Gone are the days of basic arithmetic and subtraction. Simple reading and writing are behind us. Time for long division, more complex word problems, and that magical time in any female blog’s young life when she starts to become a woman. Er, a blog. A woman blog. I feel as though my metaphor is a bit stretched, so we shall now move on to …

Recording update: It is guitar and moog boogaloo in 2nd Album recording town. It’s kind of like a national holiday, but one of those silly ones that only banks get off. Progress has been slow, but we keep plugging away. We will soon be moving to a more “4th meal” recording schedule that should allow us more time in the studio.

This week also saw the first pen to paper be put down for album art. We’re actually looking for help on this front. Did you doodle a lot on your notebook or folders or Trapper Keeper in school? If so, you may be just the artist we are looking for. If you think your doodle ability would be good for us, drop us a line @ thethreeskc@yahoo.com. We’ll give you some more specifics.

And don’t get too excited. Your “doodle ability” really is just a reference to drawing. Ya know, art stuff, sicko.

Tracking for the first acoustic EP is nearly done. Just a couple more vocal tracks to go, some miscellaneous percussiony stuff, and then off to the mixers. Then to the masterers. Then to the duplicators. Then to the expendables. Although it is sounding really great already, we’re hoping Sly and company can really action it up for us. Track 3 could really use some “Dolph”. —–>

Brew of the blog: Torpedo Extra IPA from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Obviously hoppy (being an IPA and all), and although somewhat aggressive upfront with that before mentioned hoppy-ness, the back end subtleties of citrus and malt manage to shine through before being left with that pleasant bitter aftertaste (yes, pleasant bitter aftertaste. If that doesn’t make sense to you, drink more good beer). Not the best IPA I’ve ever had, but certainly one I would not shy away from. Overall score: 3.5 3s out 5.

There is much joy in Mudville. And I totally mean that how you think I do.

Up next, a fresh, deep breath and back to center. Transfer slowly to Cat Pose. Deep breath here and onto Down Face Dog. Breathe in. Breath out. Back to Cat. We’ll move on to Cat Series 2 now. What? No. Yoga is for posers. Get it? ——->

In reality, keyboard tracking is probably next. Both the bass Moog and lead Alesis. Fortunately for us, through little bits here and there, almost 25% of the moog tracks are already done.

Our first major benchmark has been reached. “Bam Bam” achievement complete (drum tracks finished, new “Bam Bam” costume unlocked at character selection screen), album storyline 20% complete.

In related recording news, the first acoustic EP is coming along swimmingly. We should be knocking the rest of that out (like a sucka!) for you soon. Tracklisting for the 2nd installment is already decided upon, so the machine keeps rolling on, gears ablazing.

In recent efforts, we had kind of abandoned the Brew of the Blog thing, so I guess it’s time to catch up. For the most part, we’ve been drinking the homebrews of our drummer extraordinaire, Matt “the Love Worm” Myers. We’ve gone through a farmhouse saison, a regular saison, and an IPA, all of which are/were super fantastic. Perhaps a biased score from the German judge, but I’m gonna go ahead and award 5 out of 5 3s as a collective rating of the brews.

In related recording news, to pacify your thirst for our brand of indie pop rock until the release of Album 2, we have decided to record a series of acoustic EP’s. The first installment is underway and includes songs from Head Voices, Album Two, and other unreleased material (possibly album 3 or album 4 songs). It looks something like this:

1. Eye to Eye — Album 2
2. Jem vs the Volcano — Album 2
3. i’m too old to fear the ghosts — Head Voices
4. G.F.Y. (300 Hands) — previously unreleased
5. Hello, Misunderstanding — previously unreleased
6. Honey (I Think you Know) – thorazine remix — Head Voices

We hope to have that out to you as soon as possible, with the idea of releasing several installments this year. Talks of all kinds of EP projects have been going on, everything from a experimental music to a comedy album. Should be a very productive rest of ’10 for us.

Here’s Ryan laying down tracks for the acoustic album from the point of view of the acoustic bass. —>

<--- And I hear they are coming to a town near you!

Did I just hear somebody call us nerds? Yeah, well… you’re right. Every last one of us and we’re proud of it. No apologies. Suck it.

In related recording news, the drums are coming along, slowly but surely. We keep plugging away and the list of songs we haven’t done yet is getting smaller and smaller (and Leon is getting LARGER!!!!). Some moog tracking has taken place.

Eye to Eye (the weiner and cheese remix) sounds fantastic. Maybe that can make it to something as a secret track someday.

Things are going really well for me here at Riot Recording Camp. It was a little weird and slow at first as we were all trying to get used to each other, but we worked through the kinks and I think I really like my cabin mates. Things are going really fast now. We’re gonna have an awesome summer!

The counselors are all really nice. We’re doing all kinds of things. Yesterday it rained really hard, so we spent most of the day inside. Me and Meanie got into some trouble, we were acting out a scene from Return of the Jedi and I accidently jumped on Sally Timpani’s head. Counselor Riot said we were like a bunch of little criminals, but he was just kidding. Then he gave us popsicles!

The other day, we got to make stained glass window art. Counselor Riot said mine were the best, but I think he says that to everyone. I caught him telling Sally Timpani the same thing the other day when we were gluing googly eyes to our paper turkeys. So I took mine and threw it against the wall and broke it. Glass was everywhere! They made me apologize and clean it up, but I’m so, so over it now.

We’ve got a lot of fun things coming up to. We’ve got a dodge ball tournament tomorrow and I’m really good at dodge ball, so I’m gonna end up taking on almost everyone. Counselor Riot says we even get to have a water balloon war with Camp King Snake. We have to spend a whole day doing science stuff next week. Oh no! But I hear we get make volcanoes, so that might be cool. There’s this really cute girl in the next cabin over, Jem. Maybe I’ll throw mine at her!

