't so bad, and knowing that you're lying to yourself by saying so. The music is so lovely... the paino solo has a perfect quietly disjointed feel to it, which I adore.

4. "Railroad Man," by the Eels.
How can such a calm, relatively happy-sounding song be a comfort when one is sad? I have yet to figure that one out (I majored in Classics, not psychology!), but this song has comforted me at my most despondent and bleak. The pedal steel is absolutely beautiful, and E's lyrics (Mark Oliver Everett, to those of you who don't know who the hell that is) are powerful to me: all imagery of having the world passing you by, but not necessarily caring. Let the world do its thing; I'm content with who I am.

5. "In This Moment's Time," by the Coral Sea.
This song builds to its crescendo so perfectly -- it begins quietly, with soft, echoey guitar, and climbs up to a beautiful raging peak before dropping back into mellowness. Keir's former editor Duncan Wright absolutely makes this song with his powerful guitar.

6. "Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs," by Oceansize.
The way in which this song slowly passes from quiet to amazingly powerful and loud is a wonder to me; it's an almost perfect rock composition, as judged by my completely arbitrary personal criteria. As you may have noticed by now, the most moving music, to me, is powerful, huge sounding rock music -- the kind of beauty and strength one can observe in a storm. (Yeah, yeah, I know I'm getting pretty corny here, what with using a storm as a metaphor. Shut up. This is my list!)

7. "Newborn," by Elbow.
Another slow-building song with a mind-blowing peak. I had heard that this song was amazing when Elbow played it live, and I was not disappointed -- the theater that we were in was absolutely vibrating with energy as Guy Garvey belted out the last part of the song. His hoarse but melodic voice has some power to it when he wants it to. After the song finally collapsed perfectly to a stop I looked over at Karla, who was seated beside me, a huge grin on my face. I leaned over to see what she'd thought of it: "That was so loud!" she said into my half-deafened ears. Indeed. And I loved it. (And after having seen them twice, I can only say that they are improving, even!)

8. "Rope on Fire," by Morphine.
It's interesting to me that, while Morphine is one of my favorite bands based upon their catalogue of songs as a whole, my favorite song of theirs is one that doesn't sound anything like what I'd describe as a "typical Morphine song." The quiet, accoustic and string-laden song here is the perfect vehicle for the feeling of Mark Sandman's nightmare lyrics: descriptions of of molasses-like slowness despite the urgency of escaping immediate danger. And one of my favorite, if simple, lyrical lines: "She ripped the wings right off my back... She said you're no angel, no angel anymore."

9. "The Last High," by the Dandy Warhols.
Courtney Taylor may be one of the most pretentious rock musicians around (which, damn!, is saying something, isn't it?), but he does manage to make some impressive music nonetheless. I love the rolling tempo of this song, the feeling of space... The feeling of giving something up that you have loved.

10. "Overcome," by Tricky.
This is one of the most singularly amazing songs I've ever heard. The music is unearthly and empty sounding, as if somehow you stumbled out into a grey and desolate landscape that had witnessed the apocalypse centuries ago. Your only company: the beautiful voice of Tricky's singer, whose name I have never learned... Her British accent sounds more exotic than it should, and I love it.

11. "King's Crossing," by Elliott Smith.
This is an emotionally gut-wrenching song. It is, by my estimation, Elliott Smith's summation of his life and mental state. His lyrics are arrestingly straightforward, but state everything powerfully and gracefully. Accuracy is what I always shoot for when writing lyrics, myself: the ability to take the emotion you are feeling, and to convey it, exactly as you are feeling it, to the listener. Elliott Smith knew where he was going, had the clarity of mind to write about it with a disturbing beauty (considering how dark the emotional content is), wrote music strong enough to support such emotional weight, and poured out how he felt about his life, and what he expected to happen. A truly breathtaking song.

12. "Dream Brother," by Jeff Buckley.
How could someone have a voice like Jeff Buckley's and still be as talented at the guitar as he was? Is that fair, being that good at more than one thing? Grace, the one album he completed before he died, will always beg the question, "What would he have done, had he survived longer?" A singularly talented musician, whose work only gets better the more I hear it.

13. "I Know," by Fiona Apple.
I have never understood how a voice like Fiona Apple's could come from such a small body. It is deep, for a woman's voice, but has no difficulty drifting up into higher pitches... It is a beautiful voice, without question. Her lyrics are often very good, as is her musical talent. If a woman sang a song like this to me, as it is sung here, I would (all cheesiness aside) be content to die right there. Hm... Maybe I can get Karla to learn this one. I love her already -- I don't think she could ever chase me away if she sang this to me once.

PART II

1. "2+2=5," by Radiohead.
Thom Yorke has an incredible singing voice. Power and delicacy all in one. This song uses both to good effect, combining his vocals and the always-excellent musicianship of his bandmates into a frenzied, thrashing song. Good stuff.

2. "A Perfect Day Elise," by PJ Harvey. (The iTunes Original version, not the album version.)
Polly Jean Harvey... Her voice dominates this song, its strength bolstered by the heavy echo effect put on it. The grinding guitars and driving drum beat give her voice something to fly above, and it works.

3. "No One Knows," by Queens of the Stone Age.
This could be the perfect rock single. Excellently played, good audio dynamic of rising and falling intensity, and a great rock vocal all jammed into a short, radio-friendly time frame.

4. "One of These Days," by Doves.
Big, strong rock musicianship combined with good vocals = Bryn likes it. The guitar solo, while relatively simple, is awesome. Any song that makes you want to write your own music must be good stuff, and every time I hear this I think, "Damn, I should write something like that."

5. "Dead Man," performed by Honey White.
Neil Young wrote it, we played it. "Come on, Bryn," you are probably thinking, "putting one of your own songs into a list like this kind of cheapens the whole list, man!" Well... I disagree. I am not including this for egotistical reasons -- while I am extremely proud to have been a part of recording this, you may notice that my guitar is simply background. This song is absolutely dominated by Brian Wolff's lead guitar, which, without exaggeration, is some of the best guitar playing I have ever heard in my life. The set up in the studio was fun: Brian's guitar was pumped through three huge half-stack amplifiers at one end of the large studio space, and all the microphones were way at the other end. It was so loud that Brian had to wear ear plugs under his headphones, and John Mayer the Engineer only went out there with rifle-range head phones on. I was inspired by Brian's performance to try it out myself, and after blasting through the song and looking up happily to my bandmates and engineer in the recording booth, I received this advice: "Don't quit your day job."

6. "Nothing as it Seems," by Pearl Jam.
I listened to Pearl Jam's first album, "Ten," in seventh grade. Here I am, 29 and counting, and they are still just about my favorite band. The accoustic rhythm guitar combined with the blisteringly distorted and echoy lead and the throb of the fretless bass are a perfect backdrop for Eddie Vedder's subdued vocals. They have, to my delight each time, played this song at every Pearl Jam concert I've been to, and Mike McCready's solo destroys every time.

7. "Be My Noir," by the Mermen.
I got into the Mermen during my surf instrumental phase. (I haven't really "grown out" of surf music at all, but I have certainly set the boundaries of what I like, which means that I'm no longer actively searching for new bands in this sub-genre.) The very first time I saw them, at Soho's in Santa Barbara, they opened with this song. I proceeded to drink quite a bit, and enjoy myself quite a bit, and they proceeded to literally blow out the power in the place twice. Jim Thomas is an amazing guitar player, and knows how to use his equipment -- he literally has stacks of stuff on stage with him to create the tones he does. Oh, and keep in mind that this song, like the rest of the album it came from, was recorded live in the studio. No overdubs whatsoever, according to the liner notes. Impressive.

8. "Prenzlauerberg," by Beirut.
This song may sound a bit out of place here, but I adore it nonetheless. The vocal melody is beautiful, and Zach Condon's voice works perfectly for it. Rock music may be my favorite, but not to the exclusion of all else, after all.

9. "Vermillion," by Mercury Rev.
An uncharacteristically up-tempo song for Mercury Rev. This song makes me want to move (tap my foot, nod my head, drum on whatever surface is available, etc.) every time I hear it. It's a strong song that nonetheless sounds beautiful to me.

10. "Pioneer to the Falls," by Interpol.
When I bought this album at Borders in Mission Viejo and sat down in my truck to drive home, I was happy with the purchase: it sounded good as the first track unwound. Then came the guitar solo... The type of thing that I always love doing, an echo-drenched, fast-picked beauty that's done too soon. Pushed Interpol up from my list of "Pretty Solid Bands" to "These Guys are Awesome."

