June Happenings
I’ve been writing some new songs and exploring my singer-songwriter side a little bit lately. Most recently, I’ve been working with English folk artist Richard John on a new track. He came up with some chord ideas, then I worked out a verse riff based on them and put a new chorus on it. It’s fun to swap ideas back and forth across the Atlantic and I’m pleased with the results so far. You can hear the track I recorded using contributions from Richard on guitar and banjo here. It’s a sad song called “The Years”—not sure if we’ll play it with Beat Concrete or not; we’ll see.
For folks in the North Valley, we’re playing the Thursday Night Market in Chico this coming Thursday, June 10, from 6 to 9 PM. Come by and groove with us for a while if you’re around. Keep it peaceful and easy, OK?
Thursday Night Market Video
Quick vid of us playing last week. Playing on the street; that’s our style! Playing for the people! Yeah!
Upcoming Things
We are emerging from our winter slumber (yaaawwwwn) on this site with a couple tidbits for our faithful listeners. First, we have a new recording of Desiree, which you can hear on the music player on the right. We put out a version in January, but decided it needed a radical overhaul. We think it turned out pretty good, but your opinion is the one that matters.
Second, we have two upcoming gigs: April 1 at Chico’s Thursday Night Market at 6 PM, 3rd and Main Street. We’ll play until 9 or so and would love to hang out with you in between sets, so come on by.
On April 17, we’re playing a benefit at the Chico Grange’s annual Open House. They have a great stage and the hall will be set up for dancing–plus, the Grange is a great community organization and you can learn about their mission. And it’s FREE, although donations to the Grange (as well as memberships) are invited. You can get more info here. The event is at the Grange Hall at 2775 Old Nord Avenue (one block east of Nord) and we hope to see you there.
Lastly, we bought a little HD video camera and are starting to shoot some videos. We’ll let you know when we have something ready to show.
Enjoy your Spring!
Back in the Garage
Since late December, we’ve been taking some time to work on recording. We’ve been working on our live performances, and recording is very different, so we’ve had to take a look at songs we’ve been performing and approach them differently. For the two tracks we’re working on now, we have taken two diverging paths.
The Girl In Number Six is a song we know the recording arrangement for pretty well, having recorded a demo for it previously. While there are several guitar parts we can’t cover live, it was just a question of syncing the drums and the bass together more tightly and knocking out our parts. There are still a few tweaks to make, but the version you can hear on the player is pretty much complete.
Desiree, on the other hand, required a complete re-think. The entire song really only has four chords and there are lots of ways to approach it. Finding the right way has been quite a journey, and we’re not quite there yet. We need to add one more drum part to the choruses and tighten up a couple of other things to make sure the chorus drives, but the vocal harmonies we’ve added and the guitar parts are working pretty well together. The important thing is getting the raw emotion of the song across without making life seem hopeless.
If you’d like to download the current versions of these two songs, you can go to our band page on SoundCloud to get 256 kbps MP3s. Get ‘em while they’re hot! They’ll be coming to thesixtyone.com soon.
Thesixtyone
We’ve been fans of thesixtyone.com for some time now. It’s a great music site that combines music, social networking, and a game aspect all in one unique package. It’s a free site for listening to artist-submitted music, and users control what songs rise to the top by ‘hearting’ songs they like.
Beat Concrete reflection logo
If you’re already on thesixtyone, you can hear us by going to our new band account at thesixtyone.com/#/beatconcrete. We’d love to see you there—if you enjoy our music we can use your support, and it’s a fun place to share music and interactions while discovering tons of really cool bands.
Unlike MySpace, there are filters on T61 for finding new music you like–whether by genre, popularity, mood, or by what your friends like. It’s a very democratic process and there are thousands of rabid music fans you can make friends with through listening to each other’s radios, sharing comments, hyping bands you like, etc. If you just want to listen to free music, you can do that to, but it’s really designed for people who want to interact with artists and listeners in a more active fashion.
“One Quarter Full” is the first song we posted, and it’s up now at thesixtyone.com/#/beatconcrete.
Peace.
One Quarter Full
We did some recording over the holiday break, and One Quarter Full is the first song to come out of that. Starting with a stereo track of drums of rhythm guitar recorded at rehearsal (no click track, so the tempo is um, natural), we layered 3 guitar tracks, 2 vocal tracks, and 1 bass track to make what is (surprisingly) probably our best-sounding recorded track to date.
Kudos to Beki for playing upright bass at 160 bpm and making it sound so easy. We added a little drive to the bass, so it doesn’t really sound like an upright (maybe a fretless electric), but it is. She also did a great job singing harmonies and we had fun working out new harmonies on the fly—each verse has a different feel even though the main vocal melody is the same.
For such a gloomy song in terms of lyrics, it sounds very happy. The backing vocals are just one track of Beki and I singing together on one mic, Beatles-style, but they came out pretty lush. Ken’s going to have a hard time learning his background parts while keeping up his drumming!
If you want to download the track, you can get it on SoundCloud right now for free–click here.
Hope you enjoy the song, and as always, we value your comments.
Peace.
Healthcare is a right for all
This pretty much sums up how I feel about the political struggle to the health care problems afflicting our country.
Peace, David
House Party This Weekend
We’ll be playing an exclusive and ever-so-hip house party this weekend. There will be an assortment of other musicians there, some of the young and some of them not. It should be a good time and we hope to see you there.
We just can’t tell you when or where it will be. It’s sort of a Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist affair, apparently. If you find it and us, we think you’re really cool. If you don’t, well, we still think you’re cool. Because we like you for who you are. You don’t have to pretend with us.
Peace.
Chapmantown Market – August 28 @ 2 PM
We’ll be playing at the Chapmantown Market this coming Friday, 28 August, from 2–5 PM. The weather should be good (hopefully not too hot) and we will be propagating a peaceful yet rocking vibe to the best of our abilities.
Here are the details:
What: Chapmantown Food & Fitness Fest – Farmers Market
Where: 1071 E 16th Street (at the end of E 16th Street) in Chico, CA
In the parking lot in front of Chapman Elementary School
When: Friday, 28 August from 2–5 PM
Need directions? Click the map below.
Chico Thursday Night Market – Sept 17 @ 6PM
Just added a show for Thursday, September 17 from 6-9 PM at the downtown Thursday Night Market in Chico. If you’re in the area, come on by–it’s free and we’ll be playing some new stuff. New songs will be in the early set, then probably later as well.
Beat Concrete live (artist's conception)
We’ll be on the stage on Third Street between Broadway and Main.
Good times will be had; hope to see you there!
Peace,
David
