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WEEK 26: A Reminder (We’re Half Way!)
Written by POWER, Produced by POWER, Recorded by POWER, Photo by Vinnie Tocco
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THOUGHTS ON THOUGHTS
Jax-
This is it: we’ve made it to the half way point! I feel I’ve learned so much in challenging myself to create on a consistent basis. I feel we’ve grown so much as band as well as individual artists. I would like to thank each and everyone of you who have listened to our releases any amount. Rather it be a few weeks, every week, or just this week - thank you for choosing to spend your time listening. I’ve said this before and I’ll repeat it again: we’ve always believed that our art is not our own. Everything we create is inspired by outside sources, i.e. you. Thank you so so so much for being apart of this project with us. I hope it has inspired you to take on whatever it is that you’re into full force. After all, there’s no difference between what we’re doing and what you can be doing - all we did was choose to do it.
That being said, Seth and I have had a busy week. We shot a music video (for another artist), recorded multiple songs (that we plan on saving for a full length release within the next year or so), packed up everything we owned and moved from Los Angeles, CA back to Detroit, MI. I was astonished and felt slightly accomplished that our entire lives fit into 4 suitcases and 2 carry-ons. Minimalism is the way to go, you guys. Now that we’re back in Detroit, Seth and I plan on doing a TON ‘o shows over the next few months. (Also - stay tuned in for more collabs coming your way)
One of the many perks to being back in Detroit is that Seth and I have acquired a new studio space. It’s more spacious than our bachelor apartment we were recording in before… though not by much! It’s in the backroom of an old church, located directly next to a large, orange carpeted, reverb-saturated sanctuary. It’s so sick! This week’s song was a one-take recording in said large room. Recording in it made me feel like pavarotti.
About the song: This song was written for a friend a few years ago. I wrote it after learning of his mother’s passing and decided it was the best way I could convey exactly what I wanted to get across to him. I never got to meet his mother directly, but had constantly heard of how wonderful a person she was. He is such a kind spirit and honestly one of my favorite human beings. I can only imagine how truly great his mother must have been.
Seth-
we’re back in Detroit! And we’re half way done! it’s been 7 months since leaving for los angeles and we’re ready to live the detroit sound once again. this week we recorded in a large church sanctuary attached to our new studio space. we used 2 condenser mics about 10ft apart from each other, about 6ft away from Jax, and panned them to each ear. the mics we have now are not the best and we plan on getting new ones asap. We also have access to waaaaayy more live instruments (bass, drums, organ, piano, banjo, etc.) so we’ll be recording much more live instrumentation.
Thanks to everyone who’s been following our project! We couldn’t do this stuff without you. We owe you the world!
A MESSAGE FROM POWER COLLECTIVELY:
Since we’re in a bigger studio space and have access to much more gear, if you’re a musician/videographer/creator/whatever, lets get together and make something awesome! slash play shows together! slash become best mates! slash drink a lot of whiskey out of mason jars!
email us at: powertothelocals@gmail.com
(Source: flnteastwood)
Artist: POWER
Title: WEEK 26: A Reminder
Album: 52 in 52
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WEEK 21: Panic
Written by POWER, Produced by POWER, Recorded by POWER, Photo by Vinnie Tocco.
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THOUGHTS ON THOUGHTS:
Jax-
Oh what a week it has been. We’ve been up to Seattle, Down to Denver, over to Detroit and everywhere in between. While in Salt Lake City we met a pair of fantastic shoe designers who create a line under the name ‘Zuriick’. They were fantastic gentlemen who were never hesitant to offer what you more than what you needed. Seth and I left with a pair of shoes each, a few pairs of socks, an engraved cigarette case (now being used as a wallet), a leather-bound journal (high quality faux leather) which I have yet to keep out of my sight and so much juice and tea that I’m positive our urine will begin to smell of fruit by the end of this tour. So. Good.
This week’s song hits close to home with me. I’ve always viewed marriage in a non-romantic sense and feel as though any platonic relationship is and should be treated like a marriage. It should be giving, selfless and fulfilling amongst many other things. For me, I find myself falling in love and wanting to marry humans daily. The kind old man on the bus, the gentle woman willing to chat about creating, the young boy riding his bike with a smile, the young lady sipping coffee while reading a book - all while winning over my affection.
