On a shoestring project, quest to record pun rock band Boneyard Bastards first CD and perform first 100 concerts. On this journey we will learn the ins and outs of music business and share it with you.
Our first concert of 2012 is nearly here. Upstairs in Sweeney's bar on Dame street on Tuesday the 3rd of April. This will also be our first concert with our new member Patryk Graczyk on guitar, so come along and give him a warm welcome to the band:-). Two weeks a go we did a photo shoot with www.music-shoots.com. Above you can see an example of the results. As I have mentioned before, your bands image is an important part, even though some of us like to think that it is lame to think that way... But it is important, and a good quality photos are important part of your press kit. I have been lost in the world of no internet thanks once again to UPC, who is really making it hard for me to stick with them at the moment... But that's another story;-). But we are working on our new website at the moment, which has temporarily slowed down due to lack of broadband, but when I get everything back working, we will have some of the photos from the photo shoot available for a download as screen savers on the site. But more on that later.
We actually have quite few concerts coming up at the moment:-) You can check the detail on our website www.jpkallio.com and of course all the info will be on our Facebook page as well. So we really hope to see many of you in the next month or so at one of the shows.
And now on to something completely different. Quite long while back we did briefly talk about mastering. A project I have been recording in the paste few months brought this subject to my mind again. It still surprises me a bit how many musicians don't really understand all the aspects of recording process. I think if you are thinking of making a career out of music, you should really spend some time learning about recording. I don't mean you need to become sound engineer or anything like that, but you should understand how the process works. We all know about going to studio and recording songs, and most of us know about mixing. This really is something to keep in mind while many of us end up using some of those studio days you might have won on a battle of the bands, or payed for with your hard earned cash. A very good sound engineer once told me you should spend as much time mixing as you do recording. I know things are much faster now with computers as you can save mixes. But still, serious album will take long time to mix. So if you do have one day in studio, and you want to finish tracks, you need to allow time for mixing. This is where you set the levels of all instruments, clean up tracks, compress what need to be compressed, EQ, add effects, etc. This is part of the recording process that requires quite lot of knowledge and experience from the engineer, but also becomes part of the creative process in the hands of a good studio engineer. When this is done, you will have nice sounding tracks, but to bring them up to the broadcast level you need to master the tracks. This is an art form of its own. Here you have just a stereo track of your mixes, that you worked very hard on, and you run them through multi-band compressors and sometimes an EQ as well. Here is where you get rid of any peaks in the signal and level everything in to a nice tight sound file, that you can then boost to maximum level without it distorting. This sounds simple, but it is very skillful art and requires very detailed high end studio speakers and an engineer with very good and experienced ears. There are studios, like the Trackmix studio that have the facilities to do mastering in-house. And there are studios that specialize in mastering. But lets just say this, don't just expect your tracks to come out of your Pro Tools, or Cubase at the level you hear most commercial tracks. You need to spend some money in good quality mastering to get to that level. And you will be amazed what a great mastering engineer does to your tracks. You will find much more detail and clarity, but still containing the warmth.
So next time you are planning to spend money on studio, I would consider the mastering as well. Give your tracks a chance to stand up to their full potential.
Once again we have come to the end of a year and it is a time to reflect on the past year and plan for the new one. JPKALLIO.COM had a great year:-) We played our first concert, and followed it with another 16 concerts! We released our first EP that got phenomenal response in the Punk rock internet radios around the world. We also brought out two videos from the EP. Qra lovingly filmed and edited the black and white concept for our first video Right out of here, that was viewed over 700 times in the first week and has now gone well over the 2000 mark. Check the video here: We followed this with another video for Everybody dies, we wanted to add bit more of our tongue in cheek attitude on this one and this one has also done extremely well. Check it out here There was some high points in the year where we did pretty well on several battle of bands, and organized few of our own gig nights. But also some low points when Qra injured his back... but it is all on the way up now. Fueled by the success of our first EP and the response we got at our concerts, we started work on our Album by spending two very productive days in the track mix studio. We were all very surprised with what we came out with. Six songs, that still need a bit of tweaking but most of it is there. We loaded some of these track up on the Roadrunners Sign me to site and for the past three weeks we have been in the top ten on their rock charts:-). So you can say we accomplished a lot, but we did put lot of work in to it as well. In the new year we are planning to continue at least at the same speed, if not even go up a gear.
