The Life and Times of FP

FP Special Update: 1-16-2012

2012-01-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

Howdy All...

Today's post is a bit different from the norm. A good friend of the band's, Jeff Nardoni and his wife Tiffany, lost their 5-year old son Thao this past Friday after many months of on-again-off-again illnesses that ultimately surpassed the scope of modern treatment. That being said I wanted to share a short tribute song that I put together and recorded on the night of Thao's passing:

We are very saddened by this loss but at this point all we can do is support, encourage, and most importantly, pray for the Nardoni family as they grieve and adjust to their 'new normal'.

A bit of history between Jeff Nardoni and the band:

Besides being in the same circles as Jake, Matt, and Robert while they were all in high school, Jeff has also played a significant role in my own life as a close friend and fellow artist. A couple years prior to the incarnation of FP, Jeff encouraged me to give a hand at singing. We were working on a song that I wrote called "I Don't Care" and the plan was to have Jeff take care of the main vocals with me doing possible back-ups. As I previewed my scratch demos of the song to him (with my vocals serving as a scratch pad of sorts), Jeff really pushed for me to do the main vocals and for him to do the back-ups. Jeff is definitely a much more gifted vocalist than I but he was pretty adamant about my vocals being at the forefront. The rest is, as they say, history. The song recording went well and it left a good taste in my mouth for me doing vocals more often. And quite frankly, if it were not for Jeff's encouragement, I would not be singing in a band today. In my opinion he single-handedly got me started singing. Here's the song that Jeff and I put together (I played guitars, synths, bass, etc....Jason Landis played the drums....Jeff sang the upper harmony vocals throughout):

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jeff and Tiffany and their family...

~ Todd

FP Update: January 6, 2012

2012-01-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

Happy Post-Holidays Everyone!

And here's the latest:

1) We are now beginning rehearsals on 'Marigolds' for live playing. We have 'Rabbit Hole' and 'Getting Away' both in-the-ballpark of where they want them to be to play them live, and so last night we decided that we are ready to tackle 'Marigolds' again. 'Marigolds' will likely go quick since it is such a basic song and isn't nearly as tricky as say 'Rabbit Hole'. 'Rabbit Hole' pushes the envelope for us as a band...lots of special variations throughout, harmonizing lead guitar solos, crazy funky bass lines, etc.. From a playing perspective I think we all probably enjoy 'Rabbit Hole' the most since it is the most challenging. But it's also likely to be the most impressive song in our arsenal for our live shows. Lots of stuff going on for the listeners. Ear candy for sure...

Then just as soon as we get 'Marigolds' polished up to our liking, we'll only have 'Some Other Year' and 'Sycamore' to get reacquainted with and then we'll start playing out. I'm still not 100% sure we'll start playing live shows but it is definitely approaching. Will keep everyone in the loop...

2) On the recording end of things, we are nearly done tracking parts for 'Rabbit Hole' with just one section remaining for Jake's bass parts and some of my lead vocals (and a few backing layers) still needing to be recorded. Once 'Rabbit Hole' is done with tracking then the mixdown and mastering stage will begin. Hopefully that stage won't take near as long as it normally does. From it's beginning I've approached 'Rabbit Hole' in a completely different way production-wise in hopes that the mixdown will be more simplified. I won't bore everyone with the details and mindset of my newer approach, but all seems to be working much smoother at this point as compared to all previous recordings. And then just as soon as Jake is able to finish up his 'Rabbit Hole' parts then we'll start attacking 'Getting Away' (drums are already done on that one). The good news on 'Getting Away' is that we are already solid on performing our parts so the tracking stage should go much easier and quicker for us.

So that's basically it for now. This one is more short and sweet and to the point. For now we're just Rehearsing and Recording. Two of the basic food groups in the life of a band. Eventually I want to get back into writing new material but for now we are narrowing in on our focus to get us tighter and more polished. Can't wait to see all of you out on a stage somewhere in the not-so-distant future!

Until next time....

Todd

FP Update: 12-1-2011

2011-12-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays FP Fans!

Here's the latest:

1) I've been whittling away at the vocals on 'Rabbit Hole' in the studio. I have had several 'good days' (and a few bad days in between) and overall it is really turning out well. Also, we've really come a long way with our live band rehearsals. Our 'Rabbit Hole' live version is getting much tighter and tonight I was really admiring how we were sounding tone-wise and balance-wise. We still have a couple small kinks to work out here and there but I think everyone is trying hard to 'do their part' and I am really anxious to perform 'Rabbit Hole' live somewhere. It simply sounds good and we all find ourselves smiling when we work on it. I even lost my place with one of my finger positions on guitar tonight because I got so absorbed in the 'sound' of everything. I'm a bona fide tone-freak and as such I couldn't help but get caught up in the moment. It's funny when the 'listener' in me usurps the 'performer' like that. Hopefully our audiences will experience the same sort of 'lost in the moment' episodes like that. I can't wait to play live shows...

2) Speaking of rehearsing for our live stuff, 'Getting Away' almost got away from me at tonight's band practice. For whatever reason, I've been struggling to find the right notes when singing the melody. Seems like the melody we originally wrote has always been either too high or else too low for me to sing effectively at full band volume. So tonight I had the guys pull back volume-wise long enough for me to experiment with some new vocal ideas. Turns out I just needed to start singing a harmony part in place of the main melody. Everything ended up being a 5th higher than my 'lower version' of vocals. And it really adds to the vibe of the song and brings a depth to everything that (we now realize) had been previously lacking. It's a bit tricky to hear at first but I am so getting that part down before we have our next rehearsal. Wish me luck!

3) I'm slowly getting all of the pieces to my 'pedalboard puzzle' assembled. This past week I was able to pick up a Carl Martin OctaSwitch Mk2 and I'm now trying to gradually get the cabling I need to hook everything up properly. It's amazing how expensive proper cabling is going to be for this pedalboard by time it's all said and done. But it will be pretty amazing once I've finished putting it all together. Here's a quick shot of some of the pedals I'm planning on using (including the big red OctaSwitch):

That big red OctaSwitch will keep me from having to do too much 'tap-dancing' during live shows. I know all of those pedals look a bit complicated to most folks but it's really not too crazy. An overdrive, a couple fuzz pedals, a couple echo pedals, and a cool tremolo pedal can produce quite a bit of ear candy. It's the signal routing and powering schemes that get a bit tricky to figure out. But (as I've said many times before) I'm a total guitar geek and I love the tech side of things like this. I probably spend way too much time lying in bed each night mulling over big ideas about how to use my gear in new ways. Even just today I stumbled upon an unexpected sound while putting a couple of my pedals in an unconventional order, and it made me smile from ear to ear when I heard the results for the first time (and that sound will definitely get used in future FP adventures). Stuff like that just makes me happy...

So anyway....I think that's all for now. I feel like I am forgetting something that I was going to blog about but it escapes me at the moment. If I think of it, I'll post again....It's getting late and apparently my caffeine is wearing off.

Time to sign off until next time...

~ Todd

FP Update 11-19-2011

2011-11-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

And here's the latest news in FP Land:

1) We are now getting back on track per recording stuff. Seems like we have all been so distracted lately with other things going on that the recording front has gone quiet. But this week Jake, Robert, and myself have all been able to put some time into getting 'Rabbit Hole' up and running again. And it is starting to sound pretty good! Jake has a few more sections to go and I have several vocal sections that need recorded, but past that the guitars are all mostly there and the drums are done. I've given some thought to adding one more section of banjo but if that happens it should be pretty simple (and easy?) as I feel fairly connected with the banjo right now. We're anxious to get this one out and ideally I'd like it finished by the time Christmas rolls around. Maybe sooner. We'll see what happens. Can't make any promises but it will be here soon...

2) Whenever all four of us are together we are usually working on rehearsing our live performances. Ideally we will start 'playing out' sometime late-winter/early spring. Lots of little kinks to iron out but it's definitely a good time. That being said, we are hoping to play our first couple of public performances a bit 'under the radar' just to help us get a better feel for things as a band. Things like set-up/tear-down, stage monitoring, amount of stage volume, gear choices (etc.) all factor in heavily here and we'd like to get a feel for as many of those issues as we can (out in the real world) before chasing after any higher profile shows. Better to potentially get tripped up at small gigs than at big ones. Should be a fun ride though....

3) I'm still writing new material to some degree but we won't be tackling anything new as a band until we get our live show dialed in. That being said I already feel like I am at a slight turning point in how I write stuff. Not so much from a technical aspect but moreso from the creative side of things. Things like lyrical content, overall musical style, etc.. Not that I am making major changes from what we have already done, but tweaks here and there. It's kind of hard to pinpoint where I feel like I am heading creatively but I feel like some growth is taking place and I feel that I am less worried about what I 'think' people would like to hear and now I'm mainly just writing what I like. For instance, when I wrote 'Marigolds' it was all completely authentic and from the heart, including those WooHoo's, but once that song was finished and we released it, I've not really thought much more about it. Granted it's a song that gets stuck in your head, but 'Marigolds' probably gravitates as far to the 'pop' end of the spectrum as we want to find ourselves going. We aren't an overly heavy band, but we definitely aren't a 'radio' band either. In a way, we still have a long way to go to really 'find ourselves' as a band. But in the end it's all about the journey...

That's all this time around. Thanks for tuning in...

~ Todd

FP Update: 10-25-2011

2011-10-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

Howdy All...

Things have been a bit scattered and disorganized for us of late. But good things have been happening:

1) Perhaps the biggest news in FP Land is that Jake got married back at the beginning of October. Congrats to Jake and his wife Sarah! (And of course Jake has been gone a bit for their honeymoon...) On top of that, shortly before tying the knot, Jake took on a sweet new job doing marketing and photography. Lots going on in Jake's life! And then Matt, Robert, and myself were all groomsmen in Jake's wedding. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to snap a couple pics of the four of us together while we were all decked out in tuxes (this pic was taken just minutes before Jake and Sarah said 'I Do'):

Something else that came along with Jake getting married were the coolest groomsmen gifts ever: Jake made us all matching FP logo Bags board sets (or you might know it better as 'cornhole' depending on your locale):

FP has a history of Bags (or 'Cornhole') competition within the band and the competition can get pretty fierce. And for the record, even though mild-mannered Jakeman is usually the biggest smack-talker of us all, Jake doesn't always win. He does win quite often, but definitely not all of the time...

2) I haven't been able to spend much time lately working on studio recording stuff. Not sure if I've temporarily fizzled out or if I've just had a tricky time of switching hats, but we've starting putting more focus upon our 'live' performance to prep for playing out in a few weeks/months. As such, I've not had quite as much 'brain juice' for doing the intense editing and detail work that recordings require. I will of course get back on the studio stuff, but part of me realizes that I need to be in the right frame of mind for the task at hand, and I hate doing something creatively at half capacity. So fear not, more song recordings (including 'Rabbit Hole' and 'Getting Away') will get finished and released to our fans, but we need to do these things on our own time-frame and not spread ourselves out too thin. I guess that's the advantage of being an unsigned band without any imposing deadlines looming over our heads. Fact of the matter is that I wish we were ready to release "Rabbit Hole' and 'Getting Away' now because I have two or three more awesome songs that I'm looking forward to recording and rehearsing for our live show. But one thing at a time... :-)

3) One of the big distractions that I've personally been dealing with has been equipment changes. After some unexpected (and expensive and untimely) equipment failures, I realized I needed to upgrade my rig, especially where my amps are concerned. I had been using a pair of Line6 half-stacks for everything and honestly thought I had the ideal set-up. However, after some serious thought and contemplation I realized that those half-stacks were entirely too big to be convenient for any future live shows we'll be doing. I also realized that I wanted something much nicer and more toneful as far as my amps are concerned. So in the end I have settled on this current rig (pictured in the order of the signal chain):

1) Guitars: Vibrance Ambrosia Double-Cut and Vibrance Padauk Single-Cut (custom made for me by Craig Collins of Vibrance Guitars):

2) Pedals (this will evolve over time of course):

Cause and Effect FET Dream Overdrive Pedal (my main Tone):

Seymour Duncan TweakFuzz (one of my Favorite Fuzz machines - very nasty):

Way Huge Swollen Pickle Fuzz (another Favorite Fuzz - very wooly):

Pigtronix Tremvelope (my newest addition - makes everything go 'woo-woo-woo-woo-woo...')

Strymon Timeline Delay (Echoes, Ambiances, Filters, Beautiful-Things-in-general...this TimeLine delay is like Heaven-in-a-Pedal)

Amps:

A stereo pair of Swart AST's (Atomic Space Tones):

Needless to say, lots of guitars, pedals, guitar parts, and other gear have been sold in order to acquire the above mentioned gear. And perhaps some may question how researching, demo'ing, and buying new equipment can be such a distraction. But imagine a NASCAR driver completely changing out his cars, tires, sponsors, pit crews, etc.. Or imagine changing from a PC to a Mac. Or imagine relocating to a different city and moving into a new house. Everything changes. All of the rules, all of the familiarities, all of the quirks, everything. And such is my rig. Everything in my rig is different than it was even just a year ago, and all of that new gear requires time to get used to, and in some cases (especially where the guitars and amps are concerned) certain playing approaches and techniques have had to be largely readjusted. Fortunately it has been an extremely fun ride and (going back to the 'moving into a new house' analogy) it feels like I have stepped up from a 'fixer-upper-starter-house-in-a-so-so-neighborhood' to a 'wow-this-is-the-kind-of-house-I've-always-dreamed-of'...It really does feel like that. Of course any adjustments I've had to make along the way have been totally worth it and I'm grateful to be at this place as a guitar player where I can use high-end gear to get the job done. I do love gear...

So I suppose that's all for now. We've been busy. Lot's going on.

Adios until next time...

~ Todd

FP Update: 9-20-11

2011-09-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

Howdy!

I'm keeping this one short and sweet. Just a quickie update...

'Rabbit Hole' is done with 95% of Robert and I's guitar tracks and I'm now ready to start adding a few banjo tracks. I've also started back on the main chorus vocals which seem to be going well. Not sure how soon Jake will be available to finish up his bass parts...he started a new day job (which means a new schedule to work around) and he's getting married in a couple of weeks. But we'll get things done soon. As of right now, we're a bit scattered with all of our crazy schedules, but as I mentioned before in previous posts, we are wanting to focus on polishing up our songs for live performances. No promises on when or where we'll be entertaining folks, but we'll keep everyone in the loop. Lots going on...

Stay tuned...

~ Todd

FP Update: 8-19-2011

2011-08-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello...

OK....So first matter of business: Sorry to everyone for the month-long (to the day) silence here in FP Land. We've all been quite busy and before I knew it, an entire month slipped by without an FP Update. Dang. We actually had one fan from the Chicago area tell us "I got a little sad when the FP Updates slowed down"...Oops. Our bad. We really are working hard in the background to get more music out. Lots going on...

1) I think the biggest news is that we finished up the drum sessions for song #5 called 'Getting Away'. It's probably our moodiest song to date and it eschews the common song formats that frequent most airwaves today. Simply put it goes like this: Intro/Verse1/Short Interlude/Verse2/2nd Short Interlude/Big Chorus/Mellow Bass solo stuff/Big Guitar Solo (and Big Everything Else as well)/Quick Outro....Finis. When we were initially writing this song we were trying to figure out the best place and best way to land it. We tried several different ideas, and then Matt suggested that we simply shorten it and Get the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks Out of Dodge right when the listener expects us to go on further. Worked beautifully and it thus became so. (Don't worry about me giving the plot away...it will still take you through some unexpected twists and turns when you first listen to it...You'll like it.)

(Below is a pic I took while recording drums for 'Getting Away'... A room with a view - or more specifically a bathroom with a view - of a corn field. - It's a Midwest thing.)

2) So now that the 'Getting Away' drums are recorded, the next agenda on The FP To-Do List is to have Jake start recording his bass parts to it. While Jake works on that, Robert and I are going to focus on our guitar parts for song #4 'Rabbit Hole' (along with my vocals which are well under way). Once Robert and I get the primary guitar tracks done for 'R.H.' (and once Jake gets his bass parts done for 'G.A.') we'll all swap songs and then Jake will finish up his remaining parts on 'R.H.' and Robert and I will tear into the guitar parts for 'G.A.'.... Make sense? :-) With any luck at all we'll have a much shorter span between these two new song releases than what we have had in the past with our first three songs. Lots of work to be done, but we are definitely getting the hang of things these days. Good times.

(And speaking of 'getting the hang of things'....here's a pic of our original drum mic channel layout sheet that we keep using for every song. Kind of a cool pic. It just struck me as an interesting moment when I saw the page sitting there.)

3) Robert and I have come up with (more than a few) new song ideas. We actually wrote some guitar parts to a new song one Thursday morning, then later that same day when we met up with Matt and Jake for band practice, we showed them the basic ideas we had developed and then everyone was able to improv off of that. What was even crazier is that the bulk of the lyrics I wrote were off-the-cuff as we were playing it. I didn't have any lyrics when we first started playing the song, but I did have a lot of good lyrics once we got started. Everything just came together on the fly, and four minutes later we had a basic song structure in place. Nice. Needless to say that was a pretty awesome moment for all four of us. I've had plenty of situations where I have improvised guitar parts to fit a certain vibe or session, but lyrics usually don't happen that way for me. But with this song, the words just came to me as needed while we played it for the first time. Very nice indeed. Consequently the lyrics really suit the music and I hope we are able to start recording this song very soon. The working title for it is called 'Beautiful'...

4) As mentioned in earlier posts (from way back when we first started this blog), I have several songs in the works that just need some FP group therapy and (in some cases) a little more work lyric-wise. Some of the working titles for these songs are 'Drowning', 'The Antebellum', '451 Sandusky Drive', 'Montego', 'Anderson Hill (A Small Town Epic)', and a bunch of others. And it seems more ideas happen each day. Needless to say, it's a good day to be an FP enthusiast. There's lots of ear candy coming your way folks. We play stuff the way we like it and we all put our best into it. Good things will happen....Stay tuned.

That's all for now. Hopefully the next FP Update won't be a whole month away. :-)

~ Todd

FP Update: 7-19-2011

2011-07-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Howdy Howdy!

Here's the latest FP Update:

1) Perhaps the biggest FP News is the addition of a new member to FP. Yep. You read that right. FP is now a four-piece unit. Ever since the beginning of FP I always swore up and down that we would remain a trio. Well...sometimes someone comes along that changes your way of thinking, and our newest member-in-the-making Robert Shepherd has done just that. We approached Robert, a long-time friend of Jake and Matt, last week about joining FP as a second guitar player, and Robert said he'd love to. He has sat in with us a couple of times during past drum sessions and rehearsals just to hang out with us. And Robert and I have already messed around with a couple song/riff ideas for a tune I'm calling 'The Antebellum'. What's more, his playing style and background is a good balance to my own style and background and it already feels natural to work with him and collaborate on material. He'll be adding a lot of nice dimension to FP's sound and writing style and we are very excited about having him become a part of FP. For my part, I am looking forward to having another guitar player to bounce ideas off of and giving me some breathing room to focus a bit more on my vocals. Mind you, I have no intention of slacking in my guitar playing, but Robert will definitely make my job as a singer/guitarist easier to manage. Good things will happen...

2) 'Rabbit Hole' is temporarily on hold guitar-wise in order to allow Robert some time to familiarize himself with it. The current plan is to have him add some guitar tracks to it as soon as he feels comfortable to do so. That being said, he has his work cut out for him as there are a lot of bass/drum/guitar interactions going on that are really tough (but really fun) to play. Again, good things will happen...

3) Drum sessions for 'Getting Away' are currently scheduled for the first week in August. We intended to record Matt's drums for that song sooner, however, work schedule conflicts, Midwest heat indexes reaching 110*(+) in the shade, and other odds and ends have necessitated that we hold off until the first week of August. No biggie. Hopefully the Midwest heat will simmer down a bit between now and then.

4) We are still working on our special WooHoo YouTube Channel and hope to have it open to the public soon. I am offering some light commentary on each WooHoo'ers performance to make things a little more entertaining which is asier said than done when there are 70-some-odd WooHoo'ers to write about. I probably have half of the commentaries finished as of this moment. Will be worth the wait though, especially when you hear some of the WooHoo's that we recorded. Funny stuff.

5) We also have someone in mind to give us a hand on putting together FP YouTube videos (on our main Channel) from raw footage that we compile. We'll wait to release that person's name once they get the first video up and running (probably in August sometime?) But we feel pretty serious now that we have a fourth band-member and our first volunteer staff member. Good things will happen...

Until next time...

~ Todd

'Marigolds' is Here! WooHoo!!!

2011-05-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

FP - 'Marigolds (The WooHoo! Song)' by theFPband

(Directions: Click the BIG RED ARROW to listen to the song. Or...Click on the small black down arrow to DOWNLOAD the mp3 file for free. You can also find 'Paid' versions of our songs on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, Nokia, IMVU, eMusic, Zune, etc if you have other preferences for downloading our music. Enjoy!)

Lyrics:

(Verse 1)

You and I have a special power...
Our love grows like a bed of flowers...
Holding your hand I'm barely breathing...
Funny how fast my heart is beating...

(Verse 2)

Never knew time could pass so slowly...
When I'm with you it's like the only thing...
Gonna be late for work if I stay here...
One more kiss...I'll be on my way Dear...

(Pre-Chorus)

And when I leave you
You know I want to see you again...
And when I'm with you
You know I never want it to end...

(Chorus)

You put the WooHoo back inside of me!
And if you don't mind I'll say it again...
WooHoo!!!
And 'You and me' might sound like a fantasy...
But we both know we'll never find it again....
No!!!

(Verse 3)

Marigolds in the front yard growing...
Only two months (and) you're already showing...
Can't wait to feel them move inside you...
Hope the twins love their mama like I do...
(Yes I do...)

(Pre-Chorus)

And when I leave you
You know I want to see you again...
And when I'm with you
You know I never want it to end...

(Chorus)

You put the WooHoo back inside of me!
And if you don't mind I'll say it again...
WooHoo!!!
And 'You and me' might sound like a fantasy...
But we both know we'll never find it again....
No!!!

Credits:

Drums - Matt Goodner
Bass - Jake Lockard
Guitars, Vocals - W Todd Reynolds
Backing Vocals - Charlyn 'Charlie' Hester
Lyrics by W Todd Reynolds
Music by FP
Produced by FP

And a Very Special Thanks to all of our WooHoo'ers!!! WooHoo!!!

(Listed in alphabetical order according to first names):

Abe Neufeld
Alex Hatcher
Anderson Reynolds
Angel Jett
Angel O'Brien
Angie Springer
Ben Brumett
Beth Eyrich
Beth Goodwin
Bill Montgerard
Bobby Huber
Bonnie Gaston
Brett Springer
Brian Carpenter
Brittany Goodner
Brock Dieu
Cathy Wiese
Charlyn 'Charlie' Hester
Christina Brumett
Cindy Pittman
Clay Hicks
Cooper Carpenter
Crystal Suchaczewski
Curt Ellis
Don Wiese
Gabbi Haas-Reynolds
Gina Brady
Greg Ingalsbe
Hannah Stockwell
Harrison Stockwell
Jacob Cassity
Jaedon JeRue
Jake Lockard
Jeff Lane
Jennifer Clark
Jeremy Stimac
Jeremy Ellis
Jeremy Stockwell
Jill Bosch
Judie Barrett
Julia Reynolds
Katie Lund
Kim Jamison
Kyle Finley
Lee Reed
Lori Chowning
Lucy Reynolds
Lynn Lewis
Margaret Houpt
Mary Lou Thomas
Matt Goodner
Megan Ketcherside
Mike Jett
Miles Clark
Nikki Haas-Reynolds
Patty Killingbeck
Ruby Montgerard
Sara Anderson (soon-to-be Sara Stimac)
Sarah Reiter (soon-to-be Sarah Lockard)
Shareen Huber
Simphi Lenover
Stephen Lehman
Tim Mills
Todd Jamison
Trace Reynolds
Tyler Reynolds
W Todd Reynolds

(P) (C) 2011 The FP Theory
All Rights Reserved.

