[audio] Monster X live in Los Angeles, 1 Dec 2012

recording I made of Monster X live in Los Angeles in late 2012

Monster X live in Los Angeles, 1 Dec 2012 by Humorless Productions on Mixcloud

[audio] The Screamin' Primas live in San Diego, 16 July 2013

Swing time with a recording I made of San Diego's preeminent Louis Prima tribute band, The Screamin' Primas.

The Screamin' Primas live in San Diego, 16 July 2013 by Humorless Productions on Mixcloud

The Screamin' Primas FB

Jay Mohr live in San Diego, 3 May 2014

Change of pace- I recorded actor/comedian/talk show host Jay Mohr at The American Comedy Company in San Diego, 3 May 2014.

video I did for Muffwiggler with Baseck

Promotional video I did for Muffwiggler (makers of modular synths with internet store and physical store in Portland, OR.) with LA's 8-bit gameboy turntablism beat-mangling legend Baseck.

compilation of punk/goth/new wave/metal bands in 70s/80s horror movies

OK, so here's that video compilation of bands in horror flicks that I put together. Turned out rather well. I love the wipe style. I remastered every bit of audio, so it sounds extra sharp. The Siouxsie song is from a movie called Out of Control which isn't a horror flick, but I included it anyway.

You may be asking yourself why I did this. It's a good question, and I don't have a reasonable answer. It's just that I watch so many of these types of movies, and it always strikes me as so funny when a band gets some screen time to play one of their songs with the idea that the music is supposed to be in some way threatening or scary or underground-y or ominous or dangerous or something like that. Obviously, as we're now 30-40 years later, none of this music comes anywhere even remotely close to being scary, so I guess it's just the silly campiness of it that I find funny.

Anyways, enjoy it or not. Here's the tracklist-

(0:00) intro

(2:08) unknown artist 'Revenge' from Deadline (1984)

(5:16) Shadow 'New Years Evil' from New Years Evil (1980)

(7:00) Siouxsie & the Banshees 'Cities in Dust' from Out of Control (1986)

(8:21) Shadow 'untitled blues jam' from New Years Evil (1980)

(8:45) 4 Out of 5 Doctors 'Waiting for Roxanne' from The House on Sorority Row (1983)

(9:33) Tony Coca-Cola and The Roosters 'untitled song' from The Driller Killer (1979)

(13:55) Samson 'Vice Versa' from The Incubus (1982)

(16:14) Made in Japan 'The Cooler' from New Years Evil (1980)

(17:05) Paula Sheppard 'Me and My Rhythm Box' from Liquid Sky (1983)

(20:10) Shadow 'Temper Tantrum' from New Years Evil (1980)

(21:56) Felony 'Gangster Rock' from Graduation Day (1981)

(29:30) Made in Japan 'Dumb Blondes' from New Years Evil (1980)

(30:25) unknown artist 'unknown song' from Horror Hospital (1973)

(32:20) unknown artist 'unknown song' from Savage Streets (1984)

(32:56) Made in Japan 'Bonsai' from New Years Evil (1980)

(33:27) unknown artist 'unknown song' from The Driller Killer (1979)

need some suggestions for scenes of punk/new wave/goth bands in horror movies

I'm starting an absurd video project and could use some input from those of you who are familiar with horror movies of the 70s and 80s. Not specifically limited to those years I guess, but that seems to be the era that featured the most unintentionally ridiculous bands and songs, and that's what I'm after.

This might sound torturous, but I'm putting together a compilation/montage of scenes of new wave/punk/goth bands that perform one (or more!) of their songs in a horror movie of that era. Don't ask me why, because I don't really have a reason.

The first movie that comes to mind is New Year's Evil which features several bands. I have a list of others (below), but nothing too notable. The band in Driller Killer is so awful that I might exclude them, although this compilation is gonna be nothing but awful music, so I might reconsider. Horror Hospital is pretty early (imdb says 1973, but it feels like mid/late 60s), but that band in the opening scene is so un-ironically Spinal Tap-y, that I'll fer sure include that one. Rocky Horror doesn't count. Sorry. Neither does Phantom of the Paradise. Neither does Aylmer singing his showtune in the sink in Brain Damage (shame, I know).

I'm not looking for videos of songs that were written for some horror movie (a la The Ramones' Pet Sematery or The Dickies' Killer Klowns from Outer Space); I'm not looking for horror movies that revolved around a band or a band member (a la Black Roses or Slaughterhouse Rock), unless the band is featured in the movie playing one of their songs. Well-known or nobodies, doesn't matter. Wasn't W.A.S.P. in one? Bonus if there's a dancefloor full of slamming/moshing punk rockers in the scene.

