Os meninos já fizeram a sua reunião anual com seus amigos musicos para a criação de novas musicas =P
depois eu irei traduzir todos os textos mas agora eu realmente estou com muita pressa...
Estes textos foram tirados do blog do Chris Sligh, um dos artistas que participaram este ano
Chris Sligh from Season 6 of American Idol was invited to this year’s Fools Banquet hosted by Hanson! If you don’t know what Fools Banquet is, it’s a songwriting retreat Hanson holds every year at 3CG Studios where about a dozen singer/songwriters come out for a week and break into groups and write and record songs either to be used on one of the artists’ involved CD’s or pitched to a TV or movie soundtrack. Anyway, Chris has posted on his official blog about his experience working with Hanson and all the other great singers/songwriters involved! Here’s his first of two blog entries;
Posted January 28th, 2008:
I’ll have more info later, but I just got asked to be a part of a songwriting summit with some of today’s biggest songwriters! They are flying about 10 of us out to write and record for 3 days and they picked me to be a part of it. In the past, this writing conference has had Adam Schlessinger (Fountains of Wayne), Gavin DeGraw, Jason Mraz, Hanson and many others. I am not sure who all is coming this year, but just being included is a huge honor. I leave Wednesday and will be back Sunday, so I’ll give more info later.
Another cool thing is that it is being filmed for a big series on A&E this summer…so being involved really is a huge opportunity.
I’ll try to blog every day to let you guys in on who all is involved and what is happening.
By the way, the final mastered version of Empty Me is up on myspace. It will begin to be heard on radio very soon…the official add date is now February 22, but some stations will be adding it on the 15th.
***************************************
Chris Sligh from Season 6 of American Idol was invited to this year’s Fools Banquet hosted by Hanson! If you don’t know what Fools Banquet is, it’s a songwriting retreat Hanson holds every year at 3CG Studios where about a dozen singer/songwriters come out for a week and break into groups and write and record songs either to be used on one of the artists’ involved CD’s or pitched to a TV or movie soundtrack. Anyway, Chris has posted on his official blog about his experience working with Hanson and all the other great singers/songwriters involved! Here’s his the last of two blog entries made by Chris;
February 4th, 2008:
Not sure about the title. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m listening to John Mayer right now.
Well, I didn’t get a chance to blog while I was out in Oklahoma. Sorry about that. Internet was spotty and even if it hadn’t been spotty, I was so tied up I didn’t have time. However, with that said…great times were had for all involved and some great music happened. That’s what this thing is all about. Fool’s Banquet ‘08.
Every year, the Hanson guys bring out several songwriters varying from popular indie artists to established mainstream artists to up and comers. For 5 days, they split the singers up into groups of 2 or 3 and they write songs together. The songs then can go on the artists’ records or can be used to pitch directly to film/tv or can be pitched to other artists. It’s a very cool concept that happens to work extremely well.
I got to Tulsa on Wednesday night. Because of my schedule I could only work out going for 2 full days of the 6 (they started on Monday). I got picked up by Hanson’s assistant Rebecca. We had a nice trip out into “the boonies” as Rebecca referred to it, talking about how she got a ticket driving out there the night before. We finally got to the house/studio and the guys were working on recording the songs they wrote that day. Hanson has a 2 studio recording complex that is part of a ranch-style house. They have room A and room B. Room A is an actual studio, Room B is really part of the house, but they have converted in nicely into a very nice live room.
When I walked in, the studios were in a frenzy because both of their engineers had falled down with the flu. So, no pros recording, and some of the audio setups within Pro Tools are pretty complex, so everyone was doing acoustic demos. The songs that I heard seem to lend themselves to acoustic demos anyway. I walked into studio B where Jason Mraz and Pat McGee were working on recording 2 songs they wrote that day. Jason sat down and played and sang the song in one take. It was amazing. The song was great and Jason sang every freaking note in tune. Amazing. Then Pat sang some bgv’s and threw down another guitar part.
Several other songs were recorded, but the first night was a blur. I was just meeting everyone and trying to process everyone’s name. Kate Voegel who is an artist on myspace records was there on Wednesday but left Thursday morning bright and early, so my time meeting her was short-lived. People kept on working until about 1am when I finally headed up to my bedroom and got some sleep.
