The Blanket LP 2006? - The Diary
Hi. This is Ville from Blanket.
We're going to try to make an album. This is the diary of how it came
about or failed miserably. Here's how it goes.
Full cast and credits:
Jaakko - producer / recording engineer / backing vocals
Willi - drums / engineering
Simo - bass / backing vocals
Teppo - guitar / coding
Ville - guitar / vocals
Also featuring:
Pikkis - occasional producer / candle lighter ( / flatulence) + guitar
on "My Two Hands aka Visual Basic"
Janne - keyboards / piano
Kusti - trumpet on "Bulletproof"
Jupe - percussion on "Reservoir"
Hampuris Kyläsaari / Chico's Bulevardi / Pizzataxi Hakaniemi - catering
Progress:
| Song: | Drums | Bass | GTR/ Teppo |
GTR/ Ville |
VOC/ Ville |
VOC/ Backing |
Other | Mixing |
| Henry the Killer | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Action | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Eyes Wide Shut | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| My Two Hands / Visual Basic | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Ivalo | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Reservoir | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Fanatic | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Software Developer | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Bulletproof | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Bags Under My Eyes / Firenze | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok |
| Other tasks: | ||||||||
| Mastering | ok | |||||||
| Printing | ok | |||||||
February 12th 2007:
Hey. We have release date set. All of this will be out April 10th 2007.
It'll be great. Check out the Blanket News page
for continuing details and revelations. Peace. vk
November 30th 2006:
Hi. We took some pictures for the record cover last Saturday. We won't
be on the cover itself, but we'll show up somewhere on the inside
surfaces. The cover itself is a big panorama picture which I talked
about before and it has a bit of wedding theme going on, so to keep
everything in line, we tried to look like a wedding band playing in the
edge of the yard or something. We hauled guitars and drums to Hanasaari
and found a few good trees to set up camp in front of. Luckily it wasn't
as cold as it could've been for this time of year, but it was still cold
as hell to stand there in suits trying to mimic playing with no amps and
no music. Willi couldn't hit his drums so that we wouldn't be thrown out
of the nature refuge or whatever. People walked by with their dogs and
they (both people and dogs) looked at us like were out of our heads. I
can imagine what it looked like for their perspective. Well, it's
rolling along, we should have all the pictures taken and edited this
week. Later. vk
November 2nd 2006:
Hey babies! It's done. Finit, kaput, slut på matchen gubbe. The music at
least. I just got out of Chartmakers in Helsinki where mr. Svante
Forsbäck mastered the album in full style and grace. Me and Teppo we're
greeted with tons of coffee and chocolate cake and enjoyed watching a
master at work. I just got home with two copies in my bag, which I
haven't had the guts to listen to yet. We worked out the correct
sequence of the songs during the last few months; it came together real
easy. I tried to make an whole album first and foremost with the feel of
a live show with songs coming in tight succession when needed. Yesterday
we mixed the two little mid-course snacks, "Madeleine" and "Interlude
#1" and took them along from Jaakko's work. These two tracks are more
acoustic and try to lighten the mood so it's not all yelling and
banging. We'll continue to work on the cover art and look for a place to
print the thing. It's all good and I can't wait to play all these songs
to you guys. I've lost all perspective a long time ago, but I have a
strange feeling that they are pretty good. Peace and love. vk - a
recording artist
October 19th 2006:
Hey, is it done? Last Sunday we went to Jaakko's work and recorded an
small intro piece using the guitar theme from "Henry". It might be
called "Madeleine the Mass Murderer" (light theme) and it's just over a
minute long and it might start the record. We'll see. We have noticed
that the record is fairly action-packed so we re-recorded an older idea
known as "Walk on Water" to make a little one minute interlude somewhere
in the middle of the LP to make a break between the (imaginary) A and B
sides. Jaakko will mix these two pieces and we'll be set for mastering
on November 2nd. Later bitches. vk
October 10th 2006:
We spent yesterday in the studio, this time a photographing one, with
Jussi editing our album cover panorama extravaganza. It took until 3am
but we're super happy with the result. Moose heads and assault rifles
from different angles again. Same old, same old. It was cool to see how
much photo editing resembles music editing these days. Different
layers/tracks edited, twisted, turned and finally mastered to make one
cool single entity. Hopefully it still looks good when we print the
thing. There's a little storyline in the picture as well, so we'll see
how people respond to it. We'll take band pictures tomorrow. Later. vk.