FP Update: 5-23-2011

2011-05-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

Just a few quick announcements...

We are ready to release our third song 'Marigolds' just as soon as we take care of some red tape. We have the mix finished the way we want it and we'll be releasing it in the next few days! So keep your eyes peeled on our blog for download and/or streaming links. As usual we will be offering this as a free release if you download it directly from us. (You'll also be able to purchase the song for 99¢ via iTunes, Amazon, etc, if you would rather go through an official online distributor. Either way, we want this song to lodge itself in your head....you have been forewarned.)

Also, we are still wanting to make all of the individual WooHoo's available for your listening pleassure. We spent a lot of time (and lots of giggles) going around to people to have them WooHoo for us. If memory serves we have nearly 80 WooHoo'ers helping us out. We'll get those WooHoo's out sometime in the near future. (The big priority lately has been wrapping up 'Marigolds' as well as writing new material for song #5. Only so many hours in a day....)

Another update concerns 'Rabbit Hole'....all things being equal I plan on starting guitar sessions this week and next. I've been holding off on that because of wanting to finish 'Marigolds' and also because I wanted to wait until my two custom Vibrance guitars were ready to go. All systems are a 'go' now and so tomorrow I can take off the Producer's hat and just focus again on being a guitarist...can't wait to get started!

So that's all for now...the new song will be in your ears very very soon! Enjoy!

~ Todd

FP Update: 4-26-2011

2011-04-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."

- Horace Walpole (circa 1776)

And now for the latest FP News:

Lots of crazy things have happened over the last two or three weeks. I have had several unexpected house repairs (broken windows, broken gutters, etc) thanks to Mother Nature, our family minivan got a very bad bill of health which in turn prompted us to find a new vehicle (this time we found a nice SUV...yesss), I had a rough week of allergies that eventually forced me to go to the doctor (I'm all better now...thanks for asking), and my beloved MacBook Pro laptop (the centerpiece and control center of my humble studio) bit the dust. Sort of.

This last Saturday when I was at work giving guitar lessons, my MacBook Pro (MBP) lost its display screen. Nothing but blackness. The rest of the laptop seemed to be functioning just fine, albeit without being able to see anything on the display. Not good. So I finished that afternoon's lessons, went home, started doing some research, and came to the conclusion that my MBP's graphics card bit the dust. Again, not good. So after some more research I realized that the repair costs would likely be high and that it might just be a good time to upgrade to a newer model (the broken MBP is a late '07 model). So later on that day I ordered a new MBP from Apple with all of the upgrades in hopes that I can get through another four years of heavy usage with this new laptop. (And while I was ordering the new laptop I also decided to order a new iPad2. Sweetness.)

Concerning the old MBP, I decided I would probably just EBay it for spare parts. So yesterday (Monday) as I was doing some more research on my broken MBP (so that I could offer some sort of explanation of what needs to be fixed to any potential EBay buyers), I stumbled upon an obscure Apple Forums memo that stated that my broken MBP would likely be eligible for free repairs from Apple as they had a bad batch of graphics cards from NVIDIA (NVIDIA is the company who made the graphics cards). Nice one. I just spent a ton of money to replace a laptop that could potentially be fixed for free? Wow. Go figure. Timing is everything. That being said, I was bummed only for a couple seconds before I smiled and told myself, "But you're getting a brand new MBP and an iPad2! Score!" So with any luck we'll be able to get my old laptop fixed for free, which will mean that we'll have a spare (albeit a bit older) MBP floating around the house. Sweetness.

So what does this all mean for our fans? Well, unfortunately it means that my studio is currently shut down until I get the new laptop. And then once I get the new laptop I will still have several hours/days(?) worth of updates, programs, and settings to configure and install. And all of that means that our new song's release is getting pushed back a bit. (Bummer...and I was soooo close to getting 'Marigolds' finished just before my laptop crashed.) Fortunately, I am 99.9% certain that none of our recordings will be lost or ill-affected as I can simply copy them over from the old MBP's hard drive to the new MBP's hard drive. But again, I anticipate all of this taking some time. We're talking about a few hundred GB's of data. I still won't have the new MBP for a few days, so in the meantime I have been getting some work done around the house, homeschool stuff caught up, studio equipment repairs taken care of, and the like. So in a way I feel like I am on a mini-vacation since I haven't been able to work in my studio for the last few days.

Also, my two custom Vibrance guitars are within a week or so of getting finished. Between waiting on my new laptop to arrive and waiting on these two new guitars to get finished, I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas to come around. The anticipation in the air is palpable folks. I've been trying to keep myself busy so as to make the time go by quicker but that's easier said than done of course. But all of those things are on the horizon. Will be a crazy week next week. And a fun one! Can't wait.

And also (since I am in 'waiting mode' right now), I've had some extra time to practice my vocals and guitars for our new song, (tentatively titled) 'Getting Away'. Like 'Rabbit Hole' this new one is a darker, and perhaps a bit moodier and ethereal. Jake, Matt, and I plan on resuming our weekly practice schedule this week and work begins on the new song. We haven't had any rehearsal time since we finished up the drum session for 'Rabbit Hole' back before the Holidays. Will be good to get back into the flow of things.

So I think that's everything for this FP Update. Thanks for checking in and checking up! Stay tuned for more!

~ Todd

'Marigolds' Update: 3-30-2011

2011-03-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hello! Hello!

Just a quick status update on how 'Marigolds' is coming along. We felt we needed a little bit more umphh on certain sections of the lyrics (beyond the extra layers I had already sung) and so we enlisted the help of my sister Charlie. She came over Sunday afternoon and recorded vocals for almost two hours. I had her sing a bunch of variations just to have plenty of options on hand, and at this point I am in the process of fiddling and experimenting with different parts of her vocals. As such I'm working on finding the right balance for her parts. Too much can be a distraction but too little can be pointless. Good times.

Also, as with any mix, I'm trying out different tones and EQ treatments on the bass parts. Easier said than done, especially in my smallish studio room where I do my final mixing. Small rooms are the bane of mixdowns and even with all of my sound panels (and all of the crazy research and money that I've poured into my mixing space) there is still a fair amount of trial and error involved when dialing in the low-end of a mix. Every song that I mix hopefully sounds better than the previous one, and it is forever a learning process for me. Plus I'm a perfectionist. But I will get this finished ASAP.

We're pretty much done collecting "WooHoo's" from everyone and it was a ton of fun going around and getting friends and family to 'WooHoo' for us. A few days prior to the release of 'Marigolds' we plan on posting everyone's WooHoo's individually so that everybody can hear themselves (and all of the other WooHoo'ers of course!) WooHoo'ing. I recorded a bunch of people WooHoo'ing using my iPhone 'on location' at my workplace, outside restaurants, in warehouses, behind taverns, at church, at various homes, out on the streets, etc.. I think we have over 60 WooHoo'ers WooHoo'ing for us. Talk about funny stuff. Some of these 'on location' recordings are hilarious and during the course of capturing all of these WooHoo'ers WooHoo'ing in their natural environments, we soon realized that we just had to share these clips with everyone. Get your giggles ready folks...you're gonna need 'em!

So all in all I'd say that this song is 75% mixed down and good to go, and I've been making some serious progress on it these last several days. I know everyone just wants to hear it sooner than later, but it has to be 'right' before we showcase it. Our name is attached to it and so it needs to be good. Real good. Hopefully you'll find it was worth the wait...

Stay tuned!

~ Todd

Calling All WooHoo's!!!

2011-03-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

WooHoo!!! by theFPband

Hello FP Fans!

We need your help!

We need a bunch of FP fan-based "WooHoo's" sent in to us for our soon-to-be-released song 'Marigolds'. The more WhooHoo's we can get the better. All contributors will getting honorable name mentions in the song/album credits. Here's how it works....

Listen to this demo of Todd's "WooHoo" and then use your computer's built-in microphone, your iPhone/iPod/iPad/Droid/smart-phone voice recording app, a recorded phone voicemail, or whatever else you can use to record yourself 'WooHoo'-ing. We need fun/rowdy/excited WooHoo's from all ages (guys and gals) for this to work. If you can WooHoo then we want to hear it! Then send in the file (mp3/Wav/AIFF/etc) to our band's email address:

theFPband@gmail.com
Subject Line: WooHoo!!!

We'll see how many our friends, family, and fans can submit over the next couple of weeks. We'll try to cut off the submission date around the end of March 2011 so that we can finish this song and get it out to the masses. The rest of the song is pretty much done and ready to go but we thought we'd make this extra special by involving our listeners and making them a part of the fun!

So start WooHoo-ing and send us your best!

WooHoo!!!

Todd, Jake, and Matt

(P) (C) 2011 The FP Theory

Our Changing Times....FP Update: 3-4-11

2011-03-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

Here's the Latest....

1) Jake is 'kicking butt and taking names' on his bass tracking sessions for 'Rabbit Hole'. Matt and I took more than a few liberties and artistic twists and turns when recording/producing the drum tracks. During pre-production and rehearsals we wrote the basic arrangement and skeletons of the song, but we only worked out the generalities, namely to allow Matt a sense of direction and vibe for what he would play during the actual recording sessions but without trying to micromanage his every move. We wanted Matt to have room to ebb and flow while recording. And that mindset paid off in spades where those drums are concerned. The drum tracks are stunning. (Just wait until you hear this one folks...) So once those drums were finished, the challenge then went from Matt's shoulders over to Jake's shoulders. Again, Jake's bass parts were merely roughed out in general ideas during the pre-production/song-writing stage. The plan was to have Jake then play off of Matt's recorded parts, which means the details for Jake's parts now need to be worked out under the microscope for the recording process. It sounds easy, but in reality every little kick, snare, tom, and cymbal accent that Matt did 'on the fly' needs to be learned and memorized by Jake in order for him to sync up his bass parts properly. And that takes a lot of hard work and focus and especially time. But as they say, 'that's what separates the men from the boys'...

2) 'Marigolds' is slowly getting finished, with an emphasis on 'slowly'. I just don't have the time or brain to plow away at it at a breakneck pace, at least not without compromising the end results. This, much to the chagrin of our detractors and naysayers, is the supreme advantage of being self-produced, and we love the freedom that comes from doing everything ourselves. Love it or hate it, the waiting between each song is part of the process for us, at least at this point in the game. Granted, for our listeners, getting to listen to a finished song is the best part, but for us the whole creation process is king...

3) Matt's wife Brittany is expecting their first baby any day now. They are naming her Willow, and everything has been going smoothly for Brittany and the baby. And of course, many of us are expectantly waiting for the mass text from Matt telling us 'It is time'....

4) Jake is getting married in the fall. I'll likely make mention of this from time to time as things develop, but currently he and his fiancé Sarah are in the planning stages of everything, so not only does Jake have a lot on his plate with his work, side-job gigs as a freelance news photographer, and being a bass player extraordinaire in an upcoming rock band, but he's tying the knot in a matter of a few short months. Lots going on with Jake....

5) I'm in the process of making some significant gear changes over the next couple of months. To start off, as I've mentioned in previous updates, Vibrance Guitars builder Craig Collins is building me two custom handmade guitars. Initially I had plans of buying just one guitar, but as his first run of seven guitars has evolved and progressed, I made the decision a couple of months ago to actually buy two guitars from Craig. Likely there will be more down the road as more designs become available....(it never ends for gear hounds). But Craig has graciously asked for my input and suggestions throughout the entire building and designing process and I have been more than happy to oblige. Craig thinks that these two guitars will be finished in the next 4-6 weeks (give or take of course), much of that time being needed to properly apply the oil finish to his liking. And then there will be a ton of pictures....

Secondly, I've recently been heading towards smaller wattage guitar amp designs. I own a pair of 100 watt Line6 tube 1/2-stacks which I have done pretty well with thus far for recording and rehearsals, but I keep feeling unsatisfied with the clean tones I've been getting with those rigs. So I have been on the prowl for a while now to remedy that situation by acquiring a better-suited amp design. As it turns out, what I ended up buying was a small one-speaker, 20 watt amp combo made by Swart Amplifiers. It's called a Swart Atomic Space Tone (AST for short) and it is quite an amp. The clean tones are what I've been looking for, and inadvertently I've also found some of the best sounding 'crunch' tones I've ever heard, simply by cranking this little amp up to around 7 (it goes to '11'). It's a simple design, all hand-made here in the States by Michael Swart himself, and it just sounds fabulous. Small but mighty.

And then of course I've added a few pedals to my arsenal. If you know anything about most guitar players you're already aware that the only things that we like more than guitars, amps, and gadgets is even more guitars, amps, and gadgets. Especially effects pedals. Pedals are a (relatively) cheap fix for finding new sounds and ideas, and some of the most sought after effects pedals are overdrive, distortion, and fuzz pedals. And lately I've been on a pedal spree. I just picked up a Fulltone PlimSoul, an Xotic EP Booster, and a used Seymour Duncan TweakFuzz, all of which fall into the OD/dist/fuzz categories. Talk about good times! A guy like me could just shut himself in a room for a while and get lost in the different tones that are possible. Some folks may be bored with this sort of gear info, but trust me when I say that these toys (er...'tools') will inspire a lot of new FP material and will help take my performances up a few notches. These new guitars, amps, pedals, etc are all a new direction for me, kind of like if a Formula One race car driver switched over to NASCAR. To some people a race is just a race, but to the driver the car changes everything. I'm not sure which race car category my new gear would fall into (metaphorically speaking of course), but whichever it is, I like it...

That's all for now. I actually made a new post within a week of the last one! (Yesssss....) Will post more as things develop!

Thanks for checking in....

~ Todd

Deep thoughts with FP: 2-27-11

2011-02-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

...And now back to our regularly scheduled program:

Yeah yeah I know...I've been slacking on these Blog/FaceBook updates lately. Well over a month since the last post. Dang. So as I'm laying here in bed getting ready to call it a day, I felt like writing a few lines. Of first importance is the current status of 'Marigolds'. I've been wrapping things up with it but I've also allowed myself the luxury of taking my sweet time on it. I think some of my personal insecurities about singing have caused me to hide this song's status a bit more than usual. And honestly I just don't know how people will respond to this song. In spite of everyone's vote of confidence (at least from those who have heard it thus far), there's always that little nagging doubt in my mind about how well I sang on it. Granted, the drums are awesome, as are the guitar and bass tracks, but perhaps I'm feeling a 'studio' variation of stage fright concerning my vocals? Actually, that makes me chuckle when I think about...

At 39 years old, vocals are a bit of a new direction that I am yet to feel completely confident about. Of course I've sung all of my life in church, in the car ride to work, at concerts, in the shower when no one else is home, etc, but that's all different right? Shouldn't guys like me who are in bands be cocksure of everything they are doing? Isn't that part of the mystique and allure of the bands and performers we idolize? And yet the biggest part of me feels at odds with the whole 'rock-star' image/mindset. Honestly, I just want to write and record and perform good music that everyone will connect and identify with, and I think that if there are deeper insecurities and fears buried within me that I struggle with, then I need to be open and transparent about those things with friends, family and fans. I know that I am a talented and inspired person, as are Matt and Jake, but I can't fathom trying to create an illusion with people that I've got it all together. I can sing decently on a good day. I can play guitar pretty well. I'm driven in most of the important areas of my life, including my music (though there are other areas in life that I deem of much greater value). And I'm a good music producer in most situations. But on the flip side to all of that, I suck at singing on my bad days, I never feel like my guitar playing is 'as good as so and so', and my recordings never sound quite as good as I think they should. And in direct opposition to my drive in life, I frequently get tired, frustrated, bored, impatient, or burned out and I often feel like throwing in the towel and quitting everything. Sound familiar?

And...if anything...I think I've also struggled with falling into the trap of only painting the brighter side of things, especially how I let others see my life. After all, in regards to my music, who wants to be a fan of someone who isn't at the top of their game all of the time? Funny that.

Now here's the crux of the matter: All of the above introspective ramblings over a guy's insecurities about singing in a band? Yes. And...No. If you know me at all, then you'll know that I have way more issues than just being insecure about singing. Like most other people, I worry about my weight, my blood pressure, "will I go bald someday?", "do I look old?", and other trivialities. And then there are the big important issues in life: "Am I a good person?"; "What do others think of me?"; "Am I a good dad?" and "Will my sons turn out to be good godly men once they grow up and go out on their own?"..."Am I a good husband and friend?"..."Is God happy with how I'm living my life?"

Perhaps the fears of not singing well (or of not making good-enough-sounding music) are the symptoms of the bigger complex issues that lurk beneath the surface. Don't get me wrong, many of the superficial things in life like our weight, appearance, age, etc have a profound influence on who we are. But truthfully isn't it easier to talk about the superficial crap with a total stranger rather than confide our innermost being to someone we know and trust?

Your mileage may vary from mine, but I tend to want to talk of the deep stuff but in the end I usually wind up simply 'talking about the weather'. And so that's where (hopefully) my music pursuits will help out. Maybe I can split the difference between the two extremes via addressing the bigger things in life by way of metaphors and art and melody. After all, words alone often fall short of conveying how life really is going, right? At least I tend to be that way. But hopefully my artistry and musical pursuits will point to the deeper personal things that are happening in my life. And maybe you'll be able to relate on some level and be encouraged or inspired by it in some way.

Of course not every song will have a deep, profound meaning behind it, nor will we constantly try to use our songs for cathartic reasons. Sometimes a song is just a song, just a story with a melody. Sometimes the real emotion is in the guitar parts or the way the drums pound or how the bass flows in and out of everything else going on around it. We could all make analogies of every little detail and come to a myriad of conclusions (and I'm sure some people will do just that), but hopefully the listeners who need something on a deeper level will find it and those who just need a melody to hum along with will also find what they are looking for. It's fun being a song-writer and musician in that I realize so many people will receive things differently and on so many different levels. And honestly we'll never know the extent of the influence our songs may have on our listeners. First and foremost our songs suit us as a band and give us a platform to be ourselves with. If all else fails, hopefully our listeners will at least get that.

Wow. I'm so long-winded. Hope everyone who reads this is doing well and enjoying life.... :-)

All the Best...

~ Todd

FP Update: 1-21-11

2011-01-20T22:38:00.000-08:00

Howdy Howdy Howdy!

Wow what a couple of weeks we've had in FP Land! One nice thing about the winter months is that we all stay inside more and get more recordings going. As I mentioned in the last post, I am (for all intents and purposes) done tracking the guitars for 'Marigolds'. And now this week I think I conquered the main chorus vocals to 'Marigolds' as well! I still need to record some backing vocal layers (as does Jakeman), but having the primary chorus parts finished is a big deal in my mind. I still need to sing and record the Pre-Choruses but I can't fathom those being as tough as the choruses were (nothing like stretching our limits). So vocals are on my plate at the moment.

Jake on the other hand has a lot on his to-do list. Backing vocals for 'Marigolds'. Rerecord a small bass section in Verse 2 of 'Marigolds' (no biggie there). Record all of the bass tracks for 'Rabbit Hole'. And write lyrics for the final verse and chorus of his new song. The working title for the new song is 'Getting Away' and he and I have spent quite a bit of time figuring out guitar and bass and vocal melody parts to it. My son Tyler thinks this new song will be his favorite FP song thus far. He also made some good suggestions to Jake and I about the lyric content/story for this new song. At any rate it is taking form quickly and all of our gears are turning nicely. I cannot think of anything I enjoy more about music than the process of writing and crafting and performing new songs. It all just works...

Per Matt...he's waiting on Jake and I to sort out our parts for Jake's song before he worries about his drum parts. Past that he's off the hook for a short bit (which works out well since he and his wife Brittany are only a few weeks away from having their first child).

So that's the latest bit of FP News. Short and sweet. Been so busy recording that I haven't had much time to post updates or make new teaser videos. But that's a good thing! Our next recording will be released soon!

Until then...

~ Todd

FP Update: 1-10-11

2011-01-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

We're very excited about some things we have planned for this year...New songs, new recording sessions, new boundaries being pushed, new ideas! And for the first time in years I feel rejuvenated as I head into the new year. No resolutions mind you. No delusions of grandeur either. Just a sense of gratitude and excitement knowing that FP is alive and well and that we love what we are doing. That being said, here's the latest Current Events:

1) 'Marigolds' has come leaps and bounds since my last post. With the help of Craig and Lucas Collins of Vibrance Guitars, I recorded all of my guitar tracks to 'Marigolds' over the holiday break. Craig loaned me their #003 Double Cut prototype (see first pic below) for several days for me to test it out in a recording context. Lucas sat in on most of the guitar sessions as a second set of ears and assistant producer. Lucas' ears and ideas helped shape my guitar parts and my guitar tones, and his input was invaluable. Funny what a difference it can make when someone sits in on a session. There's more energy, more focus, more intention. And Lucas was able to make suggestions whenever I would make a mistake or needed to make decisions about amp settings, which pickups to use, etc.. It all ended up yielding very very good sounding guitar tracks that I am very happy about. Also, I had previously recorded several tracks with my beloved '05 Les Paul and Dean Z guitars, however I opted to replace all of those original tracks with new ones using the Vibrance #003. The Vibrance just sounded like it was in a league of its own when compared to all of my other guitars....

Past that, I am now ready to finish up the main vocal parts on the pre-choruses and choruses. I've been trying to keep my voice in good shape and have been trying to ward off the occasional cold or sore throat. (You gotta love the winter months!) Hopefully I'll nail my parts in short order and then we can start to wrap 'Marigolds' up. Once the main vocals are ready, Jake and I will go back and drop in a few backing vocal parts as needed. Then perhaps a couple of sessions of background guitar layers? Then it should be ready to mix and release. Will be here before you know it so stay tuned! (Below is a pic of the amp/mic set-up I used for 'Marigolds')

2) We have begun to flesh out some of the basic guitar parts for a new song written by Jake. (I'm actually listening to a mock-up demo of it as I write this post!) No name has been set for the new song yet, but it is mostly in the key of G minor and is about 115 beats per minute. Fairly mellow and deep. Reminds me a bit of old U2 stuff from the Joshua Tree album (which is a very high compliment in my book). Can't wait to see where this one goes as it develops!

3) The drums are finished on 'Rabbit Hole' (and even rough mixed for the time being). We'll be covering a lot of musical territory over the course of the next several songs, so fasten your seat belts. Jake will begin bass sessions soon on this one and then it will be left to me to track guitars and vocals. We've probably had the most fun when writing this one and working out the parts, and it will likely be one of our favorites to perform live once we start doing shows. It's dark but also very fun, if that makes any sense. Perhaps like a good Coen Brothers film?

So that's it for now. More pics and posts to come so keep checking back! We'll be busy in the background!

Peace...

Todd

The Final 2010 FP Post

2010-12-28T22:07:00.001-08:00

Howdy Folks!

One last entry here before the New Year hits. It has been quite a busy last couple of weeks, especially with Christmas parties, get-togethers, what have you... But in the midst of all of the seasonal hustle and bustle, I got a chance to play a solo version of 'Silent Night' on Christmas Eve at my church, and it went well all things considered. The week prior to Christmas was chock full of distractions that minimized my time to prepare for my rendition of 'Silent Night', and admittedly I spaced-out midway through a chorus section and had to sort of ad-lib from there. In a way I felt stupid, but I also walked away with the thought that I just need to relax whenever I screw up a performance and let it go. That all being said, I was really pleased with my tones that night. My rig was: my '05 Gibson Les Paul > Marshall BluesBreaker2 overdrive pedal > Line6 SpiderValveMk2 half stack. I also used a Boss looper pedal to create an ongoing loop of harmonics to play the melody over. Aside from a couple deviant notes mid-chorus, it was all quite lovely.

