t.o.t.s.land » Making: T.R.O.T.W. http://www.totsland.net taking over the stereo Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:03:09 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 13: http://www.totsland.net/2008/07/14/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-13/ http://www.totsland.net/2008/07/14/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-13/#comments Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:58:37 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2008/07/14/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-13/ Mistakes not to make while recording… and the benefits of listening to your brother.
So for the past 18 months we’ve been recording the new t.o.t.s. album. I don’t like to play live or practice while I’m recording… it’s hard enough for me to focus on recording t.o.t.s. and playing with two other acts to have it all happening at once. That’s me though… and it was a totally fucked decision. Turns out the rest of the band HAS wanted to play and practice while working on the recording… my brother in particular expressed this to me and honestly, I felt like a real asshole. As a result, we’ve moved into record/practice mode right now and I have to admit, I couldn’t be happier. The current line up of Blight, Lars, Ericah and myself is EPIC. Without ANY reservations I can safely say that this is the absolute strongest lineup that t.o.t.s. has ever had. This hasn’t been really evident to me up until now.. we usually record in pairs or individually so all four of us aren’t ever present while in the studio recording (another mistake but with a decent chunk of material left to record this will be changed). Anyway… the practice sessions have been amazing. The combination of personality types in the same room working on these songs has taken them all to new heights, old tracks and new. There’s no way I could possibly convey my enthusiasm adequately in this post, but I promise promise PROMISE you, you will see it on the stage and on the new release (whenever we’re done!).

A follow up on the mobile blogging dealio I mentioned in the previous post… I built a new site www.chvad.com that is loosely based around the ideas mentioned above. It’s structured around utterz, wordpress, blip and flickr. The site isn’t really band related… more of a personal site for me and updated via mobile almost 90% of the time. Experiences, images, videos, whatever.. sometimes art related sometimes just shit with friends. It’s got information about all the other stuff I’m into and will eventually get a little more filled up and organized. I’m slowly noodling with it so we’ll see what happens.

Lights lights lights…
I am considering moving my current lighting platform over to a PC based solution to consolidate what we have to deal with live a little better. I’ve always been into lighting but this could potentially be a pretty costly endeavor so I’m moving slow…

In other non-t.o.t.s. news:
We’ve finally found a drummer for The Qualia (Chvad on synths) and we’ve bumped up the practice time a lot for this act so The Qualia should be performing live pretty soon in NYC and surrounding areas. More on this and shows dates when they happen…
Mr. 1234 (formally The 1234, Chvad on guitar) has booked a couple of private shows to test out our new lineup. Of the three acts, Mr. 1234 will probably be the first out of the gate to resume playing live.

When the doors open it’s going to be a floodgate of live shows around the east coast for all three acts.

That’s it for now.. I’m sure there’s lots of other shit to mentioned but there’s always another post.

Rock!
Chvad

PS… you punks better be reading Blight’s bizarro clown comic!!!!
http://blightproductions.wordpress.com

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2008/07/14/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-13/feed/ 1 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 12: http://www.totsland.net/2008/04/27/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-12/ http://www.totsland.net/2008/04/27/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-12/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:28:53 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2008/04/27/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-12/ Mobile tech and t.o.t.s….
So while the CD is still being slaved over I decided to take a break from it this weekend to work on new tech for t.o.t.s.. Basically, I’ve been looking for ways to integrate news distribution for t.o.t.s. and thanks to a wicked new service www.utterz.com I’m one HUGE step closer. This is seriously cool. With one transmission either from a computer or phone I can send audio, video, still images and text to a number of resources I frequently update including wordpress, flickr, youtube, myspace, yahoo groups, livejournal, facebook, twitter and more. I’d love to just have one source of info distro to cater towards but it’s a HUGE assumption to make that anyone, even a fan, would like to go out of their way to get info on your project. That being said I believe that a sound promotional strategy in ANY medium is to be as omni-present as humanly possible. This certainly helps. This ALSO has the great benefit of being timely as it’s integrated intimately with mobile tech. If you are on the road, you can easily keep a steady flow of band/art related content happening from where you are without any extra gear… just a phone. Show updates… news to the fans, cancellations, cool pics from the stage.. WHATEVER. I’m WAY excited about using this on the next tour.

