Whoa. We’ve been slogging away at this record for so long we forgot about CMJ. Our pals FIGO asked us to join them on Friday, Oct 22 at Drom for their CMJ event. Sounds like a good time. Count us in.
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Studio pic, Stratosphere Sound NYC. Rob Brooke photo.
This one has a strange story. Since I’ve gotten back on the booze train and I’m hungover/still drunk while typing this I’ll do my best to illustrate the scenario.
I used to live in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. I had a place of my own, sweet little studio apartment on Fulton Street. My day job dried up and I was on unemployment for a while ‘til that gave way, but during that time I wrote track after track after track… Somebody told me about a great Salvation Army on Atlantic Street near me so I rolled over there one day to check it out. I found I decent leather jacket and a dope as shit hoodie that I’ve since lost.. I also found an old Johnny Vicious record in the used bin that I picked up for a buck.
I wanted to remix the opening to The Stranger by Billy Joel, and the record I picked up had an acappella that was in the same key (the rest of the record was fucking horrible). This shit blew my mind as I mixed the two together. My Billy Joel record was my father’s: He had written “Diodore” on the top of the jacket and it meant a lot to me. He and I used to argue about who was a better pianist: Elton John or Billy Joel. I had Billy’s side and still do. If you think I’m wrong just play “She’s Always a Woman” then punch yourself in the face.
In this remix, I took the piano parts off the record, so when it comes in you can hear the scratches. It’s the best part. The female vocals are from the Johnny Vicious record. The dude saying “yeah” is from a Sweet Pussy Pauline record I think… You can right click and download it HERE
Tony
Starting the guitar takes. Stratosphere Sound, NYC. photo by Rick Purcell.
I thought I’d give my buddy Ted a call and we’d hit the town on Friday night, take a break from the early morning blog thing and be hungover instead. Note to Ted: do not bring your skateboard with you if you want to go to the top of the Gansevoort Hotel. At least dude was nice enough about not letting us through. I’m beginning to understand Brooklyn a little more every day. Can’t even get a drink without some red tape and a tie.
We ended up at the lamest bar in the world where the bartenders fucking shout along with the songs and dance on the bar. It’s the faux dive bar equivalent to Applebees, where concepts like “fun” and “rock n roll” are deep fried and tamed beyond recognition. We ended up at a tourist trap about 5 blocks from my apartment. I have this feeling that this entire city is turning into a kind of amusement park ride and all the assholes that live here are part of it. I mean, if cigarettes are $13 a pack and I’m willing to pay that without going completely insane, then I must be some kind of idiot right?
Woke up destroyed. My email had a pic of me taken by another friend who came out laying on my bathroom floor. It’s all or nothing over here… It’s also why I don’t like to drink while on the road touring, cause when I get that taste I’m a freight train. I won’t post it here. Not my best moment.
This song I wrote while listening to a lot of Fever Ray. If you don’t know them, you should. It’s pretty slow, also has bass guitar which we no longer have so there’s not much chance we’ll do it live. I suppose I could program something though. Either way, I think it came out pretty well;) It’s called Dead Ahead and you can right click and download it HERE.
Cheers big ears
Tony
Remix BM LINX
I should have done this a while ago… If you want to remix The Guest List off our first record, The Portable Genius, right click (or control click on a Mac) HERE and save file as… This folder will contain all the parts and you can chop them up, smash, crush, stretch and microwave as you see fit. Once your masterpiece is finished send it to bmlinxmailinglist (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll post it here for all to bask in its glory.
Vid of us soundchecking one of our new songs called Slag Hammer last weekend in DC at The Fridge.. Griff and I were on 2 different stages, something we weren’t very into when we showed up but actually worked out ok. I put my amp on the floor to my left and I think it wasn’t loud enough, but after our first set we were asked to “tone it down” a bit anyway. The space is in an alley in a residential area and the neighbors are apparently not-too-thrilled about the art gallery transforming into a venue. Not sure who shot the video but thanks for posting it to whomever took the time to upload it…
BM LINX remix of Daydreaming by DJ Drama…
It Almost Sucked…
The show over the weekend went well. We’re still working out some songs and I still have some lyrics to sweat over but the new stuff took the limelight. The scene was more of a DJ kind of crowd so the electronic stuff went over the best. We’re adamant - wait, shit, I just got that. Adam Ant. Huh… Well anyway, fuck it. We’re keeping it simple and it’s working.
We took I95 the whole way down and traffic was terrible. I need to get an EZ pass.. At around 5pm, somewhere in Maryland at about 70mph, we all of a sudden heard the worst sound of screeching tires to our left. I was driving and looked out the window and saw a bluish sedan, out of control and sideways, careening toward the front left of the van. I could see the guy at the wheel yank it left as hard as he could when it was about a foot away from blasting into us. He managed to miss us completely and spin out into the guard rail in the center of the highway. The whole thing lasted about 1 second.
We lucked out.. He missed us. We made the show and all was right with the world. But I kept thinking about the timeline involved. Earlier, at a rest area, I had filled up the tank while the guys went to the can, and after the tank was full I went myself. But if I hadn’t gone and just hit the road, we would have been at least a few miles ahead of this guy. Then again, if we weren’t there in the first place, he may have never lost control while trying to overtake us. The combination of things that have to go right in order for something to go wrong is mind bending.
Tony
The Fridge. Washington DC.
The Fridge. Washington DC
The Fridge. Washington DC
Quick vid I threw together of some footage of us dragging our gear from the rehearsal space to the recording studio. All vids shot by our friend Rob Brooke from coolkills.com. More recording vids to come..
Tony
Mixing
Last night, after the final track was laid down, we cracked open some beer and listened to what we’d done. Everything was surprisingly full, and it was funny to me that without all the electronic drums, synths, sequenced sounds or even bass guitar we sounded bigger than ever. All the bells and whistles were holding us back from just playing, and their lack of dynamics made us play at the some volume all the time. It was actually weird to be free to just fucking play.
We have one totally electronic track with no singing that I set up in Ableton Live. We blew through it in a couple takes and decided to go with the first one. It’s kinda Pink Floyd vs Holy Fuck, 2 bands we both like. With so little electronics on this record it kinda feels out of place, but we’ll keep it on there cause it fucking slams and will be fun to do live.
The amp my cousin built for me, now called Maximilian (Max) after the evil robot in The Black Hole (it looks kinda like it to me) was unstoppable and will be used on every song. I went through a lot of guitars and amps on the last record but I want to have a consistent sound on this one. If Black Entertainment was round, this one is a straight line. And if you’re more a fan of the electronic side of BM LINX, this record will not be your cup of tea. It’s a rock record from top to bottom.
Haven’t named it yet… It will come to us at some random point though.
Tony
Still in the studio.. moving along quicker than expected.
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