As to the blog, well we went from having about humble 20 readers a week to literally hundreds a week! We had some great interviews form Trackmix studios, Invictus productions/ In To The Void records and the Sessions from Near FM. In the new year I have big plans (as always) for the blog. I have already scheduled another record label interview and more on the way, I'll also try to get my hands on some promoters along the way and any other people industry who could have some helpful information to share. I must say I have been blown away how helpful and open with advice every one has been so far. I am also thinking to add some interviews of other bands who are doing the same thing we are and share notes with them, and it would be nice to get some more music on the blog as well:-)
Through out the year I also got to see some great concerts! There are so much great music happening in Ireland at the moment. I got to see Time is a thief from Cork, The sketch! The Casement Ghosts, 24 Broken amps, 9thlife, 20 Bulls each, The Kerouac, Normal bar the Swords, Pimps and Gimps, Theories Divide, The Objex from Las Vegas played a stormer in the Pint in February... I have been thinking about this as well, I think one of my new years resolutions will be to go to see more live concerts and this could be something we might report on this blog as well:-).
I also had one of the best summer tours with Sliotar, and fueled by the experience we started work on Sliotars fifth album, that will be out on 25th of January.
So all and all, it has been a good year, yeah there was some hick ups, but I can say the good over weighed the bad and I am really looking forward to 2012. Big thank you once again for Qra and Sebastian for sharing the journey with me and big thanks to you guys for reading our blog week after week:-)
So I hope you all have great end to the 2011 and start the new year in style. Happy new year to one and all and I will talk to you more next week.
It is 7.45am Wednesday morning. I am walking along the river Liffey. My feet are carrying me faster than usual, I must admit I am little bit exited. I am on my way to our rehearsal room at Volt to pick up our equipment and then heading to Trackmix studio in Blanchardstown. Back in July we won the Live and Unsigned night in the Pint and as part of the price we got a free day in the Trackmix studio. We must have been one of the last ones to get to go to Trackmix, as since then the studio used for the Live and unsigned nights have changed. Me and Qra had been there before while doing the interview with Michael Richards for this blog, check it out here, so I had a good feeling. One day can be little bit short, so we decided to splash out and pay for a second day our selves. We had prepared a list of songs, that was more than what we thought we had time for, but none of us had any idea what we would accomplish in the next two days, not even Michael. The list consist six songs, when I told this to Michael, I could see the doubt in his mind, but I assured him that if it looked like we were going to run out of time, we would start cutting the list from the bottom. But we had worked very hard on rehearsing the songs to have them as tight as possible, in the past month or so. We broke down the songs several times, trying to find trouble spots. We had all worked extremely hard on our own as well to have everything ready.
After setting up and sound checking the drums, setting up guide guitar, bass and vocals that me and Qra were playing live in the control room, we were off. I did loose the track of time very early on in the day, but it must have been around mid day when we started the actual recording. It took Sebastian few takes to warm up, but after this most tracks were first or second take. Playing to klick is like second nature to him, which makes things in the studio so much easier. It is funny how human mind can play tricks, even though we knew we were well prepared, still there is that small bit of hesitation if every thing will sound ok. But when we first time heard back the first few notes of “Flying high” we knew we were on the right track. Sebastian can be very critical on drum sound, as any professional drummers should be, but when he first time heard him self through the studio speakers I could see Michael had won him over. I have worked on both sides of the controls in a several studios over the years, and I was impressed as well. He knows his way around Logig pro, but he also uses old school techniques, like EQing on the way in. But most of all I was impressed how he understood our sound.
