Relocation is complete

A lot has happened since the last real blog (and there was a lost blog in the pipeline that just squirted out) so without any ado…

We did shaky but fun shows at Vinyl and at the Star Bar in Atlanta that were both well-received, almost surprisingly so. It was great to stand on stage and throw the same “tantrum” (jumping all over the place, screaming and bleeding on the guitar) that I used to throw as a kid, and to get a pat on the back for doing so. People actually like it when I’m wild here so I’m going to keep on doing it. What’s crazy is that Jennifer and Jim are the two wildest personalities and musicians that I’ve had the thrill to play with, and we bonded so much that we’re calling it a band now. Jennifer and I agreed that we’re going to be Adam & The Pinks (to resurrect an old, hardly-used band name from Nashville circa 2004) but Jim isn’t so sure. If you’d like to offer condolences to Jim or to suggest something a little less feminine (I like the “cute” band name to go with the new heavy sound but Jim wants something with more teeth), please drop us a line. We’re thrilled to have found each other though because it just feels right. Lots of bands work hard to fake the chemistry that we’ve stumbled upon!

A third show that happened recently was the Who tribute at The Earl – Jim and I joined forces with two of the Sweetloves to make a one-off band called (for this gig) “The House That Track Built”. We did “The Real Me”, “A Quick One” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It/See Me, Feel Me/Listening To You”. The show was fun, huge and thank goodness our performance was up to par. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to pull out that white boilersuit again one day, but in lieu of that I’m trying to get a youtube or youtube-ready video of the performance. Basically, everything is going really great in Atlanta. I love it here and I feel really encouraged to do my best. Not someone else’s best, but mine. There’s a difference.

We have a LOT of shows coming up. Between the three of us, we’re a booking MACHINE. However, if you live in a town where we’re not playing yet (ie Chattanooga, Montgomery, Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Black Mountain, London, Tokyo) please feel free to get involved. We want to come see you.

Oh, and in even bigger news than “everything’s going so well and I love my band” and such, you can now hear a little taste of what we’ve been doing in the studio. There’s a new album preview up on myspace. Now that there are leaves on the trees outside, I find myself surprisingly capable of writing lyrics again. It was a hard trek through winter to now but it looks like it’s going to be very easy to finish the record now. Go to our myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/AdamMcIntyre and if “Preview 1″ is still up, give that a listen. It’s a little different from the old stuff and now that we’re going to start doing those new songs at live shows… well, we’re happy. A big burden has been lifted and now there’s only excitement rushing in to take its place.

So in short, new songs, new shows, new band, new town that has welcomed us with open arms. I hope to see you this Summer.

Love to you all,

Adam, Jennifer & Jim

PS – boy and girl “Per Ardua” artwork shirts (courtesy of Ridgely Schantz) at cafepress

 

And then the guitar peed on me.

Replacement Guitar

Originally uploaded by adammcintyre.

Atlanta’s music scene is very different from Nashville’s in every imaginable way except that carbon-based life forms make noises that they call “music” in both towns. In Nashville I was never held up by lack of the right musicians to play with. In Atlanta… well, let’s just say that it’s a good thing I play a few instruments and like recording.

I’m very busy with that, as always. I ran out of lyrics at the end of 2006 (after recording three other CDs), which has tripped up progress on the second EP but never fear; the muse has returned after a lot of anxiety and depression was (partially) diagnosed as side-effects of Atrial Fibrillation. My heart problems have only gotten worse over the last ten years but if I stay away from caffeine and chocolate I should live a long and happy life. So I need to work on that will ASAP.

Oh, dark humor!

The lyrics are about halfway finished, and then I’ll start putting vocals down. I’m particularly encouraged by the ease of recording vocals recently (the typical pitch problems have dwindled considerably), for example “Don’t Ruin It For Me” (on myspace) was written and recorded in an afternoon – the vocal is two takes put together. Normally it’s a lot more than two takes. I won’t say how much more. I recorded “Strangers” for a Dave Davies tribute CD about a week ago and the vocal for that was even easier… it might even be one continuous take. Thank goodness for that tonsillectomy – my voice has healed and stabilized and I can move on with my life.

I have a lot of surprises for 2007. I’m going to be very busy – busier still if I can find some people to play shows.

 

Second EP progress

I can’t believe it, but after tons and tons of delays, drums for the 2nd EP are finished. Cory Prough picked his three favorite demos and played drums on them, and I’ll never be able to thank him enough. He really had fun on those songs and you can tell. Cory’s schedule filled up in a hurry though and had to take his leave, but thank goodness I found a drummer not only for the remaining songs but for live shows. Jim O’Kane did a helluva job on two songs (one of which he started work on the day we met, and it wasn’t an easy song) and really just… oh you’ll like him. A lot. Then Jim went missing and I thought he was dead, so I played drums on the final track on the EP myself. I guess it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t play everything on at least one song, right?
And just like that, the drums were done as of yesterday.
Now the workaholic schedule resumes. I did two bass tracks and two guitar tracks today, which means that the bass for this EP is also finished. What does this mean?
It means that there’s only one guitar track left to record and then I need to get to work writing lyrics. I plan on doing all of the vocals in one chunk as well (working on only drums, only bass, only guitar means that each instrument will be recorded and performed somewhat consistently) and I wasn’t really in a lyric-writing mood. Now I have to be. Don’t worry, it’s like … it’s like a really draining superpower that’s hard to turn off. I know that once I start writing lyrics I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else or sleep anymore; it’s a beast I’m loath to awaken.
But if I gotta, I gotta.
And I’ll finally be able to stop calling these songs “Song 1, Song 2, Song 5″ etc…

 

EP 2 progress:

marriedtothesea.com

 

EXPERIMENTING!

