ep, sleepy Part 2-My friend Brian's 2 cents

As I said before in a previous article, bands are in a real weird position when it comes to recording that first album or EP or whatever. My buddy Brian says that bands should go with a full length album first and THEN do the EP.

Here's the reasoning: let's call this the WHALE ALBUM and it's a full length. There's twelve songs on the whale album and two are great and three are good and maybe two are pretty good...and then there's the rest of the five songs. Well i'd say that's a pretty successful debut album: seven out of the twelve songs are at least pretty good. At that point, you only have to follow up with a five song EP with the same ratio of great/good/pretty good/crap and yet again, you'll have a pretty good album.

However...

Let's say the band wants to have the EP as their debut album. We'll call it the GUPPY ALBUM and they just record the 5 great and good songs mentioned above. What's the result? My God, every song on here is wonderful! Through and through it's just amazing. These guys/gals got something here! Why do they got something here? Well it's the ratio: all at least good songs, something found in maybe one out every five thousand albums (*ed. note: not scientifically proven*). People are throwing roses and crying and shooting off fireworks, making out in the streets.

And then of course bands think they have to follow up with the full length after their Guppy. So what naturally goes on the follow-up full length album? Well, probably the five crappy songs that WOULD HAVE gone the Whale Album. And because it's made of songs they wrote in the nine months since their Guppy Album came out, as opposed to songs they wrote in the three years they were together before that point, it's a bit rushed and frankly, they're just not as good.

What happens then? You know exactly what happens because it's happened a thousand times (and now a thousand and one times)-The critics say that the Guppy album was all about hype. The drummer gets depressed and moves his consumption up from a case of 12 ouncers to a case of pounders, the keyboard player skips down to South America because he can't stand dealing with the drummer anymore so he meets a hooker that's kind of nice but looks like Danzig and Coolio's love child, catches some awful VD and it doesn't look good for him because some amputation is going to be invovled (on several appendages), and the lead singer's dangerous libido was always kept in check by the keyboard player but now that he's in the hospital, the lead singer is sleeping with the manager's daughter (after the girlfriend threw him out) and she tells him the manager's been skimming and so the lead singer tells the guitar player and the guitar player thinks about those guys that own that dive out in Jersey, those guys who made them play that birthday party for their niece for her sweet sixteen and they said, after paying the band a handsome sum, 'If you ever need a favor...' and of course now they do. But the whole thing gets bungled and well...

...well you know the rest of the story anyways.

What does this have to do with us? Andrew is now in the hospital for 'undisclosed reasons'.

I'm kidding.

I tmentioned to Brian that we were thinking about releasing our Guppy album and he told me the above hypothesis. And then I started thinking about releasing a Whale album. Well, sure Red Collar have ten songs that COULD go on our Whale Album. But I/We don't really feel that it'd be really strong enough an album to make the great/good/pretty good/crap ratio. Maybe I'm being over critical and thinking too much about it but I figure that when I work my 9 to 5 job, I think a lot about the choices I make there so I should at least allow myself to be burdened with at least a little bit of wonderment concerning something I love. I don't think enough bands do allow themselves to be burdened and it results in mediocrity.

So we'll keep on writing and recording stuff at the house. Which leads me to another thought I had: Paul and Andrew are really new to the group and they have both significantly changed the way that songs are written even in the short duration that they've been with us...

...for the better I might add.

ep sleepy

We're currently recording some songs at Casa Kutchma. Paul has some great recording experience (and equipment) that allows us to at least try recording at home.  You can hear his solo project here:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=27636084

Amongst four other songs, we're re-recording Witching Hour with Paul and Andrew.  The previous Witching Hour (the one our myspace) was done without either of them and done with a whole lot of samples.  This new version that we're currently recording is closer to how we play it live. 

Except without the goats.

_______________________________________________________

Technology is good because it allows everyone to record whatever they want, whenever they want.  Technology is bad  because it allows everyone to record whatever they want, whenever they want.

I think every band goes through thinking whether they should record an EP or a full length or if they should record at all.  Nowadays, it's so cheap to record that I'm sure people (including myself at one point in the recent past) are compelled to release everything they write.  Bands will record all their songs in one long weekend or one long week and then put a name on it and call it an album.  Technology is nice that way because music becomes democratic.  When clubs ask for a demo, TA DA! there you go.  It's not just the popular and/or rich bands who get gigs but the unpopular and/or poor bands can too...as long as that demo sounds good.

But in a world before Garagebands and binary code, bands would have to really really save up for that one recording with that geeky looking guy with an earring and ponytail that smokes too much (and for some reason, he lives by the train tracks and has a lot of cats).  Bands would have to really think about what song they were going to record, maybe fight about it a little bit.  Maybe the bassist quits and they have to look for a new one and lo and behold in the aftermath the other band members never liked that bass player anyways and really, he was the one ruining that hit song. 

'Jeez, thank god we never recorded that album with him'.

So they get another bass player and then they'd maybe even rewrite the song to make it stronger and add in the new bass player's 'riffs' and then argue about it some more then once they all got it just right, they'd practice and practice and practice for that one recording because boy-oh-boy is it ever going to be expensive and we only got this one shot.  They'd play out in some crappy VFW and they'd see that the song they wanted to record doesn't go over so well with the kids, the sing-along isn't quite as sing-alongable as they thought.  And then they start the process over again.

'Jeez, that song wasn't as catchy as we thought.  Good thing we didn't record that one.'

Bands couldn't really afford to do a whole album.  They'd record a single then play out a little bit.  Write some more songs while discarding some of the old songs...some of the (okay I'll say it) bad songs.  And they'll save up a little more and go through the whole process over again for a new single.  And only bands that could afford to record, did record.  Maybe it was because their dad was a dentist or because the band was an active touring band, who knows.

So technology, for as much as it's done for bands, it's taken away too.  It's taken away a process of seperating the wheat from the chaff.  Everyone has four songs on myspace now, good or bad.   Those four slots must be filled.  For every good song a band has, they probably have at least one bad one up there.  And I'm sure in some people's opinions Red Collar's just as guilty as the next Joe Shmoe.

I don't really know what we're recording now is going to be-whether or not it's going to have some fancy schmancy cover art and then call it something so formal as an 'EP' remains to be seen. 

Wheat, chaff or Cheerios, I have no idea.  Holy shit, what a great title for an album.

Stay tuned,

j