Posts Tagged ‘Slicethepie’

Problems and solutions…

The music industry is currently in a major slump, you only need to read articles like this one (LINK) to see it’s getting tougher and tougher for bands to get their music out there  With labels folding left, right and centre across the globe and CD’s tumbling at a steady rate it’s becoming more and more important for bands to take the reins and determine their own destiny. There was a time when ‘independent’ was a dirty word but more and more artists are realising that they can within a certain degree of success market themselves.

With the help of our fans we managed to achieve independent success to some degree when we were lucky enough to be amongst the very few artists to be financed though the award winning fan funded financing platform, Slicethepie.com. With the help of our fans we raised £15 000 that we utilised to record our debut album with one of the country’s leading producers, a privilege usually reserved for the most part to signed artists with label financing behind them. To date 14,000 artists have registered on Slicethepie.com and 29 have achieved finance. To us that is a fairly solid affirmation that we are doing something right so far!




So what’s the next step?

As an independent band we don’t have the financial backing or contacts at our disposal available to artists on major labels so we are left in a position where we ourselves are the graphic designers, web developers, press agents, managers and radio pluggers. Thankfully the internet is one tool that we can use to market our music and it’s thanks to the organisers of competitions like Globalmoguls that help make our job a little easier.  In brief, artists upload a track, album cover and music video to the site (LINK) and rally their fans to go rate them. The top six rated artists then compete in a live event where the fans determine the wining artist who will walk away with the loot!




The bad news….

At the end of the day Global Moguls remains a popularity contest where artists are rated from 1-5 by fans and the ‘best’ artists then rise to the top. We know all too well though from past experience how often these sort of things play out. Bands and fans rate other artists down decreasing the average score of the competition. Artists run around at their gigs signing up “fans” then use those accounts to vote for themselves. Gmail is flooded with one fake account after the other to help sway the odds in the favour of a certain artist and in general these sort of things have left a foul taste in the mouths of many a hard working musician.
We are not trying to come off as bitter here, it’s a simple fact of life that any band who has been in such a contest will attest to, that the game is often not played entierly in the best spirit. Ultimatly though what we want out of the competition is to get our music out there. At the end of the day if we win over just a handfull of new fans, for us that’s a job well done!




What we need from you…

We need the support of our fans once again. We need you guys to register on  globalmoguls.com (LINK) and rate our track, pics and video (coming soon) as high as you can (if you think we deserve it!). Rally the support of your friends, get them to check out the site and try to get them involved. You can share links from our facebook fan page to help spread the word as well. With a strong show of support we are certain that we can quickly catch the competition and make a strong showing on the site!

Please leave a comment when you do rate our material as well so we know who to thank!

Hey there fans, friends and family.

Just a quick note to let you know that yes, we are still alive and well! There is so much going on behind the scenes at the moment with the album that my head is about to spin right off! I thought I’d take a moment to let you all know what we have been up to over the last few weeks since finishing up in studio.

So where to begin? Ah yes, the album. We have been furiously busy in the mixing phase over the last few weeks and are stoked at how it’s sounding, there is still a bit of work ahead but it’s looking like we will meet out deadline for the 10th of June when the tracks are due to be sent to Sterling Sound in New York for mastering.
The new website/blog is currently under development as well and will integrate fully with facebook and twitter (clever no?). We have so many friends across those platforms that we want to make it as easy as possible for you to access all that is Machine OEM and share it with your friends as well. Without the help of you guys pitching in and lending a hand with promoting this band we would be nowhere today in the first place so for that we are eternally grateful and hope for your continued support in the times ahead!

We are also very excited to be shooting our first ever music video in a few week time so stay tuned for some behind the scenes info on that! Along with that there is a photo shoot, finalising the album artwork (after you guys have given your feedback that is) and then the push towards the final release of our single.

So, all going according to plan (jeez I’ve been hammered by that statement before!) we will be announcing the release date for our first single and video by the end of June.

Exciting times for us and hopefully you guys as well!

Stay tuned Rockers,
Travers

Greetings bastards, agents, Visage’s and all members of our rainbow nation along with the rest of the world!

Thursday saw us continuing to lay down lead guitar and vocals, the day was very long with so much left to do and only two days to do it in we worked late into the night and made some solid progress on the remaining tracks. We finally left the studio around 10:30 in the evening all feeling a little frayed around the edges. Red Bull is a fantastic thing though thankfully!!!

On Friday afternoon Mark Haze from <a href=”http://www.12thavenueband.com/”>12th Avenue</a> joined us in studio to do some backing vocals for us on two tracks. 12th Avenue have for a long time been one of our favourite SA bands and Mark is a killer vocalist so we were stoked to have him working on the album. He laid down some insane backing on a track called Still Loving You and another one titled Erase You. By the end of the day tracking was done and spirits were high.

Theo took us out to a local restaurant to celebrate and proceeded to pretty much ordered everything on the menu including a few (welcome) stiff shooters for Lez and myself. Clint was driving so he focused is attentions on the food, something he excels at, (the boy can eat) while Lez and I killed a few worms at the bottom of tequila glasses.