I woke up the next morning about 10am and went down, got some breakfast and started working on a couple of ideas I had on my own (everyone else was either not up yet or eating breakfast. Then they broke us up into groups and I was put with Pat McGee and a guy named Kai Kennedy from a band called Locksley. I’ll give more info on everybody later. We got to working and worked through 3-4 different ideas before settling on a Counting Crows-like alt-country song. It took us a long time to perfect it, but it turned out very good. It’s called “Wait for Me”…the basic premise is a guy who’s going out on the road and he and his woman are struggling in their relationship, so as he leaves to hit the road, he says, “I wouldn’t wait for me…I’m done making promises I know I can’t keep…I wouldn’t wait for me…but for once I’m hoping that you don’t agree.” It was a nice little lyrical turnaround.
When we finished the song, we headed over to the studio,but someone was already working on their song, so I went over to Studio A where Isaac Hanson, Jason Mraz and a guy named Zac Malloy were recording the song they wrote. It was a song called “The Story of Your Life”…cheesy title (but I don’t know that another title would work) but seriously one of the most genius songs I’ve heard in a long time.
This is a little side note…I’ve never really bought into the whole idea that certain great songwriters are on higher level than other great songwriters. I think once you reach a certain level as a songwriter, it’s tough to be consistently better…you know, you might throw out the occasional “incredible” song - we all do at some point - but it’s touch to be consistently better. Well, with Jason Mraz I saw my first instance of a writer being incredibly greater than me on a consistent basis. It’s so fluid for him. Not to take away from the guys writing with him because Isaac and Zac are incredible in their own right, but I heard 5 songs that he wrote and all of them were “next level” songs, especially from a lyrical standpoint. Incredible.
Another side note is this: people are stupid who diss the Hansons. Seriously these guys are some of the smartest, savviest, most incredible musicians I’ve met. They are serious about their craft and they have serious skills. Don’t diss Hanson.
Anyway, we laid down our song. Pat played some acoustic guitar and tambourine, Kai played electric and bass and Zac Hanson played drums. And then I sang the song. It ended up really cool.
We all hung out talking and listening to each other’s songs…it was this great communal atmosphere of just everyone cheering each other on.
Finally, about 1:30am I went to bed. I again woke up about 10 and ate some breakfast. Apparently several people were up till 4:30 so we didn’t get started until about noon. This day, I got to write with Isaac Hanson and Jesse Laz-Hirsch, the lead singer of the band Locksley (Kai was the guitar player for the band). Isaac had taken Jason to the airport and crashed back at his house, so he was a bit late, so Jesse and I started working on a song. It started off with me just playing a wurly and it slowly morphed into a Justin Timberlake-type song. We wrote the song really quickly. By the time Isaac got there, the song was basically complete, as far as form and basic lyric content. So, we headed down to record.
I played a wurly loop and then Isaac went over and recorded a drum loop with live drums. We basically found a couple of measures that worked for the loop and them looped it over and over again. Jesse had a very clear vision of where he wanted the song to go, so he kind of drove the boat on the production side of things. I laid down a guide vocal. After that, we began working on recording the instruments. I wasn’t feeling well - I think everyone out there was fighting off the flu - so I took about an hour nap. When I woke up I felt much better and went back down to the studio where the song was almost done. It sounded great! Isaac did some cool guitar stuff and Jesse had layered acoustic and bass and piano on top of the track, as well as some bgv’s. To end up, I laid down the final vocal as well as some bgv’s. It really turned out cool…just a vibey, jammy track that starts off kind of Timberlake-y but ends up kind of funky pop/rock.
After we finished I again went to check out other guy’s stuff. Zac Mallow, Taylor Hanson and Andrew Finn wrote this great song that was somewhere between Gavin DeGraw (it’s a rhodes-based song) and Marc Broussard. They worked on that for a long while and it sounded great! In the other studio, Pat was working on the song he wrote with Stephen Kellogg and Keaton Simons. Another great song…very Counting Crows-like. Very cool.