11. "The Road Leads Where it's Led," by Secret Machines.
Jeff Hostert turned me on to these guys, and the first time I saw them cemented how much I like them. We jammed four of us into Jeff's truck (and have you ever tried to sit in the back seats of a Ford Ranger with someone else? It sucks) and drove a stifling hour and a half or so deep into San Diego. The show was worth it -- I am occasionally amazed by the fact that these guys can reproduce the sound of their studio albums in a live setting.

12. "I Will Light You on Fire," by the Golden Shoulders.
One Friday afternoon I was walking across UCSB's campus and heard the faint and distorted echo of a band playing live in Storke Plaza, under the tower. I wandered over and the noise coalesced into a roots-rock sounding band as I approached. I was impressed. So when Adam Klein announced that they were playing the next evening in Isla Vista I made sure to tell Keir and my closest musical buddies. They played at the Espresso Roma coffee shop on Pardall Road (which has long since closed down), and played a great (and often hilarious -- Klein is really funny) set while we happily drained several pitchers of beer. I love this song's lyrics, and it's a fun as hell song to play, despite being the same four chords the whole way through.

13. "The Golden Age," by Beck.
Brian and Keir told me so. "You have to get this album," they said. "Sure, I'll get around to it," I replied. I liked Beck, but he'd never really blown me away. Well, I finally picked this up, and he did blow me away. Sea Change is an excellent album, and it begins with an excellent song. But this one, I think, works well as a closer too. So here it is.

Grad School Claims Second Honey White Guitarist

2008-06-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

Those of you who followed Honey White in our active, ass-kicking Rock Days of Yore know that a year ago, Graduate School claimed Brian and took him (and his indispensable lead guitar skills) away from us, indirectly paving the way for my egomaniacal plunge into fiction writing and instrumental bass guitar ambient wankery.

And now this- look how happy and smug Bryn has become since being accepted to UCI's Education department:

Our frontmanly singer-guitarist knows, however, that he's merely traded one monkey house for another. Unprofessional behavior from his ex-Ocean Institute colleagues will look like a day at the beach compared to a classroom full of rampaging high schoolers. Surely.

Well, maybe not. We shall see. In the meantime, let's everyone congratulate Bryn on his fantastic achievement. His future students have no idea what's in store for them.

"This Lullaby" from the Gallery

2008-05-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, Honey White had a rehearsal session at the homey little Milpas gallery in Santa Barbara. It would be our last for some time, as Brian went off to D.C. for school. Owen was there and shot plenty of photos, and I recorded the whole thing.

We did a Queens of the Stone Age cover: "This Lullaby." The video's a bit messy on YouTube but, well, that's (@$#)%#@ing YouTube for you, isn't it?

Ten YEARS Man! ("Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor" Edition)

2008-04-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

Second in the series, for the Mojo's second album. Click on the link below for a big fat essay. Listen to some audio below that.

The History Mix: Don't Mix Your Drinks

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before: a confident, well-oiled machine of a rock band comes off a banner year full of a whole new set of wild ideas that they're just dying to impress upon the wider world, and in the process of actually recording anything and everything they can think of (usually under the guise of "progress" or "growth"), the earnest, lovable, and hopelessly deluded young men instead cough up a formless gob of tunes that makes everyone wonder what the big deal was about them in the first place. Okay, well, maybe that's not exactly what happened, but it's the best description that fits around the genesis of Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor, the second Mojo Wire album, released hard on the heels of the first one, and giving off a distinct whiff of undercooked tunes slathered in a myriad of gooey sonic effects. More...

Play this album (with 4 bonus tracks!):

New CD Release: "The Weapon Of Young Gods" by Low Tide

2008-03-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

UPDATE 3/31/08: iTunes Link! | Band Camp Link!

As many of you know, for a little over a year I've been writing a novel, and after a while I decided that it might be fun to make a soundtrack for it too, under the "Low Tide" name of my old late '90s side project. As of March 11, the Weapon of Young Gods album was up for sale on CD Baby, and will soon be on iTunes. Since it's kind of a low-profile holding pattern release, and as an all-instrumental background music album it's not exactly chart-busting material, I decided to make it a limited edition of about 10-20 hard copies. Once on iTunes, though, it's out for the whole universe, so the CDs will be a rarity.

The recording process was pretty quick; I thought it would be more fun if I didn't worry too much about making everything "perfect," so I didn't spend too much time on any given song. If it sounded "done" after 3-4 hours of work, then it was done. The cover is actually similar to the book cover I made, but the big blue mess is actually a painting I did for a work-sponsored art project in December where we had a limited time to make something fantastic. That worked well with my ideas for making this album, so I went with it.

I've written a little more about this album before, but I want to go into deeper details about the songs. You don't have to know the story to like the music (and the story's not finished anyway), but if there are chapters posted, I linked to them in each song's description. If you like, you can preview some audio below, and even listen or buy on Low Tide's CD Baby page.

So, the songs:

"Calaveras Desagradables" is the soundtrack for Roy's nightmare that begins the story. It has his theme in it, the same one that shows up later in "The Morbid Frieze" and other songs. The drums are Billy playing from a session at the gallery where Brian and I recorded samples of him that we could use later for demos (and so we have), but I filtered Billy's drum part through quite a few effects processors to make it sound bigger and scarier. This song is also sort of based on a mix I did of some Mermen songs, back when I would listen to them all the time while writing. For whatever reason, the Mermen's music makes me think of Dana Point, so they are the perfect soundtrack when writing scenes taking place there.

"Last Train Leaving The Abyss" is based on a loop from my echo pedal, with some overdubs and other effects. The ambient noise in the back is actually Brian's guitar part for the mellow live version of "Lighting Rod" that Honey White played in '05/'06. "Last Train" was the third piece I worked on for this album, and it isn't as strong as some of the others, but it sounds great for a train song, so I set it to Derek's Amtrak scene.

"The Morbid Frieze" and "Artificial Archaeology" are variations on the same theme, one that is basically "Roy's theme" and the main musical phrase on this album. It pops up in many of the other songs ("Calaveras" for example) but here it's just the fuzzy echo-bass adorned with a few other processors. The riff is a mutated version of something Bryn played during a Honey White jam from the Seville St. practice room, in 2004. In the book, "Morbid Frieze" goes with a scene where Roy and Nadia are up on the Niguel Hill trail at night, and "Archaeology" is set later on in the dorms when two characters tell each other their stories.

"It's Quiet Up Here" is attached to a scene where Derek retreats to the calm of his grandparents' backyard. The music is originally from a jam with Brian, Billy, and me on 7/3/05 at the Milpas gallery, but I sent it through so many filters that it melted into the keyboard/pad chord you hear in the background. It's one of my favorites on this album. There's a theme in it that could be for the Derek character, I guess, but it also has a fuzzy bass riff that matches the Arroyo sisters' theme (Lisa & Olivia) too.

"Fending Off Implosion" is one of the songs where Brian and Billy's parts are indispensable. Like some of the other stuff on this album, it's based on a weird abstract jam we made in July 2005 at the Milpas gallery. Whenever Honey White would practice there, Billy's mom's paintings would be up on the walls, and they were all beautiful seascapes to which our big, echoey music fit very well. For the 7/3/05 session without Bryn, though, there was an abstract exhibit on display in the gallery, and so Brian and I went nuts with our effects pedals, creating with Bill an obtusely moody, mellow, drum-circle-ish piece. I overdubbed a few things on it later. In the story, this song is part of a scene where Roy and his friends wander the UCSB campus at night, hopelessly stoned.

"Concussions" and "Leave The Rest In Ruins" are two variations on a song I wrote for Honey White in 2007 called "Tempting Fate." My goal is still to get it recorded by the band, since that would be better than either of these versions, but for now I thought I'd use it for this soundtrack. The drums are built from samples of Billy playing at the gallery, but everything else is me. "Concussions" goes with a scene of Derek playing soccer, and "Ruins" is attached to one of his party-gone-wrong scene later in the story. The effects loop percussion in "Ruins" is something that I had to struggle with, and it was the only bit of music that violated my "don't work on things too much" rule for this disc. The song's title comes from a line in the "Tempting Fate" lyrics, just to show its lineage.

I made "Backwards Fear" back in November '07, before I even thought about doing a WOYG soundtrack project. It set the tone though- being finished quickly and without too much fuss, which is not my usual working method at all. As the first song finished before the album had any direction, maybe it doesn't fit as well with the others, but I still like it a lot. It's based on an abstract bit of music called "The Fear" that Brian made in 2005 with his friend Luke, and I took that and reversed it, grafting onto a jazzy drumbeat from Bill (recorded at Seville St. in '04) and overdubbing my own bass part onto everything. This one and "Fending Off Implosion" are the most "band"-sounding songs on the album. It's set to the scenes in the book where Roy and Francesca get together.

