So there....

Album News

I'm recording my EP in two weeks with Justin Golden from the wonderful band ellery. I'm looking foward to recording an album, and I think it will be my best one yet, cause I've been singing & writing better lately.

I'm putting my two favorite songs from the last CD on this one, and five new-ish ones that I've written in the last year.

Plus there will be much more banjo on this CD : )

Other news
I'm going to start going by the name "Ghosts in the Mountain" live and on my CD. There are a couple reasons for this.....but I ain't gonna tell you just yet, ha-

Recent Demo MP3's

(If you listen to these songs turn the bass down on your player & boost the treble slightly....because we forgot to do a low cut in the studio....it'll sound alot better if you cut the bass!, sorry about that, but they're just quick demo's....I'll try to fix it this week):

Lay Your Rifle Down

Blood In this Wine(alternate version)

 

MXL V69-mogami ed.

Wow, another really great mxl mic. I'm beginning to sound like an mxl sales-person, aren't I? The mic sounds wonderfully warm, noise-free, and more versitile than I thought. To be honest, I got the best vocal sound I've ever been able to get with the v69, and I've used alot of really nice(& pricey) mics(AKG 414, Nuemann U47, Shure SM7b, ect.) over the years. Before you go out and buy one for yourself, I should mention that I got the best vocal sound for my voice.  It may not work as well for other voices, it just so happened that this particular mic complimented my voice perfectly. When Josh tryed the mic; he sounded  really good, but not amazing....but he sounds amazing with 603's, so go figure. I guess certain mics fit certain people's voices...

 

Guitar progress: done

My acoustic guitar is done. It still has some problems with buzzing and action, but all of that will be fixed soon. It has a completly different sound compared to my cheap washburn(which I still love dearly).

The new one is punchy & dry(less overtones), with a great upper midrange and a strong-fundemental V.S. my washburn which has that nice high sheen, focused bass, and an abundance of overtones.

Another way to describe them:

the new one- vintage gibson small body sound

the washburn- lowden-esque

To be honest I still love the sound of my washburn a little more(it's the best cheap guitar money can buy), but when I put my metal slide across the strings of the new one I heard an amazing thing. So the new guitar may actaully be turned into a slide guitar because it really comes to life with a slide. I will leave it setup normal for about a month, just to make sure before I make adjustments.

 

Live mp3 from last night

Heres a live mp3 from last nights show(hey thanks josh).

Rust & Bones > Gun Street girl(tom waits)

featuring  Jamie Dull- Percussion, Tom Cadaret- Vocals/acoustic, Marshall Miller- Electric Guitar, & Josh Woodward-Acoustic Guitar

http://www.tomcadaret.com/share/songs/10.mp3

 

banjo :) yea, so I got my banjo today and it rocks. I already broke one of the strings twice.......(garth voice)I like to play......
 

guitar

yea, so that guitar I've been building for a while is just about done. I put strings on it tommarrow-

 

I will be a judge at the battle of the bands this weekend

Tiffin universtiy is having another battler of the bands this year and I was asked(late tonight) to be one of the judges. I was thinking of entering myself a few weeks ago, but I've had bad luck with battles in the past and they are really intended for bands not solo musicians. Anyways, it should be pretty good this year with 9 bands playing. Longfellow is the only one I know by name, but a couple of the other ones have had serious gigs elsewhere. I should think of ridiculous things to judge bands on, like "do their clothes match" or "how many kelly joe phelp's covers did they do"....

If anyone wants to bribe me I like money, musical instruments, and general tso's chicken.

Random weirdness for nick drake fans- I found out that this month(according to the local native american calender) is known as "frog moon", but it is also called "pink moon"-

 

record label junk...

After researching how most record companies work(..yuck), I've decided it would be much easier and more effective for a few(5-10?) independent artists to just band together and act as a large label. This would make the process of negotiating tours, distrubution, and promotion much easier.

I've heard other people talk about this "perfect record label" where everything is run by musicians and they share everything equally, but this almost never works because someone gets greedy, or the label invests too much of its money into a project and then goes bankrupt. The only way I could see it work is to get rid of all fees and %, because as soon as musicians start sharing/spliting money, everything goes down the drain(for fun: hang around a bar after hours while the band is packing up and see the drama/confusion that ensues). Basically we all promote each other for free, because we are all so terrible at promoting our own stuff.

If none of that made sense I blame waking up, banana nut bread, and listening to greg brown-

 

internship- I need to do an internship sometime in the near future to graduate from college. I'm looking for something that connects with my major(music business), so things like recording studios, record companies, radio promotion, and booking agencies would all work. I'm hoping to find something in a cool music town like boston, or austin-
 

Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans

I first heard of Sufjan Stevens through an interview with Sam Beam(Iron & wine). He said that he loved Sufjan's music, so I decided to check out his website to see if he had any free songs for download before I go out and buy the CD. Well his website has weird navagation(although it looks cool), and I ended up downloading some really weird awful song(mabey not even by him). After this dissapointing download I decided to not take sam beams recomendations as gospel.

Foward about two months; I was browsing around on amazon and they suggested I check out Sufjan as well. So I streamed the album, and I was really amazed by his songwriting and the overall sound of the CD. The CD is banjo-driven, slow paced, and uses alot of religious imagery....not exactly the best sales pitch, but it's actaully very creative and is much closer to nick drake than earle scruggs. The Cd  has some rough edges and interesting textures that bring to mind the music of tom waits. Check it out, and pick up a copy of "greetings from michigan(the great lake state)"....which shares similarites with "roger & me".

Songs to check out on Seven Swans:

Dress Looks Nice on You

Seven Swans

To Be Alone With You