So I finally cleaned out my storage space and found some merchandise sitting around collecting dust. So instead of it sitting around collecting dust at my pad, you can buy it and then it'll sit around collecting dust at yours! Here's what I've got:
EXHUMED "Gore Metal" LP - $15ppd US, $20ppd world
EXHUMED / INGROWING 7" - $5ppd US, $6ppd world
EXHUMED / INGROWING 3"CD - $5ppd US, $6ppd world
DEKAPITATOR "The Storm Before The Calm" LP - colored vinyl - $15ppd US, $20ppd world
Paypal only to harvey_matt@yahoo.com
Just email me at harvey_matt@yahoo.com if you're interested - I'll get your address and we'll go from there.
Cheers!
Gore Fucking Metal
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Crap from the Crypt Vol. 1 - Goregasm demo 1992
Welcome to a new thing on this blog... I will be digging through my archives of accumulated bullshit and posting random tidbits here from time to time of stuff that isn't available or maybe has never really been heard outside the band. Keep in mind, this should only be for the really curious or the extremely die-hard, as all of it will be raw, poorly recorded (and probably poorly played), and mostly ripped from crappy 3rd generation cassettes. Most of our (comparably) listenable material from the past was featured in the exhaustive compilation 2CD (or limited 3CD) “Platters of Splatter”. That said, there is still some random stuff floating around down there, deep within the cobwebbed recesses of storage spaces, long neglected boxes and shameful, repressed memories.
I figured we should post “Goregasm” up here first, as it's the oldest thing I have on hand (I think I may still have a copy of our 1st rehearsal tape in storage... it's pretty cringe-inducing) and it's something people here and there have asked me about through the years.
A bit of history to put this recording in context is definitely in order. In January 1992 we released our first demo tape, “Dissecting the Caseated Omentum”, followed by our first EP that May on Afterworld Productions – called “Excreting Innards” (both releases can be found on disc 2 of “Platters...”). Jason Wineland, the guy who released the EP (as well as the excellent Putrifact 7”) was getting pretty ambitious and decided he wanted to release a full length album from us. Well, at the time, I was 16 years old and a junior in high school. The oldest member of the band at the time was our bassist, Ben Marrs, who was 18. Suffice it to say, we were far from organized, and after recording the EP, we could no longer rehearse in my Dad's garage – the cops were called too many times – so
rehearsals were sporadic. We would sometimes share a jam space (or rehearse at someone's house) with a punk band from my high school called F.D.S. (Flying Dead Skin – wow... that name sucked then and has gotten worse with age), and sometimes we would just end up playing shows cold. (check out some of our old pay-to-play tickets from '91-'92 at the right...)
We had booked time to record our “album” in October, but had barely rehearsed. We also only booked two days in the studio – the same amount of time we had taken to record the six-song demo and then our subsequent six-song EP (although two songs on the EP were under five seconds long) – and we planned to record a twelve song album in that space of time. Needless to say, not the brightest planning on our part. Our reasoning was that since most of the songs on the record would be from the demo and EP (we had four brand new songs, a noise song, and re-recorded eight songs) that it would take us less time to record them. Of course that wasn't factoring in time for mixing, or the fact that we had barely rehearsed before the recording. The naivete of our planning for this still kind of astounds me. Afterworld never offered a budget for recording – and to be honest, it never even occurred to us that one of the primary functions of a record label was to fund recordings. We just were having fun making a racket and the fact that anyone was interested in helping us do that lit a fire under our collective asses.
It should come as no surprise if you're still reading that the resulting music is pretty bad, both in performance and in production. But it is a funny artifact from the band's embryonic stages. Shortly after this recording,
we kicked out Ben Marrs for some reason or other – it all seemed very serious at the time – I think he didn't show up on time for a gig or something like that. Mostly I think it was because he was crazy about bands like Atrocity and Demilich and wanted to go in a weirder, more avant-garde direction, or maybe because he was 18 and a lot further along in life at the time, while Col and I were still very deep in a “read comic books, play RPGs with many-sided dice, afraid of girls” kind of stage. (pic at right - nerding out circa '92/'93, L to R: Me, Derrel Houdashelt obviously very baked (below), our friend Brian "Terrorizer" Rubio (above), Col Jones with his boyish grin).
Even after recording this, I think we all realized that it was a bit of a step backward from the demo and EP in terms of performance and sound quality. Jason let us know shortly after we finished recording that he was folding the label, and “Goregasm” faded into the background. For some masochistic reason, we started selling it as a demo cassette in 1994 (the cover, designed and photocopied by Ross Sewage can be seen below to the right), which kind of kept it on a few people's radar. For me, I think this is more of a novelty or a completist kind of thing - I sure as hell wouldn't invite people over to my house for a listening party for “Goregasm”. But there are still some cool riffs and ideas that given some more time to rehearse and execute could have been a positive part in the band's development, rather than a red-headed stepchild. We decided not to put this on “Platters...” because the quality is just so bad, and most of the songs are featured elsewhere in different versions.
I actually had an offer not too long ago to have this issued as a limited vinyl-only release, but to be honest, it's so rough around the edges (and you should all know by now that we're far from perfectionists) I wouldn't want anyone to pay for it. So go ahead and download the bastard if listening to musically inept high school students bite off way more than they can chew is your idea of fun.