By 4pm we had drums and guides down and lunch over and done with. It was time for the guitars. I must say I did feel bit like a kid in a candy shop :-) Michael, being a guitar player him self, has some really nice guitars and amps, that he lets his customers use. The Gibson ES137 was one I found particularly hard to put down, I'm sure if you ever were in the Trackmix studio you have seen this beauty. Doubling and layering guitars can be a real art form on its own, and again the Trackmix studio has the tools for this job. But still I did bring in my Laney GH50L, that stood proud beside the Hughes&Ketner TriAmp and Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier. I told you, like kid in the candy shop ;-) At the end of the day one, we had done all the basic rhythm parts and doubled them. So it was time for a good nights sleep.
The next morning we returned with charged batteries and full of enthusiasm, and even the fact that we got lost on the way did not dampen our spirits. I started my day with strong cup of coffee and guitar solos. I have bit of a love hate relationship with guitar solos... I love playing them, but hate the idea of them. Figure that on out... But in the six tracks there were two of them, in Misery and one in Forgive my self. Misery showcases the Gibson ES137's neck pick up beautifully and on Forgive my self my own Gibson Les Paul proved once again why it is my number one guitar. We also Beefed up some parts of the tracks with a third guitar track on the middle. The result is a guitar tone, which is the best electric guitar sound I have ever had on any of my recordings, but let me just make a few quick notes here. First of all guitar sound is very much a taste thing, so what works for me, probably would not work for every one. Also I am very heavy handed guitar player, and this does play a big part on the sound, if you attack the strings hard, the stronger signal drives the amp in a different way. All the amps went in to a Mesa Boogie cab that had Celestion V30s in it, and the signal went through a very nice Mic preamp and Michael’s magic EQ settings. So it was not any one magical piece, but a combination of things that resulted in the guitar sound that I am very happy with. I suppose what I am trying to say here is: that's what you pay for when you book your self in to a professional studio. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention the Ibanez TS 808 tube screamer :-)
We had the guitars done before 1pm on the second day. Next we recorded the Bass; this was something Qra was looking forward to as much as dreading. His past studio experiences were haunting him at the back of his mind, but he had been rehearsing his parts a lot. His trusty Epiphone Thunderbird bass was the tool for the job, it really has that growl and attack that is very much part of the JPKALLIO.COM sound. Michael had a Warwick bass head and a 4x10 cab. Qra was in bass heaven. And after all the worrying, he recorded almost all the tracks in one take. Bass done in an hour! I must admit that me and Sebastian were watching Qra’s fingers fly on the Thunderbirds neck and the hairs at the back of our necks were standing up.
But I was very relieved that the bass was done, as it left more time for the vocals. And again I had been working a lot on them at home to be ready. Singing is always a difficult one, and the most temperamental instrument of them all. It can be affected so much by things like stress and tiredness, nerves and even what you had to eat on the day. But I could really feel the confidence I got from all the hours of rehearsing kicking in and managed to relax without any problems. And again most vocals were first takes. Good headphone mix that Michael set up really made things so much easier as well, I didn't need to ask for anything :-) After the lead lines we laid down some vocal harmonies, and me and Qra did bit of shouting as well. “That's nice guys, but how about you try it with bit more melody?”
After we had done backing vocals for four tracks it was starting to get late, and Michael had the sense (and experience) to decide to start mixing the tracks. Again his working method is fast and lot of the work was already done during the recording.
So about 8pm on Thursday night there were three tired but happy men standing on a bus stop outside Blanchardstown shopping centre with CD’s in their pockets. Even though the time had gone so fast, it was obvious to us that we were not holding on to a new EP, but the bones of an album and no matter what it would take, we'd be back early 2012 to record the rest.
Big thank you to Michael for all the hard work he put in and making us feel so welcomed in his studio. We can't wait for the second chapter. Oh yeah, and we could not just talk about it with out giving you a taste;-) Here is one of the tracks from our recording session. This one is called Wasted Mind. Let us know what you think :-)
Also check out our studio video diary
That's all for this week, I'll be back for more next week. Feel free to share our new song on Soundcloud and the video diary:-)
J.P.
