Premier Rock Forum

Oops, sorry I missed that. However, I think it would be totally appropriate if you played two songs. You guys can borrow my gear, so you don't have to lug anything around. You don't have to be firm on this. If you feel like you can do it the day of the show, just let me know. If you can't, no worries. We can make the room for you.

This thread shows to me exactly why PRF is simply the best fucking internet forum on earth.I'm amazed by its generosity.I wish you all the best Mr. Grabski!.....and I look forward to hearing the recording, I like your stuff!

Cancer is so fucking horrible, good luck with the record.

Auntie Ovipositor wrote:Mister Grabski wrote:Then more cancer was found in my chest. This was cancer type number 5, and was even rarer and harder to treat.Do you mean stage 4? I'm confused. Not that it matters - inoperable cancer is what it is no matter what you call it. And if they're giving you radiation treatments for comfort, that's damn serious. Here's hoping it makes your trip to EA go smoothly.I'm willing to chip in some time on artwork if you like. There are lots of great designers here, and I'm going to guess you know a few in Rochester, but if you're interested, I'm game.He meant it was the fifth unique strain of cancer found in his body. Crazy shit.Not sure if people missed it, but there's already a site together for donating to the project/pre-ordering a copy:http://www.microgiving.com/profile/ragejgDoesn't look like Paypal is an option, so I'm bustin' out the credit card. If this all turns out to be some crazy hoax, I'm going to be one disappointed Canadian, Grabski! (I keed! I keed!)

Yeah that's me in the Cheebahawk vids; thanks for the compliment but I'm really a barely-adequate drummer with just about zero technical skills as well as bad form; same goes for me on guitar. In Cheebahawk the vocalist/guitarist co-writes a lot of the drums, he kinda thinks on a different side of the beat than I, and I prefer more driving rhythms compared to his almost jazzy and Mars Volta-influenced chops (he has technical skills that far surpass mine but I think I make up for it in gusto) I'm for the most part still in that kind of physical shape though; I'd have a bit more trouble making it through an hour long set these days though... if all goes well I'll be up to 95-100% by the time I arrive at EA though. I'm excited to be bringing a 24 ZHT Rarities ride down with me along with a 20 crash, and will likely be tracking the drums on the in-house Vistalite kit. I'm still undecided on what to do about a snare as I think my cheap and modified steel six-lug sounds nice but I might like to get some more Dale Crover snap in my sound.About putting together some kind of gig while I'm down there - I kinda gotta be conservative and say that I'm likely going to need all of my energy for recording. I wish it were different but it's really, really hard to have even three days in a row that I'm not stuck to a couch exhausted let alone five... although in special instances (when I'm excited about something) I'm able to disregard feeling crappy, I can only aim so high with regards to this... plus I'm doing all the driving (I love my brother but I really don't think he's gonna be doing any driving on the way there or back). So preliminarily speaking, I think I'm gonna have to hang back at the studio for the most part, and I'll be budgeting my extra-curricular time very carefully.And yeah, as someone asked, it has been five types of cancer unfortunately. Yolk sac tumor, immature teratoma, mature teratoma, Seminoma, and PNET Sarcoma. I beat them all except PNET Sarcoma.Anyway, I'm still writing and arranging; and will be even as I get down there; many new ideas play in my head like a slightly-fuzzy mp3 and I have to immediately grab a guitar or get on the drums to document the idea before I for get about it... and I haven't worked down to the final 5-6 or so tracks yet. ... I'm sure this forum is quite diverse with regards to musical tastes and such...So I would like to ask something of you. See, I don't promote my material or spam it on websites (social media, forums etc.) or throw it in anyone's faces; I've mostly made it available online at the request of friends and family over the years... And I've always been very single-minded about how and what I want what I play and record to sound... and I will continue with this ethos. HOWEVER, this EA recording project is on a different level, so I'd like to ask you that have read this thread, if you have a moment, to tell me what you hear when you listen to my current material; like could anyone tell me what it feels like to them? In many ways that kind of thing doesn't matter and I fully understand that as my musical direction and ways are almost all due to me being at the rudder of my own ship, but at the same time I'd like to hear some words from someone who isn't family or a bandmate etc.; an objective viewpoint. Specifically, if you went to the first page of this thread and listened to the 2006 songs Trust the Flow and In the Sea, followed by Drive You from the MySpace page (please pay no mind to the vocals on that last one; I don't dig them, though I do still like the verse and chorus guitar riffs)... and then afterward listened tothe early 2011 Youtube track Thoughts Upon Close Examination of a Destroying Angel ... well, what did those do for you? I'd like to hear the good and the bad. I already have the train on the tracks developmentally-speaking regarding my new material, so I'm not gonna pull an about-face based on what anyone here tells me but I still think this'd be a good venue to hear some objective viewpoints as I move forward. And as I said previously, the new material is more advanced than those other and older demo tracks, but they do represent quite well what I'm about. I'm not about total accessibility in my music but I do like some metronomic predictability, I love a good hook and I like to leave a listener satisfied and not left still grasping at the end of a song. And I'm not after any scene, I'd like to be enjoyed by the down-on-his luck 30 year old small-town father who knows nothing outside of Tool and Alice in Chains, to guys and gals who live in the city and go to all the Monotonix/Lightning Bolt shows and like to play multiple albums layered at the same time in their house, sometimes even all Mars Volta albums. :p I don't fit in either of those categories, I'm somewhere in the middle, and I suppose I like my material to reflect that.Trust the Flow is about a cataclysmic life change, written before I had cancer but it became really relevant to my struggles, as it's about finding a way to roll with changes yet still keep one middle finger up.In the Sea is a sarcastic look at the fact that rock bands often step in the footprints of their idols when they write new material.Drive You - well, it was about how I feel that every new day is a new chance at life, and it does contain one lyric I like - the tear you shed should drive you.And separately, as it was written and hastily arranged years after that other stuff, Thoughts Upon Close Examination of a Destroying Angel, well it has no lyrics, but I felt that it would be best described as a song about the awe, fear and dread of looking closely at the stark beauty of the world's most toxic fungus. It is a nod to the Melvins, yes, but has a simple doom-ish groove to it I think; not an area that I'm focusing on too hard in the newer material. I personally love how the song builds up.For what it's worth my current material isn't nearly as obviously intro/retrospective; the interpretation is more open and left to the listener to make what they want to out of it.Thanks again everyone.