Download "Goregasm"
I don't think that there ever was a concrete track order, so the files are simply in alphabetical order. For whatever reason, a couple of the files contain two songs, and some of the file names don't exactly match up with the track names, so here they are:
01 Ben's Song – This song did have lyrics and a title at one point, but Ben Marrs wrote most of the music, and since the actual title and lyrics are lost to the annals of time, it was simply called Ben's song
02 Cadaveric Splatter Platter – this is a re-recording of a song from the EP, you can hear subsequent better versions of it on “Platters of Splatter” disc 2 and 3
03 Caseating Decomposition_Embryon – this is “Caseating Decomposition” and “Embryonic Regordation” - two songs from the demo re-recorded and on the same track here for whatever reason
04 Coital Mutilation – this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
05 Excreting Innards – this was a new song at the time, and you can hear much better subsequent versions of it on “Platters of Splatter” discs 2 and 3
06 Festering Sphinctral Malignancy - this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
07 Goregasm - this was a new song at the time, you can hear the first riff recycled in a song on the new record, “All Guts, No Glory”
08 Oozing Rectal Feast – this is a re-recorded song from the demo
09 Perverse Innard Infestation - this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
10 Splurgee_Pyathrotic Discorporat – this is two new (at the time) songs - “Splurgee” a noise bit about Slurpees, and “Pyathrotic Discorporation” - you can hear a subsequent version of this song on “Platters...” disc 2
11 Ziploc Bodybag - this is a re-recorded song from the demo
I figured we should post “Goregasm” up here first, as it's the oldest thing I have on hand (I think I may still have a copy of our 1st rehearsal tape in storage... it's pretty cringe-inducing) and it's something people here and there have asked me about through the years.
A bit of history to put this recording in context is definitely in order. In January 1992 we released our first demo tape, “Dissecting the Caseated Omentum”, followed by our first EP that May on Afterworld Productions – called “Excreting Innards” (both releases can be found on disc 2 of “Platters...”). Jason Wineland, the guy who released the EP (as well as the excellent Putrifact 7”) was getting pretty ambitious and decided he wanted to release a full length album from us. Well, at the time, I was 16 years old and a junior in high school. The oldest member of the band at the time was our bassist, Ben Marrs, who was 18. Suffice it to say, we were far from organized, and after recording the EP, we could no longer rehearse in my Dad's garage – the cops were called too many times – so
rehearsals were sporadic. We would sometimes share a jam space (or rehearse at someone's house) with a punk band from my high school called F.D.S. (Flying Dead Skin – wow... that name sucked then and has gotten worse with age), and sometimes we would just end up playing shows cold. (check out some of our old pay-to-play tickets from '91-'92 at the right...)
We had booked time to record our “album” in October, but had barely rehearsed. We also only booked two days in the studio – the same amount of time we had taken to record the six-song demo and then our subsequent six-song EP (although two songs on the EP were under five seconds long) – and we planned to record a twelve song album in that space of time. Needless to say, not the brightest planning on our part. Our reasoning was that since most of the songs on the record would be from the demo and EP (we had four brand new songs, a noise song, and re-recorded eight songs) that it would take us less time to record them. Of course that wasn't factoring in time for mixing, or the fact that we had barely rehearsed before the recording. The naivete of our planning for this still kind of astounds me. Afterworld never offered a budget for recording – and to be honest, it never even occurred to us that one of the primary functions of a record label was to fund recordings. We just were having fun making a racket and the fact that anyone was interested in helping us do that lit a fire under our collective asses.
It should come as no surprise if you're still reading that the resulting music is pretty bad, both in performance and in production. But it is a funny artifact from the band's embryonic stages. Shortly after this recording,
we kicked out Ben Marrs for some reason or other – it all seemed very serious at the time – I think he didn't show up on time for a gig or something like that. Mostly I think it was because he was crazy about bands like Atrocity and Demilich and wanted to go in a weirder, more avant-garde direction, or maybe because he was 18 and a lot further along in life at the time, while Col and I were still very deep in a “read comic books, play RPGs with many-sided dice, afraid of girls” kind of stage. (pic at right - nerding out circa '92/'93, L to R: Me, Derrel Houdashelt obviously very baked (below), our friend Brian "Terrorizer" Rubio (above), Col Jones with his boyish grin).
Even after recording this, I think we all realized that it was a bit of a step backward from the demo and EP in terms of performance and sound quality. Jason let us know shortly after we finished recording that he was folding the label, and “Goregasm” faded into the background. For some masochistic reason, we started selling it as a demo cassette in 1994 (the cover, designed and photocopied by Ross Sewage can be seen below to the right), which kind of kept it on a few people's radar. For me, I think this is more of a novelty or a completist kind of thing - I sure as hell wouldn't invite people over to my house for a listening party for “Goregasm”. But there are still some cool riffs and ideas that given some more time to rehearse and execute could have been a positive part in the band's development, rather than a red-headed stepchild. We decided not to put this on “Platters...” because the quality is just so bad, and most of the songs are featured elsewhere in different versions.
