Archives for "Music"
Road Stories #2 – The less I say…
So a while back I wrote about the difficulties of a traveling band on tour in Canada.
The day after day travel mixed with the terrible food (Taco Time anyone?) and lack of sleep makes it very easy to get sick especially when you are putting demands on your voice every single night.
One such instance literally landed me in the hospital!
Road Stories #1 Life on the road in an indie rock band
So this week I am here to give you an idea of life on the road during Fear Zero’s tour in ‘07.
There is an old mantra practiced by many musicians that goes something like this, “What goes on the road, stays on the road.” No need to cover your kid’s eyes, this one is clean.
Stone Temple Pilots – Purple, One of my favorite 90s CDs
Thought this week that I would discuss one of my favorite CDs from the 90s by one of my favorite bands, Stone Temple Pilots.
STP’s CD “Purple” came out in ‘94 and made me a fan for many years to come. Grunge was coming to an end but it was going out on a strong note!
Sure, there was Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains but something about STP really got me going. It had everything; melody, grooves, cool riffs, interesting lyrics and a diversity that I have always loved about the band itself. The fact that Weiland was such a mess at this time in his life yet still able to come up with such great material is a testament to the guys talent.
Whole Damn Nation nearly completed!
Hey everyone, it has been a while so hello! I have been extremely busy recording but also working (any musician without a day job these days is a poor musician lol!)
After many all nighters and thousands of dollars, I am happy to say that “Whole Damn Nation” is nearly finished. Right now we are in the mastering stage where all the levels and equalization get evened out.
The last recording session was an all night one, just me and my guitar in a studio somewhere in North Surrey from 10pm to 7am. It was an awful night and here is why:
6 Guitar Solos That Will Melt Your Face Off
A few weeks ago I gave everyone a sneak peak of an upcoming guitar solo called Octane. Since then many people have asked me about where some of my influences for it came from; here’s a look at some face melting guitar solos that inspired me.
Eruption – Van Halen
This solo was the turning point that made me and a million other guitarists want to get good. It has everything; tone, feel, speed, and melody and will live on as one of the greatest solo rock guitar pieces ever composed.
Frenzy – Paul Gilbert
The plan
Hey, hope you all had a great summer like I did! I just got back from San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. Great city, cool sites!
The 2 Fear Zero shows in August went quite well, considering it was the first time all 4 of us have ever graced a stage together in over a year. We performed a mix of old tunes and new ones to a couple of crowds over 1,000 which was pretty damn cool! Hopefully we can snag a nice tour with a bigger act so we can get out and play some more.
Fear Zero gets studio tanned
Hey everyone, just got a good head start on my studio tan. Sorry the blog is late but we have been working like dogs for days now getting final pre-production done on the new tracks.
Pre-pro is where the producer comes in and basically changes any song arrangements that need to be changed (minimally on these songs thank goodness) and then goes through drum arrangements to make sure every fill, every groove, every nuance of the drum track is exactly what the song needs. Very time consuming and boring at times but very necessary for the final quality of the drum track. Gone are the days of drinking all day, heading to the studio at midnight to pop some acid then record a whole album in one take. Recording is a science now.
Demos Finshed & Video of the “Octane” Guitar Solo
Hey y’all, I have finished demoing the 22 tracks that are being considered for the new Fear Zero release “Whole Damn Nation.” It is good to finally be done this part of the process as it is the most labour intensive of all in my opinion. I have narrowed it down to about 10 or 11 songs that are going to be considered for the 5 slots that we have available for the new CD.
In case you had not figured out yet, we are actually taking 5 songs from our last CD “In Lights” and are repackaging it with 5 new songs and a guitar solo called Octane that, if you have been reading the blogs, you are aware of already.
“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!”
Below is a solo I wrote called Octane which may be on the new CD. I recorded it quite a while ago and next week I will post a video of me playing it. This is a demo and will be re-recorded should we decide to put it on the new CD.
Octane – Fear Zero from Ken Mason on Vimeo.
Download the Demo: octane
I wrote this after a request from one of Fear Zero’s managers that I do something to “prove” what I can do on guitar. It was a real pain to record and is probably the most demanding thing I have had to play guitar-wise. The influences are pretty obvious; Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen and a bit of Eric Johnson.
Making an independent rock CD – budgets.
Hey there. Here I am on a cloudy Thursday morning in Vancouver. I have been doing a lot of research lately on the budget for the new Fear Zero CD. Well, technically it is not a fully “new” CD since we are only going to record 4 new tracks but as you will see, even this small of an amount of music costs big $$!
The first Fear Zero CD I made on money I had saved up teaching music for 4 years. Throw in a credit line with a lot of favors and some lucky breaks as well as studio time late at night and voila, you have the first Fear Zero CD!
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