"Accidental Recon" and "Immortals On The Loose" are based on a killer guitar riff of Brian's from about 2006(?) that I thought would be a great 12-bar blues riff, but he immediately made it into something even better that perhaps he or Honey White will record in the future. For now, though, I gave it the Low Tide treatment, both mellow for "Recon" (a scene in which Derek drives around Dana Point at night) and loud for "Immortals" (where he is confronted by the menacing Addison brothers). "Recon" is another of my favorites from this disc. "Immortals" isn't as grand as the title implies, since the percussion doesn't quite bash as much as I wanted to, but more about that later (see entry below for "This Won't Hurt A Bit").

"Starting Fires" and "They Always Run" are two different takes of the same song, which is pretty much a slowed-down, octave-pedal-enhanced version of the Arroyo sisters' theme riff (which first appears in "Quiet Up Here"). It's all me, except for Billy's gallery-drums, which are shot through a sort of chaos-filter that shatters them like glass. The tunes are deep, dark, late-night music. "Fires" is set to a scene where Roy is ambushed by Olivia Arroyo, and "Run" is set to the quick downhill rush of the story's end.

"First Set At Strands" is my favorite song on this album, but ironically it's the shortest one at about 1:30. It was the second song I worked on for this project, but the first after I'd decided to make it a soundtrack for the book. It's all echo-bass, the most similar to the previous Low Tide material from 1999, and was originally simply named "First Set" before I attached it to a scene in the novel with Roy and Francesca at Strands beach in Dana Point.

"This Won't Hurt A Bit" is, like "Concussions" and "Leave The Rest In Ruins," based on a song written with Honey White in mind, called "Hold Still" (a combination of my lyric plus Bryn's great slide-guitar riff). The title for "This Won't Hurt" comes from a lyric in that song. However, unlike "Tempting Fate," HW had practiced "Hold Still" on several occasions since its inception in 2005 (you can hear a version of it at the end of this post about our practice recordings). The demo for "Hold Still" was based on a jam we actually did in the studio while recording How Far Is The Fall in 2004, and "This Won't Hurt" actually has vestiges of that demo in it, albeit crunched beyond recognition into the gravelly percussion track used here (and on "Immortals"). For the novel, I would use this song anytime there is violence. Two characters are the victims of brutal assaults in this story, and I always felt that the slinky, malicious quality of "Hold Still" would work in scenes like that.

"The Weapon And The Witness" is the soundtrack for a scene in which Roy and Olivia walk the Niguel Hill trail during a hot, quiet July day, so it has both of their themes in it. I tried to give it a sense of sparseness and of altitude, so those two themes are sort of light and airy, but I grounded the song with some more of Billy's drum tracks from July 2005.

So, that's that. You can listen to a few of the songs in full using the player below, or you can check out short audio previews on Low Tide's CD Baby page. Thanks for the indulgence.

Honey White: History Mix 2002-2007

2008-03-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Or, How To Not Write A Novel In One Easy Step!

Indeed. Tangling with (#&@)_^%($* video/DVD authoring software in an effort to make, basically, a 10-minute Glorified Home Movie about one's band that rocks will keep one from normal, human creative pursuits. Because when you kill a week and a half worth of time working on projects like this bastard, you post the goddam thing everywhere you bloody well can. It looks like an epitaph, but it's not.

Anyway:

Brian Wolff, Y'all, with a Vengeance

2008-02-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, it's true- Honey White's very own PhD candidate of Neuroscience, Brian Wolff, has finally caved and entered the year 2006 with his very own MySpace page. He has infiltrated the vast Murdoch empire of evil for his own nefarious purposes, and a king-hell charge into the abyss always merits applause and general genuflection.

So give up a big-ass w00t! for Brian.

I mention this because, in addition to the fact that we all assumed that, like Pixies and Police reunions, this would never happen, it also appears that Brian is offering up several of his own tunes for the auditorial enjoyment of all. "Dropped D" and "Happy" are still my picks of the Wolff litter, but there are more where those came from, so go over and have a listen.

Oh, and another thing. Does it strike anyone as a bit weird that there are so many musical deep thinkers out there named Brian? I mean, Eno tops the list, but PhD-in-Astronomy Brian May, from Queen, is in there too. Just something to ponder.

Low Tide "Weapon Of Young Gods" Preview

2008-01-28T21:46:00.000-08:00

Recently I'd threatened to unleash a ton of new Low Tide music upon the world, and just to show I'm not always all talk, I'm tossing off 5 of the 16 tracks from the all-instrumental "Weapon Of Young Gods" soundtrack for everyone's moody ambient enjoyment. Now that the "short novel" of the same name got its own blog this morning, I figured it was about time to release some tunes. I only want to write a few things about them right now, just for context, since who the hell knows when the final version of the story will be finished.

So- points of reference in terms of music include two expansively epic instrumental groups: The Mermen and Explosions in the Sky. The massive Mermen songs always remind me of growing up in Dana Point, where much of the story takes place, and I did actually compile an all-Mermen soundtrack to play while writing. Explosions is the powerhouse quartet from Texas who most famously played the music for the "Friday Night Lights" movie and TV show, but their proper albums are some of my favorite recordings. They manage to bottle the wide open spaces of Texas in the same way the Mermen seem to encapsulate the feel of California.

Other influences include Nathan Johnson's soundtrack for "Brick," one of my favorite films (which also takes place in South OC); same for Neil Young's music for "Dead Man." The first two albums by Tortoise also figured big, because they always remind me of nighttime in Isla Vista, another main setting. The U2/Eno "Passengers" collaboration was influential too, not only because Eno is the king of ambient, but because that album came out right in the middle of when this story takes place: late 1995/early 1996.

As for the new Low Tide/WOYG songs themselves, I'll just say that "First Set At Strands" is exactly that- the sound of waves at my favorite childhood beach; "Backwards Fear" is dorm-drinking music based on a piece of Brian and Luke's that I reversed and grafted onto a jazzy beat of Billy's, plus a bassline from me; "It's Quiet Up Here" is refuge-music, looking out toward Catalina from my grandparent's backyard; "Calaveras Desagradables" is nightmare music, and "Starting Fires" is less about arson and more about ambush.

I plan to release the whole shebang in March, definitely on the web, and maybe as a CD. Anyway, the audio:

Audio Archives 14: Bryn Goes Solo Edition

2008-01-23T21:04:00.000-08:00

Tonight's wisdom comes from my brother, and Honey White's singer/guitarist, Bryn DuBois. As always, you may skip to the audio if you wish. --Keir

The band hadn't played together in months. There were a number of contributing factors, naturally, but the bottom line is that I no longer had an easy creative outlet. Boredom is not something that troubles me often, but it was certainly lurking in the background.

It had been a grey and overcast tail end of winter in Southern California. My ongoing soundtrack for this relatively uneventful but unoppresive gloom was a complete immersion in instrumental surf rock. Which, actually, seemed just as appropriate to me on a foggy day as on a brilliantly sunny one. And sure, Dick Dale and the Chantays were in there, but I mostly saw the classic surf of the early '60s as the framework; after all, most of the musicians were younger then than I was now! What really interested me were the more recent extensions of what had been done earlier: the Mermen, the Insect Surfers, the Halibuts, the Eliminators, Los Straitjackets.

Of course, the more I listened to it, the more I figured I could do it myself. And so, against this backdrop of impending boredom, the echoing space of reverb-soaked guitars, and grey afternoons in my apartment, I began churning out song after song of simple, surf- and blues- inspired instrumentals. I enlisted my brother's help in recording them, which barely took as much time as the composition did. We took care of it in the living room of our one-bedroom apartment, with me playing the drums with brushes rather than sticks so as to keep the noise down in deference to the neighbors. Our eternally-abused four track recorder was all we had in the way of recording equipment, and the lo-fi homemade quality of the recording is readily apparent on every song. They were done one track at a time, built up from drums to bass to rhythm guitar and finally lead.

Some have aged, in my opinion, better than others -- they aren't, with only a few exceptions, particularly complicated songs, and relied pretty heavily upon the formulae laid down by the music done in the past. Since very few people (other than myself and possibly Keir) would find a complete song-by-song description interesting, I'll satisfy myself with... half? Yeah, half should do. The More Noteworthy Ones, I think.

