L.A., Well of Souls, and Tech-House

Amy and I traveled to L.A. 2 weekends ago to visit our dearest friends and a new addition to my 'family' down in California: Keian!

It was incredibly refreshing to get some decent weather and see Ian & Roxanna & baby Keian.  We stayed at a nice hotel in Redondo Beach and spent a few days hanging out with them. It was definitely relaxing and I can't wait to go back!

Nick & Ashely also came over from Riverside to hang out with us that Sunday.  Ian joined the four of us for a breakfast at Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles in Hollywood.  Needless to say that Hollywood is a colorful place: that particular day the Academy Awards were taking place so it was beginning to be a sea of characters and star chasers early in the day!

I can't offer up the level of detail in type that I would otherwise talk about, but some highlights from the trip: Breakfast at Uncle Bill's Pancake House, walking around Hermosa Beach, grilling with Ian,  shopping for a baby-sling for Ian with the gang, seeing Nick & Ash and hitting up Santa Monica Promenade,  Ian's kick ass motorcycle, meeting Jacqui and David, Universal Studios Mall, Hardrock Cafe... sheesh.. tip of the iceberg really. We plan on going back down later this year and couldn't be more excited!

Already missing everyone down there (and the weather.. beach.. sigh..),  I'm finding the groove with work.  Thankfully, though, I have a renewed sense of spirit and calm that is driving my music production to ever increasing heights!

Well of Souls is coming.  New tech-house inspired tracks are in the works for a late 2009 release.  DJ sets are planned.  Watch sliptide.com and keep your eyes open on all fronts for announcements! (hint: 2 singles from Well of Souls will be seeing the light of day soon!).

Oh.. I will try not to neglect the blog so much. ^_^

The Silver Standard EP

I already made the announcement on Twitter, MySpace, iLike, Facebook, etc. that Jeff and I have released our first EP as Silver Standard.

"The Silver Standard EP" is now up for listening on http://www.silverstandardmusic.com/. You can also get a hardcopy by contacting either Jeff or myself via numerous online resources. Suggested "donation" is $5, but as we've said before we aren't interested in making money per-se, so much as we are interested in being able to continue to make music our friends, family, and fans want to hear!

We are already back in the 'studio' working on new materials almost weekly now and plan on having another EP or maybe even enough materials for an LP this year!  Also expect some YouTube action as we work towards our performing our music to a live audience!

The Silver Standard EP and more Silver Standard music

Jeff came over last night and we started hammering out ideas for our next track. It went very well and we are SUPER excited to be bringing more Silver Standard goodness to your ears!

Recently we finalized the disc art for "The Silver Standard EP". We will be ordering the discs soon and they will be available in person from Jeff or me, first-come first-served.

Expect a new track to be posted online along w/the artwork in the next week!

City Shadows now available on iTunes! (and Amazon MP3!)

From circa 2000 to 2004, City Shadows is certainly an album I am proud of even nearly 5 years later.

Now available on :

Sliptide - City Shadows

Update: Also available on Amazon MP3!

Enjoy!

Crazy weather, chilled Christmas, and a new year.

Wow.

One would think that being snowed into your house for 13 days would provide you with plenty of time and motivation to blog. Unfortunately, it's the motivation killer aspect of being snowed in that prevents one from doing much of anything but lamenting about "going out".

We figured that when it started snowing the Wednesday before Christmas week we would get a snow day or two. A somewhat early Christmas gift from the weather that would give us some additional time at home (moreso: away from work).

Little did we know that the snow would then continue to dump on us at the top of this giant freaking hill we live on (which then you go down a steep, yet not so long, street) and we'd be stuck 12 more days in our house w/out being able to get our car or truck up the hill.

Two bus trips were made during our 'adventure' in being stuck at home. We went down to Kirkland on Christmas eve to eat some Mexican food. At that point we were starting to go a bit stir crazy and needed to get out. We also needed to hit up a grocery store to pick up some food for Christmas Day dinner. The dinner at Jalisco was great, and our stop by QFC was quick and pointed. It was nice to get out and take the bus to Kirkland and back.

Our second trip to Kirkland for some food, light shopping, and a grocery trip ended up taking a bit longer than we had expected. The darn bus broke down right near the transfer "station" (it was just a uber wide side street). It only took about an hour for DOT to deliver another bus to use on the route, but it was somewhat frustrating ;)

A quiet Christmas, an enjoyable kraut, sausage, and mashed potatoes dinner, and a serious over dose on video games and home-habits made for an alright holiday season. Looking back on it, I'm glad we did not make plans to fly out to Virginia. The dates we were to fly out we would have been stuck at home or at the air port!

