Rolla Misery??

Most, if not all, of you know that I played KDHX's Live in St. Louis Series 2010 on Nick Acquisto's The Space Parlour last Thursday. I've conveniently tracked my performance on this Mini iPod below if you happened to miss it.



I'm very pleased with my performance and the overall turnout of the show. The mix is a bit vocal heavy...but that's radio. I am, however, ashamed of how I threw Rolla Missouri under the bus during my interview. (Listen to the interview pt 3) There's so many positive things I could have said, but instead I focused, as usual, on the negative.

I'm very appreciative that I grew up in Rolla. Yes, it was hella boring more than a few times, but I received a great education as well as performing with a group of people that shared the best musical experience I've had in my life. Which, sadly, I took for granted at the time.

The music program was, hands down, the best the state of Missouri had to offer. Performing around the country (Corpus Cristi TX, Winter Park CO, Carnegie Hall) as well as being invited to perform in Europe (damn I wish I did that) proves that claim. But it wasn't the fact that we had many talented singers our school. It really came down to one man, our music director, Mr. Sandquist.

He single handedly, taught me so much about music, without ever opening a book. Just a number of "one-liners" and the selections of college level songs we performed, he somehow implanted the overall feel of Syna So Pro without me ever knowing it. A prime example being, "Mezzo Forte is Mezzo Boring". He would say this to us often when we were just going through the motions and not conveying any dynamics. I've never forgotten that which is probably why I'm told my music is very epic on it's own.

Although I sound resentful about growing up in Ro-Town, I'm really not. I'm pretty positive if Rolla never happened, Syna So Pro wouldn't have happened.

Ok, I feel better now...

Listening to my performance also solidified in my head that I should take vocal lessons. It's not that I think I can't sing, I know I've lost a lot pitch control over the years of "lazy singing".

In other news, for those of you who's picked up and listened to my debut album, posted below is a Syna So Pro cover, recorded by my good ol' friend El.

El writes: Walk Away...

..This song was written by SYNA SO PRO. I recorded it about a year or twelve ago when I used to live in a musicians halfway home. It sounds nothing like the original except that both me and the person that wrote it are sexy as hell :)

Enjoy!
~Syrhea

P.S. If you have nothing to do this Saturday, come out to Fort Gondo for a Celebration of women of art. Facebook event here!

Slow Burn...

This past week has been pretty interesting...

I pretty much stopped working myself ragged from Wednesday to earlier this afternoon. This wasn't by choice. I suddenly feel like my mid 20's body has been replaced with the body of a frail and frigid 60 year old man. I find myself being hungry, getting something to eat, and falling asleep before I even finish my meal, and waking up confused as hell and still hungry. I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion twice (that's right twice) this week before 9pm.

I'm yawning right now...and it's barely 9:30pm.

Friday night I went to El's place to catch up on new mailing list subscriptions (You guys are awesome!) and a little Linux education only to fall asleep on the couch while watching Arrested Development at around 10:30pm. I mean seriously, who the hell falls asleep on Arrested Development? And once again I have to thank the person who invented the striated concrete on the shoulders of interstates. If it wasn't for those loud, god forsaken vibrations, I would have sustained serious injuries trying to drive back home, on Friday, while sleeping.

Saturday I made it a point to actually get out of the house and act like someone in their 20's. Had a few beers, hung out with a couple of friends, saw a few bands, and was in bed by 12:30am. Still a bit early for a Saturday, but baby steps...

...baby steps...

I'm pretty much burn out on this music video. I've got one more minute to animate, but I can't bring myself to do anything with it right now. So I ended up doing what this project is supposed to be about...playing music. Practiced for about 2 1/2 hours today (too tired to go longer) working on some new stuff and trying to perfect the old. And jotting down a wave a lyrics that came from nowhere..as if they were there the whole time. I was going to post some new music here but... yeah, I'm effing tired...

But I did make a couple of paintings that will be printed on the album discs.

I dig it...

Took a wooden turn table, taped paper to it, got a few colors of watered down acrylic paint, spun the table, dropped some paint and Voila!


Test 1


Test 2


Combination of tests with the aid of Photoshop

I dig it a lot...

Another quick reminder that Jovian's CD Release party is this Friday @ the Firebird... It would be cool to see some of you out. Let's hope I can stay awake for the night of music...

*yawn*


*smack* *smack*

...

Yeah, I'm going to bed...

~Syrhea

Deadlines in Sight

A few of you may have seen that I just spontaneously decided to make my own music video...

This is proving to take up more time than I had originally anticipated. I thought I could make a little cheap video with pictures and toys in frame by frame movement, but I decided not to deal with issues of lighting and scenery etc. So I'm drawing it. Got the story board finished in about two hours and started the animation right away. Story board images are below...

click to enlarge












It will have ducks, water, cliques, planning, motivation, excelling, and back packs...Don't ask, you'll see.

So, I'm not too terrible of an artist...I can dabble a little, but what I can't do is dabble with a mouse. The software I've been using requires me to draw with a mouse and only with a mouse...I don't even have shape tools to my advantage. I could just open up photoshop and import the frames in that way, but I actually like the way the video looks in it's childlike cartoonish form. I've animated about 120 frames so far...which is about 20sec out of the 2:38 seconds of the song.