"Windward Mark" was basically my attempt to take a page more or less directly from Dick Dale's book and write a fast, dark-sounding song like "Misirlou." I even followed his "low E string, then high E string" approach. But in the end, there tends to be a reason why a cliche was copied enough to become a cliche -- the music certainly isn't Beethoven, but I'm satisfied with it as a pop song. Enough, in fact, that I sneaked it into Honey White's playlist for a while (played nearly twice as fast, since Billy actually can play the drums, unlike me; hell, I just bang on them with passable rhythm). Now that I'm writing this, I recall that this song inspired one of my favorite moments on stage. We had just torn through one of the best versions we'd every played of it -- good enough to be included on a live CD Keir later put together, even -- and with a final deafening crash, brought the song to a halt.

After the scattered applause had died down:
My friend Jeff Hinck: "YOU GUYS ROCK!!"
Crowd: Laughter.
Me: "Thanks! I know."

"Whitecap" had been recorded already with the Mojo Wire, but I wanted to include it here too. My retooling of it made it fit in with the rest of the CD, but, though I'm proud of this song, did nothing to improve upon the job already done by Keir, Adam, and Brandon.

"Those Aren't Oil Rigs" eventually found its way into Honey White's setlist as well, under the title "My Second Shipwreck." It's a better title, after all, and since it was my own damned song I figured I could steal the name from the song bearing the title here. I will forgive you if this is confusing. Anyway, this song is undoubtedly the single most complicated song, musically, that I've written. Its genesis was in the movie "Dead Man" and the soundtrack that Neil Young had composed for it. I found his music so powerful (especially enhanced by the content of the film, the smoke in my head at the time, and the fact that it was around two in the morning) that when I arrived home in the early morning I was compelled to play the guitar. Keir was already asleep, so I took my electric guitar out to the living room, sat on the couch, and played it without amplification. I must have played for no more than an hour, and out of nowhere came three different musical themes and a chorus, including both lead and rhythm guitar. I have never experienced a creative outburst like this, before or since.

The title, in a completely unrelated fashion, comes from an argument between two of my friends at three AM somewhere between Dana Point and Catalina Island. Being the cautious young men that we were, we had decided that, for such a short trip ("It only takes eight or nine hours to get there!") we didn't need to utilize the formal navigation skills that we all had learned, and would just find our way visually. In the dark. While trying to figure out whether we were, in fact, still on course, a muted but long-lasting argument arose regarding whether or not lights on the horizon were stationary oil rigs (and thus points we could navigate by) or other ships.

"My Second Shipwreck" (the song titled so here, that is) is music that I've been meaning to resurrect ever since. I am still pleased with the music, though finding another place to put it may not occur any time soon. "Eleven O'Clock" is a Morphine song, and I was proud enough of the idea of converting it into a surf instrumental that I didn't actually put much thought into how to do that conversion in the first place. "Mariel on the Beach" is one of the prettier songs I've written, I think. And as such, I was proud to be able to play it at Lis' wedding! I wrote it the last summer that I lived in the Corvalian house in Dana Point, when I was getting tan by day teaching sailing, and occasionally getting drunk by night. (I remember one night clearly -- well, figuratively speaking of course -- when I returned home... Mom took one look at me and said, "I think you'd better go to bed, Bryn." So I did.)

So there. All of these recordings, whatever they may lack in recording quality or compositional acumen, are fun to revisit. An audio photo album is really what they are. But damn, the recordings are only eight years old, and I'm only twenty-nine. Why the hell do I feel old after having written this?

Audio: Bryn's solo "My Second Shipwreck" album, from April 2000.

Audio Archives 13: Low Tide Edition

2008-01-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

So tonight I'd like to tell you all a story. If you want, skip to the audio and play the music while you read it.

A long time ago in a student ghetto far far away, the bass player for a band called The Mojo Wire sat bored and listless as his bandmates decided to do other things than play in bands. That this was 99% his fault, what with his managerial ineptitude and absolute lack of basic social graces and self-promotional skills, had never entered his head. He was mostly depressed and preoccupied with the brutal vagaries of life in Isla Vista during the final days of the decadent American Century, and so he successfully disregarded the outside world in favor of pursuing one of his favorite pastimes: playing the bass guitar through an echo pedal so as to forget a slew of nasty rejections by various and sundry Babes Of Rock.

He did this echo-bass guitar thing quite frequently in those days. Indeed, he had already seen fit to subject his band to this device in the form of one of his (eventually) best songs, and little did they know what would result from their enthusiastic encouragement of his efforts. Oh yes, simple compositional efforts were just the tip of the trash heap for this dude. He wanted to churn out splendidly epic feats of sub-woofing power, and so he did, so much so that eventually another band member couldn't help but notice.

"Fucking hell," said the drummer. "We've created a hideous, insatiable monster!" "Sorry," said the bassist. "Hey, would you mind recording some drum tracks for me?" "Uh, okay man," said the drummer. "Sweet," said the bassist. And so they hauled out the trusty Tascam 4-track and went to work. Unfortunately, the results were not necessarily splendid, nor epic, but they did woof with the subs and consume billable amounts of electric power. Nevertheless, the bassist decided to assemble the recordings into what, in ancient vinyl days, was known as an "E.P," and so enlisted the help of his guitarist's recording software and CD burner.

The guitarist's patience, or perhaps his aesthetic sense of taste, was sorely tested by the bassist's chosen design for the CD's cover. "Dude," said the guitarist, "that's just your new girlfriend's photo with some cheesy Photoshop 2.0 filters on it. That's not a CD cover." "Maybe not," replied the bassist, "but it's an E.P. cover." The gutiarist rolled his eyes and went back home to run his militant dictatorship in peace. And so it was, on July 28, 1999, three months after the belated release of his band's third album, the bassist celebrated the release of the "Dive" E.P. by the ad-hoc "band" he christened "Low Tide."

Needless to say, it did not light the world on fire, not then, and not anytime in the future. However, one of its songs, "Saturation" did go on to become the Mojo Wire song "Peak Of My Career," and another, "Whatever Gets You Going," eventually became the intro to the Honey White song "Lightning Rod." Of the rest, only the "Dive" title track would retain a fond space in the bassist's musical heart, but the last song on the disc, the 2-year-old "Monsoon," did earn the appreciation of Honey White's guitarist many years later because of its "pure, unashamed druggy weirdness." And that, as everyone else hoped and prayed, should have been the end of it, but of course it wasn't.

You see, 9 years later, the bassist was trying to think of things to do during another band hiatus, so he began writing a novel. He became entirely too wrapped up in this hopelessly gimped effort, but missed playing the bass guitar, so he decided to compose a soundtrack for the unfinished novel, and foist the sub-woofing wankery of Low Tide on a new generation of unsuspecting humanity in 2008.

Soon, very soon, the rafters of Southern California will rumble again with the vibrations of the Fender Jazz Echo-Bass. Until then, anyone silly enough to consider themselves an eager listener may wish to endure the original Low Tide "Dive" E.P. as a reminder to what depths Jean-Keir DuBois can sink when his lyics fail him and his massive ego consumes him.

Audio: Low Tide's "Dive" E.P.

Ten YEARS Man! ("Battery Acid Blues" Edition)

2007-12-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

New series, sort of. How about I post some relevant links on the ten-year anniversaries of Mojo Wire history? Personally I think that's an awesome idea. So here you go, two bits from the first Mojo Wire album, released December 15, 1997.

The History Mix: Twelve-Bar Ruse

First albums, by anyone, are almost always momentous and fun: some bands stick their toes in the water, working their way up to greatness and competence on later records; some jump in head first, splashing their pent-up talent (or lack thereof) all over everything. Committing the creative impulse to posterity for the first time often results in outpourings of good, bad, and ugly originality, but it's rarely unmemorable for everyone involved. Some debuts seem to come out of nowhere with surprising freshness, and some crawl out of the distant artistic past via long-ignored or discarded stylistic roots (and routes). Some are labors of love, some are by-blows made to avoid boredom, some come from improvised chaos, and some are complete accidents. All of this can be said about the Mojo Wire's debut album Battery Acid Blues. More...

Play this album (with 6 bonus tracks!):

The History Mix #8: Few And Far Between

2007-12-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

A sparse pool of gigs provide two more live albums that catch Honey White presenting their tentative, then fully-formed baroque phase.

Moody studio rock epics usually don't go over well live, at least not without a killer stage presentation and plenty of smoke, mirrors, and playback. Forcing a live stage show to duplicate the intricate vagaries of a band run amok in the studio has often meant career suicide for countless rock bands, famous or otherwise. In Honey White’s case, however, the gaping hole where the idea of "career" was unceremoniously filled by "fun but expensive hobby" continued to let the music speak for itself even as practicality and logistics finally eclipsed the group's gig and rehearsal time. Their third and fourth live discs take up the baton where the first two left off, blotting indie-rock posterity with songs from the extended victory lap of live shows that supported their How Far Is The Fall studio album. The tentative muddiness of Saturated Songs and the casual confidence of Deluge And Drought marked a complete progression of creativity from start to finish, informally presenting Honey White’s most adventurous music with ease.

