hype machine

Ryan:
As part of an ongoing rant, I must sit back and reflect upon the years we've been working on this "music" of ours. It's been a wild ride, and it never truly is how it appears. The mass media, with all it's hype and dumpings of "new" has lost it's grip. Independent bands are compelled to release as fast as possible, with quantity always taking precedence over quality. "Being Relevant", "Genre Defining", and "Top Tier Sellers" seem to be the most important attributes to releases these days, and albums don't matter. These "releases" are purely singles.

And what is lost? The hardcore fan. The music lover who listens end to end. The person who collects all the hidden treasures they can find on their favorite band. Because who is their favorite band? Can they even answer that? There are far too many new ones to pay attention to next. Week after week. Day after day.

Well, as we prep our final recordings for the third full length album all of this starts compelling me even more. It becomes more important to me to really spend the time to make this album an album worth loving. I'm a fan of great LP's, by great bands. And while we are still little guys in the eyes of the media, we do have fans we love. Fans we want to give our best efforts to. Forget all the hype. Forget all the prestige. We just love music, and we hope our fans feel like the wait was worth it. That our fine tuning was better suited than just releasing at record pace.

Music is good! The album is just around the bend... and we hope you stay tuned!

Westword 2009 albums of the year list

Thanks to Westword for their "favorite release of the year for 2009" mention!
http://bit.ly/4wurVf

SXSW 2010

We will be performing at SXSW 2010! Official announcement today: http://bit.ly/4iLRKZ

changes

Ryan:
Seasons change, people change and music changes. A Shoreline Dream is no different. Red Rocks changed us, and so do our fans. The band is my family. The music is my love. I'll never turn my back on it no matter who may. More music is on the way, in one form or another, and we thank you for being a fan. For taking even one minute to listen and to us. This is what it's all about, and though things change, the music will always live on.

FILTER MAGAZINE

Many thanks to those at Filter Magazine for putting up a preview of "neverChanger" on their site today as a top Media item. Very excited! Make sure to visit and listen to the track before it's official release on June 10, 2008 on itunes and toneVENDOR

"neverChanger" toneVENDOR pre-sale

Ryan:
We are very proud to announce the preorder of a very limited run of discs we're hand assembling of the track we more than love. Ulrich Schnauss is seriously such an amazing musician, and we are so proud to have collaborated with him for such a epic sounding track. Double thanks to Kramer who put the magic mastering dust on top, and Francesco Brunotti for the gorgeous photo for the cover. Just click away on the image above to make sure you get one.

true "latenight weeknight"

Ryan:
I know the headline is cliche, but it really is the way things are, no shit. I originally thought I was gonna take a chill evening after a super crazy day and not do anything at all, but after accidentally putting on the latest recording of "Manhattan Beach" I had to record. My brain wouldn't let me do otherwise, no matter what time it was. So I started laying down some tracks around midnight and think I nailed it. Who knows. . . Looking forward to giving it a listen after giving my ears a rest. Next up is Erik's part. Really looking forward to that.

co-producing with ulrich-schnauss - update

Ryan:
So the track "neverChanger" is on it's way with Ulrich. Talked today and we went over some of the details of the coming months with this track and hopefully more. We're also still discussing the possibility of touring in September of 2008 in Europe with Tribes of the City and Ulrich. Probably Baltic States, Germany, France and Netherlands if it does happen. Will let you know if I find out anything more. Fingers crossed.

Bass is funtown.

Ryan:
Enoc headed over for a good time of recording bass for "The Mid Decembers". We used live mics as well as a direct feed from the U5. Sounding super full and lush. Can't wait to figure out some vox for this one. Almost feel Ulrich could do some cool stuff to this as well. May have to hit him up!

Tracks sent to Ulrich

Ryan:
The tracks have been exported and sent off to Ulrich. Will move on to a new track this week and dream of what we'll get back from him every night.

Erik also brought over a track tonight we started recording acoustically. He had the full structure laid out, so I plugged in a mic and started getting it figured out. Could be a great track to dive into after "NeverChanger". We recorded it in the kitchen. My ceilings are very high and it really serves as a great space for recording the room. Very warm and open.

"NeverChanger"

Today is the first posting of what's sure to become a barrage of postings of us, a shoreline dream, recording our new album. We've basically decided to document it all not only for our future enjoyment, but also to show our fans the process behind what goes on while we record our layers of sound. Hope you enjoy, and we for sure can't wait to explain more as it all goes down.

Ryan:
Since it's only days after "pilgrim day", and only one day after "Black Friday" (Isn't it funny how we name something that has been setup to be the day we are lured into spending all our money on xmas gifts as something dark and ominous?!), we have jumped into a new track titled "NeverChanger". I basically started it up as an experiment. I wanted to try some new approaches to recording with our new 16 track setup. Since most don't know, we recorded with 8 tracks here at "shoreline studios" for "avoiding the consequences", which was cool for sure, but limiting on the drums. We basically had to track all that separate to get the right sound, but now we don't have to anymore. We can record everyone all at once if we want to. This is a huge breakthrough, and for sure a dream I've had for years. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Technology was a big hurdle to overcome getting it all setup, and I for sure had to invest quite a bit to make it happen, but it's worth it. The house/barn which contains this new "studio" is basically just that. I have a bed upstairs, a kitchen, a bath, and nearly every other room has been setup to either record in, or control the recordings.

The day before taking a trip up to my brothers cabin I started up the idea of what was to come with the song. I figured out some sounds on my micron and with my new tube tape echo, and started producing some shyt. It wasn't perfect, but for sure an inspiration point. And speaking of inspiration points, the cabin is just that. The mountains always have a tendency to get my musical mind prepped and ready for whatever happens next.

The day I came back, I sat down and started up what I felt was one of my best melody lines in over a year. Starting like I used to in Pure Drama, first came the synth, and then came the analog instruments. What was key for me was arranging not only based on the synth line, but also the drums I programmed. I always miss the days when I composed entirely on the Roland 303 and 505, which forced me to concentrate entirely on structure and timing. So this for sure brought me back to that feeling, which I love having. I dropped it all down in a few hours, recorded a few vocal ideas, starting with the second verse to leave the beginning open for now, and left it alone till the morning when Erik and Enoc came over to jam/record.

We all seemed way into it and started immediately working on it. Erik came up with a cool sound to compliment it all, and Enoc had some really good lines to work in for bass. I really feel it's coming together nicely! The best stuff generally flows out fast, as is the case here.

Now, if we could only get Ulrich Schnauss to sprinkle in some love and collaborate on it. I emailed him today to see if he'd be interested. Fingers crossed. . .