While they were working on that, I went down to one of the writer’s room and heard Zac Hanson messing around. I went in and we just jammed for a little bit and then really started writing a song. We took this idea of a train ride being a metaphor for love and wrote this beautiful, hooky song based on the idea. It ended up being my favorite song from the week. We finished the song about 12:45am and waited a while to see if we could record it. Finally at 1:30, I decided that sleep was vital, and Zac said he would get some of the guys to help him record the song the next day.
I woke up at 4:30am to head to the airport. Stephen Kellogg and Pat both had 7am flights. The studio is about 40 minutes from the airport, so it wouldn’t make sense for someone to have to drive me separate for a flight an hour and a half later. So, I just bit the bullet and got to the airport 3 hours before my flight left. Unfortunately Southwest didn’t open up till 7, so I had a good hour and a half to waste, so I went up and got some Starbucks (venti White Chocolate mocha). And I listened to music for an hour and a half…it was nice.
I am in the midst of creating a reality tv show that I’ll be pitching to the networks very soon. So, I spent some time when I got to Kansas City (a 2 hour layover) to really work out some of the finer points of the treatment, how the competition will work, how the shows work, etc. I can’t give more details right now just because it is in development, but I’ve shown the idea to several people in the industry and everyone thinks that it’s a viable idea that could get picked up pretty easily, with the right people attached. So, we’ll see.
Once I finished that (and another venti white mocha) I continued working on the screenplay that I’ve been working on for a few weeks (actually it’s based on a play I wrote and had performed back in 2000). The script is a comedy and it’s turning out pretty funny so far. The plan is that I’ll write the first draft on my own and then have some co-writers help hone it in. I doubt anything will ever come of it, but it’s a fun exercise and could, perhaps, be used as a spec script down the road.
Saturday night, after I got back from the airport, Sarah and I just watched tv and hung out for a while. Then I started to put together my pedal board (I got some new pedals while I was out in Tulsa) and realized I needed to grab some stuff from Brown’s. So I called and asked if I could come over. When I got there, we needed to reprint some mixes to send to Don for strings stuff. Then as we listened to my vocal for “In a Moment” we realized we needed one line to be redone. So, I went in and took 5 takes to give us what we needed.
Then it was to bed.
Sunday came and I slept in. I needed it. After getting 2:30 sleep on Friday night, I didn’t get to bed till midnight Saturday night, so I needed sleep. When I woke up, I went down and watched Super Bowl coverage for the next few hours until the game came on.
I was cheering the Giants on. So, YAY!
Anyway, here’s the people that were involved:
Isaac Hanson - the oldest Hanson (the guitar player/singer)
Taylor Hanson - the middle Hanson (he’s the guy who’s voice you know)
Zac Hanson - the youngest (the drummer and singer)
Pat McGee - Pat’s a solo artist with a band. He was signed for a while, but now does the indie thing. He is an incredible writer/singer. You need to check him out. myspace.com/patmcgeeband
Keaton Simons - this dude is the real deal. He is an incredible musician, an incredible singer and an incredible writer. He has an album coming out in May and has played with Josh Kelley, Gnarls Barkley and several others. You will want to buy the album. Check out his music at myspace.com/keatonsimons or keatonsimons.com
Jesse Laz-Hirsch/Kai Kennedy - lead singer and guitarist of Locksley, a very popular indie band. They’ve been featured in Rolling Stone, Blender, etc. and are one of myspace’s top bands. Their music is kind of like the Beatles meet Nirvana. Very cool stuff. myspace.com/locksley
Stephen Kellogg - a singer songwriter who was signed for a while to Universal but recently went indie to work with a label attached to Red Light Management. Very talented, quirky guy. He was my roomie for the two days. Check out stephenkellogg.com
Zac Malloy - he came a day after I did, so I didn’t get to know him that well. He was in a band called the Nixons and is now a producer. Great writer, though.
Jason Mraz - of course, you must know who he is. Chris Rich sang his song “Geek in the Pink” on the show. He is a remarkable singer/songwriter. Check out his myspace (myspace.com/jasonmraz)
Andrew Finn - Andrew has a cool story. He was working and decided he wanted to be a musician so he wrote some songs that fell into the hands of Joe Simpson (yes, Jessica’s dad) who had Ryan Cabrera record a couple of them. From that, Andrew has moved into music fulltime and has an album coming out late-spring or early summer. I’m not sure of a website for him.
depois eu irei traduzir todos os textos mas agora eu realmente estou com muita pressa...