October 9th 2006:
Hi. Finding a great idea for an album cover is hard. We knew we wanted
to do something with our photographing friend Jussi and we bounced
around ideas in the last few weeks. We were short on time again and set
a date for the shooting as Jussi is away somewhere most of the year, but
we just couldn't find that single great idea. But, two days before the
shoot as we were setting the details with an ok idea, we ran thru a few
other possibilities one last time and stumbled across an old idea I had
that would make a great music video. We thought of how it could make a
single cool picture and soon changed all plans and put together with
photo shoot with the new idea. Invited a bunch of friends to model and
ordered a catering setting and one moose head and a bucket of fake blood
and pulled it off! We'll do some additional takes today and see how it
works out. A nice role-switching theme for the wide digipak package and
some gory shock effect from Jussi's request in the picture which
hopefully will make an awesome cover. Huge thanks to all the models: the
victim Heidi, Jaakko S, Siwa, Marko, Mitro, Janne R, Nurja, Meea and
Late and especially Quuppis and Henna for the location, Pousi for the
Van, Satu for styling and Jesse and Anni for the Food! Thanks for
helping out on such short notice. Personally I couldn't be happier to
have a bunch of friends looking good on our album cover. Later. ville
October 2nd 2006:
Hey ho. The table above this is almost fully green. I never thought it
would come to this. It's been a long ride let me tell you. We got the
missing few tunes from mixing about a week ago and we listened to them
closely and took notes on what we thought should be fixed or changed.
Last Wednesday we met at the mixing studio with Jaakko and the mixer and
looked over the songs for hopefully the last time. Bass dominated most
of the early mixes, so we took it down a bit. We finetuned some backing
vocals that weren't quite perfect and made other adjustments here and
there. So there are the basic 10 tracks that will form the upcoming
Blanket LP. Next we'll make some small additional recordings to Jaakko's
horror. We'll try to get an acoustic intro to Henry the Killer and some
sort of small interlude too. We might even try to record a whole
acoustic track, "Rolemodels" or "Independence" are the candidates, but
we'll see how it turns out. I worked out a small hiphop (!) outro to
"Reservoir", I haven't heard any comments from the guys on that yet. I
don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. We should have the
additional recordings done within a week or two and we'll take the album
to mastering after that. The album covers are being processed; we have
old friend J. Hyttinen figuring it out so that it will look as well as
sound totally awesome. We'll take some pictures next Saturday. That's
about it, it's hectic and a lot of work, but it should pay off in the
end. Peace and love. ville j.
September 12th 2006:
Hey. Days #39, #40 and #41 down I guess. Last Saturday was the first
session I didn't attend with Simo recording the missing backing vocals
with Pikkis in Nosturi. We edited stuff ready for mixing on Sunday and
Monday too with Pikkis, Jaakko's away in Italy somewhere. There are
strange days, I'll take the rest 4 songs to the mixer tomorrow and
should get them back late this week. Tomorrow I'll also be going to see
our old pal Jussuf Hyttinen - a photographing genius - as he should have
some cool ass pictures we could use in all the sleeves and covers and
what not. Later, bitches. fid of finland
September 6th 2006:
Days #37 and #38 down I guess. Last Saturday we added a small guitar to
the opening of "Henry" and edited some crazy parts in "Software". Jaakko
was away, so Pikkis came in and did the chores. Yesterday we tried to
record the few missing backing vocals but it was a little tough. Jaakko
was tired and we were unprepared, so we didn't get too much done, which
was unfortunate as time is not on our side right now. We did a repeat
sing thing for the second chorus in "Henry" and some backing vocals for
"Firenze". We'll go back on Thursday and try to get all the missing
vocals in then. Six songs have been submitted to the mixer dude and
we've gotten three back so far. We weren't too happy with the first
batch "Ivalo" and "Action" but we got "Eyes Wide" back next and it was a
lot better already. Some informed people say that mastering eventually
makes it a lot better too but we'll see. Later. vk
August 25th 2006:
Days #35 and #36 gone and I'm not sure where. It's getting confusing.
"Ivalo" and "Action" went under mixing Wednesday and we visited the
mixing studio on Thursday with Jaakko, Teppo and Pikkis too. The songs
were fairly good and rough and aggressive, but we weren't as articulate
as possible on what we wanted it to sound like, so the sound was a bit
too "out there". Afterwards, we edited and packed "Fanatic", "Eyes
Wide", "Visual Basic" and "Reservoir" on a DVD and I'll be taking them
to the mixer in an hour or so. Jaakko's going away for a week and since
we depend on him like air, we had to work overtime yesterday to have as
much songs ready as possible. I even recorded a military-like vocal
piece for "Eyes Wide" at the last moment to underline it's war feel.
It's hectic as hell, but it'll clear up next week as Jaakko's away. We
still need a few more backing vocals which we might be doing with Pikkis
meanwhile. We'll see. Have mercy. ville ineedsleep
August 23rd 2006:
Ok, day #34 down. It was a different one. We had the first mixing day
booked for today and that meant that we needed to let go of at least two
songs. "Action" and "Ivalo" were pretty much done, so we cleaned up
those, checked that all the right takes were there and packed them on a
DVD, which I'll taking to the mixing man today at noon. The only
recording we did yesterday was an attempt at a small acoustic guitar
part for "Ivalo" but it didn't sound great and the part didn't need
anything more anyways. We'll continue on Thursday with more coding and
editing, possibly some background singing too. We'll see. We are getting
there. ville
August 21st 2006:
Whew, what a weekend. Days #32 and #33 down and we are nearly there. We
started off on Saturday waking up a hungover Jaakko at his home. Dragged
the poor man to his work and found out that the left channel on the digi
002 rack was somehow broken. Damn it, the first real technical problem
and probably at the worst possible time. Jaakko hungover as hell and we
have a deadline to make as we should have things recorded before the
mixing starts on Wed the 23rd. Jaakko worked around the problem with
some other gear and we were able to continue somewhat unscathed. We
first worked on some background vocals with Simo and later on a good
friend Janne came in with his electric piano to throw in parts here and
here, most prominently featured on "Henry" and "Ivalo" I guess. Janne's
a real pro and we got some really good stuff in there. It was probably
the first time these sessions felt like a real studio session with a
separate recording booth and people hanging out and messing around with
their instruments. Most of the stuff recorded so far has been with just
a few people around in not so hospitable enviroments and not much free
time to waste. We worked hard and long on both days and started to get
really creative as everybody got tired; we threw some very strange vocal
stuff on "Fanatic" and crazy piano arpeggios on "Bulletproof". It's
always easier to take something out of the mix than to put it in there.
