Entry Number 100

Today is a special day because it marks the hundredth (is that a word?) post I've made here on the blog. Very exciting. The title gave it away a little didn't it? Anyway, I thought it would be nice to just for one post, go back to what this blog originally was, back when it was called 'Recording a Day' and it was just crappy recordings of my mostly doing bad covers with the occasional original thrown in when I thought I was getting a little too close to being tolerable. So in that spirit, today's post is pretty simple just one song for you listening pleasure, but it's a Kid Omega song so you can see how it hearkens back. This recording is off of a Clark University bands comp called Cougar Tracks which was put together by Adam among others. This song will also appear on KO's upcoming full length, though with a bit more production and better vocals. Oh yeah, and it won't be named for a god damn republican. Enjoy!

Kid Omega - Sununu (not the real title)

Post Show Recap -or- Name-Drop-Link-Fest '09

On Friday night, Kid Omega played in the Fighting Freuds Battle of the Bands here at Clark University. It was fantastic. Playing live with this band has never felt so good. We had fun and it seemed like the crowd did too. We played a short set of Swagger, Overwrought pt. 1, Rainn Wilson, Elysion, and Song for Geoff. We have video of the last three for everyone who wasn't there. You can find the video of Rainn Wilson Stopped the Drought over at Greg's Blog. The video of Elysion is posted over at our band's blog. That was easily my favorite because at the end the crowd clapped and sang along when we asked them to. This leaves me with the video of A Song for Geoff to Sing to post on my blog so hear it is:



We had a great time playing the show and to cap it all off, the battle itself was eventually won by Sister City aka Adam. To be honest I'd never really listened to his stuff but I sat in on some of his practices with Sean, who he borrowed to do the show, and I was really impressed. He writes songs like a pro. You can hear more of his music at their myspace or you can read his blog here.

Final Note: If bouncing from blog to blog in search of videos isn't your thing you can find all three videos from the show on youtube and also on Kid Omega's myspace. Also thanks to James for being our videographer (he's the one you can hear whooping after every song), keep your eyes out for his band Tiger Trap.

Addendum

I would just like to throw my two cents in regarding Greg's now long departed Halloween Costume. While both the 50-cent and the Goldfinger costumes were pretty weak (albeit pun-tacular) the Lincoln hat showed a certain admirable craftiness and ingenuity.

P.S. For this to make any sense at all you have to go read my band's blog here.

P.P.S. Criteria is a fantastic band.

New Post New Name?

So I've been thinking that maybe I should change the name of this blog since I no longer record a song a day, in fact I'm extremely lucky these days if I record a song a month. That said, I'd like to start blogging more with my opinions on books, music, movies and still the occasional song or a news about the band, so the new name could be more generally reflective of that. If you have any ideas (you 3 who read this) feel free to send them along.

So after all that talk about how I don't record songs anymore, I did actually get one done tonight after about an hour and a half of work. I wrote 3 or 4 songs over the summer for the band and I'm hoping to get demos of all of them recorded at some point here. This one was the first of them and if it sounds a little different from all previous ones, that's because it was recorded onto two tracks! I'm getting very high tech now. It actually sounds different though because instead of my acoustic this song is being played on my new, beautiful Epiphone Dot. The song is called Daedalus Wept Bitterly and I hope you like it.

Daedalus Wept Bitterly

NOTE: A little housekeeping, it seems my web-hosting services won't let you simply play the song online and is making people download stuff. Just think of it as a free gift!

And We're Back

So I finally got off my ass and deleted a bunch of the old recordings that were on my web space and so I could finally make the link to the song in the last post work. Here's hoping the legions of people who previously read my blog will come flooding back and bring their friends. And while they're here they should check out the hottest new punk band in Worcester, MA, Kid Omega at their myspace page, the address of which is:

www.myspace.com/kidomegaband

This Is Not A Politcal Blog

This is not a political blog and that said, when I talk about what I did yesterday I will attempt to bring it back to music. Yesterday I went with several of my friends into Boston to see Barack Obama speak at a rally at the World Trade Center. With a minimal amount of gushing, I would like to say that the man made me a believer. I think the time is right to have a candidate with perfect comedic timing and that candidate is Barack Obama (seriously the man makes jokes, he's enjoying himself). The way I tie this into music is that of all my experiences in life, the rally was most like the first time I saw Against Me! play live. This is before they went all hypocritical and changed their sound to suit a more commercially viable audience (Note how I did not use the reactionary 'sold out'), back when they believed and you could believe with them. That was the show where I found myself singing along with the man next to me, smiling and nodding to each other even though we had never met. Last night after a particularly important point I yelled "Yeah" at the same time that the man standing next to me said it. We turn and acknowledged each other and when later as the rally built into a fervor and the man muttered to me "He has to win" it seemed normal. I waited in line for 3 hours, my calves and back were dead, and in that line I talked and made friends the way you can in a crowd of just under 10,000 people who all have the same goal for just a brief time. This is what punk music has always meant to me, in the face of cynicism and the status quo joining with other people, however different, who share our veiw to support the cause we believe in.
To that end I've decided to make my first musical post the new song that Kid Omega is doing. The song is called Elysion. This is the original acoustic demo I did.

Elysion

Bad News, Worse News, hope?

