"Basement Demos": A New Collection of Old Originals Now Available!

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When you take a look at my discography and past music career, you will notice that I've been in a lot of bands over the years. Sometimes these bands go on for a long while, play live on occasion and release an album or two, and other bands never quite make it out of my basement.

That's what Basement Demos is. 

Dating back to 2009, I have stockpiled songs that I wrote for bands that I started and could never get off the ground. It happens. Life happens. People move away and people get busy. The band dissipates and you remain friends, but those songs just sit there and gather dust. I've tried re-purposing these songs for other projects with admittedly not so great results (this song in particular). So there they sit, collecting more dust and taking up space in my brain.

And then my wife and I decide to move out of my home state of West Virginia for work. I have lived here for every second of my 33 rotations around our sun, so transplanting ourselves into Pittsburgh is fun and scary and exciting and stressful. A move like this can be a catalyst for a much-needed recharge. It also gives you a chance to sort through the boxes of stuff in your basement. See where I'm going with this?

I bought my home in 2009, the same year I became a college teacher. It was a monumental year for me. "Hey, I'm an adult now!" This house also had a pretty cool partially finished basement area that I turned into my music and gaming space. 

This is where Mega Beardo was born.

Within two months of living at this house, I started tracking my Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute album. I was also writing Belmont at the same time. The house was like an injection of adrenaline and creativity. I came to spend a lot of my time in that basement studio. I adorned it with all the nostalgic crap that made me feel like me. It was a home within a home. And now I'm moving out of it.

While packing up the stuff in this basement studio for the move, I began thinking "Man, I've written a lot of cool songs in this basement that nobody will ever really hear." It mirrored my current packing activities as "Well, do I hold onto these things that I keep boxed up and never look at, or do I sell them or give them to Goodwill?" While I'm clearing out this basement studio, why don't I go ahead and just release all of the unheard songs I wrote in this basement studio? So I'm clearing out my basement both literally and metaphorically. It's like when old Rocky Balboa says he can't stop thinking about fighting because he still has stuff "in the basement." Not only do I want people to hear these songs, but I just need to clear them out of my head and focus on the future.

So that brings us to Basement Demos. This is a collection of songs I wrote for the bands Last Level, Clobber, and Karate Balboa (aka Bulletproof Tiger, aka Gotham City - we never really did settle on a name). These are all instrumental tracks. Though I was the singer of Karate Balboa, I didn't think it would fit to have 7 instrumentals and 2 non-instrumentals on the same album. Some of these songs, like the Last Level ones, were already recorded and close to album ready. With the others, I had to go back and update the old demos from 2009-2010 to make them all match, sound quality-wise. What results is (what I hope) a collection of punk, hardcore, and southern metal songs that represents a fun part of my life with my good friends, and I want you guys to hear it too.

I didn't do this all alone. Some of these tracks were a collaborative effort, particularly the Clobber tracks. Everyone in that band had a part in writing those songs in one form or another, including the late, great Eric Kesner, who wrote the absolute cheesiest, catchiest, and best vocal/lyric verse hook I've ever heard for "Peace Pipe." I represented it by playing the melody on guitar, but it simply doesn't do it justice. I'll be singing that song in my head until the day I die. Thanks, Eric. 

I also got my buddy Tony Rohrbough (formerly of Byzantine) to lay down a solo on the Clobber track "Ice Wizard". I had an open spot for a fun solo, and I've always wanted to collaborate with Tony. I strongly feel he is the most under-appreciated guitarist in modern metal, and it blows my mind that he played a solo over one of my riffs.

Dunzo! It feels good to get these out. I have a few things heading your way later this year. Viking Guitar Live will do some more recording, and LonelyRollingStars is prepping our next album. I'm also finishing up a track for a Chrono Trigger album. All that leads up to me finally sitting down to write and record Belmont II. I don't have a timeline for that, but my preference would be to get out it by Halloween 2016, as it is an appropriate time of the year and would also mark the 5th anniversary of Belmont's release (holy crap).

Until next time!

