Exploning All Weekend. Issue #140

Issue #140? How the hell did that happen? I haven't done 140 of anything during my life. Well, maybe sit-ups if you add them up over all the years. Mid 120's for sure. Hmmmm...

So, this past weekend EXPLONE (Patrick Porter, Scott Andrew, Josh Williams, and myself) went into Studio Litho in Seattle for a weekend of recording Rock N' Roll, photo shoots, video making, and eating a disgusting amount of SUN CHIPS "just cause they were there". Mmmmm...French Onion. Smell that? Yeah, that's my breath yo.

The process of the above mentioned activities took place Friday-Saturday from 12pm-12am and what a concentrated amount of work we got done during that time. Logan was a good studio dog all weekend, the Super Bowl was what it was, and watching too many episodes of "Jailhouse Raw" will make you not want to leave your house for the risk of actually doing something to send you to that nightmare...jeebus. We went in with the goal of finishing the final song on the aimed-for-spring-release sophomore album and me laying down additional guitar parts I had concocted since joining the band last fall. That did happen, but the real magic that went down wasn't planned. Even though the new album hadn't yet been completed, part of being a songwriter is thinking ahead and writing new songs for next.


A few weeks ago Patrick brought in a new song called "King Of The Mist" of which I'm a huge fan and after weeks of bugging him to record it this past weekend like an annoying little cousin, no relenting was in sight and I lost that battle. I've been a FAN way longer than I've been in the band and I can't help it when I get overtly excited for what I know are great songs...someday you'll hear it though! That said, weeks after showing us KOTM he also presented us with another new song, "Michigan". How would I describe it? Hmmmm...

Oh, Yeah.


T H I S S O N G IS T H E S H I T.


The end.


What I'm saying is that is that if I heard this on the radio I would pull over the car and buy it on my iPhone right then. That's how much I believe in this song and after feeling the excitement from the rest of the guys we laid it down this weekend in all it's glory for the new album. A HUGE breath of fresh air for a project that's been in the works for a while and all the hard work the members had been put in before I joined the band. Can't wait for all to hear it and I'm proud to be part of what will be I feel a big leap for the band with this record and fans of guitar rock locally and beyond. Exciting stuff!


Much like the KIRBY KRACKLE recording sessions, a big part of the fun with technology now is including folks on the process. Below you can see how the video shoot went down for the band's song, "St. Yesterday". It's a nice flag ship representation for the rest of the record and after running through the song (not plugged in/singing/but rock moves to full effect) about 12 times we gathered enough footage for director Thor to get something together for promo purposes. It was a blast and also a realization I need to start running again. Damn!


This week KK debuted the Black & White version of our new album cover for E FOR EVERYONE. It was done for us again (like the debut album) by visual badass Jim Mahfood. I love it, and next week at the KK Official site (and here too) we'll show off the final full-color version. We'll also debut the first single from the album and it feels so good to start sharing this stuff! I'm glad cause I'm really bad at secrets, ask anyone who knows me. Wait, that would mean I would have to still have friends around cause of that. Shoot.


Awkward Palm Tree,

KS