Anyways, it's getting real good, we'll continue on Tuesday with some
missing backing vocals. We'll probably submit a few of the songs for
mixing on Wednesday and continue work on the few that still need
something. We'll see. Peace and love. vk.
By the way, now we have officially used all the members from the mighty
Clark Kent for this album! Jaakko's vision is everywhere of course but
also his backing vocals are on at least "Eyes Wide", Pikkis has been
helping out as well in a lot of ways, and he also put in a small heavy
metal guitar part for "Visual Basic". Kusti did the trumpet tracks for
"Bulletproof" and we stole a percussion sample which Jupe made from a
Clark Kent song called "Remember" to our track "Reservoir". I'm not sure
if that'll make the cut though. Anyways, not a bad helping hand, I hope
Blanket can return the favor when Clark Kent start their LP recordings
later this year. Most likely they won't let us anywhere near the studio.
:) Thanks guys, we owe you big time.
August 18th 2006:
Hell yeah! A small victory. On day #31, the vocals are on tape. What a
relief. We saved the toughest one for last, "Firenze" was hard, a lot of
words in difficult timings and what not. Teppo also came in and in all
truth looked bored at times. Don't blaim him, I probably did the first
two verses twenty times before they were ok. A combination of me sucking
and Jaakko being meticulous. I got to hand it to Jaakko again; the last
few days have been crazy. Wake up and go to work, stop work at 7pm, I
come in, sing a lot and try to fit in lyrics at the last moment. We go
home at 11pm and do the same next day. It's like reading out of the
national bestseller "How To Get an Ulser and Heart Failure at a Young
Age". :) Well, we don't have long to go. We have the weekend reserved
for background singing and some keyboards too, so we are getting there
and it all good, baby! pipes könönen
August 16th 2006:
Day #30 in the bag. Recorded vocals for "Action" at Jaakko's work and it
went ok. A few last minute changes in the lyrics as usual and a lot of
choices on how much energy should be applied in which part. One of the
problems with recording vocals pretty much line by line is that you
could basically belt out each single line with maximum power which you
could never do in a live circumstance. I think we found a good balance
of anger on "Action" though. By the way, "Visual Basic", "Firenze" and
"Action" are just working titles, names thrown around the practise space
before any lyrics were made, so they might be changing at some point.
It's likely that "Action" will become "Chickenshit" (really) and
"Firenze" -> "Bags Under My Eyes" and since Simo hates the title "Visual
Basic" so much, it will most likely be changed to "My Two Hands" even
though the wonderful Ben Harper has a wonderful song with almost the
same title. We'll vote them out when we all get together for a change.
Today's a day off and we'll tackle the last one of the batch "Firenze"
tomorrow. It's gonna be another tough one as the song has more lyrics
than three normal Blanket songs combined and it's different type of song
in a lot of ways as well. Peace. One To Go! Alright. ll cool fid
August 15th 2006:
Day #29 went ok. We took the gear from noisy Nosturi to Jaakko's work
closeby and took full use of their new recording booth. Recorded vocals
for "Visual Basic" in about two and a half hours and went home. The song
went ok, it's a tough one to sing and the melody line follows the guitar
very closely so we are probably going to autotune the vocal track so it
matches as close as possible. (I don't carry a tune all that well as it
turns out) I even thought about possibly using a vocoder or something
with this one to make as tight and strange as possible, but I think the
autotune will do the trick. "Action" next up today evening, gotta finish
up the lyrics. Two to go! vile
August 14th 2006:
Day #28 was a bit of a mess. We didn't have time to haul the gear to
Kyläsaari so we tried to record at Nosturi as last time, but the noise
(or beautiful music depending on how you look at it) seaping thru from
the other practise spaces was too much. Otherwise we would have way too
much other bands on the vocal tracks and might get into some copyright
problems or something. :) However, the multi-talented Kusti from Clark
Kent came in and recorded even more wacky trumpet tracks for the chorus
of "Bulletproof". They turned out real great and we just have to figure
out what the hell to do with the final part of the song as it's strange
and a bit too long. Otherwise the song dominates. We'll continue today
probably somewhere else with vocals for "Visual Basic" (name will
change). It's getting hectic. Have mercy. vk
August 7th 2006:
Hey, back after a summer break. We took it easy for a while, had a bunch
of other stuff filling the daily planners. Back to the grindstone with
day #27 done yesterday; I recorded vocals for "Eyes Wide Shut", one my
favorite tracks of the batch. I hope it went well, I just finished the
lyrics the night before and made small adjustments in the studio and the
words are pretty over-the-top I must admit. I read a blog of a US
soldier serving in Iraq and blended in some influence from "A People's
History of the United States" from Howard Zinn and worked off those.