As the band’s sonic vocabulary grew, their setlists shrank, often dramatically so. New material was road-tested immediately in early 2004, and Honey White dropped almost all of the covers and Mojo Wire songs to make room. Time-devouring monsters like "Keep Moving" and "Famous Last Words" anchored many gigs on a wobbly foundation of effects, but older bursts of energy like "Unprofessional" still kept listeners on their toes. The 2005 performances achieved a more ideal dynamic, while still keeping the shows at around the one-hour mark. Sets ebbed and flowed so that more mid-tempo tunes like "Island Fever" and "Mercy Rule" met the audience halfway between the longer, slower songs and harder, faster stuff like "Bottlerocket" and "Nightfall." This sort of pacing became beneficial as Honey White's bookings changed both in size and space, with multiple gigs at theater-sized venues on their home turf in Santa Barbara and club-level appearances farther away in Ventura and Los Angeles.

Saturated Songs documents the beginning of the process, finding Bryn, Brian, Keir and Billy in Honey White Mark II, shaking off dust and working out the kinks of their recently-reassembled musical identity. This was easier to accomplish on familiar stages like Giovanni's and the Wildcat Lounge, but the relatively cramped conditions at those places and the general sonic uncertainty of the band collectively contributed to the overall murky feel of Honey White's third live disc. Fresh tunes like "Let Go" and the jumpy instrumental "Sean Goes To Africa" pumped some new energy around the album, but it's ultimately dominated by Honey White's most massive leviathans: "Sweet Oblivion," "Keep Moving," "Famous Last Words," and an extended run at Neil Young's "Dead Man" theme. The My Band Rocks-era material that rounds out the compilation- "Unprofessional," "Wayfaring Stranger," a muted "Sandman" and Bryn's solo take of "Lightning Rod"- seems to barely hold its own in comparison. Released in June 2004 as half the band moved away from Santa Barbara and they all geared up for a series of demanding recording sessions in San Francisco, Saturated Songs arguably stands as Honey White's weakest self-produced live album.

The central idea that Saturated Songs hinted at- a focused revitalization based on Keir & Billy's fused rhythm section topped off by the twin forces of Brian's guitar and Bryn's voice- was still a good one, so the band refined it while tracking How Far Is The Fall in the studio. The fact that eight of that album's final ten songs had already been solidified onstage was a key component of its successful completion; the bulk of the studio material was tracked live, so the basics were already there and the band was free to stretch each song to its own creative limit when overdubbing and mixing. Many bands discover with surprise that recording is a universe away from playing live, but Honey White was able to translate their onstage cohesiveness to the studio and enhance each new song in that setting; if every song began its life as an organic, performance-based entity, it would always be able to work well onstage, no matter what it sounded like on record. The group's frequent initial rehearsals back in 2002 were still paying off, and would continue to do so as they resumed playing live.

Everything fell into place at the gigs captured on Deluge And Drought, Honey White's fourth live album. The 2005-2006 dates themselves were infrequent by this point, since the band was now hampered by the realities of time, space, and the 40-hour work week, but that rarity only drew bigger crowds when showtime finally rolled around. The higher-profile venues and their better acoustics also helped Keir's trusty Roland VS-890 pick up clearer, punchier takes (and fully-formed, assured performances) of not only the tunes underserved by Saturated Songs, but also strong debuts of "Island Fever," "Blacking Out," and "Nightfall." Drastically different remakes of "Lightning Rod" and "One Last Hallelujah" also made the cut. Generally, the guitarists were able to re-create their studio effects on the spot, embellishing everything from Bryn's crunchy tremolo in "Let Go" and E-bow in "Famous Last Words" to Brian's myriad liquid textures on "Blacking Out" and stratospheric solos on "Island Fever" and "Sweet Oblivion." The rhythm boys got to shine too; Keir's minimalist bass oozed with swagger, and a new snare drum of Bill's punctuated everything with gunshot-like power.

As a step up in composition, performance, and recording quality, and also as a balance to the group’s diminishing number of gigs, Deluge And Drought was the first Honey White live album to get wide exposure. In addition to the usual 50-copy limited-edition run received by its three predecessors, it joined Honey White's two studio albums on web-based music stores. The oft-delayed Deluge also dubiously became the first Honey White disc of previously-available material; by the time it was finally released in July 2007, more than a year after the band's last show, rough mixes of many Honey White shows had already shown up on the web.

At that point, though, the band was already deep into a second, prolonged stretch of hiatus-like downtime. This flip side of their achievements in the studio and on stage was induced by the same old logistics, but exacerbated by a glancing encounter with the precipitous "next level" of the music business. Lop-sided, pay-to-play gig contracts, ramped-up promotional requirements, and a galaxy of other stressful decisions unrelated to musical creativity all seemed to be right around the corner. Nobody in the band was too interested in exploring anything like that after enduring the logistical hurdles of 2004-2005. However, if and when Honey White does start up their epic noise machine again, the accomplished arc of music captured on these two live albums demonstrates that they have a ready-made template for how to do it well.

Play these albums:

This just in...

2007-11-14T00:33:00.000-08:00

...Crosby and Nurick will Stomp Us All, yo.

"Seaside Hamlet Skids," 8 & 11 years later

2007-11-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

With the usual "Sort Of" caveat. Just 2 shots of the same location where I got the images for the third Mojo Wire album. I actually shot the photos round about spring of 1997, and the album was of course released in '99, but whatever. I have a soft spot for it, muffly and amateur as it is. Anyway:

Bored Bassist = Lame Visual Jokes

2007-11-07T23:41:00.000-08:00

Because when you're a graphic designer and music nerd who's also in a band, you get to make dumb jokes like this at midnight during the week. Using, naturally, Owen's close-up portraits from our most recent practice.

UPDATE: Might as well have a go at the U2 version too, so there's HW as the "Pop" album. It may be worth mentioning that there's a site somewhere out there that compares U2 and Beatles album covers, considering all sorts of design elements from fonts to layout to whatever. "Let It Be" was stacked up with "Pop" for some easy-to-see reasons.

So I decided to follow this thing to its logical end and that's that, though we haven't exactly made a techno-rock album yet. Oh wait- Monkey Mike did remix "Unprofessional" once, so maybe that counts.

New video for "Let Go," sort of

2007-09-16T02:28:00.000-07:00

I just slapped together a promo clip of "Let Go" for the new live album, mashing up video from the 2004 Wildcat performance with audio from the 2005 I.V. Live show. The song always seemed green to me, so I put the color through a green filter. I guess this is Let Go, the Green Monster version. And yes, that means Bryn looks like a green monster. There's also a delay on the video to go with the echo and tremolo of the song. It may make you sick- hence another interpretation of "green monster." Boogaboogaboo!

Gig Notes: Lis & Nick's wedding in Capitola, 9/1/07

2007-09-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

Bryn and I were good elder brothers this weekend and took off (with Karla and Em) for Santa Cruz and our sister Lis' wedding. She married the handsome and talented Nick Kurns, the bad-assingest mandolin player in Santa Clara County. We were invited not only as best big brothers ever, but also to help with the soundtrack, and so we got to play some acoustified, instrumentalized Honey White songs and cover tunes as the happy couple walked to and from the ceremony. Lots of people took tons of pictures of the whole shebang, some of which you can see here.

"Deluge and Drought" now on CD Baby

2007-08-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

Honey White's fourth live disc is now available to buy via CD Baby's online store. Soon it will percolate through the intertubes to other places like iTunes (UPDATE 8/20: iTunes link!) and Emusic, but remember, the CD itself is a limited edition (as were all our live albums). Only 50 copies were pressed, and I'm saving a good chunk of those for the other guys in the band, so get it while you can. Why? It might be our best live album, that's why. Oh sure, the songs are already out there on the web if you know where to look (like, um, the streaming preview on our home page), but that's why the CDs got printed- for those people who (like me) want the best possible versions of songs they love: namely, the raw .wav files ripped right off the disc.

