The Story (...so far)

I thought before diving in to current news and issues, a brief history of the up-and-coming, as-yet-unnamed band would be in order. I'm going to avoid using names, as I don't know how the other guys feel about that kind of thing. I think it is also worth noting that this is my take on the situation and that unless otherwise stated, I am speaking only for myself.

Drummer, guitarist and bassist were jamming fairly regularly with second guitarist. College semester ends and I am invited to come in to try out as singer. That very night, before even playing, second guitarist decides to quit. In a sort of informal, non-audition process consisting of jamming and playing through covers of some of our favorite songs taking place over a few evenings, I was unceremoniously a member of the band. It didn't hurt that guitarist and I had written a few original songs together during the off days. It also didn't hurt that I have a MacBook with Garage Band for getting a basic demo together.

We played together once a week for the Fall '07 semester and wrote around a dozen songs. Some time in November, guitarist's amp started acting up. (Marshall head running through a Mesa 4x12 cab.) If I remember right there was a short in one of the cables and it needed a tube replacement. He decided to get rid of it in favor of something smaller and more maneuverable.

We also recorded quite a bit of our new material onto the MacBook. At this point we were somewhat limited by our equipment, however. I was singing through a Shure SM 58 (with no pre-amp), which is a great dynamic mic but my ears (and all the literature I could find online) told me it wasn't quite right for a studio situation.

Drum recording (as any home recordist will tell you) is not an intuitive process. The best we could manage was running an old, cheap Radio Shack mic paired with the SM 58 into a Tascam Porta-Stutio MKII, then running the stereo mix out to a single track on GB. With significant EQ adjustment, it was a fairly workable solution but not anything approaching high quality.

I think that brings everything up to our pre-Christmas situation. I'll break here to keep post length manageable. Pick up the continuing saga... after the break.