I actually had an offer not too long ago to have this issued as a limited vinyl-only release, but to be honest, it's so rough around the edges (and you should all know by now that we're far from perfectionists) I wouldn't want anyone to pay for it. So go ahead and download the bastard if listening to musically inept high school students bite off way more than they can chew is your idea of fun.
Download "Goregasm"
I don't think that there ever was a concrete track order, so the files are simply in alphabetical order. For whatever reason, a couple of the files contain two songs, and some of the file names don't exactly match up with the track names, so here they are:
01 Ben's Song – This song did have lyrics and a title at one point, but Ben Marrs wrote most of the music, and since the actual title and lyrics are lost to the annals of time, it was simply called Ben's song
02 Cadaveric Splatter Platter – this is a re-recording of a song from the EP, you can hear subsequent better versions of it on “Platters of Splatter” disc 2 and 3
03 Caseating Decomposition_Embryon – this is “Caseating Decomposition” and “Embryonic Regordation” - two songs from the demo re-recorded and on the same track here for whatever reason
04 Coital Mutilation – this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
05 Excreting Innards – this was a new song at the time, and you can hear much better subsequent versions of it on “Platters of Splatter” discs 2 and 3
06 Festering Sphinctral Malignancy - this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
07 Goregasm - this was a new song at the time, you can hear the first riff recycled in a song on the new record, “All Guts, No Glory”
08 Oozing Rectal Feast – this is a re-recorded song from the demo
09 Perverse Innard Infestation - this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
10 Splurgee_Pyathrotic Discorporat – this is two new (at the time) songs - “Splurgee” a noise bit about Slurpees, and “Pyathrotic Discorporation” - you can hear a subsequent version of this song on “Platters...” disc 2
11 Ziploc Bodybag - this is a re-recorded song from the demo
Exhumed Mark I (seen at right being doofuses in 1991)
L to R:
Derrel Houdashelt - guitar
Col Jones - drums
Matt Harvey - guitar, vocals
Ben Marrs - bass
Jake Giardina - vocals
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
"Behind the music - where you can smell all of the band's farts" - or "How to succeed in Grindcore without really trying"
Here's the latest installment in the continuing adventures of a lovable gang of misfits who must band together to overcome the odds and win the campus ski tournament, defeating the smarmy jocks and winning the heart of the pretty girl who is obviously too sensitive and sweet to be dating the leader of said smarmy jocks. Oh wait... I thought we were in an 80s movie there for a second. Nonetheless, the usual gang of idiots is at it again, pooling their collective, ummm... I was going to say talents, but that's a bit of a stretch, but the point is - we're making a new fucking record. It's going to be called "All Guts, No Glory" and we're recording in Arizona. Here's the fucking details:
Day 1 - Tuesday: After arriving in Los Angeles around 1:30 am with Wes in tow, we grabbed a well-deserved Burrito and arrive at Leon’s house about the same time as he does. We enjoy a few cold beers and unwind, even though we have to get up in a few hours and head off to LAX. I get up early and shower anyway, then we arrive at the airport with a minimum of hassles. One and a half uneventful hours later, we’re in Arizona and are welcomed by our old friend Ryan Butler (Unruh, Landmine Marathon, etc.), who will be recording the remainder of the tracks for the album – guitars, bass, vocals, incidentals, etc. Nothing particularly interesting happened after that, we hang out for a while, have a few beers and some food and then off to bed to get started in the morning.
Day 2- Wednesday: After discovering that Busch 30-packs were only $15 at the local Walgreens, we stocked Ryan’s mini-fridge and started thinking about guitar tones… Many guitarists are fucking obsessed with tone and Wes (especially) and I are no exception. The plan was to record four rhythm guitars and we had already decided to use Wes’ Marshall JCM 800 as the core sound for the rhythm guitars on the record, but the tone for the other two tracks would have to be sorted out in the studio. Luckily, Ryan has a killer arsenal of amps at his studio (Arcane Digital in Phoenix- yes this is a plug for the place, it rules!) so we had a lot of shit to choose from.
We settled on a two amp set up with a Bogner Uberschall and an Engl Powerball, for a bit brighter, crisper tone than the Marshall. It was a bit weird hearing all the songs with this tone first (since these tracks were planned to sit a little lower in the final mix, we recorded them first since the playing invariably improves as you do more takes), but by the end of day, we had a tone we were happy with and we had dug into a couple of tunes already.
Day 3- Thursday: Rhythm guitar is always the thing that eats up the most time in the studio for us and although we knew that going in, the fact that we had 17 songs to work through was beginning to sink in. Wes was up first, focusing on recording his songs. We had discussed having him track all the rhythm guitars, as Mike Beams had done in the past (in case you’re wondering, that means that I tracked a grand total of none of the rhythm guitars on “Gore Metal”, “Slaughtercult”, and “Anatomy…”- thanks Mike!) but he and Ryan convinced me to go with a “you wrote it, you record it” philosophy common in many bands with two guitarists. Needless to say, lazy prick that I am, I was not entirely enamored with that decision, and to be honest, I was a little intimidated having to record rhythm guitars (although I did record all the rhythm tracks on “Garbage Daze…” and the bass on “Slaughtercult”, there's a lot less pressure there). Luckily for me, I didn’t have to jump in too quickly, as Wes led the way, laying down some crushing stuff on a bunch of his songs (and one of mine too, by the time all was said and done).
