A Race to the Halfway Point

September 30, 2008 – 6:32 pm
Val tracking violin parts before breakfast

Val tracking violin parts before breakfast

There’s something to be said for the old way of making records: rehearse a lot, bring everybody into the studio, and get it all down on tape as quickly as possible. That’s how the Beatles’ first album was recorded - something like 12 songs live to 2-track tape in a single day, starting with Paul’s roaring count-off to “I Saw Her Standing There“ (one, two, three, FAH!), and finishing with the blistering “Twist and Shout.”

Nowadays, on the other hand, we’ve got home studios where one can add sounds a piece at a time, like dripping minerals from the ceiling of a cave and slowly accreting into a stalagmite. (Ed. note: enough with the wikipedia links, already.) We recorded the drums about two weeks ago, as Gene detailed in a previous blog entry. After that was done, all that remained to do was, well, everything else. Including all the violin parts and all the keyboard parts and all the singing. Read More »

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Long Story Short demo #8 - “Knock Down, Drag Out”

September 24, 2008 – 7:48 am

As creators of a brand-new musical, we reserve the right to keep reworking some things. Therefore, since we’re rewriting a little portion of Act I, we’re going to skip over our early draft of that section and go right to the end of the act. Julia is all grown up and out of the house, leaving HOPE and CHARLES with, it seems, not that much in common anymore. CHARLES starts taking frequent business trips; HOPE has an affair with one of her co-workers; CHARLES finds out and confronts her angrily. This hostile encounter unleashes long-suppressed emotions in both parties and leads them to the topic they never speak about: the death of their first child. In this song, they finally have it all out with each other.

LONG STORY SHORT demo #8: “Knock Down, Drag Out”

See you next Wednesday, October 1, for demo #9: “Empowered.”

By Valerie | Posted in New Releases | Tagged | Comments (5)

Sore knuckles, aching arms, blisters, and a huge smile on my face.

September 23, 2008 – 9:56 am
Gene tracking 'Bring it On'

Gene tracking 'Bring it On'
Photo by Mark Diamond, www.diamondimages.com

Ok … truth be told … there was only one blister, which is healing nicely, as are my knuckles and arms. But my weekend in the studio recording drum parts for our upcoming “Sleeping Beauty Wakes” record was a whirlwind for me. We are currently planning on 18 tracks on the record (note: things often change at this stage, so don’t quote me!), 17 of which have drums, so I had my work cut out for me. Happily, we rehearsed a lot, and made sure we were happy with our arrangement and drum part choices, so I was ready. We finished 13 tracks on Saturday, leaving only 4 for Sunday, which left us time to record drums on some other songs (details below). Read More »

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Long Story Short demo #7 - “There She Goes”

September 17, 2008 – 6:55 am

We’re skipping over a little portion of the show here. What happens between the previous song and this one is: HOPE and CHARLES have a son named Buddy, who dies in an accident. After this tragic event and subsequent low period in their relationship, they are eventually ready to try again. They have a daughter named Julia (nickname: Jules). Over the course of this song she grows up, from first-grader to college freshman.

LONG STORY SHORT demo #7: “There She Goes”

See you next Wednesday, September 24, for demo #8: “Knock Down, Drag Out.”

By Valerie | Posted in New Releases | Tagged | Comments (2)

Ancient History: Big Black Nun

September 14, 2008 – 2:21 pm
Val, Eric, Fire & Riley

Val, Eric, Fire & Riley

(Ancient History: anecdotes from pre-GrooveLily days, in no particular chronological order.)

In the early ’90s, I was living in the Washington, DC area, and I played with an up-and-coming band called Big Black Nun. It was my first experience in an original rock band; I had played music all my life, but mostly in classical orchestras, string quartets, choirs, a cappella singing groups, and one top-40 cover band which I will affectionately mock later. I had always been a musician, but I had never been even moderately cool. Read More »

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Long Story Short demos #5 & #6 - “Fragile As Love” & “Unpacking The Suitcase”

September 10, 2008 – 8:42 am

Happy 2-song Wednesday! After the initial rise and fall of CHARLES and HOPE’s relationship (HOPE has left CHARLES, amateur historian and coffee-shop clerk, out of insecurity/misunderstandings/perceived incompatibility, and he is bereft), CHARLES does his best to get her back.

LONG STORY SHORT demo #5: “Fragile As Love”

LONG STORY SHORT demo #6: “Unpacking The Suitcase”

See you next Wednesday, September 17, for demo #7: “There She Goes.”