So here we go, I'll get the rant out of the way first. In the past seven months we have done 15 concerts. In these 15 concerts we have done anything from battle of the bands to show case nights to organizing our own concerts. And as lot of you know through my experience with Sliotar and other bands I have played in over the years, I have done well over thousand concerts. So I have seen a lot and I know how hard it is to get band of the ground. Here is one thing that has been bugging me lately: when a band takes a part in any kind of show case/band night, I would expect them to stick around and listen to the other bands. And believe you me I know some of the music would not be up to every ones taste, I don't have much tolerance for out of tune guitars (get a tuner and get your guitar intonated!) and bad timing (Practice with a click), but suck it up, they are in same situation you are or were. Ok, you might have to get up the next morning early to work, but first of all you can talk with your band mates and some of you could stay, if some of you must go. Second, and do I have news here for you, if you seriously want to make it some day, I mean make your living out of music, you will need to learn to get by with very little sleep. Let's repeat that one just to make sure you got it: Being a full time musician, you need to learn to get by with very little sleep! Six hours is a good night sleep for me. Now in all fairness, about once a week I do pass out for nearly twelve hours... But You get my point. There is always some excuses and sometimes they are more valid than others. So just stop and think about it the other way around. Think what you would want the other bands to do while you play? Musician’s talk that's how the word goes around and to be honest with you, what I've seen in the past year, this is what separates the frustrated amateurs from the pros.
Let's look at this from a different perspective. As I mentioned there above, we have organized some of our own gig nights, and helped other organizers to book bands as well. This is something I have big plans for, and will be doing more and more. From a gig organizers perspective, unless the band has a genuine reason, I mean if you have a important festival gig the next day and a long drive, that's fair enough. But if I just see the band come in, play their set and run off, because it's well past their bed time, you can be sure I won't be booking them any time soon. And if you think I am the only one who thinks this way, I've talked to few organizers and it is one of those things that register at the back of their mind. They will remember the band that stayed till the end and checked out every act. You might think here, what does that have to do with music? Everything! You expect other people to support your band if you don't support others? Anyway, enough of that ;-)
Thanks to Will Bury for the photo.
So we had a busy week :-) JPKALLIO.COM played twice in Sweeney's. Wednesday was the Music Medium Live night in the basement. As the regular readers of this blog know we've been there few times before. They are a small group of people working hard trying to do something for the music scene in Dublin and slowly but surely they are building momentum, once again proving that hard work and persistence does pay off in music business. They run a Singer songwriter night in the Sweeney's on Tuesday nights, Juke box slot showcase on Wednesday nights, FissionFriday once a month upstairs in Sweeney's and they are just starting another night in the Mezz on Sundays. So if you are looking for a gig for your band or solo act, get in touch with them, they are really nice people as well :-)
On Saturday night we were back in the Sweeney's, upstairs this time. Weekend nights in Sweeney's are busy, so we had a hopping gig. This was number 15 in our 100 concert challenge, slowly but surely getting there ;-) Also on both gigs it was great to see so many familiar faces, we are making friends on the way.
The next concert at the moment is the Rocktober semi-final in the Fibbers on Saturday the 19th of November. The standard of this competition has been very high, so it will be a great night of music. I think we need to pull out few extra stops for this one ;-)
In the mean time, we have decided to go and record few tracks in the Trackmix studios, so in few weeks time we'll lock our selves in there for few days and we'll see what comes out of it. We will be bringing camera with us and try to document some of the stuff while we're there. So before that we'll be rehearsing our backsides off. Oh yeah, and we need to agree on the songs we want to record...
So that's enough for this week. Hope you managed to get through the autumn with out a cold; I'm trying to shake mine. Have a good week and I'll be back for more next week.
