Sneak Peek at ‘Reach’

We got our first commission to write a song for an event.  ExtraordinaryEntrepreneur, Adryenn Ashley, was hosting a weekend workshop last weekend called “Cashflow DNA – Curing Unemployment”.  She wanted a rock anthem with the theme of the recession but with a positive twist on it…just like the message she’s delivering in her content.

So…here’s our home mix.  See what you think.

New pix by Jesse Goff

Jenn

He’s Baaaaack (and better than ever)!!!

That’s right ladies!  Our sexy guitar god is back in residence with Urban Fiction and living the good life in the Bay Area again.

Didier, Jenn and Denise 'D Dog at the beach on Denise's birthday

We’re hard at work now pulling together a tasty rhythm section for your listening pleasure and then we’ll be hitting the clubs again.  We’ll be playing our originals from the first CD, the upcoming CD, Excavation and the rocking guitar god classics we all know and love.

Oh and if you just can’t wait for the rock, Didier is a guest musician with Ramana Vieira on February 13 at the Gallo Center in Modesto at 8pm. Tickets are $25-$45. Make the drive for Ramana’s lovely, honey toned, Portuguese Fado and Didier’s, melt your heart, guitar.

Stay tuned!

Jenn

Sneak Peek

So, the last blog entry gave you a blast from our past…the first song we wrote.  So, it’s only fair that we let you peek into the future and see what we’re working on now.  We liked how Asylum turned out so we’re heading off in that direction for the new album – rocking harder, edgier.

Here’s a peek at Dr. Evil.  Vox and lyrics are intense (warning: adult theme) and a f* awesome guitar solo by Didier.  Caveat:  this is a home recording, we haven’t engineered, mixed or mastered it.  I was the last one to add my part, so the vox is abit more forward in the mix than the final result will probably be.

This link will only be live for a short time.  If the link is missing, you’ll just have to wait for the studio version.

Whatcha think?

Jenn

Live To Rock

Here’s a blast from the past. The first song we ever wrote (not counting the little dittys I scat about all the time) is up and living in the webverse.  Didier of course has a tasty guitar part, Slate’s bass line is fun and I’m singing lower that I usually do.  We performed this live in SF awhile back (RockIt Room, Red Devil Lounge and a club in Palo Alto whose name escapes me). Check it out:  Live To Rock

Long Distance Song Writing

All we can say is thank heavens for GarageBand, ichat (with Zoom H2) and idisk!  With those fine tools, Didier and I are still able to work together on songs.  Yeah!

I usually record a vocal track in GarageBand then pass it via idisk to Didier.  He thinks about it for awhile.

Long ago I learned that it was kind of a waste of time for me to come up with cords because he always hears something much more amazing then the 12 cords I know

We’ll work with it on ichat, but the problem is the sound only goes one way. So, while I’m singing I have to watch his hands for the cord change, stop for a sec and listen, then sing again.  We use the Zoom H2 recorder to pick up his guitar parts so that when we say “hey that was a cool bit”, we can remember what we just did!

Then he messes around with the cords, sometime morphing the melody…sometimes too far.  With one song I  had to say “Woa, I’ve had this song in my head for two years. This is the melody I want.”  But that doesn’t happen too often. Usually his tweakage is really interesting.

Anyway, back and forth…pausing…clipping…tweaking…lyric rewrites…guitar solos and then finally one day “hey, you know I really like this song.”

And there you have it.  We’re looking at January to have the full length CD done with all the new songs.

A tasty treat indeed,

Jenn

ISO – Rock Guitar God in Bay Area

If you’ve been keeping current with the blogs, you know that our amazing Francois Didier Bouvet moved to Portland to pursue fame and fortune in the great Northwest. So, it actually leaves us both bandless for awhile.

I’m in search of a local guitar god to fill Didier’s sizable shoes so we can play out again.

Frankenstein Boots

In the meantime, Didier and I are learning the ins and outs of writing songs together over the internet. See the next post for those details.

We will all miss his sweet self and wish him the best of everything as he puts down roots in a moisture rich climate!