Estes textos foram tirados do blog do Chris Sligh, um dos artistas que participaram este ano
Chris Sligh from Season 6 of American Idol was invited to this year’s Fools Banquet hosted by Hanson! If you don’t know what Fools Banquet is, it’s a songwriting retreat Hanson holds every year at 3CG Studios where about a dozen singer/songwriters come out for a week and break into groups and write and record songs either to be used on one of the artists’ involved CD’s or pitched to a TV or movie soundtrack. Anyway, Chris has posted on his official blog about his experience working with Hanson and all the other great singers/songwriters involved! Here’s his first of two blog entries;
Posted January 28th, 2008:
I’ll have more info later, but I just got asked to be a part of a songwriting summit with some of today’s biggest songwriters! They are flying about 10 of us out to write and record for 3 days and they picked me to be a part of it. In the past, this writing conference has had Adam Schlessinger (Fountains of Wayne), Gavin DeGraw, Jason Mraz, Hanson and many others. I am not sure who all is coming this year, but just being included is a huge honor. I leave Wednesday and will be back Sunday, so I’ll give more info later.
Another cool thing is that it is being filmed for a big series on A&E this summer…so being involved really is a huge opportunity.
I’ll try to blog every day to let you guys in on who all is involved and what is happening.
By the way, the final mastered version of Empty Me is up on myspace. It will begin to be heard on radio very soon…the official add date is now February 22, but some stations will be adding it on the 15th.
***************************************
Chris Sligh from Season 6 of American Idol was invited to this year’s Fools Banquet hosted by Hanson! If you don’t know what Fools Banquet is, it’s a songwriting retreat Hanson holds every year at 3CG Studios where about a dozen singer/songwriters come out for a week and break into groups and write and record songs either to be used on one of the artists’ involved CD’s or pitched to a TV or movie soundtrack. Anyway, Chris has posted on his official blog about his experience working with Hanson and all the other great singers/songwriters involved! Here’s his the last of two blog entries made by Chris;
February 4th, 2008:
Not sure about the title. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m listening to John Mayer right now.
Well, I didn’t get a chance to blog while I was out in Oklahoma. Sorry about that. Internet was spotty and even if it hadn’t been spotty, I was so tied up I didn’t have time. However, with that said…great times were had for all involved and some great music happened. That’s what this thing is all about. Fool’s Banquet ‘08.
Every year, the Hanson guys bring out several songwriters varying from popular indie artists to established mainstream artists to up and comers. For 5 days, they split the singers up into groups of 2 or 3 and they write songs together. The songs then can go on the artists’ records or can be used to pitch directly to film/tv or can be pitched to other artists. It’s a very cool concept that happens to work extremely well.
I got to Tulsa on Wednesday night. Because of my schedule I could only work out going for 2 full days of the 6 (they started on Monday). I got picked up by Hanson’s assistant Rebecca. We had a nice trip out into “the boonies” as Rebecca referred to it, talking about how she got a ticket driving out there the night before. We finally got to the house/studio and the guys were working on recording the songs they wrote that day. Hanson has a 2 studio recording complex that is part of a ranch-style house. They have room A and room B. Room A is an actual studio, Room B is really part of the house, but they have converted in nicely into a very nice live room.
When I walked in, the studios were in a frenzy because both of their engineers had falled down with the flu. So, no pros recording, and some of the audio setups within Pro Tools are pretty complex, so everyone was doing acoustic demos. The songs that I heard seem to lend themselves to acoustic demos anyway. I walked into studio B where Jason Mraz and Pat McGee were working on recording 2 songs they wrote that day. Jason sat down and played and sang the song in one take. It was amazing. The song was great and Jason sang every freaking note in tune. Amazing. Then Pat sang some bgv’s and threw down another guitar part.
Several other songs were recorded, but the first night was a blur. I was just meeting everyone and trying to process everyone’s name. Kate Voegel who is an artist on myspace records was there on Wednesday but left Thursday morning bright and early, so my time meeting her was short-lived. People kept on working until about 1am when I finally headed up to my bedroom and got some sleep.
