Coaltown GhostsRock. Homebrewed.

Well, things are going well. Working on the next tier of songs, but after talking with Brian, we’ve decided that we’re not going to make a song, mix it, and upload it.

Not that I’m not anxious as hell to show that work is actually being done; it’s more of a workflow thing. Instead of trying to perfect one song at a time, we’re going to just slog through and track, mix and master (or what pitiful attempt passes for mastering in this house).

Yes, that’s so 2002, but due to many external factors, I feel that this is the best use of time and the fastest way to work.

So check out the demos, including the new one for Lack of Gratitude.

Happy July 7!

Still working on it. Can’t wait to put it up here, got a lot of good response from friends after hearing the demo version.

UPDATE: Bah. The new version of Intangible and Drive All Night are on Facebook and Myspace. What you’re hearing on the player to our right is not the finished product.

The addition of “Drive All Night” to the Myspace and Facebook pages marks the 25 percent completed milestone. You can listen to that, “Intangible” and “Overshadowed” on either page. I’m working on building a player for this page as well.

So what’s next? Well, the remaining nine songs fall into three natural groups of three based on how much work will be required to complete them.

The next three will be “Lack of Gratitude,” “Bird in Hand” and “Now and Then.” That group will be followed by “Flying Blind,” “Insomnia Blues” and “Every Time,” then finishing up with “The Means,” “Get it Right” and “If You Only Knew.”

Ladies and gentleman, we give ye: Overshadowed.

I mentioned a bit of this in the MySpace blog, but a few years ago, a friend of mine needed a song to back a game he was doing for a class project. Initially I provided three tracks, the best of which I had written with a desert setting in mind.

A few years later, Brian and I were tossing around ideas on what to name, well, us. Among the dozens of things tossed around was the name Coaltown Ghosts, and upon finding out how I got to that, he suggested we actually do a song about it as well. He just left a blank spot on the slate with the title of “Overshadowed” and he was going to write the lyrics to whatever music we came up with.

Regrettably, I snaked him about a week later and came up with some lyrics out of the blue–in my defense, it’s not usually how I go about writing. Anyway, the lyrics are based on a nearby town, but there are towns like it across the country. As we pushed out of the cities and into the wild over the past 400 years, we built farms, mining towns, etc. Some of these towns grew, and then for whatever geographical, political, economical or external reasons, they dwindled or even vanished, even though the mark they left on the surrounding area was indelible.

On a fluke after I wrote the lyrics, I played the three game tracks, and the desert track jumped out at me as complimenting the lyrics. I won’t get into all the artsy-fartsy reasons why. But I took it to Brian, he wrote a bass line, I fleshed the rest out fit the lyrics and we went from there.

-Mike

Brian and his wife are proud new parents. At last report, mother and baby doing fine.

No word on if the baby came out wearing a Sox cap, holding a prenatal bass guitar or crying to the tune of R.E.M.’s “Fall on Me.” But I’m going to assume “yes” to all things.

You’ve probably noticed we’ve added a demo version of “Drive All Night” to the myspace page, and if you’ve come to this site through Mike’s new site, you’ve seen there is also a demo available for Lack of Gratitude and Bird in Hand.

So are these songs the finished product?

In all cases, no. There are only a couple bits of Intangible and Drive All Night that need to be recorded, but they’re close. With Gratitude and Bird, pretty much everything is going to be redone (some of it has already been recorded and will be edited soon) for various reasons, but they will sound a lot like the demos–only better.

So why aren’t Lack of Gratitude and Bird in Hand on the Myspace page?

Because virtually everything on them will be replaced, whereas Intantible and Drive All Night are pretty close to finished, save for a new vocal track and rhythm guitar track, respectively.

So enjoy, and for the love of God stay warm.

-Mike

If I could reshape my larynx, lungs and whatever it took to sound like the following people, I would.

1. Kelly Jones, Stereophonics. He’s got this painful, soulful growl that always sounds like he’s been yelling for the past 24 hours and his voice is on the verge of busting for good.

2. Ben Ottewell, Gomez. He’s got this rasp that vibrates an otherwise velvet voice.

3. Geoff Tate, Queensryche. His range and strength is phenomenal.

4. Zakk Wylde. His voice is so ballsy, and unlike a lot of the gruff, gravely voices you here, it often sounds effortless.

5. Chris Cornell. He’d probably be higher up on the list, but in later recordings it sounds like a life of singing like he does may be starting to wear on it. Still he can go from high and snarling to near crooning.

But as most things in life, you need to bloom where you’re planted, and in this case, work with the voice you got.

Just finished some very basic updates to our new MySpace page. Something happened to the old one, and I’ll be checking with their honchos about getting our url there back.

Also of note… we have a demo of Intangible uploaded to that page. As we get closer we’ll throw a couple others up before we pull them all down in favor of the finished product.

Well, maybe not a leap back so much as it is stasis, which relatively speaking often looks like a leap back after a while.

The chances of a new CD by Jan 1. are slim to none. The chances of one by next spring: Very good. The three primary responsibilities in my life, fatherhood, husbandhood and dayjobhood have been kept me hopping. While that hasn’t stopped me from plotting out each part of Overshadowed in my head, until my head has a 1/8″ or 1/4″ jack to which I can hook up external speakers… head-plots won’t cut it.

And the time for sneak peaks may be fast approaching.  We’ve got 2 songs almost completely done, by Christmas I hope to have at least 3 more. My magic number is 8… once I get 8 tracks done, I’ll post 30-second-clips of select tracks as a preview to confirm that this is still not vaporware.

Brian and I just finished up a 3 day recording session, getting his bass lines down, and things are taking shape nicely.

The new CD will have 12 songs. Some will be a little bit more rock, some will be damn near poppy.  Equal amounts of both acoustic guitar and “face-melting” guitar solos. Eleven of the songs came from my solo days, the 12th was based off a backing track I did for a friend’s class project a few years ago.

The hard part was getting Brian and I together for a lengthy period of time to work on things, and that’s done. While I do have to redo nearly every guitar and vocal track, it’s not as big a deal since I can work on it whenever I steal a spare moment.

So that’s the latest. We’re both pretty excited.