Just a short update this time…

Rock!
Chvad

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2008/04/27/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-12/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 11: http://www.totsland.net/2008/04/12/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-11/ http://www.totsland.net/2008/04/12/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-11/#comments Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:05:48 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2008/04/12/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-11/ HAHAHAHHHAHAA!!!!! Finished a new track today.. “Whatever Happened to Carson”. I’m fucking jazzed about this song. Everything worked out perfectly on it. This fucker has been a sword in my side for a while. A lot of guitars and a lot of ebow action… and that was the problem. i needed some new stuffs to make the tone of the geetar perfect and the tech21 reverb worked like a charm.
Still a lot of work left to go but there’s a shit load of tracks waiting to get mixed so… baby steps and all.. the CD is coming along nicely.

Finished the mix with a bad case of SHINGLES BTW. Shit hurts… More on that HERE.
That’s it.. now it’s off to get my character up to level 60 in Mass Effect!

-chvad

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2008/04/12/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-11/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 10: http://www.totsland.net/2008/03/14/in-the-making-tots-trotw-post-10/ http://www.totsland.net/2008/03/14/in-the-making-tots-trotw-post-10/#comments Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:58:05 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2008/03/14/in-the-making-tots-trotw-post-10/ In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 10:

So it’s been a bit since the last update… I’m not even sure where to begin. We’ve made some great progress on the “The Return of the Wetlands” but as usual there is still more to go and again, as usual I’ve managed to occupy my time with way too much stuff. As the album currently stands, there are 4 completely wrapped tracks, another two that should be done as of this weekend and a group of others in various stages of development.

Time time time… working on bringing The Qualia to the stage has been long and challenging so far and has also occupied a great deal of time. Also.. to make matters even more dense, the other band I play in “Mr. 1234″ has resumed practice again after a brief hiatus. Working in both bands in addition to t.o.t.s. is both a good and bad thing. Good in that I am always engaged differently… bad in that time is extremely critical now more than ever due to there being less of it available. I am also working on yet another soundtrack for another indie horror short… the good news is that these tracks will be rearranged into material for “The Return of the Wetlands”…. that’s pretty exciting for me because I’ve been wanting to do some material like this for a while and haven’t had the need to push myself to try it out. It works REALLY well in my opinion and the couple of tracks this soundtrack has inspired for t.o.t.s. are pretty fucking cool.

To make matters even more dense, I am now writing equipment reviews for a magazine in NYC, LA and SF called “The Deli”. ALSO… I have started to design a new product that will be useful for musicians of all kinds. I have had a couple of development meetings with a few engineers that are interested in helping me develop the item. I don’t know how realistic it is right now to assume it will actually be made but I’m trying. Aside from that, I agreed to build a new website for my friend and AMAZING horror comic artist Jeff Zornow. Id’ do it anyway because he’s a cool guy but we’re working this out in trade for some art for “The Return of the Wetlands”… I now know no matter how bad the CD will be, the art will be EPIC people. This guy is bad ass… here’s a sample of a recent shirt design he’s made:

About doing stuff aside of t.o.t.s. and how it affects (or how i BELIEVE it affects) t.o.t.s.: It’s always been my belief that being omni-present is the best way to deal with promotion. Even though my playing with other bands like The Qualia and Mr. 1234 doesn’t directly push t.o.t.s. anywhere or get the album done faster, it will ultimately place ME in more locations at once… eventually. The more places I am, the more places t.o.t.s. is.. in terms of exposure, contacts and overall “viewability”. The other bands successes by proxy become my own in an indirect fashion. Same with working on film projects, soundtracks, reviews, etc etc etc.. My writing an article for Martin got me an invite to write for another magazine that now gets me more exposure… so how does that NOT affect t.o.t.s.? Maybe having all of this going on alongside the album writing process isn’t the best timing but beggars can’t be choosers… being omni-present ain’t easy.

Anyway… aside from all this shit, this past week I’ve been noodling with a bizarre t-shirt idea inspired by a nightmare my girlfriend had last week that I am now going to use an excuse to test out a new company for manufacturing t-shirts. If they look cool I may use them for a new batch of reasonably priced t.o.t.s. merch. Similar to the Cafe Press business model of “made to order” products but with what I consider to be a potentially superior product and far superior prices. They are called www.spreadshirt.com and I’d recommend any other bands to check them out… this is the first shirt design:

It can be ordered HERE.

That’s it for now…

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2008/03/14/in-the-making-tots-trotw-post-10/feed/ 0 Trying to get this shit done… http://www.totsland.net/2008/02/12/trying-to-get-this-shit-done/ http://www.totsland.net/2008/02/12/trying-to-get-this-shit-done/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:00:05 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2008/02/12/trying-to-get-this-shit-done/

Trying to get this shit done…

Been one year and one month on this next release… I JUST breached the halfway point. If someone sees the next road sign gimme a heads up.