I woke up the next morning about 10am and went down, got some breakfast and started working on a couple of ideas I had on my own (everyone else was either not up yet or eating breakfast. Then they broke us up into groups and I was put with Pat McGee and a guy named Kai Kennedy from a band called Locksley. I’ll give more info on everybody later. We got to working and worked through 3-4 different ideas before settling on a Counting Crows-like alt-country song. It took us a long time to perfect it, but it turned out very good. It’s called “Wait for Me”…the basic premise is a guy who’s going out on the road and he and his woman are struggling in their relationship, so as he leaves to hit the road, he says, “I wouldn’t wait for me…I’m done making promises I know I can’t keep…I wouldn’t wait for me…but for once I’m hoping that you don’t agree.” It was a nice little lyrical turnaround.
When we finished the song, we headed over to the studio,but someone was already working on their song, so I went over to Studio A where Isaac Hanson, Jason Mraz and a guy named Zac Malloy were recording the song they wrote. It was a song called “The Story of Your Life”…cheesy title (but I don’t know that another title would work) but seriously one of the most genius songs I’ve heard in a long time.
This is a little side note…I’ve never really bought into the whole idea that certain great songwriters are on higher level than other great songwriters. I think once you reach a certain level as a songwriter, it’s tough to be consistently better…you know, you might throw out the occasional “incredible” song - we all do at some point - but it’s touch to be consistently better. Well, with Jason Mraz I saw my first instance of a writer being incredibly greater than me on a consistent basis. It’s so fluid for him. Not to take away from the guys writing with him because Isaac and Zac are incredible in their own right, but I heard 5 songs that he wrote and all of them were “next level” songs, especially from a lyrical standpoint. Incredible.
Another side note is this: people are stupid who diss the Hansons. Seriously these guys are some of the smartest, savviest, most incredible musicians I’ve met. They are serious about their craft and they have serious skills. Don’t diss Hanson.
Anyway, we laid down our song. Pat played some acoustic guitar and tambourine, Kai played electric and bass and Zac Hanson played drums. And then I sang the song. It ended up really cool.
We all hung out talking and listening to each other’s songs…it was this great communal atmosphere of just everyone cheering each other on.
Finally, about 1:30am I went to bed. I again woke up about 10 and ate some breakfast. Apparently several people were up till 4:30 so we didn’t get started until about noon. This day, I got to write with Isaac Hanson and Jesse Laz-Hirsch, the lead singer of the band Locksley (Kai was the guitar player for the band). Isaac had taken Jason to the airport and crashed back at his house, so he was a bit late, so Jesse and I started working on a song. It started off with me just playing a wurly and it slowly morphed into a Justin Timberlake-type song. We wrote the song really quickly. By the time Isaac got there, the song was basically complete, as far as form and basic lyric content. So, we headed down to record.
I played a wurly loop and then Isaac went over and recorded a drum loop with live drums. We basically found a couple of measures that worked for the loop and them looped it over and over again. Jesse had a very clear vision of where he wanted the song to go, so he kind of drove the boat on the production side of things. I laid down a guide vocal. After that, we began working on recording the instruments. I wasn’t feeling well - I think everyone out there was fighting off the flu - so I took about an hour nap. When I woke up I felt much better and went back down to the studio where the song was almost done. It sounded great! Isaac did some cool guitar stuff and Jesse had layered acoustic and bass and piano on top of the track, as well as some bgv’s. To end up, I laid down the final vocal as well as some bgv’s. It really turned out cool…just a vibey, jammy track that starts off kind of Timberlake-y but ends up kind of funky pop/rock.
After we finished I again went to check out other guy’s stuff. Zac Mallow, Taylor Hanson and Andrew Finn wrote this great song that was somewhere between Gavin DeGraw (it’s a rhodes-based song) and Marc Broussard. They worked on that for a long while and it sounded great! In the other studio, Pat was working on the song he wrote with Stephen Kellogg and Keaton Simons. Another great song…very Counting Crows-like. Very cool.
