December 2008 - Posts
Night one of the New Year's extravaganza is under way. With load in beginning at sunrise, we're well on our way to building the behemoth. The Auditorium Theater is nothing short of an architectural masterpiece and we couldn't be more honored to ring in 2009 at this historic venue.
Builit in 1889 by famed Chicago architects Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, the building also originally housed a hotel and slew of offices, including those of Sullivan and Adler. The theater immediately garnered international fame as one of the greatest architectural and acoustical feats of it's time. The theater fell from grace as newer hotels sprang up around the city and the Chicago Orchestra found a new home. The building was almost demolished during the Great Depression as it fell further into disrepair. A massive renovation project was undertaken in the 60's to breath new life into the theater and the Auditorium reopened its doors in '67. It has been home to everything from a Teddy Roosevelt speech to a Jimi Hendrix gig to the Joffrey Ballet.
Tonight, we humbly join the ranks of artists like Ray Charles, Elton John, & the Grateful Dead with the first of 3 nights at the Auditorium Theater in our beloved city of Chicago.
(Lots more interesting history about the Auditorium Theater here)
Stay tuned...
The view of the stage from the first balcony
Opera Boxes on house left
The view from the stage behind the Ghost Light
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Dear Friends,
The holidays are upon us and after enjoying a good balance of work and play at Holidaze, our preparations continue to ensure we close out the year in style. While the palm trees and white sandy beaches of Chicago in December aren't quite as nice as those in Jamaica, we couldn't be more excited to celebrate the end of 2008 with fans, friends and family in our beloved hometown.
As we said in the Umphdate that announced Mantis, we are eternally grateful to have your support, and are humbled by your relentless dedication and energy. Thank you so much for making it possible for us to do what we do. In appreciation, we've decided to give away a free holiday EP of never-before-released material spanning holiday shows from the last few years. Please click here for the free download. If you already have a umlive.net account just add the tracks to your shopping cart and download. If you don't have an account, signing up is free and fast after you add the gift to your cart. Please, please, please tell your friends as we'd like to put this in the hands of everyone, but we would appreciate if you would send them to UMLive.net to sign up and download rather then sending the files yourself through email or by file sharing.
We hope you've been enjoying the Mantis pre-order campaign as much as we have-- constructing Mantis"Teasers" that give you a taste of what's coming, digging through the archives for bonus content and holding the finished album in our hands has been a thrill. Our thoughts and conversations are turning towards how great it will be to FINALLY PLAY THESE NEW SONGS LIVE next year. You still have until January 5th to place pre-orders, and thanks to your support and word-of-mouth you are closing in on unlocking the final level of content. We look forward to seeing you at the finish line in 2009 - The Year of the Mantis.
As much fun as it is to enjoy this time of year (particularly with the new album right around the corner) we continue to turn our thoughts towards those who are less fortunate, and extend our gratitude to all of you for your support of our shows benefitting USTORM and Keys 4 Kids. If you are interested in learning more about these organizations or wish to make a donation, more info can be found at the USTORM and Keys 4 Kids websites.
We look forward to seeing many of you over the New Year's run and at the first Mantis tour dates beginning in January. Our best wishes to you and yours for a Happy Holidays.
Andy, Brendan, Jake, Joel, Kris, Ryan and the entire Umphrey's McGee team.
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Stumbled across this on the world wide web. A personal highlight of mine as Karl never ceases to entertain. Thanks to phletch.
Click me
"Who wants to sing after that?"
I'd like to thank anyone who had anything to do with last saturday at the Park West. Whether you were a performer or an audience member, a decorator or a volunteer, USTORM is truly appreciative of your collective efforts to make saturday night work. We raised thousands of dollars, drank hundreds of beers, and made a lot of underpriveledged kids happy. The Off the Street Club started the night off with a reminder of why we were all there (that little guy has a future on stage), and the whole evening i felt blessed to be a part of something so positive.
Big thanks to whoever had to deal with removing the tree after the show. I hope it wasn't too much of a pain in the ass...
Maybe KB has some pics for you.....
off to jamaica,
bb
Greetings Friends
We have just updated the sidebar to your left with a brand new Mantis Teaser featuring clips from another batch of unheard songs. You will find a varying mix of genres ranging from the heavier to the danceable. If I didn't know better I'd swear there is some soothing sounds of a Latin ballad in there too. And the President-Elect to boot!
41 days and counting...
It's coming.
Jake & Brenda warm up before this year's Acoustic Christmas 2008 at the Park West in Chicago. Jen Hartswick is equally entertaining with her absurd background faces.
In the interest of making sure that everyone has the chance to hear the last of the 3 Mantis radio edits, we've just added Spires to the sidebar on your left. You can now stream it (and we're quite certain that some of you have "borrowed" it) for your listening pleasure right here on The Floor. Again, this is an incomplete version at this point but hopefully enough to keep that proverbial whistle wet and persuade those fence sitting friends of yours to Pre-Order Mantis.
In the ever revealing strip tease that is Mantis, we figured it was about time to release the full track listing with song times and a larger version of the album cover itself. Go to the Mantis site and download free wallpapers of much of the album art.
1. Made to Measure 3:12
2. Preamble 0:36
3. Mantis 11:49
4. Cemetery Walk 7:30
5. Cemetery Walk II 2:19
6. Turn & Run 7:25
7. Spires 7:41
8. Prophecy Now 2:47
9. Red Tape 5:43
10. 1348 4:49
Total Running Time: 54:04
We started creating the song back in the summer of
2006. Sitting at home at my piano,
I fleshed out some chords and melodies and put them down to my trusty Tascam 4
track (old school, I know).