First, let me say this: Per Ardua is my best work. Not just my favorite because it’s the newest, but all bullshit aside, it’s what’s for dinner. It’s a personal best; it’s the debut of my newly-improved singing voice; it’s heavier and more focused than anything I’ve ever done. I have a very hard time plugging my own music (I’ll shout about my friends’ music all day) so just in case you were wondering, I am goddamned proud of Per Ardua.

I think that being from southern Alabama stunted my musical growth somewhat. There, I said it. Montgomery isn’t a big entertainment town (there are a lot of high school kids and people over 45, but seemingly nothing in between); people stay at home and watch TV. It’s hard to find other musicians – much less challenging ones – to play with. I found a good group of guys to be in my band and we had a great time playing blues covers and doing Zeppeliny type stuff. And I don’t mean the challenging material; I’m talking about the first record, which was very easy to figure out if you can play blues. I was never asked to nor encouraged to venture beyond that. The people at our shows figured that Cloverdale Blues-Rock was as good as it got, and most of the other bands either played the exact stuff that we played or meandering jam band stuff. I mean, thank god I have roots but it would be years before I realized that there was a world beyond funky blues-rock.

When I hit the age of 20, I decided to take some drastic steps; I was sick to death of 12-bar chord progressions. I started playing chord progressions and riffs that sounded edgy, out-there. Mature. New. “Wow, that sounds Beatlesy.” “It does? Kick ass!” It turned out that my idea of futuristic was actually outdated by about 30 years. I always acknowledged that I had a long way to go before my sound wouldn’t be called retro. Each CD I’ve recorded has leapt ahead by increments of 5 years or more – “Drivin’ South” (a cassette tape released in 1996) was 1966, all the way – Yardbirds playing blues. Hell, Bluesbreakers. Superhype’s 1998 EP (which I thought was very new and on-the-edge at the time) was pretty clearly 1968-style Led Zeppelin and Byrds-influenced. My solo debut “Rockstars & Superheroes” in 2003 (recorded mostly in 2001) followed my alt-country phase and was a comically-intended homage to the glam-rock days of 1972. Then there was “Nothing Means Anything” in 2005 which was a conscious effort to leave powerpop behind, and sort of accidentally embraced it. That record is my White Album. It has a little of everything and was the moment I realized that I needed to really try harder to find myself. I was trying too hard to fit in and not trying hard enough to push myself… or something. I still don’t know. I felt at the time like it was a huge step forward, and really it was, for me. It had what every other CD I’d released was lacking, in many ways.

Then the shit really hit the fan and I decided to make an EP instead of a huge album – “Per Ardua”. I focused all of my energy into five songs rather than seventeen. Compared to “Drivin’ South” with a gulf of only ten years, it was a personal triumph. It doesn’t sound like the same guy and probably isn’t. I challenged myself at every turn to improve not only on what I thought were weaknesses but on every bit of feedback from reviewers. Yes! I read reviews, even the bad ones. Eventually. Some of the bad ones are really funny, but I’ve found that most reviewers are trying to be helpful. I have to be true to myself, but I do, I really do have a long way to go. I don’t bend to the will of anyone else – I don’t have to. But I do enjoy this game of expressing myself and knowing that with every CD I release, I grow. Everybody helps me to do that.

Which brings me to my main point: I have been dancing and clapping. The new EP is about halfway finished and for the first time ever, when I listen to the playback, I have to jump up and down, clap my hands and yell “f__ yeah! F___ YEAH!” at the end of each song. You can bang your head to it, you can dance to it, and best of all… you can do the nasty to it. Seriously. So far all of the songs are entirely distorted bass, drums and percussion. No electric guitars (so far) and (so far) it rocks way, way, way harder than anything I’ve done before. For the first time ever, I feel the excitement of having NO IDEA what I’m doing! I don’t know what I’m going to record until it happens, and as a result the song arrangements are pretty hilarious. I don’t know what the songs are going to be about, and I highly doubt that there’s going to be a concept to this CD (for the first time since Superhype) aside from “mostly bass and drums”. I guess my only goal is to not let preconceptions hold me back from doing anything and everything I want to do. Even if I fail miserably, I’ll take a huge step forward.

And I just saw the artwork for the CD cover. Kat Lamp did an amazing job – it can’t be described except with four words: hamster, space battle, owl. It will all make sense later.