Oh nearly forgot to mention:-) The Halloween is on its way. I am taking few days off and going to Warsaw for the long weekend, but there are some great concerts around during the Halloween weekend that deserves a mention. Our friends the Pimps and Gimps are playing in the Harbour bar in Bray on Sunday the 30th of October, so head over there for some quality punk rock. Also the EHT promotions are running a fancy dress metal night in the Pint and our friends 9thlife will be on the bill along with loads of other great bands. Hmm... how do I get a feeling you might find Qra at the Harbour bar and Sebastian at the Pint;-)
It's freezing cold October night outside. I am listening Thousand Watt Stares debut album, and it is a killer! If you have not checked them out yet, you should. Whether I'm writing this blog early in the morning or late in the night, it always feels like it's happening in the dark :-)
We had a busy week rehearsing new songs; they seem to be falling out of me at the moment. But that is a great complain to have. I talked about this bit before, but it's been on our minds this week. One of our main goals at the moment is to record an album, but there are little obstacle on the way called money:-D. This is a problem we share with most bands. The valuable information we gained from the interviews on this blog with into the void records and Trackmix studios has given us a very clear idea what it would take to record the album on our own. At the same time we are still contemplating weather we'll do it our selves, or try to go after the all so magical record deal with some underground label. As Darragh O'Laoghaire pointed out in his interview two weeks ago, if we do record and release the album on our own, we would pretty much limit our sales to live concerts. So yeah lot to think about. At the same time we have new songs coming out all the time and the band sound is evolving the more we play. Our debut E.P that came out in March, and still available for a free download from our website, is now about seven months old, and we would very much like to bring out some new material. So at the moment we are playing with the idea of either recording a single or another E.P. Both of these would be possible for us to do pretty fast. It has been a while since we brought any new music and we'd hate to keep you guys waiting ;-) So we'll keep you posted on this.
We got a very nice review at the open-mic blog at: http://the-open-mic.com/blog/2011/10/weekly-feature-jp-kallio/ I'll include the review here, but do check out the blog and we'd love to see some comments there as well :-)
“Weekly Feature: JPKALLIO.COM
17 October
The feature this week on the-open-mic is JPKALLIO.COM with every body dies on the homepage.
Play it Loud! The first words you see when you pick up JPKALLIO.COM’s first EP. Sentiments that compliments exactly what the boys from Poland and Finland are about straightforward Punk. First things first: the song. Everybody dies is a clear example of what three guys with a love of punk can do.
With a lull just as the intro begins it really sets up the songs strong rift which continues throughout the entire song. This pause between rifts also helps to create a build up effect throughout each break in verse, which always builds to the strong drumming we see in all the bands music. The Bass seems mellow and then very deep at times, which always brings with it the strength and deepness presented in the songs lyrics. All of which is again brought home by the bands impressive guitar playing.
The crisp and clear lyrics really show just how well polished an act JPKALLIO.COM really is. With a slightly dark undertone in both the lyrics along with the music one can instantly find themselves listening to the lyrics and connecting with the band. They really demonstrate the no nonsense punk that has stood the test of time from the Sex Pistols to the Offspring and now to JPKALLIO.COM. If you haven’t already checked out JPKALLIO.COM do it now and be sure to watch there video for everybody dies.
-Dave Murphy”
The Open Mic
I think it has something to do with the fact that I write blog, but when we get featured in other blogs, it always gets me bit exited. I mean most of the music press is run by money, but the blogs are where the real new music can be found :-)
Don't forget that JPKALLIO.COM will be tonight, 19th of October in the Sweeney's on Dame Street as part of the Juke box slot, organized by our friends Music Medium Live. The night is packed with great music, and Sweeney's is always a good night. Hope to see you there tonight.
And just before we finish, some more news just of the press. JPKALLIO.COM will be doing a late night gig in the Sweeney's again this Saturday the 22nd of October as well. We'll be taking to the stage just past midnight and rocking a full one hour set!
So that's all for now, come back for more next week.
