Keep watching this space

Old school sticker pic!
Circa 2004

Screaming fields of sonic Jon...

Today, for the first time in seven years, the Flying Public was re-united in full, with all four original members having contributed to the demo that has now put on more miles than my car, collecting tracks and forming into a song.    Yes, that's a shot of our recording set-up with my finger in front of part of the shot (I'm a photographer in my spare time).  Oh look, there's the iPad again...wonderful things they can do now-a-days!  Doesn't look quite as fancy as Cameron's set up...but it did the trick...

Jon and I are far from being qualified recording engineers, but we pulled it off. With the iRig and an SM57 in an Xbox Rock Band mic stand, some photography equipment rigged up for the 'studio' walls, and a whole lot of ambition and excitement, we put vocal tracks on top of the instrumental, the end result sounding (we think) better than some of our early FP studio demo sessions. 

Ok so it's still far from perfect in terms of recording quality, but did I mention this is a demo?  While remeniscing about Fostex four-tracks we realized how much better recording life is now that the future is now.  I just hope we didn't mess up Kyle's guitar tone too much...

Now the next step...we take the song, listen to it in our cars and on our iPods a million times, get hyper-critical about it all, and make it even better...

I can't wait.

Cheers,
Dave

...

Big day today...

And then there were drums (and a new desk!)

After spending a bunch of time building a desk to house all the gear that will be used to record drums for this project, I was finally able to get down to some business. The desk is shown in the pic with a couple acoustic panels I built and most of the stuff I will use for this project (needs to be tidied up of course). Still need to build some more acoustic panels to get the small basement bedroom sounding as good as it can, but at this stage in the game, it will do.

I got some mics set up and tweaked some levels and finally got to jam with Kyle and Dave for the first time in years!

I am doing my best to keep track of where all the knobs are turned to and what mic I use for what and where they all go, and man that seems like a lot to keep track of eh? Guess I better take a photo! So here it is. Drums are a bit dusty as they haven't seen much action lately, but that has already started to change. Should probably wipe those down for maximum tone!

I am looking forward to the second song, because let me tell you, it will go much faster than that first one did! Way less to worry about.

I am already looking forward to when we can start revealing this to anyone interested in hearing those old (new) gems. This must be how Brian Wilson felt when he started working on "SMiLE".......well, maybe not quite.

Lyrics done..mostly

See? I'm working. These are almost done. Cam is working too. Kyle is on to the next one and Dave is probably working in the monetary sense.

When they call my name...dig?

Link to cool blog with a cool review (from a year ago)

http://raisedoncanadianradio.blogspot.com/2010/11/artist-flying-public-album-harmony.html

EP Link

I thought I'd throw this up there for anyone who had interest in revisiting the old tracks (or those who might want to hear them for the first time!).

www.myspace.com/theflyingpublic

Or of course, if you have a copy of the disk, throw in it!

This is what my Ipod is loaded with at the moment. I'm discovering and rediscovering PJ at the moment. Loving it too! Of course it will have influence when you are writing at the same time.

What's in your IPod?

What's everyone listening to as we venture into our first song in seven years?

I know some of my biggest influences during the first album in terms of bass parts were The Police and Rage Against the Machine...right now I'm revisiting an old friend in Tool's Aenema.  Not sure that will have an effect on the sound of something like White Lines, but you never know!

Guess I need to lighten up on the prog-metal and get into something with some poppy organ grooves soon!

DAY ONE

Hello,

If there's anyone out there.

Today I (we) decided to start a blog. I know nothing about them...have never read them, but I do think this new project the band has begun while our members are spread across the country is worth documenting.

My name is Jon and we started our band, The Flying Public in 2002... I think. We played for a few years and we made one EP in 2004, Harmony Lunch. We were doing well and then we stopped. I guess there were many reasons, although I can't recall them all.

Not the point. We are moving forward...

From the box of micro cassettes you see in the picture above we have begun to plot our return. The music on those tapes is unfinished and we are working on our first set of songs in 7 years.

We are excited and we hope that some of you may want to hear what we come up with.

We will post pictures and progress reports here until we are are finished writing and recording everything we've got.

First up... "White Lines"

Stay tuned.

Jon