Besides, it's a collector's item, and at around $8.00, it's less expensive than our studio album. What would you get for your hard-earned cash? Well, how about the best live takes from our 2005/2006 shows? Here's the setlist:

1. Nightfall 2. Island Fever 3. Let Go 4. The Lightning Rod 5. Blacking Out 6. Famous Last Words 7. You Let Me Fall 8. Sean Goes To Africa 9. Sweet Oblivion 10. Unprofessional 11. Keep Moving 12. Bottlerocket 13. One Last Hallelujah

For those keeping score at home, that would amount to one new song not on any other album (Nightfall), two others that have not seen live release on disc (Island and Blacking Out), two more that are radically different from their original versions (Lightning Rod and Hallelujah), and then there's 8 more that are better on this disc than on previous live albums.

Finally, I'm sure you know that by buying our albums you're directly supporting the sacred cow of Indie Rock. Yep- as with the previous live discs, this one's self-recorded and self-produced (and yet, amazingly still sounds non-crappy!); all our live albums are subtitled "Live and Unprofessional" because hey, we're not Big Fat Mega Rich Rock Stars, and we're not going to be. We're four guys whose hobby is to make loud noise with expensive instruments. All we want is for people to periodically stroke our egos by telling us how awesomely cool we are for rocking the way we do.

So yeah, that's that. 4th live disc. Best one yet. Supplies limited. Low price. On sale here. Preview here. iTunes soon. Thanks again, for listening, gang.

Just give in, man.

2007-08-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

Give in to the hype machine and be in Rome: Honey White gets Simpsonized.

The Mojo Wire may as well be next. Can't wait to get Adam's hair and Joe's goatee in there.

Deluge And Drought: Live & Unprofessional Vol. 4

2007-07-02T21:41:00.001-07:00

So yeah, I've belatedly finished work on Honey White's 4th live album, with tracks from selected 2005/2006 shows. I plan to press some CDs, about 50 like the last 3 live discs, but for now you can listen to the mp3s:

And yes, they snap, crackle, and pop like vinyl, but really more like the last 3 unprofessionally made live albums. Don't believe me? Listen for yourself:

Live And Unprofessional (January 28, 2003)

Epic Noise Now (June 13, 2003)

Saturated Songs (June 24, 2004)

All linked files, as always, courtesy of the Live Music Archive's Open Source Audio section. I'll have more on Deluge (and the 3rd disc, Saturated Songs) in a new History Mix essay soon, so stay tuned.

Audio Archives 12: Honey White Rehearsal Tapes Vol. 2

2007-06-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, for Round 2 of the archive-trawl through these things, I've found some of my very favorite stuff. Skip to the audio or endure my blather. Fatal Flaws, here from a Seville St., Isla Vista rehearsal on 4/17/04 (where Brian and Bill are in the photo above), is an impromptu instrumental jam (though you can hear my voice waaaay in the back) that Bryn got to go crazy on with the guitar again, and it's even got the terrible butt-rock ending. On the other end of the spectrum, there's an instrumental jam of Sweet Oblivion from the very next night that is one of the goddam sweetest things we've ever improvised. I liked it so much I tacked it onto the end of our third live album as a bonus hidden track. For these two songs, and the speedy take of Heart On A Platter that follows, we were practicing for our second appearance at the Wildcat Lounge in downtown Santa Barbara. We pulled thirty people on a Monday night and, as surely everyone knows by now, it was the most-documented HW show ever, with video, photos, and audio recordings.

We were recording in San Francisco for most of the rest of 2004, but we did find time to get together at Table Salt on November 20 and 21 for some shambling affairs. At one point, we blasted through a series of Mojo Wire songs, and after a brutal take of Long Black Leather Boots, Bryn had no choice but to tell the rest of us to SHUT UP. We then did exactly that, pulling off a good version of our new quiet-arranged One Last Hallelujah. Well, not really- Hallelujah was from our first practice at the Milpas St. art gallery of Bill's parents. It's a great place to play, just as inspiring as Table Salt in terms of being surrounded by visuals, but at the gallery, the exhibits change, of course, so our mood often switched with them too (one time, Bill, Brian and I were surrounded by abstract works, and spend three hours making all sorts of weird sounds with the instruments). The take of Blacking Out here is from 3/27/05, as we practiced for our Ventura debut at Nicholby's.

The next three tunes are sort of a continuation down the line we'd started when we rearranged Hallelujah and Lightning Rod into slower and/or mellower versions. In fact, the take here of Lightning Rod, from 7/3/05, is one of my absolute favorite versions of the song- but Bryn's not even on it! Brian, Bill, and I eased out a cool quiet-surf instrumental of the song that day. Bryn was there on 10/23/05, however, for our similar initial re-workings of both So Cold (here as a strutting, slow funk take) and Shivering Sand (a reggae-ska take!), and though they're both mostly unformed and jammy, they're worth a listen to see how Honey White improvises together to change songs we've played a million times into newer, fresher things. After a small show in Santa Barbara, a big one in LA, and a canceled LA repeat, we sort of lay low for most of 2006 until resurfacing for a small show in the OC. We did manage to meet up in Ventura at the Lounge Pop studio on March 18, though, and I've taken versions of Nightfall, Let Go, and Green Hills from that session. Both Nightfall and Green Hills were new tunes of Bryn's (the former having been well received at gigs for months) and we pulled them off pretty well that night.

After that, there was the Dana Point gig, and...not much, until a few weeks ago when we met at the gallery again to see Brian off to D.C. Bryn, Brian and I played at Table Salt the night before (5/26/07), and the semi-acoustic take of Island Fever is from that practice. For the final gallery stuff, I'm gonna be selfish here and add one of my new ones called Hold Still, which obviously needs work, but has potential. Last but not least is a Queens of the Stone Age cover, This Lullaby, which Bryn had taught me when we played as the Scuppers on the deck of his ship.

There's much, much more where all this stuff came from, but I figured it would be overkill to subject everyone to more than 30 songs, so that's it for the HW practice tapes. I'll be back... sometime... with maybe some more interesting audio/video/writing. We shall see. Til then, thanks again for listening, everybody.

Audio:

Audio Archives 11: Honey White Rehearsal Tapes Vol. 1

2007-06-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

The major reason Honey White was a creative and artistic success for Bryn, Brian, Bill and myself was that we practiced like mad for almost all of the first year of the band's existence (that would be 2002). We got together at Earl's Table Salt room in downtown Santa Barbara usually twice a week, and did this pretty much straight from March until December. We drove each other crazy by the end of that run, but the great advantage of that first year of frenzied rehearsal was the fact that we had not only got along well personally and musically right from the start, but had also become so used to the unique characteristics of each other's playing styles that we were easily able to go out and play a gig with relatively little practice. Most of our shows from then on were spaced further apart, but we could get it together pretty well in preparation for them because of how much we practiced together at the beginning. I recorded lots of these practices (in addition to most of the shows as well, obviously), and I've had fun in the past few days collecting what I think are some of the more unique and/or representative songs from our rehearsal tapes into two relatively concise volumes for posterity's sake. Some are messy, some are funny, and some I don't know what the fuck we were thinking, but I think it's all worth a listen, especially since there's so goddam much of it that got left out. So, lemme splain (or you can skip my blather and go right to the audio player):

The first two songs here, Wayfaring Stranger and My Second Shipwreck, were recorded very badly by me on two 4-tracks wired together, hence the mono and overloaded sound. I included them here because they date from the first recorded practices I made of Honey White, 3/8/02 and 3/14/02 respectively. Well, I'm guessing those songs go with those dates. I can't be sure, actually, because of the conflicting info I get from the different CDs they were on, but whatever- they're the beginning. I put Wayfaring Stranger at the front because it was the first song Bryn did solo that got lots of people interested (indeed, he and Brian and I once opened a Mojo Wire show back in 2000 with this cover). When Billy answered our want ad for a drummer, he loved it right away too, so off we went.

Shipwreck and the next tune, Windward Mark (this version from 5/20/02), were both Mermen-inspired surf instrumentals Bryn had recorded with ten other songs for his solo album of instrumentals, also from 2000, and also called My Second Shipwreck. Honey White needed tunes to pad our short sets, so we were more than happy to take a shot at both of these. This take of Windward was also actually used by a guy I used to work with named Keith Kie as a soundtrack for his "Hi, I'm traveling in New Zealand and you're not!" video email not long after we recorded it. The Lightning Rod is also from the May 20 tape, which was one of our first attempts at it, I think. We used it as a reference when recording our debut My Band Rocks CD later that summer.

For guys who disliked jam bands, we did a lot of jamming. Inevitably, songs emerged from those jams that we solidified and made into real compositions, and a perfect example of that was this early version (9/23/02) of a song that became Let Go, my favorite Bryn-written Honey White tune. The other track included from that date never got lyrics added, but it changed titles from "The Happy Stoner Song" to Polarity (because of the shifting moods). The version here is about a minute longer, I think, then the one we ended up recording two years later in the studio.