So tracking is done and now we sit and wait for the first mixes to come though, the album is far from done but we are so exited about the way it sounds that we are busting at the seems to get it our there! (Patience son!)

We had a fantastic time tracking the album at Bellville studios and would like to extend a warm thanks to the Crous family for being so accommodating and making us feel like we where home away from home and especially to Michelle for making sure that the Grumpy Green Giant remained well fed at all times! Things go pear shaped if he fails to eats 14 times a day….

Over the coming weeks we will be showing you guys some concepts for the album artwork. So stay in touch to have your and have you say.

Cheers for now rockers and remember to touch your fellow man on their studio!

Trav

(Oh, one last thing: If you ever run into the chicken lady of Camps bay, run away like a girl!!)

Wow, this is our last week in studio; in hindsight the past three weeks have flown by at an insane rate; all drums, bass and rhythm guitars are in the bag, so Lez was flown in on Sunday evening to start vocals on Monday. We started out with what’s probably the most challenging song vocally, a power ballad called “Inside Out”. Once that was nailed, Travers and myself set about laying down some acoustic tracks to flesh out two of the songs. Tuesday was much more productive; Lez put down some amazing vocal tracks for “Something To Say” and “Run”, after which I took on my guitar solo for “Maybe It’s Me”, which is now a bit shorter but still nice and punchy; it took me a couple of hundred takes but the end result is niiice! Much to our horror we discovered that some of the rhythm guitar tracks were slightly out of tune on “Maybe It’s Me” right after Lez laid down the vocal tracks, due to the lighter strings we’d put on Travers’ guitar. So after a quick re-string, we had to waste about an hour and a half redoing these parts, but it was well worth it because the takes we got out in the end were AWESOME!! We ended off the day doing some vocal harmonies for “Run”, which was a lot of fun and a good couple of laughs…I was even chased out of he vocal booth at one stage, but after about fifteen minutes of nursing a bruised ego I decided to give it another shot and laid down some decent Def Leppard-esque harmonies on top of the uber-kickass ones Theo had sung (the guy has a phenomenal ear for harmonies!). We stumbled out of the studio just before 11pm and then proceeded to get horribly lost due to road closures and a GPS faux pas (don’t even ask…).

Today we spent some time doing the vocals for “Fuelled”, “Lift Me Up” and “Theory” and Travers knocked out a killer guitar solo for “Fuelled” right after I laid down the lead-rhythm part, after which the lead riff and guitar solo for “Something To Say” was tackled and thrown in the bag. It was another long day so we decided to head to the nearest pub that the GPS could pick up for a cold one or two and ended up at a dodgy little place that looked like it was frequented by AWB types…scary shit! AND we ended up lost AGAIN on the way home thanks to road closures…fun times! We still have loads to do tomorrow and Friday, as these are our last two days, so I’m gonna hit the hay…adios, my hard rockin’ amigos!

Clint

Greetings from the trenches rockers! Rest assured I’ve issued myself a stiff klap across the tit for not updating this blog often enough!
Things have been a bit hectic over the last few days and catching up when so much is going on is becoming increasingly difficult. Luckily Lez arrived on Sunday to begin recording his vocals so after I laid down some acoustic guitar this morning I’m left with some free time to catch up with guys.

Since our last blog we spend the rest of the week finishing up the rhythm and Bass guitars. All went off without a hitch and Steve laid down all his bass parts and surprised us all my sailing though what ever we threw at him, well done my boy!

By the end of the week all the rhythm guitars along with the bass was done and Steve, Clint and myself were looking forward to a weekend of R&R that included going large on Friday night by hitting *** ***** ** ***** *** *** ****** ******** **** ***** ****** ****** ** ** ******* **** ** ***** ******* *****!!!!! **** **** ** * ***** ****we finally got home at 3am, what a night and what an epic hangover!

The next day saw us throwing Steve onto a buss bound for East London. Clint and I spent the rest of the weekend getting over Friday night with a bit of light CD shopping at the waterfront and some killer seafood to keep us entertained. Last night we also took a few minutes off to catch our mates from 12 Avenue live at ROAR’s Noisefest, as usual the guys put on a killer show!

So here we are, day one of vocals and so far so good! Sitting here listening to Lez sing in the booth just a few meters away from me reminds me of way back when we started the band and I heard him sing for the first time. I’m as blown away now as I was back then. We have come so far since then and overcome so much just keeping this monster going that I can’t help but feel blind optimism for the future.

Anyway enough sentimental crap from me, there’s work to be done. Many vocal takes lie ahead and Clint and I have our lead guitar parts still to do!

Cheers 4 now,
Trav

(Steve we miss your coffee mate!)