So this week I have picked up where I left off in 'Marigolds' before we had to steal all of my mics to record drums for 'Rabbit Hole'. I decided to try a new method of guitar speaker mic placement called 'white noising' (some people call it 'shavering' and various other names). The method is to send some white noise into the guitar amp at extremely high decibels and move the mics around while listening to everything in headphones. The louder and smoother the white noise sounds through the mic, the better the mic placement should sound (in theory) in recording. So I bought a white noise app for my iPhone, plugged the iPhone into my guitar amp, turned on the white noise and cranked the volume. Lucas Collins was lending me a hand today, and he best described the white noise through a cranked amp as sounding like a jet engine. It was deafening loud. But remarkably the whole process paid off in spades. My mic tones have been great and much easier to dial in than what I am used to. Also, I am using one of Craig Collins' prototype Vibrance guitars (#003) and it sounds amazing in every way.

So anyway that's a quickie FP update. We start Jake's bass sessions on the 'Rabbit Hole' recording next Monday, and we are also starting rehearsals for a new song next Thurs. Things are moving along quite well these days. Will have a couple new songs to debut before too long! Good times...

Thanks for stoping by! We wish everyone a Happy New Year!

~ Todd

'Rabbit Hole' Updates

2010-12-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on how our new song 'Rabbit Hole' is coming along. We wrapped up all of the drum sessions this past week and now the drum editing/assembly begins. Fortunately, Matt is such a kick-@$$ drummer that all 'drum editing' on my end will be simple and efficient. Do we have the capability to fix timing mistakes on the sly? Yep. Do we need to fix any timing mistakes? Nope. Matt hit the ground running (figuratively speaking of course) and he nailed all of his drum parts in record time. Un-freakin-believable how good Matt is on numerous levels.

And now all that remains to be done with the drum tracks is to bounce things down, mix the levels, EQ'ing, compressing, etc.. Also, one sonic trick that we employ is that we listen to all of Matt's kick drum hits (usually several hundred per song), we scrutinize them to find the 'perfect' one, and then I layer that 'perfect kick' with each and every other kick hit throughout the song. The Pro's call it 'drum replacement' and it is a standard procedure for most commercial recordings. And while most engineers use various 'drum replacement' plug-ins to automatically do this process for them, I like to layer each kick drum hit by hand. I do have the tools to do things automatically, but I think it sounds better when done by hand one kick hit at a time. The whole 'drum replacement' process usually takes 3-4 hours per song, and truthfully it is horribly boring. But it makes a world of difference in the final mix, especially in the sub-sonic low-low frequencies. Listen to one of our songs on a suitably equipped sound system. My mixes are never as polished as I envision in my head (though I do try as best I can), but the kick drum hits are always sonically consistent as they should be. Definitely worth the extra time involved. I'll probably start that in the next day or two. It's ridiculously cold outside right now (wind chills are well below 0*F), so what better chance to stay inside my warm little studio? This coming week should hopefully be very productive...

Once I get the drum editing wrapped up I will start recording guitar tracks again on 'Marigolds' as well as more of my vocals. At some point in the near future Jake will start laying down his bass tracks for 'Rabbit Hole' (he's already done with bass on 'Marigolds'). But we will be taking it easy over the holidays. Christmas only comes once a year and FP efforts can give it a rest until the new year. Time to recharge and enjoy the season...

I will possibly post here again before the end of the month. Not sure yet. If not, then I would like to wish all of our friends, family, and growing fan-base a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for being a part of FP and for making this last year a special year indeed. As I often say, much more is yet to come...

Peace.

~ Todd

Pre-Holidays Update: 11-19-10

2010-11-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello...

Time to break the radio silence. We've been a busy band of late....

1) Writing and pre-production for 'Rabbit Hole' is pretty much wrapped up and we plan to begin the drum recording sessions the week after Thanksgiving. This one has been a lot of fun and takes us down a road less traveled. It actually gets a little bit heavy at times. And it is swampy (you can hear a very short preview of the main riff here: starts at 3:40-ish). We have a few odds and ends that aren't set in stone in the arrangement but we've opted (as is getting to be our routine) to wait and see what happens during the recording sessions. Sometimes it is just better to play off the cuff and see what happens. I also have a few falsetto parts that are a real blast to sing. I sing a lot more these days...in the car, at home, etc., so hopefully I am getting the hang of it. La la la la la la....

2) Speaking of falsettos, I've been recording the vocals for 'Marigolds' over the last couple of weeks. I sing a little bit, walk away for a while, come back, listen, try it again, etc.. But I'm not fighting the mic as much with this song as I did on 'Sycamore' and 'Some Other Year'. I've stumbled upon a fairly decent mic set-up that seems to be making things easier for me to sing. Same mic, different signal path. Live and learn. Now I just need to get used to hearing my recorded 'higher voice' without nitpicking it to death. (And yes the vocal parts in 'Marigolds' are higher than our last two songs.) I went through the same insecurities when I started 'Sycamore' (in regards to my voice in general), and so I'm glad that I am being stretched into being a better performer. It just takes time to improve....

3) On a personal note, I've been tinkering with various circuit designs with one of my spare guitars in an effort to figure out what capacitors to use in my upcoming Vibrance Guitar (yes I said 'circuit designs' and 'capacitors'...am I a geek or what?) That being said, I somehow managed to hit 'sonic nirvana' with my spare guitar (after four or five trips to the local Radio Shack), so now I just need to finish buying the parts I need for the Vibrance (albeit not from Radio Shack....the real deal needs to have high-end parts in it) and tweak things ever so slightly. But the Vibrance is well under way and Craig Collins (the owner/luthier of Vibrance Guitars) offered to build mine out of some seriously resonant walnut wood that has been drying naturally for over 20 years. I'm pretty sure this guitar will play itself once he gets it finished. I seriously can't wait....

So that's all for now. Be sure to keep checking back every few days for more updates and FP-related news...

And now it's time for me to call it a day and cuddle up next to Julia....

~ Todd

'Some Other Year' is Finally Here!!!

2010-10-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

Hit the big red 'Play' button to stream it. Click on the little black 'down arrow' at the far right of the player to actually download the mp3 file ('...to have and to hold until death do you part')

Lyrics:

Some Other Year

Verse 1

You and me sittin' under the tree
Talking 'bout things only you and I see...
Faraway places (and) Some Other Year...
Laughing and Dancing with nothing to fear (no...)

Verse 2

I'm waking up and I'm not alone...
You're in my arms so let's turn off the phone...
(I) don't want to move...
Want to lay here instead...
A Beautiful Day for staying in bed (yeah...)

Chorus 1

Tell me your secret...
(Now) Please don't be scared
And I won't care
No I won't care...(No...)
You've got a secret that you need to share
And I'm not scared
No I'm not scared (No...)

Verse 3

You're upset and you don't know why...
I say 'I love you...' that 'we've gotta try...
'To figure it out...
'There's no other way...
'We've gotta believe in the things that we say...' (yeah...)

Chorus 2 + 3

Tell me your secret...
(Now) Please don't be scared
And I won't care
No I won't care...(No...)
You've got a secret that you need to share
And I'm not scared
No I'm not scared (No...)

Verse 4

You say you're nervous and a little bit scared...
You're three weeks late...you can already tell...
(Your) Hands are shaking...
You're looking at me...
Tomorrow comes quickly and soon we'll be three...

Credits:

Drums: Matt Goodner

Bass, Backing Vocals: Jake Lockard

Guitars, Synth Textures, Lead/Backing Vocals: W Todd Reynolds

Backing Vocals: Thomas Holley and Mike Jett

Written, Produced, and Anything Else: FP

Special thanks to our three biggest supporters: Brittany, Sarah, and Julia, along with Charlie Hester, Todd Nardoni, Thomas Holley, Mike Jett, and all of our friends, families, and fans.

(P)(C) 2010 The FP Theory

And so the SOY Mixdown continues...

2010-09-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hello World...

I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first? Hmmmm....

First the Bad News. The 'Some Other Year' mixdown has taken much longer than I originally anticipated. As such, it will sound really good once we unleash it to our fans and friends. As I mentioned in the previous update, the Chorus vocals needed much attention in context of the final mix. It is such a guessing game when we're first tracking vocals. We end up just shooting from the hip and going for it. 'Fix it in the mix' as they say. And I'd like to say that the next songs will be easier and will have fewer issues to remedy than 'SOY' or 'Sycamore' have each had, but I think that would just be a tad delusional on my part. But honestly it makes me chuckle when I think about it. At least I enjoy the process....

The Good News: I am somewhat confident that we'll have the initial test mix of 'SOY' ready for R&D this Friday. Jake, Matt, and myself will then listen to the test mix on every available system possible, take notes, make any necessary tweaks, lather, rinse, repeat. Which means we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this one. Yessss.....

So that's it for now. We're planning on resuming rehearsals and preproduction on 'Rabbit Hole' late next week. We're all very anxious to play and rehearse and write again. (And for my part I am anxious to start playing through my new amp rig with the guys.) Things are coming together nicely...

Until next time (and keep checking back for the new song to be released for free)....

~ Todd

SOY Mixdown Update: 9-22-10

2010-09-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

OK....so here's the deal on the new song that we're about to release. The mixdown is still in progress but going well. I ran into issues with dialing in my lead guitar tones to suit the new mix. That cost me a morning of tweaking. And then as I began to tackle the lead vocals, I ran into sibilance issues with the Chorus sections. In the context of the new mix, my S's and SH's were way too loud (uncomfortably so) and out of control (i.e. 'sibilance issues'). So I spent a couple of afternoons trying several different 'De-Essers' and a multitude of settings in the hopes of fixing the problems. That didn't work. So then I thought I'd try to re-sing the choruses with a less-sensitive microphone. That sort of worked but didn't seem like a complete fix. So tonight I heard a little voice in my head say 'Set up a Side-Chain De-Esser'. (And yes I really did hear that little voice in my head.) Mind you a 'Side-Chain De-esser' set-up is a lot more elaborate and was something that I have never previously tried. I'll spare you the technical details (you can read this link if you really must know how it all works), but I am having pretty good results so far and have learned something new in my craft that has hitherto been unknown territory. But as it is, I still feel the need to massage these vocal tracks to make them sound as good in the mix as possible. Not sure how long that will take. So to be fair, I need to push back the release date to perhaps next week or the week after(?) I'd rather not release sub-par material. Sorry for the delays....

Until next time (keep checking back for more updates!)....

~ Todd

'Some Other Year' is Almost Here!!!

2010-09-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick status update on our second official song release, 'Some Other Year'. We now have everything recorded and tracked and awaiting mixdown (which should begin first thing Monday morning). This past week we added some more guitar textures (think interesting noises and cool ambiances), the last bit of Jake's bass parts on the final chorus (which proved trickier than anticipated), a few subtle synth textures (think more interesting noises and cool ambiances), and a couple spoken phrases by Matt and Brittany Goodner. There are a couple places in the song where I plan on adding a bit of synth texture if needed, but I can't make those sort of decisions until the bulk of the primary elements have been mixed properly (namely the drums, vocals, guitars, bass, etc). But I'd like to see this song out the door by the end of next week(?)

Until then....

~ Todd

Weekly (sort of) Update: 9-2-10

2010-09-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

How ya'll doing this evening? Here's the latest...

1) We're putting on the final touches on 'Some Other Year' before we start mixing her down. Forgive us for the crazy length of time since our last release ('Sycamore'). We've had more than a few hurdles to jump over to get this one to our liking, but we seriously are getting closer. (Yeah yeah...How many times have I said something along those same lines?...Ha Ha)

One such hurdle was my guitar solo. We had the perfect melody line worked out for it but I ran into several problems with string intonation (i.e. how 'in tune' the guitar sounds), especially on some of the higher notes that I was playing. So I took my Les Paul apart and made some fine adjustments to the bridge and voila I had better sounding notes! Only bad thing was after I heard things properly intonated I then realized that hated the way I delivered those notes. Everything felt stiff and lifeless. So one step forward, two steps back so to speak. However this problem turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I decided to restructure my approach in how I was playing the solo. So I kept the melody intact but I put in more string bends and such for landing my notes (which was harder to do but sounded way better and gave me more control over the intonation problems). And the resulting solo is one of my best ever. I am really happy with the end result and now I'm even glad those intonation problems 'forced my hand'. Necessity is the mother of invention!

Jake is 95% done with the bass parts on 'SOY' (which is funny because he is already finished on 'Marigolds' which is next in line for release). He amazes me with his consistency. Unreal.

2) I've started singing vocals on 'Marigolds' (although I haven't had any 'keepers' yet). But I'm upping the ante on this one vocally. I have a lot to learn about singing properly, and I'm also spending more time doing more traditional singing rudiments, not so much to change my style but rather to help me get the job done easier and more quickly. Admittedly I'm a hack as far as vocals go, but I intend to change that. Over time.

3) Tonight we talked about the possibility of playing a handful of gigs next summer/fall. We all want to get out there as soon as we have enough material and are able to get our live performance polished up. This coming fall/winter will be crucial for us to get things to our liking by next summer. Fortunately we have the equipment we need. Just need to practice and spend time honing our performances. But that is our hope at this point. Wish us luck!

4) One other tidbit of info. I have mentioned in previous posts that I took on some freelance work for a London-based band. They have now released their song 'Runaway Heart' as their first official 'single' along with a 'remix' version of the same song. They tracked/recorded their parts in London and then I took care of the mixdown and post-production of the 'original radio version'. Dubterminator (a dub producer from New Zealand) took care of the 'dub remix' version. Below is a link to their site. If you like what you hear you can purchase their song on iTunes, Amazon, etc..

z.electric

Go check them out and support the band!

And so I think that's all for now. Time to call it a day and watch some South Park.

Peace and Love and all that Jazz...

~ Todd

FP Weekly Update: 8-20-10

2010-08-20T16:13:00.000-07:00

Just checking in for the week...

1) 'SOY' is getting dangerously close to being ready for mixdown. I sang more overdubs this week and we have all of the backing vocals tracked and (mostly) edited. Backing vocal contributions are coming from Mike Jett, Thomas Holley, my sister Charlyn Hester, myself, and Jake. Jake came in this week and sang a few passes for one of the higher parts we needed and he has a really good voice. Matt and I have decided we'd really like to exploit Jake's hidden vocal talent on a regular basis from now on. I'd classify his voice as being in the elusive 'cool' category. Would easily stand on its own...

2) 'Marigolds' is still where it was last week. Nothing to see here. Move along...

(Here's a pic from the recent 'Marigolds' guitar sessions:)

3) I'm thinking I may want to postpone any more work/rehearsal on 'Rabbit Hole' until 'SOY' is finished, mainly so I can switch hats and be the singer/song-writer/guitarist again for 'Rabbit Hole' versus the producer/mixing engineer that I need to be for 'SOY'. Hard to go back and forth when we get to the intense stage of mixing stuff and putting the finishing touches on a recording like 'SOY'. Plus I have to believe that 'Rabbit Hole' would get shortchanged by my focus on 'SOY'. No hurries though. Quality before Quantity. Everyone wins when we take the time to do things right... :-)

No promises on a release date for 'Some Other Year' yet. Soon. But it should 'Wow' many of you when it hits your ears. Last week Matt heard the rough version of 'SOY' that I've been working on with some of the newer elements and textures, and he made the statement that if 'Sycamore' got people's attention about our style/vibe, 'SOY' will make people think 'Wow...those guys aren't playing around...they're serious'. I think that says it all. And I think that Matt is right...it sounds pretty good. Will be fun to play it live one day...

That's pretty much it for now.

Peace and Love...

~ Todd

FP Quickie: 8-12-10

2010-08-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

This week things are cookin' for FP as we quickly approach the mixdown stage of 'Some Other Year'. A few more vocal overdubs, a guitar solo, and the last section of bass, and then we will be off to the mixdown. There are a ton of tracks on this one so it won't be an overnight mix, but it will be worth the wait!

No FP rehearsals this week due to the mix prep in my studio. Once I start 'getting in the zone', I may only come up for air and brief doses of sunshine. I cannot wait to get this one wrapped up and in people's players. Dang.

'Marigolds' is not too far behind 'SOY'. Lots left to be done, but we have a ton of it recorded already. Mmmm...Mmmm...Mmmmmm...

Be good out there....

~ Todd

FP Update 8-5-10

2010-08-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

Here's the week in review (according to Todd)....

Last Friday: Mowed for a few hours at my late Gma's farm. It was blazin' hot and it wore me out. Then I went home, showered and crashed for a couple of hours in my AC'd bedroom (with two fans blowing straight on me). Then my wife came home from work and woke me up. Both of us were feeling very 'spent' (she had a rough week at work) and so we directly proceeded to the nearest Outback Steakhouse and enjoyed a couple of adult beverages (the whole reason we went to the Outback was because she wanted one of their Wallaby Darned drinks...she had a rough week at work), comfort food, and time with our boys. Then we went home and crashed...

Saturday: I went to work and gave a day's worth of guitar lessons. Then once lessons were wrapped up, Jake and I met up at a local private pond with both of our boats and we proceeded to catch 43 'keeper-sized' bluegills. My two sons went with us and we fished until dark. And the weather was perfect. And best of all no bugs. Then Jake and his dad cleaned all 43 fish. Then I took my boys to Arby's at 10:30pm and we pigged out. And it was exceptionally good. Thus ended Saturday...

Sunday: I woke up utterly exhausted (from mowing in the extreme heat on Friday, giving lots of guitar lessons Sat morning/afternoon, and being in a boat for several hours on Saturday night). I was seriously considering opting out of the rest of the day. I was sore and brain-dead and two steps away from being grumpy, but alas I pulled myself together and got on with things. Church in the a.m.. And then we spent the afternoon at my in-laws' house for my mother-in-law's birthday. Fortunately, both of my sons are of the driving age, and so my younger son was at the helm as we traveled and I rested in the back of the van. And luckily the van's AC decided to start working again. And so after we enjoyed a good dinner with Julia's folks and we then came home and crashed.

Monday: Jake came over in the morning to help set up mics on my guitar amp, as did a student of mine, Seth McBride. I was pretty worn out when the day started but it was a fun day. And so the set up began. A part of that set up required a spare laptop to talk to my guitar amp. My amp can interface with a computer (with the right hook-ups) which makes it much easier to keep track of knob settings and the like, a job that is normally done by handwritten notes. But the spare laptop I needed to use for this job did not have the current software installed that was needed for the task. So I needed to get online and download the updated programs. Normally that is no big deal, since we have WiFi in the house. However, the older spare laptop decided it didn't want to use WiFi (for reasons unknown...it has always worked before), and so the next step was to reroute a spare Ethernet cable into the studio via the basement in order to plug directly into the old laptop. The route needed was through a slightly modified heater/AC duct that feeds into the living room and studio room. To access that duct I had to remove the furnace grates in the studio and living room and reach down into the duct and pull the cable through to the top. Except that it was dark in the duct and I couldn't see what I was doing. No problem. There's an app for that. So I fired up my iPhone flashlight app and started to look around. The Ethernet cable was missing. Not good. And so I started to pull my arm back out of the duct, at which point I caught the back of my arm on a sharp corner of the duct, which in turn made me release (drop) the iPhone, which in turn slid all the way down into the duct and out of site. Crap. So first I tried to reach around the bend in the duct but couldn't feel the iPhone. So then my younger son brought me a wooden spoon to see if I could drag the iPhone within reach. That didn't work either. So then Jake (who is taller than me and has longer arms) proceeded to do everything I had just done (including the wooden spoon trick) but to no avail. Crap. So then I headed to the basement, found a vent panel on the duct in question, removed the said duct, and was able to just barely reach the missing iPhone. Phew! So now the iPhone was Ok but I still had to find the missing Ethernet cable. It was routed into my boys' shared bedroom. So I yanked it back through the floor, rerouted it to the studio heater/AC duct, and handed the cable to Seth who was still upstairs. And so I hooked up the old spare laptop, and downloaded the needed amp communication software, hooked up the proper cable between the amp and the laptop, and of course nothing worked. The amp was not talking to the old laptop and the old laptop had nothing to say to the amp. Crap. All that work for nothing. And we hadn't even started setting up the mics on the amp to begin recording.

By it was now lunchtime and everyone was getting hungry. And so Jake fired up the stove and started frying up all 43 fish fillets from Saturday night's catch, and that was very good. And our entire house smelled like fried fish. Not so good. But that's the price you pay for fried fish and it was worth it. And so we ate. And then I went back to troubleshoot the problem between the amp and the old laptop. Turned out to be a bad MIDI interface cable. Luckily I had another back-up and things started cooperating. So then we set mics up, ran a gazillion cables between my studio room and the living room (which is where the speakers and mics were...better acoustics in the living room for recording loud guitar amps). And then we ran a couple of test passes of me playing the guitar parts I wanted to record (on 'Marigolds'). And then I went off to work and gave more guitar lessons. And then after lessons I came home and crashed. That was all on Monday.

Tuesday: I made the smart decision to work on something other than FP material for most of the day. I have taken on a side mixing project for someone in London and was wanting to get that rolling. So I worked on that until it was time to go to work to give more guitar lessons. But Tuesday was a nice relaxing day compared to Monday. Uneventful.

Wednesday: I decided to start tracking the guitar parts that we had set mics up for on Monday. Turned out to be a good day for that. My head was back into the game and I got all of the chorus parts recorded for 'Marigolds'. The living room was punishingly loud, but it sounded amazing and I got the exact tones I was after. Then once Julia got home from work, we loaded up the van and met up with Matt and Brittany at the Georgetown Fair (about a 1/2 hour south from our neighborhood). Matt wanted us to go to an ITPA Tractor Pull with he and Brit and it was pretty fun, especially for 'people watching'. I could tell some stories here about some of the 'interesting' people we noticed but will resist the temptation lest I say something that cannot be redacted. But the best part of the tractor pull was how loud the 'modified class' tractors were. It was really friggin' loud. And I mean really friggin' loud. And of course we ate fair food (and of course we paid for it the next day) and had lots of fun. Also of noteworthy mention, the weather was horrendous that night. A rather strong storm system swooped in from the north and nearly rained-out the fair. But what was even crazier is that while we were at the fair, a funnel cloud hit our hometown and did some serious damage within a few blocks of our house. No damage to our house thankfully, but it must've been a close call. Another Phew!

Today (Thursday): I started the day by trying to record lead guitar parts on 'Some Other Year' but never found the tones I after. Bummer. I may go another direction for recording the lead parts rather than the mic'd amp method. Not sure yet. But I can hear the tones in my head and I won't stop until I am able to dial in those tones one way or another. Part of the creative process I suppose. It can be both frustrating and fun at the same time, depending on deadlines or budgets (self-imposed or otherwise), and especially depending on how much sleep you've had the night before. So in between moments of frustration with my bad guitar tones, I took mental/creative breaks by working intermittently on the London stuff. The London stuff saved my sanity and kept me from 'going dark'. Then, in the afternoon, another friend, Mike Jett, came over to sing some back-up vocals (BV's) on 'Some Other Year'. We got through those parts fairly quick and then Jake and Matt came over for dinner and more guitar tracking sessions on 'Marigolds'. That went pretty good as well. And now that everyone has gone home for the night, I am blogging. And I'm about to crash. Again. :-)

And so at the end of the week, lots has happened and much has been accomplished. 'Some Other Year' is nearing completion and only has a few more things to record before the mixdown can proceed. I need to re-record a couple of my vocal parts (for more 'feel' and vibe), and I need to record the lead guitar parts. 'Marigolds' now has all of the bass, drums, and chorus section guitars finished and ready to go. Vocals will begin soon. Hopefully I'll be able to find the right 'clean guitar tones' needed for the rest of 'Marigolds' in short order. They have eluded me thus far. But I am persistent. I will prevail. And the world will thank me for it when they hear it for the first time....