So now that the new year is here there is, of course, many plans and many things on my list of 'things to do for the new year' as so many other people have. I certainly don't consider myself above resolutions all be it that I don't have any, but I mostly have 'plans'.

I was able to get more than a few projects started music-wise while I was snowed in over the holiday season. Everything from thick and meaty house, to darker trance, to progressive ambient and more. Some of the samples made it up on the new website, while some of them are baking on the back burner while I get them to a more presentable stage.

City Shadows volume 1 is up on CD Baby and is making its way to other online distributors soon. Physical CDs will hopefully be available sometime Q1 2009.

Well of Souls is working through the 2nd pass of mastering and mix down. Once it is finished the artwork will be going through the final review process, then expect some announcements on the release! Digipaks, anyone? =D

Alrighty.. I'd like to keep this short, so off I go to enjoy the rest of my Sunday and prepare myself for another week at work!

Pz.

New Clips in the Fan Club

I have posted four new clips in the Fan Club. Some of them are almost full songs but require some additional production work to be completed before 'official' release.

"Solitude - An introduction with potential to morph into a full fledged Orbital-esque track with a lot of ambient power behind it. The synth was custom made in Reason from a bare-bones Subtractor.

We Move Together - A tech-house track that I'm really digging. The sound is very light and groovy with some indie flare to it (imo). Drum work, EQ, additional details and some progressive work needs to be completed before it is release worthy.

This Desert Soul - Trancey, and not sure if I'm completely behind this one but the potential is there.

House Start 1 - A song I was working on with vocals in mind. I passed this version to Jacqui Johnson to see if she would like to record with it. She said yes, so we will see what comes back and where it ends up. "

Enjoy!

Sliptide Fan Club (A Google Group).

City Shadows coming to iTunes!

It's official, folks.

City Shadows (volume 1) is coming to iTunes! Unfortunately due to they way iTunes processes their music, I won't know the exact date that my album is available online. As soon as I know I will be making posts here, the new Sliptide.com (coming out shortly), and of course make it known on Facebook, Twitter, etc. ;)

Things have been great since my last post. I have had the opportunity to take some vacation. I had an incredible week off filled with birthday fun for both Amy and I. Work has been pretty chill while being able to accomplish some major milestones and goals.

Life is grood right now. I will make a more formidable blog post soon!

A Quick Update

Let's see.. what did I leave out of my last post?

Bumbershoot: was pretty cool.

Amy and I were really tired from hiking Mt. Rainier on Friday, and doing a Hottie training walk on Saturday. Sunday we went to Bumbershoot to see what it's all about (we have never been). It wasn't bad! We met Amy's friend there and hung out drinking some beer in one of the many beer gardens (with a very limited selection).

I will cut to the chase: The most noteworthy performance we saw before we took off early (from exhaustion) was the KEXP Larry's Lounge (an on-site recording studio) presentation of Sons & Daughters. It was an incredible opportunity to see them play on a stage outfitted for live radio-- and listen to them in this incredibly intimate and audiophile-sound-quality setting. A real gem, and made Bumbershoot worth the trip!

Sadly, no, we did not stay to see Stone Temple Pilots that night. I heard mixed reviews of the show in that it was 'good' because they played a lot of their hits, but 'meh' as in there wasn't the energy or emotion as expected. A seemingly true STP fan did tell me that the show was way worth price of admission to get the nostalgia and hear some great alt rock classics.
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Next on the list:

This past weekend we had a team picnic. The Warming Hut Hotties have been an incredible team to train with this year. Their benevolence, support, and incredibly positive spirit has helped Amy and I make it through to the final event. I will make a separate post about the 3-Day, which is taking place this weekend.

Work: I had to work this last weekend. That meant some video games, house chores, and thinking about other things I would have rather been doing.

I have plenty of work to keep me busy once the 3-Day is over. Between my IT career and my plans to bring my music hobby to the forefront of my everyday life: This fall and winter is going to be extremely busy (yet very gratifying).

We have a few trips planned for in-state and out of state. We will be going to Boston and California, Long Beach and a few more trips to mountains for hiking, as well as another trip to Portland.

Now that I think about it.. I need to book some flights.

Silver Standard - "Memorial Lapse"

Jeff came over a few weeks ago with an incredible start to a song. Glitchy drums, some slow and haunting piano notes and chords, and a great plucked sequence that really presented some emotion.

We worked to add some more ambience, pads, crunchy background noises and a bit more drum work-- and now you have "Memorial Lapse" to listen to!

Check it out!

For you Facebook people

For you MySpace people

For the Cure 2008 - Limited Edition Hard Copies!!!

"For the Cure 2008" limited edition hard copies are now available!!! There are only 50!!

