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Jun 5

ReverbNation, Playa

Posted on Friday, June 5, 2009 in Music

Oh, sorry, we meant “ReverbNation PLAYER.” It’s that old punctuation problem again. Anyway, here’s a new way to stream music on our site from our ReverbNation profile. We’ll keep this perma-linked under MUSIC, and there’s a smaller version available on the right-hand sidebar below our MySpace status.

The only thing you need to remember is that if you navigate away from the page the music will stop playing…




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Jun 4

It’s The End of the World

Posted on Thursday, June 4, 2009 in Music

bc-logo-horizontal-5-10-09-1

Well, the end may be coming, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about The End of the World, a song I wrote last week. I recorded a demo yesterday using my laptop and my lil’ $99 Line 6 Gear Box. Plus my Seagull acoustic, Gretsch guitar, Beki’s upright bass, and a microphone. But everything that I played went through the little Line 6 box.

I wish I looked cool when I was recording, but I don't

I wish I looked cool when I was recording, but I don't

My goal when making a demo is to work as fast as possible. I had the main guitar part and vocal all worked out, but I made up everything else as I went along. I want to improve my little setup so that I can record higher quality stuff but I don’t want to sacrifice speed. The purpose of a demo is to get an idea for how the whole thing sounds when put together, not to record a gold record anyway.

I went for a trio format, with some MIDI drum loops that I edited subbing for Ken alongside the guitar and bass. Originally I just had acoustic guitar, but then I went and got the Gretsch to get some twang on the chorus (that’s what I wrote that lick on) and add a few parts here and there. I did the vocals all myself, going with first takes as soon as I had a level.

Anywhere, here’s an MP3 of the song. Post feedback if ya got any. Peace.

>> The End of the World (demo)

Right-click and Save-As to save to your hard drive to listen properly. Listen, share, and promote the track as you will for your own non-commercial use.

The best way to stream Beat Concrete tracks is at our MySpace page (www.myspace.com/beatconcreteband) where we have a selection of tracks including this one, or our ReverbNation page at www.reverbnation.com/beatconcrete, which also has this track.



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Jun 2

A New Guitar Toy

Posted on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 in Music

I like finding new ways to play guitar, especially when they’re something I can do with my existing guitars without spending $$. This time it’s the Harmonic Capo from Weaseltrap, which I learned about from a Guitar Player newsletter. It’s a cool little dealie with six rubber feet that you position over the 12th fret to give you harmonics on selected strings.

The Harmonic Capo

The Harmonic Capo

It was a little hard to position properly on my old Seagull Artist acoustic (the neck heel gets in the way) but once I had it on there the musical possibilities quickly became obvious. I quickly came up with a little ditty that I recorded (below) and may work into a full song at some point.

I’m totally in favor of anything that makes my playing sound more impressive. In this case, I’m using the capo to give me an octave touch harmonic on the D, G, B, and high E strings, with the low E string tuned to dropped-D. When I fret a note it plays at the normal pitch, so playing open and fretted notes creates a nice contrast.

If you’re a guitarist and are interested, you can find out more at Bob Kilgore’s website. It’s $34.95, making it the most expensive capo I’ve ever purchased, but it gives you effects you can’t get any other way. Cool.



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May 24

Spiritual Underground

Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2009 in Music

Except for the fact that my vocal chords were messed up we laid down some pretty good grooves last week. Here’s our song Spiritual Underground for your listening and downloading pleasure. SU was originally a more afro-beat track inspired by the late, great Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who’s always been a hero of mine.

If you’ve never listened to Fela, here’s a good place to start.

If I had 17 musicians that I could jam with (and afford to pay) that is exactly how we would roll.

Anyway, we just re-worked the bass line to be more soul-oriented so that we could groove more smoothly in our trio format live and this is what it sounds like.

>> Spiritual Underground (live)

Normal caveats apply; Firefox users need to right-click and Save-As to save to their hard drive to listen properly. Listen, share, and promote the track as you will for your own non-commercial use.

The best way to stream Beat Concrete tracks is at our MySpace page (www.myspace.com/beatconcreteband) where we have a selection of tracks including Spiritual Underground.

Peace out.



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May 5

Looking for a ‘Mel’

Posted on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 in News

Like most musicians, we love Flight of the Conchords. It’s a great show, and if you’re not watching it you’re doing yourself a disservice. That is, assuming you have a sense of humor.

But we have a problem with the show. As unsuccessful as the Conchords are, they have Mel, their number one superfan. Beat Concrete is marginally more successful than them, yet we don’t have a Mel. This makes us sad. 75% Mel-ancholy, one could say.

Flight of the Conchords ever so dreamy Mel

Flight of the Conchords' ever-so-dreamy Mel

All that is to preface the fact that we are opening a contest to give our fans (or is it fan?) the chance to become the official Beat Concrete Mel. What could be better? (Don’t answer that question!)

To enter, all you have to do is become a Beat Concrete fan on Facebook (if that link doesn’t work, just search for ‘beat concrete’ on Facebook), friend us on MySpace, or just leave a comment on this website or drop us a line. Then tell us why you think you’re the perfect Mel for us.