So that's all for now. I approached this blog post a little differently tonight (almost 'stream of consciousness' style...probably because I am tired) and I guess I had a lot to share this time around. Has been another fun-filled week in FP-Land. Hopefully next week I won't lose my iPhone again....

~ Todd

Weekly Update: 8-2-10

2010-08-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

So we've made some changes...

The original FP Blog background that we have used since the inception of our blog is no longer available for usage. Not sure why...it is simply no more. Bummer. I really liked the look and the vibe of it. We had to make a few template changes as well as the overall look. Hope you like it. For now I have made a few 'get-us-through-for-the-time-being' changes and things are now rearranged slightly to streamline our cluttered mess. I've been feeling for a while that our old layout was getting more and more crowded with gadgets and whatnot, so perhaps change was in the works anyway?

So now we have a red background. It works for now. I like red for the most part. I even remodeled my studio recently with red walls and it has been quite lovely when sitting in there for long hours. Makes me feel creatively aggressive. And who knows? Maybe the red theme of our blog will have a similar effect on our viewers that makes them aggressively/frequently check us out and aggressively tell everyone they know about this new up-and-coming band from Nowhere, Illinois...

We can only hope...

Also, I do plan on posting new pics and new videos and other exciting new elements to our beloved blog in due time, so keep coming back for more.

The half-week in review....

1) I now have a rather elaborate 6-mic array on my Line6 1/2-stack speaker cab. I do plan on taking some video footage and a ton of pics over the next few days as guitar tracking sessions ensue. To that end, I have mics scattered all over our living room area and even in the front entrance way of our house. I have one mic dangling from a small chandelier and another mic suspended from a ceiling fan. And as expected, the ambient/reflective sounds I am getting from those two mics are very vibey. Funny thing is that the house is now a jumbled mess of wires and music equipment and other recording odds and ends, and even though times like these prove that my obsession with good guitar tones can become a little invasive on my family's living space, everyone just steps around the mic stands and cables and nobody seems to mind the temporary clutter. I love my family...

2) Mike Jett is planning on coming over Thurs afternoon to sing some backing vocal tracks on 'Some Other Year'. That will be fun!

3) I'll be tracking guitars all week this week (and maybe next week?) on 'Marigolds' and 'SOY'. I also need to rework a few minor mixdown issues for a London client's recording that I am assisting with. Busy busy busy...

That's all on the week-and-a-half update. It has been a long and adventurous day and I am in serious need of rest. Time to call it a day and head to bed....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 7-29-10

2010-07-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

The Latest...

1) For all intents and purposes, Jake's bass lines are finished on 'Marigolds' as of 9pm this evening. He came. He saw (err...listened). And he conquered. Funny thing is that he had actually practiced one of his crucial bass line maneuvers incorrectly most of the week (wrong notes), yet when he came in for tonight's recording session he was still able to relearn/play the correct parts in a matter of minutes. Impressive. Very impressive. The crucial bass line in question is rather tricky on the brain and especially on the fingers, but he made it look and sound easy. A real professional that Jake is...

2) 'SOY' is nearing the end of its tracking sessions. It has proven to be more difficult and elaborate than we originally expected. But we are prevailing. I still need to record some more of my vocal layers and variations, and we have one other non-FP person in mind for helping with the some of the backing vocals. I am also getting ready to set up a multi-mic array on one of my amp rigs to lay down the lead guitar solo section on 'SOY' as well as everything in 'Marigolds'. I'll take some pictures once we get it all set up and rolling.

3) 'Rabbit Hole' is still in the works but somewhat on hold as we pick up the pace on the 'SOY' and 'Marigolds' recordings.

4) As mentioned in my last post, I took on a quickie London-based mixdown project. It has gone well and it may very well lead to more work of this sort down the road. And if nothing else, it was a good detour from our FP material and helped clear my head a little bit since I got to help solve someone else's mix issues. Funny how it helps to pull away from the things that are most near and dear to us (in this case the FP material). It was almost like a 'working vacation' and it has really helped relight the fire in me to sing and perform on our own band material.

5) Yesterday I got to be the first (non-family) test driver for a newly formed guitar company called Vibrance Guitars. The good folks at Vibrance brought the two prototypes by my house and all I can say is 'Wow'. I've been privileged to have a small hand in certain elements of the design of these new guitars from their inception, although I do say that lightly. Craig Collins, the owner and luthier of Vibrance Guitars, has obviously done the real work. He's just asked for my opinions and thoughts along the way as he has designed developed his first two prototypes. But his prototypes were stunning in every way. And my own very first Vibrance Guitar is soon in the works! I cannot wait! Craig is a perfectionist and his high level of craftsmanship is evident in every way. I will definitely take lots of gratuitous pics of my guitar(s) once it is finished.

That's it for now....

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Todd

Weekly Update: 7-23-10

2010-07-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

And now for the Evening FP News...

Things have been very busy this week. A huge chunk of this week has been allocated to various tracking sessions on both 'Marigolds' and 'Some Other Year':

1) The first session of the week was with Jake playing bass sections on 'Marigolds'. He has been able to put a lot more time into his parts on this one and we've spent more time per section than previously on 'Sycamore' or 'SOY'. Fortunately the extra time has proved to be worth the effort and Jake's bass lines have been quite stellar and have elevated 'Marigolds' to another level as a song. He's very very good and very consistent. And he's also got a natural knack for bass and is quite creative with it. Fun fun fun...

2) The second session of the week was with my sister Charlyn singing backing vocal textures for 'Some Other Year'. I had a couple of melodic ideas in my head that she was able to crank out effortlessly, and then she took several takes doing improv. It was stunning. And in the immortal words of my late Grandpa Bush, all I could I could do was raise my eyebrows and say 'Damn'. I wish I had her sort of vocal intuition and control. Under normal circumstances I would assume such a person with her natural vocal ability was not 100% human but rather part-alien or something. But alas I've known her since she was brought home from the hospital as a newborn and I in fact know for certain that she is a mere human being (unless of course I'm also part-alien...hmmm...never really thought about that until just now...)

3) The third tracking session was with an old friend of mine, Thomas 'Tommy' Holley. I had him come in and sing some unison vocals alongside the main vocal in the choruses. We never actually went through any sort of vocal tryouts or screening with him since I could still remember how Tommy had quite a talent for singing back when we were growing up. We had a good time and laughed a lot and he was a real pleasure to work with (as I figured he would be). Then after his vocal session, we (Tommy, his son, my youngest son, and myself) all went out to his place in the country and shot air-soft guns. I mentioned how badly those air-soft BB's hurt when they hit the palm of your hand (has happened to me only once and will only happen once), and so Tommy stuck out his hand to 'take one for the team' at point-blank range. That ended up being a bad idea. For Tommy that is. When my son Anderson pulled the trigger, Tommy ran off yelling like a madman and was shaking his hand wildly. Turns out he ended up with a crescent-moon shaped blood blister in the center of his palm. It was pretty funny (and impressive) after the fact, but I'd venture to say that will be the last time he (knowingly) volunteers his any part of his flesh to an air-soft BB at close range.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk...

4) The fourth tracking session of the week was another bass session with Jake for more 'Marigolds' sections. Steady is as steady does. Did I mention that Jake is very good at what he does? Good tones. Good times.

5) And lastly, I have volunteered my mixdown services to a London band for one of their latest songs. They've done all of the tracking and leg-work and they are having me take a stab at the mixdown. It's good stuff and a good song, and I think I fell in love with the singer's voice (the singer is a 'she' incidentally). If this first one works out, perhaps there will be more to come? Will see....At any rate, this sort of mixdown work is fairly easy for me (and a lot of fun) and it offers a nice change of pace from the FP stuff whenever I need a mental change of pace.

6) I have someone else in mind for more backing vocals on 'Some Other Year' and so hopefully we'll get him into the studio early next week. And then I still need to sing more overdubs I think, and then I plan on setting up a four-microphone set-up on one of my 4x12 speaker cabs so that I can finish tracking guitars on 'SOY' and also begin tracking guitars on 'Marigolds'. One minute I'm a producer/engineer, then a freelance mixer, then a guitarist, then a singer. Plus a dad, a husband, a homeschool teacher (for my 10th and 11th grade sons), a guitar instructor, etc.. (And every now and then I need to slip in some fishing...) Keeps me busy. For now I have reduced my guitar instructor load down to three days. Hopefully that will suffice for a long while so that I can have time to pursue other options of music-related revenue. It's all good in the meantime...can't complain!

That's all for now. Keep checking back for more updates and FP news!

~ Todd

FP Video Blog Episode 2: Late-Night Calisthenics

2010-07-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

For our next installment in the FP Video Blog series, we offer you a 5-minute clip of me 'farting around' (figuratively speaking) on my blue Telecaster 'Daphne' while my younger son Anderson is 'farting around' (literally) while shooting the HD camera. This footage was taken at a very late hour back when I bought my first Line 6 SpiderValveMk2 half-stack. I was unwinding after as busy day (sometime back in March 2010) and I was casually exploring a few arpeggios and scales.

Also, at the very tail-end of this video I played the main intro riff to our upcoming song 'Rabbit Hole'.

About the style of this footage: the ambient lighting was horrible for shooting film, and I didn't even realize Anderson had the camera on me at first, so we ended up using an 'Edge Detection' video effect (plus B&W) on the entire clip in order to brighten things up a bit. As such, this entire video may at first seem corny or haphazard, and in a way I would agree with you, but at the core I felt like this was a good representation of how things are around the house when I am working on stuff. Also, I really dig how the frets, strings and pickguard stand out with this sort of video treatment. It almost has a cartoon-ish vibe to it. Hope you enjoy the nonsense and the casual approach we took with this episode...

~ Todd

Weekly Update: 7-2-10

2010-07-01T23:35:00.000-07:00

Just a few quickies here:

1) 'Some Other Year' has made some major progress this week. Last week Jake and I spent a couple hours focused on recording my chorus vocals and this week I have gone through all of those takes and organized the 'keepers'. Sounds easy but it can really wear your brain out just making decisions on what to keep and what to trash. Some takes are obviously no good when played back, but the good sounding ones can be hard to sift through because of all of the subtle differences. What's more...this sort of editing is more technically challenging versus creatively fulfilling and so I tend to lose some of my creative connection to my guitar playing when wearing the Producer/Engineer hat. Ughh. Which leads me to...

2) I have had a fairly crappy week this week in regards to my guitar playing. I think the logical/technical side of my brain is hogging all of its synapses from the creative side. Go figure. But it seems like every time I have picked up a guitar this week (including at band practice) I have fumbled around on the strings as if I am clueless. At band practice this week, Matt was even joking with Jake saying (about me) 'See? He's human...' What an epic fail. Oh well...the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. And it will be glorious (and hopefully that will happen about the time I am scheduled to lay down guitar tracks on something)....

3) 'Rabbit Hole' is still being mapped out on some of the finer details, especially for a bridge section. I still need to come up with some good guitar parts for some accents in the bridge section. This song gets pretty loud and ballsy at that point so I need to figure out some guitar parts to match. Once those parts are in place and have passed the litmus test of 'live playing' at band practice, then we should be fairly close to drum tracking sessions for 'Rabbit Hole'. It has come along quicker than I anticipated. Good deal...

4) Jake has totally delivered some creative genius by way of his bass lines for 'Marigolds' this week. We spent a couple of days recording more bass lines on 'Marigolds' this week and he totally nailed the vibe on what was needed. Got to love a bass player who can discern the fine line of when to support kick drum rhythmic accents, rhythm guitar riffs, or key vocal melody lines, all while keeping his volume dynamics consistent and most all playing with feeling. That's Jakeman in a nutshell....

So that's it for now. Working on three different songs that are all at three different phases is both challenging and fun. Can't wait to show these tunes off in the not-so-distant future....

Peace and Love ~

Todd

FP Update: 6-25-10

2010-06-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

And now for the latest FP-News:

1) 'Rabbit Hole' now has an official song structure/arrangement. We spent the better part of this week's practice session getting the song structure ironed out as far as where each section goes. Here's a copy of my iPhone notes that we jotted down:

1) Intro Riff (x2) w/Jagger-vocals
2) Verse 1
3) Chorus 1
4) Intro Riff (x1) w/Pull-back
5) Verse 2
6) Chorus 2
7) Bridge A w/LedZep accents
8) Full Instrumental Bridge B (Verse/Chorus Variations C/D/E/E/C/D/A/A sections)
9) Intro Riff w/Tribal-esque percussion stuff that points towards Chorus 4's vocal cadence + Bass grunge or slap/pop bass + Very Small Speaker Guitar tone
10) Verse 3 (In same vein as above Tribal Intro Riff)
11) Chorus 3 (Basically the same as Chorus 2)
12) Chorus 4 w/Vocal Round Cadences
13) Intro Riff (x2) w/Jagger-vocals and xxxxxxxxxxx...
14) xxxxxxxxxx.....

(As you can see, we'll use any sort of 'jargon' under the sun that helps us remember our ideas when writing up a list like that, hence the funny names in the descriptions: 'Jagger-vocals' anyone?)

Now normally it is unusual to show folks your grand plan before letting them listen to a song, but I thought we'd do things a little differently this time around to make things more interesting. And since nobody has the faintest clue how this song actually sounds, what's the harm in sharing the early layout? If anything I hope this offers our small (but loyal) fan base a poignant look into how we craft a song from its inception. The core ideas started out in my head, but the really cool thing is that several major improvements and alterations to my original ideas have been made thanks to Matt and Jake's input. It's a true joint effort. I love how the three of us collaborate and how we all gel together.

2) Jake is laying down more bass tracks on 'Marigolds'. We conjured up a few changes to his parts on Verse 3 to coincide with the vocal lines. Well worth the extra time to dig a little deeper creatively-speaking. Good stuff is happening!

3) I'm still whittling away at vocals for 'Some Other Year' in between all of the other writing/recording sessions we are doing on the other songs. It is getting there. Then backing vocals will get tracked and layered. Then other odds and ends. Still, there's a lot left to be recorded and grafted into the recording in order to do the song justice. Right now the data tally for 'SOY' stands at 25 GB of hard drive space from 2,006 project files. And it is growing daily. Weirdly enough the track count for 'SOY' is only around 55-60 so far. Sounds like a bunch but that really isn't too bad (all things considered). The backing vocals will likely bump the numbers up quite a bit. Hehe....

4) Slightly off topic, I have been spending an enormous amount of time playing guitar, even to my own hurt. Or rather to the hurt of my hands and fingers. I've been playing rather fiercely of late, and I've really had the opportunity to reconnect with my guitar playing. And that has been long overdue. Sometimes I forget just how many guitar licks and riffs and styles I have worked on through the years. And even after 25 years of playing and studying my instrument, I still feel fascinated and mystified by the instrument's possibilities. The primary guitars I have been playing on are my 7-String Ibanez RG7420, 'Daphne' (my modded-out blue Fender Highway One American Telecaster), and the '05 (my Gibson Les Paul). All of which have a unique voice and vibe and each of which makes me play a little differently. It has been a good past couple of weeks for my guitar playing, and I am very blessed to have some very nice equipment to get the job done. Guitar playing just never gets old or boring to me. Ever...

5) Matt, his wife Brittany, my wife Julia and I all went on a one day excursion to go see the Cubs play at Wrigley Field last Friday. The Cubs lost of course, but it was fun being at the stadium on a nice summer day. Until the bottom of the 8th inning when we had to ditch the game and head back to the car pronto. Mother Nature tried to intervene on behalf of the Cubs by sending hurricane force winds (over 80 mph) along with torrential sideways rain and tons of lightning to the Chicago area. But alas, the Los Angeles Angels were able to give the Cubs a royal beat-down before the storm reached the stadium. Had the game continued for another 5 minutes there might have been a 'rain delay' long enough for the Cubs to get their act together and come back fighting. But they lost. Oh well. The $6.75 bottle of stadium beer was good while it lasted and it is always fun being at an actual game in person. Watching pro baseball on TV is like watching a chess match. Ho-hum. But it is an entirely different (and more exciting) scenario when you are actually at a stadium. The sights. The smells. The chatter of Chicago accents 40,000 people strong. It was a fun time. Even if Chicago traffic is as bad as it gets. At least Matt and Brittany were driving...

6) On an even more personal note, this last week has seen some major happenings in our lives. For starters, Julia and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary! Yeah I know, neither of us look or act like we are that old (we hear that all of the time), but we've had a very good marriage and we're more in love and 'into' each other than ever before. Twenty years flies by like a blink of an eye.

And perhaps even bigger news, Jake is now happily engaged and quite smitten with the love of his life, Sarah. He popped the big question this week and Sarah of course said 'Yes!'. We're all very happy for Jake and Sarah and we're all looking forward to their wedding day (date yet to be determined). And best of all, it is so good when you see your friends' happiness....

7) Back on the music-related front, a good friend of mine, Craig Collins, is nearing the completion of his first two prototype guitar models. I've been able to check out these two initial builds as they have evolved, and I am very pleased and excited to be in line for a guitar (or two) of my own once he gets past the prototype phase. These first two prototypes are turning out to be quite amazing and exquisite and the words 'high-end' and 'boutique' come to mind. Craig is utilizing some original structural designs and they are being overbuilt by hand. He's primarily using local walnut for the bulk of the neck and body, and walnut has very good tonality to it. All of that, plus a lot of other intentional departures from the status quo of modern day guitar design, are stacking up to become an extraordinary instrument. I can't wait to own one of his guitars myself and I'm guessing his guitar(s) will become my #1 go-to. It's like waiting for Christmas....

So there's the latest goings-on in FP Land. Hope you enjoyed it and thanks for stopping by!

~ Todd

FP Update: 6-12-10

2010-06-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

Hello! Hello! Hello!

Todd here with the latest:

1) 'Some Other Year' is getting closer and closer to completion. I have had very little time to focus on it these last two or three weeks, but it will be debuting soon. We're keeping it a little more under wraps until it is actually finished and available for listening. But it is sounding pretty amazing and we're very excited about how this one is turning out. Very cool song....

2) 'Marigolds' is temporarily on the proverbial shelf until we get 'SOY' done. Not forgotten. Just queued in line at the 'FP Factory'. Stay tuned...

3) 'Rabbit Hole' writing/rehearsing sessions are well under way as we speak. This one is going to be much darker and more elaborate than its three forerunners. 'Heavy' comes to mind when trying to describe it. But not in a metal sort of way. More in the vibe and mood. Not completely over-the-top heavy. Just certain sections. And this song calls for a lot more guitar intensity and more intricate instrumentation. Definitely not as radio-friendly as say 'Marigolds' will be. But this one is fun to play and will be a balance to the 'FP Force'. Lots of weird variations of diminished chords/scales/riffs/etc. This one would make a good Rock Band or Guitar Hero song. And it has a cool drum/bass groove going on with a certain swampy feel. Again, we are organizing sections and riffs and such as we speak. Also, we just came across some video footage of me horsing around on Daphne (a.k.a. my 'Daphne' blue Telecaster...hence the name) and towards the end of the video I started playing the opening riff to 'Rabbit Hole'...We'll look into putting something together in the next couple of weeks to post it on our YouTube channel.

That's all for now. Just wanted to write a few quick blurbs about what's happening in 'FP Land' while I had a break at work. Busy busy busy....

All the Best...

~ Todd

FP's Official 'Some Other Year' Sneak Preview Video

2010-06-02T15:37:00.001-07:00

And So A New Chapter Begins...

2010-05-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

Hello FP Friends and Family...

This week marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter in my life. My family experienced the loss of my maternal grandmother, Winifred Bush. She had been in failing health for quite some time and this past Sunday, May 16, she lost the fight against pneumonia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, diabetes, and a host of other diseases and ailments. She was in her 80's. My Gpa Bush passed away back in 2005, and his loss was equally difficult to accept, and my Gma's passing seemed to bring back a lot of those feelings of grief from when Gpa died. So it was like a double dose of emotional and mental struggles to cope with knowing that my life will now go on without my grandparents. To some folks this may not seem such a big deal, but I was fortunate enough to be very close and connected to both Gpa and Gma Bush for my entire life thus far, and it goes without saying that the bulk of who I am stems directly from their influence on my life. Of all the men in my life, Gpa Bush ranks the highest in my mind as who I aspire to be like. And of all the women in my life, Gma was equally as significant as my own mother. Both Gpa and Gma played a fundamental role in raising me and I look to their example the most when it comes to how to live out my life. To know me is to also indirectly see a reflection of my Gpa and Gma Bush, and though I am 100% my own person, there isn't a day that goes by where I haven't based at least some decisions on the basis of 'What would Gma and Gpa Bush do?'

Consequently this has been a very tough week of mourning and laughter, memories of the past and dreams for the future. On a positive note, both of my grandparents made decisions to ask Jesus Christ into their hearts, each within a week prior to their passing. And so I do anticipate seeing them again when my time comes, but until that day arrives I hope to live a full and honest life that would honor the heritage that they afforded me.

And so their passing is bittersweet, as is the end of the era of having Gpa and Gma Bush in my life. At times I feel lost and afraid as to how I will continue on from this point, almost as if I were a nine year old child. But this week part of me also realized once again that God's timing is perfect for all things, including those times of great loss and uncertainty. And though part of me wishes they were still here on earth with me, I also envy them in knowing that they are now in a much better place where there are no tears, no diseases or dying, and no evil or sin to soil our very souls. And so may God rest their souls...

~ Todd

Bi-Monthly Update 5-13-10

2010-05-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

And so the saga continues...

1) The vocals to 'Some Other Year' have taken a lot more time and effort than anticipated. Go figure. The ongoing onslaught of tree pollen in our area has not helped matters. I have now been to the doctor's office twice for allergies that settled exactly around my voice box. Nose has been fine. Eyes have been fine. But the tree pollen this year seems to have a thing for my voice. Also, we are shooting for having the vocals very 'up close and personal' which means they have to be spot on. Back in the day singers would cover up their mistakes with loads of ambiance (echoes and reverb) and a few other effects that helped smear the details just enough to tidy things up. The only problem with doing that now is the risk of making something sound 'dated'...we're shooting for a more 'timeless' sound that will still sound good in 20 years. As such, it makes singing a much more labored and intensely detailed process. But I do have several parts finished and they sound really really good. That being said I have had to pace myself on singing and working on the vocals in order to avoid bad decisions (unworthy compromises and other unmentionables) and/or burn-out. I suppose it will get done when it gets done....

2) I promised a 'Some Other Year' Preview YouTube video of some sort, and I haven't forgot about that. However I have been flooded with several other non-FP distractions that have required a higher priority. But we do have some sweet video footage of our most recent 'FP Family Night' get-together, including a dazzling (albeit dangerous) campfire explosion. Matt has a method of instantly putting out a campfire with a can of cheap spray paint (or engine starting fluid) and a 12-gauge shotgun. Pretty impressive and the mushroom cloud it creates is always spectacular. Good times on the cheap!

3) 'Marigolds' is currently on hold until I get certain things finished up on 'Some Other Year'. Only so much can be done at the same time. If anything, we may continue to record Jake's bass parts on 'Marigolds' over the next couple of weeks. But at this point my biggest priority is 'Some Other Year'.

4) In my spare time I have been fiddling around more with song arrangement ideas for 'Rabbit Hole'. May is proving to be very busy for everyone on a personal level and so we are postponing writing sessions for 'Rabbit Hole' until the first week of June. Sounds like a long ways off, but it will be here before we know it. Which means I need to keep at it and hit the ground running. Fun fun fun!

That's all for now. Did you notice I titled this post as 'Bi-Monthly'? I've been slacking on these band updates and I thought I better label things accordingly. Will try harder to get on the weekly update schedule again....

Until then...

~ Todd

Weekly Update: 4-20-10

2010-04-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

OK....