While they were working on that, I went down to one of the writer’s room and heard Zac Hanson messing around. I went in and we just jammed for a little bit and then really started writing a song. We took this idea of a train ride being a metaphor for love and wrote this beautiful, hooky song based on the idea. It ended up being my favorite song from the week. We finished the song about 12:45am and waited a while to see if we could record it. Finally at 1:30, I decided that sleep was vital, and Zac said he would get some of the guys to help him record the song the next day.
I woke up at 4:30am to head to the airport. Stephen Kellogg and Pat both had 7am flights. The studio is about 40 minutes from the airport, so it wouldn’t make sense for someone to have to drive me separate for a flight an hour and a half later. So, I just bit the bullet and got to the airport 3 hours before my flight left. Unfortunately Southwest didn’t open up till 7, so I had a good hour and a half to waste, so I went up and got some Starbucks (venti White Chocolate mocha). And I listened to music for an hour and a half…it was nice.
I am in the midst of creating a reality tv show that I’ll be pitching to the networks very soon. So, I spent some time when I got to Kansas City (a 2 hour layover) to really work out some of the finer points of the treatment, how the competition will work, how the shows work, etc. I can’t give more details right now just because it is in development, but I’ve shown the idea to several people in the industry and everyone thinks that it’s a viable idea that could get picked up pretty easily, with the right people attached. So, we’ll see.
Once I finished that (and another venti white mocha) I continued working on the screenplay that I’ve been working on for a few weeks (actually it’s based on a play I wrote and had performed back in 2000). The script is a comedy and it’s turning out pretty funny so far. The plan is that I’ll write the first draft on my own and then have some co-writers help hone it in. I doubt anything will ever come of it, but it’s a fun exercise and could, perhaps, be used as a spec script down the road.
Saturday night, after I got back from the airport, Sarah and I just watched tv and hung out for a while. Then I started to put together my pedal board (I got some new pedals while I was out in Tulsa) and realized I needed to grab some stuff from Brown’s. So I called and asked if I could come over. When I got there, we needed to reprint some mixes to send to Don for strings stuff. Then as we listened to my vocal for “In a Moment” we realized we needed one line to be redone. So, I went in and took 5 takes to give us what we needed.
Then it was to bed.
Sunday came and I slept in. I needed it. After getting 2:30 sleep on Friday night, I didn’t get to bed till midnight Saturday night, so I needed sleep. When I woke up, I went down and watched Super Bowl coverage for the next few hours until the game came on.
I was cheering the Giants on. So, YAY!
Anyway, here’s the people that were involved:
Isaac Hanson - the oldest Hanson (the guitar player/singer)
Taylor Hanson - the middle Hanson (he’s the guy who’s voice you know)
Zac Hanson - the youngest (the drummer and singer)
Pat McGee - Pat’s a solo artist with a band. He was signed for a while, but now does the indie thing. He is an incredible writer/singer. You need to check him out. myspace.com/patmcgeeband
Keaton Simons - this dude is the real deal. He is an incredible musician, an incredible singer and an incredible writer. He has an album coming out in May and has played with Josh Kelley, Gnarls Barkley and several others. You will want to buy the album. Check out his music at myspace.com/keatonsimons or keatonsimons.com
Jesse Laz-Hirsch/Kai Kennedy - lead singer and guitarist of Locksley, a very popular indie band. They’ve been featured in Rolling Stone, Blender, etc. and are one of myspace’s top bands. Their music is kind of like the Beatles meet Nirvana. Very cool stuff. myspace.com/locksley
Stephen Kellogg - a singer songwriter who was signed for a while to Universal but recently went indie to work with a label attached to Red Light Management. Very talented, quirky guy. He was my roomie for the two days. Check out stephenkellogg.com
Zac Malloy - he came a day after I did, so I didn’t get to know him that well. He was in a band called the Nixons and is now a producer. Great writer, though.
Jason Mraz - of course, you must know who he is. Chris Rich sang his song “Geek in the Pink” on the show. He is a remarkable singer/songwriter. Check out his myspace (myspace.com/jasonmraz)
Andrew Finn - Andrew has a cool story. He was working and decided he wanted to be a musician so he wrote some songs that fell into the hands of Joe Simpson (yes, Jessica’s dad) who had Ryan Cabrera record a couple of them. From that, Andrew has moved into music fulltime and has an album coming out late-spring or early summer. I’m not sure of a website for him.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário