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.

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.

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.

Peace, David

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.

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.

View Larger Map

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

Hey, if you’re on Facebook, you can become a fan of Beat Concrete. If you’re not on Facebook, that’s cool too. And if you’re on Facebook but don’t want to be a fan, we respect that.

Here’s the URL of the fan page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Beat-Concrete/58813913236

Not the George Clinton song, but man is P-Funk awesome

The whole goal of demos is to record something simply and easily but it wasn’t the case this time. But technology aside it was pretty easy to come up with the parts to go with the main guitar and vocal lines and Beki and I had some fun Sunday night singing background vocals. The song and mix aren’t very tight but it got a draft down on tape (so to speak) so that we can start playing it as a band in rehearsal. Which won’t be until next month when Ken gets back from his Euro vacation.

For once I wrote a 3-minute song. It’s a simple little ditty with some covert messages about peace and social justice. But mostly just a little ditty…

You can stream it from the player below (you can also download it from there, actually) or right-click and save from the link below.

>> We R Doctor Funkenstein

Peace, y’all!

Fleet Foxes bringing light to the indie music world

Here’s a quote from his blog that Exclaim picked up:

“Fleet Foxes will never, ever, under no circumstances, from now until the world chokes on gas fumes, sign to a major label. This includes all subsidiaries or permutations thereunder. Till we die.

“I just don’t see the point. Most major labels seem anti-music. We’ve pursued no such deal with Virgin (or been pursued to my knowledge, I think it was just a bit of news they reported) and would be idiots to be unhappy with our fam of label folks. It is true though that all copies of the CD LP will now include a free copy of the EP (like it is currently with the vinyl), but that’s not a ’special limited edition,’ it’ll be that way in perpetuity, no extra cost or packaging change.”

Unlike other successful artists (cough, cough, Metallica) Fleet Foxes say they don’t give a fig if fans download their songs illegally:

As much music as musicians can hear, that will only make music richer as an art form,” singer Robin Pecknold told the BBC. “I think we’re seeing that now with tons of new bands that are amazing, and are doing way better music now than was being made pre-Napster.”

“I’ve downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records – why would I care if somebody downloads ours? That’s such a petty thing to care about,” says Pecknold. “I mean, how much money does one person need? I think it’s disgusting when people complain about that, personally.”

This makes us glad that we bought their first album and makes even more excited for the next one (which, BTW, they are recording now in a northwest home studio). We’re all for legal downloading and use our Rhapsody subscription to listen to tons of new bands, but honestly, if you don’t have the money why should you be deprived of hearing new music? Support artists as much as you can but keep listening by any means necessary.

We’ll leave you with a clip of Fleet Foxes video for White Winter. Funnily enough, tried to put a link to their appearance on SNL but NBC had blocked the video–kind of makes the case for them being better off on Sub Pop rather than working for a major media conglomerate, doesn’t it? Peace.