Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Action, change and ADVENTURE TIME!!!!

There are at any time a gazillion things going on at Kinagree-Smith Headquarters, finding something to write about is not hard. But the mission of any journalist is to provide the information relevant to the readers needs,that can prove to be a bit of a challenge. But I'm up to the challenge, so here we go.

Party across the void moves forward

A while back we talked about doing a show that would combine live music from a location in Philadelphia, with fans of live music both at a live venue and online in Second Life. A celebration of music, both human and avatar. A intermingling of two realities.

Now for those of you that are Second Life residents, I'm going to tell you something that might surprise you. When I tell people I play show online, via Second Life they are extremely fascinated. In most cases they've never even heard of this happening, much less met someone involved with it. So interest on the Human side is peaked.

So peaked that we already have a financial backer to make this event happen. Because we have someone willing to underwrite the cost, we can secure the “Sound stage” here at the Really Big House and looks like we just need to get the other details settled. The Where is settled, now when and who need to be figured in.

Just check back at the blog for further information as it happens.


The production video

Well everything is done on the production video except the actual video of Lexie and Myself performing the song. That should be done sometime this week and you could be viewing the swanky slick video sometime middle of next week.

Once again, this video is for the song “Your Words”, a song featured on the “Wartzinall” CD and also our free download for people on our mailing list. Yes, we are great believers in the power of the mailing list. That is why we have a handy little widget on the sidebar of this blog. If you aren't a member as of yet, please feel free to join. Once you are a member of our Elite mailing list you can download a copy of “Your Words” for free, and totally be IN THE LOOP as to all matters Kinagree-Smith.


The next Kinagree-Smith recording

Yes, there is another Kinagree-Smith recording in the works. But this recording is going to be not only different from our last recording, but different from almost any recording you are likely to hear.

Is your curiosity peaked now? “What is so different” you may well ask.

Well this is a different recording on many levels.

Technically speaking, We LOVE the sound of Kinagree-Smith live. The performances are amazing, and when we play live we the energy and emotional content of the songs become very tangible. So we are going into audiophile class studio. Setting up some great mic, pre-amps, Digital- Analog converters, and create a very high resolution recording of live performance. This is very uncommon in an age of punch in, pitched correction, Loop driven Music. Great songs, great performances and great sound. I would anticipate a great recording.

But this recording is also different on an artistic level. We are not recording “Songs”, but rather Suites of songs thematically linked. When you listen to the recording it will play as one song morphs to the next. Whoever, you will be able to listen to any of the songs you wish at any time.

This recording will also be different as to how you can listen to it. In the past, we've done MP3s, and Wartzinall does have a CD version (16 bit red-book audio). But this recording will be available in those formats, as well as high resolution audiophile recordings. So if you have the equipment, the sound quality will be there.

We also plan to have a few people with video cameras on hand to record the project and those video's will be available both on YouTube, and perhaps DVD if there is any interest.

This will also be our first recording project with our percussion ninja Ira Norman Segall on board. Ira has become an intricate part of the Kinagree-Smith sound and it's about time we made a proper recording with him.

It is a time of change, a time to try new things. Time to alter the social and artistic norms. Kinagree-Smith intends to be leading the charge toward positive change, and all this may well be labeled under experimentation. Some times experiments fail, but some times they succeed beyond all expectations.

I encourage you, do expect great things.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Hello... hello... is this thing on?

Yeah, it's been a while since the last update. But it's not like we've been sitting on our hands. The big green Kinagree-Smith machine has been as busy as ever doing what it does the very best... changing the whole freaking world.

Well, maybe not just yet, but we are working on it trust me.

On a personal note, a big part of what this band does is look for a new way to do the whole music biz thang. While people are pretty much use to the old music biz paradigm, it wasn't really working out that well, and was not working at all for us.

Pressing on...

Last night we played two live shows. We played “The World Cafe”, and then headed over to “The Nuclear Hootenanny”. We've planed to Play the World Cafe for a while now and finally got around to doing so. How did we do? Well... Planet Kinagree-Smith slammed into the World Cafe, and left a creator the size of Texas. Vide,Vichci, Rockie.... we came, we saw, we ROCKED.

We didn't get any video. We brought the camera, but didn't have anybody we trusted to work it for us.

We got to the Hootenanny pretty freaking late. We were thinking we might not get to play, but Kenn and Company seemed happy to see us and tucked us in before Kenn did the closer song. We played the traditional two songs, then was asked to play another, and after that, another songs and as I was putting my guitar away, we were asked to play yet another song. This is pretty cool. Maybe we are catching on.

Ohhh video

So what have we been working on that has left the blog so un-updated? We have been working on a Production video. This means not just shoot a live show, but make a real-ish video. While we have been working on this for the last couple of weeks, we haven't shot a any video of the band yet. We have however done a lot of animation work and what we have so far could make a pretty spiffy video.

We do intend to make it even more spiffy by adding video of us to the mix.

The song the video features is, “Your words” and just between you and I, I've heard that song and awful lot in the last few weeks. The reason we are featuring this song is because it is our “FREE DOWNLOAD” song for those whom belong to our mailing list. Hopefully, more attention to the FREE SONG will cause more subscribers to our mailing list.

Kinagree-Smith concerts on demand?

We are currently discussing posting recordings of our live shows on our web site. We are trying to reach out to as many listeners as possible, and as a step towards this goal, we've posted a device that streams our live shows to the web site. We have a few listeners already from doing this, but there is a problem with this system, and that problem is time. When people all over the world have to be at the same web location at the same time, things get complicated. Just listing the show with all possible time zones would be difficult, but it's possible that some people might never hear the shows just because we are playing at 4 am in their local time zone.

A simple work around to all these problems is to post recordings of show. That way people can listen to a live show any time they have the time. Brilliant.

When?

Well once the new video is ready, we are planning a major roll out. There are going to be lots and lot of things happening. Check by the blog for the details.

Thanks again for all your support, and as always, expect great things.