Initially, I was thinking that we needed something darker for our
musical palette. Funnily enough,
most of that vibe was realized in the parts of the song you don’t currently
hear! But shortly after starting
the process, I took the tape up to Jake’s Boondock Studio in rural Michigan,
out behind the house he grew up in.
Jake and I have gotten together numerous times over the years and have
come up with a pretty good formula to realize songs. We’ll typically work on the arrangements of the songs, then
he’ll play live drums while I play the keyboard part. Being the multi-instrumentalist that he is, Jake will then
overdub bass and guitar to the sections after the 1st live pass on
keys and drums is done. We’ve
worked on pieces such as 13 Days, Words, Higgins, Cemetery Walk and the yet-to-be-heard
Mantis using this technique.
One of the crucial alterations we made once we convened at
Jake’s was rewriting the piano phrase (and now guitar line) under the vocal
“and I called for you” in 7/8 as opposed to 4/4. I told him that I liked the voicing and melody, but didn’t
like the meter. This was Jake’s
idea and it was a great one, it gave the piece a bit more of a lively
feel. Jake also added the chorus
progression at this point, as well as some beautiful and haunting guitar work
that you have yet to hear on the non-radio edit version of Cemetery Walk. We practiced the form through a few
times and then after some false starts, got the version we wanted to tape. So we had a basic track and were ready
to present it to the band.
Fast forward to January of 2007, when pre-production for
Mantis began at IV Labs in Chicago.
We had a dry erase board with markers in hand and started a very organic
process of arranging the songs, with everyone in the band there and
contributing. We’ve often found
that we can capture the more “macro” ideas and flow by writing them down. The more detail-oriented stuff is then
a bit easier to focus on once its not a sort of Simon Says memory game. But the only way to really see how
sections work together and how the transitions serve the song is by actually
playing them and executing them well.
That’s tough to do when you’re simultaneously trying to remember what
comes next, thus the brilliance of the dry erase board.
Also keep in mind that as of January 2007, we were only
dealing with the instrumental sections, Brendan had yet to put down the vocal
melodies and lyrics. So at this
point, we ditched what I had written as the verse structure and added what you
now hear under “I’ve got a secret but its longer than a paragraph…” In the interest of keeping things
interesting, we took the 7/8 phrase and made it into a half-time 4/4 feel about
half-way through the piece. Funnily
enough, it seemed to work in this spot.
You never know what’s going to happen once a piece of music starts to
evolve and take on a life of its own.
Jake’s chorus progression (under “Time won’t change you….”) was in
place, and we put his guitar solo between the two times the chorus happens,
another rather unconventional move.
But it seemed to serve the song, and that’s what we’ve always been
interested in first and foremost.
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about creating an Umphrey’s McGee
song together is that we try to achieve interesting results by not adhering to
the standard pop song format or expectations. With Cemetery Walk, I think we’ve achieved another unique
arrangement.
Finally, at some point in early 2007, Brendan took the song
home and created the vocal sections you now hear. What would a song be without memorable melodies and lyrics
that provide key moments and hooks?
Without a doubt, Brendan’s work tied all of the disparate sections of
the piece together. There are
countless additions and layers that I haven’t described, but that was also part
of the fun of creating this album: as we gave ourselves lots of time to work
with, we could add layers and ideas as they came up. I added the final vocal on the track, which happens only
once during the last chorus, in August of 2008 (per Manny’s suggestion!). And in a nutshell, that is how Cemetery
Walk came to be. As Kevin has
mentioned in the previous blog, there are some essential parts of the tune that
you haven’t heard, and that’s almost as exciting to me as what you have already
heard. Happy listening….hope you
enjoy the tune as much as we do.
So we trimmed a couple of tunes for potential radio play and those discs are starting to pop up at stations across the Country. We figure that it's probably driving some of you nuts that some DJ who has never heard of UM to has a sampler while the die hards wait in anticipation. So we've decided that to share another album track with you, although this version is missing a few significant parts that you will hear later on the uncut Cemetery Walk.
This is the radio edit, UM style. Enjoy!
I bought my first PRS guitar in 1997 because Mike Nolan played one and I thought that was reason enough. My dad took me to the store and loaned me the cash, and i still have it (many thanks to Kevin Browning for talking me out of selling the old one for a new one). When the band played the first Bonnaroo, Jim Smith was running the recording trailer for the show and he called his brother, Paul to tell him about Umphrey's and how I was using his guitar. I got a call later that summer - from Paul himself - and I've been sponsored ever since.
The last Friday of our east coast tour, I was invited to take a tour of the PRS factory. Winn Krozack, the best artist rep in the world, was gracious enough to take me around for the day and let me follow the process from beginning to end. Being able to see blocks of wood transformed into the beautiful feminine shape that is the guitar, I gained a new respect for the company as well as the art of guitar making. Every single employee I came across was genuinely happy and passionate about their respective jobs, and the whole place really seemed like a great place to work.
The drive there took me through my birthplace, Annapolis, MD...so the whole day meant a lot to me. I was feeling the thanksgiving vibe early this year....we here at Umphrey's Mcgee truly have so much to be thankful for.
And I'm thankful for PRS being so good to me...
(To give you an idea of the sheer perfection of PRS guitars, Winn is holding a destroyed body. Apparently something was wrong with it, but it looked fantastic to me)