We left East London by car at 5am on Sunday, all was smooth sailing except for the part where we almost ran out of fuel in the middle of nowhere, driving around on fumes trying to find a gas station. The trusty ol’ GPS directed us to an abandoned tractor garage that looked like something out of “Deliverance” (Cue duelling Banjos), on some dodgy back road with four fuel pumps outside which clearly no longer worked (the cobwebs were a dead giveaway), much to our (mostly MY, it was my car) horror. Anyway, we eventually figured out that we would’ve found a filling station with functional petrol pumps (!) about 17km down the road. Facepalm. Anyhoo, we eventually arrived at about 6pm without further incident, only to find that the accommodation we’d arranged had fallen through, so after another 2 hours of driving around, phoning and general panicking, we finally managed to find a couch to crash on at my friend Keren’s place (thanks Keren, you saved our lives!!).

First day in the studio was WAY better than the trip up and our subsequent accommodation woes; Charles, Theo’s assistant had done an awesome job editing the drum tracks which had been recorded the previous week and we were ready to get cracking with the rhythm guitar and bass tracks starting with “Fuelled”, an oldie but a goodie. We managed to find a killer guitar tone almost instantly and after trying a couple of the guitars lying around the studio, I finally settled on a ’60 Les Paul Goldtop (which I’ve been trying to convince Theo ever since to trade me for my Epiphone LP Standard, but so far no luck..haha) for the song. Most of the kinks in this song as well as the next song we put down tracks for, a relatively new one called “Erase You”, had been worked out in pre-production so we managed to breeze through both relatively quickly. A few of Steve’s bass parts were tweaked a little so that they work better with the drum tracks, other than that, the songs were left pretty much unchanged.

Today we worked on “Inside Out”, a song that we’ve reworked a bunch of times but have never really been happy with until now. Theo got us to up the tempo and write a new bridge, the idea for which Lez mailed though to us earlier this morning and which is sounding uber kickass now! Next up was “Lift Me Up”, which has changed quite a bit from the original idea; the tempo has been kicked up a few notches and most of the song was re-arranged to make it more appealing to a radio audience. Both songs are potential singles so we’re very keen to hear how they turn out. Finally we took a crack at one of Trav’s new songs, a raunchy rocker called “A Little Bit Of Something”; finished the rhythm guitars before we decided to call it a day, tomorrow El Stevo will tackle the bass before we move onto the next 2 or 3 songs.

It’s 19:20 now and I’m already keen to hit the hay, this Rock ‘n Roll stuff is hard freakin’ work!! Laters, boys and girls, our toasted sammiches are ready…

-Clint

Day one saw us heading off to Bellville Studios to meet up with our Producer, South African legend Theo Crous, who rose to fame as the guitarist and founder of the Springbok Nude Girls and is more recently recognised as one of South Africa’s top producers who has recorded platinum albums with the likes of Prime Circle and The Parlotones to name but a very few.

Thanks largely to the GPS we arrived on time, a first for Machine OEM and sat down with Theo to discussed what sort of album we intended on making. By the end of the day we were banging out ideas and the process of pre-production was in full swing.

On the Tuesday a package arrived for Theo that gave him a Christmas smile, turns out it was a new talk-back system that would make his life much easier in studio. In short it allows the musicians in studio to manage their own mix so he would no longer have to put up with complaints that musicians can’t play in time because they can’t hear the click or the drums (the jig is up fellas!).

On the Wednesday two blokes pitched up to install said gear. Hindered only by their mullets, crocs and one hefty pair of moobs (man-boobs) they got to work installing Theos’ new toy. Two hours and all seemed to be ready to rock, Theo powered up the desk and poof, it went tits up!! After two more hours the technical-two decided that it was well buggered and Theos’ Christmas smile turned to jelly.
It turned out the desk would need to go in for repairs and might take a few days to get back up and running. So there we were, all songed up and nowhere to record! Theo generously offered to fly us back to East London for a few days while the desk and new talk back system got sorted and as he was still suffering from chronic toothache had aslo been booked into surgery the next day. I’ve said it before, the man is legend!!

We arrived back in Cape Town the following Tuesday fully re-fuelled and ready to tackle the rest of pre-production and the tracking of the drums. To say we learned a lot through this process would be an understatement, we were forced (some more willing than others) into exploring every possible interpretation of the material until Theo was happy we had worked them out to their fullest potential. Some tracks have stayed very close to the original and others have taken drastic turns for what we feel is a massive improvement on the originals. One song in particular that few of the band members were keen on called ‘Inside Out’ has been given a complete overhaul; we love the direction it has taken. It even brought a genuine tear to Lezs’ eye!

Due to all the delays, pre-prod and drums subsequently bled into one another and before we knew it the week was over and we were heading back to East London for a week while the drums get mixed. The long overnight trip home almost spelled the end for most of Machine OEM as we got caught in the most horrific storm I have personally ever seen. Firstly a large gust of wind tried to blow us off the bridge (shat myself) then an entire tree (yup, the whole thing, roots to branches, (shat myself again) narrowly missed the car as it came hurtling from the heavens at break neck speed. Then we had to dodge all the other timber that was strewn along across the road (queue more shitting myself). The rental took a bit of a beating in the storm, let’s see if we get our deposit back…..

So here we are after a week of cuddling with our significant others, me and my Mrs looking after a new puppy and babysitting three white lion cubs along the way, and its back to the studio once again to begin work on the guitars!

Cheers for now rockers,

Trav