Also tried to put together some backing vocals for Eyes but I totally
suck at those, it's great that Jaakko has the musical talent to figure
out the backing vocal lines. We got to bring in Simo to work on the
backing vocals since he's good at them too. We have a deadline at the
end of the month to have all the recording done so we've got a clear
goal and have to step up to the plate big time. It's all good. Later. vk.
June 27th 2006:
Day #26 done, another three hour raid. Did vocals for "Ivalo" which
turned quite nice I think. Especially the quiet middle part has a lot of
space and it was a fun part to put in. We'll have another small break
and continue after a week or so with all the "new songs", meaning stuff
we haven't recorded earlier which might make them a bit more troublesome
with lyrics being fixed on the spot etc. Peace out, ll cool k.
Btw, here's a link to a cool political cartoon I've
checking out during quiet hours at work. Recommended.
June 21st 2006:
Day #25 down yesterday. We didn't record on Monday, I was too sick to
scream, so we only got one day in this week as Midsummer festivities
will cancel Thursday. We did "Hank the Killer" yesterday and it was as
difficult as anticipated. Lots of words and especially notes to hit,
often at the same time too. At the end of the day, it turned out ok I
guess, a nice end part and lots of abandon on the choruses. :) We'll
continue next Monday. My birthday today by the way. I'm old. Later.
Don't drown during the weekend. ville sinatra
June 19th 2006:
Day #24 down last Saturday. We put in some vocal tracks again with
Jaakko. Put in the choruses for "Reservoir" and did the whole of
"Software Dev.". I had a flu of some sort so it could have gone better I
guess. No greater than life performances, just your average standard
singing. We'll continue today, tomorrow and on Thursday with "(Thierry)
Henry the Killer" next up. I'm still not in 100% shape, but it will have
to do; hopefully caffeine and adrenaline helps. Later. fidel
könönen
June 1st 2006:
Day #23 down. We worked on "Fanatic", nothing from the day before made
the cut, but we got everything we needed fairly quickly. I threw in a
little jam at the end, sounds strange at first, let's see how the other
guys respond to that one. It's always easy to delete something if it
doesn't work so it's good to try something weird on the spot. Often
those are the good moments you end up digging the most. We started work
on "Reservoir" and got the verses in quite ok. We need to listen to it
again with fresh ears, but it should be ok. Nothing spectacular, but
your good basic singing I guess. The choruses were off, so I'll have to
re-do those later, they're a bit of bitch to sing with these long notes.
But man, this is a huge project overall and can't say enough about
Jaakko and his role in this. Without Jaakko this album wouldn't happen,
simple as that. In this phase where no-one's getting paid, it's so
admirable how much energy and freetime he's able to put in this. He goes
into whatever has to be done without question and gives it his all
without any bitching or moaning. I hope that we can make up for this
either financially or in other ways. Afterwards when everyone has
forgotten the amount of work put into this, at least we'll have
something concrete and hopefully cool to show for it, and that's
priceless anyways. Next up, we'll have a small break in recordings as we
have to get ready for our gig in Turku. Later. vk.
May 31st 2006:
Days 21 and 22 down. So we're finally underway with the vocals. We
hauled the recording gear to Kyläsaari on Monday and started with
"Bulletproof" as it's probably the strangest song of the bunch and a
straight-forward punkish song that should be easy to get thru. We
continued work on Tuesday finishing the choruses and threw in a few more
strange things in to the final section of the song. All in all, it came
out fairly nice and I'm really starting to dig the song anyways, a
feeling not shared by everyone in the band. :) I was a bit nervice
before starting, I'm not 100% sure about my sound and getting in tune
can be difficult at times, but it was just me and Jaakko in there
working it out and everything went real smooth. We started work on "the
Fanatic" as well, which is a totally different kind of song and we'll
continue work on that later today. We also have finally decided on who
is going to mix this one. It's just a leap of faith as there's no
telling how it'll turn out beforehand. We just picked the guy for his
good references and some nice things we've heard about him. We booked
the mixing for mid-August so now we have a fairly clear deadline on when
everything has to be recorded. It'll get hectic I'm sure, but we should
be ok. Later. - ville "pipes" k.
May 23rd 2006:
Little update; I felt compelled to share this
nice story about freedom of speech in the land of the free. actions
speak louder than words.