The band in Graduation Day ('81) is exactly what I'm looking for. The movie isn't about the band (Felony, who a couple years later had a giant radio hit with 'The Fanatic'), and none of the band members have any screen time outside of performing their song 'Gangster Rock' which they play at some high school dance/roller skating rink. It's a ridiculous hard rock song and the guys are done up in mascara and studded bracelets and act like they're playing to 15 thousand people. That song will be in there.

I don't think songs from non-horror movies will work. I'm going for what people thought at the time was angry, threatening, underground, scary music. The band in The House on Sorority Row gets some screen time (right at the 30 minute mark), but they play some really safe new wave radio rock at some preppy college dance. Still, they're only on screen for 30 seconds, and they're so dopey/goofy, I might go ahead and include them.

It doesn't matter if the song isn't devoid of dialog. If I can find some way to edit out the dialog and still keep the song intact, I will. But if not, I'll just leave it unedited. The dialog won't make much sense because it'll be totally out of context, but obviously that won't matter at all. I hope the full compilation will be at least 30 minutes. Would be great of it reaches 60 minutes. If I can track down the info (band name, track title, title of the movie), I'll even put in titles in the corner like MTV in the old days.

So far, I have these earmarked-

Deadline

Driller Killer

Graduation Day

Horror Hospital

The House on Sorority Row

New Year's Evil

Savage Streets

No doubt I'm missing some obvious ones, so please, throw 'em at me. If they're not available on dvd, hopefully I'll be able to find a high quality download to use.

[audio] Venetian Snares live in Winnipeg, late 90s

Venetian Snares live at Plug In Gallery, Winnipeg.

OK, so this is another one that I didn't actually record myself. It's a stereo board tape from his early days (late 90s or early 2000s I'd estimate, with tracks from Greg Hates Car Culture, Fuck Canada // Fuck America, as well as some early unreleased stuff) that I found lurking in the deepest, darkest corners of the internet (well, YouTube), but I put in a whole bunch of time and work to remaster it and add some crowd sounds to make it sound like a proper live album.

The source material is a mess, and YouTube's abysmal compression doesn't help matters. But I pumped some life into it, shined it up and made it a whole lot more presentable. No video on the original YouTube; just a static jpeg of some Satanic looking goat thing.

Track times obviously aren't official or anything, but I did the best I could. If any of you can figure out the song titles for the ones that eluded me, throw 'em at me.

Venetian Snares live in Winnipeg, late 90s by Humorless Productions on Mixcloud

No Age 'Fever Dreaming' live in LA, 30 March 2014

Felt like doing another No Age video from KXLU Fest from late last month.

WMX live in Los Angeles, 29 March 2014

WMX live in Los Angeles, 29 March 2014

WMX live at CELEBRATE EVERYTHING at Complex, Los Angeles, 29 March 2014.

WMX usually provides a nice blend of IDM, industrial, breakcore and hard techno, but this night he went all sledgehammer-heavy, 90s style, Ant-Zen / Hands Productions style rhythmic noise. All hardware set, not a laptop to be found.

Joy Through Noise live in Los Angeles, 29 March 2014

Joy Through Noise live at CELEBRATE EVERYTHING, Complex, Los Angeles, 29 March 2014.

IDM industrial drum and bass noise hybrid.

Joy Through Noise live in Los Angeles, 29 March 2014 by Humorless Productions on Mixcloud

Audio recorded, mixed and mastered by Brian Albers at Humorless Productions.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Humorless-Productions/190626074303436?ref=hl

http://www.mixcloud.com/humorlessproductions/

http://humorlessproductions.wordpress.com/

Stereo board mix 

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience 

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface 

Presonus Studio One 2 for recording and mixing 

Soundtrack Pro for mastering 

Macbook Pro

finishing up my first batch of original songs

So I'm finally getting around to finishing up the tracks for my debut release. The stereo mixes of the six tracks are done, and now I'm starting on the surround mixes of those same tracks plus a bonus track for the dvd. Aiming for a summer release, pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp. Surround sound .ac3 files will be pay-what-you-want, and I figure the physical dvd with surround mixes will be 5 bucks or so.

In the meantime, I uploaded one of the tracks to my Soundcloud as a teaser. Complete song, and this one is a bit more uptempo than the others. Generally speaking you'd call it martial industrial, orchestral, soundtracky, electronic, gloomy, dark, uneasy listening.

Imagine if In The Nursery teamed up with (Pax Britannica / Goddodin era) Test Dept. with their entire batterie of junkyard percussionists, and they set out to put together an album of the most apocalyptic doom and gloom industrial songs in the vein of In Slaughter Natives, filtered through all the wonderfully noisy digital signal processors of today.

