You wonderful people have fully supported my new album. I'm working on it now. New music, new website, new concerts, new parties to come. I can't wait to share it with you.
On Sunday June, 9th at the Pourhouse in Downtown, Minneapolis McTerry Music and Cities 97 present a fantastic lineup of Minnesota musicians performing on three stages to help raise funds and awareness for the deadly childhood disease Cystic Fibrosis. There will also be an art show and silent auction showcasing Minnesota artists who have donated their time and artwork.The all ages event will also include kids games and activities so there is something for everyone. The good people at the Pourhouse and the Pour-a-booza festival have worked really hard to help make this event happen. One hundred percent of the net proceeds from the event will be donated directly to the Minnesota Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis foundation.
Featuring performances by:
The Honeydogs
Retribution Gospel Choir
The Color Pharmacy
The Attley Project
Story Of The Sea
Lake Avenue
Bigtree Bonsai
Actual Wolf
Jenny Dalton
Taj Raj
Micheal Shynes
Breanne Marie
Marcus Lere
and
Tim Cheesebrow
After Friday’s gig Ty, Dan and I went to the Union Depot in St. Paul to have some photography fun.
Dan took pictures of my guitar in a baby stroller for some reason.
But then we took some cool HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photos of me playing on a bench. It’s not perfectly sharp because I had to sit perfectly still for 20 seconds for one of the exposures….that’s impossible.
Looks pretty darn cool though, huh?
This is what we do instead of going to the bar.
Then I took it into photoshop to play some more…
Now I think that’s a photo worthy of a concert poster someday, don’t you?
When I say ‘we’, I am talking, of course, about all the wonderful people that are supporting my album project. When I say ‘did it’ I’m talking about making the goal of $5,500 to record my second album. You may have heard me mention the project once or twice.
Things really kicked into high gear when I posted this motivational video:
In a few short days so many people began to respond and support the project that I was quite literally having trouble keeping up with all the thank you messages. It was a moving experience to see just how many people got behind the project and said “your music is worth investing in.”
So the big question is “What am I going to do with all that money now?” Well…see I planned this little trip to the Caribbean. So see you later, suckers!
No, not really.
I’ve got a very tight budget to follow. Starting next week I’ll be putting down the scratch tracks. Scratch tracks are the ‘throw away’ guitar and vocal tracks that I put down to the annoyingly consistent sound of a metronome. This will be my world for a few days
Then I’ll sit down with my producer to determine how we should shape each of the songs, which parts to add, which instruments, where we should bring things in or out, and add any melodic or harmonic lines/rhythms that will make the song come alive. We will send out the songs to the appropriate players with chord charts and instructions and they will make up some parts. Once they have some solid ideas we get them in the studio and record what they came up with, tweak it, and keep working it until we all feel good about it.
Then the experience of the sound engineer really comes into play as we mix and master the tracks, mixing being the art of blending all the tracks to achieve one cohesive sound that doesn’t make one part stick out or fade into the background too much, and mastering is the even crazier art of taking that overall blend of tracks and balancing the individual frequencies of sound to have a pleasing shape to the ear. It’s an amazing process to watch. These guys will listen to a track and say “I think the 12-14 KHz range needs to come down by about .75 decibels.” I couldn’t have told you that, but when they’re done doing all their magic the track sounds a whole lot better!
After all that I’ll create packaging for the CD and start working on duplication. When I have a bunch of discs in hand I’ll start working on putting together all the reward packages…the CD’s, T-Shirts, Artwork, parties, and such.
All of these things are going to be great for helping to move my career forward. This is how music careers get made.
It’s going to be a fun summer with all of you: celebrating, sharing the work, and most of all saying “THANK YOU” for helping me get this album recorded. I couldn’t do it without you. You guys and gals are the absolute BEST!!!
The fantastic Sarah Schneemann has done it once again folks! Somehow, between work, life, raising kids, and keeping up a strict workout regimen Sarah has found the time to create more wonderful works of art for me to use in my album project. You can see her other work at http://sarahschneemann.com. Thanks Sarah. You rock!
If you like what you see, one of these prints can be yours, and you can help me make music at the same time. The recently added perk, “The Artiste” on my crowdfunding campaign will give you a CD and a mounted print of Sarah’s artwork!
