Layin' Down the Beats - First Cutz

So, we just had a face to face to run through the chorus, first four verses and bridge of the first four tracks of Lululemons, our first song. I set down basic drums, bass and vocals to give the other Fools an idea of where my head was at on the song. They gave a listen and fully approved of the direction. Our time was super limited, so we didn't get a chance to have a recording session, but I will take a crack and modifying, getting in some guitar, more elaborate beats and revising it to their comments. We are off to the races!

Time Crisis

The lyrics are written and the style is agreed, but I am just having a terrible time trying to get the time to sit down and start recording "Lululemons" into Logic. By the time I get time after 10pm, I am just too knackered to get going as I look towards the 5am wake up to start all over again. Oh well, just need to get a bit of sleep and keep the tune fresh in my mind and start to pound it out bit by bit and share it around to the other two Fools.

This is a Call

This is a call for all you graphic designers out there to show your stuff for fame and glory! I think it is high time that the Fresh Faced Fools had a logo - essentially something that makes everyone think "Those guys must be wicked awesome". It could be a stylized way of writing "The Fresh Faced Fools" or "FFF" or ... really anything else that is in some way related.

If you have any form of talent whatsoever, give it a try and send us what you come up with. We'll post it here and everyone can vote on which one they think is the best. We will adopt the winner's logo design as our official logo and heap credit and praise upon you, and you will, of course, receive all credit for its design.

Give it a try! Looking forward to seeing what y'all come up with!

Send entries to freshfacedfools@gmail.com

Virtual Jam, Take 1

Yep, John was right and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers really can still slay it. But, can they jam virtually using Skype, sharing screens and writing and editing lyrics to fit the tunes in real time, hundreds of miles apart!? Well, they probably can, but the point is that now so can we! Two nights ago we did a full test of the technology - a couple of Macbooks, Skype and Logic - and were able to view the tracks and lyrics we had layed down previously individually in Logic using the screen sharing feature in Skype. It was pretty awesome. Obviously, still second place behind actually being face to face, but a great start nonetheless!

I think I just short circuited by brain

In the course of this process we have remained steadfastly confident that even with our limited skill, time, and talent we should be able to produce some killer licks that will keep people wanting more. Then, last night, driving through the City...minding my own business...I heard the new single from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers..."I Should've Known". Crap. Back to the drawing board.

As per usual, the real pros are like the Thermo-Nuclear weapons of the rock world, and this was like an ICBM that ran right under the radar and completely destroyed me, my vehicle and the six city blocks around me.

The problem is always when you hear a song that almost perfectly hits what you would like to have written...the groove, the lyrics...everything. Oh and the blistering guitar solo at the end made me think seriously about taking a skill saw to my own axe in ritualistic sacrifice (cue the "we're not worthy...we're not worthy").

I'm heading to the football game tonight to let my mind rest and think about next steps. I figure a key is going to be getting together with the Dee for an old skool jam session. We're going to need to "jam this one out".

I am bringing this devastating moment to the Dee's attention on the blog, as I fear if I tell him directly, two thirds of the Fool's brain power might be permanently gooified.

Well, onwards and upwards.

Breakthrough in Group Part 2

Up until we posted Breakthrough in Group, it had been quite awhile since our last post, which is the result of two things: time being at a premium between full time day jobs, kids, yardwork and lives (how modern day rock star is that?!) and, in the ten minutes a day that we have to devote to this, having hugely creative low-tech sessions, mainly involving phone calls/Skyping and jotting down ideas in a notebook, in addition to listening to Top 40 radio stations basically non-stop. Now that we have a plan, we have put pen to paper and written out all of the lyrics and song concepts that have been playing around in our respective heads. Surprisingly, we have ended up with ten songs – 8 that are 70-80% of the way there on the lyrics side and two that are promising draft picks.

The working titles for the eight are:

- Lululemons
- Super Duper Bar Star
- ABC Famous
- Electro
- Mayor of Party Town
- RomCom Nightmare
- Party People
- Nine to Five

The two massively promising draft picks that just need a little more time devoted to them are:

- Day Job
- Stingray

The balance of the lyrics for the 8 will come once we start to really jam them out and record, but we’ve been discussing the vibe and mood of each song and have set a mini-objective within our goal of getting a song on the AT40 –actually starting to record two or three songs and see where we get to. We have set the August 20th objective to have at least two songs fully recorded and mastered (we don’t really understand fully what mastering means, we just know that we need to do it so everything sounds its best and we might have to pay a professional to do it for us). Once we have something that is in any way worth sharing, we’ll post it here for comments/critiques.

Our next step is to try to get the melody and bass line for the two or three set down and then shared amongst the Fools somehow. We are about to get our virtual jam on.

Breakthrough in Group!

Oh YEAH! You just can't get anything done without a plan, and, ladies and gentlemen, the Fools now have a plan. It feels a little like those first few times we made a plan to play a gig, only this time the "gig" is entirely studio based. The Fools are going to make their debut on August 20, 2010...embedded in the play-list for a wedding dance.

Now lets consider the pluses to this plan: (1) 90% of the people will be drunk when they hear us; and (2) 90% of the people will be in a good mood when they hear us. NICE. Its going to be killah.

All we have to do now is take a few of our ideas and turn them into reality...simple right? RIGHT?

Step 1: We need a song.
Step 2: We need to finalize the song.
Step 3: We need to mix and produce it.
Step 4: It has to pass the Disco D "highsteppin'" test.
Step 5: We have to slip it past the Bride.

No problemo...