I think this is the first song we wrote as KtS, built off a chord progression I wrote (and abandoned) the same year I wrote "At The Airport." Jerin and I co-wrote nearly every line, and just to be jerks we recorded and mixed everything in Garageband. Yeah. YEAH. ALSO: completely un-ironic usage of lines such as of "people on the street / let me hear you say," etc. Certainly the poppiest pop song I've ever had a hand in writing, and although I was determined to steer well clear of Mayer/Mraz territory, this song would probably fit well in such a playlist. (Not my fault! I lobbied hard for some deeply reverb-ed caterwauling and a harpsichord, but Jerin wouldn't have it.)
Like our last single, we chose Bandcamp to host our new tune so you can have the option of formats like FLAC and Ogg Vorbis in addition to high-quality MP3s and such. You can find the lyrics over there too.
Check out Kirby Krackle frontman/Explone guitarist Kyle Stevens tear it up with Pearl Jam's Mike McCready and pals. They played "Sonic Reducer" by the Dead Boys, just last night at the Crocodile. YEAH KYLE
In 2008 I got an iPhone 3GS. Just a few days later, standing in the auto aisle of Fred Meyer, I used it to look up what type of replacement oil filter I should use for my 1998 Jeep Wrangler.
For such a mundane task, it pretty much blew my mind.
It's been said that Steve Jobs' secret power was knowing what people wanted before they knew they wanted it. But is that really true? To me, it seems more likely that we always knew what we wanted but were used to never getting it. I bought my first clunky cell phone in 2001 and remember thinking: this is it? Before the return of Apple as led by Jobs, technology for ordinary people was stuck on a treadmill of risk-adverse mediocrity, the potential of computing devices as amazing, life-changing and fun things dangling just out of reach.
There is so much of Steve's leadership style that is applicable to almost every creative endeavor. What really intrigued me was his ability to execute, to get things done. "Real artists ship." That's probably my favorite lesson from Jobs. It's not good enough to make awesome things. You also have to push them out into the world to see where you're really at.
Who knows what else he had up his sleeve. I hope he was satisfied with what he'd accomplished.
Now that the wedding band stuff is over, it's ahead warp factor one with all these other projects.
Kin to Stars has a new show (in Tacoma WA in case you want to charter a private jet) on Oct 21 and it's a big one: both Jerin and I will be doing solo sets before moving on to the KtS stuff. We're also working on a new single which I hope we can release before showtime. Here again is our debut single from this summer "Hello Ohio" -- just in case you're new here or missed it the first 107 times I posted it:
Explone is done, done, done recording our new release Telescope and Satellite, although the earliest release date is looking like November. Even so, trust me: you are not ready. It's going to mess you up. We're already playing some of these new songs live -- our next gig is at the Sunset Tavern on Oct 20. Details here.
Did you miss the three singles Explone released this summer? Here they are.
Last but not least, Kirby Krackle is headed to LA in November to play some sort of NBC-sponsored event that I don't really know the details about. Prior to that, Kyle and Jim will jet to the New York City Comic-con where Kyle will play a solo set alongside Paul and Storm and H2Awesome. Lucky dog.
Here's "Bite Of Another" from Super Powered Love. I heard there was some debate between Kyle and Jim as to whether the bite in question was from a vampire, zombie or werewolf, since the basic result is pretty much the same. I guess they settled on vampire? Anyway...
The real machine-gun stuff starts around :30, but watch all the way to the very end. See the part where he clicks his sticks together and mugs for the camera? When he goes back to the snare drum, the snares are off. When did that happen? I watched the end a dozen times trying to catch him switching off the snares but it doesn't happen. Did they break? Was it accidental? WHAT IS HAPPENING
Our one-off wedding band was almost called "The High 80s" which would have been more than appropriate given the recent Seattle weather patterns and the fact that our setlist was dominated by selections from the John Hughes era of FM radio.
But then Josh had to go and make some sort of quip about, uh, extra testicles -- and "Tres Huevos" it was.
Kyle was cool with it. After all, it was his wedding.
Our nightmare scenario was the first song would clear the floor and we'd end up playing to a handful of drunk stragglers. As it happened (and I have this on good authority), the fact that we opened the set with an all-male rendition of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," led by a large blond man dressed in orange, turned out to be an unintentional stroke of brilliance, as everyone immediately got it.
I wrote earlier that the thing about wedding bands is the idea seems super-lame until you're actually in one (which I think applies to cover bands as well as karaoke). The secondary reward comes from watching people pour out onto the dance floor, bride and groom included, people young and old, people dancing with kids and babies, etc. Scoff all you like, but when the audience has your back, belting out the chorus to "Livin' On A Prayer" along with you, everyone wins.
Check out the buttery bassline by Bobby Watson, who played with Chaka Khan back in the day and produced Janet Jackon's first album (BTW, thanks Wikipedia, for devouring an hour of my life as I delved into the history of Ms. Jackson. For no reason!). I'm generally taking a "fake book" approach to these songs, which means I'm learning only the bare minimum needed to play each song competently, but as Patrick noted, my life depends on whether I can nail that slinky riff in the second verse. Mmmmm hm.
Too bad we can't just fill out our set by jamming on this tune for a half hour, which we totally would.
Windows Metro IE will ship plug-in free. The mobile version of Windows 8, Metro, will not have any plug-in preinstalled, including Flash. More evidence that we can't rely on Flash music players in the near future.
