Broken Phone

Oscillations
Party
Gumshu

After putting up with some royally shitting drivers on Route 80, I arrived @ the studio around 11:30ish last night. Gum set up the drums before hand & we set up a guitar rig. I used the amp I've been using lately & the same effects plus a few extra ones we were able to use. I thought that I was sold on the Big Muff, but turns out I'm not. It sounded like complete shit last night for some reason. Gum & I just put up with it though.

We exclusively worked on the "Broken Phone" song last night. We added some parts & really worked out the pre-existing ones. It's starting to come together. It was hard to tell from the sound of the guitar, cause it was simply horrid, but if you imagined the right sound with the parts we were actually playing, you could tell its gonna be a killer track. Each section has a different style then the last, but still fits together very well. Gum added a few punk influenced beats to the post-hardcore-ish riff part I play, which sounds good. The spacey arpeggio section was rough to get the feel for, but @ the times we found the groove, it sounded tight. I'm hearing an airy keyboard part for that section of the song. We go back to the high energy jazz-punk part after that, which is difficult to go into after the airy part, but it's cool when nailed.

I got to use a wah-wah pedal. I didn't experiment with it all that much because I was more focused on working out the playing part rather than the sound, but I know it will be a key element. I tried using it during the heavy riff, which will be essential when we record. It works really well for that part, just adds to the chaos. Sound-wise, using the wah was the saving grace. It was the only pedal that sounded decent last night. I tried not to get to bent out of shape over the sound, since that wasn't the point of the session, but I couldn't help but be pissed off about it. But, shit happens.

That's it for this blog. I'm tired beyond belief. Each session seems to be getting better. We're still finding our niche, but we get closer each outing. It's all part of the process. We're gonna try to meet up sometime this week & continue writing. My goal is to finish up the blueprint for "Broken Phone" so we can do a demo track & start adding other elements. Until then I'm gonna program a loose beat on the MPC to jam to so I can add a little more flavor to my guitar parts.

That's that.

party

Quick Jam Session

Stopped by Gumshu's for a quick jam session. We didn't have much time, about an hour or so. We made the most of it. A couple blogs back I told you about this fuzzed out punk-jazz tune we were jamming on at the studio. Well we jammed out a little more on it in his basement. We added a few more parts and it sounds better than it did before. It's got some cool changes. This is only the blueprint, but we have a bundle of ideas we're gonna add come recording time.

We're gonna be heading up to the studio this weekend. We plan on tracking a few parts for various tunes. I hope to get what we have on this song tracked at this session. The song by the way has the working title, "Broken Phone". Obviously that's temporary, and we have our reasons to call it that.

Other than that, there's nothing new to report. Expect a new blog after this weekend. I'm going to be posting a lot of in studio pictures of this session. Should be cool. Please check back people. Enjoy!

party

Orange Sunshine

I had off from work today so I just smoked a lot of cigarettes & played guitar. I wrote a little tune I'm calling "Orange Sunshine" as of right now. It's kinda trippy. Little Pink Floyd-ish & Charles Mingus-y. Sounds good as of now. Other than that the day was kind of boring. It rained sometimes, but got sunny later. That made me just smoke more cigarettes. I ended up just bringing the guitar outside while I smoked to make things easier.

The photos above have no real relevance to anything other than the cigarettes thing & another form of pollution. I'm gonna keep this short, enjoy.

party

I Love Progress

I want to first thank the very cheap & very shitty Whitehouse Motel for housing me last Friday night. They were kind enough to allow me to smoke in a "no smoking" room & for that I'm grateful. I also want to thank the guy who would not accept my debt card, but was glad to drive me to a nearby Bank of America in order to avoid some fees. It was a good time.

After waking from a horribly useless attempt to sleep @ the motel Friday night, I sludged my way to pick up my girl from a party she was @ in North Plainfield. This was then followed by another long haul back to Pennsylvania. It was tough, but I did it. I pretty much slept my entire afternoon away, which for some reason made matters worse. I still felt like a complete zombie. I somehow managed to get up in time to leave for the studio to meet up with Gumshu. That drive wasn't as bad & my Radiohead mix seemed to make time fly.

I forget what time I got to the studio, I think it was a little after 10pm. I was really excited for the night after the past mishaps we've experienced in the last couple weeks. Both Gum & I have been noodling around with ideas & we couldn't wait to properly jam some shit out. When we got in the studio I had to suck down a few of my new organic cigarettes before getting started. I had to smoke in the kitchen cause I guess a lot of people are trying to quit @ Bennett now. Quitting is too hard for me. Especially now. Anyway, I did what I needed do while Gum got some stuff set up.