May 19th 2006:
Hi there. We've had a CD of the songs without vocals for sometime now
and all seems well. I've been listening thru the songs over and over in
my car, singing full on in traffic lights across the great state of
Hellsinki. It must look amusing from the car next to me. We'll start
recording the vocals in a week or so. We are also currently choosing the
right person to mix the LP once it's recorded. It's a tough choice to
make as mixing is the most expensive part of the whole deal. Choosing
"our man" is mostly a leap of faith anyways, there's no way of knowing
how it will end up and we won't have the resources to have it re-mixed
if it doesn't work out for some reason. We'll try make the educated
choice by checking references of the potential candidates as much as
possible. We'll know more next week. Peace and love-x. ville
könönen-valo
April 24th 2006:
Day 20 done. We worked on "Bulletproof" a bit which has been evolving
towards a ska-like song lately. We added some reggae-type drums for the
end part but ran out of skills when we tried to add some more reggae
touch. We found out that the choruses will need horns, so Kusti will get
another gig sometime soon now. Added some guitar tracks to "Fanatic" as
well and overall the guitar tracks are pretty much in the bag. Jaakko
will make some sort of half-way mix cd and we'll listen to it in the car
and at home and see if something needs to be changed or added. I'll put
the finishing touches on the lyrics and start recording vocals in a week
or so. We all walk the long road. Peace. .subsubcomandante v.
April 19th 2006:
Ok. Days 18 and 19 down. Teppo recorded a bunch of guitars in and I got
the "solo" for "Henry the Killah" in as well as fixing one out-of-tune
line in "Firenze". We will continue on Sunday with the end sequence of
"Bulletproof" which is going thru a bit of a transformation. We'll see
how it goes. Later. fid k.
April 13th 2006:
Hi. Another break as Jaakko was working (and getting sick from what I
heard) in Lapland for a week. I called some people who could possibly
mix the LP once it's all done, it seems kind of costly but very
promising. Also it's clear that this thing won't be released before the
summer. Schedules are hard to fit and we can't get in as much work as we
would like due to other responsibilities and also we want to be
meticulous on getting everything right for once. There's also a lot work
to be done concerning the release and all the new concepts with that, so
that'll take up some time for sure. So we're talking about an early
September release for now. Good things happen to those who wait.
Anyways; we'll be back to the grindstone on Sunday 16th, Monday 17th and
Sunday 23rd for hopefully the rest of the guitars. Take care. ville.
Oh yeah, I talked with Willi a couple of days ago and we decided that
from now on, Blanket is the best band in the world. No more unnecessary
modesty or hesitation. We rule and we rok and that's it. I feel that
this new approach will take us far. :) And also; we have a gig coming up
as well; June 7th we'll be traveling off to Turku to play in Klubi with
a few local bands. Check the GIGs page for
details and come support us if you can.
March 30th 2006:
Day 17 down. An unlucky number for us I guess. You win some, you lose
some. Teppo was a bit sick and everybody was beat from work, so it
wasn't the best recording day ever. We started with "Firenze", the tough
one, and it didn't go very smooth. You know, guitars are difficult
instruments, especially when you have two different guitars with two
different people playing them. We tried and tried but Teppo's
overlapping guitar at the start of the song always sounded out-of-tune.
Well, it turned out that the other melody line I recorded on Sunday was
itself a bit out of tune, so it got tricky. After a good hour of
constant tuning and frustration, we gave up and moved on to "Eyes Wide"
and managed to get Teppo's complex tracks on there just fine. Now I
understand why Who's Pete Townsend was so enthusiased when he was in
tune that he wrote a song about it. (see "Getting in Tune" from the
"Who's Next" album) Well, Jaakko is off for at least a week, so we'll
have another pause in recording. We'll keep on fighting. Til the end.
Later. ville = tired
March 27th 2006:
Hey ho. Days 15 and 16 down. Teppo was away skiing and getting a tan, so
it was just me and Jaakko in the studio and I recorded some guitars on
Friday and Sunday. On Friday we worked on "Bulletproof" which has always
been very iffy, on the verge of being dropped from the album. We
recorded some basic guitars for it and there's this small melody bit at
the end which was formerly done with a guitar, but we got this grand
idea that it should be done with a trumpet. Well, Kusti from Clark Kent
is another multi-instrumentalist talent and he showed up, greased up his
horn and did a killer three-piece horn section harmony all by himself.
This might have just saved this song from the axe. :) Huge thanks to
Kusti for popping a few vains in his head for this one. On Sunday, I got
"Software" in on pretty much one take and moved on to "Firenze" which is
a song we put together just before the recordings started, so it was
another small question mark to begin with. We got some nice guitars in
and a almost too sweet guitar melody for the feel-good end bit, so this
tune might make the cut as well. Well, if we don't find some horrible
mistakes somewhere, my guitar playing days are almost over (the "solo
for "Henry" is still missing), so Teppo is up on Wednesday for the
remaining songs. We will have to cancel next Sunday as Jaakko is away,
but hope to find a replacement date somewhere. Peace and love. ville
j.
March 22nd 2006:
Time flying. Scheduling problems again; we didn't record on Sunday but
will be back on Fri 24th, Sun 26th and Wed 29th this month and Sun 2nd
of April. The guitars should be in the bag after these. Keep. Fingers.
Crossed. fidel k.
