Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero!

Two new songs, a photo shoot, a video shoot, and a website relaunch. Big week for Explone! Gonna be hard to go back to reality tomorrow.

(Feed reader? You may have to visit the post to see these pics and videos.)

(Feed reader? You may need to visit the post to see these videos.)

I love this photo! MOAR AMPS PLZ.

Explone is at Studio Litho this weekend to cut one final song for the new record and finish any overdubbed parts. Mixing starts in March. Yes, we’re already writing tunes for the next one. So?

My sources tell me we’re also going to record some sort of performance video thingy that weekend. Also, a website redesign (confidential: ASP makes me weep).

Kirby Krackle just finished up a new CD titled E For Everyone and it drops just in time for the 2010 con season. The new record — it sounds huge. No nerdcore act rocks harder than KK. Unless maybe you count Blöödhag. I’ll be playing some live shows with them this year starting with the Emerald City Comic Con in March. There are also shows scheduled for Chicago, Phoenix and possibly elsewhere.

Also: it’s time for RPM and FAWM! Good luck to everyone participating this year. I’ve never done so myself, but there always seems to be residual creative energy crackling across the tubes that makes February one of my more fruitful months for songwriting. Shame-based productivity: it’s the best!

Remember Pat DiNizio: ass in chair. And stay the hell away from the internet.

Coming soon: a long-belated recap of Explone’s show at the Crocodile last month.

Here’s a quick demo of “Note To Self” (I posted a video of this song a few weeks back):

Download MP3 (128k, free, login required)

One guitar, one shaker, a few overdubs, some flurbled chords and the roughest of rough vocals. And a hippie guitar solo I spent all of five minutes composing. Also, my first recording done with REAPER.

Read on for lyrics…

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Here is news: my band Explone is playing the famously famous Crocodile Cafe tomorrow night (that’s Thursday 1/7) with a stellar lineup of fresh local bands. (I’m especially keen to see all-girl prog rock outfit Eighteen Individual Eyes.) It’s one of KEXP’s Recommended Events this week.

The Croc has long been on my list of A-list Seattle clubs to play before I die (score so far: Neumo’s (done, solo), the Showbox (done, w/ Kirby Krackle). I thought I missed my chance when it closed down a few years back, but new ownership and a sweet remodel have restored it to first-class status. The stage has been redesigned, sight-line-blocking support beams removed, a Via Tribunali pizzeria installed in the former back bar area.

Can. Not. Wait.

Last week I tweeted about rediscovering some song ideas I had written in DADGAD tuning almost ten years ago. I first learned about DADGAD when Megan forwarded me a page of alternate tunings used by Richard Shindell. Since then I’ve tried to work DADGAD into my own songs:

• Cut The Wire: DADGAD, capo 5th fret
• In Harm’s Way: DADGAD, capo 3rd fret
• Happy For Me, album version: DADGAD, capo 2nd fret (the alternate take is in standard tuning).
• 2 A.M.: DADGAD open D (I think, it’s been awhile)

If you haven’t tried DADGAD, you should. It’s fun. Especially if you get bored with standard chord voicings as I sometimes do. Tons of video tutorials on YouTube.

Here’s a video draft of “Blood Of Eden” by Peter Gabriel, in DADGAD tuning. I kinda want to record this song for a future EP, maybe later this year. The spot where I start grinning and my eyes pop out of my head is where I start running out of breath. That’s what I get for trying a five-minute-long tune after months of no singing.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Here’s another compter-nerd post for you artists who use both Wordpress and iLike. If those words make no sense to you, you probably have a life, and have actually been outdoors in the past few days, and would never spend countless hours hunched over a laptop working on something called a “Wordpress plugin.” You are excused. The rest of you, follow me.

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Time to stick a fork in 2009 and call it a decade. Just think, this time ten years ago we were all bracing for the Y2K bug to destroy civilization and send us spiraling into barbarism.

Wuz gonna write a bunch of stuff here about resolutions, but I think we all know that’s a bunch of horseshoes. My motto for 2010 is: Keep Trying.

Happy new year everyone :)

Here’s a blast from the past:

The Wikipedia entry on Christmas is really facinating. Did you know the Puritans hated Christmas? Or that Christmas celebrations were once banned in England and in Boston? Or that Christmas was frowned upon in the States for years following the Revolutionary War, only to have its popularity resurrected by Charles Dickens and Washington Irving? I did not know these things.

Happy Holidays!

Anthony Skelton’s short film submission to the Nikon Festival includes the instrumental version of my tune Not The One. There are some very cool editing moments I really like. Check it:

UPDATE: looks like the film was removed from the festival site. So never mind, I guess. Anthony? You out there? What happened?

Working on a video? You can download free instrumental versions of all the songs from Save You From Yourself for your own multimedia projects right here.