The next two songs on the list, You Let Me Fall and Water Into Wine, come from one of the burned-out practices (specifically 12/12/02) where we still played well, but it seemed pretty clear that something needed to change, so we decided after this to only practice when we needed to, such as for upcoming gigs. Water Into Wine was actually an old Mojo Wire song that we tried to learn to give the gig setlist some fresh tunes, but it never turned out as well as we'd hoped, so we bailed on it. We still hadn't really shaken the general funk by April '03, though (despite one great gig at UCSB) and still sounded sorta exhausted on the take of Fatal Flaws from 4/9/03 included here. I used to do this thing in this song where I'd sing lyrics from another more famous song in the open 12-bar; I'd tossed in lyrics from BRMC, U2, and Wilco during shows, and here on this take I guess I tried to pick everybody up by being funny and sang some lines from Strong Bad's immortal anthem about Trogdor.

Honey White was pretty much inactive for the latter half of 2003, what with Bryn jetting off to Europe for three months and Bill drumming and recording in Texas with the punkers of Futureman, but we did get together twice, and naturally I recorded it. Before that, though, Bryn, Brian, and I had a jam session on 8/15/03 with erstwhile Mojo Wire frontman Adam Hill, and the four-piece we made (with Bryn on drums as in Mojo days) bashed out some fun takes of the Mojo Wire songs Long Black Leather Boots and Margarita, with Adam here taking on vocals and guitar. The next Honey White practice, from 9/12/03, was the first we had at the Seville Street practice rooms in Isla Vista, where Billy also did double duty with Futureman. That room was small and could get suffocatingly hot, but we managed to squeeze in some good work there, and I've highlighted that first date with takes of Wayfaring Stranger (here with Bryn on keyboards) and Dead Man.

The last two songs I've got for Volume 1 are also from the Seville St. room. We were often unable to record vocals using the P.A. system there, and in the take of So Cold I've included here, it's hard to hear Bryn's vocals over the noise of the band, but this take is pure gold for his absolutely blistering guitar solo that charges in halfway through the song. It's really fantastic- one of Bryn's finest musical moments in my opinion. Finally, there's an early version of Bottlerocket from 1/24/04, quieter and surfier and actually without Brian (he was in Tokyo at the time).

So that's Volume 1. I'll be back with a collection of our more recent practices (i.e. 2004-2007) in a few days. As always, thanks for listening.

Audio:

Video Slideshow: Dead Man

2007-06-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

As promised yesterday, Honey White's studio take of Neil Young's soundtrack tune. Brian owns it all the way through.

There's actually a story behind this version of the song that's the best one from our Take Root experience (where there were so many, of course). Brian's guitar is dominant in the mix of this song because it literally dominated the studio. Jon the engineer cranked Brian's signal through 3 huge speaker cabinets, set up way across the room from where Brian actually stood and played. The microphone behind him caught a whole room's worth of ambient air too.

But the volume. I mean, the VOLUME, dude. It was SO LOUD. How loud? Jon wore rifle range earphones when he went out to make adjustments to the amps. Brian's own sound-muffling earphones were small help too, but it was so worth it to get this take.

Now, there was a body shop for motorcycles next to the studio, and its proprietor was a big, big man who liked to play classic 70's soul, and play it loud enough to rumble through the walls to the room where we were recording. Jon asked him to stop several times, and when he finally did, we got the take of Brian's part, but not before Jon cranked it up even more and said something like "hope the guy next door has a change of underwear after we're through with this!"

So that's "Dead Man", the Honey White version. And yes, the Youtube audio sucks. How about an mp3 link, then: Honey White: "Dead Man". It never made it on the album because I was too intimidated by copyright law and correct citation for Neil, so it ended up on our gig demo and as a free download.

Audio Archives 10: It's Over When We Say It's Over

2007-06-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

I'm inaugurating a new way of going about this sort of thing (which will be retroactive, too): instead of simply listing the tracklisting and making it exclusive to MySpace, why not let everyone hear it? Well, duh. Here we go, then...

Honey White concert from the vaults: Giovanni's '04
So in light of the recent enforced hiatus that Honey White will have to endure, for this week's concert from the vaults (yes, it's baaaack) I thought I'd be optimistic and post our first concert of 2004, the last time that we came back after a significant hiatus (which had been the latter half of 2003). I think instead of commentary, I'll just re-post what I said of the show at the time:

"Hang on- did I say the show would go from "9:30-11pm"? Ah- well, turns out that translates as "whenever the Lakers/Kings game is over" until "closing". Brian said post-show that this was the weirdest gig we've ever played and I think I have to agree with him. Having the NBA as an opening act was only the beginning. "Mercy Rule" was a good, high-energy, LOUD thing to start the set with, and I think "Oblivion" went well too. We debuted 4 new songs tonight: "Sean Goes To Africa", "Bottlerocket", "Let Go", and "Keep Moving", and for the most part they went over great. Things were kind of claustrophobic and sometimes there were some nasty vibes, but surly basketball dudes were matched pound for pound by our legions of fans, and the place was quite packed. Thanks so much to everyone who came to see us. Conversely, a big middle finger goes to the drunk guy who kept yelling at us to play Zeppelin. Hey man, this note's for you."

Here's the audio:

Mojo Wire Archive:The Mojo Wire material I've got this time is sort of Barrel-Scraping, Part 2. The rare stuff here is from the looooong stretch between the April '99 release of "Seaside Hamlet Skids" and when the band fell apart at the end of 2001. Again, proceed with caution, or else with a patient sense of humor.

Random Bedrock Recordings, 1999
The last gasp of the Mojo Wire at the Bedrock was two rehearsals in June '99, with one recorded as the Adam/Bryn/Keir trio, one recorded as the full lineup with Joe. "The Worst Way" comes from the trio, and "Joe's 2nd" (I don't think he ever gave it a name) came from the full lineup session ("Joe's 1st" being the tune that ended up as "You're On Your Own"). "Bleak" was Bryn's first stab at the song which would become Honey White's version of "So Cold", but this version is notable as Joe's first appearance on a Mojo Wire recording, with his guitar solo. "Jetski" is the abomination of me playing guitar and bass, and Bryn playing drums, and its boring G-C chord changes never went anywhere special. "Breathe" is a song of Adam's that he recorded at the same time as "Blue Lantern Cove", "Happy Birthday", and "Anywhere But Here", the first two of which ended up on the "You're On Your Own" album.

Random Penthouse Recordings, 1999-2000
Bryn and I did lots of work at the Penthouse, where we all lived as next-door neighbors (Bryn and I in #24, Adam and Joe in #25) after leaving the Bedrock building. "Happy Birthday Part 2" is actually a tune from the last Bedrock gasp, but Adam's, erm, "vocals" are from later that year on Bryn's birthday, when we'd all moved to the Penthouse. "Water Into Wine", "You're On Your Own", and "Heart On A Platter" are all demos of the songs that ended up on the final Mojo Wire album, but here it's only Bryn and I playing on them. The versions here of "Shivering Sand", "Margaritaville", and "Margarita" are from the same early 2000 practice that the B side "Broken Nail Blues" comes from, played by the Adam/Bryn/Keir trio. The last two songs are Bryn's first demos of "Sandman" and "You Let Me Fall" which saw belated release on the first Honey White disc, "My Band Rocks".

Random "House of the Lord" Recordings, 2000-2001
I spent most of the summer of 2000 taking over Bryn's room for recording demos, at the house where he lived on Sabado with Adam, Joe, Brian, Sean, and Owen. Sean named this place, for some unknown reason, "The House Of The Lord", and it was known as such forever after. "The Peak Of My Career" is a demo of mine that was built off yet another instrumental track from back in June '99 at the Bedrock (and was also used in a track called "Saturation" for the Low Tide side project). The live takes of "How Far Away" and "Hallelujah" are from the Mojo comeback gig of December 2000, and are thus appropriately messy. "Mercy Rule" and "Bleak" are from a late 2001 session at Earl's Table Salt room with only Joe, Bryn and I. No idea how they would have ended up as Mojo Wire songs, but of course "Mercy Rule" went on to be a big Honey White song. The take here of "Sunset Down" was a solo take of mine, begun in 2001 when Bryn and I were plowing through a remake project, and I finished it a year later, right before Honey White began.

...and the audio:

So that's it for the Mojo Wire barrel-scraping stuff. That's all for now. Thanks again for listening...

-Keir

Honey White 2002-2007?

