All Kinds of things I like, or Recommendations.

I’ve noticed my post “To Goth or Not to Goth” gets a fair amount of views. I think this is because it comes up as a random related post. Anyway, I figured I’d recommend this book “Gothic Charm School” by Jillian Venters. It is funny, well written, and fantastic. The website is almost even better. Funny in this case, means the Lady of Manners is very witty. I’m laughing with her, in other words. It also says what I was trying to say in that Goth/notGoth post better than I could. Add Pride and Prejudice…and Zombies and Varney the Vampire, and you’ll see why I’m not done with Halloween just yet.

Full disclosure: our good friend Ryan turned me onto to Gothic Charm School. Ryan will always instantly win any which of our friends has the best car conversation: He drives a powder blue Cadillac hearse, so he wins.

Musically, I linked this on Facebook, but Giovanni Sollima is incredible. I heard Umberto Clerici, also amazing, give an outstanding performance of Sollima’s Alone (go to Umberto’s site. Got to the mp3 section. Alone is at the bottom of the page). Highly, Highly, recommended…you’ll know who I’ve been ripping off next time you see Valentine Wolfe if you check them out.

In searching for recording of Alone, I came across Mario Brunello, a cellist that does fascinating things with the cello and sacred music. He’s classified as jazz in itunes, so I’m relieved to find out that the whole “if we have no idea what the hell to call it, its jazz” school of classification is still alive and well.  I’ve been listening to Violoncello And.

And we’ve also got the new Rammstein. Sadly, we just got the standard packaging, meaning you’ll have to find someone else with the…um, realistic packaging. R+ might be the closest thing to dadaism in music going today. Will you like it? I think if you like Rammstein, you will. There is a subtle evolution happening here, and one I’ll discuss later.

So get clicking…you have tons of media to get through!

Life at the HQ…

So, currently, I’m taking the day off. October was a Grind! We survived, and dare I say, thrived.

I’ve stopped taking the laptop to shows…this happened this past summer, but any doubts I had were erased by the shows this fall: Sound check takes us less than 5 minutes, if done right. It is hard for me to get used to be the quietest thing onstage, and for the first time, I found myself missing the body of the double bass…the resonance feels totally different from bass to bass. In a perfect world, I’d commission a semi electric 5 string version of my Jackstadt-but with smaller shoulders. I love being able to reach everything on the Steinberger!

We’ve also learned that we need to set volume in this order: backing tracks, vocals, bass to taste.The only drag is that the ipod can be quite uncooperative, and is oblivious to our requests for a more cooperative attitude. Perhaps it is time for another Intercessional Philhorrific Orchestra of Doom. Time and our budget will tell.

Our next orders of business include releasing Kissing Twilight and When Love Decays, and then working on new songs. November will be a hard month for all things Valentine Wolfe, as real life will be making several intrusions (including me playing a musical). But what we might lack in show dates, we’ll make up for in online activities, and new recordings. We tried several experiments with our live shows, and we liked some things, didn’t like some things, and we’re eager to try out some things we didn’t get around to.

For today, the only work I’ll be doing is figuring out what best snack to pair with my xbox games.

We’ll be back tomorrow.

A moment in the storm…

So, I’m sitting on my couch, listening to Tom Waits, and drinking tea. There’s a marathon orchestra rehearsal tonight, and I think the weight of my triple lives sometimes is catching up with me these days.

But not right now. Right now, I’m sitting on my couch, listening to Tom Waits, and drinking tea.

I’d also like to share this with you: Quigley’s Cabinet. This has become one of my favorite, must read, must see web destinations. Check it out.

-Bo

Emilie Autumn recap

We went to the Emilie Autumn show in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, but haven’t said anything about it online yet. So I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss how lovely Emilie’s ladies are. I got a chance to talk to Veronica and Maggots after the show and they were both very sweet. Maggots was drinking straight out of a bottle of mead and Veronice said,

“Hey! That was a present for me!”

Maggots just smiled sweetly and kept swigging.

The show went very well and I loved the set. They had a Fargate! Not the actual one from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but something that looked eerily similar. It was hilarious!

Also, I loved all the costumes. There were beautiful corsets and stockings and bustles all over the place! And I loved it that most everyone in the audience had dressed up for the show as well. Emilie’s voice was beautiful, and her bloody crumpets sang sweetly as well. A good time was had by me, and I will look forward to hearing more music by her.

 

Posted by Sarah

The Mistress of Macabre Prepares for Halloween…

Not to get into digital vs. analog debate but…

Why do so many new records sound like absolute crap?  I love digital recording, and technology makes Valentine Wolfe possible. So, this isn’t a typical “digital sucks” type rant…

No, mostly, its two basic observations: Louder isn’t always better. In fact, many of the reference recordings I use these days are pretty quiet, relatively speaking. The only REALLY loud disks I reference these days are Nightwish’s albums from Century Child on (on a side note…that band got SO much better when Marco joined. These days, I’d say I’m less of a Nightwish fan and more of a Marco fan).

And observation 2: Digital Distortion is not the same an Analog distortion. Seems simple, no? Funny how artists from Rush to Metallica don’t seem to get that. Lars was right, Death Magnetic IS how bands make records these days. Which isn’t a good thing at all. I find it difficult to grasp that in the ProTools era, people would be fine with clipping and the hideous sounds digital zero.

This is one of the many reasons I LOVE my Apogee Duet: level setting is really easy. Headroom abounds, and this is a good thing, especially in the digital era. One of the biggest problems Valentine Wolfe had in our earlier shows and recordings was that we kept making things too loud…we’d squash the headroom right out of what we were doing.

I can’t think of any examples other than Vapor Trails right now, but there are some bands and recordings I can’t listen to anymore because the sonic quality is simply awful (I haven’t bought Death Magnetic for this very reason). Anybody else notice he same thing?