This time around Gum & I set up in a different room than last time. It had a little more space & felt perfect for what we were gonna do. We chilled with Al in the mixing room for a little bit before we got started. He was mixing some Latin rap shit or something. Cool guy. We kept things kind of basic. I had my Fender that we ran through a Big Muff, tremolo, & a flange pedal. Gum hooked up a Motif & this other keyboard that I forget the name of. Last minute we decided to set up a drum kit to mess around with.

The jam went good. We started on the song we've been working on the most first. Gum was playing keys & I was on guitar. We're still working out the tempo, but I'm really digging the chord progression & we figured out our parts a little more. I changed the way I play my part a little bit & I thought of some cool effects I wanna add come record time. There are still kinks to work out, but I think the song is coming along.

We then moved on to this guitar part Gum started kicking a week ago. He had sent me a snippet of what he recorded over the phone & told me the chords a few days back. I took what I had & added some stuff myself. Turns out we had two different interpretations of the song, which kinda worked for us. We each put our own spin on the idea & it's turning into a pretty trippy tune. After I jammed out the part on guitar & Gum on keys for a bit, I wanted to move to drums. Gum kept the chords going on the keyboard & I banged out a beat. I kinda liked the beat I worked out. It was all choppy & offbeat but worked with Gum's rhythm.

Somehow me being on drums morphed into a random jam. It was fun but I'm not sure if we'll remember what we played. Fun nonetheless. This was followed by a return to more structure. At that point we went back to working out the first song again for a few.

Before the night came to a close, Gum hopped on the drums & I held down guitar duties. We actually jammed out this cool ass tune that I really wanna work on more & keep. I think it can be really interesting. It's like this post-punk jazz joint. I only say that cause it had this experimental punk energy to it & I happen to be knocking out some fuzzed-out jazz chords. I really enjoyed playing it though. I'm looking forward to embellishing it & really fucking it up.

Over all it was a successful session. There's a lot more I could of talked about but I'm way to tired to even try. I will add that I avoided any police contact this time around, so that's a double plus. We plan on getting back in the studio some time next week to continue writing. Til then, bring on the noodles.

PS. I think people are gonna really like this band.

party

Fire & Water

Nothing new really. We tried getting up to the studio last Thursday but were shut down by some Englewood fire marshalls. Something with a water pump. So we're on again for next Thursday.

Gumshu came up with a creepy little guitar part that we're gonna be putting to a new song & I wrote this cool jazzy chord progression the other day, so we're still getting a lot done despite some minor mishaps. But hey, what would a killer project be without some bumps ... boring!

Oh yeah, I sat in on a practice session with Los Pocos Locos last night & showed their guitarist Steve Clar a progression we were working on for Two New Suits. He really liked it & kinda embellished it on his piano sinces he's a really good key player. I was thinking of asking him to come in on one of our recording sessions in the later weeks so he can track a few piano parts.

That's it really. Been driving around a lot lately, hence the road pictures above. Kinda getting tired of being on the road so much. Until it's for touring, I fucking hate it. Inspires me a little though I guess, so I'll take the good with the bad.

I'll be posting a bunch of in studio photos from this upcoming Thursday's writing session @ Bennett, so check back for that. Peace people!

Puke Session

So we finally got some studio time to begin on the album. Unfortunately, yours truly (party) had to royally fuck shit up bu getting drunk. I guess I was just living up to my name. Anyway, my boy gumshu got us some time up @ Bennett Studios for the night & we we're ready to go. We've been noodling around with this cool, trippy chord progress for the album here & there @ his house for a few days & we're looking to embellish it up with some of the studio equipment. This was to be official Day Uno for the writing process.

I got to Englewood a little after 12 in the morning. Gum was already there finishing up work & we had to chill a bit while some punk band (named Juicehead, which I must say, unless you're name is Radiohead, stop putting "head" in your name ... it's played) finished up their session. I didn't get to hear what they sounded like, but that's besides the point. Anyway, I killed off a few of my American Spirit cancer sticks while we anxiously awaited our writing session.

After 10 or 15 minutes we got into the room we were gonna use. I brought my shitty Fender Squir (which oddly enough has a kinda cool sound) & got that shit set up. Gum let me use some effect pedals the studio had sitting around. The only one that sounded decent enough for this song was a Boss Tremolo. We got a nice warm sound outta amp to so I was thrilled. My man Gum pulled out a Motif & found a killer sound too.

