Universal supernova Live... + extra spacey bits.


Louis.

My apologies it's been a while since I've written to you, and a lots happened since then; the most exciting thing being, that we've made three new W!LD recordings, (one of which was done, you could almost say accidentally, in an extremely professional studio,) and are finally in a place where an EP release doesn't feel a million miles away. 
We've also spent a busy week rehearsing* in preparation for said recordings, played a gig in the city, recorded a couple of music videos, and started adding a host of new songs to our live set.

So yeah we've been busy little 'Thunderbees'! (sorry that's one for a W!LD fan with a very good memory.)

The recordings we've done, regretfully need to be mixed before I can post them on here, but I've nearly finished editing the videos so I'll post them up soon.
And er.... do my best to write some more comments while I'm at it.   

Louis.

*and playing Donkey Kong on our Wii. . . . music can be stressful sometimes, so repeatedly letting Donkey and Diddy Kong fall down deep chasms, and be eaten by giant piranha plants, while attempting to save their bananas hoard from evil villains, was a highly 'inportant' part of our rehearsing, 'cough'.  

The other day, via Email , an exciting thing happened: we were sent a version of 'First Failed Escape' that had been mastered by a professional music engineer.
I can't remember the guys name now, (silly me,) but he's started working in Metaphorm studios, where we were recording the song last year.

Anyway once we'd got it off the computer, we eagerly had a listen to song: the mix was wonderfully clean, the vocals sounded great, as did the instruments.
All good news then?
Unfortunately not: listen closely, particularly to the choruses, (I've posted a link to the recording below,) and you'll notice the lead vocal has been auto tuned a little too much, so that it now hits a couple of strange wrong notes.
Even more noticeably, (if you know the song that is,) is that the high backing vocal on the choruses, has been ever so slightly moved, so that it now comes in earlier, and more weirdly, then it used to.
Hopefully though those will be easy enough things to remedy, and then we'll be one step closer to that W!LD EP.

All the best, 
Louis.     
   

http://soundcloud.com/perrywild/wild-first-failed-escape

I saw a couple of gigs last week, and as always had that pleasing little feeling of jealousy, from wanting to be up there playing myself; a regular reminder of one of the reasons I want be a full time musician.

The blue Jays were playing in Kinsale, and gave me another opportunity to watch Brendan Fennessy playing the drums, which is always a pleasure,* then on Saturday I watched Karma Parking, who were the entertainment at Tom and Ben Duffy’s birthday party in Co. Meath.

I loved the way their songs got everyone moving with there infectious grooves, W!LD need more groves I fancy.

After the Karma Parking gig the PA and a few instruments got left out, (in a marquee set up for the event,) and at about 5am a few people unknown, picked them up and had a drunken jam.

Maybe it was because it was the middle of the night, (everything can seem a little distorted if you’ve just woken up,) but I’d swear I’ve never heard music so loud as it seemed to me then, curled up in my little tent about 100 yards away, it was like being in the middle of a rave!

The next day, very tired from that camping experience, I sat through the entire three hours of the giant rock concert that was posing as the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games.

 I don’t know if you saw the ceremony? It was much less risqué then the opening one, but worth watching, even if only for the incredibly touching rendition of Imagine by john Lennon, (accompanied by a film re-mastered by Yoko Ono.)

The Who were quite good fun as well.

 Louis.

*Brendan plays drums in O Emperor, (and some other bands,) and as well as being bloody good, is also great fun to watch, as he always looks like he's really in the moment and enjoying himself... And no I'm not his manager, just a fan.  

One thing I really dislike about the modern music industry is the decline of CDs, and that everything is going digital.

This is mostly because I’m worried no one will be bothered about album artwork anymore, (I’m sure there’s already less emphasis on that than there used to be,) which would be a terrible shame, but also because I’m a bit of a hoarder, and I love having the physical copy of something, weather it be a CD, a DVD, a book, or even a video game.

Having said that however, I must admit a tad guiltily, that I haven’t actually bought a CD for about a year, so it’ll be with a little desperation as well as excitement, that I go buy the new Bloc Party album later this month, shortly followed by Muse’s latest offering in September.

I even pine for old records sometimes, which makes me feel very old fashioned, but the art work just looks 'so' fantastic on them, all grand and highly detailed. 

I sometimes say to myself  ‘wouldn’t it be great if CDs could still have album cover that size’ and then I  rack my brains for a bit trying to think of a way this could happen, (maybe something like a poster you get free with an album,) but as yet I’ve never thought of anything sensible. 

I very rarely do.

One day maybe;)

Louis

Hello there, welcome to another W!LD blog!