March 14th 2006:
Hi. Day 14 down. We put in a solid 3 hours of recording with Jaakko and
Pikkis too. I recorded guitars for "Eyes Wide Shut" which is one of the
more complex Blanket songs and it took a good while to get things right
or even somewhere near right. Teppo carried most of the load on "the
Fanatic" but "Eyes Wide" is mostly on my broad shoulders. We'll be back
next Sunday. We briefly listened thru the songs with guitar tracks and
while there's a lot of nice moments there, there was also a lot of stuff
which has to be somehow fixed later on. Which means more work. Uh. I
guess this is where it would be convenient if one could really play and
have perfect (expert) timing as well. We wouldn't have to edit and use
so many takes with everything. Wait until we reach the vocals. Shudder
to think. LAter. - villek.
March 13th 2006:
Day 13 done. It was a beautiful day yesterday so it was a bit painful to
spend it indoors in a small room while slightly hungover (congrats to
Mr. and Mrs. Rysäkeppi and thanks for the party!). We recorded Teppo's
guitars for "Henry" and fixed a few things in "Visual Basic". We
recorded at Nosturi again and Jaakko put a mike in the hallway to get
some real-life reverb and echo for the guitar melody lines in "Henry",
but as soon as we started recording some punk band started their
practice next door and we had to postpone that one. Had lunch at the
nearby Chico's, I had the Salmon Siesta which was really tasty and
returned to record guitars for "the Fanatic". The chorus didn't turn out
100% perfect but we'll listen thru it with fresh ears today. It might be
ok with keyboards or something. We'll continue today. Oh yeah; to
visualize where we are in the project, I put together the nifty progress
table (above) just to show where we are at and also to keep track so
that we don't forget anything you know... Later. vk
March 10th 2006:
Another small delay with too much going on; we didn't record on the 2nd,
but will next Sunday and Monday and the Sunday after that too. Hope to
get most of the guitars on tape then. The semi-unplugged thing featured
Mr. Janne on keyboards and we will exploit his talent somehow during the
course of these recordings. Later. -vk.
February 28th 2006:
We played a small semi-unplugged gig with some new personnel last
Friday, you can check the details at
the GIGs page. We will continue recording on
Thursday 2nd of March at Nosturi..vk.
February 20th 2006:
Day 12 down. We had to cancel Saturday's recording but made up lost time
on Sunday by recording guitars for "Visual Basic" and "Henry". We were
meticulous on both songs and didn't quite finish "Henry" as we had to
start preparing for a surprise gig this Friday! More on this exciting
event later... vk
February 14th 2006:
Hey-ho, no sleep 'til the record release party, right!? Day 10 and 11 in
the bag. A tough two days as me and Teppo recorded guitars in Nosturi
for "Action" and "Ivalo" on Sunday and "Reservoir" on Monday. We took
some time to refine the sounds and couldn't always figure out what to
play in each and every part so we made slow but quality progress. On
Sunday we spent about 1,5 hours putting together a strange flute-like
harmonics thing for the middle part of "Ivalo", time well spent for some
20 seconds of musical moments to remember. Hope it still sounds good
come mixin' time. Anyways, we'll re-convene next Saturday and Sunday for
"Henry", "Visual Basic" and possibly "Eyes Wide". Oh yeah, Teppo hates
the working title "Visual Basic" so that might have to be changed. The
title gives away too much of the Blanket essence I guess. :) I'll think
of something less obviously geeky although I had a small
not-so-far-fetched analogy going with this one. LAter. ville
February 9th 2006:
Hi, been a while. I was sick a bit and it was hard to get all our
schedules to match; everybody's working and doing other stuff too. But
we'll continue with guitars next Sunday and Monday at Nosturi and
continue at Kyläsaari the week after. More reports after Sunday. Take
care. -vk
January 26th 2006:
Ok, day 9 down. The scheduled Monday recording was postponed to
Wednesday. We had a long session yesterday at Nosturi and luckily
managed to record all the bass tracks for the remaining songs. As we are
doing this project purely as a hobby of sorts, it's sometimes rough
coming in and focusing real hard on recording when you've just finished
a hectic day at work only to return home just in time to get some sleep
in before another day at the office. To some extent this would be easier
if we were all on welfare. :) Anyways, Simo was on top of his game again
and we got the bass traxs to "Software Developer", "the Fanatic", "Eyes
Wide Shut", "Firenze" and "Bulletproof" and we'll be going after the
guitars next. Should be exciting and potentially time-consuming. The
overall schedule is not as tight as I would want it to be but there's so
many schedules and people involved that it's hard to get everybody in
the right place at the right time. All in all it's sounding quite good,
so stay tuned. -vk - a working man.
January 18th 2006:
Hi guys. Day 8. Our bass player, Simo, is a pro. He plays in like 5
bands at the moment and the routine showed as he played the bass parts
for our recording like a machine. We started a bit late yesterday but
laid the foundations for 4 songs: "Aktion", "Ivalo", "Henry Kissinger"
and "Visual Basic". Meanwhile Jaakko had found a way to get the right
drum parts for "Fanatic" and "Firenze" and they should be fine for
further recording without re-recording or anything - Willi can chill. We
will continue next Monday and with any luck we might get the rest of
songs done bass-wise then. But until then, take care. -vk. Also,
we have some very cool ideas for the eventual release of the LP, but
we'll keep the ideas to ourselves for now as nothing's 100% sure yet.
