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...

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 You may notice that it is already out of date, which supports their point about how good market research is in moving us along at the breakneck pace of teen cool.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

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

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)

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.

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.

Enjoy:

Mic Check--Ha ha ha Ha!.mov

Stay tuned for more footage of recording sessions...

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.

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.

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.

Sow Good Seeds (Band).mp3

We'll be playing this song among others at our show at The Note this Sunday night. It's a 21+ show. Doors open at 9pm. We're playing with a really good band from Boston called ALOUD (ALOUD).

Just an update on how recording is going. We finally got to tracking this week after spending one whole week placing the microphones on the trap set and Jeff got what seems to be a final take for the drums on "Wide Open Space". Here's what the drum set looks like with all the mics set up. Notice how we had to elongate the kick drum to get more bass sound for it. It's pretty punchy and deep, which is what we want.

We will be tracking for "Beat Them to Hell" and our Latin rock song which currently has the lengthy title "As Long as There's Still Time" tonight. If you live in the Chicago area, be sure to come out to the show on Sunday night to hear the new songs.

The Water Will Be a Sign (Demo).mp3

"The Water Will be a Sign" was written for some friends at the baptism of their baby. The church where the baptism took place is mostly African-American and OVERHANG is the unofficial rock band there so we've been learning how to make old blues and gospel songs our own. We've done many covers but Grant decided to try to write an original himself in the rural gospel-blues-country style (when white people play the blues, it sounds like country). Grant sang the song by himself at church and recorded this demo. The band has a version too that is still in the works, but you can get the idea from this recording.

We would like to record the following song, the band version of a Latin-flavored thing we've been working on, very soon. We're not settled on the title yet. We call it "Leaving This Time" or "As Long as There's Still Time" or "That Time Song" but they all are about time in some way. Anyway, here is the live band version from a rehearsal two weeks ago. Hope you can hear the potential beneath all the noise from the rattling laptop.

Leaving this Time (Band) 2.mp3

Can you hear the flamenco clapping we threw in? This is a very fun song to play, a latin-inspired rock song that doesn't sound anything like the later Santana :)

There are a slew of pop songs coming out of me lately, especially when I write music on the piano. The following came out of a song Joel was working on. I had a different idea for it, which turned into a whole new song.

04 Take Me Out of Here.mp3

The first verse was written on a plane during a panic attack. I was very sick at the time and full of anxiety and the thought of continuing in that present moment was unbearable. Surprisingly, many of the songs that were started in this period of sickness came out with a sense of comfort, relaxation and even joy. I guess the music was therapeutic for me in some way.

href="http://blog.overhangonline.com/Beat%20Them%20to%20Hell%20%28Band%29%202.mp3">Beat Them to Hell (Band) 2.mp3

02 Beat Them to Hell.mp3

This will be the first song we record, probably on Tuesday. Since we spent all day Saturday setting up our recording space we didn't get to any mic placement or actual recording. We got a little video of the set-up, which is as exciting to watch as someone moving into a new apartment, but maybe we can make it look exciting somehow with the magic of editing!