Here's what we've been up to since I last wrote, (though I'm not including Thursday and Friday because A: for your sake, I don't want this post will go on all night, and B: aside from a practice gig in front of extended family, which quite amusing, music wise those days were a little dull.)  

On Saturday we played two acoustic gigs on Sherkin Island, which was a nice adventure, and certainly the first time we've ever had to go put our equipment on a ferry, to get to a gig.
I haven't been to the island for years, so it was cool to have such an excellent excuse to visit. 

The event we were playing at was a little Sherkin Island festival, complete with campers, portaloos, a dash of rain, and plenty of plastic beer glasses.
We were only actually billed to play once, but because the festival drum kit was a little late arriving,* and because W!LD had been the ones to nobly open the festival, in front of an kindly, but not numerous audience, the organisers bravely slotted us in for a second performance later on.
Also were just Greedy!

I'd say the most interesting part of our performance, was probably when perry took everyone inside the jolly roger, (the festival Marquee was attached to the Jolly Roger pup,) and played 'Annie' on an acoustic piano, standing up and dancing about for extra impact.
 
By the way in case you're wondering why, as a reader of the official W!LD blog, you haven't heard mention of this gig before now, it's because it was supposed to be a secret... Might even still be a secret actually, shhhhhhhhh.

Our aunt and cousins have been staying with us for the first time in ages, so on Sunday, in celebration, we broke off from the music for a bit, and had a tea party instead.
Monday we were back at it again though, as we had Aron, ( I don't know his second name,) over to play some guitar solo's and have a little jam, then yesterday, I spent a bit of time trying to finish a few pesky little songs that have been bugging me for ages, and also playing yet more 'In the Beginning There Was Funk'.
Perry's Been away palying Drums in Inishshannon.

And that's just about it for now.
Back soon,

Louis

*I heard from the snare drum, who had been driving, that the kit had been stuck behind a particularly long line of tambourines, on the way to belly dancing convention.

OMG we have a new kitten, and she's so sweet!!

She, (we think she’s a she anyway), is at our house because she jumped into mum and dads car when they were shopping in Bandon, then refused to get out again, and as she was looking a little skinny and uncared for they decided to take her home. . .

That sounds like a bit suspicious if you ask me, more likely they just wanted a kitten an answered some advert in the local gazette. Either way though she's living with us now, chasing everything in sight, and peeing in the bath.

Expect lot’s of feline related songs to be making their way into the W!LD set very soon!  

Damn I must remember that this Blog is supposed to be about Music not kittens! 

Or sport, that's another tempting one, I think I've just about managed to keep inner sportsman away from these pages so far, but it's been touch and go at times.   

So yeah something about music:

last week, everything bar the weather, was very distracting an summery, but we're back on track now and, It looks like we’re finally going to do a bit more recording later this month, which is great news.

In preparation, my daily routine now includes lots of extra bass playing, particularly the part from ‘In the Beginning There Was Funk’, which I like to practice until my hands start to cramp up, or become exhausted… Unfortunately this usually happens after about two or three repetitions of the song, so it's a bit hard to practice at the moment, I'll get better though.

I must dash because I have a kitten to play wit..... I mean bass line to practice!!

Back soon,

Louis

Eeeek I've got to publish this as well, because otherwise we'd now have exactly 13 posts, and that's just not lucky!

Louis.

Even though they were a few days ago now, I still think I should write about the gigs we played last weekend; admittedly this is partly because I've been at my girlfriends house in Clare since Monday, and therefore I haven't got a lot of other musical news to tell you about, (that is, unless singing 'Penny Lane' in the shower counts,) but it's also because both gigs were kind of unusual and it would seem a shame not to spare them a few words.

Ennis was the setting of the first gig; we were playing upstairs in a pub called Brandon's, which had a bit of a 'Fred Zeppelins feel to it.
It was one of those places with a lot rooms, and upstairs the floors were all covered by felt like red carpets, while behind the bar was a Murial featuring a 100 or so different musical figures of whom i recognised about 4, John, Paul, George and Ringo, which shows you how much i know. 
By the time we got on to the stage in there were only about 10 people in the audience, but they were a very kind hearted collective, listening attentively to the whole of our 10 song set, (one song for each of them,) despite the the fact we didn't finish playing till gone 2 in the morning. We had one of two songs to finish with, either 'It's a Wonderful World', (not the famous version of the song, but one written by perry,) or Bitterness, and we went for bitterness in the end on the count of it being cheerier?   