So first the good news that didn't seem to find its way into the title. I finally finished (for the most part) the song I have been trying to write for a couple of months now. To say that I am pretty excited would be a mild understatement. The bad news was that as I was playing to the first person (Dana) to hear it, in fact as I strummed the last triumphant variation of a D chord, the D string snapped. This means that, until I put new strings on the guitar, I can't record the song as either a demo to send to Greg or to post here. In fact I can't record anything to post here (yeah yeah excuses excuses). The worse news is that Greg in his wisdom did some research and it would appear that the booking agency I was so excited about is a scam so that's kinda the end of that.

In far more positive news I went on a bit of a buying spree at my local independent record store and picked up among other things the (comparatively) new album from Canadian Indie rockers The New Pornographers, Challengers. I was surprised to notice that apparently I had been ignoring my itunes labels and have been enjoying a track off of Challengers for quite some time now. For me at least, the song Mutiny, I Promise You is the standout of the track from the pipe organ hook at the beginning to the echo-y boy girl vocal build of the chorus and finally the chorus itself a simple two line affair that was what attracted me to the song in the first place. Other favorite tracks on the album include the call and answer Myriad Harbor and the opener My Rights Versus Yours. As far as the overall sound of album its the same catchy and melodically complex stuff as previous Pornographer's albums but it struck me that it seemed there was a bit more of a folk/country elements to a number of songs which I hadn't remembered from other work by them. Even when she wasn't singing, it reminded me a bit of singer Neko Case's solo work. In all an excellent use of my money I feel (and I so rarely feel that way).

A final note about formats. I bought the album on vinyl and since the band is on Matador records the vinyl comes with a free mp3 download of the songs. A couple other labels do this as well including my personal favorite Saddle Creek. It is without a doubt my favorite trend in music today. Singlehandedly it has made vinyl a reasonable format to purchase music in again. I guess the new mp3/usb turntables do too but I don't have one, so screw 'em.

No new music but a new resolution.

I haven't got a new recording yet because my room is still utterly filthy but I thought I'd let everyone in my new idea for the blog. Besides the theoretical recordings which I hope to begin posting again soon, I will be adding some more links soon and hopefully be doing some reviews. If i get a new album, finish a book, see a new movie or go to a concert I will provide you, my readers, with my thoughts on it. If this sucks please let me know and I'll stop but for a while there I was kind of doing this anyway and it seemed to be going pretty well. Also I'm hoping I'll have news about the band to impart so that will find it's way in here. The current news is that BigTime booking out of Boston has contacted us (which I was sure was never going to happen again) and they have added us to their roster and will be trying to find us some shows in the area. This is exciting.
Going back to a previous note, I recently saw the new National Treasure two movie with my friend Lauren (that's Bama to most of you). and it is........kind of awful. But funny if you're into that sort of thing.
I promise that the new reviews will be better than that.

Back Again

So I said I was back and then I disappeared again and I'm really sorry about that. I understand that the only way to get ahead in the blogosphere is consistency and in failing that, I not only let myself down, but I let you my readers/listeners (?) down as well and I apologize. Hopefully it won't happened again thought I think it is more likely I will be taking weekends off more often. That said, I have what I think is a really good reason for being away. I spent quite a good bit of time this week working with Greg recording his Christmas song for the Asthmatic Kitty and personally I think it sounds pretty awesome. But don't take my word for it because the finished product that was sent off to the label is today's recording. NOTE: The format for this one is a bit different from what I've used before it will probably make you download the song. But thats not the end of the world right?? A whole free Kid Omega song just for you (and whoever else).

Drawing In Fog

There's a story behind this one.

The story is that Sufjan Steven's label, Asthmatic Kitty, is doing a contest where you write and record a christmas/holiday themed song. Then you email them to him and he (or someone) picks a winner. The prize is that Sufjan has recorded his own christmas song and if you win, he gets the rights to your song and you get the rights to his. That's right, you own a Sufjan song and you can do what you want with it. I'm sure there's more information about this contest to be found on the label's website but I'm too lazy to check. The point of this is that my guitarist Greg (star of yesterday's post) is in the midst of writing a song for this contest and for the past couple of days I've been toying with the idea of writing a song about Greg writing a song. This is mostly because I like the phrase "Song for Sufjan." So I wrote the song in maybe 2 hours today so its really not perfect and it ended up being more about my band and sort of my hopes for it and whatever and how I think everyone in my band is really awesome and my idea of the best thing ever is being in a band with them and playing music.

To clarify some of the cast who appear in the song:
Greg - my roommate and guitarist in Kid Omega (but you knew that)
Sean - is the percussionist in Kid Omega
Beckie - another one of my roommates who takes really great photos (sometimes of our band) and has a blog

So yeah here's the song:
A Christmas Song for Sufjan

The First Guest (Kinda)

I've noticed I kind of half-ass all the firsts on this blog. The first original was only 'kind of" an original and now the first guest is only sort of a guest. Today's recording marks the first time thus far that someone besides me is playing. Today's recording is a song currently referred to as 'Spicy Dee' and it was written by my guitarist Greg. I play the little high note thingy. So it's only kinda of a guest because I'm on there too. I took a really long time getting around to saying that. Regardless I think the song is great and I'm allowed to say it because it's Greg's. Also the fact that both of us are playing on this means that for all intents and purposes it should be considered an actual-legit-you have it in your hot little cyber hands- Kid Omega demo. Greg would like to interject at this point that "that doesn't mean it's good." And he can say that because I'm the one who screwed up when we were recording it.

***Spicy Dee