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2008/02/12/trying-to-get-this-shit-done/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 9: http://www.totsland.net/2007/12/19/55/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/12/19/55/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:04:20 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/12/19/55/ Got a little side-tracked from the new t.o.t.s. disc for a bit with Blight’s “A Clown Carol”. I *just* finished the original score for this short… I think I started it just a day or so after the shoot. The entire score was composed using RGC Audio’s SFZ+ VST in SONAR 4 using only free soundfonts from various sources on the net.You can see the first trailer for the short here:
[FLASH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMypvi5_a54 w=180 h=220]
Unfortunately there is no music in the trailer but eventually after the film screens it’ll be online shortly afterwards.

Screening dates in NYC:
December 21-22 at 7:30 PM
December 23 at 5 PM
December 27-29 at 7:30 PM

The Gene Frankel Theater
24 Bond St
NYC , New York|33 10011
Cost: 15.00

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/12/19/55/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 8 http://www.totsland.net/2007/12/03/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-8/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/12/03/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-8/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:25:16 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/12/03/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-8/ So a lot’s been going on this past week…

Big Apple Underground – Winter Wasteland Compilation:
Martin Atkins is back in NYC next week doing a lecture for Tour Smart and I was asked to help promote the event and possibly help out with the night. I offered to run the merch table in exchange for the ability to hand out t.o.t.s. promo stuff along with all merch sold. So, I needed something last minute to give away so I decided to create a last minute promo compilation. The compilation is a quick assembly of acts I’m directly involved with to some degree or another… t.o.t.s., The Qualia, Hate in the Box and Mr. 1234. Two tracks were supplied by each act. Got the news about the lecture at 10:00 PM Sunday, by 2:00 AM Monday morning the comp was ready for production and a website supporting the compilation was thrown together. There will only be 100 copies of the compilation made and they will be free to anyone at Martin’s Seminar on Monday, December 10th @ 5:00PM. The seminar will be held at Lit Lounge @ 93 2nd Avenue, NYC. For more info on the “Big Apple Underground: Winter Wasteland Compilation” check out:
www.bigappleunderground.darksonus.com.

The Ghost of Adrenalinn Past:
After seeing the Adrenalinn pedal in action during our many Qualia practices in the past few weeks I decided I needed one for t.o.t.s. and so I wrote to a random post on the San Francisco Craigslist. When I got a reply from the seller it turns out we knew each other from 11 some years ago. His band Family Auto Group had opened for the pre-t.o.t.s. band “Blood in Vain” at a show I produced back in 1996 and we had performed together again later for an experimental one-off called “Elohim” in ’97. After chatting a bit we’ve decided to start shooting some material back and forth. I have no idea what the end results are going to sound like but aside from playing in 3 bands right now, working on the new CD and a new soundtrack… why wouldn’t I start up a new project? This is precisely why we need a good manager… I apparently have massive ADD or something. Oh and the pedal is on the way :).
Clowns of Xmas Future:
Just finished production on Blights new film this weekend, a bizarre rendition of A Christmas Carol… with a cast of clowns! The shoot ran about 16 hours this past Saturday and will probably occupy a good deal of time in post. Blight directed the film and will be handling all of the CGI, compositing and editing for the project. I did all the live sound and will be composing the score this week. Other past t.o.t.s. contributors were in on the fun… Elias (BiFF JUGGERNAUT films) was on the set cast as one of the clowns, Rainbow Blight (Hate in the Box) handled all the make-up chores and also appeared briefly on screen, Jerrod (director of the recent film Marathon that featured t.o.t.s. music) handled all the AD work and turned in a great performance and Kalin was behind the camera once again… you’ve seen Kalin’s handy work on the recent t.o.t.s. photos. The guy is awesome. Anyway… you’ll be hearing a lot about this film as post-production continues.

That’s about it for now… that and I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out an excellent way to restructure the entire recording industry. I’m writing notes on that as we speak. It’ll probably end up as an article on DarkSonus sooner or later. I’ve already got some programming pals o’ mine working on a potential interface to test out the idea.

rock!
-chvad

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/12/03/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-8/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 7 http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/25/test/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/25/test/#comments Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:06:21 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/11/25/test/ There’s a whole lot of stuff that gets made that never sees the light of day… Brainstorm sessions, scratch ideas, the results of experimenting with new gear etc… I’ve decided to post all of these during the making of “The Return of the Wetlands”. What parts of these, if any, will see the light of day I have no idea.
tots_scrtchdsk_20071125:
[FLASH http://www.outside-the-skin.com/tots/audio/TROTWL_blog_audio/tots_20071125.mp3 w=200 h=40]

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/25/test/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 6 http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/15/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-6/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/15/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-6/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:02:31 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/11/15/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-6/ Finally got a chance to do the news letter day before yesterday. Ultimately, to cover all the sites I usually post on, it took about 3 hours from start to finish. This time also includes getting screen captures from the new t.o.t.s. Second Life endeavor and getting new merch coded into our online store. Yesterday I knocked out a review for DarkSonus and spent the rest of the evening troubleshooting the equipment we’ll be using for Qualia performances.