But it should be good and different and media-sexy and comfortably
communist too. :) Stay tuned.
January 12th 2006:
Hi. We were Jaakko's place with some coffee and a few cinnamon rolls and
listened to the stuff recorded with specific attention on the drum
parts. It's tough to listen as only further recording will usually
reveal some flaws, but most songs seemed very nice, only "Firenze" and
"Fanatic" will have to be looked at somehow. Maybe there was a better
take there somewhere. So next up, Simo! He will do some bass overdubs
next Tuesday at Clark Kent's practise space. Overall, in such a vast
project, my personal thoughts constantly slide from sheer delight and
excitement to full-on dispair. There's so many variables, things that
could go great or horribly wrong that play a big part on how the final
product will sound like. At the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic, we'll
know more after some solid bass lines are there. Later. -rmbl
January 10th 2006:
Wow. How time flies. We are heading over to Jaakko's place today to give
a first verdict on the material recorded so far. We'll listen thru the
songs and see if the drums and basses are as we want them to be. If
everything's super-duper, we'll continue with guitar overdubs in the
following days. I haven't talked much about our recording setups so far
and probably I'm not the most informed guy to talk about them, but
basically after a lot of thought we decided early on that because we
would record all the material in our practice space we would record the
drums and bass lines first with only reference guitars and vocals
plugged in the line inputs. No wailing amps which would leak in to the
drum tracks. We still played live, but all guitar and vocal tracks will
have to be re-recorded eventually. So, today, we are listening thru the
drum tracks to see if they are perfect and rocking and we'll continue
from there. Take care. -vk-.
And I have to mention in current news, we won't be missing Mr. Ariel
Sharon all that much, whoever is going to follow him will have to work
extra hard to have a worse record. Mr. Robert Fisk has been there and
knows a lot about this stuff if you're interested. Will the
suffering decrease with one less bulldozer?
January 4th 2006:
Hey. Happy New Year. We've been taking it easy over the holidays. The
drum tracks still aren't ready as we've been focusing our own real
strengths - coding and computer wizardy. We couldn't get the software we
wanted to work fine, so we had to rely on older technology. Jaakko will
be hard at work during the following days and we'll continue work after
that. Stay tuned. -v "the lyrics are almost done" k
December 22th 2005:
Hi there. Hope you're there following the trail. Day 7 down. Simo was
out of town, so we did the best we could on "The Fanatic" which might
turn out real nice if we get the Native-American theme really going on
that one. (it should make sense once you hear it) Also, we re-recorded
the final bars of "Bulletproof" and that was it. All the drum parts we
were planned to record are now in the bag - or in the computer to be
exact. Jaakko's going to take the various takes and bits and tracks home
and find the best runs and set them up for further recording. If the
stuff passes our air-tight quality inspection, Willi can pack up his
gear and concentrate on giving us other guys a hard time. We already
talked about all kinds of bonus tracks and what not; we have a few
surprises up our sleeves, we'll see how many we actually can throw
together. We'll continue when Jaakko has the finalized drum parts ready,
which might be late next week at the earliest. So, everybody, have a
real happy christmas time, remember to take it easy! Peace and love. v
"no lyrics" k.
December 20th 2005:
Back to the old grindstone, day 6 of the recordings for the Blanket LP
was a real Trial by Fire (to quote the good-ole Testament song) to our
drummer Willi. We spent the whole day (or night to be exact) going thru
the most un-rehearsed song of the batch, "Firenze". It's a fairly slow
and long song with kind of a soul feel, so getting the timing and all
the little nyances just right was essential and it took heavy meditation
and one double-burger from Hampuris for Willi to get it right after a
bunch of takes. Everybody stayed in good humor thru out and we'll get
back to action on Thursday with "(Myself, the) Fanatic", which very well
might be the last song we'll record for this release. Thanks and take
care. v.k.
December 16th 2005:
Hell yeah. Day 5 in the bag. Recorded the usual drum tracks and bass for
"Henry the Serial Killer", which went real well with the slightly
altered arrangement. Went thru "Bulletproof" too, but we have to get
back to that one next time as Simo had to leave and we ran out of time.
Blanket will return to action next Tuesday when we'll record drums and
bass for "Fanatic" and "Firenze"(working title). Take care. ville.
December 14th 2005:
Day 4 done. Recorded drums and bass for the previously unrecorded tunes
"Eyes Wide Shut (in to the Minefield)" and "Action". "Eyes Wide" was a
bit tough to get right as it has more stuff in it than three normal
Blanket songs combined. We spent a good deal on that one, so we had to
rush thru "Action" a little bit, but it should be fine as it's just a
basic straight-forward rok song. We'll continue on Thursday with "Hank
the Killer" and "Bulletproof" in store. So far, thru four days and six
songs of recording, Willi has broken one drumhead, one crash symbal and
countless crappy discount Millbrook drum sticks. Our costs are climbing
and we haven't even gotten to guitar smashing yet. Well, this only means
we're doing something right - giving 110% as we should. Stay tuned. ville.