By Valerie | Posted in New Releases | Tagged | Comments (1)

“Sleeping Beauty Wakes” GL CD Recording Underway

September 9, 2008 – 7:32 am
Sleeping Beauty Wakes in concert

Original Artwork © Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles.

Since closing night in May 2007 of the first production of SLEEPING BEAUTY WAKES in LA, we’ve been wanting to make a GrooveLily album of songs from the show. Many of you (especially people we met by the stage door at the Kirk Douglas Theatre after a performance of SBW) have asked us about it over the past 15 months, and we promised it would happen eventually.

Well, it’s happening.

Tommy and Philip at our excellent record label PS Classics are working with us to put the project together this fall; we’ve already begun rehearsal and pre-production, and will record drum tracks this weekend at Beat Street Studios in Manhattan. With any luck, the PS Classics website will have the GrooveLily “Sleeping Beauty Wakes” album on sale in early December 2008. We’re slated to record 18 songs this month, some of which may end up getting cut from the future theatrical production, but which are so near and dear to our hearts that we’re going to record them anyway. (We’re planning for our own future bonus tracks.)

After the wild success of a “Striking 12 in concert” show last year, one northeastern venue took the bold step of booking us again to do “Sleeping Beauty Wakes in concert.” The plan is to do a bunch of these SBW GrooveLily dates, beginning in the spring of 2009, and having the CD available makes a lot of sense. We are incredibly excited to bring you our versions of these songs, featuring Gene as The King, Brendan as the Groundskeeper’s Son/Orderly, and Val as Sleeping Beauty. We’ll all sing additional parts too, including the sleep disorder patients, the Bad Fairy, the Prince and others); look for straight-from-the-studio blogs from any and all of us over the coming weeks.

By Valerie | Posted in New Releases | Tagged | Comments (13)

“Sagebrush Valentine” Show, Zipper Theatre NYC Sep 10

September 3, 2008 – 8:43 pm

Brendan and Val will be among the songwriters pioneering a new concert series, “Sagebrush Valentine,” on Wednesday, September 10, at the Zipper Theatre in NYC.

From the Sagebrush Valentine Myspace page: “What began as a game played religiously in living rooms by Nathan, Chris, and Maddy has become a gift they want to give to you. The Valentine plays like this: Six brave songwriters get together and pick a song title out of a hatful of audience-generated suggestions. They take a breath and/or a shot, and go off for one hour (!) to write that song. A few days later, the results are presented live-on-stage, along with a peek into the canon of each talented artist. Come to the Zipper to hear six new songs by six great songwriters, all variations on a theme chosen by you! Go to www.thezipperfactory.com for tickets and to submit your amazing song title idea…”

Each songwriter or writing team will present their brand-new song, plus 2 additional songs of their choice. Hope you can join us! Showtime is 9:30 PM on Wednesday, September 10, and the other fearless participants are: Maddy Wyatt, Chris Miller, Nathan Tysen, Adam Shenk and Daniel Zaitchik. (Maddy has kindly given us the first time slot, so that as parents of a very early-rising toddler we’ll be able to head home if we turn into pumpkins…but we’ll stay as long as we can to hear the other songwriters.)

Sagebrush Valentine Poster

Sagebrush Valentine Poster

By Valerie | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Long Story Short demos #3 & #4 - “Live Like This” & “We Should Get Married”

September 3, 2008 – 8:44 am

As we release our 15 home demos each week, leading up to Pittsburgh opening night on October 29, there will be several 2-song Wednesdays; today is the first.

Something helpful to know about this show, and about the play it’s based on (”An Infinite Ache” by David Schulner): there are sudden, frequent jumps forward in time throughout the story. This week, we jump from CHARLES and HOPE’s very first date to weeks and months later in their relationship. And then we keep jumping, and jumping again. It’s a jumping festival.

LONG STORY SHORT demo #3: “Live Like This”

LONG STORY SHORT demo #4: “We Should Get Married”

See you next Wednesday, September 10, for demos #5 & #6: “Fragile As Love” & “Unpacking The Suitcase.”

By Valerie | Posted in New Releases | Tagged | Comments (1)

Verses and Choruses and Such

August 27, 2008 – 8:16 am

This blog entry may bore some of you to tears. If you don’t have any interest in a discussion of song form, I suggest you visit some other part of the site, or go out and play in the sunshine.

For the rest of you — this came out of the comments that were posted last week about our song “Rocking Chairs” from “Long Story Short.” There isn’t much of a chorus in that song — just a little line which you get to hear three times: “sitting in our rocking chairs, watching grandkids playing on the lawn.” Read More »

By brendan | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (2)