Another great thing about recording with Ryan is that he, like myself, is a giant nerd. While listening to Wes’ tracks, I availed myself of the opportunity to devour back issues of Marvel’s “New Avengers” series by Brian Michael Bendis, which impressed the shit out of me. What can I say, I am a HUGE Avengers fan – I think I even posted a picture of my extremely beat-up copy of Avengers #1 on Facebook a while ago. And yes, I am fucking beyond psyched about the upcoming movies. Anyway, between guitars, comics and the Giants kicking the crap out of the Rangers in the World Series, I had no problem filling any downtime in the studio
Day 4- Friday: I ended up tracking a bunch of stuff on day 4, and it ended up turning out pretty okay. The tone had a little more high-end than I’m used to, and I definitely ended up hearing a little of the “twang” that I picked up from playing with Matt Olivo in Repulsion (the distinctive JCM800 + tube screamer Repulsion twang) than I’m used to, but anything Repulsion related is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. It also started to become clear that with the amount of material vs. the amount of time that we had for rhythm guitars, we weren’t going to be able to be quite as anal retentive about guitar as we were on “Anatomy…” (which, ironically, we had less time to record), and would have to let go any hopes of eliminating every trace of string noise, every slightly over-accented note, etc. etc. This was actually a blessing in disguise.
All of us in the band feel like “Anatomy…” was a little too clean sounding (funnily enough, that’s exactly what Neil Kernon told me when I was telling him to make it as clean as possible) and wanted a sound that was a bit more off-the-cuff this time around. By the end of the day, almost all of the Bogner / Engl tracks were done and we were really, really tired of drinking Busch. I retired to the good ol’ Super 8 looking forward to Saturday – when we would set up the Marshall and Leon would arrive in AZ.
Tune in next time, same bat-time, same bat-channel, for the next exciting chapter in the seemingly never-ending saga of this fucking album. Oh yeah, and we'll put up some pictures, too.
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots
Monday, October 4, 2010
Exhuming Exhumed: Once more into the breach, dear fiends...
Friday October 1st found your humble narrator once more headed southbound on US Highway 101 towards Camarillo. With Wes and Danny in tow, and southern California traffic in full-on snarl mode, we continued south to grab Danny's drum kit, and then onwards to Corona, California, a southeastern suburb of Los Angeles, and a town we've played many times at the sadly defunct Showcase Theater. In fact, I actually met Danny and Wes for the first time at one of those shows! The excessive LA traffic could only be coped with by enjoying some little-remembered Death Metal gems by Demilich, Mordicus, Disgrace, Xysma, and Carbonized. Initially, we had planned to record the drums October 15-17 but, due to Danny's impending Intronaut tour (supporting Helmet) which kicks off this weekend, we had to push the dates forward. Things were a bit rushed, but overall confidence was high heading into the process. This past weekend was (as anyone on Facebook probably already knew) Leon's birthday, so he ended up staying in Echo Park and no doubt destroying brain cells by the thousand while we toiled at the sweaty work of laying down the drum tracks for album number four.
We arrived at Trench studios after nine pm Friday, where we met up with engineer John Haddad (ex-Phobia Dru
mmer, and producer of bands from Hirax to Intronaut and many, many others in between) to set up the kit. John used to play drums in Phobia years ago and has been around the LA and OC scenes for a long time. In fact he's recorded many of my friends' bands, and worked with Danny on Phobia and Intronaut records, but somehow I had never actually met the guy before Friday night. Being a drummer puts him in a great position to understand what goes into getting great drum tones and his experience in the scene has gives him the right perspective to properly record the heaviest, noisiest, fastest shit. You can see this extremely flattering shot of the back of his head just above, taken by our staff photographer, Wes Caley. Trench is set up in John's house, a spacious place with a great backyard, a lazy cat, and most importantly, a pool and jacuzzi. After a long day of driving, Wes and I headed to the AM/PM for (surprise!) beer, while Danny and John got things going. After setting up the drums themselves and the microphones, it was too late to get much else accomplished besides inebriation and sleep.
The next day, we were u
p and running by noon-ish and things were finally underway. Wes and I switched off playing scratch guitar tracks (I played the songs I wrote and vice versa) as guides for Danny. While Wes was tracking I took advantage of the opportunity to watch the extremely frustrating SF Giants Saturday game and get myself properly pissed off. The tracking started a little slowly, but after the first three songs were completed, we were clearly on a roll. The heat in the control room was stifling (sweat was literally pouring off my face while tracking), and I can only imagine how toasty Danny must have been blasting his way though eleven songs that day. By then it was time to adjourn to the jacuzzi and enjoy the reward for a day's work well done: several dozen beers. Gravehill drummer and all around swell guy Rhett “Thorgrimm” Davis and my long time sister-of-metal Lili stopped by to hang out with us, John and his roommates, Scott from Abysmal Dawn and “Bubbles” (so named because he was so shit-faced that he turned the bubbles in the jacuzzi on with his belly while crawling over the control panel on his way in). If you can enjoy the photo of our man stew above, you've got a stronger constitution than I. Exhausted but extremely happy with the progress we'd made, we headed to a nearby Motel 6 for a more tranquil night's sleep.
