RM64 Artists Record

A visual document of our previously noted Thanksgiving evening activities.

xo,brinton

Thanksgiving came and went? Just like that. My parents live in Michigan and I live in Utah, so it’s different than it used to be. So after watching my hometown (kind of) Lions fulfill their part of tradition by getting boat-raced on Thanksgiving day, I ended up spending $11.86 to eat salad, mashed potatoes, and rolls at a terrible place called a buffet with a few friends. I spent the rest of the day wondering how the Pontiac Silverdome had sold for only $583,000 when I have friends whose parents have paid more for four bedroom homes in southern California. I parlayed this thought into how cool it would have been if one these friend’s parents had traded their four bedroom home for the Silverdome and its 21 acres, and then wondered how much it would have cost to rent a section of the dome for the band.

After that, Jake and I found ourselves at a Jazz vs Bulls game with my roommate Brent, wondering why Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan weren’t suited up and why John Stockton and Karl Malone had been Hans Solo’d in carbonite outside of the stadium:

But now Thanksgiving is over and we’re on to new things: a big show with Seattle friends Grand Hallway (myspace.com/grandhallway) next weekend, the 6th annual A Devil Whale Of A Christmas the week thereafter, some holiday traveling, and then more recording come January.

I love this time of year. Hope it is treating all of you well, also.

Xo,brinton

Look, I have changed. I am going to spend December being a caribou. Hope that doesn’t freak Amy out. I have not told her yet, as I am in New York and she is in L.A. Thanksgiving was full of food and music..two of my favorites. Good people who told me about all their favorite music which I have never heard. This made me think about how valuable we all are as listeners and talkers. And how viral a good review from one person can be for an unknown band,artist, etc. So, I think we should all share our thoughts on art and music more. Like a good deed of the day or something.

I have taken my admiration a step further by actually becoming a caribou…one of my favorite albums.

In other news, we will be doing our first video soon, as we have received our camera. Thank you! I have to figure out how use my hooves a little better first.

Well everyone, Thanksgiving is coming to a close, and I think it would be a great time to talk about what The Eastern Sea is thankful for. I can probably some it up in one big sentence: We are thankful that we are able to wake up every morning, with our health, our sanity, our friends, and our family and play music that we enjoy for people who enjoy it as well. That is what we are thankful for in a nutshell.

But, you know what that means when Thanksgiving is over?

Christmas time is here!

It is possibly my favorite time of the year and probably the best time for music. So I’ve decided that the best way to really get into the Christmas spirit and get into the spirit of recording music with all of our new equipment (that we are also thankful for) is to work on an Eastern Sea Christmas, a record of Christmas songs that we love, done the way we’ve always wanted to do them.

We have been performing Christmas songs for a couple years now and we finally have the opportunity to record using Record, Reason, and our new gear. I see a Christmas project as the perfect opportunity to steep myself in the learning curve that is working with new technology/software. In this sense, I wont be working right out of the gate with my own music (which in perfect honesty can be kind of daunting if I’m trying to tackle writing/arranging/recording/learning new stuff). This way, I can record songs I know, make something that will hopefully be fun and enjoyable for everyone, especially those of you reading this blog, and hone my skills before I really set out to complete some of the goals I set forth in the first blog entry.

So here is a list of songs that I am considering putting on An Eastern Sea Christmas:

Silver Bells – I’ve Already recorded this one actually! I’m already two steps ahead of myself, haha. This is a song The Eastern Sea has been doing since we were first a new born band at Christmas time in 2007. We originally did this song a lot like how we expected one of our favorite bands The National would do it. The recording is coming out very nicely. I will post a rough draft soon.

Oh, Holy Night – Maybe my favorite Christmas song of all time. Its beautiful and I think I have come up with a unique string of chords that puts a new spin while keeping 90 percent of the original whole.

Last Christmas – The classic song by Wham. Many people have covered this song so I wanted to do it a bit differently so I’ve worked out an old fashioned Texas Waltz to its tune. Very excited about this one.