I get these funny feelings when I think about her, then I just start pacing. The other day I spaced out and ended up walking down Old Riot Hollow trail farther than anyone ever has before! Then I got lost in the woods. But they found me. I’m better now. I think Dad and I might need to talk about it when I get home. No offense, but you wouldn’t understand. It’s a guy thing.

All in all, mom, things are going really good here. I think this is going to be best summer camp EVER! Tell Dad and little Wiley that I love them.

Your Favorite Son,

Jimothy Jim

Yes, it has finally arrived. Whilst I pen this blog-ular masterpiece as Ryan peeks over my laptop screen and therefore gets the ireful jut of a monitor into his mandible, I am listening to Mattfu, drummer extraordinaire, lay down the drum track to Eye to Eye.

What have the last 3 weeks entailed, you ask? Seemingly behind us (cross your damn fingers and go knock on some wood!) are the hours and hours spent sound treating the main and control room, setting up 7 separate microphone configurations and tweaking each to find our little pocket of the ideal drum sound spectrum, and then picking the pocket that we all collectively like the best. All wrapped around the wonderfully sporadic and highly entertaining stories of Indigo and Orion.

Drum mic mission completed. Album storyline 3% more unlocked, “Ideal Drum Pocket” achievement is … well, achieved.

So on we march through the material with drum sticks blazing. Ah damn, feels good to get some tracking done.

You want more? Perhaps some leaked album info? That what you want? You dirty, dirty information voyeur. I’m gonna keep my eye on you. But here you go.

Working Track List of Songs in contention for 3s Album 2
Eye to Eye
Nothing
Break the Glass Wall
Inside Me
Criminal
So Lost in Love Part I
So Lost in Love Part II
Jem vs. the Volcano
Mr. Riot vs. Most of You
Mr. Riot vs. the Id
Mr. Riot vs. the Ghosts that Haunt Record Bar
Secrets from the Talented Mr. Riot
Mr. Riot Goes to War

Hello once again for the weekly blargity blarg blarg bouts our recording. This week was chalk full of acoustic guitar guide tracking. With the initial template of the songs laid down, we have completed our Album 2 story line by 3% (no achievements unlocked as of yet).

Now comes the task of drum microphone setup and placement. Hours and hours of tweaks and subtle positioning to get the best possible drum sound. For those of you getting the low down on this whole recording process thing for the first time through this blog, it will inevitably sound something like this:

(note: names have been changed to protect the rock righteous)

Juan: Move that mic one a half inch to the right.

Brooks von Dunn: a little. Let’s try it through one of these other preamps.

And so on, and so on, and so on. As you can see, it can be a rather lengthy process (especially with our love for dork tangents). All that is even before one snare hit or cymbal crash is recorded.

Our brew of the week: Titan IPA from Great Divide Brewery. I must say one of the better IPA’s I’ve ever had. The right amount of up-front malty sweetness, and just enough hoppy bite on the back end. Not overly aggressive, just a great balance of all things good with an IPA.

Well done Great Divide. Official Score: 4.5 3’s out of 5.

Time for electric boogaloo! And there is never a bad time for a boogaloo, electric or of the Mennonites. Side note: BRILLIANT name for an acoustic band, Mennonite Boogaloo. Don’t even think about stealing that.

Week 2 saw us further clean and organize the studio area. Old Dungeons & Dragons adventures (well, AD&D 1st Edition to be specific) and dinosaur computer parts were found and reminisced over. Talk of SCSI cards and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books soon followed. Some work was done amongst this. Rachel almost coughed up a lung AND another lung, but is better now.

This week also sees the cherry get popped on actual recording, with the first guide/scratch tracks getting laid down. This is the first step of very, very many to bring you our rock spectacular. We’ll have a collective moment, cry a little, and then bang it out to a click (oh yeah, that was totally intended to be an innuendo).

Pics soon to follow, assuming we actually remember to take some. We have almost no photographic evidence of the “Vampicorns Unite! 2009” tour, so we don’t want to make that mistake again.

We decided “Brew of the Week” would be something to note. As various level of beer snobs, the quality intake of hop-ladened goodness throughout the recording process should be documented. We’ll even apply a completely arbitrary rating scale: the better it is, the more 3s out of 5 it will score.

This week was Noble Pils from Sam Adams. A surprisingly hoppy and malty Bohemian style pilsner, Sam Adams has once again produced an above average seasonal. So much so that is has replaced White Ale as their spring seasonal. For a large brewery, they do good work. Thanks Sam!

Official Score: 3.5 3s out of 5.

With all the recording gear finally home after its maintenance trip to New Zealand, this week sees us put the final touches on the studio. This means mostly moving bookshelves around and eating pie. Why? Cause really, what is better before, after, and during moving a bookshelf than some pie? Hopefully this process won’t take too long, or the album recording will be delayed while we all attend fat camp. That said, we will be accepting pie donations. Please email thethreeskc@gmail.com if you should wish to help the cause. Assuming the recent virus of doom that has recently made it through our ranks decides to move on to another band, we should be good to start full bore Eskimo seal thumb wrestling by next week.

What? No, no, full on album 2 recording next week. Whew, got carried away. Seals don’t have thumbs …

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This week’s words of wisdom: The world may be your oyster, but it doesn’t mean you’ll get its pearl.

We are super-duper-blooey-grouper excited to announce that the time has finally come. For the past many months, we’ve been diligently working away on a new batch of songs that are to become (duh-duh-duh!) THE SECOND ALBUM!!! This week finally sees us ready to start the recording process. Stay tuned right here for constant and hopefully weekly recording updates. They’ll be savory and sweet, like walnuts at the marshmallow facory. Stay tuned and check back often. Rock on.