2007-05-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Yeah, did that get your attention? Bryn sure looks surprised. Well...I lied. Mostly. Fear not, your favorite epic garage rockers are not "breaking up" at all. However, Brian did have the gall to go get himself accepted to a Neuroscience PhD program at Georgetown in Washington DC, and since it will last about 5 years, that puts the kibosh on any Honey White activity in the near future as far as live shows and even rehearsals. Not like we've exactly been out there tearing the world in half, of course (1 show in the past year? Yikes), but hey, do you want us to be sane, or to be big fat mega rich egomaniacal rock star assholes?

I thought so. Therefore, I will still continue to post all sorts of rare mp3 from the long Mojo Wire & Honey White history of rockitude (wow, that's weird- both the Mojos and HW lasted about 5 "active" years- 1996-2001 and 2002-2007) and may further test everyone's patience with other sorts of audiovitualtextual observations on things rock. Should any of us take part in any extra-curricular activities, you will hear about them here as well.

So anyway, Brian insisted that we all get together to make glorious noise for not one, but two last times this past holiday weekend, and even though I was half-dead from moving into my new house, I joined up with the guys in Santa Barbara, first at Earl's Table Salt shop on Saturday, and then at Billy's parents' art gallery on Milpas. Owen came along for the ride too, and took some photos that you may peruse below. Note how hairy our frontmanly singer has become since he's run away to sea. Yaar matey.

I guess this is the part where I should thank everyone for all your support over the years, so Thanks Everyone. You've helped made us the maimed-by-music men we are today, so I hope you're proud of yourselves. Stay tuned- things might still be interesting for some time. How, you say? Well, we rehearsed at least four unrecorded (in the studio, that is) songs this weekend. Yep, you've been warned.

Audio Archives 9: Quick & Dirty Edition

2007-05-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well, for a variety of brain-dulling, totally irrelevant reasons, I'm kind of exhausted, so this entry's gonna be a bit short- let me get right to the music. Honey White's MySpace page is showcasing our Nicholby's show in Ventura on April 20, 2005. This was a few days before our How Far Is The Fall album was released. The recording is straight from the soundboard, so it's mixed for the venue and not necessarily for optimal listening pleasure (i.e. big bass and kick drum, small guitars), but this show was so much fun for us to do that it's worth another public airing. Read more about it here. Basically this was one of the rare instances that I relaxed onstage- we were kind of on bonus time for this show, and the whole band played loose and without stress, though not without mistakes (but we ignored them). I really, really enjoyed playing this one and for me it is one of the best experiences I've ever had in a band onstage.

For the Mojo Wire page, this week we have 2001's mixed bag swansong You're On Your Own, the final Mojo Wire album. This particular disc couldn't decide between being a showcase for new material, live stuff, or a space for re-recorded tunes to sound better. The fresh songs underwent constant tinkering, the retreads finally saw the band, in recording terms, enter the year 1992 with digital multitracking, and the live stuff is probably an accurate representation of the overall messy chaos of Mojo Wire shows. The sum end result is more like an out-takes compilation. I wrote more about this album here. Some notes on the bonus tracks: "Helium Pussywillow" is a random jam topped by Bryn's best South Park impression, "Broken Nail Blues" is yet another in Adam's long string of improvised 12-bar turns of genius, "Too Much To Think" is an acoustic Adam-ballad circa 2000 that unfortunately never saw the light of day, "You're On Your Own" is an unfinished studio take of the title track, with Joe's acoustic guitar in there for a change, and "My Second Shipwreck" is a partial recording (only 2/3 of the 7-minute instrumental was actually finished) of one of Bryn's more epic surf songs that eventually got wider exposure in Honey White's shows.

This week's video is Honey White (again on Musical Cafe TV, April '03) doing the Mojo Wire song "Heart On A Platter", which first appeared on the On Your Own album. Next time I'll also have the 2nd installment in the Mojo Wire barrel-scraping series of super-rare stuff. Thanks again for listening... and a happy cinco de Mayo birthday to Billy!

-Keir

Audio: Honey White at Nicholby's, 4/20/05

Audio: The Mojo Wire- "You're On Your Own" 6/3/01

Video: Heart On A Platter

Audio Archives 8: Isla Vista Uber Alles

2007-04-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

UCSB's fetid student ghetto once again takes center stage on Honey White's MySpace page, with our I.V. Live show in Embarcadero Hall from back in January 2005. This show saw us shift, pretty much permanently, into promoting our brand-new How Far Is The Fall album, which we'd just finished mixing in San Francisco. In fact, two of the songs in this set, "Island Fever" and "Blacking Out" got their live debuts at this gig, which isn't bad considering we only had 2 hours of practice before showtime. Other than that I don't think we'd rehearsed at all since the previous November, so getting a great performance like this under the circumstances was slightly miraculous. The venue itself, as many of you no doubt know, was the site of the Isla Vista Brewing Company (from the good old days when I was in school) and before that, the Anaconda (another great place to see bands in the '80s). Most notoriously, of course, it is the site of the old Bank of America that was burned down in 1970 by anti-war protesters. Anyway, the recording is top notch- my favorite of all Honey White live recordings- it's crisp, clear, and gives a great sense of the space of the hall. The set was sort of concave- going from uptempo stuff to the slower, longer songs for a bit before getting faster again at the end.

This round's material for the Mojo Wire's MySpace page is the extended version of the third Mojo album: Seaside Hamlet Skids from 1999. We sort of explored escapism on this disc, and it's kind of become my favorite Mojo Wire recording for that reason (which I wrote about more here). The recording itself is pretty poor- the 4-track tapes were mastered in mono, so it still sounds like we're playing in 1962, but I think on this CD we all sort of came into our own as songwriters: Adam had two great pop songs in "Key West Tapwater" and "Baja Blues", Bryn kept pace with "I Fly Free" and "So Cold", and so did I with "The Shivering Sand". What's more, some of those songs and a few more, like "How Far Away" and "Pisces Lullabye" (after some re-writes for both) went on to longer life, first in the crunchier Mojo Wire of 2000/2001, and then in Honey White's setlists during 2002-03, where they reached their streamlined peak. Still, the prototypical versions here on Seaside, as well as all the other songs here, are really special for another reason- we were able to (mostly) shift away from the 12-bar blues and get into some major reverby surf (and at the end of the album, surf-noir). Kevin Nerison's drums helped power four tracks, including a definitive version of "Wipeout" that still sounds ready to punch you in the face.

Sadly, much of the extra stuff we recorded from that period (fall '98 to summer '99) is lost, so there isn't much for me to work with here, and I decided to include music that fits the vibe of the album in one way or another. "Pipeline" is actually from the initial Seaside sessions, and Bryn snagged it later to put on his own all-instrumental album of low-fi surf music. "Dive" is another echo-bass song from me, from about the same time, though it didn't see release until July '99, when Bryn and I put out a mini-album of the same name under our one-off side project Low Tide. "Drunken Asshole Bitch Blues" is Adam's hilariously crazed reaction to getting harassed by the cops in August '98, and "Anywhere But Here" is a breezy, acoustic island tune he recorded almost a year later, right as we moved from the Bedrock on Sabado to the Penthouse on Abrego.

This week's video is Honey White's take on the Seaside tune "Shivering Sand", from the appearance on local TV's "Musical Cafe" program. That's all for now- see you next week, and thanks again for listening.

-Keir

Set: Mercy Rule - Island Fever - Sweet Oblivion - Let Go - Blacking Out - Keep Moving - Famous Last Words - Bottlerocket - Sean Goes To Africa

We roared back into Isla Vista and previewed songs from the new album, including live debuts for "Island Fever" and "Blacking Out". "Mercy Rule", from 2002, was actually the oldest song in the set. Kinda nice to pull off a good tight gig after 3 months off and only one rehearsal earlier in the day. That's the special thing about this band and it's why we keep doing this despite our far-flung residences all over the state. Anyway, Embarcadero Hall is so totally different from what I remember as the Isla Vista Brewing Company (from the good old days) and others may recall as the burned-down Bank of America (from the badder, older days). UCSB converted it to a lecture hall but the I.V. Live crew transformed it into a theater-venue like they do every week. Our set was only 45 minutes but we crammed in as many of the big rumbling monster tunes as we could, so the show's arc kind of went rockers to slower tunes and back to rockers by the end. Thanks again to Jennifer, Michael, and the I.V. Live crew (no relation to the 2 Live Crew), as well as everyone who came in from the cold to let us rock their faces off.

Audio: Honey White at I.V. Live 1/29/05

Audio: The Mojo Wire: Seaside Hamlet Skids + Bonus Tracks (1999)

Video: The Shivering Sand 4/22/03