There are two ways to get a "For the Cure 2008" limited edition print CD. The price is a $15 *MINIMUM* (more is always appreciated for my hard work and dedication!) to my 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk fundraising goal:

1) MAIL ORDER: Join the FAN CLUB (Sliptide's Google Group) and check out the instructions for ordering a CD! You will make the minimum donation of $15, then email me your shipping info-- I pay for shipping, and you have a snazzy CD! (Your information is kept private. See the bottom of this post for more info).

2) IN PERSON DELIVERY: This applies to the local community, my friends and family, co-workers, etc. You must see me in person to buy and/or pick up the CD(s).

Either donate online beforehand and I will reserve a copy for you to hand-deliver (it is your responsibility to contact me and let me know you made a donation for a CD), or have cash or check available on hand when you pick up a copy (I will not reserve copies for cash/check). I will be carrying the discs with me everywhere I go, so just ask!
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Q: Where can I listen to samples?
A: The best place right now is to check out http://www.myspace.com/sliptide - The album is available via SNOCAP, however:

Q: Why buy the CD?
A: 100% of the proceeds go towards my fundraising goal! If you buy the digital copy found on http://www.myspace.com/sliptide via SNOCAP, only $7 of the $10 price (or 70% of each song) is able to be donated to my cause.
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This means you either see me in person to buy a CD, or you join the fan club to mail order a CD.

The reason I have chosen to use the fan club as a venue for ordering the CDs is it enables the most privacy for each person who orders. I will be the ONLY one to have your shipping information, the group is approved members only-- your email address is safe in the community-- and I treat everyone with the utmost privacy and respect (no spam, I don't sell your info, etc.).

If you have any questions or concerns get a hold of me by the usual means, or leave comments on this post!

Thank you all!

Silver Standard

Here it is everyone! Jeff and I have brought our collaborative efforts to the public. You can now find Silver Standard music at any of the links below.

The music is down-tempo at its core, with plenty of ambient textures, a bit of guitar, and future releases with a healthy dose of spoken word and vocals.

Check us out, and keep up to date with our releases. Add us on MySpace, Facebook, or iLike, and be on the look out for a website proper!

Silver Standard on MySpace

Silver Standard on Facebook

Silver Standard on iLike

Ableton Live! Set

In my quest to learn more about taking music to live audiences, I began an Ableton Live! set that is tailored just for that.

I intend on writing a slew of new dance tracks (from house to trance) predominately inside a single Ableton Live! set. This will allow me to take the package and easily perform it live! It was exciting to piece together some of the routing and standard effects. There is already a solid beat and some supporting instruments going for a cool dance sound-- and you bet your ass I'm using my Rhodes skills for some chilled loops ;D

I have had a Waveidea Bitstream PRO for a few years now and I will finally be taking advantage of the entire board. Each knob and fader and button will do *something*. Since the board does not have any mechanical automation for the knobs or sliders, however, I do not intend to use more than one channel. I'm thinking about picking up something like this Behringer that has the mechanical sliders.

Work will still continue on my vocal tracks and I fully intend on "Ableton-izing" my non-Live! tracks so I can remix them live.

Tomorrow is the deadline to have the artwork finished for my benefit album. I have some ideas to crunch through today and, outside of some house chores that need to be done, expect to crank up the fire tonight and get the artwork finalized for tomorrow's deadline.

The next deadline I have set is to remaster and finalize the tracks for the City Shadows Vol.1 online release. I haven't forgotten about my plans to release this collection of down tempo tracks online. There is only a little more research to be done to determine which services I will publish through, but you can expect the album to be available for purchase on iTunes, and I would like to get it on Rhapsody and SNOCAP as well.

Beyond that, it is still up in the air as to what the track listing will be for the benefit album. I wanted to present a track or two from the project that Jeff and I are working on, but it may not materialize in time (which is okay.. we should have an EP ready mid-summer).

The next "big" (word used loosely) release I have planned is a compilation of the tracks released earlier this year with some remastering, interludes, and additional tracks in the same vein. It will make for a very congruent release.

Thinking About the Music

What's the status of things?

On one front, Jeff and I are gearing up for an audio assault of the best kind. A "wall of sound" feel mixed with some of the electronic pinnings of our beloved house/electro beats with some mixed flavors of acoustic and guitar work. Piano and Organ heavy, we aim to take the package to live shows.

The other side is my personal projects consisting of trip-hop musings, mixed with some longer progressive style "techno" tracks that take from just about all disciplines of electronic composition.

The last batch of songs will make their way onto an album that will debut *after* the benefit album and City Shadows Vol.1. I will be making at least 2 more congruent songs in line with "Always", "On Approach", and "Everything That We Love" to wrap up that project.

It's going to be a busy summer stuffed full of musical goodness.