So I really can't justify calling this post a 'Weekly Update' since it has been several weeks since the last post. But it still sounds good right? At any rate, my apologies for the radio silence. But let me just reassure everyone who reads these posts that we have indeed been busy little elves in the studio....

1) 'Marigolds' is well under way with about 60% of Matt's drums tracked and maybe(?) 20% of Jakeman's bass parts tracked. We haven't had the luxury of several consecutive days to record the drums this time around so it is taking a little longer. The good news is that the 'Marigolds' drum sessions are going very well and Matt has once again raised the bar with his playing. In true 'Matt Goodner - Drummer Extraordinaire' fashion, he has shrugged off his success by saying that this song has been 'easy' but I think it is very apparent that the three of us are finding our groove and that we are getting much more comfortable with the whole recording aspect of things. Case in point, 'Sycamore' took forever to wrap up because it was such a complex song arrangement, it was our first official release, and everything about 'Sycamore' was our beta test on a multitude of levels: mic choices, mic placement choices, guitar choices, amp choices, bass tone choices, my first real attempt at vocals, my first real attempt in drum tracking, etc.. But now things are rolling out a lot easier for us (and we are more confident) and I think Matt's ease in tracking 'Marigolds' is proof of that. Them there drums sure do sound good...

2) 'Some Other Year' is coming along very very nicely. Most of the guitars are tracked (but not mixed just yet), and I have officially started vocals. I had actually been delayed vocally due to some very bad tree pollen allergies (which landed me in the doctor's office last week) and I sounded like a baritone Kirstie Alley, but I'm getting along much better now and have been able to start singing again. (Yeesssss...) Hopefully I will get the bulk of the vocal parts done within the next week or so. Also, we plan on having my sister Charlyn provide some female vocal textures on 'Some Other Year' for some ethereal sections. And I still need to find the right lead guitar tone for the bridge, but past that 'SOY' is getting close to being done with the tracking stage of things. (And Jakeman still has bass parts to lay down towards the end of the song once the guitars and vocals are finished up.) That being said, we will most likely post some sort of 'SOY' preview teaser on YouTube like we did for 'Sycamore'. That may be available within a week or so. Keep checking back!

3) Looks like song #4 will either be 'Rabbit Hole' or possibly 'The Antebellum'. Both songs are dark in nature but we need some darker material to balance 'Marigolds' and 'SOY'. We are all happy chaps, but too much happy music gets boring for us as musicians and we need to vent a little bit. So the plan is to go dark on the next one (or two). Not sure what will happen after that....

That's all for now. Lots of recording going on right now. Will post again soon!

Cheers!

~ Todd

The FP Video Blog Episode 1...

2010-04-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

Weekly Update 3-27-10 (In Pictures!!!)

2010-03-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

Todd here...

So we asked my son Tyler to come along to our rehearsal this week to take some pics and shoot some videos. We have admittedly been lax in providing our growing fanship with new eye candy of late (been too busy brewing up new ear candy instead) and honestly we (Matt, Jake, and myself) never seem to think of taking any pics or video when we have band practice because we are always too focused on actually practicing. So we enlisted some third-party help by way of Tyler and he came home with over 500 shots and lots and lots of video footage. Good kid. As such, he is still editing what will soon be the first video from this new footage, but in the meantime I sifted through his pics and did some mild (or in some cases wild) editing to my personal liking and posted a new batch on our Flickr page. I also thought it would be fun to throw down a few of the new pics here on our blog. Hope you enjoy a glimpse of 'FP Time'! And if you want to see more, go check out our Flickr page and rummage through our modest collection. Of course, like all things FP, more will be added on a regular basis....

Ciao....

'Sycamore' mp3 Distribution...

2010-03-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

Just a quick Public Service Announcement: the free download link to our first song release 'Sycamore' is down. I'm not sure what has happened to the URL that was embedded into the mp3 link, but it no longer works and the file hosting service we have been using thus far no longer allows us to embed an actual download link. That sucks. But in a way the timing is good since we just received confirmation today that our song is now 'Live' at several online locations. To those of you who really feel the need to hear 'Sycamore' again and again but haven't downloaded it yet (and we totally understand your ravenous cravings for all things FP), there are several ways to get the mp3:

1) If you have a FaceBook account, go to our Fan Page and click on the free streaming Music Player. The mp3 quality is exactly the same as before, however you will only be able to 'stream' it versus actually being able to 'download' it into your computer. But this is a great way to 'Try before you buy'. Kind of like how the oriental food court restaurants in malls offer those little toothpick samples to wet the appetite. Also, while you are there, please become a fan and support the band. As a fan you'll get to post comments, suggestions, feedback, and whatever else is FP-relevant on the FP Fan Page Wall. We have a growing following and now is the time to jump on board and get in on the action. We also occasionally post 'Fan Page' exclusive content, updates, and other tidbits that you won't find here on this blog or elsewhere. Just another good reason to do the FaceBook thing....

2) Very soon we will have a streaming mp3 player widget here on this blog where you will be able to 'stream' our songs without the need for any special accounts or memberships. It will also include a few pics, basic band info, mp3 purchase links, video content, and FP related upcoming events. Stay tuned...

3) You can now purchase and download 'Sycamore' at the following iTunes Stores: US, UK/European Union, Mexico, Japan, Australia/New Zealand, and Canada. You can also purchase the mp3 from Amazon.com. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, 'Sycamore' will also become available for purchase at the following online vendors:

(Please note that when searching for our songs, we are catalogued in these various vendors as 'theFPband'.)

Rhapsody
Napster
MusicNet
eMusic
Sony Connect
GroupieTunes / imvu / SonicTap
Lala.com
ShockHound
Amie Street
Nokia
LimeWire Store
Zune
Myspace Music

So there's what is going on with 'Sycamore'. Will post more FP activity updates later on this week....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 3-18-10

2010-03-18T21:11:00.001-07:00

And here's the latest....

1) 'Sycamore' should be showing up on iTunes in the next few days. It is currently on Amazon.com (and a handful of other similar download sites). But perhaps even more significant, I finally got all of Sycamore's data files organized and archived properly! Admittedly when we were working on 'Sycamore' I was somewhat haphazard in how I organized everything, largely due to not fully understanding how best to label things in Logic 9 (the recording software we use to record everything with). And so even though I have been a Mac user for over two years now, there are still some areas where I am figuring things out and am learning new habits accordingly. Hindsight is 20/20 and I am now being more disciplined and structured on current song recordings. The less work I have to do on the back-end of our next songs the better.

2) I've been diligently recording guitars and experimenting with amp tones and mic placement for 'Some Other Year' these last couple of weeks. And it's beginning to take shape rather nicely. That being said, we joked tonight at our band rehearsal that 'SOY' sort of has the 'middle child syndrome' going on. 'Sycamore' was our firstborn, and lately as a band we have been primarily focused on writing 'Marigolds', and so 'Some Other Year' has been seemingly lost in the middle. Poor 'SOY'. But honestly once I get the guitar tones I'm after and am able to find the sweet spots for mic'ing my amp, then 'SOY' will blossom very quickly. As such it is completely written and arranged and just needs to actually be recorded. And honestly it is an awesome song that will stand on its own merits without being too heavily overshadowed by its siblings 'Sycamore' and 'Marigolds'. Like any overlooked middle child, 'Some Other Year' will really attract certain people who take the time to get to know it....

3) 'Marigolds' will most likely be ready for drum tracking in the next two weeks. We haven't been able to rehearse 'Marigolds' for over a month now for various reasons and so I expected things to be really rough and ugly tonight at our rehearsal. But I was wrong. Actually we somehow jumped over several hurdles tonight in the song-writing process for 'Marigolds', and even though I expected the worst, I actually came home feeling 'back in the saddle' as Matt put it. Mind you, we weren't playing 'Marigolds' good enough to where we would feel comfortable performing it publicly somewhere, but that isn't the goal when we're in the writing phase of a song where we are doing pre-production to prep for the recording process. But we worked out the kinks in the song arrangement, and we were able to rough-in the needed fills and hooks in the instrumentation, and my vocal parts are even improving. I actually found a certain grit in my voice that was very flattering and good for the song and that is a major confidence booster for me. And since singing is so relatively new for me (on this level), I could use some confidence boosting whenever I can get it. It's one thing to hear certain vocal parts in my head, but it's something entirely different to be able to actually pull those parts off properly in a live environment. I just need to stay at it and sing every chance I get. But 'Marigolds' is taking shape and we are all excited about getting it done. Most likely 'Marigolds' will be our 'pop' song if ever we are to have one. And of course it has those catchy WooHoo's in it that are simply too fun not to sing along with. You'll see soon enough. And you'll thank us later once the song gets stuck in your head. But don't tell us we didn't warn you...

So that's all for now. I have no idea which song we'll pursue once we have 'Marigolds' ready to record. Maybe we'll post a poll for fans to help us make that decision? After two happy songs ('SOY' and 'Marigolds') we may feel the need to do one of our darker tunes. Or not. Who knows? So long as we don't put ourselves in a creative rut. But seriously I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Until next time....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 3-12-10

2010-03-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello....

Sorry for the unusually long radio silence! We've all been very busy, distracted, and otherwise preoccupied! Lot's going on in the world of FP....

1) We are having to legally change our band name from simply 'FP' to 'theFPband'. Yep. You read that correctly. Our official band name shall henceforth be 'theFPband' in order to avoid confusion and potential future legal issues with a little-known (but formerly established) German techno-pop band also called 'FP'. We believe that their 'FP' name is an abbreviation for 'Future Pop' but they have very little useful or indicative information available that will confirm or dispute this. But apparently they have been working as a band for several years.

Now obviously, when we first came up with our simplistic name of 'FP', we underwent a lot of research into whether or not anyone else was already using that as a band name. And to our credit, we never saw anything on the web or otherwise in regards to the German band 'FP'. We figured we were safe with our choice of band name. But we were mistaken. And we only recently came across this other 'FP' band once we had our song 'Sycamore' listed for sale in the USA iTunes Store. This other 'FP' band already had three albums of techno material in the iTunes Store since mid-2009. And our song 'Sycamore' was being lumped in together with their music. Not a good situation. Who'da thunk? I guess we never thought to browse through iTunes for anyone else going under the moniker of 'FP'. Ouch. So we ended up issuing a 'takedown' of our song 'Sycamore' from iTunes (and a slew of other online music distributors), and we have now resubmitted 'Sycamore' under the new band name of 'theFPband'. Once the new iTunes links are up and running we'll post links and remove our 'freebie' links to the song. One step forward, two steps back (or at least sideways)....

2) 'Some Other Year' is busy being recorded. Most of Jake's bass parts are finished and I've recorded several sections of guitars. I will also begin vocals here within the next few days. One thing that is exciting about this song is that I am using a brand new amp for all of the guitar tracks. It is a Line6 SpiderValve MkII 100-watt head (pictured above) and a matching 4x12 speaker cab. And it sounds glorious. I'm mic'ing the cab with an Audix i5, a Shure SM57, and a Cascade Fathead II ribbon mic (with a Lundahl transformer). I'm also using the SpiderValve's direct out as a fourth signal source and I am blending the four tracks to taste. And I like how it sounds and feels. Good stuff. We'll likely post a teaser sample of 'SOY' like we did with 'Sycamore'. Will keep you posted....

3) We're still writing/rehearsing parts for 'Marigolds'. We've been a bit scattered here these last three weeks or so, in no small part due to my surprise appendectomy back in February. Also, we've opted out of a couple 'Marigolds' sessions in order to focus more on actually recording 'SOY'. But things are still moving forward with 'Marigolds'. We've just had a lot on our plates lately. Excuses. Excuses...

('American Marigolds' pic by Petr Kratochvil - Public Domain)

4) On a personal note, I'd say that I am 98% healed up from my surgery last month. I've started doing sit-ups again and I've even gone for a couple jogs. My jogging pace hasn't been much to brag about, but I really haven't been very active all winter, especially in February. But it has felt very liberating to jog again and I hope to enjoy it more this year. Plus my two sons like to jog with me (partly because they like to leave me behind in the dust and haggle me about it later). The first jog was 1 mile, and the second jog was for 18 minutes with a one minute break after the first mile. I think I ran roughly a total of 1.5 miles on that second jog (with an emphasis on the word 'roughly'....it was very rough indeed!) But I'd like to get comfortable with 2-4 mile jogs again. And decent times. I just need to work my way back up to that again. It's been a long winter...

So that's the latest. We've been quietly working in the background (albeit at loud volumes when needed). Good times....

Cheers!

~ Todd

Weekly Update 2-26-10

2010-02-26T12:46:00.000-08:00

Howdy Howdy!

Todd here with the weekly FP update. Part of me feels like these last two weeks have been unproductive, but now that I look back I find I am mistaken. Quite a bit mistaken actually....

1) Jake has finished up two very difficult Chorus sections and two-thirds of the bridge sections on 'SOY' ('Some Other Year'). That was major. We got hung up on those sections two weeks ago, largely because Jake's bass parts needed to closely follow Matt's kick drum timing. And Matt's kick drum patterns on the choruses were kind of crazy. Pure genius. But crazy. So Jake had to have more time to get the timing patterns memorized, which I might add he nailed with aplomb. Funny thing is now I need to restructure my guitar parts to make room for the synergy between the bass and kick parts. No big deal. But this is the part of recording that I love. The need to adapt and get creative in order to make things work makes the entire process exciting for me. I love it....

2) We finally got 'Sycamore' sent off to iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, eMusic, LaLa, etc.. I made some last minute adjustments to the mix (mainly sibilance fixes on the main vocals and a slight volume boost on the bass track during the instrumental bridge section). And that exact version/mix of 'Sycamore' is what we have linked on our blog here as well as what is streaming over at our FaceBook Fan Page. We're trying to work out a workable solution of how we can provide our friends, families, and local supporters with free access to our song mp3's while at the same time being able to charge for downloads made by the general public. In so doing that, we may end up taking away our direct links to the song downloads, and if that happens we will try to work something out for our 'inner circle' to have access to private (non-public) download links (perhaps via email or some other similar method). But our biggest concern is having a sellable product available for the general public once we start promoting our band a bit more by way of company endorsements, music reviews, editorial write-ups, etc.. I think we are planning on completing the next two or three recordings before we try to make a bigger splash on the market, but once we get those two or three songs complete, we'll begin to push the marketing a bit more. Having our songs ready and waiting at various places like iTunes, Amazon, etc will be essential to that big splash. Of course, we have plans beyond that stage as well, including live-playing, but for now we are solely focused on recording our initial material. And we are enjoying this leg of the process....

3) And speaking of making a splash, we commissioned Matt Lamb of www.customyoutubepage.com to design a really sweet-looking YouTube Channel background and YouTube video 'splash' for use on our upcoming video blogs. You can check out our YouTube Channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/theFPband

And here's the video splash he made for us:

Not bad for our first splash....

4) And now to explain why I have felt like we've had a less-than-productive week. Or rather why I haven't had a productive week. I think that I've had that mentality because I'm still not 100% back to my normal energy and creative levels due to my emergency appendectomy a couple weeks back. I've weened myself off of the Vicodin pain-killers and I am 90% mobile again. But I have been very tired these last two weeks and foggy in my brain. And if you know me very well at all, you'll know that I hate being like that. And so I get dark or gloomy, and suddenly nothing seems like it is working out (even if things are going wonderfully). Frustration. Plain and simple. Nobody likes to get slowed down, especially when there are other people involved, and that is how I have felt these last two weeks. Worn out and tired. But I also realize that my recovery has been excellent and that I have pushed myself to get back into the normal routines of life, and I've had a lot of people tell me how quickly they have seen me bounce back. Not bad for a 38 year old I suppose. But I still feel frustrated because I am still waiting for my 'edge' to fully return and frankly I am being impatient. Yada yada yada. But there's a honest peek into my mental and emotional state right now and I've allowed you to see me in a vulnerable, telling light. But that vulnerability is what makes life real and authentic, and it is also a huge contributing factor to my creativity. I'm not always a strong and purposeful person, and many days I feel like pouting and giving up on anything that requires difficult work or extra effort. But everyone I have ever known has ongoing struggles with the exact same thing in their lives, and we all have good days and not-so-good days. That being said, I do need to confess that these last two weeks haven't been bad at all. To the contrary, I feel like God has especially blessed me these last two weeks, if for no other reason than the fact that I am still alive and I managed to survive something that could've potentially killed me if certain situations would have gone awry. That's a very real thing to be thankful for. And I am indeed grateful for my life. I just wish I wasn't as tired as I have been. But things could always be worse, right?

5) Having whined about my lack of 'zip' these last couple of weeks, I will admit that I have hardly touched my guitars, nor have I attempted to sing and practice my vocals or whatever. Again, the lack of energy is the culprit. So consequently this week Jake, Matt, and myself (along with my two sons) opted to make a road trip to Terre Haute (in lieu of our normal band rehearsal time) to get me a new half-stack guitar amplifier that I have been eyeing for a while. I ended up trading in my Mesa Boogie quarter-stack that I have been hit-and-miss with for several months and I was able to get a new Line6 SpiderValve MkII half-stack. I've owned a big Line6 Vetta amp/cab(s) rig for several years now and I love it for live playing. But as time goes on that Vetta is aging and it's anyone's guess as to how much more life it has in it. It could keep on truckin' for another 20 years or it could give up the ghost tomorrow. And so a fresh amp rig has been on my wish-list for a while now, and so now I should be good in the event that something dire happens to the Vetta. Having more than one amp rig is a luxury for sure and it is like having a safety net for me. As such, the new amp rig is crazy loud and powerful and it sounds and feels really good. Now I just need to break in the speakers. Better get the ear plugs out....

So that's it for this week. Thanks for tuning in...

Peace...

~ Todd

Weekly Update 2-14-10: The Surgery

2010-02-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest for this last week:

This was a pretty productive week for all things FP until Friday at 2 a.m.. At that point my appendix decided to go on the fritz. Of course I didn't realize what was causing the pain until Friday evening at around 7:30 p.m. when I was being rushed into the operating room at our local hospital. But it has been a whirlwind of events once that stupid appendix decided to bite the dust. So now I am fairly sore and bloated from all of the gas they inflated my abdomen with during the surgery. And I also have a little fluid drainage pouch that hangs off of my right side. According to the surgeon, my appendix looked 'rotten and perforated' and it was oozing bacteria everywhere. Good times. So the drainage pouch is gradually vacuuming all of that nasty fluid out of my belly. And the juices coming out look eerily similar to the juices that come from raw chicken meat. Again, good times.

So the only thing for me to do at this point is to rest and keep moving around as I am able to prevent getting any unnecessary stiffness in my muscles. So now I putt around the house at a break-neck speed of about 1.35 mph(?). I can really put the pedal to the metal if I am in the middle of my 4 hour pain med cycle, which effectively doubles my putting-around speed I think. The trick is to maintain one's balance. The pain meds help taper the discomfort but they also make me a bit wobbly on my feet. It's a welcome trade-off though. Anything to curb the pain.

Another funny side-effect of my emergency appendectomy is how it affects my bathroom visits. Taking a leak is easy. And so is going #2 if things down low have been jostled around a little bit. But the real issues involve the aftermath of taking a stool-break. I can't easily reach certain parts of my anatomy to take care of the clean-up. My arms need to be about 8 inches longer to do the trick. And it matters not if I try to approach things from behind or up through the middle. Either option hurts and puts a lot of strain on my punctured belly muscles. Can you say, 'Good times'? Luckily, I am not racking up too many frequent-flier miles in regards to my bathroom visits, and so this isn't a major deal. And as my muscles continue to be stretched and exercised, this too shall pass....

So there's the unexpected latest. Just goes to show you that you never know how any particular day will end. Surprises await us at every turn....

And now back to the couch...

~ Todd

Weekly Update 2-5-10

2010-02-04T21:12:00.000-08:00

Hello Everybody! It has been another crazy week. Here's the latest:

1) We've received a lot of favorable remarks and comments concerning 'Sycamore' as we have passed out a ton of CDR's to friends and family. We've also received some helpful critiques which we are also glad to hear. Keeps it real for us. At this point I think it is fair to say that we will let 'Sycamore' rest for a bit before we think about making any changes, and honestly even if we do make any changes they will be very minor and not noticeable to the average listener. We like where it landed overall even though there will always be things that we would have wished we would have done better. Hindsight is always 20/20. So now we are raking in feedback from listeners and taking notes. And at some point we'll open the 'Sycamore' project back up and make some adjustments. But just not right now. We are very eager to move on to the next songs and for now we need to move on and move forward. As to those new songs...

2) 'Some Other Year' is being tracked as we speak. Right now it is mostly on Jake's shoulders and he has been working hard at it. It feels good to be starting at ground zero again and we have a lot of ideas that we are trying out. Most of the basic song arrangement stuff is done, but the details and nuances are still being sorted out for the actual recording. Fun fun fun!

3) 'Marigolds' is where my head has been most recently. We had our 2nd 'Marigolds' rehearsal tonight and as one might expect, some of it went very well while some of it fell flat. And of course that is what we need to have happen if we hope to see where a song's strengths and weaknesses lie. 'Marigolds' main strength is in its choruses, due in no small part to the 'Woo Hoo!' that Matt, Jake, and I all yell at one point. We actually practiced our Woo-Hooing this evening and got into it. And the mood was fun and happy. Imagine if you took a poppy Third Eye Blind song, mixed it with some classic 'Jack and Diane' era John Mellencamp, and topped it off with some Woo Hoo's. That might put you in the neighborhood of 'Marigolds'. Sort of. That all being said, I'm struggling with the Pre-Choruses vocal parts (kind of like I initially struggled with the big vocal bridge in 'Sycamore') and I just need to spend more time honing my vocal skills. But this song may be a really good candidate for a radio single someday. We get to the point, do our woo hoo's, and then we wind the song down. I'm guessing this song will hit around the 3:30-4:00 mark (give or take). No crazy guitar solos. No moody interludes. No subliminal phones ringing in the background. It's just a fun song that will be easy to hum and most importantly it will make people go 'Woo Hoo!' Gotta love a song like that!

4) We were hoping to start up a weekly YouTube Video Blog this week but we weren't quite ready for that. Next week most likely. We are needing to spruce up our YouTube Channel a bit before we make a big deal about it and start directing traffic over that way. Also, we are brainstorming on ways to keep all of our networking sites tightly integrated and synced up. If we post a YouTube video then we want it to automatically feed our other networking sites. If someone visits our blog then we want to have obvious (and enticing) links to all of our other sites (MySpace, Twitter accounts, Photobucket, FaceBook, Flickr, etc). Etc etc etc.. The more traffic the better. Which means a lot more media being put up each week. This of course just takes time but we are on it. And I think the worst of it is just in the initial set-up. Once things get rolling it is usually easy to maintain. So having said all of that, our YouTube Channel is next on our list of sites to dress up. We have a web designer in mind that we are planning on commissioning for some custom artwork and layout design. Should look pretty spiffy when it is finished. Stay tuned....

5) I'm pretty tired right about now. Head hurts, eyes are itchy, and my neck is stiff for some reason. But I am pretty excited about posting all of this stuff. I love FP and I am very excited about what we have in the works. One of these days we'll even start 'playing out' live and that'll be an entirely new dimension for us. But we know it is on the horizon at some point and we hope to do our songs justice. Like everything else, we just have to put our hands to the plow and push forward (or hang on tight....depending on your perspective). It's all good....

Will post again sometime next week!

~ Todd

Official 'Sycamore' Release Is Here!!!

2010-01-29T20:44:00.000-08:00

Yep....You read it correctly! 'Sycamore' is here!

'Sycamore' mp3 link (9.6MB)

(P) 2010 The FP Theory

Credits:

Matt Goodner - Drums
Jake Lockard - Bass
W. Todd Reynolds - Guitars, Vocals

"The Argument" - Matt and Charlie Hester
Recorded improv on location with Todd's iPhone.
(They were just acting it out for us....they have a good marriage. Seriously.)

