Where to start?

First off, we've been stupid busy trying to get this album done.  Vocals and lyrics have been taking longer than expected, with lyrics needing to be written for 2 more songs (as of right now, there is only 1 instrumental track on the CD) and vocals need to be recorded for about half of the songs.  I'm not going to even guess on a date, but if things stay at the current pace, the album shouldn't take much longer.

On a brighter note, we've got a Halloween gig booked.  We're going to metal it up, as we're playing Club Underground with Something To Fear and Speak Of The Devil. We'll be the middle of a metal sandwich, so lay on some mayo and put up your horns.

After weeks of fiddling, and a potentially devastating hard drive crash*, we've finally finalized the instrumental portions on the 18 CD-worthy tracks. We decided to review all of our songs, and make sure we were 100% happy with everything.  While this took a few weeks, and the number of changes were small, it will hopefully result in a product that blows everyone's mind.

Now we've moved on to vocals and lyrics.  In the past 2 weeks we've written the lyrics to two songs, changed the vocals for one existing song (Earth Will Win) and got vocals recorded for one (more on that later).  We just have six songs left to write vocals for (Baboon Gang Rape, The Combo's 808, Harder Than Your Mom, Not Lacking Any Meat (KHP) and Killscreen) and the vocal recording should go fast.

The one song we've completed the vocal recording on is "Meatloaf Was My OBGYN".  For this song, we've brought in a guest vocalist, OBCT keyboardist and former member of GNP, Xiv.  We pounded this out one evening, and it is fricken TIGHT.

* - Our main server hard drive, the one that contained ALL of the recorded material and project files, was lost in a hard drive crash.  Thankfully, we already had a weekly off-site backup system in place, so most everything was saved, but we had had two studio sessions in between the last backup and the crash.  Luckily, I had recently started the habit of backing up our material to a local drive as well, so absolutely no progress was lost, between the two backups.  Thanks SyncBack !

Yes, another installment of the handcrafted GNP gabber/hardcore kick drum samples.  This time we're giving up 15 samples, and all of them were generated by running kick drum sounds through a Digitech RP7 Tube guitar effect pedal.  These are some nasty kicks, so grab them and enjoy!

http://www.freesound.org/packsViewSingle.php?id=3492

(All samples are 44.1 kHz, 32-bit WAV files)

Quick note, we've got a show coming up, Saturday June 14th at Club Underground.  We'll be playing with Sturgeon Valley Nights and Buzzard.  Both of them have a sort of southern rock sound, kind of like Clutch (which is a good thing, in my book), with the exception being that SVN is instrumental only.  This is our first show with "rock" bands since probably our very first show, so it should be a fun time.  We'll be playing half a dozen songs off of our new CD, so come on out, drink some dirt cheap Premium , and soak-in the rock.

We're getting closer and closer to being ready to release the new disc, aptly titled III.  We've got about 75% of the CD art complete, all songs are musically done.  We've got lyrics to write and vocals to record for approximately seven songs.  Then it's just a matter of doing a final mix and getting the disc mastered.  Here's the final track list, as it stands:

1. Initium Interficio Identidem
2. Hong Kong Knife Fight
3. DWR
4. The Three T's
5. Sunday, Sunday
6. Testicle Ninja
7. QWERTY
8. Earth Will Win
9. Spankun Musheen (Beat The Booty)
10. The Future's So Dark…
11. Killscreen
12. Deliver My Liver
13. Not Lacking Any Meat (KHP)
14. Baboon Gang Rape
15. Harder Than Your Mom
16. Meatloaf Was My OBGYN
17. The Combo's 808
18. Bass Test

So there you have it, 18 tracks,  over 51 minutes of mind-blowing electro/industrial/gabber/nintendo/hardcore.

It's go time! 

It's update time!

Right now, we're at 22 tracks, musically completed.  We recently dumped the tracks to a CD, and found out that we have over an hour of material as it stands (63 minutes, to be exact). 

So what does this mean?  It means we are probably done adding new tracks, and now we start wrapping stuff up; getting lyrics written, vocals recorded, final mixing and final mastering.  We've already started working on the CD art, and have a rough outline on how that will look.

I cannot guarantee that all 22 tracks will make the final cut, but I would say that 17+ tracks is quite likely, with the final number possibly being 20 (I'm just throwing numbers out there, so take them with a grain of salt).

One other note:  we've started a video blog!  In our first episode, we give you all a few snippets from the new album.  Check it out!

Welcome to the second entry in our Killer Tunes series, this time focusing on French digital hardcore band, Moshpit.

It's not easy to describe Moshpit.  They aren't traditional Hardcore/Gabber.  They aren't pure metal.  The best comparison I can come up with is that they are like the berzerker, if the berzerker listened to Slipknot and didn't stray from the electronic hardcore drum machine beats.