All I Want for Christmas (is You) – Although no one can do it like Mariah, check out this video if you haven’t watched it in awhile, I want to give it a go because I think its just too sexy. I’m thinking something a little bit more bluesy. I don’t get bluesy much really it needs to happen.

Have Yourself a Merry Merry Christmas – Beautiful song. Especially done a capella.

Little Drummer Boy – I heard a version where every verse phase-shifted up a chromatic step or something close to that. It may have been circle of fifths like a johnny cash song but it wasnt the johnny cash version. I’ll find it or if anyone knows which version it is. Even if I dont find it, I’m gonna recreate it and its going to be awesome.

There’s our little drummer boy. ha.

Sleigh Ride – This is another great christmas song because of how frantic of a musical piece it is. There are a lot of chord changes and I recently heard the ventures version of it, done instrumental and I was inspired. That is what I will shoot for, something almost surfy. Its just such a coooool Christmas song, nothing can touch it.

Check it out here:

A couple others that I havent really thought out the details for yet are:

The Chipmunk Song (Without squeaky vocals its beautiful…)

Christmas Vacation (Yes, the song from the movie)

Father Christmas (The Kinks did a Christmas song, yes they did. And Btw the linked video is possibly one of the worst youtube fan videos ever made but you can hear the song)

Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel

White Christmas

The Christmas Song
If anyone has any suggestions or requests for us to record it would be gladly accepted.

Thanks for reading this long post. Happy Thanksgiving.

Love,

Matt Hines and the rest of The Eastern Sea

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I hope everyone is getting excited for dinner (mine starts in 54 minutes, but who’s counting?) and leftovers (starting in 5 hours and 54 minutes). I’ll follow the example set by Sweatshirt Weather and fill you in on a few things I’m thankful for:

-my family & friends for being understanding of what i do and how i spend my time, my band (these guys might as well fall into the friends & family category since they are like brothers and best friends to me), jesse’s parents for letting us play loud in their basement at all hours of the day and night, music (obviously), fluffy animals (my cat being the queen of cuteness), free people (sponsor me!), happiness, and chocolate. there are more but i need to go set the table.

In this video blog, I’ll take you on a tour of where I (Suzie) write & RECORD and give you a little preview of a new track we’re working on in the program.

Have a great thanksgiving and see you next week!

Ryan's Halloween costume and a turkey. Don't ask questions. I spent a ridiculous amount of time in Photoshop doing this.

It’s late, I’m tired, and I can’t think right now. See above.

So as we are quickly approaching a pretty sweet holiday comprised of over-eating, awkward family moments, and Black Friday shopping, we thought we’d give a run-down of what we are all thankful for.

Daniel: Dexter, modern technology, online poker, free cable TV from Comcast, waking up when I want, dual-screen monitors, Jack Daniels Burgers from TGI Fridays, wheat beer, Reeses Cups, and Chris not breaking my guitar strings.

Nate: For Daniel being in my life. Oh, and insurance and $1 double cheeseburgers from Burger King. And “Quit Playing Games With My Heart” by the Backstreet Boys. The end.

Chris: skinny jeans, Ralph Lauren outlets, microwave dinners, Taco Bell, Noodles & Co., grandma’s holiday cookin’, hoodies, Google Earth, sunsets, lamps, mumblecore movies, crustal tectonics, the English language, free trade, dogs, ambient music, Southern hospitality, my girl

Morgan: Air Bud: Golden Receiver

Ryan: Count Chocula, Bacon, Bud Light, BB guns, Call of Duty World At War, blink-182, Subarus, Nate Adams, and health insurance.

I think that sums everything and everyone up pretty well. And to all of our families reading this, we are thankful for you too. Chris and I are in Indianapolis for the holiday, Nate is recovering from shoulder surgery he had today, and Morgan and Ryan are chillin’ back at “The Big Nasty” (our house in West Lafayette) and will join me for some good eats on Thursday. Then it’s back to work – tightening up our live set, working on some new music, and the usual blogging shenanigans.