Mega Beardo: "Belmont" To Be Released on October 31, 2011

This Halloween, I will finally release Belmont, a metal concept album I have written based on the original Castlevania game for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  All nine tracks on the album follow Simon Belmont as he progresses through each level of Dracula's castle to fulfill his destiny.  The lyrics deal with Belmont's personal journey as he struggles with the burden of ridding the world from impending darkness.  The recognizable villains and in-game environments play a key role, while certain characters and elements of the game will be expanded upon in ways that enrich the overall story.   

Belmont Track Listing:
1. Simon
2. Creatures of the Bloodline
3. Medusa's Scream
4. I Return to Rain
5. Shadows Without a Sun
6. The Mysterious Works of Dr. Frankenstein
7. Bring Me Death
8. Such is the Curse
9. The War of Dark and Light



The album will be available for download at my bandcamp site (beardomusic.bandcamp.com).  I will also order a limited pressing of the album in digi-pack form for those who still collect music (good for you).  The album artwork will be created by Brian Pickens, who went above and beyond for the Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute album artwork.  Seriously, the dude is incredible.  I am beyond excited to see what he designs for Belmont.  As always, I appreciate those of you who have been keeping up with my progress and supporting me over the past year or so.  I ultimately write music for myself, but it pleases me immensely when others gain enjoyment from it as well, even if it's some nerdy album about a Nintendo game written by a bearded dude from West Virginia.  

And if that wasn't enough, I have also been writing and recording a short and simple (in contrast to my normal writing style) acoustic E.P.  The as-yet untitled album will consist of six tracks of pretty much my voice and an acoustic guitar.  I've recorded roughly half of this album so far, so you can expect it to hit my bandcamp site shortly after Belmont is released.

Quick Update

Things have been slow lately.  To be honest, I've had a tough time getting in the mood to write the remaining tracks for the next Mega Beardo album, Belmont.

But those days are over!  I'm back in writing mode again.  Two tracks remain, one about Frankenstein and one about Dracula.  The former is quite simplistic (about 4 riffs), while the Dracula track is going to get complicated.  There are a TON of riffs and ideas, by which you shouldn't be surprised if you have been following the writing of this album.  In my head, that track will most likely be split into three parts, but we'll see how it flows once I get the demo down.  

So I expect the writing of this album will be completed by the end of March.  To sort of celebrate, I'll probably record another one-off vintage game theme.  Then I'll start recording the Belmont album for real in May.  That's the plan anyway.  

Writing "Castlevania": Episode 5

This episode gets a little more into the song-writing process.  I was still kind of putting riffs together when I recorded this footage.  You also get a glimpse of how this song sounded 3 years ago when I first recorded the demo.  Back then, it was only the idea for a couple of verses and choruses, and it was more based on a minor pentatonic scale.  A lot of these riffs have been laying around for a long time.  I could just never get them to fit together until now.  

Lyrically, I was initially trying to make this an historically accurate song about mummies while also explaining why Dracula has two mummies hanging out in his fucking castle.  It made no sense, so I dropped all of the nerdy historical references; though everything in the lyrics now make an indirect reference to Egyptian mythology.  You'll hear a lot of references to shadows, bodies, souls, the sun, wings, and gods.  All in all, here is my interpretation of the third stage of Castlevania:

Dracula had, long ago, intercepted the spirits (ba) of two Egyptian mummies, which rendered them unable to achieve their ultimate goal of spending their afterlife with the gods.  Dracula instead uses them as slaves to battle anyone that makes it that far into the castle.  It is then up to Belmont to follow through on a double whammy: defeating the mummies so he may advance, while at the same time, releasing their souls from Dracula's grasp so that they may enjoy the afterlife they so desire.  

Just further evidence that I'm looking way too far into this game.  

Updates on Everything Ever

I've previously mentioned a new band/project in the works with some good friends of mine.  I have to put that on hold for now, as I'm really booked up for the next couple of months.  Descension Rate is in the middle of recording our first album in 5 years, and we also have a couple fun/interesting/awesome shows coming up that we need to prepare for.  Plus we all work and go to grad school full time, so my time is quite limited.