Without going into specifics, this song touches on confidence and the lack thereof. It’s a tough spot to see someone you respect lose faith in themselves when all you want is to tell them how much they mean to you. Everyone has a hero type figure in their lives. Everyone has someone to look up to and someone looking up to them and everyone falters. It’s what you do after and during the trial that truly matters most.
Seth-
Seth-
This weeks song is a throwback, I think I made this instrumental at the end of 2009. We stumbled upon it recently and thought it could work for our 52 in 52. I don’t remember much of what inspired the song, but I really like the cello sound in this one! It is a Mellotron Cello. If you want me to get more specific, its the mello cello in the “Sonic Foundry- MelloTR3” Refill for reason. If you want it, hit me up and I can email over the Refill. Yesterday I spent about an hour and a half listening to all of my old instrumentals (I have hundreds). It was a great trip down memory lane. It sparked up alot of past emotions, and memories. It really is crazy how much life, and everything around you affects you and your creation. It put me right back in the middle of past relationships, hardships, and celebrations. I noticed that I used to be more confident and free in my production. When you are confident it bleeds through your work, when you are not it takes over your work. I didn’t have any guidelines to follow, no specific genres I had to stick to, no sound set I was limited to…I just created. Made music for me. What I wanted to listen to, no intention to release it or show it to anyone. It was rather refreshing.
Words of advice.
Within the last year, I switched over from using Reason to Logic. The overall sound of Reason is waaaaaaay smaller than Logic. After this reflective week, I realize that it really doesn’t matter what program or sounds you are using. Yeah it sounded smaller, but I feel like it had so much more raw energy than logic. It had a certain sound to it that I miss. I have used nothing but hand me downs and salvation army equipment to record everything (I have only spent 100 dollars on headphones once, the rest of my set up was found at salvation army or it was given to me because they upgraded to better gear).
Moral of the story. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT GEAR OR SOFTWARE YOU HAVE. FIND WHAT WORKS FOR YOU AND DO IT.
love,
POWER
(Source: flnteastwood)
Artist: POWER
Title: WEEK 21: Panic
Album: 52in52
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WEEK 19: Box
Written by POWER, Produced by POWER, Arranged by POWER, Photo by Vinnie Tocco.
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THOUGHTS ON THOUGHTS:
“Thoughts on Thoughts” is something new we’re trying out. Starting this week we will be stating our thoughts on the most recent song released. The writings will range from short to long-winded and will carry out the topics of what inspired the song, what we learned this week (creatively and technnically), what challenges we faced, what victories we accomplished, etc. So here it is, kids! For the first time ever: “THOUGHTS ON THOUGHTS”
Jax:
-This is it. We’ve made it all the way to 19 weeks. 19 is almost 20. 20 is almost 25. 25 is almost half way. It’s crazy to think of how fast 2011 has passed by. With this week’s song we wanted more than anything to portray a story. So instead of putting our thoughts towards song structure or making the production in a way that would potentially blow your mind, we focused on what would convey the message best. I wrote a portion of these lyrics a few years back and finally brought them around to completion last week. I feel a lot of us worry about things that are completely unnecessary (myself included). Life’s too short and too good to waste time worrying.
Seth:
-over these next 20 or so weeks i’ll be taking on the ‘what we’ve learned’ portion of “thoughts on thoughts”. there have always been producers and writers that i’ve looked up to and when i was 16 and first starting out in creating music i would have given anything for pharrell williams, the postal service or timbaland (oh early 2000’s) to share their secrets they had learned.
fortunately i had two extremely talented people in my life that helped guide me before i knew what a compressor was. we want to give those of you who don’t have those types of people in your life the opportunity to progress in music production. starting next week we will begin explaining our process of recording as well as recording tips that helps with the overall process. afterall: eduacation is power and sharing is caring.
enjoy week 19.