The next day, after some real
ly gnarly (in the bad way) veggie burgers from Denny's (I'm glad that I opted to wait and get a turkey sandwich and an apple at AM/PM) we returned to the Trench to pick up where we left off. All of Wes' songs had been tracked on day 1, so I settled into the control room to knock out the last four songs we're considering for the album and the three bonus tracks. One song still had some arrangements to be finalized – after all we'd only had four rehearsals – and that was the last one we completed after re-recording one tune from the previous day. You can see Danny above left, feigning amusement as he hears me utter the phrase "Sorry Dave, it's just not fast enough" in my best impression of Mick Harris' accent from the Hard n' Heavy Grindcore edition videotape. That handsome beast below left is yours truly, looking moderately confused and tracking scratch guitars - which is an improvement, as I'm usually feeling extremely confused while playing.We finished strong around five o'clock by which point, Danny's brain and endurance were pretty much maxed out. After hitting the nearby Del Taco for what felt like the millionth time that weekend (Friday night, Saturday mid-day, Sunday evening twice) Danny and John settled in to edit the drums 
and make sure all was as it should be while Wes and I watched TV and I snuck in a nap in anticipation of the long drive ahead. 18 songs were edited and double checked, and everything was loaded onto a flash drive by midnight or so, and we all packed back into the car to head home.
The ride home was a strange mixture of feeling exhausted from the work and energized by the great performances Danny had just put in. Wes and I developed a concept that Leon had come up with for the cover and we finally nailed down what we want to do for the artwork, which was a big question mark resolved. With Weird Al Yankovic in the background, we discussed more ideas about what we wanted to do in the studio as far as guitars, bass and vocals at the end of the month. Having three weeks between recording the drums and everything else is definitely a little weird and frustrating, since we were all really pumped about the work Danny had done and excited to get underway with everything, but we'll use the intervening time to refine our ideas, practice along to the drum tracks, and write our solos. I personally can't wait to head to Arizona to get the rest of the record done at Arcane Digital Recording.
I dropped the lads off at their respective homes in Camarillo and headed north into the light early morning drizzle towards the Central Coast and home. Feeling a little reflective, I put on some Sigur Ros (my favorite band at the moment) and contemplated what we had accomplished and what lay ahead. Considering that at the beginning of the year I was living 2,500 miles away and hadn't been in a band for over a year and a half, and now I'm recording the first album of new Exhumed material in seven (!) years, 2010 has been interesting to say the least.
Stay tuned for more exciting chronicles of our never-ending battle for truth, justice and free beer. Oh yeah, and we'll have news about some shows in Europe soon as well. I look forward to boring the pants off you all again soon with the next installment of an ongoing series that I wanted to call“The Life and Times of Mortimer McPherson, Enterprising Boy Bootblack - a Profile in Pluck”. Unfortunately, that idea was vetoed by the suits at Relapse, and now I'm stuck writing about my band instead.
That's all folks!
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots...
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Exhuming Exhumed, the saga continues...
Exhuming Exhumed: Parte the second, in which four enterprising lads perform musical compositions of dubious quality for the first time
Despite having a shitload of music and lyrics that I've been really confident with for months, a few key elements for the record had been missing thus far, namely actual rehearsals, the album title, and the artwork concept. After weeks of coming up with potential titles to no avail, I was driving home from work a couple of weeks ago and, of course, the idea came to me instantly, no thesaurus, notebook, or search engine needed. That makes the artwork concept a lot easier to work towards, and was a real relief, as well as a nice kick in the ass to get going on the record. And yeah, I can't reveal the album title yet or any song titles, so please don't ask. Feeling galvanized just by coming up with a title, I was really chomping at the bit to get going with a proper rehearsal.
Everyone's schedules are kind of crazy so it had taken a little while to get things lined up for us to even get in the same room together up to this point. In fact, plans were still up in the air as far as where the actual rehearsal would finally take place when I headed south to the the sunny, mild climes of Camarillo to meet up with Wes. The first night, Sunday, we just hung out had a few (dozen) beers and a few laughs, before getting down to brass tack
s on Monday. Monday ended up being just Wes and I fine-tuning and brushing up on songs and riffs, with me getting to try out my guitar after a full set-up for the first time. That felt awesome- like I had just gotten an entirely new, totally kick-ass axe. (Thanks again, Wes!) So after about four hours of serious work, Natural Ice took its toll and we ended up spending the last hour or so laughing our asses off while trading Dismember, Carnage, Entombed, Carcass, Obituary, Death, and Autopsy riffs back and forth. The next day we met up with percussionist extraordinaire Danny Walker after he got off work, and the three of us headed south to the mean streets of Vernon (basically L.A.) where Intronaut and Murder Construct practice. You can see Wes to the left, performing the all-important first step in any Exhumed practice.