The party we played at the next day, was at this amazing place in west cork, which was a farm supposedly, although it seemed more like great sprawling garden, riddled with mysterious pathways, that ran between high hedges and imposing plants. A Cheshire cat marked the entrance gate, and the whole party was Alice in Wonderland themed, much to my delight. I'm fairly sure one or two of guests hadn't red the book though, that is unless I'm forgetting the bit about the pirate....... or the panda?
Our set meandered on for rather longer than it usually does, and included some numbers rarely seen outside our electric gigs. The most enjoyable of these, was a version of 'In the Beginning There Was Funk' including a beat-box drum backing from the Calvinists, as well as other musical members of the audience.
The mad hatter handed around his hat after the gig, which was very kind of him, and the guests obligingly filled it with change, which was sweet -as a sugar lump- of them. Regretfully W!LD were unable to hang around for tea however, as Perry had yet another gig to play that evening, the poor thing.

Hopefully we may get some live recordings from that second gig, as I think they were recording most of it. I'll post some up if we do.

Bye for now.
Louis

Hello dearest readers,

I'm sure you're dying to know all the W!LD news, so here it is:

Firstly, in connection with the gig we played in leap last Saturday, we had our picture in the evening Echo!!!!! And as if that was momentous news enough, they even awarded us a sentence in the article about the event, including in it, the word "Impressed".

News bulletin two is that we're heading off to Ennis tomorrow, as we're playing a gig there at 1am, Saturday morning. A little unfortunately we then have to be in west cork by 3pm on Saturday afternoon, as we're playing another gig at a party. It times like these you wish you had your own jet! I suppose Christmas isn't that far away though - hope you're reading this mum? 

On the home front, I've been doing lots more Hokusai's Waves drawings, (see earlier post,) and perry's been teaching me to play three over two on the piano, (so I can play the Blackout actually in time,) a process that can be described in two short words, "head Fu%!".

I'll leave you with a video of Delilah from our gig in Kinsale, which includes some stylish footwork and exuberant jumping from perry. Plus you've got to love the hat.

Bye for now.
Louis.

I heard an interview with Kieth Richards a while ago, and he was telling a story about how he had kept himself awake, along with the rest of the Rolling Stones, for four nights in a row, and how on each night, the stones had had to played a gig! Granted they were probably full of drugs at the time, but still it does make me feel a little pathetic for feeling a worn out because I'd played 2 gigs in a day.
However 'a bit worn out', was how i was feeling on Saturday evening, having just got home from playing the first couple of W!LD shows this summer.
Maybe it's like football though, where the only way to get truly match fit, (or gig fit in this case,) is.... to play a few matches/gigs. 
Anyway tiring or not, it was exceedingly nice to be performing again and, apart from a broken guitar strap, and some truly terrible stage talk from yours truly, both the gigs went alright, I think.
Many thanks to everyone who came along, and/or was involved in organising them.

The day after our gigs included my weekly football fix, and during that, I rather unfortunate sprained my ankle.
It was nothing a pack of frozen peas, and a temporary crutch, (actually a curtain pole,) couldn't sort out though. And I'm expecting to be fit again in time for W!LDs next performance, (in Ennis on Friday,) that is as long as the manager picks me! 

Louis  

I wrote a song a while ago called Hokusai’s Waves, all about a desert island made of paper, (think Paper Mario, crossed with Treasure Island.)

It was quite a visual song, and as soon as I finished it I longed to have a music video to go it with, preferably an animated one.   

Regretfully though my skills as an animator are pretty much nonexistent, but I did get the idea that a slideshow of still images, (one for every couple of lines in the song,), might make an interesting video instead.

With that in mind I started doing some drawings, and soon came up with a cartoon like technique, simple enough for me to produce a few images with; that is, images that looked like they just might belong together.

However after I’d spent an age working on six or seven of these pictures, I hit a bit of brick wall. What happened was, I did a test slideshow with the images I had so far, and unfortunately it looked shite.

The video just wasn’t going to work without at least a small bit of movement. I really didn’t want to ditch the pictures I already had however, or spend ages learning how to do an animation, so what I decided to do instead, was use an idea that I’d got from those little fold out books you get when you’re a kid.

This is it:

Once the pictures I’ve been working on are all finished, I’m going to print them out, and then glue them on to pieces of card. 

Our little film camera will then have to be mounted on a rail somehow, so it can be gradually pulled backwards, along a tunnel.

Through groves in the tunnel the pieces of card can then be slowly dropped, or pushed, in front of the camera, and kept in time with the song.

If none of that made much sense to you, then here’s a video we made to test the idea out... only we had to use books to make the tunnel and cds instead of my pictures.  

I've also put up a couple of the pics.

