Screaming Mimes Blog

... at least, that's what we're thinking of calling the new album. We've got 15 songs in the hopper - some will make it, some won't. 13 of the songs have been written since the end of Tragedy Comic. One goes back to the early days of the band but wasn't successfully recorded... One popped up in the band a few years ago but was re-written. 4 or 5 of the songs were written within the past couple months... either way, it's all pretty fresh and tasty and we're hoping you'll love it.

To begin, on Monday December 29th (crisp winter's evening) Preston and I grabbed all the gear from the rehearsal studio and took it down to Sonic Arts in downtown Cincinnati. Right across the street from the Electric Banana. Jim & Randy met us down there and we all loaded in and began setting up. A few digital gremlins and a bad preamp made for a slow start but Randy worked diligently to get everything ironed out. Within a few hours we were up and running and recording a take of "Saddest Girl In The World". Sounded pretty good so far. Deciding that wasn't the best song to warm up on, we jumped into the molten lava of "You're The Kind Of Girl" - our up-up-up tempo rocker. After a few takes we talked about which was the best of the three.

Soon we startedup one of our newer songs, "Where Do You Go", a groovy swampy song with a complicated drum pattern and bass interplay. Our first pass was way too slow, so we stepped it up a bit on the next two takes. Nice!

After that we were all collectively fried... We have a bit session scheduled for later this week (Happy New Year!) and we look at getting some more done after this "warm up" night. We'll keep you posted!

You stay classy,

Dave

Screaming Mimes

We here at Screaming Mimes Inc. have a lot to be grateful for - good friends, cold beverages, warm rehearsal rooms... this past Thanksgiving we were able to give something back to a dearly departed friend, Katie Reider. What a great show it was... we met some new friends (Amber Nash and her magic ukulele), partied with some old friends (Emily & Whitney rocked the house!), and expressed some joy and sadness on stage with a few hundred friends. We met some members of Katie's family and shared some stories and hugs. The highlight of the night for us was leading the crowd in one of Katie's show stoppers with the help from Emily Strand, Carole Walker and Whitney Barricklow. Click the link below to check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHv8wepCoXw

Whew, what fun.

So what's next for Screaming Mimes? We have our most ambitious plans yet for 2009, and all of them involve great music music music. We've been writing & rehearsing like mad the past few months and have 14 new songs to record... some of them have some very new sounds and arrangements for us. We're playing better than ever together and want this new album to really capture the "band" sound - more live-in-the-studio recording and less overdubbing. We'll see how it goes.

For me, the most fun (so far) was last week. I was driving home on Tuesday and a verse melody burbled up from nowhere... I pulled out my cell phone and mumbled some off-the-cuff lyrics into it. A moment later, a chorus appeared... I reached for my cell phone, one hand on the wheel (don't try this at home kids) and sang that into the phone. All the next day, the verse & chorus kept circling around in my head. 7:30 PM Wednesday, I get to my studio at home and play the cell phone recording into the microphone, guitar in hand, and start working out the chords. ProTools running, I open Word and type up the lyrics - they seem to spill out from nowhere, already written, like a memory of nothing in particular but significant in ways I haven't 100% fathomed. I record a demo of it, working out rough drums and bass, some acoustic guitar & keys, and a little ornamental electric. I bounce out an mp3, email it to the rest of the band, print out lyrics and chord changes... by 10:00 I'm done. 24 hours later, near the end of band rehearsal, I play the demo again and talk about my vision for the song. Within a few minutes Jim & Preston are jamming out the verses while Randy & I split up guitar parts. Soon I'm on the keyboard, lyrics sheet in hand, and we've got the song down. A whole song, from seed to finished performance in three days. Fastest turnaround ever. Best part is, it turned out great!

It's those sorts of moments that really bring out the best of the band. Great shows with a great crowd, working up a new song that really pulls everyone together, plotting our next album... we begin recording at the end of this month, so I'll keep everyone posted along with some pics and videos. Wish us luck!

Dave
Screaming Mimes