I have a bit of a confession to make here: My usual strategy is to always project confidence no matter what the circumstance, which usually works out pretty well, but I can now admit to feeling a certain level of trepidation before we got started. Sure, we had been working for months on these songs individually, and had talked on the phone, via email, text, hung out and had a few beers, etc. etc. but Tuesday night would be the true trial by fire- not only for the new material, but really for our entire method of putting the album together. If the practice was a disaster, we really wouldn't have 
the time or money to get shit sorted out in time for the record. Plus, it was my first real band rehearsal in about two years. While warming up on one of the riffs from a new song of ours, Danny joined in, then Wes started playing, and before we knew it we had played pretty much the whole song. Then we started from the beginning and nailed it and all my fears melted away immediately. Leon arrived shortly thereafter and added some nice Repulsion Bass Grind rumble to the proceedings.
We made it through nine songs in all that night and, of course I'm biased here... but, I thought shit sounded intense as fuck. It was a big relief that things got going really naturally and felt easy and, well, I can't think of a better word for it than norm
al. It was like putting on your favorite old t-shirt that you always wear to shows or something – it just felt like Exhumed. Of course, not everyone knew every riff to every song, and some songs took a couple of tries to get through, but really things went great overall. In-jokes were bantered, dolphins (see the pic of Danny above), Ted Sanchez, butter and farts were discussed, PBRs were drained, we all shared some rad Mike Beams anecdotes, and a good time was had by all- even Leon, who was dead tired and super stressed with the prep work for Murder Construct's shows with Venomous Concept (which are happening as I type this) - see pic at right. All told, we played for about three and a half hours and I left not having to worry about projecting confidence, because I was charged up as fuck and truly very, very confident with our progress and our ability to be ready to go into the studio to cut the drum tracks in three scant weeks.
As I drove home up the coast of California after parting ways with the boys I felt better than ever about the new record and the way that everything has been coming together. So good news all around. Next year is getting interesting with plans for Europe already starting to take shape, and I'm feeling like we have our shit in a state more resembling togetherness than I thought. Anyway, tune in next time, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel for more chapters in the seemingly never-ending battle to complete this record.
Cheers,
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots
Friday, September 3, 2010
Well, it’s high time for another update, but the thing is, there isn’t much to be updated. Things have been in transition, but they‘re about to get hectic. I’ve just found a job, and Wes has relocated back to Camarillo (also home to the one and only Danny Walker, and closer to my neck of the woods than his former digs in OC), so we’ll rehearse there when things are more settled, probably starting next week. In the meantime, Mr. Caley has been diligently creating a new set of pre-production versions of the new tunes.
During the writing process, Wes and I each recorded rough versions of our material. My gear was pretty rudimentary and outdated, including my buddy's Dr. Rhythm Section drum machine from the 1990s (Thanks Ace!), and Wes’ setup was more sophisticated, using Guitar Rig 3 and Drumkit From Hell. This meant that his tracks not only sounded a lot better than mine, but a lot different. The difference between our recordings also made it tough to get a cohesive “album“ feel for things. After Wes and I discussed arrangement changes and ideas, which will undoubtedly be tweaked yet again before we properly record, Wes volunteered to create new versions of the songs from the ground up, including the changes we’d worked out, also enabling us to hear all the songs with the same recording quality- helping it sound like, you know - an ALBUM. So, by the time we actually track the record, it’ll be the third time that most of these songs will have been recorded. Yeesh… That said, these new tracks have been coming out great, and that’s been keeping Wes busy.
I, on the other hand, spent a couple of weeks going through all the lyrics with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they were coherent, interesting, and most importantly, that they worked with the actual music. Then came the task of divvying them up between myself, Leon, and Wes, as well as determining where we’d to use a “chorus” style of vocals like we had done on Slaughtercult (in “Slave To The Casket” and “Slaughtercult” for example). More work goes into creating this crap than you might think, let me tell ya. I'm finally confident with everything, and after getting the seal of approval from old friend and literature post-graduate Matt Widener (ex-Exhumed, Cretin, Citizen), as well as Col (Jones - who I started the band with in ‘91) who is the first to tell me when something is “gay“, I can relax and know I‘ve got something worth a shit.
In the past, I’d usually have lyrics written before any corresponding music, then I’d have to try to get the words to match up with the songs we’d written. That is not a system I wanted to continue using. This time around, aside from maybe a couple of individual lines, rhymes, or song title ideas, I wrote everything after already having music to work with. I was consciously trying to prevent the excess of verbiage that weighed down the “Anatomy…” material. I think it will have worked, but I can’t know for sure until we’re listening back to the songs in the studio. I’ve never sung at practices, in fact I haven’t owned a microphone since the mid ‘90s, and I’ve never owned a PA. So, until recording, no one has actually heard how the lyrics go, not even me, although I usually have a very good idea of what it‘ll sound like. Since Ross has been out of the band for over 10 years now, I’ve been the sole lyricist, which isn’t the way I‘d want things. The collaborative effort can bring out some really good stuff, and getting an outside opinion is incredibly valuable, but hey, nowadays at least there are fewer songs about penises than we used to have.
Meanwhile, since returning from the Cynic / Dysrhythmia / Intronaut tour, Danny has been busy working with the pre-production tracks and memorizing (or re-memorizing) the songs. One thing that’s great about working with him is that he does his homework and puts in the time to get his shit together before we practice, rather than using rehearsal time to learn things on the fly. He instinctively grasps what it is that we’re trying to do, so even if he’s learning one of our older tunes where the production and playing isn’t the keenest, he gets the intent, and then plays it the way we meant to do in the first place. The first time we practiced with him, he played our 13 song set straight through in one go with no mistakes.