Part of the whole experience will be the drive; it's something that will be really good for my brother and I; that's at least how I feel about it at this point. And there's some equipment that absolutely has to be at EA for me... the Sunn Beat Lead head, my guitar, DS1 and ODB-3, a couple patch chords, a 20 crash and and a 24 ride. If I change my mind and decide to take a plane, yeah I'll likely ship my equipment pre-trip. I really appreciate the sentiment about wanting to pitch in for a plane trip, man.

BadComrade wrote:I like the solo stuff you posted. I'm generally not really in to slow heavy riffy stuff, but I really did like it. I think the main reason why I liked it is because you'll have a good riff going and I'll think, Ah, I know where this is about to go..., and then when it changes, it goes somewhere I wouldn't have guessed. I appreciate when that happens in music, because so many people will wind up going through the motions and going where I thought they would, and I lose interest.Thank you! I've tried to not let what I do be too much of a derivative of my influences, and although I can barely articulate myself artistically, I do try to make sure I come from a different angle than you'd normally think. I very much respect Robert Fripp of King Crimson in that regard.

Regarding any sort of gig, I had said this earlier:Mister Grabski wrote:About putting together some kind of gig while I'm down there - I kinda gotta be conservative and say that I'm likely going to need all of my energy for recording. I wish it were different but it's really, really hard to have even three days in a row that I'm not stuck to a couch exhausted let alone five... although in special instances (when I'm excited about something) I'm able to disregard feeling crappy, I can only aim so high with regards to this... plus I'm doing all the driving (I love my brother but I really don't think he's gonna be doing any driving on the way there or back). So preliminarily speaking, I think I'm gonna have to hang back at the studio for the most part, and I'll be budgeting my extra-curricular time very carefully.My brother and I will be studio-ready first and foremost. Although... well, maybe, just maybe we could do a tune or two as a two-piece with my brother on guitar, me on drums. I'll talk with my brother over the next few days about this.

Studio A.

Are you driving because you're bringing a lot of equipment for the recording session? Seems like you could conserve energy by flying and using the studio's gear or asking to borrow gear from people on here. Just a thought. I'd be willing to help chip in for a plane ticket.