December 14, 2006

My first work with Legion Within was a remix of their song "Cover Me" a couple of years ago. That remix turned quite nicely and I heard it played in the underground clubs in Seattle on numerous occasions. Many times after that I would stumble into William at the Vogue in Seattle (and I do mean stumble) and after a while we agreed I'd be the chap to record and produce some songs for them. At the time I had a studio set up, but not the space to accommodate a full band so we moved my equipment (Pro Tools, computer, pre-amps, etc.) into a small rehearsal place and got to it. I used a plexiglass screen to separate the drum kit from the band's amps. We put down four or five tracks live (apart from vocals) over 2 days, the first of which was mainly spent setting up the studio and placing microphones etc. The setup was pretty standard - close mics on the kit and a mic and D.I. for each of the guitars and bass. When recording I concentrated mainly on the band just being comfortable and enjoying playing. In my experience as a recording engineer studios have a tendency to make people over analyze what they're doing and that can lead to frayed nerves and tempers but on this occasion everything went really smoothly. I captured a couple of takes of each of the songs with the whole band and then got Josh (drums) to record on his own along to the tracks of guitar and bass we'd just put down to eliminate any bleed into the drum mics. Josh played to a click track while recording and that helped keep everything good and solid. The next stage was to cart all the equipment back to my place and start the editing process. This was the time consuming part of the whole operation (and in my opinion one of the most important). Working with KMFDM has enhanced my already critical ear so I was pretty strict on making everything lock together just right. I thought a couple of tracks needed some extra synth programing and drum stuff to beef it all up so I threw that in. William would stop by every day to see how things were shaping up (I tend to mix as I'm editing) and over the space of a week and far too much coffee I had most of the mixes sounding really good. William and Shannon (guitars) both came in and did a few guitar overdubs and Ed (Keyboards) brought his synths over and put down the keyboard lines. Tracking vocals went really smoothly. We used an old Neuman or a Shure mic depending on the song, and once they were edited down they just needed to be set in the mix and the whole thing was done. I mixed down without any compression or eq on the masters to give the mastering engineer as much scope as possible. I was really pleased with how the songs turned out, and I'm pretty sure the band got as good a recording as they could have hoped for. After doing this session, I've been approached by a few other parties interested in recording with me, which is why I'm in the process of building a recording studio to accommodate bands as this is being written...more on that soon... Cheers, Jules

November 30, 2006

I love Family Guy! So when I was approached by Lance Wagner regarding writing the music for the Martini Time flip book movie staring Alex Borstein (the voice of Lois in Family Guy) I jumped at the chance. I've seen tons of Lance's work as he's a pin-up photographer and has done many a shoot with my wife, go-go Amy ( I did the music for her flip book movie too). I loaded a Quicktime version of the movie into Pro Tools. This allows you to see the movie in real time whilst you're working on the track. It was pretty obvious that the music needed to be lighthearted and a little sassy so I dug out my library of brass samples (the same stuff I used for the Mini Mini Mini remix) and started from there. The upright bass stuff was chopped together from some loops I got from a friend (luckily they just happened to be in the right key for the track so very little retuning was needed) and the swing drums were patched together from a few loops. The whole thing (all 16 seconds of it) was done in an evening. The trick when working on something so short is to try to get a piece of music to fit timing wise and resolve in a coherent way. I'm really pleased with the way this all fell into place. C'mon Alex - KMFDM in a cameo appearance on Family Guy? Chris and Meg go "alternative"? I think that would work just fine!!! Cheers, Jules

September 20, 2006

So, we've started full production rehearsals. Some things have changed and some things remain constant... The road crew has a few major changes... More importantly, guests starring with KMFDM for the whole tour will be none other than Andrew Eldritch of The Sisters Of Mercy on castanets, Vince Neill of Motley Crue fame on the spoons and Little Richard will be present not as a performer, but will be signing personalised underpants at the merch booth... Much sweat and R.S.I. inducing riffage expected... Just so you know how we work, we don't rehearse a couple of times a week like most bands. Instead we undergo an intensive 10-hours-a-day-for-ten-days refresher/learning curve that drills the songs into our collective craniums. We've got a GREAT set to bring to you all and can't wait to get out there to bring you the Ultra Heavy Beat once again... See you all on the road... Cheers, Jules