I’m sorry if this got seriously long-winded but I felt like I had to say something; I never “studied” the Beatles, I never wanted to be powerpop; it’s only in retrospect that I discover that I’ve been doing something overtly retro. Given my beginnings, I have to constantly reinvent myself in order to move forward; this means that I have definite phases. This requires you to listen with fresh ears – I’ll be happy if you understand where I’ve come from but I’ll be thrilled if you don’t think of me the same way you did five years ago. Perhaps I’ve finally spoken up about this because if you’re looking for sunny pop, this next EP will not have it. It’s rock, plain and simple. I’m trying to have as much fun as possible challenging myself as a musician, and having as much fun as possible rocking way harder than you’ve heard me rock (unless you’ve heard me play with other people, or been to a live show when we were feeling particularly randy).

In short, the usual – another phase has ended, a new one has begun, I’m really excited about what I’m recording and I’m still really happy about the last CD… which is still new.

Sorry, just had to get that out there.

 

Everything Means Anything

A few months ago, the first session for “Nothing Means Anything” took place on the 30th anniversary of Todd Rundgren’s “A Wizard, A True Star”’s release. That record was many things; a triumph and success in many ways, but was a rather purposeful commercial disaster. The legend of that album has grown while it has shattered the impression created by his previous album, “Something/Anything?” (don’t go there… coincidence, I promise!) that Todd was a one-dimensional limp-wristed balladeer of cute pop songs. Even a closer listen of that album would have dispelled it but we’re talking big singles being bought up by teenyboppers, not the album-buying headphone dissectors. “Wizard…” is immense fun for me to listen to, despite the “commercial failure” aspect of it. Todd accomplished what he set out to do, and that was to tell people who he REALLY was – take it or leave it. I took the anniversary as a good omen, particularly in light of how unlike me my first record now seems. The boy who recorded “Rockstars” is long gone… which “Nothing Means Anything” will explain in its story and songs.

The world did change in a few ways since I started recording this album. For one, I had a kid. Jimmy Ether at Headphone Treats gave me a few months off before finishing this record to cope with my new life. As I recently told a Sparklefest audience – my life didn’t change that much; I used to end the day with vomit all over my shirt and I still do but now it’s someone else’s vomit. I really do smell like rotten milk all day thanks to little Paul “bathing” me every couple hours, and my days of excess (not that they were alcohol-fueled) really are behind me. Also, it took 37 years but SMiLE, the record that often gave direction to my whirling compass to find “Nothing Means Anything”’s demos in the summer of 2003, was finally released. You’ll rarely be able to tell, but sometimes a snippet of music from SMiLE’s sessions would be enough to send me into my music room for a marathon writing-while-recording session all day. I didn’t want to imitate the music – I wanted to make my own equivalent of the heartfelt, meandering and often dreamlike project of Brian’s that was deemed “inappropriate” and never released. One Summer night while Heather and myself were getting ready to go to bed, I walked through the room on the way to the shower while the instrumental “Bicycle Rider” theme from SMiLE (an eery harpsichord melody) played. In the shower an unrelated melody entered my head and grew louder and louder until I had to open my mouth and sing it. Once it came out, I felt better and had to keep singing it to maintain this euphoric feeling. Throwing on a towel, I ran out of the shower and into my music room where I hit “record” on my four-track and sang a snippet of this melody into the microphone. The next day I spent eight hours on the demo for “Feel This Way Again”, the song that my little melody had turned into. It definitely signified a new direction in the type of music I was writing and was a huge step up in the quality of demos I was doing on my own at home. It sounds not a bit like the piece of music that inspired it, but I never would have thought of it had the music not put me in the state of mind to create.

This past weekend, the final session for “Nothing Means Anything” took place as Brian Wilson brought the long-awaited SMiLE to Atlanta. On Saturday morning we (Jimmy Ether manning the controls with me behind the mic) recorded the a-capella intro to “Feel this way again” and then that night we actually took a break from recording to go witness SMiLE, coming back home covered with chill bumps and ready to finish the record. Some lead vocals were re-cut with a bit more magic in them, all of the backing vocals were recorded and even a couple of guitar parts that I’d forgotten. Heather even recorded her oboe part in “Fairytale”.

So yes! We’re finished. I admit that over the past few months I’ve run lower and lower on energy and didn’t think I’d be able to finish this record when the time came. With the weight of an unfinished record off of my back, I woke up this morning with more energy than I remember having… ever. Paul and I have had a good morning, with his 30 minutes of TV – a Steve episode of Blue’s Clues, which he laughed at – and we listened to SMiLE for his audio stimulation. Paul “aaaaaah!”d along with “Our Prayer” on key at one point, which both scared me and made me happy. The house is clean and laundry’s getting done. Predictably, I’m sitting here working on songs for the erm… NEXT record. Meanwhile in Atlanta, Jimmy Ether prepares to begin mixing “Nothing Means Anything” (along with the new record from his band, The Ether Family Presents…) and he should be finished in about three weeks – that’s a liberal estimate.

There are so many things on my plate right now, but I do have the peace of mind of knowing that the chapter of recording album #2 has come to a close and that the next chapter can begin.