Steve and I got together again and reworked a song we had written and recorded years ago. This time we used the same Micro POG octave pedal as last time but we ran the higher octave through a Little Big Muff and into it’s own channel in the mixer. The dry bass signal went through the Fulltone Bass Drive and the Sans Amp into another channel in the mixer. The high bass and low bass were panned to different sides and it was awesome and super heavy.
This song uses some weird time signatures and a lot of poly rhythms, it took me forever to figure it out, I’m an idiot.
It’s been almost three and a half months and we have another song. This time it’s just me and Steve (drums and bass) but it sounds full thanks to the Fulltone Bass drive and the Micro POG. We really like this song, it’s a slow jam….
I plugged my electronic drums into my computer with a MIDI - USB cable, picked a punchy grand piano sound in Garage Band and started playing piano on the drums. I duplicated that track twice, once using drum sounds and once using bass sounds. When it was all done I had created 1 minutes and 20 seconds of some sort of weird tech rock. I like it.
We got together and did some more songwriting today. We talk more than we play and I’m too stupid to remember complicated parts these days so all we have to show is half a song but it has bass! Check it out, it’s the only time you’ll ever hear me play a straight up punk beat.
July 31 2008
When writing about the start of the Sick Ship songwriting project I forgot to mention that Steve and I had a very similar band about a year ago with Kristen of Wheels On The Bus. We wrote a bunch of songs at a real rehearsal space, no headphone jams, but we recorded the same way, in my apartment live off the floor into a mixer into one track in GarageBand.
Here are 3 complete songs, these ones even have bass!
As usual, Sick Ship wasn’t our real name, we didn’t have a name and that was the best we could come up with.
I’ve started playing drums again with some old friends of mine. We all grew up playing in different bands in the Brampton area and now we’re old and just looking to have a good time playing whatever we feel like.
The band consists of me, Steve Fennell (Wheels On The Bus) and Pat Kelly (Ten Speed Hero). We play in my apartment, we call it a headphone jam. We run electronic drums, bass and guitar into a mixer and out to a headphone amp, it always ends up sounding good and it doesn’t make your ears ring like a real jam, but it also doesn’t rattle your soul like standing in front of a wall of amps. We’re not really called Sick Ship, we don’t have a name yet.
We do a lot of recording direct from the extra headphone output into my Macbook Pro using Garage Band. We write songs collectively so I thought I’d start recording that process and put it up for anyone who is interested. It’s rough as we work things out and unfortunately you can’t hear us talking because that’s an important part of it.
Here’s the first in this series.
Pat brought in a riff he’d come up with earlier that day and we just jammed on it. Near the end we Started working on a riff Steve and I had messed around with a few months ago. Have a listen, there might be something good there.
July 13 2008 - #1
July 13 2008 - #2
I figured I should keep an official list of all of the bands I have played drums in, complete with sound clips where available. I’ll do this from most recent to least recent since the older stuff was recorded very poorly and might scare some people off. It will probably make the most sense if you read from bottom to top though.
I played drums in the Ryan Masters Band for 2 shows in the spring of 2007. Ryan is a great songwriter but I won’t post any clips since he plays drums on all of the recordings. I will provide a link to his MySpace page so you can check it out for yourself.
I played drums in The Pettit Project from fall 2003 to summer 2005. I played drums on one album called “6 Week Vacation In Hell”, a couple of EPs and a lot of demos. We played all over the place including a tour of the east coast USA. We filmed a music video and starred in a teen tv show called “Radio Free Roscoe”. We played shows opening for FeFe Dobson. The Pettit Project are still around and still going strong. I hear they have an album coming out in Japan shortly, wild. I’m pretty proud of what we accomplished while I was in the band. Here are some tracks I played on (it’s super pop):
This was a summer band with dudes from Caledon when we all still lived at home. Recorded in a garage, good times.
I quit Slit, Writhing because I wanted to make money so I figured I’d start a pop punk band. We did one recording as a school project when I was at school for Music Business but it’s not very good so I’m not putting it up… suckers!
I became good friends with Luke Brodie while in this band and I played drums on his solo album. He’s huge in Mexico, for real! Check out Luke’s MySpace.
Hooflug decided to stop playing Hardcore and start playing Grindcore. It’s fast as hell and super loud. I can’t believe I was ever able to play that fast. I even got pretty decent at a double bass pedal. Slit, Writhing still hasn’t officially broken up but they never play shows anymore and they have a new drummer. Here’s are some tunes:
After Good For Nothing broke up I joined Hooflug. All I knew was that they were “Hardcore” which I assumed meant “Metal”. On the way to my first jam with them I listened to Megadeth in the car to prepare, ha! This band destroyed! We were amazingly good for our age (17). We were tech and we were different. We toured Quebec and Ottawa and lots of Southern Ontario. We even almost died when we all fell asleep driving on the 401 back from Sherbrooke, Quebec one night. I wish we hadn’t stopped playing, we’d probably be some dirty dudes on Ozzfest right now. I’m super proud of my drumming in this:
This was my first band with two of my best friends in high school. We loved Flashlight, Blink 182 and The Smugglers. We sound a lot like all three bands. We played almost every weekend and we had an awesome time. Sum 41 opened for us in Bolton before they were rich, ask them now, they’re dicks about it. I sang and played drums on a bunch of songs, how embarrassing! We recorded these songs in my bedroom with one cassette tape and a borrowed 4 track. We had no friggin’ idea what we were doing and it’s amazing that this is kind of bearable. We were 15, give us a break!
Earlier this week I was put on the spot at a friends house. His roommate had a set of drums and everyone wanted to see me play. I do well under pressure but I’m not much of a show off and I kinda ended up embarrassing myself by not really playing anything.
This is where I redeem myself.
I used my electronic drums and recorded myself messing around a bit. They’re not perfect, I didn’t edit them or anything. The hi-hats are a little annoying/loud on my electronic kit, I should turn them down…
Here’s a song from a band of mine when I was 17.
So there! I’m alright when it comes to drumming…