Cancelled tour
Due to circumstances beyond my control, the Drive-In Band tour (see posts below) has been cancelled. Sorry to say!
A mes amis français…
A mes copains français: afin de compléter la tournée de The Drive-In Band, j’ai besoin d’un concert le 20 mars à proximité l’une de ces villes: Bourges, Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand, ou Lyon. Des idées? (une maison, un garage, un club, atelier, une galerie d’art, etc…?)
The Drive-In Band in your livingroom, garage, club etc.
Trying to set up the tour for March 2012, info here!
J’organise un petit tour européen de 14-24 de mars 2012, info ici!
Been digging around in the old cassettes again.
Back in the late 70′s – early 80′s while I was scraping and struggling along there in Denver, which is a story in itself which I want to tell you some other day, among other things I used to do was make solo albums on cassette, just me playing everything as usual, recorded by ping-ponging between two cassette decks, or sometimes, when I was able to borrow it, a Teac 3340 4-track. In those days when I recorded by myself I wasn’t interested in trying to make “songs”; just “things” with sounds, musical instruments and the (utterly minimal) recording gear. I’ve selected around 47 minutes worth of “good” stuff out of the dozens of hours of recordings and put together an album entitled Bob Drake 1979-1983 which you can listen to or buy for the princely sum of 2 dollars here on my friend Kurt Bauer’s Bangsnap Records page.
And over on my Soundcloud page, here is an atmospheric 22-minute improvised piece by me and Mike Johnson recorded in 1980 entitled appropriately enough What We Did That Day. We used to spend hours getting all set up; a couple of electric guitars, at least one “prepared” electric guitar on a table, a couple of acoustic guitars, loads of old effect pedals, my Moog Taurus pedals, a drum kit, a reel-to-reel used as an echo/distortion, microphones in different places and rooms, all patched into a little mixer and finally fed into a cassette recorder. We’d press RECORD on the C-90 cassette, start “doing something”, flip the tape after 45 minutes and continue on till the end of side 2, keeping an eye on the remaining time so we could taper off towards the end. I took the 90 minute performance and cut it into 4 sections of equal length, layered them on top of one another and mixed them together. Sometimes you hear them all at once, other times just one or two.
And how about 20 minutes worth of abandoned industrial sort of atmosphere? Try this one I made in 1987. There’s a full description there if you want to know how it came about.
You know I was in all sorts of bands in Denver back in the 80′s, here’s a live set from one called Dry Heaves and the Teenage Corpse Eaters, recorded in 1981.
More strange atmospheric improv from 1980 by Great Banana which was me, Mark and Sharon Bradford and Mike Johnson.
That’s all for now, plenty more yet to come, just have to wait for another drizzly winter day when I feel like further riffling through the boxes of billions of cassettes.
March 2012 tour update.
As mentioned in this post, I am trying to set up a little European tour in March 2012. That’s coming along, and now there is an added attraction: it will be a double bill! My friend Lukas Simonis will be also touring with us, opening the shows with a 20-30 minute solo set using guitar and electronics. Lukas and I have worked together on a lot of projects over the years like AA Kismet and Vril (you can find some songs here), and as you can see on his website he’s a busy man in the funny music scene himself. So that’s pretty good news. OK that’s all for now, how are you?
Frequently Asked Question B:
I’ve been asked a few times in the weeks since Bob’s Drive-In was released if I’m going to take six years again to release another solo album. “No” is the answer, unless something utterly unforseen intervenes! I think it’s safe to say that the next one, to be entitled “Bob Drake’s Overproduced Album” may be released sometime in 2013. The long songwriting pause I took after The Shunned Country was deliberate and necessary, as that album really drained me with its 52 highly condensed tracks, and I’d done those six albums between 1994-2005 pretty much one after the other, taking about two years apiece. So yeah, after Shunned it was a good time for a solo album-making pause.
That’s it for now I guess, see you next post? Maybe I’ll have something more to say? How can I know? Now some popcorn.
Tour in March 2012 and more.
On the morning of 10 November I’ll be interviewed live on the Belgian Radio Centraal, so if you want to hear me stuttering and stammering like an idiot live on the air be sure to tune in! I don’t know when exactly because I can’t read Flemish, sorry, but I know it’s around 9 or 10 AM.