It bums me out having to tell some good friends that they need to be a little patient about it.  Our jam sessions were ten different kinds of awesome.  Very laid back, personality-wise, but very intense, music-wise.  The riffs, harmonies, and insanely powerful drumming were just locking in tight.  We all had smiles on our faces, and we couldn't wait to get back into it.  Nick and Mark are still writing on their end, and I'm doing the same.  When the time is right, we'll get back in the swing of things and hopefully play out soon after that.   Because this shit was fun as hell:

Like I said, Descension Rate is in the middle of recording now.  We're hoping to make it a fairly quick process, as the guitar tracks are getting mixed and mastered by our good friend and collaborator down in Richmond pretty much right after we record them.  Guitar tracks are about 65-70% complete.  We've decided to split the 14 songs (70 minutes) up into two 7-track (35 minute) albums.  So, we'll probably get started on the second one sometime in the Spring.

And the Belmont album.  Don't think I forgot about that.  I plan to set some time aside on Monday to demo the next song.  That's one thing that I really can't wait to unleash.  

Rogo, the Circus Turkey with a Porcelain-Legged Chicken for a Daughter

As promised, here is a video I put together for an old band of mine called Evol Kleavage (read the post below for some more info on that band). Yes, we had a dumb name, and yes, we wrote songs about dumb stuff.

Out of our small batch of songs, "Rogo" was always my favorite. Seeing as how it was the second song we had ever written, and we were so new to the game (this was back in '99), I'm not sure how we were able to construct something like this. We did some sort of short and weird "progressive" rock tune without even trying. I can very vividly remember the writing process for this one too, as all three of us were heavily involved in the riffs and overall structure. The double-tapping doodle was a direct influence from Buckethead; I had just seen him live in Pittsburgh the night before, and I was amazed at his flawless tapping abilities. Check out the tune:



Looking back, I wish we would've written more songs like this. We had a couple that were in the same vein, one of which was a creepy ballad about graverobbers digging up the grave of Robert Wadlow, the tallest man ever to have lived. The rest of our songs were more punk-influenced hard rock tunes, though they were still about dumb topics. One of those was a sequel to "Rogo" that had absolutely nothing to do with "Rogo" at all. We thought that was funny.

Happy New Year, duders. Prepare for some new music in 2011 in the form of the Belmont album, as well as Descension Rate's new long-overdue album.

The Time-Waster Has Been Slain (Temporarily)

Teaching has finally been wrapped up for the semester, as well as another semester of grad school. You can blame that on the lack of productivity, music-wise. But have no fear! I now have three weeks of more free time. So expect progress on the following:

Descension Rate album: Jeff and I will start laying down our guitar tracks soon. Eric will be doing his bass tracks as well. We're in pre-production mode, figuring out guitar tones, synth melodies, drum patterns, etc. It will be 13 tracks of pure Dark Tower-themed mayhem.

The Belmont Album: For the most part, all songs for this album are written, music-wise, except the final track about Dracula (for which I have riffs upon riffs that need structured). I'm working out of order right now, as the next track I finish will be about the Grim Reaper (don't worry -- it's not 11 minutes long. More like 6). Look for the inevitable youtube clip in a week or so. It's looking like this will be a 10-track album.

Untitled project: I hinted at another music project in the works with my pals Joe, Mark, Nick, and Eric. We're hoping to play out in maybe two or three months. We've only had one official practice since we all live about 3 hours apart and are extremely busy, but we probably have around 5 songs in the works. It's more basic, fun, and stripped-down.

Also, I'm thinking of making a music video for an old band of mine called Evol Kleavage. We were around from '98 to '04. In that time, we managed to write a whopping 8 songs -- our musical tastes could never really agree with each other. We recorded a 7-song E.P. back in '02, when we were 19 years old or something. It was all recorded in a few hours (by local legend Mark Poole) with mostly single takes and live floor stuff. Looking back on that stuff, it is very hard to categorize. Some sort of Primus rip-off/semi-punk vibe with an unintentional universal lyrical them of death and boredom. My favorite song of ours is "Rogo," a nonsensical tune we wrote in high school about a Circus Turkey who has a kleptomaniac, porcelain-legged chicken for a daughter and causes a suicidal old man named Baskers to jump off a cliff and turn into a mini-truck. It's the kind of shit we thought was funny when we were bored in high school and not playing The Ocarina of Time.

So I plan to make a video for "Rogo" which will feature a bunch of live footage from those early years. I see it playing out as some sort of retrospective, as I have footage of us playing that song from 2000 to 2004, from high school talent shows to local sold-out rock shows.

