OVERHANG

Technically this should be filed under things the band formerly known as OVERHANG are doing now (eventhough you can only see Grant):

Don't turn around if you don't like what you found
It's a long way down to the bottom
Don't stop until you've drowned out
The voices that crowd you out
Loud as the depths they shout
"The Dead don't make a sound"

I'M GOING TO SHOUT UNTIL YOU COME OUT!

Don't turn around, you've got to go down before you wake up
The trumpet will sound before you hit the ground
Before you settle down you're gonna...

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple months ago I saw "High School Musical" just to see what all the fuss was about. I felt like I was able to see straight through the thing, to where the strings were being pulled, to the puppeteers, not the writers of the script but to the marketing analysts who told the writers what to say. Many of its plot points and dramatic moments were clearly constructed out of market research. The drama teacher of the film was clearly designed to meet certain archetypes that have proven successful in the past. Her rule against cell phones in the class room met with predictable eye-rolling among the teen student characters--and the music! Awful! I like musicals but the soundtrack was like Christian hit radio on steroids.

Would you like to meet the people behind the music? Check out this Frontline documentary introducing us to the new gods of the American economy! The documentary reveals the truth behind mass media marketing in America: it is a new form of colonization. Teens are the new exploited peoples in America, a vast ocean of money vulnerable to corporations who know that over-worked parents can't defend their children from armies of marketing analysts.

Of course we've seen this scenario developing in various degrees ever since Colonel Tom Parker's Elvis Presley, which revealed the absurd marketing potential of the teen market. One can only hope that this current Disney-mania (Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers etc.) will explode into another open rebellion against media manipulation like the early 90's alternative movement, if only for a temporary short-lived while before the marketing machine learns how to turn that to its favor as well.

Here's part one of the documentary. You may notice that it is already out of date, which supports their point about how good market research is in moving us along at the breakneck pace of teen cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YuO8Zw9vJo

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We haven't been too forthcoming with information about Joel this summer, partly because his visa renewal has been pending. But now that we've received word about his visa we can let you know what has been going on. Here is the latest:

Joel has been in Canada since May waiting to find out about the visa status. Joel's visa did come through but he does not want to return to Chicago to play with OVERHANG. We are giving ourselves time to sort through all the repercussions of Joel's decision. Currently we are going ahead with the building of the studio and our ongoing recording project since things seem to be moving positively in that direction.

We have canceled all future shows in order to focus on the new material and are also dabbling with new sounds and songs that reflect our current interests as musicians. We don't think our goals for releasing a new album are hindered by Joel's decision, but we are considering starting over from scratch as a band with a new name and aesthetic. For the time being, we will use OVERHANG's blog and mass email list to forward any music-related news regarding Jeff, Nate and myself but our plan is to switch over to a new name, website, myspace page etc. after a few months. We're quite overwhelmed by all the work we have to do, so we can't really predict how long it will take to do all these things.

Though it's sad to think about all the time and effort that was invested in OVERHANG, we want to honor the work that has been done and share our gratitude for Joel and his place in our lives both as creative collaborator and as a friend. I was just looking over some video footage of the band and found this video that we made a few months ago. It splices together segments of the band playing our own individual parts during recording sessions in the spring and summer. Years from now, this is what I'd like to remember when I think back to what it was like to be in OVERHANG.

Recording at Black Lion, Summer 2008.mov

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Otari Concept 1 is here after 6 weeks of waiting, and it was well worth it. For all of you who haven't heard, Matt Newport, owner of Black Lion Audio, has graciously given permission to us to start an after-hours studio in the same space as his business. Michael (a fellow Black Lion Audio employee) and I immediately started surfing the web for large format mixing consoles to help pull the extremities of our current outboard gear together in a setup that would easily compete with other Chicago studios. We quickly found an Otari Concept 1 on eBay and placed a bid.

To give those of you who could care less about geeky topics, you may appreciate this: it originally cost over $80k in 1996 and only had a single owner before us (near perfect condition). Blam! And we only paid $5k for it. Ka-ching!

"So what's the catch?" you may be asking yourself. It was located in the rolling hills of rural Connecticut, and at 60mph in a Chevy Tahoe with hitch and trailer, it was a 48 hour round trip. After getting over the shock of the mere 10mpg at $4.50/gallon, it wasn't so bad, until we arrived and had to lift the 800lb board down a narrow stairway. Broken dry wall and snapped hand railing aside, the move was a success.

Back in Chicago, after opening it up, Matt of BLA informed us that the op-amps are some of the most coveted op-amps of that particular flavor, and the channel compression was basically an SSL clone (very top-end gear). Needless to say, it sounds amazing.

We are currently working on setting it up, including a re-cap and thorough fader clean, and hope to have the studio fully operational in another month or two. It's difficult being patient, but as life has been teaching me, good things take time.

- Nate

p.s.

Lucky for us this expert Otari technician lives in Chicago and stopped by to help set up the board...

