|
Track list:
Download entire album for free
The Recording:
I probably should have called this: "How not to record
a demo." We couldn't have made more mistakes if we tried. The original idea was to lay down 2 or 3 songs for a demo but we
ended up doing 7 tracks and we fucked it up every stage of the process. At our jam space we have a 14-track digital recorder
(technically it's a 12-track because two of the channels are fried). Unfortunately, we only own two microphones, but luckily
Larry Larson of Larry Larson's Music lent us a few more to get us started. We wanted to lay down a scratch track and then
record over it to get nice clean sound, but I couldn't play to it and I had trouble drumming with headphones on. We ended
up recording the drums with live guitar and bass in the room so you can actually hear that stuff bleeding through on the tracks.
We also messed up with microphone placement and recording levels.
None of us had every really done
any serious recording before so we didn't quite understand how perfect you have to be. We did take after take and couldn't
lay down a usable track. Our singer Ali had redo every single vocal track because his first go-round he was moving away from
the mic. Denis, who plays an improvisational style of guitar, found it difficult to play the songs the way they're supposed
to go. When I was doing the drums, I would psyche my self out so bad that I would make myself screw up. I think only Killian
and Konstantyn nailed their takes in one or two tries. It was pretty frustrating and we ended up using flawed takes because
we suck.
The Mixing:After two weeks of recording we had 7 songs full of mistakes. The whole thing sounded like
a decent rehearsal recording. We hadn't really thought about how we were going to mix or master the thing. I had this recording
program on my Mac called Garage Band. I didn't know how to use it, but after messing around with it for a while I got the
hang of it. I imported our tracks into the computer and ran into a huge problem: syncing. We hadn't planned ahead during the
recording process and because of that it was very difficult to synchronize the multiple tracks on the computer. I spent the
better part of a week manually lining up the tracks. Sometimes it was not even possible to get them perfect. On "Don't Be
A Dick" the ambient track and the snare drum could only get within a millisecond of each other. If you listen close you can
hear a very slight echo on the snare hits.
Once I got everything lined up, my next challenge was
the stupid way we recorded everything. Killian's guitar was twice as powerful and Denis'. There are places where Denis' lead
get a little buried in the mix because there wasn't a strong enough signal. The good thing was Garage Band allowed me to clean
up the tracks and remove all the weird background noises. I was also able to correct a few mistakes in timing. I didn't use
a lot of effects because I wanted the recording to raw and real. Considering we didn't spend a dime on anything, it turned
out pretty damn good. For the mastering, I just compressed the shit out of everything so it would be loud as hell.
The Cover:As stated earlier, we initially had just planned on this being a demo. We were going to give
it to our friends and send to club owner to get booked. There were no plans for this to be a legitimate release. However,
I set up a Band Camp page for us and one of the things they wanted was cover art. I figured I better make one. It seems kind
of funny, but this band has a serious goat fetish. When we were writing "Goat Fucker" Denis said that one of the riffs reminded
him of goats prancing through the fields. That developed into an inside joke where all of our songs were given temporary goat-related
titles. Also, Konstantyn found a goat skull in the Black Sea that mysteriously followed him from the Ukraine to America. It
now hangs on the wall outside our jam space.
It seemed only natural for me to come up with a goat-like
cover. As luck would have it, I had taken a picture of my friend Susie at the Smithsonian in 1985. She was sitting in front
of a human skeleton pulling on a goat's horns. After a little Photoshop magic (technically it was Gimp) we had ourselves an
appropriate piece of cover art.
The Title:Okay, we had a decent recording and an interesting cover, we just needed a title. I
wanted to call it "Acid Uprising Are Cheap Bastards" because we did everything for no money. On my iPod the seven songs are
listed as being from an album called "The Heretitics Of Caracas" but that's a story too stupid to tell. Ali wanted to call
it "The Dhali Karma" for some odd reason and Konstantyn had a hilarious Russian phrase. We were thinking the title should
reflect both the cover and the content. We went with "Obey" because it looks like the human skeleton is forcing the goat to
submit. Also, many of our songs have an anti-authoritarian vibe. The message is that those who are in power are trying to
force us all to conform and obey.
|
 |
|
