Still working.

Esozone 2011

For the people who missed it, The Steven Lasombras was added at the last minute to the bill at Esozone 2011, along with Cult Of Zir and Soup Purse.
The event itself was very cool (Tom Henderson's talk on Friday night was especially enjoyable), and the performances went well. I uploaded video of a few of the SLs songs here. The camera's mic was shit, especially frustrating since the two-amp setup I was trying sounded really nice in the room (if you turn the volume on the video way down, it almost sounds "really bad").
Still, it might give one the general idea of what was happening. Next time, better mics!

Summer ended.

This is where the magic happens now. (Not pictured: "the magic".)

Hello, friends. It appears that I managed to go all Summer without posting any updates here. MY APOLOGIES. Since last post we've been working, recording, moving, painting, setting up new studio space, rehearsing, more recording... It's been a busy time.

ANYWAY. The new SLs record is almost done, still on track to finish by the end of the year (factoring in time for mastering and finalizing the drawings and layout for the book, I believe we're still looking at an early-2012 release).

ALSO, I've been painting more pedal enclosures. A handful of these are for sale now over at Old Town Music, a few more are available now through this Etsy site. These are two of them:



You should buy them, or recommend to someone else that they should buy them. The point is, they should be bought. That is all.

More updates soon! Probably.

A few updates...

There's now a Facebook page for The SLs and a To The Neck twitter page. You should go "Like" the former and "Follow" the latter, if you go in for that sort of thing. [I promise to try and keep both interesting.] While updating website stuff I also uploaded a few old SLs and Animal Beard videos to Vimeo (you can also refer to the VIDEOS tab on the left side of this page for links). I think these two hold up pretty well:

The Steven Lasombras "The Country/The Mist" live at Holocene, August 13, 2008 from To The Neck Recordings on Vimeo.

Animal Beard "Activity Summary" live at the Indigo District, 2004 from To The Neck Recordings on Vimeo.

Recording for the new SLs record continues. As usual, the more I get done, the more there is to do... Still, it's getting there. More updates soon!

Custom-painted pedal enclosures!

Hello, friends. Just a quick update - if you're in the market for a new fuzz pedal, Portland-based pedal builder Devi Ever has a new system for accepting hand-painted pedals where an artist paints an enclosure, sends it to Devi, then you special-order one of Devi's two-knob pedals in the custom-painted enclosure of your choice.

I did ten of these and they're available NOW through Devi's Etsy store! I think they turned out really well. Go buy one.*

*Personally, I would recommend the 90 in a Total Recall enclosure, or the Torn's Peaker with Tommy Wiseau screaming "YOU'RE TEARING ME APART, LISA." The Bit is also a winner - I use the Bit side of my Bit Mangler all the time on SLs recordings, especially with keyboards.

DHD 10 ANIMAL BEARD - Dark And Dying Nights

Animal Beard is the longtime project of Chris Ryan. Since its inception in 2000, Animal Beard has existed in various forms, including a five-person band with theremin and standup bass; a guitar/bass/drums trio; and as a solo act. Despite the occasional prolific stint of playing shows, it has primarily been a recording project.

Dark And Dying Nights is Chris' first new work in years, recorded on his own over the last few months. The results are bleak and distorted - more raw than his previous solo work, but with the same familiar pop touch. It's a weirdly cathartic addition to the Animal Beard canon and -I hope- an indicator of more to come. The whole thing is available for FREE download here.

Chris Ryan: voice, guitar, keyboard, drums, drum machine

SLs update.

Recording for the SLs full-length is going well - almost as well as I had dared to hope it might. Having had the thing more or less "done" in my head for so long, the process of expelling it, piece by piece, into the world has been interesting. It's challenging to reinterpret years-old songs in a way that still sounds vital (not stale or limited by the way an inexperienced youngster may have originally conceived them). But applying the current-SLs sensibility to this early-SLs material has yielded some worthwhile results so far, especially since "the vision" I'm trying to express is more or less the same. (I think I'm just better at it now.) I'll try to post regular updates here as the project continues.


Also, last month I discovered* that A Diamond Eye Shines In Failing Light made it to #47 on Not For Resale's Top 50 of 2010 List! I appreciate the recognition, especially coming from someone who I did not foist that record upon. NFR's glowing write-up of They Poisoned Us All is here: "Like an industrial TV On The Radio these two tracks grind off a parallel universe of soulful pop hooks, nimbly dodging the piston heavy stomp of martial drumming dropping around them, kicking up dust and filthy noise in their wake. The first track is a little more song-oriented, the second spreads itself into a more ambient and lopsely structured artifact. It's a nice two-sided double shot of this bands capabilities, underlines the two key features of last year's album."

I'm not sure I could have put it better myself. Nice folks, and with rarefied tastes!

More soon.

*No, I was not Google-ing myself. I stumbled across this completely by accident while looking up info on Yellow Swans.

AB

At Emusication Proclamation:


Chris lost his guitar pick mid-song. Naturally, he continued playing. The results were impressive:

DHD 09 THE STEVEN LASOMBRAS - They Poisoned Us All

Two new SLs tunes; one pop song, one drone jam in the Nadja/Jesu style. Many layers. Recorded in Portland, OR between June 2010 and January 2011.
Available for FREE download here!

W. Justin Landers: voice, guitars, Moog L.P., Casio SK-1, pump organ, drums, metal, effects, noise