June 26, 2006

When it comes to sharing some thoughts on Ruck Zuck its quite difficult to write anything interesting because remixing tunes is an incredibly dull process after the initial idea is immaculately conceived. Well it has become so for me because I unfortunately purchased an Intel Imac to run Logic Pro and Reason on. I was seduced by its compact and powerful processor into believing it to be the future of Macintosh computing. However after many hours and dollars spent upgrading to universal software the machine creaks along and very slowly forbids me to use most of the functions in Logic. So 3,000 bucks later I proudly own a cute looking piece of shit that couldn't sequence a Kylie melody. So Professional Killer was mixed, as was WWIII, on my 500mhz titanium Powerbook using a cracked old version of Logic 4.1. Every bit of software on that old bucket was free so it just goes to show, you don't always get what you pay for. WWIII was done a couple of years ago and it was great fun trying to use every musical genre from the time. I particularly like vocoders as you can re-tune the vocal melodies to your own ideas. I know Daft Punk have written all the best vocoder stuff, but I'll settle for second place. Chopping up guitars into impossible riffs using ReCylce is another favourite of mine. However again ReCycle doesn't work on OSX Intels (sigh). WWIII was the first mix I really did for KMFDM and fortunately Sascha was suitably impressed to let me remix most of the tunes that came in over the last couple years, particularly the Mindless Self Indulgence Straight To Video track which is storming up the charts at the moment. The Professional Killer mix was a lot simpler than that as I had worked on the original and knew what I wanted to do. The original beat was great but I wanted that stripped down techno 4 floor and off beat bass, to make it more Germanic and EBM. I time stretched Lucia to make her sound darker and used some backwards reverbs, etc. but essentially I kept the same vibe as the original as I'm never keen to change songs beyond recognition of the original. Ruck Zuck continued to grow due to the constant outpouring of material and there seemed no stopping us. So we are all looking forward to resuming the record making process over the summer. Of course I'm going to have to raise some cash to buy a new computer . . . sponsored Pie-a-thon anybody? Steve.

April 28, 2006

My contribution to Ruck Zuck was one of the funnest things I've done with any track I've worked on. I don't really know where the idea to do what I did to "Mini Mini Mini" came from, apart from a vague drunken conversation with Sascha saying that I should do something very different with it. I'm pretty sure I succeeded. I have a feeling some are going to love it and some are going to hate it (seems to be a recurring theme)! I think the great variety on the Ruck Zuck reflects the band member's abilities, both musically and production-wise, and the guest remixes add some interesting twists. Now we've got to decide which remixes to play live. (I don't think "Mini Mini Mini" will make it to the short list, unless we all go for some lessons on new instruments.) Cheers. Jules.

January 07, 2006

2005 has come and gone and it's been quite a year here at the Pigsty! Steve moved here during the latter part of the making of Hau Ruck, which added a welcome twist to the whole sound, (not to mention another filthy piggy to add to the drunken body count). Rehearsals for the tour came hot on the heels of Hau Rucks' release, leading to a frenzy of string twiddling and drum whackery. Luckily our closest neighbour is a consummate drunk and could sleep through the blitz, so there were no complaints!!! The Canadian/mini-US leg of the tour was just what we needed to get our livers ready for an assault on Europe...A big shout out to Acumen Nation and the Bella Morte gang for being such good fun on the road! Europe was fun but hard work. A lot of driving and not much time to see anything of the historic beauty surrounding us. Nevertheless, a few "highlights" include: The treacherous drive through Norway that found us all sitting with our hearts in our mouths repenting for a multitude of sins as the bus careered along snow-laden, roller-coaster-like roads with life threatening drops into unseen abysses on all sides. The 24 hour Scandinavian Party Ferry was a drink fest the like of which we will not see too many times again (till next time) and had its own "historic" moments. Late night tour bus poker with Rusty, Jacob and Panic DHH (who were a treat to have along on tour..again!) The few hours we got to amble through the streets of Rome were priceless. Duncan returning from the Helsinki General hospital, his arm in full plaster. He'd broken his wrist a week earlier and was too lazy/drunk/tough to bother getting it looked at till then. ...and my personal highlight? My Birthday at the Rave in Milwaukee. The whole room sang happy birthday to me whilst my gal brought a cake on stage! Thanks you all for that. You made an old man very happy!!! Good to be back in Seattle, and plans for the upcoming year are about to take shape. So to finish up, thanks to everyone who came to see us. We truly appreciate the loyalty of our fans. Keep your eyes on KMFDM.net for news of upcoming touring and finally, A happy new year to you all! HAU RUCK. Jules.

September 16, 2005

Life at the Sty is chaotic as usual. Rehearsals for the Hau Ruck tour started here, with myself, Andy and Steve working through the songs. Lucky neighbors!!! Duncan (our main backline tech who I'm sure most of you are familiar with) got into town a few days ago, so the Vodka consumption has increased a wee bit. The rest of the crew (Rusty, Chris and Doc) got here today, so we're expecting a few evenings of good old debauched fun in the near future. Full rehearsals began last week, and we're already playing the set start to finish. It's starting to sound really good. That's it for now. See you on the road! Hau Ruck!!! Jules.