Leon has been working with the temp tracks, working out bass lines from the guitar tab I’ve sent him and Wes. Also, I’ve conveniently color-coded all the lyrics so he can at least have an idea where he’ll be singing. Everything is described as far as its placement in the song as well (e.g. “over the sliding blast beat pre-chorus riff” or “over the 1st and third times of the verse riff”) so we can hit the ground running in the studio.
This whole process is worlds away from how we did the “Anatomy…” record, or how we’ve done any previous record (except for the “Garbage Daze…” cover album, but that was still a bit different) where we simply practiced more before recording - increasing from one or two days a week to three or four. Our pre-production in the past consisted of a boom box with a condenser mic, or an old 4-track with one mic in the middle of the room recording onto a cassette. Both ways have their advantages of course, this one is a bit less time-intensive as a group, but more so for each of us as individuals. Spending two or three hours a night at your jam room is great, but it made more sense when we were younger, individually and as a band. Those were the times when spending all night obsessing over a note change in a riff feels like the most important thing in the world. With the line-up we have now, we’re all more confident and experienced, and if something doesn’t work, we simply trash it and move on, rather than spending hours arguing about what purpose each note plays in making whatever riff sound whatever way it’s supposed to or whatever. It helps that we're all fairly prolific writers. There are no egos and the obsessive analysis of every little thing (as a group) subsided years ago, right around when “Gore Metal” came out. The music comes quickly and naturally, and we have a sense of what the band IS, rather than groping for a “sound” or “direction“.
It’s weird because the musical part of the process is fairly effortless, but getting it all together in a way where everyone can relate to it independently without the “rehearsal room” dynamic takes time and can be tedious. As much as I sometimes miss hanging out in a smelly rehearsal room with every available inch of wall space covered with posters and working through things bit by bit by bit, the way we’re putting things together now allows us all more space and time to live our lives (and work our jobs, and play in other bands at times). Living in different areas, it’s almost essential to work this way, and without the technology that’s available these days, it’d be a lot harder to get shit together. At the end of the day, we all know and trust each other enough to work up good stuff on our own, without having to look over each others’ shoulders and hyper-analyze every drum fill, lick, riff, piece of wordplay, rhyme scheme, bass line, etc.
Although many people regard this as a “new” line-up of the band, it doesn’t feel “new” at all. We have all played together extensively (albeit sometimes in different combinations), and we feel confident in each other’s abilities. This isn‘t a knock on anyone that has been in the band before, it’s just a different dynamic, and that change is invigorating. Since the band hasn't ever compromised our musical style, we've sought out other kinds of changes that keep things from stagnating, and right now this dynamic is working really well. Down the road? Who knows... Right now the new record is the only thing on our collective horizon. Of course, the individual songs end up a bit less collaborative (Col and I would re-arrange 99% of everything from my original ideas of songs, and Mike‘s tunes for that matter) but the album as a whole actually becomes more collaborative, with Wes contributing almost 50% of the songs, and everyone free to develop their parts on their own before bringing it all together.
Well, for not having much to update, I’ve been typing quite a bit. So I’ll leave it at that and then once we actually rehearse (in the good ol‘ fashioned sense of the term), I’ll post some more shit, as well as some current pics and other crap.
'til next time,
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots
During the writing process, Wes and I each recorded rough versions of our material. My gear was pretty rudimentary and outdated, including my buddy's Dr. Rhythm Section drum machine from the 1990s (Thanks Ace!), and Wes’ setup was more sophisticated, using Guitar Rig 3 and Drumkit From Hell. This meant that his tracks not only sounded a lot better than mine, but a lot different. The difference between our recordings also made it tough to get a cohesive “album“ feel for things. After Wes and I discussed arrangement changes and ideas, which will undoubtedly be tweaked yet again before we properly record, Wes volunteered to create new versions of the songs from the ground up, including the changes we’d worked out, also enabling us to hear all the songs with the same recording quality- helping it sound like, you know - an ALBUM. So, by the time we actually track the record, it’ll be the third time that most of these songs will have been recorded. Yeesh… That said, these new tracks have been coming out great, and that’s been keeping Wes busy.
I, on the other hand, spent a couple of weeks going through all the lyrics with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they were coherent, interesting, and most importantly, that they worked with the actual music. Then came the task of divvying them up between myself, Leon, and Wes, as well as determining where we’d to use a “chorus” style of vocals like we had done on Slaughtercult (in “Slave To The Casket” and “Slaughtercult” for example). More work goes into creating this crap than you might think, let me tell ya. I'm finally confident with everything, and after getting the seal of approval from old friend and literature post-graduate Matt Widener (ex-Exhumed, Cretin, Citizen), as well as Col (Jones - who I started the band with in ‘91) who is the first to tell me when something is “gay“, I can relax and know I‘ve got something worth a shit.
