Time Flies

I figure 5 months is long enough in between updates, don't you?

So how the hell have you all been? Mark and I missed you for sure. Things in the DW camp are moving along nicely. As you might know from our Facebook reports, we were recently tapped to do a song for a Yes cover CD coming out - probably next year. We have been working diligently on it; in case you're wondering, we're doing the song "Changes." It will certainly be a fun song to listen to when it's done. Lots of "Changes" so it won't sound like a dull rip-off. And once again our drum maestro Mike Ian will be helping us out!

On the DW original music front, things are going very well. The sophomore release is going to sound a lot different from our debut CD (which you can still get copies of - hint, hint). Overall, the stuff we're coming up with is sounding a lot edgier and less symphonic. Compound time signatures are still in full effect, and the twists and turns are getting a little more extreme. I have to say, it's quite an exciting time in the Din Within trenches.

I have no idea when we'll be ready to start on artwork or final recording or anything of that nature, but every writing session lately has been very productive and is pushing us every closer to a final product.

Thanks to you all for your support. Long live prog!

2010 Looks Promising

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Well, considering I can't hear your answers I'll just pick for myself. Two bits of good news that we can share with you:

1. Din Within has been selected to record a track for an upcoming YES Tribute album which should be released late this year on Italian label "Mellow Records." We're breaking the traditional mold and doing a "newer" song - "Changes" from 90125, with some twists, of course.
2. Progress is being made on the sophomore DW CD. One song's music and its lyrical concept is in the can, and we've made significant progress on several others. I suspect that we're going to move much quicker than our debut CD.

For the bit of bad news; Scott Lewis will not be participating in Din Within anymore. Though it was short-lived, Mark and I are thankful for the time we had Scott on board with us. The three of us still remain the best of friends (going on 20+ years now) and will support each other's musical endeavors.

Where Have You Been?

Man, has it been this long since we've written a blog post? So sorry, everyone; sometimes we get so wrapped up in everyday life we forget that some of you may want to know what we're up to.

DW has been relatively productive the past few weeks. Seems like it's been a bit hard for the three of us to get together consistently lately but whatever combination of us gets together during a particular week has proven fruitful.

I think the biggest problem we've been having lately has been our ability to focus on one piece of music. We have so many musical ideas floating around in the air - and many new ones being developed every week - our writing efforts have definitely been schizophrenic. I'm not exactly sure if there is a solution to that, and a part of me isn't sure finding a solution to that is even a good idea. In some respects it's bad, obviously, as it sometimes gives off the perception that we're not accomplishing anything; in other respects, however, it's great because it allows us a lot of freedom to get our creative juices flowing.

I also think we're still trying to figure out how the three of us work together as a unit. Mark and Scott have been playing together literally for 20+ years. Mark and I have been working together for about 7 or 8. Scott and I have never really worked together in an official capacity, and the three of us - short of the occasional jam session - have never worked together as a trio, either. Our three musical styles in all areas (talents, writing style, influences, playing) are completely different from each other. Although I firmly believe we all compliment each other very well musically, it sometimes also takes a while for us to catch on to another's vibe and be able to contribute. All in all it's a great musical learning experience. Don't think of that negatively, either... I don't want to give off the impression that I'm complaining or anything like that. If anything I'm very encouraged and excited to have so many musical options to play with.

Right now we have a "prog pop" song almost completely finished - I would say about 97%. We also have a metal song about 70% done. Though they definitely have the DW sound on them, these songs are definitely not typical DW fodder. The question then becomes, "What do we do with them?" I'm not sure I can answer that just yet. We've been tossing around the idea of releasing them all independently under different project names (a metal CD, a "typcial" DW CD, and perhaps one or two others), or maybe putting them all under the DW moniker and letting you guys sort out how to classify them. I don't know how the DW brand for lack of a better term would be affected by releasing a metal CD. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we have enough material written for an entire CD. In the meantime, we'll keep plugging away, trying to push ourselves to write music we all want to hear.

The Writing Begins

Last week, Mark and Scott continued to work on the song we started. I wasn't able to make it to our writing session, but Mark and Scott were digging what they came up with, so I'm looking forward to hearing what they did.

It's funny how ideas sometimes come to fruition. I was at the local Guitar Center with Scott to buy a new mic cable. Of course, I can't just go into the store, buy the cable, and leave. I have to walk around a bit and expand on my mental G.A.S. list. So there I was, sitting down in front of the Korg Oasys synth workstation. I chose a simple pad patch and threw my right hand down into some semblance of a chord. Wouldn't you know it, but the stars aligned perfectly from just laying my hands down and I played a very interesting group of notes. Intrigued, I then began to work out a slow-moving bass line. I was really digging how it sounded. I certainly didn't want to forget this new idea, so I pulled out the ol' Blackberry and wrote the chords and bass line out in the memo pad. When I got home I wanted to record this idea into SONAR so I wouldn't lose it. That's when all of the fun began.

I should preface this by saying that music technology and I don't get along... at all. I don't understand it, I don't want to understand it, and quite frankly if I am spending a lot of money on it, I should just be able to plug it in and have it work. This is never my luck, however. My MIDI interface — the unit that interfaces my synth with my computer — decided to take a crap on me. It worked one second, it didn't the next; you get the idea. Only other musicians can relate to the frustration of having their creativity stifled due to some overpriced piece of crap that becomes obsolete a month after its released for sale.

So after a few very painful hours, got the interface to work, and then recorded the basic idea for posterity. Yea for me!

