13-MONSTERS
Posts tagged 13 monsters
Photo shoot. Check!
We are preparing for upcoming summer shows lately. Got a couple new songs in the works. And we had a photo shoot for 2 hours yesterday.
Of course Jamie (who works in layout and design all day) had to do some of his signature tweaking as soon as he was handed 1 of the files:) here’s a little preview of what you’ll be seeing on stage…
mask and all….
Happenings and updates for the week…
We are re-releasing a couple of remixed songs today. A newer, better version of YELLOWKINFE is on the way!! Plus a redub of INTRODUCTION is just ahead!! Bri knocks it out of the park on these songs!
We found a new mixing place to do all of our mastering! We’ve been searching for weeks and haven’t found that special place that feels like home….until Jamie walked into the Beacon Tap in Forest Park Illinois. The old wood floors, the bookshelves full of old books, friendly regulars who took him in, and half of a mannequin hanging from the ceiling made this place “the one”. So if you’re in the area and we announce that we’ll be in our place of mixing nirvana, it’s here.
In other news: on 2/28/13 an offshoot of 13-MONSTERS was hatched. It’s Jamie’s solo 1 man power station of experimental noise art rock called GOALIE . We’ll put up a link to sounds when they are available. It’s going to be insane…
Introduction by 13-MOONSTERS
the 2-13-13 release!!!!
Enjoy!!!
“Introduction” is a song written just for the 1-13-13 show. I did the entire song from pen to upload in 2 hours solo. Every track is done 1 take..1 time..unrehearsed and as it happened. Hoping to add vocals to it at some point. I hope you enjoy it. -Jamie-
The story of the now great and infamous 12/5 show at Double Door!!!
So..our very first show ( as 13-MONSTERS is now, Laura & Jamie) was at Double Door, Chicago along with Brooke Bartlett, More Gorgeous and headliners Ayanami .
Being the first band up means that you are the last ones to get your stuff on stage, do a fast sound check and GO! Play your set and get the hell off ASAP. Ahhh..the life of a band.
Our set-up is a mish-mosh of “stuff” that sounds ridiculous if you’re a musician but genius-mad-scientist for the listener. The beats are recorded ( Jamie does the drums in our studio) along with an underlying deep bass beat that we run off of our MacBook. That goes into a Kenwood receiver (yes..a 250w home stereo receiver.) and is blasted out of the 2 Kenwood 250w home stereo cabinets ( the spray painted ones…yes..thos are just home speakers). The Guitar set-up is a simple 3 pedal arrangement that goes to a Gallien Krueger 206 jazz combo amp that Jamie uses as the head to a 4 X 12 Ibanez cabinet. Laura uses a Sennheiser e935 mic which then goes thru an extremely reverby/echoey Fender 25w combo guitar amp.
Yeah…like I said..it sound ridiculous, but somehow kicks ass. Blame Lightning Bolt..they taught me how to do this shit.
So..we get our set-up on stage and all plugged in. I flip the switch on the Gallien Krueger amp and…..nothing. Nada. Zip. Not even a power light. I’ve used this thing for 20 years with ZERO problems and all of the sudden it decides to take a shit on us right before a huge show. And there started the mad scramble! I was freaking the fuck out up there!
I credit the sound engineers at Double Door for jumping in and helping an obviously-flop-sweating me with figuring out that we had to quickly get the Gallien Krueger out of there, take Laura’s Fender 25w combo, disregard the entire Ibanez 4 x 12 cabinet, mic the Fender 25w combo and use THAT as the sole thing that the guitar went thru while running Laura thru the house system, mic’ing the Kenwood speakers AND running a line from the Mac to the soundboard for the house syatem as well.
I just heard a collective gasp from all the rock musicians who read that. I know..I know..it was madness. Yet genius a genius move by the best sound guys in the biz. They KNEW that we were to sound like something akin to a Sleigh Bells-White Zombie-Ministry guitar/drum buzz and they were hell bent on making that happen…which they did :) I was sweatin like a kid getting his lunch money stolen. And, as I’m sure you can tell now that you know the story, for the first song or two I was checking everything around me to make sure I wasn’t about to kick something lose in this new patched up set-up which we had NEVER used or played thru before. What we heard on stage was NOTHING like what we were used to. In fact, I couldn’t hear much except my own guitar that was being blasted thru a small amp which was now right in back of me. I barely heard the drum beats at all. Thank god for our MacBook, which I used as a visual guide to where the song changes are ( we use Garage Band for each song…so the tracks are actually running while we are playing..I know..I know, again..madness.
Laura told me a day before the show ” Whatever happens it’ll be a great story. We were asked to play at Double Door by a much bigger band for oour premier show, and only had a couple of weeks to put our set together. If we pull it off we’ll look like heroes. If it goes bad we can blame it on only having 2 weeks to get our shit together. It’s rock & roll. This is what is supposed to happen.”
Turns out that we looked like heroes. The other bands loved us. The crowd loved us. And quite possibly the best compliment ever…the sound engineers loved us. THAT is a HUGE compliment given that these guys have seen it all and heard it all. I think they saw this as a welcomed challenge. I mean..seriously..I knew they were going to dig working with us as soon as I saw their huge smiles when i pulled out a Sovtek BIG MUFF guitar pedal. One of them happily said ” Ok..this all makes sense now! This is gonna be cool” .
And the the story was written. One that we will always be proud of. The ultimate baptism by fire done by a 2 person band and a couple of great sound techs who shook the legendary Double Door. I’d like to give a huge thanks to our roadie-supreme, Jay Wolf. He kept me from going off the edge and was johnny-on-the-spot with everything. Everything during and after the madness went alot smoother because he was there.
Again, thanks to everyone who was there and all who watched THIS VIDEO live as it happened !
Next show is at Elbo Room on 1/13/13 “A 13-MONSTERS Spectacular 13th”. We hope to see you there! We promise we’ll have a new guitar amp by then :)
Have a great week everyone!
-Jamie-
”Everything’s gonna be ok….Everything’s gonna be ok…Everything’s gonna be ok…” -from Perfectly Imperfect by 13-MONSTERS-
it was a good session on friday…
We picked up a brand new Epiphone Special Les Paul guitar on friday. The things sounds so rad. Sustains forever..which is a good thing when you use distortion and feedback as we do.
We also signed one of our new posters for a fan in Texas. That was pretty sweet!
Reminder! We have a show at Double Door on 12/5. And we are talking to Elbo Room about an upcoming possible date there as well! We’ll keep you posted!
Are we on the radio? Why yes..yes we are!!
http://loudcity.com/stations/40footholestudio-com-radio
Hear our songs HERE tonight during the 8pmCST shift on 40footholestudio !!
Thanks for listening!!! Love to all!
Laura & Jamie
Perfectly Imperfect by 13-MONSTERS. It’s a song about how we all try to act “normal” even when we’re broken. But there’s always that one person who sees thru your bullshit act.