The Audacity live in Los Angeles, 30 March 2014

My recording (all audio and video) of The Audacity, live in Los Angeles, 30 March 2014.

No Age live in Los Angeles, 30 March 2014

I recorded Sub Pop duo and die hard KXLU enthusiasts (also where I worked and hosted my radio shows for 10 years) No Age at the first annual KXLU fest, 30 March 2014.


By the way, outdoor recordings with a strong wind are usually the kiss of death, but I managed to salvage this one and the end result turned out better than I expected.

grabby bow sound for violin/viola

OK, I don't know how many of you might be interested in this, but I figure there's no harm in posting it.

I'm working on some original songs. Laptop-based, electronic songs, with many orchestral parts, including violin, viola, cello, and string bass. Presonus Studio One has some very nice VST string instruments, and I have some really great ones for Kontakt. But they all are missing one thing, and I couldn't find the (admittedly esoteric) sound that I'm looking for anywhere on the internet. Being a viola player myself, I recorded myself playing these very particular incidental sounds. Let me explain-

There's this 'grabby' sound that a well-rosined bow makes just is it is first being drawn across the string. Listen carefully to any of the pros and you'll hear it. In your laptop sequences, if used subtly, right at the point where the first note of a phrase is initiated, this sound can give the string part a marked sense of realism*. This, combined with vibrato, reverb and a nice warm/tube/tape saturation setting, nobody will be able to tell the difference between your VST and the real thing.

About the audio-

I tried to keep them as pitchless as possible, thus not limiting their utility. I recorded two sets of all four open strings (C, G, D, A), first close mic'ed, and once from a few feet away, in stereo.

Or to say it another way, the sounds are as follows-

1. open C close

2. open G close

3. open D close

4. open A close

5. open C far

6. open G far

7. open D far

8. open A far

It's totally overkill for me to record all the different versions, but I suppose somebody out there might find one more appropriate than another for their purposes. They work pretty effortlessly for violin and viola, but you might have to pitch them down for cello and string bass.

I added no processing whatsoever, apart from normalizing each individual sound. Aiff, recorded at 44/16. Nady SCM-2090 stereo condenser mic, Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 interface, recorded in Logic. Not the quietest room, but these sounds will be so far down in the mix that it won't matter. Free for all to download, no attribution necessary.

As an example, here's the part I'm working on that motivated me to record these sounds, with the grabby sound in place. See if you can spot the three times I used it.

*pro tip- much the same way I'll insert an inhale breath right before horn or oboe phrases.

[audio] Pussy Riot's new song with added synth bass

I added synth bass parts and other little electronic noises to Pussy Riot's new song. Nothing too fancy, but a definite improvement over the original.

Quartet Nouveau live in San Diego, 8 Feb 2014

I finally had a chance to record my viola instructor's quartet. Quartet Nouveau plays the final movement of Mozart's Quartet #14 in G, live at Christ Lutheran Church, Pacific Beach, San Diego, 8 February 2014.

[video] Continues live in LA, March 2013 and Jan 2014, Babyland live in LA, Aug 2009

Hey, wait. Did I never post this Continues track that I recorded at The Smell in LA in March 2013? Gaaahhhh! Terrible oversight on my part. Sorry about that. Here it is-

I discovered that omission as I was just about to post this new recording of the same song from 30 January 2014 at Complex, also in LA-

And while I'm at it, here's a full set that I never posted to my blogs of Dan's old band, Babyland, live at The Smell from August of 2009. I don't think I was able to get a board feed of the audio for this recording, but my room mics were up to the task. Single camera, on a tripod. Tracklist in the YouTube details-

[video] Former Ghosts 'An Intolerable Reign' live in Los Angeles, 30 Jan 2014

All audio and video production and post-production by Brian Albers at Humorless Productions.

Destiny's Door (Apocalyptic Version by Dancu for Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers Contest)

Here's my submission page for that remix competition for Hans Zimmer (with the link to the downloadable surround sound mix, if you're interested). I don't think how many likes or plays it gets has any bearing on the results, but don't let that stop you-

http://www.hanszimmerwantsyou.com/tracks/885

[video] Former Ghosts with Nika Danilova, live in LA, 30 Jan 2014

Former Ghosts with Nika Danilova of Zola Jesus, live at Complex, Los Angeles, 30 January 2014.



Audio recorded, mixed and mastered by Brian Albers at Humorless Productions, as well as all video capture and post-production.

Stereo board mix
Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience
Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface
Presonus Studio One 2 for recording
Logic 8 for editing and mixing
Soundtrack Pro for mastering
Macbook Pro

Canon Vixia HF G10
Canon S100
Sony Action Cam
Final Cut Pro X