Moshpit has released two vinyl maxi singles on Lenny Dee's Industrial Strength Records, and one 7-track Promo CD, Listening To This Crap Won't Arrange Your Erectile Problems.  I first became aware of them through their myspace page, and was hooked once I saw the video for "We Killed Jah".  For what is essentially an unsigned/indie act, the video is top-notch and absolutely awesome.  I haven't had a chance to hear their Promo CD, but I have heard their initial four-song Maxi-Single, and it is brutally epic, with "We Killed Jah" being the centerpiece.  Blending orchestral hits, grinding guitars, furious breakbeats and distorted gabber kick goodness, Moshpit is unrelenting.

Moshpit's Myspace
Moshpit's Official Website

We are pleased to announce our first sample pack, free to the unsuspecting masses!

This pack includes 10 high quality, super crunchy, kick drum sounds, suitable for Gabber, Digital Hardcore, Powernoise, Breakcore and other related genres.  All 10 samples were hand crafted by GNP and are ONE-OF-A-KIND!  Best yet, they are free!

In the future, we will be offering more kicks, some hand crafted breakbeats, as well as some biting synth samples.

All samples are 44.1 kHz, 32-bit WAV files.

To download, follow the link: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/packsViewSingle.php?id=3176

Well we've put a moratorium on starting new songs, so that officially puts the cap on possible new songs at 26.  We'll likely wrap up the instrumentation and arrangement on the final 6 songs within a few weeks, and with that, we begin writing lyrics and recording vocals.  Somewhere mixed in there, we also start cutting some of the "less-than-strong" songs.  We don't officially know how many songs will be on the completed disc, but here are the current working song titles (many of which are likely to change):

• Baboon Gang Rape
• Bass Test
• Crunkville, Population 3
• Deliver My Liver
• DWR (Driving While Republican)
• Earth Will Win
• Gremlins
• Harder Than Your Mom
• Hong Kong Knife Fight
• Meatloaf Was My OBGYN
• MMORPG Widow
• Not Lacking Any Meat (KHP)
• Pagliacci
• QWERTY
• Social Butterslut
• Spankun Musheen (Beat The Booty)
• Sunday, Sunday
• Testicle Ninja
• The Combo's 808
• The Future's So Dark
• Beer Thief
• Bros Before Hos
• Dick Hunt
• Hardcore Prick
• Low Riding Mower
• You Lose

In addition to getting closer to vocals and finalizing this crap, we're also in the midst of getting the CD art created.  I won't spoil the fun, but it's going to be heavily influenced by the number 3.

As a kid, I have fond memories of vinyl records.  My parents had a modest stack of vinyl which likely played a role in why I became the person that I am.  I remember the B-side for Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming to Take Me Away" totally creeping me out as a kid (the B-side was the same song as the A-side, except played in reverse).  I remember begging my parents to play Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever", and when they'd put it on, I'd rock my little ass off.  I likely wore out the 45 I had of the Minnesota Twins' theme song "We're gonna win Twins" (and likewise, the B-side, a Twinsified version of "We're Talkin' Baseball").

As a teenager, I thought of vinyl records as being an old person media format.  CDs were where it was at.  Even then, getting a brand new CD was an experience.  Tearing off the poly sleeve, opening the jewel and thumbing through the booklet, reading along with the lyrics as the CD played.  It wasn't just listening to music, a passive pastime, it was listening to music, actively enjoying the music, and not relegating the music to the background.

In my twenties I've seen downloading and portable media devices become the de facto standard.  I adapted, and converted most of my sizable CD collection into MP3s and accumulated several thousand more songs from the internet.  And it was great, because while CDs and LPs required, if not demanded, active listening, MP3s and computers allowed you to have music playing constantly and make it a passive pastime.  You could actively listen to music, but it was harder, as the internet & cable TV would beat you over the head, screaming, "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"

But MP3s lost something.  No longer could I flip through artwork or a lyric book.  No longer was there a physical act of putting the CD in the tray and hitting play.  It was clicking a mouse button and letting Black Sabbath or Ministry or Pantera become part of the pink-noise of my life.  Can you believe that? Ministry as pink-noise?!

But since getting into vinyl records, I've realized how much I enjoy the visceral aspect of actively listening to music, and might I say, that vinyl exceeds even what the compact disc format gave to me.  Buying vinyl, for me, has been a combination of the joy getting a new CD and looking for buried treasure. 

By that, I don't mean I've got expensive albums in my collection, but more so that I'm learning about artists that have long since evaporated into obscurity.  I'm listening to music that hasn't been released on CD, let alone in MP3 form.  I'm hearing music and sounds, that quite possibly, haven't been heard by a single human being in decades, and for me, that is exciting. 

It also makes me sort of sad for the people growing up today.  Many of them don't know the joy of actively listening to music, and they probably don't care, because much like myself as a kid, they think vinyl is old people media.  However, unlike them, I still had CDs.  I still had the physical act of listening to music.  I didn't have cable (due to money, not availability) and I didn't have the internet (at least until my last year of high school) to steal my attention.

Do people nowadays actively listen to their MP3s?  I'm sure some do, but it ain't easy, and as an artist and a music lover, that's a shame.

…And on that note, a cool article, which spurred this rant/reminiscence, about a guy who's selling his gigantic vinyl collection.

http://postgazette.com/pg/08051/858776-388.stm