Anyway, here's where the shit starts. I guess I thought it would be a good idea to bring my own Jacky Daniels for a little pre-game drinking. By pre-game drinking I mean chugging a shit load of whiskey on an empty stomach with little to no time between shots. Felt fucking great for a good hour. We starting getting into a vibe & were working out the parts for the basic layout when I felt the good ol' fashion feeling that's become my best friend since college. Needless to say for a good portion of the night I was flushing a toilet rather than plucking some strings.

I felt bad as hell cause I ruined our first session & was puking in Tony Bennett's can. Plus I the room was spinning & all the that shit. Gum was really helpful though. Part cause he's a real good friend of mine & part cause I was blowing chunks @ his work, which would worry the fuck outta me too. I guess I "sobered up" enough @ one point to have the courtesy to yak outside by the train tracks.

After a good hour of fighting the spins I realised I was gonna be no good for this session, so I made the decision to head back home. Gum convinced me to chill in the passenger seat of my car for awhile time I could see only one of things, which was a good idea. He warned me about cops cause apparently they're as much of cockfucks in Englewood as they are in Clinton, which I immediately knew spelled trouble. Literally five minutes after he went back inside to clean our gear up a pigger came rolling up. This motherfucker saw me puking in a bag & lit up like he'd just discovered the case that would promote his ass to detective. He did the tough guy cop thing & starting squawking away on his little walkie-talkie. He ran the routine. Got my licence & flashed his little light all over my car looking for his personal victory of the night ... but nothing. I don't fuck around now that I'm on probation bitches. Anyway, after many nervous minutes & questions of "Where's your stash" later, I finally realized I had done nothing wrong & my demeanor suddenly changed. My memory's a little foggy, but I went on a huge rant about how much time he's wasting on this shit & how last time I checked a 24 year man is allowed to be drunk & cleansing in a plastic bag. This is when his attitude changed & the question turned into "Is that a Fender? I play too!" What a fuck. Soon as they know that you're aware of your rights their little power trip diminishes. It felt kinda good & made me wanna puke less.

Long story long, the fucker told me to chill out @ the studio for the night & said he didn't wanna see me driving. So I went back into the studio to hang with Gum. We only stayed a few minutes (the cops passed by @ least three times to do the good ol' check up) then bounced. Gum drove me home in my car where I let one last good hurl out & ate an Egg McMuffin. It was good, & I hate McDonald's.

That's it in a nutshell. We got some work done if anything good came outta this. Plus, in the fucking hour we jammed I realized that this is definitely gonna be a great project & a killer album. We plan to be back in the studio some time next week & really start to kick shit off. This time I'm gonna go slow on Jacky Boy. But I still gots to pre-game. Until then we're just gonna keep racking up ideas for the record.

Check back next week for the details of session #2. Which I promise will be much more productive. Plus, I'll be posting photos of the experience. Until, be easy & be ready for Two New Suits.

-party

Phase #1

So the name of the band is Two New Suits. It's me (Party) & my man Aaron (DJ Gumshu). We produce beats for the Jersey-based hip hop outfit known as Jersey Bound Trunk Crew (with Emcee Hype). After about 6 years of doing the hip hop thing, I realized I had to branch out. Don't get me wrong, I love hip hop, but after awhile beat production tends to get a little stale. So I was really happy when Aaron told me he was going through the same thing. It gave me a reason to actually pursue a project of a different nature.

Enter: Two New Suits. An experimental, multi-instrumentalist duo with a desire to create music in a whole new light. The interesting part, is it's just the two of us taking on the role of an entire band & it's engineers. There's gonna be guitars, keyboards, drums, bass, MPCs, horns, vibes, pianos, midget's fucking ... you name it, it will be there. And I must admit, I'm extremely excited.

We've loosely started the writing process for our first as-of-now-untitled EP. Some guitar parts here, a few piano parts there. Nothing solid yet. But we've been making music together for years, so fear not. This will be a crazy, far out project. I promise. The main goal as of now is to make as many demo versions of the songs-to-be before heading up to Bennett Studios to lay down some tracks & start the layering process. That's when the real experimenting will begin.

For now, that's it cause there's not a whole lot to say at this time. Make sure to keep checking back. We're gonna be adding a shitload of photos & I plan to blog the entire experience as it unfolds. Absolutely EVERYTHING will be documented.

-party