TTFN,

Jenn

The Anatomy Of A Song – Part 4 Making The Music

Didier: I wake up one night and all I can hear in my mind is slide guitar. I know it’s got to be a part of Blacktop Shimmy.

The thing is, I don’t play slide guitar.

Jenn: Cut to midnight, sounds coming from the dining room/studio. What is he doing? Yawn…note to self – find out in the morning.

Turns out he was up all night rigging up his guitar and teaching himself to play slide. Impressive. Me like.

Didier: All I did was improvise a piece of metal between the strings and the fret board to lift the strings up ad then messed around to get the sound and feel I wanted…All in a night’s work, anything for the music!

Anyway, getting back to the actual song. The next step was to find the right groove then lay down this fun slide guitar part. The rest of the song just flowed out like butter.

Jenn: What!? Selective memory at work. Not butter yet. The first pass didn’t quite jell. (sorry for the food metaphors-but the studio is in the dining room after all!). But there was this really cool bit he had in there and after a bit of “discussion” and “pausing” we decided to build out the cool bit and leave the other bit for another song. <turns out, we do this on most of the songs we write together>

Didier: Now, it’s like butter. The song takes shape and form and the fills and bells and whistles get added.

Jenn: And the cool bass line too.

Didier: That’s about it. We got it done just in time to record the vocals at Studio D before I moved.

sniff,

Jenn & Didier 

The Anatomy Of A Song – Part 1 Messing Around

“How did you write that one?”

“Is that one about me or _____?”

How does a song move from the ether into being? Inquiring minds want to know…and if not, click to the next blog entry

So here’s how Blacktop Shimmey came to life.

It was December 2007 and Didier and I needed one more song for our demo EP. We were sitting around the dining room/studio (see the Home Depot Youtube video if you want the visual!). We were just mess around with ideas, looking at some of the old songs and snippets I’d written to see what we wanted to build out. We got a laugh when the little melody “Yo baby you’re my Christmas ho. You put the ho in ho ho ho” spilled out of my mouth. But we didn’t feel that was a good fit with Africa and Asylum!

Then I started singing an old blues tunes and Didier thought that sounded lovely and we should do a blues number. The next morning, in the shower, in pops the lyrics and melody for the chorus. I had to rush out of the shower to the mini recorder so I wouldn’t forget it.

Stay Tuned for the next blog “Imagery”

After being in my mind awhile, you’ll understand how easy it was to write Asylum!
Jenn

The Making Of Africa

We were in the studio last week to record the vocals for two of our originals, Africa and Asylum. We shot some video and uploaded it so you could get a taste of what we’ve been up to and checkout the whole studio scene. The audio is not finished, it’s just a rough mix. We’ll be finishing the mixing in the coming months.

I kinda geeked out on the whole video thing. I found a little app that’s so easy. You load in your audio, video and jpgs, push a button and voila, you’ve got a nice, automatic video with transitions and a title and credits page. Of course, one can’t stop there! So I had to spend time looking for programs that had both this “automatic movie” feature AND the ability to edit every little thing.

I had to stop the obsession before it ran away with me (ie: the free trial period ran out). But then I found another app that changes video into flash so that I can put it directly on the urban fiction site. That was cool. Watch it here on myspace or on the UF site.

Enjoy.

Happy Holidays,

Jenn

The Urban Life

Howdy!

We’re in the studio these days working on some tasty new songs that you are sure to enjoy. We hope to have some samples up by the end of the month.  But you know how this goes, you tweek alittle here, you tweek alittle there, you get a new brilliant idea, you get a new song through the muse download line.

Or…you sit down to write a song and a book spills out.  Yes, it’s true. There’s a new book coming out from moi. More info to come.

We’re in a very creative phase and it’s much fun. You’re in for some sweet ear candy from Didier’s guitar, so hold on to your hats and stay tuned.  More to come about the new tunes, the new web site and yes, the book.  But…you must wait just alittle bit longer.

Anticipation….makes the heart grow fonder!

kisses,

Jenn