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.  

Castlevania: "Heart of Fire" Arrangement

Check out my arrangement of "Heart of Fire" from Castlevania below.  If you like what you hear, you can download the mp3 by clicking on the Download tab above. 



Like I said, I don't plan on doing a full album of Castlevania arrangements (probably).  I'm in the middle of one Castlevania album, so I don't need to get involved with a second one.  Although I must say, putting this arrangement together was way fun.  Thanks to youtube user CrossTruth for requesting this fun tune.  I hope to do more random arrangements like this in the near future.

What's That? New Mega Beardo Covers?

I did something that I really hadn't planned on doing: cover a Castlevania song.  I got a request on YouTube to record my version of "Heart of Fire" from the game, and I thought, "why the hell not?"  I've been spending what little free time I have for my music writing this Simon Belmont album (6 or 7 months of recording demos now).  I thought doing another quick Mega Beardo track would help break the writing cycle a bit.  

Doing this cover was a lot of fun, though it wasn't as challenging as a lot of the Mega Man 2 stuff.  I forgot how much fun it was to take a piece of music from these games, jam on it for a while, and see what sort of originality stems from it.  I hope you guys dig the little spin I put on this tune.

I'm putting a video together for it now.  I'll upload that to YouTube and then put the mp3 of the song on the Download tab of this site.  On a side note, I was quite surprised that this song hadn't been covered endlessly on YouTube like I thought it would be.  What gives?   

So apparently, I'm taking requests now.  Anything you guys want to hear?  Shoot me an email or comment below. 

Live Descension Rate Footage

Live footage of Descension Rate playing "This City Could Never Last" can be found embedded below.  This was taken during our last show on January 30 at 123 Pleasant St in Morgantown, WV.  Admittedly, we were having a bit of an off night that night, but we still had a lot of fun.  It was our first time playing with such bands as Cast Off All Ties, False Profit, and Lenin/McCarthy, so we got to play in front of some new faces/ears.  We hope to play with these bands again soon.

"This City Could Never Last" will be included on our upcoming album.

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.  

D-Rate Update

I finished tracking rhythm and lead guitar tracks on the new and still untitled Descension Rate album.  Seven tracks and 35 minutes.  Bass tracks are currently underway, while drum tracks are being sent down to Richmond for mixing.  Realistically, this thing will probably hit by the end of March or beginning of April.  By then, we'll be ready to record the next 7 tracks for part 2 of the album.  

We also have three shows coming up:

January 30, 2011 - 123 Pleasant, Morgantown, WV
February 19, 2011 - Mountainlair, Morgantown, WV
March 18, 2011 - Peabody's, Cleveland, OH

The March show is a big one (or at least big for us dudes that don't get a chance to play outside of West Virginia much).  We will be opening up for a whole slew of great metal bands: Rotting Christ, Melechech, Hate, Lightning Swords of Death, and Abigail Williams.  Hit up Peabody's for more information: www.peabodys.com

I've also been recording a sort of "making of" for this album.  I'm not sure what I'll do with it, if anything.  It'll most likely just show up on Youtube in parts, as it will probably include the actual recording process, practice footage, live footage, and other dumb shit. 

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.  

New "Belmont" Song!

Happy New Year to all! My free time during the winter break is coming to a close, but I kept myself plenty busy. Proof: check out a full demo from my upcoming Belmont album! It represents Stage 5 of Castlevania, in which our protagonist, Simon Belmont, must face Death itself. The lyrics, although draped in Castlevania nerdery, deal with death in a couple of different ways (acceptance of and triumph over), as well as realizing one's own potential in times of trouble. Check it out:



I probably won't get back to Belmont writing for a couple of weeks. I will be recording guitar tracks for the Descension Rate album(s) this week, but I hope to get back into it soon after. I'm officially at the halfway mark!

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.