The perils of not being in control of everything yourself

Re.: a national radio session I did whilst on tour. on their online version they accidentally left out the guitars and had the wrong track titles listed. nothing serious… i love my national radio, after all! :) … but I thought the following chat with my buddy, Dan, was kind of funny :).

Daniel Batkin-Smith: dude, got the link to the NatRad thing?
The Enright House: Erm. Sorry, what are you talking about, again? :)
Daniel Batkin-Smith: your status message
Daniel Batkin-Smith: about missing guitars
The Enright House: oh
The Enright House: ha
Daniel Batkin-Smith: I wanna hear
The Enright House: no fuck you
The Enright House: ha
The Enright House: i’m sure it will be fixed in a few days
Daniel Batkin-Smith: ah come on
Daniel Batkin-Smith: sook
The Enright House: why do you want to hear a 13 minute guitar song that has no guitar in the mix?
The Enright House: explain that, and MAYBE, I will oblige your ludicrous request
The Enright House: that is, if you haven’t already found it yourself with your mad internet powers :P
Daniel Batkin-Smith: I want to hear what it sounds like WITHOUT guitars, out of interest
Daniel Batkin-Smith: fuck you i’ll find it myself!
The Enright House: ha
The Enright House: darnit!!!
The Enright House: FINE
Daniel Batkin-Smith: hahahahahaha
The Enright House: here
The Enright House: SIGH SIGH SIGGGHHHHHH!!!
Daniel Batkin-Smith: thanks buddy
Daniel Batkin-Smith: good trip back?
The Enright House: ha yeah man
The Enright House: despite a delayed ferry it wasn’t too bad at all
Daniel Batkin-Smith: good one
Daniel Batkin-Smith: so have you mailed Kirsten about it?
The Enright House: ha of course. and texted
The Enright House: it’ll no doubt be fixed
The Enright House: or taken down
The Enright House: depending on what happened
Daniel Batkin-Smith: dude… you broadcast that field recording on National Radio!
The Enright House: haha
Daniel Batkin-Smith: talk about not being audience friendly
Daniel Batkin-Smith: you run the risk of alienating a good majority of a possible audience
The Enright House: it’s so friendly it’s smiling like godzilla on its wedding day
The Enright House: what am I? robbie williams?
Daniel Batkin-Smith: you could be, I guess
The Enright House: what do i care about alienating people?
Daniel Batkin-Smith: if you really want
The Enright House: that’s right, i could entertain you. and you. and you. and you, too.
Daniel Batkin-Smith: if only we let you
Daniel Batkin-Smith: (ooh that’s a good one)
The Enright House: ( ,,|,, )

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My top-5 list on Cheese on Toast :)

I totally adore lists. They suit my temperament. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a tidy person. In fact, in many ways I am a total slob. Nevertheless, my mind has a tendency to prefer tidy concepts, symmetry, order, or really anything at all that would appeal to an obsessive-compulsive person like myself.

Anyhow, lists are fun, and so is talking about music. You can imagine then, how genuinely delighted I was that Andrew, from Cheese on Toast, invited me to contribute a TOP5 list for his site.

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Help needed: putting up posters and fliers in Auckland?

Thomas and I are heading off on our North Island tour mid August, and we don’t know enough people in Auckland, so are having trouble finding a way of getting our posters and fliers out around town.

Want to help us out in exchange for a screen-printed Enright House t-shirt?

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Simon’s South Island Tour Diary

[I'm totally stoked: Simon just emailed me his tour diary. This is the first time a post will be up on The Enright House that wasn't written by myself. Sweet. So without further delays, here's Simon's diary from our South Island tour:]

[Photo by Roger Grauwmeijer. View entire set.]

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music subscription: why eMusic is awesome!

Ok, let me come right out and admit it: I used to hear the terms “music subscription” and immediately find myself preoccupied with fighting back the vomit that was starting to claw its way up towards my mouth. Fellow sinners, I have been reborn and have shed my unenlightened ways.

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Derek Sivers, Lali Puna and The Deadly Deaths

If I could actually stand on one single toe long enough to think and utter speech, whilst being forced to name three things I currently love, I might yell out the following three things in agony:

[1] Derek Sivers (CEO and founder of CD Baby)

Honestly, this man is such a legend:

I’ve met too many people who got into music because they loved playing drums, but well-meaning people tell them they need to read some huge book about the business of music and negotiating contracts, cross-collateralization, and points on the agreement. Feeling guilty, they try to go through it but find it boring. Then they start copyrighting all of their songs and trademark their name and set up an LLC. Someone else says they need to have a website, so they try to learn HTML, but someone else says they need to have flash on the site. Then they try to learn flash. The truth is that while all of those things are important, nothing is more important than maintaining your full excitement for what you are doing. If you lose your enthusiasm along the way, things will fail no matter how flashy your site is or if your band name is trademarked. Pay close attention to the compass in your gut. Do the work that’s most exciting to you, because that’s what you will do best.

