UP! in NYC!
Wednesday 20th July
In an incredibly exciting turn of events Unicorn Power are playing a gig in New York! It's taking place at Pete's Candy Store, Brooklyn on September 19th at 10:30pm. We are SO excited about this! In other news the EP is now on sale from bandcamp and we are doing more recordings this weekend.
New gigs and new recordings
Saturday 20th March
Deacon has very kindly offered us a support slot at his gig at the Duke in Shoreham on Saturday 10th April, Boy in the Cupboard will also be playing, so it should be a fun night! In other news we have been working on some more polished recordings of our songs, they should be ready soon, currently planning on doing some handmade cases to contain them, DIY man!
Happy New Year!
Thursday 7th January
So it's Two Thousand and Ten which is officially THE FUTURE! Unicorn Power! have now got a gig under their belt, and it actually went really well, despite some of us being somewhat terrified. The plan now is to try and get some decent recordings of our songs to give out as demos and maybe even to release them in some format. Also I had another Immersive Music Day (basically involves locking yourself away for 12 straight hours and trying to write as many songs as you can whilst going slightly mad). I think at least a few of those songs could be useful, so once we have some more material we can do another gig!
A gig!
Sunday 18th October
In an effort to galvinisise us into action I've booked us a gig! It is on Thursday 17th December at the Cella Bar under the Sanctuary Cafe. Not sure we are quite ready yet but hopefully the added pressure will force us to get it together. Why not come along and see if this works out?
Moving on demand
Tuesday 29th September
As promised (to myself) I've uploaded one of the tunes I've been working on. It's called 'Moving on Demand' and it should be on myspace in the immediately future. Still needs some work (like most of our stuff up there) but I'm pleased with it. This song was born from 'song i' from my IMM seesion.
Recording in Canterbury
Sunday 27th September
Currently in Canterbury recording the new Lovely Brothers album. The fact that we actually know the songs this time around and have gigged them all means they have a certain confidence and energy we haven't managed to achieve before, plus we have recorded them all live rather than track by track which will hopefully mean the songs retain the intensity of a gig.
I have the next 2 days off work and my plan is to record at least one new Unicorn Power song. I'm setting myself a target of putting something up on myspace by tuesday night so check the site!
My birthday
Saturday 19th September
32 now! My age won't be a power of 2 again until I'm 64 so I had better make the most of it. Got Logic Studio 9 as a present (music software) giving me even less excuses to not get things done. I'm planning on having day off work soon and spending it recording a song which I guarantee will go up on the myspace at the end of the day regardless of quality, that should spur me into it!
The results...
Sunday 13th September
The immersive music day (see previous post for an explanation) was one of the most draining things I've ever done but also a real success in my opinion. I managed to write 10 songs in just over 12 hours, not quite 20 but still more than double the number of songs I had managed to finish previously! Met up with my friend who was also doing it that day in the evening, we were both really surprised by the quality of our output. The material varies quite dramatically but theres at least something I like about every song. Here's a brief description of each one, might post up mp3's if I feel braver.
Song i
My attempt to make a dancey indie number. Really like the guitar line on this one. The synth section sounds a bit like New Order, used automation in Logic for the first time to modulate the filter cut-off for acid-ee sounds. Discovered how much Annalise hates me doing falsetto vocals.
Song ii
This turned out to be one of Annalise's favourites. The lyrics were from the DVD care instructions on a LoveFilm wallet, with the chorus being "Sit back, relax and enjoy". I played acoustic guitar on this and melodica over the top, I really should play my melodica more, it actually had grown a thick layer of spider's web to show me how neglected it felt. Made an improvised shaker from a wine glass and some frozen peas.
Song iii
My attempt to do a noisy poppy punk song in the style of Wavves. Lyrics ended up being about all your friends settling down and having children and having no-one left to get ruined with. One of the less successful ones.
Song iv
Starts off with a synth part that I made by just randomly painting MIDI notes in Logic, builds up into a cresendo then stops abruptly to be replaced by gentle, sparkly guitar, which either sounds like an interesting juxtaposition or a mistake depending on your point of view. Lyrics were stolen from a blu-tac packet, "posters, cards, paintings, decorations, maps". Added delay to the snare which builds upto a massive wall of feedback, probably too much but I liked the shock value of it.
Song v
This one was supposed to sound a bit like The Fall. I used random pages from a Will Self book to come up with the words, I quite like this one but it sounds a lot like a Deadbeat Descendents (an ACE local band) song so for that reason I probably wouldn't use it.
Song vi
No words in this one, just lots of little guitar bits with delay building up on top of each other, with a chunky harsh tremolo guitar coming in. Quite nice under-stated synth bit at the end.
Song vii
This song was based on a photo I took of some nutjob's chalked warning about going too far into space. Has some possibly inappropriate ring modulator on it. I quite like this one, Annalise said it sounded like bad 80's rock.
Song viii
This whole song is basically a big build up to a meaningless chorus about compaction, quite like it though.
Song ix
Probably the best one in my opinion. Lots of reverse delay guitar with a simple surfy guitar strummed over the top. I think it would be called the end of fairy tales and it's about breakups. Reckon this could be a unicorn power song.
Song x
I felt really depressed by the previous song so wanted to record something happy and upbeat, this song was about the cats. Not a great song with rather silly ROCK vocals
Music day of Madness
Tuesday 1st September
On friday I've got the day off work and I'm attempting a day of Immersive Music Composition. It's based on this this book and basically involves attempting to write 20 songs in one day. It sounds like utter folly, but the idea is it forces you to drop all your guards and internal quality filters and just be creative because of the ridiculous time-constraint. Kind of like starting to write a 2000 word essay the night before it's due in. I have no idea how it will turn out but watch this space for the results!
And so it begins..
Tuesday 1st September
Yay, I've made something! Here are the first words to appear on our new website. It may seem unusual to create a website for a band who at present doesn't have enough songs to even play a support gig, but such are the powers of procrastination! I'd like to make this site into a bit of a blog, detailing the joys of trying to write songs with more enthusiasm than talent but currently still getting to grips with this new fangled CSS lark. PHP here I come...(or not if my interest wanes)
