Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Update on the album and a live Facebook broadcast tomorrow.

Wednesday at Noon on Facebook. Free!
Music Wednesdays at the Times Free Press.
https://www.facebook.com/timesfreepress/

The record is sooooo painfully close to done. Close enough that I've begun
to think that this whole ordeal was a huge waste of time. As depressing as
that last statement sounds, it's really just insight to the neurotic-ness
that is being an artist. Of course, there's a great deal of pretentiousness
to being an artist as well, so maybe you should just ignore the previous
four sentences. :-)

I work on these things until they feel done, that's why they take so long.
It's also why they seem (to me) like they'll be done sooner. But on the way
to getting them "right" some cool things have happened. One: I went down to
my buddy Charles Allison's to record a solo dulcimer take of "While My
Guitar Gently Weeps." I've been playing this song for literally years, but
it seems like it's finally beginning to appear on peoples radar for some
reason. One of the reasons why my dulcimer CDs have lots of other
instruments on it is because it's devilishly hard to get a good recording
of a solo mountain dulcimer (just ask Aaron, Siefert, Eulberg or even Dan
Landrum). And it requires microphones I frankly can't afford. So I headed
over to Spanner Sound to get some good noises on tape.*

Secondly: the album in it's current form had a lot of drum loops, I have a
huge collection of them and this time around I just let myself go. It
solved whole lot of problems, but created a ton of other (procuring sample
clearances, mixed sound quality etc). But I discovered a local drummer
who's recording and uploading a "sample pack" of drum grooves, fills
individual hits etc. one a day for a year. So I partnered with him to
create new beats to replace the sampled ones. It's added a lot more work at
the last minute, but it's so worth it to have real, bespoke and local
drums.

I've been posting youtube videos of little snippets from the album coupled
with strange/cool images. I'm calling them "objects" and they will post
every Tuedsay between now (well two weeks ago) through March 7 in front of
the CD release March 11th. The best way to catch them is to subscribe to my
Youtube page (http://www.youtube.com/c/ButchRoss) or my facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/butchrossmusic

Finally tomorrow I will be on our local newspaper's "Wednesday Music
Series" on facebook. Just tune in at noon (EST) and go to
https://www.facebook.com/timesfreepress I'll be talking about and playing
some stuff from the new CD.

C-ya out there.