Recorded and Produced by FP
Engineered by W. Todd Reynolds
Lyrics by W. Todd Reynolds

Weekly Update 1-28-10

2010-01-28T20:43:00.000-08:00

And here's the latest FP gossip....

1) After yet more toiling over unexpected shortcomings in 'Sycamore', I do believe I will have it wrapped up and ready for download sometime tomorrow. We have been feverishly checking beta mixes of it on various systems (home theaters, car stereos, headphones, boomboxes, PC speakers, you name it...) and we have the final version in our sites. All that needs done at this point is to soften the high frequencies just a couple of dB on the drums, and deal with some mild sibilance issues on words (mainly some strident ssss's). Past that I need to make some last minute (and very minor) adjustments to volume settings on a couple tracks, then it should all be a go. Will take me about two to three hours to get all of that done and then we should be in business. If you check this blog with any frequency at all, I'd highly encourage you to keep checking for download links throughout the weekend. The wait is nearly over....

2) Tonight we worked on 'Marigolds' again and it is coming along quite nicely. I threw together a quick arrangement demo CD for Jake and Matt on some of the ideas I had about certain sections and now they'll start messing with things to come up with more parts and ideas. And the song will blossom. Also, after having succeeded in singing on 'Sycamore' way beyond what I thought I would be capable of, we made the unanimous decision tonight that I should belt out the vocals on 'Marigolds' in my 'higher' range. And it feels good. Really good. So long as I pump enough air out. Should be fun! And Matt and Jake will even have vocal parts on 'Marigolds' as well....there is a 'Woo Hoo!' part in the choruses that we are all going to do together. Sounds silly to read about it here on the blog but once you hear it you'll get the idea. 'Marigolds' is a fun pop song and it's happy. We suspect our female listeners will especially like this song. Case in point, over the last couple of months my wife Julia has been asking me when we are going to do the 'Woo Hoo' song. It's like she just wants to sing along with it even though it technically doesn't exist yet. Well folks, it is time....Woo Hoo!

3) Next week we are hoping to begin a weekly-ish, band Video-Blog and we'll host those on our infant YouTube Channel. (We really need to get over there and spruce it up a bit and come up with more FP-friendly decor....) Those YouTube videos will also get posted here for your convenience of course. As such, I still plan on writing blog entries the old-fashioned way, but the Video-Blog method will help us perhaps draw in more fans and exposure and it will also let folks see us in action and feel like they are a part of all things FP. I'm also hoping it will allow people to also get a better understanding of the work and details that are involved with recording our songs. It is my intent to keep each V-Blog under the ten minute mark (will keep them shorter if possible). Just updates and such. We'll probably do longer 'special event' V-Blogs on occasion but for now we are going for simplicity and convenience. Stay tuned...

4) Jake has officially started recording his bass tracks for 'Some Other Year' and we now have several sections done. I have also set up mics on my old Fender Super Reverb amp and will begin recording guitar parts just as soon as I get 'Sycamore' wrapped up and released. But already our pacing and workflow is going much quicker (and easier) with 'SOY' versus our maiden voyage 'Sycamore'. Would be cool to have 'SOY' ready to go in a couple of months while at the same time working on 'Marigolds'.

5) Jake and I came up with some really nice song starter ideas the other day for a couple more new ones. Working titles are 'The Antebellum' and 'Intervention'....both of which are kind of brooding (in a good FP-ish way). Lyrically 'Antebellum' is about not wanting to talk problems out, even though we know they are looming over us. Not in a political sense but rather in a relationship sense. Kind of like how people bury themselves in their jobs, their busy lifestyle, their possessions, their kids, their over-involvement at church or social organizations, night-school, or whatever else that keeps them too busy to be real or transparent with their spouse or significant other. Musically speaking, in my head there is a rather heavy section (again, in a cool FP-ish fashion) where things come to a head lyrically, and as such it will likely be a good song for when you need time alone to decompress or escape from whatever haunts you. But it won't hide you from yourself. Au contraire my dear readers. If anything, perhaps it will encourage a willingness to open up the festering wounds that we so tightly guard to the point of preventing our own healing. Sometimes we need to see past the impending conflicts in our relationships and say how we feel and aim for the growth that comes on the back-end of being open and honest. Honesty is raw and oftentimes ugly and embarrassing, yet there is no substitute for the trust and respect that you gain for being upfront and authentic. Iron sharpens iron....

As to 'Intervention', it will likely feature several versions (10?) with different lyrics and perhaps varying guitar solos in each version. In one sense the idea in my head is grand, yet other than extra singing and extra guitar solo parts, everything else will be mostly the same. As a matter of fact I already have 2 full lyric variations and two halves of variations already written. (And 'The Antebellum' lyrics are 85% done already.) Why the different versions you ask? Well....'if I told you then I'd have to kill you.' Hehe...You'll see in time. We have several other songs on the front burners that will come first so it may be a bit. But all of these are in the works as we speak. No shortage of ideas....

So I guess that is a good place to park this blog entry. I'd write more but I need a mind-numbing break (shooting villains on XBox 360) and it has gotten late. Will try to get 'Sycamore' posted this weekend. Until then....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 1-22-10

2010-01-21T22:26:00.000-08:00

And here's the latest FP info....

1) 'Sycamore' is in the final mixing/mastering stage. We have officially begun listening to the mix on various systems and we're taking notes of any show-stopping quirks that might randomly pop-up. We even have a handful of mono pre-release CDR's floating around because I thought I had the mix in the bag so to speak but then we noticed some trouble with the kick drum levels in the low-low-end (50-60Hz). Also, I need to divvy up the 'master buss reverb' a little bit better to prevent muddiness in the low frequencies. Maybe a smidge less sibilance on the main vocals, a slight volume tweak on the rhythm guitars on one of the section segues, etc.. But overall, if I'm lucky and if my producer/engineering ninja skills are 'on', then all of that could be wrapped up in perhaps a matter of 2-3 hours? (Or if my ninja skills are not 'on', it might take a couple of days?) We'll see what tomorrow brings. But now would be the time to make more frequent stops by our blog as 'Sycamore' will be showing up very very soon....

2) 'Some Other Year' (SOY) will soon become my main focus studio-wise. Jake starts bass recording on it Monday. We previously tried to start on the bass tracks but when we ran into technical issues we decided to postpone tracking his parts. But now we are ready to attack it again and once his bass parts are underway then I will be hot on his trail with my guitar parts. Then more vocals, then ear-candy, then the mixdown. Fun fun fun!

3) 'Marigolds' Pre-Production sessions officially began tonight. Yippee!!! Now for those who are wondering what 'Pre-Production Sessions' are, those sessions are when we actually start fleshing out the instrumentation to a song. Usually a song starts out as a riff or a vocal melody. Then someone comes up with lyrics. Or not. Just depends. But then more riffs and/or lyrics are written to accompany the original riffs/lyrics. And then we start messing with all of those ideas collectively as a band. At that point we all contribute ideas and we feed off of each others ideas and see what just naturally happens. Then those ideas start getting arranged in whatever order seems best and then we usually try to capture as many of those ideas and sections as possible by recording ourselves playing as a band (this is usually done by recording via my iPhone or maybe by sticking a single mic up in the middle of the room). And so we record those 'diamond-in-the-rough' ideas before they evaporate (and before we all go our separate ways until the next band practice) and then those ideas get listened too and tweaked and modified as needed, and then those rough recordings become our sketchbook of the song's arrangement. A blueprint of the song if you will. So all of that effort goes into every song before we ever attempt to 'officially' record anything. But that insures that everyone has a clear direction on what needs to take place in the recording sessions once we actually start producing the song. Pre-Production ends up being more about putting more effort at the beginning of a song's life in order to make the recording phase of things much more efficient and productive. And that is where 'Marigolds' is currently at: the Pre-Production phase. And this is the stage of things where most of the cool moments and magic happens. We all screw up or miss our cues on something, or maybe someone drops a beat or plays the wrong note and the right time, etc.. But when those 'oops' moments occur, sometimes they can become the heart and soul of a song. I can't count how many times I have messed up on something guitar-wise only to discover changes and ideas that were completely brilliant. All because I made a mistake. And that happens to us as a band. And it's good when those new ideas manifest themselves. And so in a nutshell, that is Pre-Production. Probably the most enjoyable part of a song's creation....

4) Random tidbits from my brain: Long Island Iced Tea is pretty good with some orange juice added. So is white wine. Weird. But good. Also, sugar-free Pina Colada flavored popsicles should be against the law. Period. Pina Colada is such a unique flavor anyway, and it revolves around sweetness, so why make 'sugar-free' versions of it in a popsicle form? If the good Lord wanted pineapples and coconuts to taste sour then He wouldn't have put natural sugars in them. Right?! Needless to say I made myself finish the popsicle in question, but it won't happen again. Just plain nasty. I think the inventor of sugar-free Pina Colada popsicles must not have any tastebuds on his or her tongue. Or maybe it was a terrorist attack....against good flavor. Blah....

5) I go in for new glasses and contacts tomorrow (along with Tyler and Anderson). Debating on whether or not to tell the optometrist that I am starting to have problems seeing certain things up close. Not bad. Just starting to notice it gradually. Hmmm....

So that's all for now. Will post again soon. Thanks for stopping by!

~ Todd

Weekly Update 1-17-10

2010-01-17T19:15:00.000-08:00

Hello FP Fans!!!

Here's the latest:

1) 'Sycamore' is nearing completion as anticipated. How much longer you ask? Days perhaps. Not 100% sure. Still sorting out a couple trouble spots that didn't really appear until I began mixing everything down. And yes I am at the mixdown stage. (Yeessssss....) That being said, I am still doing some light editing as needed, but all actual tracking is completed and has been completed for over two weeks now. Vocals, guitars, bass, drums, phone rings, 'The Argument', and a bunch of other crazy things that got thrown into the pot. (In my world, there is such a fine and blurry line between editing and mixing. Hard to do one without the other.) Matt and Jake came over this past Thursday night to help me mix the drums and we have those drums pretty much where they need to be soundwise. At this point there are a couple of minor EQ issues to sort out on some of my clean guitar tracks where I played my Les Paul (which hereafter will be called "The '05") through my vintage Fender Super Reverb. I considered scrapping the original takes but decided that I can fix the issue in the mix since the performances themselves were fine. And that's that.

Umm....let's see....

1B) 'Sycamore' is turning out to be quite a long song, at least by modern pop radio standards. And to be perfectly honest folks, Jake, Matt and myself don't really give a flip how long a song is if it is good. (And neither should you.) And yes we could strip 'Sycamore' down to the basic song elements if we wanted to and yes 'Sycamore' would still stand on its own if we did that. But why thin out a recording and compromise what we are hearing in our heads? We aren't tethered to any record label contracts (yet) so we figure we will enjoy our artistic freedom. Nice. Fortunately for you, our prospective listeners, that means that there is a lot of interesting 'ear candy' going on that will engage you after many repeated listens. And one of the main goals we have in mind as a band is 'timeless originality'. Will our songs still resonate with people after ten or twenty years? Will people hear new details and hidden gems in the recording with each listen? Will people find themselves humming our songs and making the lyrics personal? That is what we are aiming for. Less attention to 'flavor of the month' trends and more focus on good song writing and solid production.

(And very soon you shall all be able to hear our debut recording and let us know if it was a hit or miss....)

2) On a more personal note, I have had many many distractions of late. Had Jury Duty for the first two weeks of January. Ughh. Only had to actually go in to the courthouse twice during those two weeks, but just knowing that each day held the potential of being stuck in a court case (or two or three court cases in a row) was a pain in the arse. Hard to make normal plans when you may have to go to be a juror (or else have a sheriff show up to haul your butt to jail for disregarding your summons)....well that just sucks in my book. Surely there is a better way? And since I am self-employed, that meager $10 a day for being a juror is kind of a moot point. Again, what a pain.

2B) Another distraction that hit once the holidays were done (since I am whining and complaining and venting here....bear with me folks....this too shall pass) was a leaky roof. We had been smelling a musty, smoky aroma in our front closet since around mid-October but could never figure out what was causing the stink. Well, one day my son Anderson noticed a lot of aggressively growing mold on the plaster walls that surrounded our house's chimney. Thus the reason for the smell was made manifest. Not sure how we missed it beforehand. Of course, as luck would have it (and not the kind of luck you would normally want), there were several inches of snow on our roof when Anderson made that discovery. So, we found mold, which in turn pointed to a leaky roof, a roof which could not be accessed until the snow melted (our roof is way too steep to get on when there is snow covering it). And so we had to wait for the snow to melt, which meant even more water damage, and of course more mold. Good times. So we clamored to clear out our closet in hopes of rescuing coats, board games, homeschool supplies, and a myriad of other odds and ins of minor interest (i.e. things we normally shove in a closet since we don't want our house to look cluttered when people stop by to visit). And so today I took the afternoon and patched the roof in several suspicious places (the snow was gone and the temperature was all the way up to a balmy 40*F) and then I gutted the damaged plaster walls in the closet and removed the mold. Such nastiness it was. And so now we just need to let the closet air out for a few days, and then (if the roof is no longer leaking), I'll rebuild the closet so we can shove our junk back into it. The Joys of Home Ownership.

2C) More personal trinkets of info here. Just finished reading "The Running Man" by Richard Bachman (an early-career alias for Stephen King) and I really enjoyed it. But it was a short novella and didn't last me very long. So then I picked up a copy of John Grisham's 'The Innocent Man' that someone gave me a while back. But alas is was just not my thing. At least not at this present time. Maybe it will hit the spot at a later date. Will hang on to it just in case. But at this point I have parked it and have moved on. So now I am reading 'The Lovely Bones' by Alice Sebold and I am quite smitten. Granted the recent trailers for the new movie 'The Lovely Bones' was a good attention-getter for me, but what really got me hooked was the 1st chapter sample I downloaded for my iPhone's Kindle Reader App. So I bought the Kindle e-version of it. And six chapters later I find myself looking forward to laying in bed each night so that I can read more of it before falling asleep. It is simply hard to put down. Very well written with a very captivating storyline and strong character development. That is how all fiction books should be. If I were an author, this would be the sort of book I would want to pen. Highly recommended....

So that is all for now. As mentioned, the release of 'Sycamore' is imminent. And there are several songs in waiting. The fun is about to begin folks....

Until next time....

~ Todd

First Song Release Approaching....

2010-01-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

Hola!

Just wanted to make a quick post about the last couple of weeks. In between holiday events, sleeping-in, moving/relocating, too much eating and 'making merry', Christmas shopping and a slew of other distractions, we've all been enjoying some downtime as a band. We pushed really hard to complete Matt's drums for Song #2 ('Some Other Year') before the busy holiday season hit and since then we've been taking a brief hiatus. All things being equal, we'll be resuming our writing/rehearsal sessions this coming week for Song #3 ('Marigolds'). 'SOY' is written and arranged and it simply needs to be properly recorded as soon as 'Sycamore' is buttoned up.

Per 'Sycamore'....There have been several delays (admittedly on my end of things) and issues that I have been addressing in order to polish it up to a level that I am happy with. And I'm fairly picky when it comes to recording quality and song vibe. I have literally been singing my parts until I wear out or else make my throat raw. But the worst (i.e. the most challenging vocal parts) are finished. However in the middle of working on those parts I managed to catch a lovely little head cold which has put a temporary hold on finishing those parts up. I am hoping to have enough of my voice back tomorrow to sing the remainder of parts needed. Also, I have roughly a third of the guitar solo sections completed. All that remains is to find the elusive tones needed for some melodic guitar leads that are on tap. I have had plans of featuring a 'heated argument' between a guy and gal (my sister and her husband courtesy of my iPhone in their living room) underneath the guitar solo sections, but the verdict is still out on whether or not to include it, mainly as it concerns the song sonically. The idea and concept of 'The Argument' fits the song's feel. I'm just not sure if it will compromise the mix's strengths. We'll see soon enough....

And to top it all off, I received Jury Duty summons for the first two weeks of 2010 so that may steal away time that I'd normally devote to working on the recording chores. Ughhh...['She's's guilty as charged Your Honor....Can I go home now?'] But perhaps this is good timing? What if we (FP) were under a contractual deadline to get more recordings wrapped up and then I got stuck with jury duty? To my knowledge I will be officially exempt from having to serve the same type of jury duty service for the next two years once I am done with this round. Things could always be worse....Still....

Hope all our readers and future fans have had a Merry Christmas and a Happy (and safe) New Year....

~ Todd

'Sycamore' Lyrics

2009-12-16T19:58:00.000-08:00

1st Verse

The Sycamore is bare....
And all our friends are calling....
And nobody knows just when....
The leaves started falling down....

1st Chorus

If only you and I
Could wake up and realize
That our bed is still burning....

If only you and I
Could reach up for the sky
And know that we're still learning....
(....to love again)

Verse 2

I hear you breathing out....
I want to taste your morning skin....
I wonder what you're dreaming of....
Another day begins....

2nd Chorus

As we go round and round
The sun begins to climb
And nothing can compare....

And only you and I
Can know the reasons why
The Sycamore's still bare....
(But it's still there....)

Bridge

And you are the Only
One who has Known me....
And you are the Only
One who has Owned me....
But you aren't the Only
One who has been Lonely....
(And) you are the Only
One who has Shown me All

Verse 3

It's only been 'You and Me'....
I've Only had one Regret....
Never been enough time just to be alone with you....
Can we Forgive if we Forget?

Chorus 3

So can I ask you why
You're still staring
If you say there's nothing there?
And only you and I
Can know the reasons why
The Sycamore's still bare....
(....But it's still there)

(P) 2010 The FP Theory

Weekly Update 12-14-09

2009-12-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

Howdy Everyone! Here's the latest....

1) We are done recording (the tracking stage of) Matt's drums for 'Some Other Year' and Jake and I are prepping for our parts here in the not-so-distant future. We finished things up this week and are all elated to have those drums done. So now the lion's share of my mic locker will be set-up on guitar cabs again and I'll start whittling away at the 'SOY' guitars in between recording more vocals on 'Sycamore' and helping record Jake's bass tracks on the new song. So much to do! That all being said, Matt made a statement this last week about how long he has to wait until he gets to experience the fruits of his labor. We write and rehearse each song collectively and then we spend as much time as needed in pre-production for each song before trying to record anything, and then we record Matt doing his thing on the drums, and then he gets to sit back for (what probably seems like) forever until he gets to hear he finished product. He's the 'first man down the hole' so to speak and so he has to wait the longest before he can enjoy hearing his work. Bummer for the drummer. But he's a trooper....

2) 'Sycamore' is coming along. I wish I was a perfect singer. Admittedly I am my own worst critic and I am sure I have trashed a lot of 'so-so' vocal takes that I probably could have dressed up in the mix with some judicious editing. But I guess I keep holding out for the vocal takes that seem to jump out of the speakers and grab me on a deeper level. I had Jake and Matt listen in on what vocal tracks I had settled on so far, and they offered some very good suggestions and constructive criticisms about some specific things, but they were also quick to point out the positive things that they especially liked. And so it became likewise apparent that I sometimes suffer from creative 'tunnel vision' (big surprise eh?) and that when it comes to my vocals (which is fairly new territory for me and consequently an area of insecurity) I sometimes 'can't see the forest for the trees'. Jake and Matt were pretty fond of some vocal takes that I was otherwise doubting. And Jake even made the comment 'I don't know all of what you're hearing in your head, but it's amazing' and I really took that to heart. And I think I really needed to hear that. It pulled me away from some of my OCD fears and boosted my confidence a bit. So tomorrow I plan on hitting the mic again and will keep plodding away at things with hopefully a more open and relaxed frame of mind. Guitar playing is usually a cinch for me and I generally don't suffer from paranoia about my playing anymore. But singing is different. I just need to not be so OCD-ish about the quirks and unusual traits of my voice. Maybe I'll be a cool singer someday....

3) We made the decision not to start recording any new songs until after 'Sycamore' is buttoned up. Partly because 2 songs at once is plenty of work to keep on top of, but also because of hard drive space. I have a 320GB drive on my MacBook Pro but it keeps filling up as we go along. Audio data is immense....

So anyway, there's the short version of FP this week. Stay tuned....

~ Todd

Scenes From the Front Line...

2009-12-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

Just an FP Quickie here. Thought I'd post a few pics of 'Sycamore' from my MacBook Pro's perspective (I'm such a geek)....

Scene #1:

Here is Logic 9's 'Arrange Window' that shows a lay of the land. ('Logic 9' is the computer software I use to do all of my recording projects.) Each horizontal section (shown in various colors) represents an individual track in the song. For example: one of the main vocal tracks, or maybe the bass track, or any of the various drum or guitar tracks, etc.. Worth noting here is that there are so many tracks in this song that my laptop's screen cannot show them all at once. I have to scroll around to see everything as needed. As such, the tracks you see in this picture comprise only of the vocals and some of the guitars. The bass and drum tracks are located farther down in my 'Arrange Window' and they essentially double the number of tracks you see here. I think 'Sycamore' is up to around 70-ish tracks so far. We'll probably hit around 100 or so by time everything else is recorded and in place. Lots going on....and lots to mix.

Scene #2:

This second scene is of Logic 9's mixer. Each track has a corresponding 'mixing channel'. 70 tracks = 70 mixing channels. Each 'mixing channel' is called a 'channel strip' and each channel strip has its own volume control/slider, a pan control (controls left-right placement of the track), a 'Record' button for arming a track for recording, a 'Mute' switch, a 'Solo' button (if you want to isolate a particular track to hear it sans any other tracks), an 'Input' button (for when you want to listen to say your guitar playing while it is being fed through Logic without actually recording anything), and a myriad of other useful settings for the esteemed mixing engineer to use at his or her discretion. One of the more important items on each 'channel strip' are the slots for 'Effects Plug-ins'....See below.

Scene #3:

This last scene is a shot of some of my favorite 'Effects Plug-ins'. Each Effects Plug-in is a unique software program that is hosted inside Logic 9. Each plug-in usually has a specific purpose in mind. Some plug-ins might be designed to distort a track in a cool way, or perhaps to add some echoes to a track, or maybe to make a track seem 'larger than life' by spreading it out more, etc.. Just like Apple always says 'There's an App for that' regarding their iPhone, there is a plug-in for just about every sort of sonic trick or effect you can imagine. I literally have hundreds of plug-ins on hand and it is always just a matter of knowing each plug-in's strengths and weaknesses and then choosing the 'right tool for the right job'. The plug-ins shown in this last picture (starting at the top left and going around clock-wise) are: 1) Stillwell Audio's 'Rocket Compressor', 2) Apple's 'Enverb' Reverb, 3) TC Electronics' 'M30 Studio Reverb', 4) Nomad Factory's 'Blue Tubes Tempo Delay', and 5) Apple's 'Ensemble' effect. I have spent more money on plug-ins than for any other sort of software. And while most people usually think of spending their extra money on new gadgets or toys, I usually think of what plug-ins I'd like to have next. Granted a plug-in only sounds as good as the person running it, but there is much to be said about getting what you pay for. In a way, plug-ins are the heart and soul of a modern studio's arsenal. Plug-ins have made life easy for many a recordist, and one can never have enough plug-ins....

So there's a quick tour of my world as I work on new recordings. Fortunately I am growing quite comfortable wearing multiple hats as a producer, engineer, guitarist, singer, songwriter, band correspondent and media guru, and whatever else needs to be done. FP is at the center of all of those facets of my creativity and I'm loving the journey along the way. And if a guy can enjoy his work, what could be better?

Still singing away....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 12-6-09

2009-12-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

And now for the FP Weekly News Report...

