I recently got to borrow an old-school Univox drum machine. It’s strange and unique. Where else can you get volume sliders for Quijada, Guido AND Tambourine. Not only does it have patterns for Mambo, Rumba and Bossanova, but many others including Merinque, Beguine and Habanera. What more could you want?

I felt like making some droning noise so I ran the Univox through my Strymon El Capistan and blueSky reverb pedals. I recently started working with my friends over at Strymon and am really loving what they’ve come up with so far. I’m looking forward to working on some more kick-ass effects with them in the future.

I decided to turn this drum machine effects noise fest into a more involved piece, so I took the original unaltered drum/effects track and added piano, guitar, drums, vocals and some synths. For the video I decided to follow jack conte’s “video song” format, where:
1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

Hope you like it.

Just recorded a quick little live looping improvisation in my studio. No instruments, just voice and effects. All recorded live, nothing prerecorded or overdubbed after the fact.

If you’re looking for something to remix, feel free to grab the audio from this track (and other tracks of mine): http://stateshirt.com/remix

Hey. I just finished recording a cover of “Souvenir” by OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark). I’d consider this mix a “beta” mix, but it’s pretty close. Listen below:

Souvenir – DOWNLOAD

I haven’t created a music video for my cover version yet, but for the time being check out the original OMD video below. I’d like to do a similar video, except I’ll be driving my racecar wearing my full race gear and helmet. And instead of driving off into the distance at the end, I’ll do a bunch of donuts and smokey burnouts.

Ok. So this week got a little bit busy and I wasn’t able to complete a new song for my song-a-week challenge.

But I’ll make up for it by posting TWO (count ‘em, two) songs from the archives that haven’t ever really been officially “released”. Both of these are collaborations that I did with other artists. hope you like ‘em.

First up is Hostess Mostess’ “Ease Up on the Drugs”. Last year, Brent Stansfield (Hostess Mostess) sent me guitar and vocal parts of his unfinished track for use on my Collaboration Album. But when I listened to what he sent, I realized his song elements had too much potential on their own, so I decided hey I’ll just pick up where he left off. So I wrote some parts around what he’d already finished, added drums, bass and some more guitars. So here’s Hostess Mostess featuring State Shirt:

Hostess Mostess & State Shirt – Ease Up on the Drugs – DOWNLOAD

Next is Ethrikios’ “Framed”. This was a SongFight entry that my friend Dave Patrikios and I put together last year. He did most everything, I just wrote a couple of the parts, played some guitar and did the backup vox on the chorus. Everything else is DJ Davey P. check it out.

Ethrikios – Framed – DOWNLOAD

Song-a-week / video-a-week #5. “Let’s Get Bloody”. Recorded for the upcoming SongFight. This was recorded live, nothing prerecorded, nothing overdubbed after the fact… all live looping.

Let’s Get Bloody – DOWNLOAD

This was recorded live using two Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro’s, a Casio SK-8, Yamaha DX21, Line 6 DL4 and my voice. If you have any questions or comments about the setup, gear or the song in general, please comment below.

Song-a-week #4. Just finished a new song, “The Road to Hana”.

The Road to Hana – DOWNLOAD

you mustn’t be afraid of what’s to come
the road is dark and there’s no turning back
the whales will only guide you so far.
but then you’re on your own, you must swim all the way.

are we there yet?

it will feel like there’s no destination
it will feel like you’re all alone.
but we will be there right by your side!
but we will be there guiding you back home.

are we there yet?
are we here?

you can join us, on hana lane.

She keeps an eye on my gear. Trying out a Bogner Alchemist (sounds amazing) and a Line 6 M9 (I like it).

Recorded this one a few months back. Set up four cheapo digital cameras and recorded a rehearsal of the song “Time to Go”. All sounds created live, nothing prerecorded.

Here is a looping improv I recorded yesterday.

My live setup is constantly evolving, but I do tend to keep a few things as part of my basic arsenal: two Gibson/Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro units, a Line 6 DL4 delay modeler and expression pedal, Line 6 AM4, Boss DF-2, Line 6 Echo Park, el cheapo Tapco mixer, and a Behringer FCB1010.

This video has a pedal/foot cam for the people who have been asking about my looping setup… Anyone have any other questions about the setup or looping in general? Please comment below!

UPDATE 3/29/10: It seems like a lot of people are finding this page by searching for ‘Echoplex Digital Pro Manual’ so I figure I’ll post a link to the user guide here. This is for the Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro Plus: PDF, 1.7MB, 310 pages. DOWNLOAD HERE.

Over the last year or so I’ve been trying to get rid of stuff. Stuff I never look at, stuff I don’t need, stuff that’s just sitting in a box. After a while it just starts to feel like extra weight, like a burden. Maybe with the exception of the instruments in my studio, I don’t really want to own much of anything at all. I’ve had weird dreams that on the day I die I won’t own anything. Just lying on an old wooden floor of an empty 2nd story apartment. Would certainly make it easier for whoever needs to take care of the situation after I’m gone, all you’d need to deal with is a body.

I have hundreds of these old cassettes just sitting in milk crates and plastic tubs, most of them contain songs I’ve finished, songs I didn’t finish, songs that my friends an I worked on, guitar ideas, horrible synth ideas, live jams, spoken words, songs I love, songs I hate, skits I did with my sister and brothers when I was a kid.

They contain a lot of memories. But they just sit in the closet. Taking up space. Taking up mental space.

I must have spend thousands of hours recording stuff to cassettes. Started with a portable Panasonic recorder, recording what I thought were awesome piano ideas, and incredibly retarded 7-second improvised a cappella songs. I moved up to my mom’s boom-box, and did some crude multi-tracking by playing one tape recorder while recording to another. Sounded amazing, as you may have guessed.