PS: Have to give a shout out to Kristen Schaal, the actress who plays Mel on FotC. We’re big fans. So you can say that we’re kind of Mels for Mel herself.

PPS: Still trying to find a good name for the contest. Early ideas are ‘Mel Search’ and ‘Mel-ancholy Baby’. If you have a better idea, leave a comment!

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May 5

New Live Tracks Plus Links

Posted on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 in Music

Putting up two live tracks recorded at rehearsal on Sunday: Stereo and Love Bomber. I sing the first one, Beki the second. Because we have songs scattered across the site, we thought it might be useful to put all the songs together to make it easier to grab the MP3s.

To save any of these files to your computer, right-click on the filename and choose Save Target As. Then save ‘em to your MP3 folders and play them and share them at will.

These have the same old lo-fi feel as our other tracks. Need to get back to the studio and record these for reals, but if a song is decent it should come through anyway.

PS: I update ‘Stereo’ with a new live version record 17 May because the original version sucked (I was slightly out of tune and I can’t frickin’ stand to be out of tune!).



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May 4

OMG OMG Beat Concrete Finally on MySpace

Posted on Monday, May 4, 2009 in News

Yes, what no one is talking about is now reality. As many as four people had been bugging us to put up a MySpace page so we finally did it. The coolest thing is that it’s easier to listen to streaming MP3s there than it is here.

You can check out the page at www.myspace.com/beatconcreteband. We also put a widget on this site that shows our current MySpace status.

We’ll pretty much mirror content from www.beat-concrete.com to MySpace. So no need to go there to find out anything new–but if you use MySpace at all send a friend request our way.

This is part of our 2009 goal to go from one of America’s least known bands to not-very-well-known-but-liked status.

By the way, we had to add ‘band’ to our URL because some DJ in Greece is squatting on the Beat Concrete tag even though he’s apparently never used it. More power to him for choosing a good name though.



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May 2

The Girl in Number Six

Posted on Saturday, May 2, 2009 in Music

Today we’re heading into the Beat Concrete vaults thanks to a little computer serendipity. I was listening to some live tracks and when Windows Media Player was through with them it moved to the next track, which turned out to be a demo of The Girl in Number Six. I’d forgotten about it, but listening to it fresh I decided it wasn’t half bad. The guitar arrangement was definitely influenced by XTC and to reflect their Northern English roots I played the secondary guitar parts through an AC-30 emulation on my trusty little Pandora headphone amp.

If you google the girl in number six you get this--awesome!

If you google 'the girl in number six' you get this--awesome!

The demo started with a mono rough mix of rhythm tracks we recorded in a North Coast studio a few years ago, and then I threw that on my little portable 8-track recorder and dubbed a few guitar tracks using my Pandora to try out the guitar arrangement I’d planned in my head. The mono track had a scratch vocal I’d recorded in the studio live to guide the other band members, and I doubled it with Beki singing alongside me into my 8-track’s build in mic. Voila! Instant demo.

Good demo or POS? You be the judge.

>> The Girl in Number Six (demo)



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May 1

Rainy Day Friday

Posted on Friday, May 1, 2009 in News

…dream away.

Just finished playing some music with Beki. We’ve been working on my song Slipping Away for a few weeks now. It’s a slow, old school folk-blues number with a little Lindsey Buckingham influence, so I’ve been playing it on my Turner Model 1-LB geetar. The song is in drop-D and I finger pick it, including the solos.

Lindseys Model One - mine is like this but red

Lindsey's Model One - mine is like this but red

Here are the lyrics for the first verse and chorus:

She waited for years and years
Like a wolf beyond the flame
Huddle close to the fire
No one dares speak her name

She ran laughing in the spring
(A) circle of flowers in her hair
When autumn came she was gone
Her scent still fills the air

You’re slipping away
Like water through my hands, like water through my hands
As you fade and fray
Like a curtain in the wind and the rain’s coming in
You’re slipping away

It’s a sad song that I wrote after the passing of a sweet friend of mine. I like playing it because it makes me sad but in a good way.

Anyway, not much else to say today except that we’re rehearsing on Sunday with the full band and we wish everyone a happy weekend despite the rain. Just remember that the rain is good for all the plants and animals and it’ll make you feel better.

Peace out.



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Apr 29

Dark Love

Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 in Music

Just realized it has been a while since we posted a new song. Went back to the well of rehearsal tracks and pulled up a bucket of Dark Love. This is a song I wrote a long time ago and we’ve been playing it for years. But we updated the middle section to add a slow blues groove in Cm and Ken recently started singing on the song. So this version is ‘new’.

>> Dark Love (live rehearsal)

This one clocks in at about five and a half minutes. Some nights it’s shorter, others it’s loooonger.

Not what I envisioned when I wrote Dark Love, but who am I to argue with Google?

Not what I envisioned when I wrote Dark Love, but who am I to argue with Google?



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