...more pictures of the board--the power supply...

a mixing board action shot...(not a stunt double)

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 9:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So far the summer has been a time to earn some extra money and continue recording. Jeff's family and Grant and Kristin moved out of their shared living space in Humboldt Park this month. Jeff got a house in South Holland and Grant is living in an apartment in Rogers Park with Nate. Back in May, Nate and Grant got out of Black Lion Audio to do a little late night recording with the help of Michael at Northwestern University. We finally had the time to put together this video of the event:

Sleep When You're Tired (smaller).mov

We added a little mood-imagery to express the feeling of the song. We think it captures how we felt recording it that night.

In other news, OVERHANG bought a mixing console! So now we have almost all the capabilities of a recording studio with the help of Michael and Matt at Black Lion Audio. Nate and Michael are traveling straight through the night to Connecticut to pick it up right after work today. They will be back Sunday night with it.

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out this video featuring Black Lion Audio.

Do you recognize the drum beat he's using to show the superior quality of Black Lion's modifications over standard recording equipment? Yep, that's OVERHANG's drum track from "Beat Them to Hell". And did you catch Nate demonstrating how the drums are played at the beginning of the video?

Seriously, what Matt is doing for recorded sound is amazing. And we are very fortunate to be able to test out his modified gear on our new recordings.

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here is the first video documentation of our recording sessions. This is from the first couple nights of setting up recording equipment. I was fortunate (or unfortunate) to capture a moment where Jeff completely loses it after hours of mic checking passes. This short movie also captures Jeff's search for "Arkansas", his metaphorical "inner kitty", who always helps him through his difficult times.

Enjoy:

Mic Check--Ha ha ha Ha!.mov

Stay tuned for more footage of recording sessions...

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks so much to everyone who attended OZMOFEST at Trinity Christian College on Friday night! And to all the people who helped pass around the camera in the crowd--excellent work! Here's just a sample of the evening that we put together for your enjoyment...

OVERHANG AT TRINITY, APRIL '08.mov

We'd like to acknowledge that the quality of the video diminished a bit after it was compressed, so don't blame yourselves. Everyone's videography was top notch. Top notch, I say.

Just a reminder to those who bought "Another Hole for You to Crawl Into": if there were a few songs we played at the show that weren't on the disc it's because they are brand spankin' new and not available as of yet. We are planning to release "Sow Good Seeds", "Beat Them to Hell" and the Latin-inspired "As Long as There's Still Time" in late June or early July. If you sign up to be on our mailing list or friend us on http://www.myspace.com/overhang you will be notified when we put them up online.

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Thursday evening Joel and Grant stopped by Chicago local radio station 88.7 WLUW for an interview and to play the latest rough mix of "Beat Them to Hell". We thought our readers might be interested in hearing the track if they missed it last week:

01 Beat Them to Hell (WLUW Demo Mix).mp3

You can hear that the song is a bit on the quiet side and it's not really eq'd and the performances are a bit rough and it's a rough mix etc. That's because we just threw vocals and guitars on to the drum track the night before the interview and of course it is not mastered yet. We actually just finished bouncing down the track 30 minutes before we went on the air. But in the interest of full disclosure, that's where it's at right now.

You can hear us play the song live at Bill's Blues Bar in Evanston, IL this Thursday night. We'll probably go on around 9pm or so. It's an all-ages show. $8 in advance, $10 at the door.

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We just realized that we didn't let anyone know how the show went two Sundays ago.

Well, we went on at 12:30 am on a Sunday night so you can imagine there wasn't much of a crowd to see us. A large group of Africans started to come in by the end of our set and a few of them seemed to enjoy the debut of our new Latin-influenced song, but they weren't there for us. They had come for Reggae night which goes from 1:30 am to 4 am at The Note. Nevertheless, we had a great time listening to Aloud's set and talking with the band. Aloud are from Boston and they found us on myspace and asked if we'd do a show with them as part of their tour. Our part of the show was pretty good too, we thought, especially for not having a whole lot of time to prepare for it. We've been focusing on recording, but it ended up being a nice break. You learn a lot about yourselves and who you really are as a band when you play in front of people.

We're looking forward to another show on April 24 in Evanston, IL. We'll be on 88.7 WLUW for another interview this Thursday night to promote it (you can listen online at http://www.wluw.org/).

If you're looking for a more extensive interview with OVERHANG, you can get an inside scoop on the band and our songwriting process by reading this interview posted on Jake Stimpson's blog (http://theblahblah.wordpress.com/)) this week. Stimpson reviewed our album in January and wanted to know more about our goals and our views on music.

And, finally, for another installment of new music that is slated for recording in the near future, here are two versions of "After the Fact".

Upbeat: After the Fact (bells).mp3

Funeral Version: After the Fact (Alicia Keys).mp3

Yeah, the second verse is kind of skeletal at this point still, but it will be fleshed out in time for final vocals. Second verses are always so difficult.

Posted by Grant Elgersma at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)