Will it be done before the release of the cd? With everything else that's going on, I can't make any promises...but I really should fine time to practice while I'm doing all of these promotional projects.

In other news, I got the mastered disk back from Jack yesterday. El and I had a little meet with him at his effing awesome pad! I must say, I'm pretty impressed with his work and I'm excited that the rekkid actually sounds like a record. I'm going to let the disk soak into my brain for about a week before I decide if it's a no or a go. Just like what my boss says,
"Take your time, go slow, and do it right!"

Plus I still have a crap ton of research to do, as well as the finishing touches on the album insert...I need to clone myself like Michael Keaton in Multiplicity, so I won't be so exhausted from working my 9 hours, then going home and working the remaining 7-9 hours on this release. I'm tired! But like Mrs. Schwartz says, "You've got to get off of your butts and your buts!"

Hmm...but if I were to clone myself...it's best to clone 5 of me...

...then I'd really be my own band...

I'm off to do more research...

...I've got deadlines to meet...

...that all I got...

~Syrhea

The Reveal

So, as promised, I'm posting pictures of Big Blue. I received many compliments on his construction at the show last night, as well as comments of my overall sexiness for building it...even in my spider man t-shirt. And without further ado, here are external picture of the new male in my life...


He barely fits in the trunk...




Some nice corner blocks...


My favorite feature!

More to come on his sweetness from the inside. I meant to snap a few with a new, but old, camera I just purchased today, as well as a laptop and some headphones, from my friend/old band mate Dan, but I wanted to hurry and get this laptop to El so that he can work his magic of make it a Windows-less Operating System.

Sure enough, he fixed it up in about 30 minutes and I'm currently at his place, typing this blog, watching Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas, and uploading the new teaser Syna video to facebook on the laptop, all at the same time, with no lagging! I'm glad I've snatched this up, even if it is about 5 years old. It will just make it that much easier "stay connected" with everything, for I have another reveal...

I finished the website and would love for you all to check it out and pass it around. (www.synasoloproject.com)

But wait, there's more, I also opened a twitter account, as well as a facebook account for Syna So Pro.

...

*sniff*

...

That wasn't as climatic as I had hoped...

Anyway, Bliss City East, Panda Riot and Fractured Army all kicked some ass last night. It was a lot of fun, and the night seemed to speed on by. Thanks to all who made it out and stuck around!

I really don't have much else to blahg about but I want to keep playing on this laptop...

Who's going to tell me what kind of operating system I'm running? #! (psst...alan...that's your cue)

...that's all I got...

~Syrhea

A Year Ago Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow...

I was nervous, excited, moody, unsure and very, very anxious. The night before a year ago yesterday, I couldn't sleep too well. I couldn't wait to get up at 0730 and start cooking breakfast for El, Will, and Shae because that would mean that I was that much closer to recording my first debut album.

Sleeping that night was like sleeping the night before Christmas when Christmas was the most important thing to a child. Even on the "couch of lethargy" I couldn't drift away. I was up, mind racing:

"I think Shae can knock out the drum tracks in about 5 or 6 hours"
"...I really hope I get halfway done when this weekend is over..."
"...you should have practiced the violin more..."
"...and your guitar parts..."
"...you should really start with these songs first..."
"...I hope El will help me with distortion sounds..."

Sleep finally came and recording started with only a little bump in the road. The drums took most of the first day, leaving me with about 2 hours to squeeze some bass lines in. Bass and guitar was all day the second day, and guitar the remainder of the third day. I remember being disappointed that I didn't get at least halfway through all the instruments to be recorded. I also remember being in slight disbelief that I could forget to add a part or two to a song. (How could I completely forget about parts, not the parts themselves, but putting the parts in the songs?)

Looking back a year ago, I learned that nothing, nothing ever goes as planned...EVER! El said it best: "You can't record songs when you have time booked. You have to record when you feel it...when you're in it." I agree 100%. When I started recording, I didn't want the process to take a year to do...and here we are a year later with the final product to be release in a couple months. The whole process was time consuming, tiring, difficult, monotonous, frustrating, and tedious in every way possible. But I couldn't be happier with how everything is finally coming together.

It's been a long time since I posted some music on the blog. I thought it would be fitting for me to post a song that I wrote a year ago, and still haven't gotten total lyrical inspiration. It was my attempt to write a riff... I think it's kinda funny... It's got anvils...they're always funny... I especially like the ebowed guitar parts... Hope you guys dig it.

Last night El and I went driving around to capture some footage for a video idea I have. I not going to say much more than that, but since you are following this blog, I figured I could at leas post some stills for your pleasure...




















Two questions before I "sign off" here. Of the few of you who actually read this, how much more or less inclined are you to buy a jewel case of the album, as oppose to digital? (this is if you were going to buy the album of course)

And are you coming to the stella show this Saturday? You can finally see my pedal board! (this is if you didn't already see it earlier this month) I did, however, add a new feature to Big Blue...you'll see.

Ok...

...that is all...

~Syrhea