Photo Gallery from the first few days
December 12th 2005:
Day 3 down. We recorded drums and bass lines for "Ivalo" and "Visual
Basic" (working title). Both seemed very fine. Jaakko made a rough mix
of "Software" with everything but vocals and it sounded real nice. Had a
good laugh on the various guitar noises we recorded for the mid-part of
"Software", one track sounded like a F1 car. :) We'll proceed to rok
next Tuesday with at least "Action" and "Eyes Wide Shut". Until then. vk.
And I'll try to get some pictures up here soon to prove that we're not
just making all this up.
December 9th 2005:
Oh yeah. Day 2 of proceedings down - many to go. Simo couldn't make it
yesterday so we recorded guitar tracks for "Software Developer". Jaakko
came in with his effect kit and we rampaged thru his gadgets looking for
that big ass sound. I think the best sounds for this tune was still
found in Willi's perfect combination of a Spetel amp and an old Philips
speaker. The guitar tracks were also recorded to find out if our
homemade studio setup can produce quality results. All sounded fine,
Jaakko will make some pre-mix of the stuff recorded so far and we'll
evaluate from there if everything's a-ok and ready for more songs. We'll
be back on Sunday the 11th for "Ivalo" probably. Peace. .vk.
December 7th 2005:
Let's born to rok. Day 1 proper of the recordings is over. After some
good old programming and fine-tuning we recorded drums and bass lines
for "Software Developer" and "Reservoir". Both songs were sort on the
slow side tempo-wise, but maybe this way they'll have room to rok more.
"Software" went in real nice but "Reservoir" was a bit tougher, but
it'll be just fine after we add the symphony orchestra to it. (it's just
that kind of song) We'll continue on Thursday with some guitar work for
"Software". Later. - a tired vk.
December 5th 2005:
Things are rollin' along nicely, all the mics are now in place and the
headphones are attached. We'll start recording tomorrow. "Software
Developer" is on first, we'll see how it goes. We might have some pics
from the sessions available as soon as tomorrow night. "Firenze" is
still lacking lyrics, the other ones are fairly ok. Good old themes and
pathos re-addressed. You know the drill. Peace. vk
November 27th 2005:
I think i had the grand idea sometime after the Semifinal gig of July
2005 where played really well in my opinion and got a lot of good
feedback over all despite that we hadn't been practicing as much as we
would have wanted or could or should have. As you might know, during the
course of quite a few years we've made a bunch of homemade EP's and
singles and split releases but no Big One yet. and when you make stuff
yourself with not a lot of money, you tend to rush thru the few studio
days and then when you're not 100% happy with the way it turned out and
no way of going back to change, you don't want to spend money on
actually printing the deal in a pressing factory only to have hundreds
of copies gathering dust at home. So you figure you'll be smart and save
some cash and make some sort of CDR release which then won't be taken
seriously anywhere and you're always aware that burnt cdr's won't last
and they look bad and so forth. Sort of a vicious circle of a small and
poor part-time rok band i guess.
So, to avoid the aforementioned, this time around we'd try something
different. We would try to record enough songs to make a LP length
release which we could print in force. we would never afford to book
enough studio time to record enough songs and be 100% happy with the
quality, so the only viable option was to record the material on our own
and maybe mix and master it somewhere else. This approach is good that,
in theory, we can take as much time as we need, we don't have to rush
thru the songs and we can work from the comfort's of our practice space
without financial pressure. It works both ways; with no deadlines, the
risk of a never-ending process is ever present. We'll see how this works
out.
Right away i thought of asking Jaakko from Clark Kent his thoughts on
this idea since he had recorded us a little before and he knows this
stuff and is a super nice guy. Willi knows computers and recording stuff
more than anyone i know and i asked him to look at some recording gear
we could buy.
A few weeks on we had gathered the gear from various places, installed
the necessary drivers and started to put the song list together. We had
a few songs we hadn't recorded before and were looking to re-record some
older songs which we weren't happy with.
So far, we've had a bunch of practises during the last month and Jaakko
has joined us for a few ones. We've been trying decide on the songs
we'll try to record, it's going fine so far. The song list at this point
is:
- Henry the Killer - a cool song but the Harju recording didn't do it justice in my opinion.
- Ivalo - same deal
- Reservoir - we could do better on this one too.
- Action - a simple rok song not previously recorded
- Eyes Wide Shut - a complex song for our skills, this might work well if recorded well
- Visual Basic - also quite hard, but might work well with a good recording
- Software Developer - a lighter tune previously recorded in Arkki. fun to play at least.
- Fanatic - a simple song with a great chorus. this might benefit from a re-recording.
- Bulletproof - a song liked by some listeners. Teppo always hated this one but i guess he's ok with the reworked arrangement, so this might get another shot.
- Firenze - a new song with a easier theme, might work well
- Oslo - a possible re-recording for quite an old song
- Salzburg - not recorded before. a possibility but lacking something. (lyrics for one)