-Jax & Seth (POWER)
(Source: flnteastwood)
Artist: POWER
Title: WEEK 19: Box
Album: 52 in52
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WEEK 18: Rewind
Written by POWER & TRex, Produced by POWER, additional Production by Christian Berishaj, Arranged by POWER, Photograph by Lucas McKay, Modeled by Clayton Davis.
potentially my favorite song we’ve done so far. happy memorial day, y’all.
(Source: flnteastwood)
Artist: POWER
Title: WEEK 18: Rewind
Album: 52 in 52
apostrophe
I was remembering an incident from my childhood today for some reason. And I had one of those moments where two and two were finally put together to make four. Not an epiphany, so much. I didn’t really come to any new conclusions but just came to a better understanding of what I already know.
I dated a woman in college, a really amazing woman, for a few years. She taught me a lot about so much; grammar, life but especially relationships. One of the things that we seemed to come up against time and time again was, if we were having a tiff or a quarrel I would often bull-headedly refuse to apologize. I saw no need unless she could prove I was in the wrong. My actions and words were justified (in my mind, at the time.) And seeing as how I was the one in the right and she was in the wrong, I did not need to apologize. (with retrospect I see now that I wasn’t always so right.)
But one day she bluntly told me (as you often have to do with guys, ladies) that she wanted me to apologize for hurting her, for making her feel the way she was feeling. She did not need me to accept the blame, just to tell her that I didn’t mean to make her feel bad, regardless of who was at fault. Suddenly, it made sense to me. And I carry that lesson with me to this day, obviously. As a result my friendships are stronger and my relationships smoother because I understand that you can be right and still need to issue an apology.
The memory that came creeping back into my skull today was one from 7th grade. I had asked this girl to be my girlfriend and was pretty stoked about her saying yes. So, I didn’t bother keeping it a secret. Now, I know it was a 7th grade relationship. Her being my girlfriend pretty much meant that we held hands walking to class together, passed notes and talked on the phone for way too long in the evening. Conversations probably consisted of us say, “no you hang up first, no you, no you.”
I remember not long after we started … “dating?” … or whatever you call that, I was waiting for a phone call from the girl and my mom was on the phone. Now, this was back in ancient times when you didn’t have call waiting. If someone called and you were on the phone, they got a “busy signal” and just had to keep calling back until the line wasn’t busy or they gave up. Well, I certainly didn’t want the girl to give up, we had important things to talk about, right? So I pressed my mom to get off the phone, my girlfriend was supposed to call. The party on the other end, probably my grandma, must have overheard and questioned the idea of such a young boy having a girlfriend. And my mom responded, “Yeah it’s some puppy-love crush he has.”
At the time, I protested and probably stormed off in a pre-teen tantrum. But, silly as the whole thing looks now, it clearly hurt me, because I still remember it. I see now, and probably saw in just a short while later that she was so right. It was a silly little tween relationship. It was next to nothing. But at the time it made me feel like my feelings and opinions weren’t valid. The ‘issues’ or ‘drama’ of my life were silly little trifles compared to the problems adults have to deal with. And even in writing this, I’m realizing, that was my parents take on my entire pre-adult life and most of my yound adult life, as well. Only now, that I have to deal with joblessness or homelessness, are my problems “real” in their eyes. But at the time, that “puppy-love” was as real a romantic love as I had ever experiences. And to have it dismissed like that sort of felt like I was being dismissed. I didn’t count.
Remembering that moment today and suddenly having it connect with the idea of apologizing even when you’re right gave me a new look on both the event and the concept. Sure my mom was right to define my puppy-love as such. But I would have preferred her to have not dismissed me so publicly. Will I be asking her for an apology? Of course not! One: it’s 2 decades later; I’m over it. Two: she’s my mother! The woman has done so much for me, I know she doesn’t dismiss me. But, I will work harder to choose my words carefully and to consider my audience. I will, even while being wronged, attempt to curb my actions and words so that I am not hurting the loved-one wronging me. And I will redouble my efforts to apologize when I have failed to avoid hurting loved-ones.
If you’ve stuck with my rambling this far I hope you’ve gotten something from this too. In the immortal words of that wise philosopher, Jerry Springer, “be good to one another.”