Fair play to you if you got through all that, people are always telling me that I ramble on to much:)

All the best, 

Louis.

Hello again,

apologies for the complete absence of posts in the last month, the UK proved to be a difficult place to blog from, not least because, as we didn't get a chance to play much music, we had very little to write about. . . That is unless you'd have been interested in anecdotes about pork pies, and quaint little English towns, full of terribly alluring second had bookshops?  

Anyway we're safely back in Ireland now, and the last four or five days, have had a busy house of visitors, a cunning trick on their part, to make us believe ourselves  popular.
One of these visitors was a cheerful Ben Duffy, who will be playing drums with us in Kinsale this weekend. He was with us Saturday to Tuesday so we've been doing plenty of much needed rehearsing!
The Funk Song, Wait, and The Blackout all got particular attention, and we also road tested a new arrangement of Supernova. 

My bed and sleep are calling out to me, so I'll leave you now with one of the recordings i mentioned in my last post, (it's only a rough demo, but give it a listen anyway.)  Me or pear should be writing to you again pretty soon though hopefully.

Louis.
http://soundcloud.com/old-friend

I write to you from the surprisingly sunny hills of west Yorkshire. I say surprisingly because before this morning the hills have been very much playing to stereotype, and hiding themselves behind great clouds of mist and, icy sheets of rain.
Me and the rest of family Wild are here on our summer holidays, having nobly decided to lend our ocean cruiser, and little island in the Bahamas, to somebody else.   

Back home my recording got as far as a piano track and, about twenty slightly gravelly vocal takes. None of the latter were particularly definitive unfortunately, although I did decide to keep nearly all of them, mostly due to an irrational fear of deleting things.
I was also working on a another song, one I wrote ages ago, rewriting and rerecording the bass line, (yet again,) and then trying to record the drums at about 11pm the night before we left.
I didn't get particularly close to finishing either song, but I was still going post a link of the recordings so you could hear them. Unfortunately though I can't find the memory stick i put them on anywhere! I'm getting a nasty feeling i may have left it at home. Sorry.

Louis. 

Despite my horror at discovering I'd held the camera the wrong way up during the Paul McCartney photo shoot, (see perry's post below.) What was even more embarrassing, was when the former Beatle tripped up on one of my ever multiplying collection of shoes, and broke his little toe. Mind you it wasn't all bad, as McCartney's fall did uncover half a slice of chocolate cake, that I was delighted to see again, particularly as i hadn't eaten since Breakfast.   

In other news...

I'm afraid I have developed a bit of an obsession with Agatha Christie novels, and the symptoms are getting so out of hand, that I've even begun to get song ideas from them!
Last week I was struggling with lyrics, and one pesky bit of melody, for a song about the Orient Express. I finally finished the first draft yesterday though, with a little help from my wee brother, so this evening I plan on visiting W!LD studios, (ie my bedroom,) and doing a spot of recording.
Wish me Luck!



Louis.
Ps If it turns out ok I'll post the recording up on the blog:)

So here’s what happened,

Louis was taking some publicity shots for Paul McCartney up in the W!LD den* and he didn’t realise he was holding the camera the wrong way. What would have been a lovely portrait of Macca ended up being a picture of his bedroom floor (hence the background for this blog… tidy innit?).

So to distract from this highly embarrassing state of affairs I have constructed a game from the clobber. I’m gonna make a list of some of the tat and if you can find all the items on it we’ll send you a free demo of some relatively coherent tunage (by us, not Paul). Ready?

GO!

Can you spot:

A broken ocarina *cries*

A cassette marked “very old tape” (specificity fail!)

2 books by Karl Coryat

The worst pancake EVER

Things for deadening a drum (what poor folk use anyway)

W!LDs net earnings for 2012 (I wish I was joking)

God (be creative with this one)

Happy hunting!

Perry (the cool moody one)

Ps: Don’t believe we’re on first name terms with Paul McCartney? Try playing You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) backwards… go on

*To prove he’s not dead like

Hello everyone, (or anyone) and welcome to the W!LD blog!
Here we intend to entertain, intrigue, or maybe just bemuse you, with daily posts about what we in W!LD are getting up to.
Perry for instance, (who is seated nearby, tickling the ivories,) has just told me he has been writing a wrong note song and, has made the amazing discovery, that you can put a B flat with an A! * 
You can listen to a little sample this Wrong Note Rhapsody, on soundcloud:   
soundcloud.com/perrywild/wrong_note_rhapsody

bye for now,
Louis

*I just about know enough music theory, to grasp the fact that those two notes don't often spend much time together. They prefer to spend their romantic evenings with other, more agreeable notes.