1) Drum tracks for song #2 ('Some Other Year') are 97% finished. (Incidentally, those drum tracks have currently consisted of 11.89 GB of hard drive space from 1,337 files....Good times!) We had an extremely smooth and successful round of recording sessions over the course of the last couple of weeks. All that remains to be recorded drum-wise is the very last outro verse where things finally start to wind down in the song. Matt really nailed his drum parts and I'm thrilled to say that there will be nearly zero editing needed for his drum tracks since we were able to edit-on-the-go (what little editing was required) during his tracking sessions because his performances were so spot-on. Wow. Ironically enough, some of the drum sections of this new song are very complex and tricky, and yet Matt made it all seem very nonchalant and easy. Even a good friend of ours, Todd Nardoni, who loaned us an extra set of ears during the last 'SOY' session, was blown away (and verbally said as much on several occasions) by how 'spot-on' Matt was with his drumming. At any rate, Matt has totally made my job as Engineer and Producer a lot easy than I am normally accustomed to. I could get used to that....

2) Jake begins tracking his bass parts this week. Since we have the bulk of his bass lines already mapped out and organized, I anticipate his sessions being fairly routine and non-difficult for him. Jake is keenly aware of his 'picking dynamics' which is essential for getting good, consistent bass tracks when recording. And like Matt, Jake makes my job much easier than I'm used to. Nothing like working with mature and naturally talented musicians....

3) 'Sycamore' is coming along and I've still been whittling away at the vocals these last couple of weeks. Of course, I'm pretty picky about what makes the final cut in the song, and so it is taking a while. I wish it could go quicker however a lot of the hold-up is me learning what works for my voice and what doesn't. Lots of trial and error going on when I'm recording those vocals. Plus some days I have just plain worn my voice out. It has proven to be much more difficult than I would prefer, but who knows? Maybe I'll make a decent vocalist someday.... :-) If nothing else, all of those failed attempts at singing make for excellent practice. If it was easy then what would be the point of that? When it is all said and done, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing how hard I worked on those vocal tracks every time I hear 'Sycamore' once it is all finished. That day is soon approaching...

4) With the Holidays quickly descending upon us, I do not anticipate starting rehearsals on song #3 ('Marigolds') until after the New Year. We've all got plenty on our plates, both in our personal lives plus as a band, so there's no sense in rushing to do the 'next thing' on our list. Hopefully the Holidays will prove to be time for each of us to recharge and regroup. The old adage 'Good things come to those who wait' comes to mind here. But I must say that after recording the drum tracks for 'Some Other Year' it is very apparent that FP is finding its ideal workflow and methods, and consequently I imagine that 'Marigolds' will go fairly quick once we do actually get started on it. 'Sycamore' has taken so long in part because it was our maiden voyage and we had lots of little kinks to work out of our system. Another old adage 'What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' comes to mind here as well...

So anyway, I'm turning off the laptop now and going to sleep. Another busy day awaits me in the morning. That's all for this week. Signing out....

~ Todd

The FP Fish Have Returned!!!

2009-11-30T12:10:00.000-08:00

OK...

After many reports and complaints of the FP Fish 'disappearing', I have gone to the trouble of restocking them in a slightly larger aquarium with cleaner water. I have also upgraded their food supply from the generic black stuff to a more fish-friendly greenish-grey variety. Hopefully their new environs will be more conducive to their delicate health. Also, I'd like to dispel any myths or rumors our readers may have heard regarding the feeding of the FP Fish. Being of the Koi/Goldfish variety, the FP Fish are in little (if any) danger of being overfed. You may feed them as often as you wish for as long as you wish. They won't eat themselves to death and disappear again. I suspect that the former fish coding picked up a virus, which in turn killed the former FP Fish. An underlying coding virus would also explain why those who encountered missing fish were all on Windows-based PC's, whereas I never had any problems seeing or feeding the FP Fish when using my Mac laptop (FYI, Macs don't get viruses). At any rate, $#!t Happens folks. But it's all good now and the new FP Fish are adjusting well to their new home.

Also, you may have noticed there are more fish in the FP Fish Tank. Previously we had eight fish in our care. Now there are ten. I figure since we moved up to a bigger tank, we could allow for more fish. Makes good sense. And the new fish now have names: the three orange ones are Ed, Tiger, and Jaws (female, male, and female respectively). The three black fish are Monique, Jamaica and Samson, two brothers and their sister. Then the two red ones are Tiny and Red, a boy and girl, although they are not of any birth relation. Then there is the yellow one we call Number Nine (we aren't sure if Nine is a boy or girl....kind of hard to tell with yellow goldfish....don't ask!). And lastly there is the strikingly beautiful albino named The Brain, although you may notice he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed (he is oftentimes the last fish to get to any food you may drop in the tank unless you put the food very close to him). We thought it best to give everyone in the FP Fish Tank proper names this time around so that we can keep tabs on all of them better. You never know what may happen in the fish tank....

So there you have it folks. That's the deal on the new FP Fish. If you notice any hanky-panky going on in the fish tank then just make sure it isn't between Monique and Samson, since they are siblings, and fish incest would be bad and might result in disadvantaged (i.e. 'fugly') goldfish babies with missing scales or fins and/or bulging eyes. Other than that, it's all fair game in the world of fish. Also, please post on this blog or email us immediately in the event that any of the FP Fish start disappearing again. I usually try to feed the FP Fish once a day but sometimes a couple of days might pass by before I can check in on them again. But in the words of Former First Lady Hillary Clinton, "Our lives are a mixture of different roles....Most of us are doing the best we can to find whatever the right balance is"....Or in layman's terms, if we all pool our efforts together to take care of our new finned friends, then the world will be a better place.

Hope you enjoy the new FP Fish Tank....

Regards,

Todd

Weekly Update 11-28-09

2009-11-28T12:54:00.000-08:00

How time flies....

1) As many of you know, we posted a preview of 'Sycamore' on our blog by way of a YouTube video. Nothing fancy, but it should wet the appetite for what is to come. I really can't say this enough that 'Sycamore' is just the tip of the iceberg. We have a ton of material on the back-burners waiting for adequate time to finish writing and recording. As such, I keep coming up with more lyric ideas as well as basic riffs and arrangements. So we literally just try to capture a 'sketch' of those things on my iPhone or whatever else is handy at the moment. But if you could 'hear' the ideas as we 'hear' them....More and more, FP is becoming a well-oiled machine and the more we work on stuff the more fun it gets.

2) Matt and I have been tracking his drums this week for the second song 'Some Other Year' and all I can say is 'wow'. In 10-12 hours of sessions we have literally knocked out over half of the drum sections, including the editing. Amazing really. And to give everyone a better scope of how much work and data that is...we are currently have 7.49 GB of hard drive space taken up over the span of 992 individual files. Granted the bulk of those files are out-takes, but it takes a while to record that many pieces. We have been recording and editing as we go, and we are using 15 mics on his drum kit this time around: 3 mics on the snare drum, 1 mic/each on the three toms, 1 mic on the hi-hat, 1 mic on the ride cymbal, 4 mics on the kick drum, 2 overhead mics above the entire kit, and 1 omnidirectional mic in a air duct that is connected to the drum room. Fortunately, we are getting much more efficient at mic selection/placement, and so things are sounding pretty stellar.

3) I'll continue singing sections for the 'Sycamore' this next week. Also, FP is rehearsing this week to iron out a few kinks in the bridge/last chorus section of 'Some Other Year' before we actually continue recording Matt's drums. But the goal is to have the drums wrapped up in the next 7-10 days (depending on everyone's schedules of course). Then the bass tracks will get recorded along with a bunch of the guitar parts. I actually plan on using my Line6 Vetta amp head for a lot of the guitar tracks in this one, largely due to a nicely syncopated stereo 'tremolo' effect. We'll see how that goes. The Vetta has always done well in the past...

That's all for this week. Again, I am most likely overlooking something...

Peace....

~ Todd

The Official 'Sycamore' Preview Is now LIVE

2009-11-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

Hello All...

We promised a song preview by Thanksgiving Day and we delivered. If you'll look directly below (and to the left of) the main FP Banner....

Here's the scoop...

1) The audio is merely a rough draft of the first verse and first chorus. Most of the essential elements are in place but the mix is not 'there'. Since we are still recording new elements/sections to the song, we won't be mixing anything properly until the tracking is complete. But the audio gets the point across and hopefully it will leave listeners anxious to hear more.

2) The video is a collage of various points in FP history where we have been working, eating, horsing around, whatever, and all of the filming was done by Jake and my son Tyler. All video editing/direction was courtesy of Tyler.

3) As of this point, Sycamore needs the remaining vocals recorded, the bridge section guitar solo parts tracked, various odds and ends (i.e. audio bling), and possibly some vocals elements from my sister Charlyn. But every day we are making progress....

4) We are also simultaneously working on recording the drums for the second song 'Some Other Year'. Busy. Busy. Busy....

Hope you enjoy the Preview! Be sure to post some comments! We'd love to hear from you!

~ Todd

Matt Awakens

2009-11-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok...I know what you're all thinking. You all think that Todd is making all this up about a band since he's the only one that posts on this BAND blog. The truth is that we do exist, we just aren't as tech savvy as Mr. Todd. I did feel on the eve of this long week of recording that I, Matt Goodner, should sound off a bit.

Although I would much rather prefer playing live events, I do enjoy the recording process. The process of recording is a very tedious, in depth experience that really helps to discover the song. Sure, we have the main frame of the song all planned out, but when we review and record each section line by line, we often stumble on some really sweet ideas. Some ideas can be as basic as moving a few notes around, others can be so severe as to change the whole structure of the section. You just never know. Once we do figure out how we want to arrange each section, the real work begins. This task involves tens, even hundreds, of repetitions of the same section looking for that elusive perfect take. This rare moment is the mecca of recording, it's the tootsie roll in the middle of the tootsie pop, the oh, so rewarding final take. That may be a little hyped up, but it's a good moment and I hope to have many, many of those moments in the upcoming week.

Not to be forgotten, so much more hard work is done in preparation of the actual recording of the drums. We have to arrange, move, arrange, move, arrange, and then most likely move again, all of the mics and stands to make them all fit around the kit. Once we get the placement correct, we have to make sure the spacing is consistent with all of out previous recordings. After a few hours of that, we get to run cables from the recording room to the actual studio so we can plug EVERYTHING in. Phew....all this talk about work is making me tired. Hey Todd, why don't we just hold off on this for a while? Haha, I'm only kidding, I'm anxiously awaiting the recording of "Some Other Year." It's going to be an awesome song and I can't wait to get started so all ya'll can hear it and be a part of it. Hang in there with us....we've got some excellent material headed your way.

Thanks as always,
Matt

The Sycamore Preview

2009-11-19T21:48:00.000-08:00

Just a quick public service announcement that our upcoming song 'Sycamore' will indeed 100% be officially featured in some sort of preview by this Thanksgiving. The Polls will open until Monday night at Midnight, and then we'll act accordingly. We can't wait to let people hear a quick demo mock-up of what we have been up to. It won't be a finished product, but you'll be able to catch some of the vibe we've been conjuring up.

Also, one positive byproduct of us promising an early preview of our first song is that it has placed a deadline on certain things, and honestly I work harder under a deadline. Even if it is self-imposed. It has never been my intent on taking months and months on our first song, but honestly there has been lots more to all-things-FP than just working on 'Sycamore'. First we tried to record (and later put-away-for-a-rainy-day) an instrumental piece called 'Saying Goodbye'. That was back in June. That started just before Jake came onboard. Then we stumbled upon the basic idea/lyrics to 'Sycamore' and so we started thinking more in that direction. At that point we were really finding out what we were shooting for as a band and things started evolving from there.

Then we recorded Matt's drums for 'Sycamore' back in late August (when it was still blazing hot outside), then Jake laid his bass parts down, and then I recorded most of the guitars (still have more to layer in....including a cool solo section). Then it was at that point that I realized my studio room in my house would be a roadblock when it came time to mix things down, so I then took some time away from recording in order to fix everything sonically. That process, which involved lumber, 70'ish feet of R30 pink insulation, almost 60 feet of wire fencing material, at least 5 rolls of duct tape, nearly 30 yards of some sweet looking orange fabric, and a million staples (give or take a few), finished early last week. Phew....

So now I am in the slow and methodical process of singing the vocal parts, which by the way is a fairly new hat for me to be wearing. Other than a song I had recorded a few years ago called 'I Don't Care', I've done hardly any singing at all in my life other than at church (in the pews) and way back in grade school. I would like to take vocal lessons at some point and learn how to do a better job of it, but for now there just isn't enough time in the schedule for that. Another day perhaps. But that is on my radar....

And in the meantime, while all of the 'Sycamore' and studio rebuild stuff was taking place, we wrote and arranged a second song called 'Some Other Year' and we will begin recording drums for that song this coming weekend and part of next week. Once we have that one rolling along enough for Jake and Matt to move on to the next thing, we'll most likely start working on song #3 called 'Marigolds'. And of course there are several other song/lyrical concepts in the chute at this point with working titles like 'Rabbit Hole', '451 Sandusky Drive', 'Careless', 'Aperture', '3:31 a.m.' and a few other works-in-progress. It is really just a matter of getting time to make them happen and to do the recordings as we are able.

Now to be clear (because most people just don't get this) the process to crafting each song is very similar to designing and building a house. Make plans, make a schedule, and then get ready to work for a good stretch before things start to take shape. Tons of pre-production goes into a song before we even consider trying to officially 'record' anything. We do capture a lot of ideas on my iPhone or with a single mic hanging in the room when we rehearse. So the ideas are definitely flowing. But it can just be a trick (and nearly impossible) just trying to keep up with recording stuff because of the amount of time and detail required to do things 'right'. But there's no sense in doing something if you aren't willing to go all the way with it. Otherwise we'd be just like everybody else....

So this is the last post I'll make before we hand out the 'Sycamore' demo. People are working hard behind the scenes to make things happen for us. A big thanks goes out to my son Tyler (for photo and video editing/design and for 'hearing' my ideas and making good creative suggestions), my son Anderson for being a good sounding-board for my ideas and for entertaining me with his personality....you keep me 'real'), Jake and Matt (obviously), Brittany (for feeding us all of the time and being the band-wife of sorts and for letting FP invade her home every week), my wife Julia (for making me who I am and for always looking me in the eyes and for always being the balance in my life....and for just being cool...and pretty....and....T.M.I.), to Gary and Chris Lockard (for encouraging Jake in every way and for encouraging the rest of us as well), my sister Charlyn (for signing up to help with some upcoming backing vocals and for spurring me on when I need it), and the rest of our friends and families for the ongoing interest and excitement. You'll all get mentions in the album liner someday....

FP for a Better Tomorrow.

~ Todd

Weekly Update 11-15-09

2009-11-14T22:49:00.000-08:00

Welcome race fans...

Here's the latest scuttlebutt for the week:

1) 'Sycamore' is still in the exact same place as the last post. This last week I have had other things on my FP 'To-Do List' and 'Sycamore' wasn't holding things up like some of the other things on the 'List'.

2) 'Some Other Year' is now organized and completely ready for Matt to lay down his drum parts. We will set up shop in the next few days and will be recording his drums parts for the new song during the week of Thanksgiving. Fingers crossed...

3) FP had a big family fish fry down at Jake's parent's place this last Friday. Jake's been catching a ton of Crappies (some of them just over 14" long) and his parents set up their 'serious' outdoor fish-fry station. And we ate a lot of fish. And homemade hush-puppies. Etc. Etc. And it was a lot of fun and gave everyone time to just hang out. And we played several rounds of Baggo/Cornhole (Jake is still the reining champion - although my son Anderson is determined to dethrone Jake someday soon). Heck...at times it almost felt like we were having a tailgate party. Especially with the pick-up truck that was parked near the campfire. Gotta love it. And to top it all off we even found out that my wife Julia likes Killian's Red Lager. Who'da thunk? A big thanks to Jake's family for having us all over!

4) My studio rebuild is nearly complete. All of my wall panels are mounted and now I am modifying my desk with a wider sound-treated shelf for my monitors. Then once I get that finished (tomorrow hopefully) I will put my equipment back in order and start cleaning things up. Then it's back to 'Sycamore' and then the real work begins....

5) I've been playing my V-neck Strat around the house a lot lately. Funny how certain tones ebb and flow in and out of our everyday lives (I'm speaking from a guitarist's point of view of course). These last several months I have played my Les Paul almost exclusively, but lately that Strat has been hitting the spot for me. Maybe it's the whammy bar?

So that pretty much sums things up for now. Will write again next week....

Too-da-loo....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 11-6-09

2009-11-06T21:05:00.000-08:00

So here's the FP dealio for this week....

1) 'Sycamore' is still being constructed as we speak. I've been singing the vocal tracks like crazy and have lots of them done now. However I still need to sift through a bunch of them and I also need to attack the bridge section soon. But it is really starting to sound like a song now. Lots of tidying up on some of the details but it will be done very soon. Also, we had to postpone my sister's backing vocals this week on account of a mild stomach flu/fevering I had one day this week. Fortunately it passed quickly and I am happily back on my feet and going full steam again (I hate being sick...such a frustration!) Chances are strong that Charlyn will do her thing this coming week sometime. Fingers crossed....

2) Jake is in Chicago this weekend with his old college roommate and he mentioned going to some sort of professional cage fighting event. Maybe we'll get some Twitter updates from him....?

3) I nearly have all four of my massive studio bass trap panels finished and in place in my studio room. They have consumed a lot of my time (and a lot of sweat) but I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with these things. The third and fourth panels are constructed and one of them is already half-wrapped with its coverings. I have approximately two more hours of work on them and then they will be done. Ughh....why does that last home stretch always seems the most grueling? I just want them to be finished so I can move on and get down to business in my studio again. At any rate, I finally made the much needed purchase of a calibration/measurement microphone and will be tweaking things as needed to even out the frequency resonances in my little rectangle studio (rectangle/square rooms are a nightmare acoustically speaking). Can't wait to see how that fares. Hopefully my job as a mixer/engineer will be much easier from now on. But I digress...

4) "Some Other Year" is coming along in the pre-production stage by leaps and bounds. We are completely on schedule for recording Matt's drums during the week of Thanksgiving (he's taking the week off via some vacation days). Consequently, Jake and I have been slightly under the gun with getting our parts up to snuff in order to help figure out where Matt needs to place his accents and cadences. But just this week we were all able to figure out the actual song structure we thought best and it will all be pretty grand when it is finished. And I even have all of the lyrics finally ready (sans a variation in the first chorus) and things are looking up. Everything has its place, including the spots where any of us need to bail out to make room for the other parts, and I have to hand it to the guys for treating things like a blueprint and yet keeping things from feeling too rigid or stiff. It is a lot of work to keep things organized and on track but these guys are troopers in every way. And all of our families have been our biggest support which makes all of the difference in the world. And best of all we are all loving the process of just hanging out and working together.

Now regarding SOY's song structure....Imagine if you will, a vocal melody line in the verse sections, then different vocal lines during the choruses (in a different key no less), and of course those sections have their respective drum, guitar, and bass parts underneath it all. With me so far? Then imagine a bridge section coming along where we all veer off in slightly different directions and all of our instrumental parts swap roles. The kick drum pattern now mimics the accents from one of the vocal lines, the bass pushes things along in a steamroller-esque fashion, and the lead guitar introduces a new melody line that points forward to an upcoming vocal round melody line, all the while everything keeps building, and then we all switch once more and our instrumental parts interchange yet again. Oh and Matt's cymbal crash accents are weaving in and out of his kick drum accents by following the accent patterns from a completely different vocal line. And it just keeps getting bigger and bigger as we truck along. That is what we are organizing at the moment. And remarkably it all makes sense to us and it all sounds pretty amazing to boot.

And that my friends is the very sort of chemistry and creativity that I am loving about FP....Everything just works and flows together and sounds like it was meant to be. And soon you'll get to hear what we've been up to....Are you anxious yet?

So that is a good place to wind this post up. Lots to do and keep track of. But we're doing just that. And it is the most fun ever....

Until next time....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 10-27-09

2009-10-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

I love this band....

1) Matt, Jake and myself went over to Chambana's Old Chicago Pizzeria last Wednesday night just to hang out and sample a few brews. The pizza was great and so were the weird flavored beers (my fav being a 50/50 mix of Guinness Stout and Woodchuck Hard Cider that O.C.P. calls a 'Snakebite' - although Woodchuck's site officially calls this concoction a 'Black Velvet'). The funniest moment of the evening came when I had to 'make more room for the food' by retreating to the men's room. Matt and Jake were sitting on the same side of the table opposite of me at our booth and so when I went to the restroom they were left sitting next to each other all alone on their shared bench. Nice one. According to Matt, I was in the restroom approximately 12 minutes (i.e. 12 minutes too long) and both he and Jake (both being 'straight' in their sexual orientations) were feeling a little awkward during those gruelling 12 minutes. Needless to say they were glad to have me back once I took my place at the booth again. Of course I think the looks in their faces said it all when I returned from the bathroom. But hey...

Pizza and drinks at Old Chicago: $30+

Leaving your buddies in an awkward public 'bromance' situation: 'Priceless'

2) I have currently finished recording the vocals for 6 out of 12 phrases in the 3 verses of 'Sycamore'. That being said, things are really starting to come together and our collective genius is taking shape. :-) There is a very strong chance that we will be releasing a preview snippet of the song once I get some of the chorus sections done. Not a finished mix mind you. But a nice preview to let people get a taste of where we are heading. And there is a 95% possibility that the 'preview' will be presented by way of a teaser video. Hang in there folks. We are getting closer to getting our pilot song finished up....

3) The fabric store called last night to let me know that the remaining 12 yards of material I special ordered for my studio bass trap panels have arrived. Will be heading to Chambana in the next couple of days to pick up the fabric and then hopefully I can get the remaining 3 panels finished and properly set in place in the studio sooner than later. I really don't want to mix 'Sycamore' until those panels are installed.

4) Matt just celebrated his 24th birthday last week. A bunch of us met up at Jocko's Pizza Inn in Danville and it was a lot of fun. The FP logo was a featured icing item on his birthday cake (baked and decorated by Matt's wife Brittany) alongside a Chevy/GMC logo, a John Deere tractor(?), and some Craftsmen tools. A good endorsement/advertising deal to be sure and a sign of things to come? I envision the infamous orange FP insignia being plastered on interstate billboards, a limited (and highly collectible) run of FP M&M's, and of course being front and center on the hood of at least one NASCAR contender. People will catch on.

Fine Print:

COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK NOTICES:
All contents of this official FP Blog are: Copyright (c) 2009. All rights reserved. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. The example companies, organizations, products, people and events depicted herein may or may not be fictitious. No legal association with any real company, organization, product, person, or event is intended or should be inferred. Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved.

5) Jake says he is letting his hair grow out again. Jerk. Wish I could....

6) Pre-Production is going very well for the next song 'Some Other Year'. We anticipate perhaps two/three more sessions of writing before we start tracking drums for it. And I am still working on SOY's lyrical direction (been steadily getting there). Interestingly enough, my initial plan for this song was to keep it simple and radio-friendly, especially considering it is sort of a universally appealing young-love song. However, after our last writing session, Matt fostered a grand plan to give this song a somewhat unexpected epic turn towards the end. Assuming this song continues heading in this new musical direction (and I'm hoping that it does as it is totally brilliant) it will be huge and quite memorable indeed. I seriously can't wait to start recording this one folks. Wow. Past 'SOY' we will most likely pursue 'Marigolds' as song #3 (unless something better comes along in the meantime). And at some point along the way I would like to see an accompanying music video produced for either 'SOY' or else 'Marigolds'. We have connections folks, just need to put our heads together and figure out the creative direction. What fun!

So that is all for now. Stay tuned until next time! Hopefully I will have Sycamore's vocals finished up by the next blog post. 'La la la la la...'

~ Todd

Weekly Update 10-16-09

2009-10-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

Hello Readers!

Here's the weekly FP News....