We booked our first show on December 16th with one of our favorite bands as of late: Man Overboard. They are a fantastic pop-punk band from New Jersey. It may seem ridiculous that we haven’t even played a show yet since we’ve technically been making music as Sweatshirt Weather for two years, but there was the whole distance thing, then there was writing, writing, and writing, and then we pieced together a full band, recorded an EP, and hey… booked a show. Anyways, we’re really anxious to get on the road, play lots of shows, and see the world. Until then, enjoy Thanksgiving and never forget what matters most in your life.

:: Daniel

Hola muchachos!

I’m writing from Mexico, so I thought that was appropriate… but now that I’ve read it over once I realize that other than appropriate it was super lame.  Super lamely appropriately awesome.  Muchachos.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to leave The Station at home, but I do have my handy dandy Record dongle (dongle to me always seems like a sexual word, which is why I insist on using it when I can).  I’ve been spending most of the last few days having an awesome vacation, and every now and then I squeeze in some time with my temporary Spanish guitar, Cecilita:

Sometimes I pretend like I can play classical guitar, which Cecilita begs for… but mostly I’m recording bass ideas (yes, on a guitar… you can do that in Mexico), sending them to Suzie and Charlito, and then getting e-mails back telling me how they’re not that good (in the nicest possible way, of course).  That’s when I cry and the classical music really just pours out of me.  It’s beautiful.  Angels descend from the sky and tell me to stop being such a weenie and get back to work like a real man.  A real man with a sexy guitar.

On the other side of the tropic of cancer, mis amigos (yes I am still using Spanish) have been laying down some piano tracks and drum ideas for our first project using Record.

We decided that given this unique opportunity, we should take a unique approach to writing a song.  Usually, one of us writes a song, gets it to a place where they’re comfortable, and then brings it to the band.  That’s where the magic happens.  I’ve heard there is also magic that happens in Charlie’s bedroom, but I didn’t bring my camera… err, I mean… they didn’t.  The people that were having the magic… not me!!!  Haha..  What?… you’re funny.

Anyway, this time, we decided to really construct the song as a band as much as possible.  Suzie had a sweet semi-developed piano idea, and we’re taking it from there.  I had a bunch of ideas on guitar but I forgot them all now, but that just means when I write new stuff it’s going to be at worst the second best idea I had, which is still pretty rad.

So, I’m way excited to get the file they told me they’d send me (AHEM, AHEM.. HEY GUYS)… and also to get back in a room with them and get down and dirty… but for now, I’m enjoying being the middle guy in this picture:

Mexican weddings are the best weddings.

-Jesse

So my goal with the video blog is prefaced by this: we are a band that has been heavily influenced by the community we live in.  There are wonderful musicians here, wonderful places, wonderful people.  Over time, I feel like we have become a sum of the influences of all these things that surround us.  So in addition to chronicling the process of making a new record, I’m hoping that over the next six months some of our friends become familiar to all of you, and that some of the places we regularly frequent become familiar.

This first one is some footage of a good friend of ours David Williams.  I apologize for the poor resolution and the sound quality.  These will get better in the future!  As these months pass, hopefully I get much better at the internet.  I feel it happening already.

Here is our first attempt at posting a video, the next video wont be just a shot of Andy and Kevin in a dungeon and a performance video.

-Matt

So I’m currently printing CDs and folding 54 t-shirts. We are playing a concert in Mikes’(drummer) hometown. So this show will be packed wall to wall, for sure. This footage was taken from our last show in Atlanta. We played two shows that night. The first in Villa Rica, it took us almost a hour to get there with all the traffic. We played a short set of some of our more ballsy songs, because this group looked like they were into metal. We tried to conserve some of our energy on stage, but failed and went completely all out. The crowd response was amazing, they enjoyed the show. That was our first time out there. We then loaded up, and headed back to Atlanta and rocked The Five Spot. We always push ourselves performance wise. I think over the last six months everyone has really taken it to the next level. Enjoy the video clips. -Mercury