Started looking into new lighting gear for t.o.t.s. today and submitted an application for NXNW.

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/15/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-6/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 5 http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/11/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-5/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/11/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-5/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:28:06 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/11/11/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-5/ Finished up the SMP remix today. I wound up recording new guitars, drums and synths for the track. Instruments used: Alesis Ion, CS6x, GURU, Sonar (ver. 4) and the Eastwood Delta 6.

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/11/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-5/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 4 http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/10/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3-2/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/10/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3-2/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:16:37 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/11/10/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3-2/ Got most of the way through the remix of “Metropolis” for SMP today. Still a few things to tweak but I hope to have it finished by tomorrow afternoon. I’ve been working on it for the past 12 hours and I’m kinda burnt right now so I’m letting the rest sit for tonight.

It looks like one of our already completed tracks from “The Return of the Wetlands” called “When the Ghosts Have Died” will be used in a new Burlesque documentary. Nothing has been set it stone yet but I got confirmation today that the producers are interested in using the track. More on that as it happens. “When the Ghosts Have Died” got a sneak release on a DJ only compilation earlier this year as well.

I also confirmed today that t.o.t.s. will be submitting material to another compilation, this time “Negative Impact Vol.3″. though I’m not sure what music will be submitted to this yet.

While working on the last t.o.t.s. CD “You Knew It All Along” I wound up releasing almost every track on the CD through a compilation prior to the CD’s actual release. I think that was mainly due to the fucking thing taking far to long to complete resulting in me struggling to keep some kind of exposure for the band so we didn’t drift away from everyone’s consciousness. I’m definately not PLANNING on a similar scenario for the release we’re currently working on though with 2 compilations already released and a 3rd on the way it would seem that we’re headed down the same path. We’ll see.

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/10/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3-2/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 3 http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/08/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/08/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:27:30 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/11/08/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3/ I went out to a store and picked up a Behringer “Slow Motion” guitar pedal tonight. I’ve been looking for a cheap Boss “Slow Gear” or Guyatone Slow Volume pedal but neither are too cheap. Came home, plugged it in and fucked with it for awhile… not really happy with it so I’ll be returning it tomorrow. The release on the pedal isn’t long enough for what I wanted, it’s real picky about sending loud signals through it and it muddied up the tone a bit. After that I spent most of this evening still going through the finer details of the drum sequencer GURU and the Yamaha CS6x…. later playing around with the SMP remix a bit more. I’ll probably use these two to finish off the remaining bits of the remix this weekend. I won’t get a chance to do anything with this stuff until Friday though as Qualia practice is scheduled for Thursday. I really should have programmed more shit for Thursday as there’s still a lot of work to do Qualia wise but time is kinda crunched. Gonna crash early tonight to get some sleep. Not a lot of t.o.t.s. info here tonight and I’ve got a cumulative news blast to write for the t.o.t.s. email list but haven’t had a second to do it.
-Chvad

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/08/in-the-making-tots-%e2%80%9ctrotw%e2%80%9d-post-3/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “TROTW”. Post 2. http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/06/in-the-making-tots-return-of-the-wetlands-2/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/06/in-the-making-tots-return-of-the-wetlands-2/#comments Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:36:19 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/11/06/in-the-making-tots-return-of-the-wetlands-2/ Last week I purchased FXpansion’s GURU. I was feeling frustrated at my current drum application (Taureg 2) and wasn’t feeling very inspired. I really loved the GURU demo and I so bought it. I’ve been fucking around with GURU mainly on the SMP remix right now. I’ve pulled most of the original elements from the track and recorded new guitars. Not heavy stuff… that was way too obvious for the track. So I busted out the dobro and recorded some stuff with that. So far so good but the drums are far from any I can use right now. Problem is, Jason records GREAT drums so I need to bring something different to the table.