1) 'Sycamore' has 90% of the guitars recorded now. The only thing left is the main lead part in the bridge. Haven't quite found the tones I have been hearing in my head yet. Getting there. Just need to tweak things more and mess with mic placement perhaps. But it is getting very close. Other guitar odds and ends may show up as things start getting embellished at mixdown but all of the core parts are finished and honestly they sound amazing. So far no amp sims or plug-ins, just good, honest tube amp tones through several mics in a normal room. There are clean tones, Ebow tones, feedback tones, overdrive, etc.. It's all there and it was all mic'd the old fashioned way. Wow. I truly love the guitars on this song.

2) This last week I have been building bass traps for my studio and I have 1 1/2 built so far. I intend to have four bass traps (one for each corner of the room) and eventually a 'ceiling cloud' panel section suspended above my listening space. My boys have been a huge help to me in the process, and Anderson especially loves to run the grinder on the Dremel tool (he likes the sparks). I hope to finish up the second bass trap tomorrow and then I will just need to find the right cloth material to wrap these traps with. The bass traps I have made are 80"H x 32"W and they will pretty much reach from the floor to the ceiling in my studio room. I think I will have to rearrange my gear once those traps are in place, but it should be worth it once I get my studio's troublesome bass nodes in check. Should make my mixdowns much more efficient.

3) I plan on starting vocals on 'Sycamore' next week. Can't wait to hear it all in the mix context. Also, I plan on posting the lyrics once we get closer to wrapping this song up. Stay tuned...

4) We started rehearsing the main instrument parts for 'Some Other Year' tonight. Matt played some drum parts differently than I had originally envisioned (and his ideas were much better I might add) and it was very 'there'. Fortunately my iPhone saved the day again and we did a quick scratch recording of it all while it was fresh. Lyrically (and musically) S.O.Y. is pretty light and happy. I jokingly told the guys that S.O.Y. is our 'get pregnant' song as it deals with a lot of the issues and feelings of young love and starting a family. Fun stuff and definitely fun to sing about.

I think that covers the main stuff this week. I may have overlooked something significant but if so then it escapes me at the moment. As always there is much more in the works and a lot to keep track of....Will keep you posted!

~ Todd

Weekly Update 10-2-09

2009-10-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

Hello All....

Wow! What a busy couple of weeks it has been for FP. Lots to talk about so here goes...

1) Jake's bass parts on 'Sycamore' are all now officially ready for mixdown. All editing and assembly is finished and everything is in its proper place albeit It took a bit more work than I anticipated, largely due to a couple of problems we ran into with the newest incarnation of Apple's Logic 9. I had to figure out a couple of workarounds for things to circumvent the bugs. But all is good and all is finished for Jake on this one...

2) I recorded my first guitar parts for 'Sycamore' this last week. I once again used my 5-mic setup on my late-60's/early-70's Fender Super Reverb amp. Last time I used this elaborate mic setup to record guitar parts with, I had everything situated in our living room which ended up being a hassle because all of my stuff was in everybody's way. This time around I have the amp located towards the middle of my studio room. Not a lot of space but it makes more sense for my family. The only caveat is that my studio room has a fair amount of sound treatment in place, so the overall sound of the amp is drier with less natural room ambience. But past that the mics that are up close and personal sound incredible and are very 'there'. Also, at this point I have only used my venerable Gibson Les Paul. Plenty of other options are hanging on the walls but I just really love that LP in every way. Now the task at hand is to finish tracking the primary rhythm guitar parts enough to where I can begin singing the vocal tracks. Then come the lead guitars and other ear candy items. (About those lead guitars: we decided to double the length of the instrumental bridge section, primarily because the drums and bass sound so cool. When we were originally working out the logistics and song arrangement of the song, I only wrote lead parts for 1/2 of what we now need. I can hear more parts in my head but some of those parts are going to be pretty rough to manage, mainly because of how fast they will need to be. Hopefully this won't take too long to master....)

3) Our band bios are now pretty much done and ready to go. My sister Charlyn did a great job and the guys really loved them.

4) Last night the band got together to preview the drums and bass tracks thus far, and then after the fact we got into some good discussion about short-term and long-term goals, marketing, legal planning, financial planning, what sort of contractual agreements with record labels we will be interested in (and not interested in), and a lot of other areas of preparedness that we want to have in place before unleashing our music to the masses. Given the fact that we are doing the recording/songwriting phase of things sans the interference of label execs and hired-gun producers, we feel it will be in our best interest to delay the release of our multimedia material (in the works) or most of our songs until the bulk of everything is ready to go. That being said, we will most likely hand out 'Sycamore' well in advance of everything else just to hold our circle of family and friends over, and also as a way of letting people know that we are indeed serious about what we are doing. That all being said, we will continue to dole out new photos, song snippets, weekly blog updates, Twitter Tweets, etc, accordingly. But the massive amount of work that lays before us can only be done so fast without compromising the quality of the final product. How long will an album take to record? Who knows...but it will be well worth the wait.

5) Jake makes killer pulled pork BBQ. Dang

6) One thing that will surely speed up the recording process is that I am going to be constructing some bass traps in my studio in the near future. I have the design of the panels figured out and I even have the dark blue fabric picked out that will be used on the face of these panels. Fun stuff (I'm such a geek). But the bass frequency buildup in my little studio room has been a thorn in my side for as long as I have been recording and frankly I'm fed up with having to second guess every move I make in any given mixdown. Also, as Julia and I would like to move to a bigger/nicer domicile sometime in the next few years, I always try to make my studio environment somewhat mobile. Someday I hope to have the coin to move out of that little room into a more suitable place for recording, and ideally all of my sound treatment panels/fixtures will move with me. Someday someone will probably make an honest bedroom out of my studio again....

7) Matt and Jake are ready to start writing parts for the next song 'Some Other Year' so I need to throw down some scratch guide tracks to my guitar parts. And I need to finish the words to it as well. 80% there....

8) Aside from writing guitar parts, practicing singing, writing lyrics, teaching 35-40 weekly guitar lessons, homeschooling my teenage boys, chasing Julia around the proverbial kitchen table, and reading a great Mark Twain novel 'The Mysterious Stranger', I have probably spent at least 15-20 hours this last week-and-a-half getting my head around 'compression' techniques and trying to get much more familiarized with the myriad of compressor plug-ins I have at my disposal. Now for those of you who have no idea what a 'compressor' is, basically it is something you process audio with in order to make the volumes and loudness of things more even and smooth. Problem is there are a ton of different types of compressors out there, and every one of them has strengths and weaknesses. The old motto 'the right tool for the right job' is very appropriate here. For instance, Matt's kick drum has three different microphones that we ended up using to record it with (started out with four but one of those channels bit the dust while we were tracking and we didn't find the problem until after the fact). Each of those mics has its own dedicated track during mixdown. Each of those mics has a different job to do. One is used for thud. One is used for snap. One is used for capturing the 'air' and density around the kick drum, etc. Each mic has its own personality. So the trick is trying to find the right compressor to suit each mic. And yes they are all different. Compound this compressor/mic marriage concept by the 14 mics that were used to record his entire kit with and you get the idea of how tricky those choices can become. And like a good recipe, everything is effected by the individual ingredients. Too much kick drum in the mix will take away from the toms or the bass guitar. Too much of the hi-hat mic can drastically affect the overall tone of the snare drum (because a hi-hat mic usually picks up some of the snare). And the list of interactions goes on and on. And so the real job is to find the right balance of everything in context of the overall mix, and compressors are a key item in that process. So I have literally read manual after manual these last couple of weeks getting reacquainted with all of my compressors and I have also watched probably fours hours of online tutorials on the subject just to get my head back in the know. Some things you don't forget. Other things need reviewed from time to time just to keep it all fresh. But it has been a very productive week for me in this area and I'm actually looking forward to mixing our first song down once it is all tracked and edited.

So there it all is this week. I think that is all for now. And so now it's time to put the laptop down and go to sleep...zzz. If I forgot something then it'll show up in the next post.

Until then....

~ Todd

Twitters Now Tweeting Properly Again...

2009-09-22T20:25:00.000-07:00

Got the Twitter feeds fixed again. And if you'll notice we now have a combined column for a slimmer, trimmer look. Nice.

Stupid hackers (see previous post below).

Also, since I am here posting a quick blog, I should mention that Jake completely nailed his bass tracks for 'Sycamore' this week and that his bass parts are now finished being recorded. I do have some minor assembling/editing to do with his raw tracks but I hope to have that work done within the next couple of days (in between U.S. History, sciences, etc). Next up are my guitar tracks/layers, and then the main vocals. Then who knows? It will be quite deluxe when finished....

Past that, we (the band and our families) are taking this Thursday night to blow off a little steam by way of a wiener-roast, possibly another outdoor movie (weather permitting of course), and best of all, lots of guns and ammo. Yes folks....although I do not personally own a gun (yet), Jake and Matt both have a small arsenal on hand including a Russian sniper rifle (with armor-piercing rounds), a double-barrel shotgun, and plenty of other pistols and rifles of various makes and calibers. Should be quite a good time so long as we don't forget to wear hearing protection.

Stay tuned for more weekly updates....

~ Todd

Twitter Got Hacked Again

2009-09-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

Public Service Announcement Here...

I had to yank Matt and Jake's Twitter update feeds due to a large scale Twitter/Blogger issue. Apparently someone hacked some of Twitter's code and lots of folks are experiencing hi-jacking of their Tweets.

Stupid hackers.

At any rate, I'll be checking on this issue frequently throughout the next few days as needed and hopefully I can put Matt and Jake back up on the board ASAP.

~ Todd

Weekly Update 9-19-09

2009-09-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

My bad. Last week there was no blog update. Had a lot going on (including a 3-day weekend getaway with family and friends). Then this last week has been a blur as well. But among other notable things:

1) "Sycamore" had technical issues regarding Logic 9 and the bass parts this past week. There are plenty of subtle tempo fluctuations that I had to pencil into "Sycamore's" Logic song project, and apparently one of Logic's newest features (Flex Editing) doesn't like it when there are tempo changes. Poor Jake. We tried and tried to record his bass parts Thursday night and the Flex feature really mangled things up. Badly. After about three hours of fighting Logic we gave up and decided to come back to it at another time. Sadly, Jake's playing was solid that night. (Thankfully there were a few brews on hand to combat the frustration.) But for now I think I have a workaround. Kind of a pain but at least we can get the job done.

2) I am currently sick with a chest/throat/head cold. Sucks.

3) Earlier in the week (before getting sick) I managed to write 85% of a new song called "Some Other Year". Matt thinks we should record it prior to "Marigolds" and so that works for me. It's a happy song (as is "Marigolds") and it will feature the first time that I will have ever used a tremolo effect on my guitars in a recording (err...I think this will be the first time). You say you don't know what a "tremolo effect" is? Well guess what? When "Some Other Year" is released, not only will it be a new aural adventure for you but it will also be an educational experience as well. (Or maybe you can Google 'tremolo' or check out Wikipedia if you simply cannot wait?) Cheers!

4) Umm. Let's see...

5) We uploaded a video of Matt getting warmed up before a "Sycamore" session (in part so that we could adjust levels, etc). We do have an FP YouTube channel in progress however it is still a work in progress and we aren't ready to show the world just yet. But more bling, videos, comments, links, ear/eye candy, interviews, etc will get uploaded there in due time and then we will let everyone come in and check things out. We also have the obligatory MySpace page being worked on but all of our non-blog sites are still in limbo as we are still ironing out more pics, our bios, and of course our first recording. Links will be posted accordingly just as soon as we have things to our liking.

Hopefully we'll wrap up Jake's bass tracks on "Sycamore" this week and maybe even start tracking my guitar parts. Will keep everyone posted!

~ Todd

Weekly Update 9-5-09

2009-09-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a busy week this has been. I'm beat actually. Doesn't help that I took on a substantial sunburn while mowing my Gma Bush's acreage this week. But weeks like this seem to go fast and slow at the same time. Having a 3-day weekend will hit the spot for sure....

1) The guys and I were able to 'proof-read' Matt's drum sections for 'Sycamore' this week. Didn't take long at all. We all put on some headphones and zipped through everything without too much effort. I had most of the obvious kinks worked out by time we all listened together so now we are ready to move on and start recording bass and guitars (which means I need to practice some more and get with the program!) Seems like when I am mixing or editing a recording I end up having to let my guitar playing take a back seat temporarily. Time to change hats again and reconnect with my instruments. Looking forward to it actually...

2) Jake comes over on Monday (Labor Day) to throw down some bass tracks. Not sure how far we'll get but we are definitely going to take a stab at it.

3) Tyler (my oldest son) has begun editing and compiling various random video clips for a YouTube teaser video in the works. (Yeesss!)

4) My sister Charlyn Hester put together bio question sheets for us and now she is taking that info and has begun to write some creative bios for us. Once she gets that done we'll proof-read things and then hand them over to Nick Gaudio. Nick will be taking charge of certain websites and is a major help to us. We couldn't do all of this without all of these talented people.

5) I have been writing yet more lyrics. One new song idea I came up with this week has a working title of 'Aperture'. But I really need to get 'Marigolds' worked out more so we can begin pre-production on it in a couple of weeks.

6) Forgot to mention this tidbit the last time. Jake brought home a couple of electric kazoos from the Summer NAMM show. Hopefully they'll get slipped into some recordings somewhere along the way. :-)

Much to do. Busy busy busy....

- Todd

Weekly Update 8-29-09

2009-08-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well....

1) Matt got all of his drum parts for 'Sycamore' recorded in a scant 8-10 hours over the course of the last three evenings. Wow. Matt is a machine! And I even managed to wipe out a few of the obligatory "keeper takes" on account of signal routing issues and a preamp channel failure on the left overhead mic. But in spite of throwing away a couple hours worth of good performances, Matt came out shining and in awesome form. The guy can seriously play drums folks. And so begins the assembly of drum tracks and then a rough drum mix, then Jake will record his bass parts, then I'll start laying down the primary guitar tracks, then main vocals. Past that is when we add the spit-polish to the mix and start adding extra guitar layers and subtle atmospheric synth textures, effects, backing vocals (including some vocal textures from my extremely talented sister Charlyn), hopefully some backing vocals from Jake, etc.. And then the Final Mix begins. So basically there is a ton of work left to do on 'Sycamore' but I hope to have a partial mock-up of the first verse for a preview for people to wet their appetites within a coupe of weeks. Stay tuned....

2) We are trying to figure out which song to start rehearsing next. Possible candidates are 'Rabbit Hole' which is a darker affair, or possibly 'Marigolds' which is happy and fun. I am still messing around with lyric content for 'Marigolds' but 'Rabbit Hole' is pretty much lyric-ready. However 'Rabbit Hole' will be harder to do justice to instrumentally and it will likely be harder to record. And sing. We'll see what happens....

3) 'Saying Goodbye' has officially been relocated off premises onto its own hard drive for safe keeping until I can get back to it. It really needs a complete overhaul and after the drums for 'Sycamore' went so smoothly we are considering rerecording 'Saying Goodbye' for a third time. It is stupidly complicated and tough to play. We can play it good enough for 'live' purposes but recording it is a whole different story. It will get done when it gets done I suppose. No hurries on it. Some songs require more time to develop and perfect. Plus 'Saying Goodbye' is an instrumental and we really want to pursue the vocal oriented songs first. Again, stay tuned....

4) Jake and my son Tyler took over a thousand pictures and roughly 8 GB of video from the first two nights of the 'Sycamore' drum sessions. Now Tyler needs to start sifting through everything and start compiling the best of the best for a planned multi-media collage for the blog. Lots of work to be done there but Tyler has a real knack for that stuff. It is always good to pull from our own circles for stuff like this....

So all in all, I think this has been a seriously productive week for all things FP. Hopefully we'll keep trucking along like this and get 'Sycamore' wrapped up in the not-so-distant future.....

~ Todd

Weekly Update 8-21-09

2009-08-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

Howdy....

Here's the latest FP news:

1) The last two 'Sycamore' rehearsals have been very productive and now we are planning on proceeding with drum tracking next week (Yeesssss...!!!) We have a potential of five evenings to get everything wrapped up drum-wise. Should be good to go. Then I'll edit the drum tracks and start recording Jake's bass and my guitar, and then the vocals. Past that we'll dress things up and add some ear candy and polish to the mix. That being said I am very excited about this song folks. It has stretched us in many ways and yet it feels so natural and real. And honestly we are placing the highest priority on song structure and how our parts serve the song. We want our songs to really resonate with you, the listener. Hopefully we'll be somewhat transparent in our delivery so that people can 'lose themselves' in the song without us getting in the way....

2) My vocal range is increasing and getting more comfortable. Of course I seriously have a long way to go as a vocalist but the more I work at it the more it feels right to me. Of course part of the journey is getting accustomed to the way my voice sounds and learning to play to my strengths. And embracing my style. Stupidly enough, a lot of the trick is getting used to singing into a mic through a PA, and I think I have fought that more than anything. Ugh. But there is hope and things are shaping up nicely....

3) As a sort of 'hold-me-over' we are planning on video documenting our 'Sycamore' sessions and putting together a teaser video that will let friends, fans and family have an early taste of what is to come. The more we can involve people in the process the more we will enjoy it. It pushes our boundaries and keeps us motivated. And it definitely helps us not take ourselves too seriously along the way. Mostly. I think. (To be continued....)

4) On a slightly different note, a buddy of mine, Craig Collins, has recently finished making a custom hand-made bass for himself and there are plans to build me a custom guitar at some point in the not-so-distant future. Most likely the guitar will be primarily made of walnut with a neck-through body and a cherry/walnut laminate neck. If not walnut/cherry, then hopefully some other local tonewoods. But I am seriously honored and flattered to have someone like Craig wanting to make me a hand-made instrument. The bass he built is absolutely stellar and the tone is phenomenal. Can't wait to see what his guitars end up like....

5) We have been enlisting the much-needed help of Nick Gaudio and my son Tyler for FP web design and video/pic editing (respectively) and a big thanks goes out to them for their time, vision, and contributions. We do intend on spreading out our web presence via FaceBook, MySpace, Indaba, etc in due time, and these guys are an integral part of that. Also, a big thanks to our families and friends for the support and encouragement to pursue things as FP. Sometimes it's easy to underestimate how much support we think we will get from those who know us best. To have real people that we rub shoulders with each and every day tell us that we are onto to something good and worth reaching for means the world to us and fuels our fire. You make it all worth it to us....

So that's all for this week's update. Lots going on behind the scenes that we will share at a later date as things develop. Past that, I need to call it a night and face another day. Thanks to all who are getting on board with us at this very early stage. You will not be forgotten....

~ Todd

Oh we have some news...

2009-08-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, we've got another boy. Of course I'm talking about my wife and I and I'm also talking about our dogs. That's right dog(s). As of Saturday, August 15th we have a new golden retriever named Ozzie. He is adjusting to his new brother Mowgli quite well. They play together constantly, almost too much. Ozzie is sleeping decently well, but he likes to wake up at 5 and whine like you wouldn't believe. Hopefully we can get a picture of him up soon so you can all check him out.

~ Matt

8-10-09 Updates From W.Todd

2009-08-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

Hello Readers!

As promised, here is the weekly band info update:

1) Thursday night (8-6) we had a good practice albeit it was a rather hot and humid practice. Matt's place is serving as practice headquarters and we practice on the second story which can be susceptible to outside temperatures. So even though we are more in the Pop/Rock camp, it definitely smelled of Man Funk. The goal that night was to gauge whether or not we would be ready to begin recording drums for "Sycamore". I got hung up in the bridge section due to the vocals being tough and so Matt suggested some good section rebuilds in order to change the bridge to make my job easier. At this point we are heading in this new direction for that song but we decided we needed another 2-3 weeks of practice before trying to record things. Pre-Production is king with us.

2) Matt and Jake came over Friday after work to help me cut down a rather large soft maple tree that was dying and threatening to fall on my house, cars, or even people standing in the wrong place at the right time. Got to love the fact that the three of us are friends and that we had that connection way before ever deciding to do the band thing. And fortunately there were no injuries or property damage on Friday when the tree came down. Julia was a bundle of nerves though as we had to temporarily block off our block of the street....I think she thought someone was going to get hurt or else that the local authorities were going to show up to shut us down and slap us with a fine. But the tree was on the City of Danville's portion of our yard and I have been hounding them to come take the tree down for the last five years. The stupid Powers-That-Be at the City of Danville can't seem to properly allocate funds for filling bad accident-inducing potholes in the roads let alone remove dying trees that are dangerously close to the streets. Needless to say we made quick work of it.....and it was fun!

3) "Saying Goodbye" is still in the works albeit we will now focus more heavily on "Sycamore". I can only do so much editing at once and then my brain wears out. Plus I have been taking care of U.S. History, World History, Chemistry, General Science, and Algebra/Geometry assignments for my two high school homeschooled sons. That and 35-45 weekly guitar lessons at B&J Music here in Danville. You get the idea....

4) We (FP) are soon to begin some picture collections of us in action recording, rehearsing, doing whatever, to post here on this blog plus any upcoming network/music sites. Jake is the real pro at this (he has a photography related degree from SIU/Carbondale) and my oldest son Tyler is also quite the photographer. The idea will be to build up themes and artistic motifs that coincide with certain words from the lyrics in our upcoming songs. For instance:

This one is called "Rabbit Hole", a song that will hopefully get worked on right after we get "Sycamore" done. The song lyrics are fairly dark and ominous with a lot of double-meanings encrypted in the lyrics. Tyler took this shot back in May (around the same time I wrote most of the lyrics to "Rabbit Hole") and then he messed with things a bit and gave it even more depth and eeriness by associating this image with the imagery and metaphors of the song lyrics. Brilliant stuff really. Hopefully the song will do the picture justice....

At some point we will probably bring in fan pics to the fold and feature them here on this blog or other sites, and hopefully the lyric word/picture association idea will blossom into its own entity for people to connect with our music. Maybe we'll even have contests about this stuff. Who knows?

Past all of that, we are just working quietly in the background on our songs. Can't wait to show them to the world one of these days. In the meantime, keep an eye on the horizon for the debut of FP. We'll work hard to make sure it is worth the wait....

~ Todd

Woohoo....first post!! (not yoohoo, unfortunately)

2009-08-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

Check, check, testing 1...2...3...Is this thing on? Well, this is Matt the drummer dude for FP, otherwise known as the time keeper, beat master, father of the drums, or just the plain ol' heart and soul of the band. Just ask the other guys, they'll all tell you the exact same thing but in their own words. Haha...if you know me, you'll know that I'm only kidding and much more humble than that. Not to brag, but I'm probably the most humble person ever. (If you haven't caught the irony and sarcasm in all this, please start back at the beginning and catch up with the rest of us right.....here.)
On a more serious note, my name is Matt Goodner and as stated before, I am the drummer for this contraption we call FP. I have been fortunate enough to be able to work with my incredibly talented and just plain good looking fellow band mates Todd and Jake to create some really crazy-good stuff (in my opinion) that I can't wait for ya'll to hear. I have been playing the drums for about 11 years now. I've had the chance to play with a ton of really talented people throughout those 11 years, but am most excited about these fellas in FP. We are a tight group of guys in the studio (upstairs of an old farmhouse) or out watching a movie or playing Xbox on a projector screen behind my garage. The three of us really connect well and get along super-duper which is very odd for bandmates. But, I can't finish this post without divulging the heart and soul of FP...
Well, maybe not heart and soul, but we couldn't do it without her.....and that "her" would be my wife Brittany. She lets me have two (and up to four) guys over every Thursday to play loud music and eat food that she slaves over a hot stove to make while fighting off our viscious dog, Mowgli. Ok, maybe not viscious, but he can be a lil overbearing at times. So if you read this hun, THANKS A MILLION from all three of us.
So this is getting long and quite boring *that's what she said.* If you've made it here to the end, congrats and thanks for sticking with me. You should all be hearing from us real soon...peace

~ Matt