Nature Hikin'

Some time back, my sister's fiance Rob enlisted my aid in writing a song. He had written lyrics about one of his favorite activities and wanted to put them to music (that's where I came in). So one evening several months ago, I loaded up Anna (my acoustic guitar) and headed over to his place and came up with some chords and tweaked some lyrics to fit. "Nature Hikin'" was born.

And then I sat on it.

I eventually produced an instrumental demo, but he thought it was a little too fast and it didn't have any vocals on it, mainly because I'm not the world's greatest singer and I have thinnish walls with my neighbors, whom I don't hate.

But he was back in town this week from working in North Dakota and I realized that, being temporarily out of a job, I had the time to do a slightly slower demo, and I did. I even had the gumption to put vocals on it; it was the first time I've recorded myself singing since my old band Half-Penny made a demo more than six years ago. And in celebration of this truly illustrious event, I'm putting the song up here for all to enjoy. It's on the right, under the new list "New Danger Dog Demos."

So enjoy.

Commence Primary Ignition

Boy oh boy, FAWM is under way once again. I spent yesterday afternoon rearranging stuff in New Danger Dog Studios (less formally, the second bedroom) and restringing Susan with a Nashville tuning (the other three guitars - Gillian, Dorothy, and Anna - were all restrung Saturday night). I even managed to record a guitar groove/chord progression with a bass line but no lyrics yet, so I'm not even running behind yet. I hope to get my demos up as I finish them, so brace yourselves for updates.

I'm thinking that this year will have an alt-country sort of vibe, but we'll see what happens.

More Mullettes Music!

Holy aliteration, Batman! As promised, the Mullettes have produced some additional aural awesomeness for your listening pleasure. The entire list of demos is to your right.

If you've been paying attention, you might be saying, "Hey, Regis! There's only one new song on the Demos list!" And you'd be about 33% right. There is one entirely new-to-the-blog tune, and early number called D-U-N Done (it's slightly rough, although it has moments that click something fierce). Further, El Camino and One More Round have been enhanced from the previously posted versions. How so? Take a listen and figure it out for yourself, you slackers! Sheesh, can't you do anything for yourselves?

Stay tuned for more Mullette updates!

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Regis

Check The Hands On The Clock

Ladies and gentlemen, to your right you'll see links to seven instrumental (that is to say, sans vocals) demos by Sheridan's favorite fictional all-girl rock band, the Mullettes. The girls are working on a few more of the tracks that I wrote for FAWM here at beautiful New Danger Dog Studio, so stay tuned for more updates.

So please, rock out with your cocks out (or in, it's really up to you) and let me know what you think!

Cum on feel the noize,
Regis

Almost There....

If the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, the Democratic primary process will be wrapped up in less than a week. Montana and South Dakota have their primaries on Tuesday, and I've gotta say I'm really looking forward to this being finished. Not that I think Hillary Clinton should drop out right now - by all means, let's finish the process, but let's accept the result. It's more that I'm getting pretty tired of her manufactured outrage over the delegations from Michigan and Florida, specifically the high probability that they won't be fully seated. I guess after more than seven years of Dubya, it's easy to forget that breaking the rules can result in consequences.

On that note, here's a bit of satire for your Thursday: Young Hillary Clinton.



In other news, I'm hoping to have some instrumental demos of tunes I wrote for the Mullettes during FAWM up in the near future. Having a little more time to flesh the songs out musically has been extremely exciting for me, particularly since I acquired a keyboard (albeit temporarily). I hope you kids are ready to rock!

Stay on target,
Regis

New Danger Dog Studios

I've been wanting to post some pictures of my recording setup for a while, so here we go. I christened this corner of the second bedroom "New Danger Dog Studios" in honor of my replacement, Lizzie the miniature pinscher. You see, I referred to my parents' basement as "Danger Dog Studios" back when my former band Half-Penny was recording its one and only EP, Loose Change, as part of a theme (Jason's place, where the vast majority of the recording was done, was called "Little Matey Studios" in honor of our nickname for his family's dogs, and post-production was done at Benny K's home, nicknamed "The Kennel" for the large number of canines occupying the premisice).


Behold the glory! It's a pretty basic setup: the electric guitar or bass goes into a V-Amp, which goes into the 16-track. I've got a couple of effects pedals (distortion, wah, echo, and chorus), which you can see in the back. Of course, if I'm recording vocals or an acoustic instrument (such as the guitar on the left, which incidentally has a Nashville tuning), I've got a microphone.


Here's my big new toy: a Fostex MR-16HD/CD. Glee!


Gillian (l) and Doris. Lucy (the mandolin) is up on the desk.


My trusty old 4-track, Blue 4. I've had this since high school. I did all of my writing/recording for FAWM on this. You can also see my new cowbell in this shot.


A dim picture of a slightly less dim guitarist. The batteries in the camera were just about shot with no spares at hand, and I had no plans of dressing up again any time soon when this was taken.

So there it is. Don't stop believin',
Regis