Mark came over last night to check out some of the archive material I had, and wouldn't you know it the damn interface was broken again. It took us about 30 more minutes to finally say "F*!$ It" and stop trying to fix that which cannot be fixed. On a whim I pulled out my old $50 MIDI interface (that I wasn't even sure I had) and wouldn't you know the damn thing worked as soon as I plugged it in. Ain't technology wonderful.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I was able to play the idea from Guitar Center for Mark, and not only did he like it, but he immediately sat down in front of the synth and wrote two other parts that really work well. That, of course, prompted me to quickly write a nice lead guitar line, and we're off to the races again. I love it when ides work like that.

I was also able to play a few more ideas for Mark that he said he has other ideas for, so I'm going to bring them to his house next week and see if they work. Right now it looks like we have three songs in the works at the same time, which is quite good considering we just started writing again two weeks ago.

We're Baaaaaaaaack!

Happy New Year, everyone! I realize it’s been a VERY long time since we last updated you, and I’m sure you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for the life-altering wisdom we impart here. (Yeah, whatever.) That being said, here is what’s going on.

First and foremost, as Mark stated on the main page of our site, I got married in September ’08. It was a beautiful day and I couldn’t be happier. The wedding and subsequent immigration paperwork (my wife is Thai) took up pretty much all of my free time for a number of months after the wedding. All of the paperwork has been submitted, and now we’re just waiting to hear from the gov’t that everything is finalized. Wish us luck.

On a slightly sad note, I had not been playing much guitar lately until very recently. Life just gets in the way sometimes, ya know? I have been training very hard in my martial arts, and I have been learning how to speak, read, and write Thai to impress the in-laws when we visit Thailand. Add to that working a full-time job and several side-jobs, and it makes for a very busy person. My guitar teacher, Scott McGill, inarguably (in my opinion) the greatest guitar player alive today, moved to the UK to pursue a teaching position at the BIMM music school. I’m extremely happy for him, as he seems to be thriving there, but it’s a huge loss for me because I have no one kicking my ass to practice now. If Mark will allow some indulgence, please check out and support Scott’s music – www.scottmcgill.com.

But, 2009 is a new year, and with it comes a slew of resolutions. My music-related resolutions for the New Year? Finish my jazz quintet’s debut CD, play more guitar than I have in the latter half of ’08, and… drum roll, please… work on new Din Within material! At least one of those resolutions has begun thus far; Mark and I started getting together again to work on new material.

The biggest news for 2009, however, is one that I’m most excited about. That is the addition of a third songwriting partner! Our close friend, Scott Lewis, has been joining us for the last few writing sessions, and so far things are going very well (more on that later.) For those of you who attended Woodspock III last year, you will remember Scott as the “other” guitarist who also sang lead vocals on our cover of the Kamelot song “The Human Stain.” Scott is a ridiculously-talented guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is a never-ending font of musical ideas and always original. Having another guitar player in the mix should also create an interesting dynamic. It will absolutely kick my ass and get me to start practicing again for one thing, but it will also allow me to think about songwriting in a different way than I’m used to. I’ve never been in a writing project with another guitar player before. I wonder how many dual-guitar harmonized leads we’re going to end up writing. Sorry, Mark!

We have no idea if the music the three of us come up with will be branded as “Din Within” music or not, but the way Mark and I set up our writing relationship, it really doesn’t matter. As long as we’re writing music together, it doesn’t matter if it’s prog rock, ballads, or death metal. The music is what the music is. If it happens to get branded as a Din Within song, great! If not, we’ll put it in another bucket, give it another name, and continue to write. I have no doubt that another DW CD is forthcoming; don’t be surprised, however, if you also get some additional material from us. I know for a fact that Scott and I have a few metal riffs floating around that I would love to finish and put out.

Anyway…

It’s funny, having been away from music and writing with Mark for a while. We always start out by browsing through the hundreds of snippets of music, lyrics, riffs, etc… to find something that catches our ear to start working on. Some of the music we have “on file” has been around for 20+ years! Some of it sounds very familiar, while some of the stuff I had forgotten about and sounds like it was written yesterday. I guess the good news is that we both still have a lot of ideas filed away that we want to work on, so at least for now there will be no shortage of starting points for new material.

The first thing we started working on is tentatively titled “Undertow.” It’s a piano/vocal idea that Mark and I came up with about two years ago. At first it was going to be a more brooding, mellow type of piece, but Scott came in with a few heavy-groove guitar riffs that we started working on, and we think they just may fit together very well, so Undertow may undergo an interesting transformation.

As for jazz, I mentioned the quintet CD. My biggest goal in life now is to learn to play jazz. I have been pursuing this dream for a few years now, and I don’t mind telling you that it’s very hard. Having played rock/metal guitar for over twenty years and accumulating a plethora of habits (both good and bad) it’s incredibly frustrating sometimes. I can hear it in my head; I just can’t get it to my fingers. I know I’m not the only one with this problem, and hopefully my stubborn determination will win out. I’ll be headed back into the studio shortly to finish up the CD and it will certainly be available in some capacity to the public. Not sure if it will be a fully-pressed package or anything like that, so we’ll see what happens.

That’s it for now, folks. I’ll encourage Mark to give an update when he can. He’s very busy with his job, which gives me a perfect segue to plug his business as well. Gollihur Music is, in my not-so-humble opinion, THE only place to go for upright bass equipment. Even as a guitar player I’ve gotten lots of equipment and information from them. If you know a bass player, please send them along to the GM website. See you soon!

P.S. If anyone feels so inclined, I'd really love one of these!