Last Sunday I re-recorded bass parts for the track “Menacing Sky”. This is probably the most developed of the unfinished batch of songs right now and it’s been sitting around the longest. The bass was kind of muddy and after recording the bass lines for another track the week earlier I came across a tone I thought sounded wicked for his bass and wanted to re-record this track again. Basically, his bass is recorded directly into and out of a Studio Projects VTB1 tube mic pre and straight into the computer. Sounds great. In general this song has sounded really cluttered to me but after seeing the Jesu show a few weeks ago I left the concert with a few ideas in my head of what to do about the overall mix. I still need to try those ideas out and record my vocals. I’ve got about 4 songs sitting around needing vox recorded but I’ve been procrastinating with this.

I got a call over the weekend about a CS6x that was available for cheap so I went and picked that up last night. Pretty much just killed the night fucking around with it. I’ll see if I can work it into a track… we’ll see.

Also want to mention that Blight has been seriously busy creating a “t.o.t.s.land” in Second Life that will ultimately play a big part in our next tour if things go as planned. More on that later…

]]> http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/06/in-the-making-tots-return-of-the-wetlands-2/feed/ 0 In the making: t.o.t.s. “Return of the Wetlands” http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/06/in-the-making-tots-return-of-the-wetlands/ http://www.totsland.net/2007/11/06/in-the-making-tots-return-of-the-wetlands/#comments Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:30:39 +0000 Chvad SB http://www.outside-the-skin.com/2007/11/06/in-the-making-tots-return-of-the-wetlands/ OK. So we’ve been working on this CD for about a year now and today it occurred to me to keep a running journal of the remaining part of the process as there is still a long way to go. I’m going to include EVERYTHING in this thread. Days we’ve recorded, what we’ve recorded, equipment we’ve bought, promo decisions, etc etc etc. I thought that since this is our 3rd full length CD people might be interested in comparing their own experiences against ours… good and bad. I’ll also get a chance to look back and see how amazingly inefficient I am at some things. This is a not a “bragging” thread or a “what i do is correct” thread. I am going to post all of my decisions bad and good. I’ll keep this thread going until through the first tour promoting the release. I will also try to get the other members to post here with their experiences and feelings during the whole process. I’m probably not going to post unfinished songs. I’m just not a big fan of doing that and I have a hard with my stuff being heard before it’s finished. Obviously input is also welcome and all that shit. I’ll try to update things as often as possible and to give some perspective I’ll probably through it occasional normal work day shit and outside projects I’m involved in.

I’ll give a brief synopsis of what’s been going on from the beginning and take it from there… We self released a demo version of our second CD “You Knew It All Along” in 2003 and had a US and Canadian tour to promote it the same year. I released the finished version of the CD in 2005 and promoted that until late 2006 with another tour. Late 2006 we signed with Invisible Records and since then I have remixed another version of “You Knew It All Along” to clear any possible copyright issues with samples and have done the same with our first CD “God in a Box”. After I was done with all of that, I officially started working on the new CD in February 2007.

I decided to name the new CD “The Return of the Wetlands” for two reasons… 1) My brother and I grew up in a swamp (Gum Swamp to be exact) and I wanted the new CD to be more organic sounding than previous releases. More like something you’d might expect to hear from two brother that grew up in a bog. Less dependency on synthesizers for developing a song structure and a heavier use of guitars. 2) a reference to global warming.

We had no songs laid out for this CD in advance. Obviously there were lots of scratch ideas laid out but nothing anywhere close to what you’d call a song. At this point we have two completed songs and about 18 others sitting around in various stages. The two finished tracks are called “Nothin’ But a Thing” and “When the Ghosts Have Died”. Both have been released on compilations this year.

While we’ve been recording I’ve rebuilt my studio on three occasions, replaced my audio recording interface, acquired three new synthesizers (K-Station, Crumar Performer, Yamaha CS6x), a drum machine (Korg ER-1), new drum software (FXpansion Guru), a sampler (Akai s01), an effects processor and a new synth stand. I also joined a new band called “The Qualia”.

The current t.o.t.s. line up of members is as follows: Blight (my brother, bass), Lars Casteen (guitars), Ericah Hagle (vox) and myself (guitars, synths, drums, programming, vox).

As far as promotional stuff goes we’ve released two new tracks on two compilations, had some new stickers made (are not yet available) and discussed album art with a few different artists. I’ve written an article for Martin’s Suicide Girls column and I have acquired and updated the DarkSonus website as much as possible depending on available time and mood.

As far as none t.o.t.s. projects go… I work regularly with Lars with his project “The Qualia”, I need to record vocals for hEADaCHE’s new project, I am working on an SMP remix and I need to cut a video for my friends sideshow.

So here goes….

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