In the past, I’d usually have lyrics written before any corresponding music, then I’d have to try to get the words to match up with the songs we’d written. That is not a system I wanted to continue using. This time around, aside from maybe a couple of individual lines, rhymes, or song title ideas, I wrote everything after already having music to work with. I was consciously trying to prevent the excess of verbiage that weighed down the “Anatomy…” material. I think it will have worked, but I can’t know for sure until we’re listening back to the songs in the studio. I’ve never sung at practices, in fact I haven’t owned a microphone since the mid ‘90s, and I’ve never owned a PA. So, until recording, no one has actually heard how the lyrics go, not even me, although I usually have a very good idea of what it‘ll sound like. Since Ross has been out of the band for over 10 years now, I’ve been the sole lyricist, which isn’t the way I‘d want things. The collaborative effort can bring out some really good stuff, and getting an outside opinion is incredibly valuable, but hey, nowadays at least there are fewer songs about penises than we used to have.
Meanwhile, since returning from the Cynic / Dysrhythmia / Intronaut tour, Danny has been busy working with the pre-production tracks and memorizing (or re-memorizing) the songs. One thing that’s great about working with him is that he does his homework and puts in the time to get his shit together before we practice, rather than using rehearsal time to learn things on the fly. He instinctively grasps what it is that we’re trying to do, so even if he’s learning one of our older tunes where the production and playing isn’t the keenest, he gets the intent, and then plays it the way we meant to do in the first place. The first time we practiced with him, he played our 13 song set straight through in one go with no mistakes.
Leon has been working with the temp tracks, working out bass lines from the guitar tab I’ve sent him and Wes. Also, I’ve conveniently color-coded all the lyrics so he can at least have an idea where he’ll be singing. Everything is described as far as its placement in the song as well (e.g. “over the sliding blast beat pre-chorus riff” or “over the 1st and third times of the verse riff”) so we can hit the ground running in the studio.
This whole process is worlds away from how we did the “Anatomy…” record, or how we’ve done any previous record (except for the “Garbage Daze…” cover album, but that was still a bit different) where we simply practiced more before recording - increasing from one or two days a week to three or four. Our pre-production in the past consisted of a boom box with a condenser mic, or an old 4-track with one mic in the middle of the room recording onto a cassette. Both ways have their advantages of course, this one is a bit less time-intensive as a group, but more so for each of us as individuals. Spending two or three hours a night at your jam room is great, but it made more sense when we were younger, individually and as a band. Those were the times when spending all night obsessing over a note change in a riff feels like the most important thing in the world. With the line-up we have now, we’re all more confident and experienced, and if something doesn’t work, we simply trash it and move on, rather than spending hours arguing about what purpose each note plays in making whatever riff sound whatever way it’s supposed to or whatever. It helps that we're all fairly prolific writers. There are no egos and the obsessive analysis of every little thing (as a group) subsided years ago, right around when “Gore Metal” came out. The music comes quickly and naturally, and we have a sense of what the band IS, rather than groping for a “sound” or “direction“.
It’s weird because the musical part of the process is fairly effortless, but getting it all together in a way where everyone can relate to it independently without the “rehearsal room” dynamic takes time and can be tedious. As much as I sometimes miss hanging out in a smelly rehearsal room with every available inch of wall space covered with posters and working through things bit by bit by bit, the way we’re putting things together now allows us all more space and time to live our lives (and work our jobs, and play in other bands at times). Living in different areas, it’s almost essential to work this way, and without the technology that’s available these days, it’d be a lot harder to get shit together. At the end of the day, we all know and trust each other enough to work up good stuff on our own, without having to look over each others’ shoulders and hyper-analyze every drum fill, lick, riff, piece of wordplay, rhyme scheme, bass line, etc.
Although many people regard this as a “new” line-up of the band, it doesn’t feel “new” at all. We have all played together extensively (albeit sometimes in different combinations), and we feel confident in each other’s abilities. This isn‘t a knock on anyone that has been in the band before, it’s just a different dynamic, and that change is invigorating. Since the band hasn't ever compromised our musical style, we've sought out other kinds of changes that keep things from stagnating, and right now this dynamic is working really well. Down the road? Who knows... Right now the new record is the only thing on our collective horizon. Of course, the individual songs end up a bit less collaborative (Col and I would re-arrange 99% of everything from my original ideas of songs, and Mike‘s tunes for that matter) but the album as a whole actually becomes more collaborative, with Wes contributing almost 50% of the songs, and everyone free to develop their parts on their own before bringing it all together.
Well, for not having much to update, I’ve been typing quite a bit. So I’ll leave it at that and then once we actually rehearse (in the good ol‘ fashioned sense of the term), I’ll post some more shit, as well as some current pics and other crap.
'til next time,
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots
Monday, August 23, 2010
New interview on Metal Maniacs site
Check it out!
Normally, I would post an "unabridged" version here, but the whole enchilada is up at the Metal Maniacs site. Mike said he wanted to talk to me about "all things" Exhumed, and he wasn't kidding. It's a bit lengthy and very in-depth, so there's your warning. Enjoy!
Normally, I would post an "unabridged" version here, but the whole enchilada is up at the Metal Maniacs site. Mike said he wanted to talk to me about "all things" Exhumed, and he wasn't kidding. It's a bit lengthy and very in-depth, so there's your warning. Enjoy!
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