The Second Coming of the Paper Lamp?

It may just rise again from the dead. Word on the street is that we are very very close to getting another studio space to work in with some buddies, which means that there is a good chance that a new and improved paper lamp mascot will make an appearance in our new and improved space. I am looking forward to freeing up our weekend evenings a bit for some proper shenanigans, rather than having to ask forgiveness from my friends for being so MIA these past few months. This weekend John has gone fishin' but he did leave me a nice little beat idea to work on, so i've been messing around with that in addition to taking these past few weeks to revisit some old drafts of previous tracks i had written and see if I was inspired after having let them sit for so long.

Wondering why you got no update last weekend? Well, let's just say it was a washout. A combination of mutual tiredness, a Diesel party that we ended up not even getting into b/c we arrived too late, and a delivery of RAM all conspired against us. But hopefully with our new space, we will be able to make up a bit for lost time.

Weezer show at Madison Square Garden

John and I caught Weezer at MSG last Wednesday. At first I was surprised at how thin the crowd was for the opening bands, but then it got packed as the witching hour approached. I have to say, even though my euphoria could have been due in part to my state of intoxication by the time Weezer took the stage, I haven't had a nostalgic live show like that in a while. It brought back high school to a tee, and I thank Rivers Cuomo for allowing me to relive my teenage years where I listened to the blue album and pinkerton on repeat during car rides. Oh the days of compact disc players, where have you gone? I love the whole "we're dorks and we embrace it" thing that they've got going on. And, I'm not going to lie, any show where I can bond with fellow music fans and complete strangers by collectively screaming out the lyrics to every verse of every song is a damn good show in my book. Say it ain't so. 'Tis so. 'Tis so.

The final arrangement of "Port City" has come!

No, I didn’t take another trip to Alaska. I have just been very delinquent with my blog posts for Syvia because it necessitates me signing out of my gmail account (and by default, my gchat) to upload a new blog. Kinda annoying…wish someone at blogger would tweak that (*hint, hint).

So, a quick summary. Basically, we thought we had finished arranging our song (which was originally entitled “Skagway Boy” only to have the title nixed by some grumpy bandmate of mine, to be replaced by a mutually agreeable title of “Port City”). In its first incarnation, it was a very dance-y electronic song, which was good, but John and I both came back to it after a week and agreed that it was good, but it wasn’t the best that it could be. So, we scrapped practically everything except the vocals and some really basic instrumentals and beats that we felt made the song. First, we tried a more folky, bossanova style on the tune, but we ended up settling on very ethereal, atmospheric instrumentals and bumping up the beats in the background (bongos!), which fits it perfectly. So, after I finish laying down new vocals to go with the new instrumentals we have for the track, we will be finished arranging that song and can fully sink our teeth into the next one…which we’ve tentatively titled “Like A Sea” and I am already crazy about even though we haven’t spent a ton of time on it. It’s one of those songs that is so addictive you just want it to keep going on and on. And on that note, I will end this post here and promise to be better at keeping you all in the loop. Soon the day will come when you will be able to put a sound to a Syvia song. But not yet. Not yet…