[2] Lali Puna

One of my favorite bands ever. So good, so to the point, so city-sidewalk:

[3] The Deadly Deaths

I just bought their album a few days ago at Galaxy after having arrived too early at a meeting. I decided to bridge the wait with some good old record shopping, pick up their CD, and it’s been the only playing from my car stereo in days. They are masters at lethargic pop melodies.

Check out their website at www.thedeadlydeaths.com.

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Best of 2007… no… err… 2005-08

I had this intense desire to create a “favorite songs of 2008″ post, but I ran into an embarrassing obstacle: I haven’t really listened to any music during this past year. Undeniable proof of this lies in the fact that my most played songs in itunes for 2007 have no more than 7 plays. Ha. That’s pretty dire, by any standard.

My somewhat belated New Year’s resolution, as a consequence, is to listen to more music in 2008.

So, instead of a 2007 Top-10 itunes songs, here are my 20 all-time most played songs on itunes (roughly 2005-2008):

1. Slowdive - Machine Gun
2. Death Cab For Cutie - Stability
3. Film School - Activated
4. Arab Strap - Cherubs
5. Aloha - Ferocious Love
6. The Books - Take Time
7. Sleater-Kinney - Start Together
8. The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up - Reckless Driving
9. Jakob - Nice Day For An Earthquake
10. Four Tet - Spirit Fingers
11. Shocking Pinks - This Aching Deal
12. Blonde Redhead - Elephant Woman
13. Pinback - Tripoli
14. American Football - Never Meant
15. Modest Mouse - Dramamine
16. Engine Down - Songbird
17. Sufjan Stevens - All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands
18. Midwest Product - Duckpond
19. Cranes - Paris And Rome
20. M83 - Gone

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Help build a winter dome around Chicago

First we had the space race with Moscow, now we have a race for the first domed city. Who said the cold war was over?

The fight’s on, baby!

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“Driving”: A song by Misfit Mod and The Enright House

Ever heard of Misfit Mod? Well you will. Count on it. Period.

Misfit Mod is my friend Sarah’s musical outlet, and honestly? everytime I listen to her music I get rediculously jeleous. Why? Because each and everyone of her songs is an earth-shattering revelation on just how much sonic and emotional depth can still be achieved within the bounds of popular music.

Anyhow, before Sarah moved to England a few months ago in order to start her music career, we actually spent a few hours one quiet night creating a song together, called “Driving”. I can’t remember who did what, but the two of us were knee-deep in synths, samplers and feedbacking guitars for most of the evening. And, after eventually taking turns at kicking each other out of the apartment, we both recorded a vocal line without the other person being allowed to hear it. In the end, we had two independent vocal lines, which, to our utter suprise, even worked well enough together to layer them over the top of each other at the end of the song.

Download the full 192 bit mp3:
The Enright House and Misfit Mod - Driving [3.3mb]

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What’s in store for the next 6-8 weeks

I’m about to head off to the States for a five week holiday (Chicago - New York - Chicago). Consequently, things will be a bit quiet in terms of the band until the four of us reconvene in January. However, despite not being able to play shows et cetera, I’ll actually be incredibly busy working on the following:

First and foremost I will be adding a lot of interesting and unique content to this website. For one, I will be implementing Bruce Warila’s concept of songpages. However, his idea of what songpages should contain strikes me as rather bland; our way of doing it won’t be. Whereas Warila suggests including standard items, such as who wrote and recorded a song, the lyrics, licensing blurbs and a courtesy song stream in his songpages, I can’t help but think he’s got a solid idea, lacking, ultimately, in enough substantive content to get music enthusiasts seriously interested in the idea.

So, the songpages I’m working on will include all of the above, but will also make available media such as videos, live performance mp3s, live and rehearsal videos, prior demo recordings of the song, remixes et cetera. But that’s not even the half of it:

The thing I’m most excited about, is creating hand-drawn scores of every song that you will be able to download as PDFs. These scores will sometimes be a collection of guitar tabs, or traditionally notated scores, or graphical scores explaining what sounds occur when and where. They will all be entirely unique, and if I like how they turn out, I might even get them bound affordably and make a super limited edition (maybe 10) available for sale through the website.

In addition, every songpage will feature an 8-15 minute “making-of” podcast, including anecdotes, a few secret blunders, as well as segments on song production, instrumentation and song-writing.

Finally, some songpages will even go a step further and include downloadable remix packages, containing all the individual instrument and vocal tracks, as well as drum-loops and samples - all as 16 bit wave files. So, if you’re interested in remixing our stuff (and possibly having us include your efforts on our site, or even releasing them as part of upcoming singles or EPs) you will be able to download these remix packs as zip files, import them into your sequencer of choice, and have a go at doing your own thing!

So, far from taking a break from The Enright House, I’m simply going to be doing a lot behind-the-scenes activity, which, hopefully, will eventually culminate in one the most involved, content rich, and - fingers crossed - exciting band websites on the web! Five weeks, of course, might well not be enough time to get it all done, but you know what? I’m totally looking forward to trying! :)

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