“The Sidewalk Is Alive” was released today and can be downloaded along with the other songs. The song is not available for streaming at present. I’m troubleshooting this.

Gymshoes

With Ronnie’s birthday the 21 and mine the 28th, we suggested Marty pick a day so we could all celebrate birthdays together. He chose today. Happy birthday, Marty! Party, party, party!

Gymshoes

The first Undead Monkey songs were released today: “Waiting For My Time”, “Incandescent Life” and “Cartoon Ninja Girls”. See the Download page for the link and licensing info. You can leave comments on the songs on the individual song pages. (See sidebar.)

Enjoy!

Undead Monkey

Ronnie turned the tagging and releasing task over to me. I’m tagging “Waiting For My Time” and “Incandescent Life” in preparation for releasing them into the wild. I’ll upload them to archive.org tomorrow. Any changes or additions you want to make to the tags, speak now or forever hold your peace! (See posts/comments on individual songs above for the current tag lists.)

The first two Undead songs will be released tomorrow!

Gymshoes

I just discovered by accident that one of our Monkeys had a birthday last week. (I tracked a referrer link back to your family blog, Ron.) Which day was it? Friday, Saturday? I’ve got a birthday coming up near the end of the month, myself. Anyone know when Hock’s birthday is? Any chance we’ll be three-for-three on September birthdays?

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Ronnie! (Just be happy I’m not singing it!)

Gymshoes

Ok

2 things,

1. HOw do we feel about releasing music for podcasts? I talked to Tony from the homemade hit show this morninig. I have been featureed a few times on his podcast and he is looking forward to hearing from us.
2. Are we ready to make a “Finished Songs ” Download page? I think we have 3 songs ready for our public. Waiting, Incondessant and Ninja girls. Mrs Green could go out as a male vocal but I am waiting for my cousin to get her act together.

Ronnie

As Ronnie reminded me in a comment…next Tuesday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. It’s only fitting that we should mention it here since the site and band name was derived from the second Pirates of the Carribean movie. (“Where is that monkey? I want to shoot something.”) Arrh! Shiver me timbers! Pieces of eight! Gold doubloons! Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Gymshoes

A lot of our discussion seem to revolve around mixing and a couple of times it’s been noted how different songs sound depending on what you’re using to listen to them. IMHO, we will never get a mix that sounds good no matter who hears it or what sort of earphones or system they hear it on.

I’ve been through all this before when I first started making Gymshoes music. I mixed everything, was delightd with the mix, burned it to disk, put it on the stereo in the living room and was horrified at how it sounded. It was then I discovered that my soundcard wasn’t rendering the bass range accurately; there were all sorts of low booming digital artifacts that I’d never heard before. OK, so I mixed it all a gazillion times, waste more disks listening to it on the stereo, get it the way I want it there, play it on two other people’s stereos and…you guessed it. It didn’t sound as good as on mine (and I don’t have a real high-end stereo, either). I’ve got a digital music player now and earbuds. Again, everything sounds slightly different when it’s compressed and pumped through the earbuds. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, always different. Needless to say different on the car stereo, too.

I’ve finally come to the conclusion that you can’t mix a song so that it sounds exactly the same no matter what device it’s played through, no matter what format you use (CD, mp3, Wmv). You try for a balanced mix and have to know when to quit fiddling with it because it you mix it to sound good on one player, you can screw up the mix for another.

So, why don’t I notice this with all my albums? Uh, I do—if I stop and really think about it and listen to it. The difference is that I automatically accept and mentally compensate for, say, U2 songs sounding different depending on where I play them. Well mixed on the stereo, not in the car, kinda U2 “lite” on my mp3 player, etc. With my own songs, I’m listening very critically and evaluating every time I play them, no matter what I play them on. I’ve sort of trained myself not to notice how mp3s don’t don’t sound as good as my stereo—for everyone else’s music, but for my own music I hear every single difference from one player/earphones/speakers/soundcard to the other.

What I suppose we need to go for is a consensus mix for songs. Go for the mix that sounds good on the most devices/speakers etc, to the most people. If we try to mix songs so that they sound the same no matter where we play them, we’ll drive ourselves crazy.

Gymshoes

A few things we Undead need to think about and discuss as various songs inch closer to completion.
Do we all want the album title “A Matter Of Life And Death”?

This title is one that I came up with when Ronnie and I were talking about “Icing” and “Waiting For My Time” as Undead projects. It’s part of the reason I added songs like “Incandescent Life” and Sellafield Bakery” to the Ongoing Project list. The question is are you good with this title? No one has objected or suggested a different title, but I thought I should ask. I want to make sure I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes. (It’s a fine line between being an Enthusiastic Instagator and being a Pushy Bitch. )

Do you think all the songs listed on the Ongoing Projects page—or at least the half dozen we’re working on—fit into this project? Or do you think some of them should be put into a different “album”?

Do we want to make project/album page(s) at archive.org and add songs as they are finished? Or wait and upload a complete “album” when we have a set of songs finished?

My own thoughts:

I like the title “A Matter Of Life And Death”. I think it plays off the band name Undead Monkey pretty well. It fits some of the material rather nicely too.

As for whether all the songs listed on the Ongoing Projects page belong on this “album” or another, I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. That’s why I’m asking: I’m not sure. This question/answer sort of ties into the next question.
I lean toward adding songs as they’re finished to a project/album page at archive.org, rather than waiting until we have a “set”. I typically wait until I have a set of songs to release Gymshoes music, but I have to say I’m not completely satisfied with that decision. It sometimes takes a long time (too long!) before people get to hear new music from me. I do it that way because I want to make somewhat cohesive collections of music. Releasing songs as they’re finished, but releasing them into a specific project/album on archive.org seems in some ways the best of both worlds. We can put together sets of songs that linked musically or thematically and yet at the same time release new music fairly regularly, thereby keeping interest up among listeners who may forget about us in the time it takes to put together an album of music.

So, what do you all think? Album Title? Songs included in the album? Release songs singly or as a set/album?

Gymshoes