Other exciting news – I’m trying to set up a small tour for 15-23 March with the Drive-In Band in the general geographical area of Switzerland, SE France, northern Italy, and southern Germany. Especially interested in living rooms, garages, small intimate venues that aren’t standard rock clubs (though those will do if that’s the only option!) Anywhere we can make some noise and some people can come and have some fun. If you have a place or any ideas please let me know either in a reply here on the blog, or at the email address on the front page of my website.
OK that’s it for now, back again soon….
The new album “extra items” and other stuff.
Those of you who have bought my new album and are wondering about the “extra items” which were supposed to have been included: I didn’t know I was supposed to include this until I’d already sent the master off to the pressing plant in October, and when I was informed about it I was already too busy with mixing the new Thinking Plague album to come up with anything so quickly. There weren’t any leftovers from the recording sessions, except this song which I’d already put on my Soundcloud page, so I couldn’t think of what to do but then did something, not music but something printed and written upon, please be patient and it will be sent to you by ReR soon-ish.
The album is currently available at ReR, and will be officially released on 5 November, but if you can’t wait then enquire at your favorite CD outlet just in case they are already selling it too. And do try to buy it on CD rather than mp3 download, the sound is really so much better and punchier than mp3.
OK what else….Mike Johnson was here earlier this month and we finished up the mix of the new Thinking Plague album which is entitled Decline and Fall. That will be released in January on Cuneiform Records, and I do suspect that you fans of the past few TP albums will like it.
Well OK that’s all for now, more news coming as soon as I try to make some time to sit down and think and type!
OK
A little post to inform those interested parties that Bob’s Drive-In is now available at ReR, and should be soon at your other “favorite CD outlets”. Don’t know about download versions and not interested in that avenue until the standard is better than mp3.
Putting the finishing touches on the mix of the new Thinking Plague album entitled Decline and Fall. Mike Johnson and I have been having a fine time with it and it’s sounding real good.
mmm OK that’s all for now, time to get into the studio and warm up the badger.
Any day now as the saying goes.
My new album Bob’s Drive-In will officially exist on CD “any day now” according to ReR. I’ll keep you posted about that. I suppose there will be downloadable versions too but I’m not interested in that until the generally accepted format is something significantly better than mp3. And, the album will be featured in October on Progressive X Grooves. Thanks to Pieter van Veen for that!
Kinnie The Explorer left here a few days ago after we finished up their first full-length album. Then I was interviewed for a film about bands which are referred to today as “avant rock” even though we didn’t know that’s what someone would call it someday. I just thought we were doing “rock” music, and wouldn’t “avant rock” mean “before rock”? Anyway, the very nice folks who are making the film, Jose and Adele, also recently made a film about modern-day “prog rock” bands called Romantic Warriors. Though I am of course aware that “prog rock” is a “genre” which exists today, I’m no expert on that and haven’t seen the film, only the trailer….so I can’t say anything about that.
Next up on the agenda of thrills, Mike Johnson arrives in a few days and we’ll spend two weeks mixing the new Thinking Plague album. I’ve already spent some time working by myself getting the songs semi-mixed, but leaving them quite rough so we finish it up together. Really looking forward to working with my old pal Mike again! And just so you know – I was not involved at all with the recording of this album and do not care for sampled drums, so now you know it wasn’t my fault. However I must say that I find this collection of songs to be much more cohesive sounding than the last few TP albums.
Meanwhile, Chris Cutler is here and we’ll be doing some work on something he’s brought along, not sure what that is yet, and I want to hack down about an acre of brambles tomorrow. Not just for the “joy” of doing it, but because then there will be another nice large area in which to sit and look around and make myself available for song ideas in. You know what I mean? I don’t know about you, but for me a huge percentage of making songs consists of making myself available for it by setting aside an hour or two or fifteen, sitting with an instrument for example, being devoted to seeing what might come along. Of course one can do that anywhere: in a musty little basement room or tiny stuffy attic or any non descript zone as the case may be, but outdoors on a warm late afternoon – early evening in a vast and fragrant space is especially good if you ask me. You might sit there playing around on the guitar for an hour and a half and finally come up with a 3-second little chord change that makes the perfect connection between the two bits you already got for the song. THAT IS FUN and why I do it, I think….
OK that shall be all for today, talk to you next time!