Speaking of videos, check out this little gem. Mike and I recorded this song over the summer. It's a cover of Danzig's cover of Buick McKane. Mike, however, changed the lyrics to make it into a love song for his then fiance and now wife. This was the first time Mike and I did any recording together since the Sweet Cuppin' Cakes album "Oldies" in 2005. Good times, sir. Fun fact: I recorded the guitar tracks for this song this past July while, unbeknownst to me, my basement was flooding around my man cave during a freak rain storm.

Writing "Castlevania": Episode 4

In the latest installment, you will hear some clips of the fourth demo for the album. This track, given the demo name of "Holy Water," is about -- you guessed it-- holy water. More specifically, it chronicles the story of how the holy water actually makes its way to Dracula's castle. That title will definitely not stick, so don't get used to it. Or do. Whatever floats your pickle.

I'm getting a little closer to the tones that I want to use for the album. The vocals, on the other hand, are still giving me trouble, tone-wise. But that's why we do this pre-production crap, right? I didn't do pre-production on Mega Beardo, so that's probably why the songs tend to sound better as the album progresses. Live and learn, duders. Live and learn.

Welcome back the whammy pedal! It's been in retirement for the past 10 months.

Epic Song is Epic

I just finished recording the fourth demo for the Belmont album, and...yeah...it's 11 and a half minutes long. Sorry. I honestly didn't expect that at all. You see, when I write a song, I usually keep it under tight wraps inside my brain. When it comes time to start programming drums for it, I usually write out the structure in ways which only I could probably understand, like so...


Believe me. "DT x 4" and "Balls to the Wall Riffage" had some sort of meaning in my head when I wrote it down. Anyway, after I saw the structure written out, I thought, "Surely, this will be 7 or 8 minutes tops." Wrong, Beardo. Very, very wrong.

Though it lacks shortness, it makes up for it with absolutele epicness. I'll post some snippets of it in the upcoming "Writing Castlevania" episode. I'm so happy to finally hear this song outside of my head, in which it has been festering for the past 2.5 years. Now let's hope my vocals don't ruin it.

Time, I Hardly Knew Ye

Stupid school.

It seems like jack diddly has been going on lately, but quite the opposite is true, I can assure you. Jeff and I have been writing like mad men (yes, the show) for Descension Rate. It seems we are approaching the end of the writing process for our Dark Tower album. We may have too much for one album at this point, actually.

I've also been collaborating with my friends Joe, Nick, and Mark on a new project. We haven't decided on a name yet, but I can tell you it starts with a C. Feel free to guess. The music we have written is more on the fun side of rock, and less on the technical side. We're writing pretty quickly, with 2.5 songs already fleshed out. So we should be gigging in no time.

Unfortunately, this past month hasn't seen a whole lot of progress on the Belmont album. I did, however, record the demo for the album intro over the weekend. It's simply titled "Simon," and it's been sitting around in my bowl of noodles for two years now. I remember when I first wrote the melody and chord progression, it sounded like a huge rip-off of Between the Buried and Me's "Foam Born (a) the Backtrack." So I had to consciously get it away from that, but I was listening to a lot of BTBAM at the time, so the influence is still there. Quit reading about it, and starting watching it instead. Allow me to explain in Beard-o-vision!:

What are the haps, sir?

Last week's Descension Rate show went pretty damn well. The big surprise? Our dumb corpse paint stayed on the entire show. We probably have decreased on-stage temperature to thank for that. There were quite a few new faces in the crowd, which is a good sign for the local metal scene. We also premiered our new song "The Glamor of the Empath," another one of our Dark Tower-influenced doodles. Jeff was disappointed, but I had tons of fun with it. And it got the biggest ovation of the night.

So what's going on with the Beardo side of things? I've been writing lyrics and laying down demo vocal tracks for the Belmont album (yeah, I think I'm going to call it that). I've been asked to include a track on an upcoming local music compilation. So I just finished editing a shorter version of "Creatures of the Bloodline" to include on that. It's weird editing a narrative-heavy song for length, but it is being listened to outside of the context of the story. I'll include more info on this compilation when I find out about it. Until then, Jeff and I have some Descension Rate writing to do, and I'll probably start working on the next Castlevania tune very soon.

Oh, and Byzantine is playing at 123 tomorrow. Hell. Yes.