Then finally the day came and I bought a Yamaha MT120 4-track. Came straight home from school every day and sat in front of this machine for 12 hours straight. I must have at least a thousand songs in various states of completion, just sitting there as magnetic particles encased in plastic. From the looks of it, I have at least 100 tapes that I recorded on my Yamaha 4-track, and another 100 tapes that I recorded on a newer Yamaha MT8X 8-track. And at least 60 in my series of “Tune Tapes”, where I’d just record skeleton ideas, musical sketches, guitar parts, keyboard ideas.

What the hell should I do with all of this music?

Let it sit and slowly degrade and demagnetize? Or spend months and months listening through all of this stuff to find the gems? Import the cassettes to my computer? And then do what with it? Now they’ll be sitting on a hard drive instead of in a milk crate.

I could upload unfinished stuff to ccMixter and see if anyone wants to remix it. I could do some sort of strange performance art piece where I do perform the music of one tape per week in various locations around the US. I could actually finish some of these songs I never finished when I was sixteen. Or I could just throw everything away.

After all, they are just memories. Like the photos of my childhood that sit in a shoebox. I look at them every few years, and it refreshes my memory. But it’s also a time that has passed, a time that is getting less and less significant with each passing second.

So, on my last day on this earth, do I really want to still have a crate of cassettes by my side, just to remind me of my past?

Untitled Instrumental
An instrumental I wrote when I was 17 or 18

Q
Wrote this for my friend Scott in ’97

Wrong Planet
My idea of a song, in 1984-ish?

Midnight Cowboy
My friend Adam and I did a cover of Midnight Cowboy (in the style of Faith No More), sometime in high school…

Weggy Wah Solar Neutrino
I like this one. Not sure how to explain it though.

I’m really excited about my new drum mic clips! Check them out! Ok, you’re probably thinking, “Really, a blog post about drum mic clips? And he’s excited about them? And I’m still reading this shit?” But, aren’t they, beautiful? They actually work!

Ok, ok. So they just hold microphones above my drums so I can go on making my little songs. But wait, you see, the last 2 years of my life has been a never-ending spree of breaking these little fuckers.

Let me just say this. Do not ever, EVER buy the Samson DMC100 drum mic clip set. I made the sorry mistake of buying two 3-piece sets. I’ve gone through 6 of these. Every last one broke. You know, doing simple things, like, attaching it to the fucking drum or attaching a fucking microphone to the clip. If you like to start recording a drum track and get rudely interrupted because your SM57 is now dangling by your feet, then please go right ahead and buy these abysmal pieces of shit. In fact, I just broke one now trying to carefully remove it from my snare drum. I thought it would at least be worthy of a backup, but it can’t even manage to do that. (Oh, and the Audix mic clips suck too).

Finally, I found a set of drum mic clips that someone actually put a little thought into before manufacturing them. They’re rugged, sturdy, and very adjustable. Please, if you record drums and are in the market for a drum mic clip, buy the Shure A56D. It’s a beautiful thing. And yes, I am actually excited.

Over the last five years or so, I have been doing a lot of improvised live looping, sometimes noisy, sometimes melodic, usually with a microphone, guitar and some crappy keyboard. Though I’ve never really bothered to record any of these performances from start to finish, other than to cull loops for other songs. So last night at 1am I decided to break out the cheap camcorder. All sounds were improvised, created with a microphone, a bunch of pedals and a guitar, nothing prerecorded or planned, all one take. I put together a video collage around the live stuff with found footage.

After months (years) of being beat down by a full time job, hating this city, and coming home and wanting to do nothing but drink, I have finally dug myself out from beneath the shit to get back in the studio. I’ve picked up some older tracks that I worked on with a few friends in Massachusetts, and some new tracks that have been inspired by my desire to not have all the life drained from my body by working all of the time. Finally the days are getting a bit less monotonous. And music is coming out. I’ve got about 15 in-progress tracks for the new album. I will probably end up whittling it down to 10 or so, and putting a bunch of free tracks up on somesongs.com, last.fm and other sites. Stay tuned, I am damn excited about finally getting another album out.

I’ve had a bunch of people ask me what gear I use, so I took a couple photos of what I’m using these days. I invariably switch this up to try new things, so maybe tomorrow this will be outdated. I recently sold a lot of the studio stuff that I wasn’t using much. Sold my G5 and bought a Macbook– I really want a mobile setup so I can do some crazy shit like go camping and do some recording in a tent or in a state park. But anyway here is what I’m using in the studio right now:

Studio Setup

Apple MacBook, Digi 002, Line 6 PODxt, Reason 3, Fender Toronado, Peavey Predator, Gibson J30, pieced together POS Slingerland/Ludwig/Pearl drumset, Yamaha DX21, Dynaudio BM5A monitors, a few mics here and there (Rode, Sure, Sennheiser, AKG, Groove Tubes), a bunch of effects pedals and stupid kids toys

Live Setup

My live setup is constantly changing. The live looping that I do during my shows has been the main reason for trying new setups up… Mostly I’m just trying to push the limits of the gear, but sometimes I just that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and end up with a setup that needs to be tweaked. So the stuff that I’m using now consists of two Gibson EchoPlex Digital Pro’s, my Fender Toronado, Line 6 DL4, Line 6 Echo Park, Line 6 AM4, Voodoo Labs Pedal Power, some cheapo Tapco mixer, Yamaha PSS140, and a Behringer FCB1010. Two of the buttons on the Behringer decided to crap out on me so it may be on the way out. Sometimes I use a Line 6 Variax Acoustic 700 but not really much anymore.

Lately I really have been trying to simplify and get rid of some gear, it’s nice to make things a bit more lean and push the limits of the few pedals that I have.