The Coffee House Band - 2012 Armageddon (Out Of Here)

Ladies and Gentlemen
 
The Coffee House Band cordially invites you to listen to its latest creation; we are grateful for your comments, and any advice is as always, most welcome.

 
A foreboding tale of an ancient prophesy about to come to fruition:

• High quality 320kbps version: 2012 ARMAGEDDON (OUT OF HERE)
• Also available to listen to on: Soundclick

Please scroll down on both sites for lyrics

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We are also incredibly proud to formally introduce you to two new members of the band:

• Phil “Philz” Doyle - who has kindly offered to step into Space Cowboy's ample boots during his absence - we hope you'll agree that his lungs of steel and gravel fit the bill to a tee.
• Danny Danzi - many of you will already be aware of Danny's talents both as an incredible musician, and as a master of the studio environment; his offer to help out the CHB has quite obviously been accepted with great enthusiasm!

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The liner notes, for those interested:
 
 
Lyrics....................Ed "Bapu" Kocol
Music......................Steve Strummer
Mixed and Produced by.........Danny Danzi
 

Lead Vocals............Phil "Philz" Doyle
Drums.............................Jonbouy
Bass Guitar...............Ed "Bapu" Kocol
Synths......................Alex the Kook
Keyboards.....................Danny Danzi
Rhythm Guitars.............Steve Strummer
Backing Vocals.................Danny & Ed


Lead breaks:
#1 Harmony lead (0:18 ~ 0:31)........Steve
#2 Bass Solo (3:45 ~ 3:58)..............Ed
#3 Main solo (4:08 ~ 5:30)...........Grant
#4 Lead/Harmony lead (6:06 ~ 6:34)...Danny
#5 Outro solo (7:32 ~ 8:07)..........Danny
 
 
2012 Armageddon (Out Of Here)
© The Coffee House Band 2011

In case of Sonic Attack on your district, follow these rules.....


Applause gentlemen

Awesome! :)

That is by far the best bass solo I have ever heard!

:)

Listening on the cans....What a great mix! Great collab on the song, guys!

OUTSTANDING as usual!!!

"A work of art!" - Beagle

this is the best sounding mix you guys have done yet!  I didn't scrutenize it as well as I have other songs of yours, but with this one it really wasn't "necessary" anyway.  it did the job it was intended to do right from the start!

Tho I accept and respect Philip's full right to take offense and do not in any way condemn him for such, I personally did not take offense at the lyrics.  this is no different than 2012 the movie, IMO.  Bing is a fictional character (did I say that out loud where bapu could hear it? ).

this is a great song and project and long overdue for your fans!

cheers fellas!

*Edited because I'm not allowed to be passionate about the music we've created without upsetting the forum.*
 

Wow.  I'm just flabbergasted at your response.  Danny I'm sorry but this was way over the top.   I would advise you to grow a little bit thicker skin. 

not able to comment on the song til tomorrow (aaargh work) but Danny, Philip listens to all my extreme metal stuff (which is way heavier than the CHB) and manages to listen all the way thru, with harsher vocals and dodgier lyrics.
Dunno what has ticked him off about this song, but you will see he listens to most things on this board and always comments honestly.
I've never seen you down here commenting on the songs board, so i'm hoping you get with the more chilled out vibe we have down here, where if we get some crits, we try and understand why, rather than launching off the deep end! anyhow, look forward to listening to the monster tomorrow!

Nice work for that type of music , the drumtrack sounded good but didn't really have a natural sound  .
The mix sounded good I thought and the harsh rough sounding vocals fit right in with what you guys created .

Nice job ! Radio

Fine then, I'll just delete it.

Great mix and playing/singing, etc...by everyone involved.

A little long for my short attention span but then again, it took almost the entire song for me to 'get' the 'Armageddon out of here' pun.

Great job.

Yeah, but the Ring Around The Rosie part at the beginning was cute, that was kid friendly. ;)

gave it a listen  3 times. Once last night... once this morning - and then a few minutes ago. 


The musicianship is excellent. Especially in the guitar and drums.  But all around excellent musicianship. 

The mix. - is great. Very professional sounding. I want to learn to mix that well. Bravo. 

The middle/endish instrumental is awesome ... totally tits. (    .    )  (    .    )

The melody is non existent and is just talk and grunting - if there was a catchy melody that was suppose to be there ... you lost me ....  not hearing it 

However - the story and lyric is creative and represents current times .... not offend as a Christian as some may be...... it's just story tell .. I like it ...  and if you were going for that "GWAR" style of music then mission accomplished. I can respect it and give it my appreciation ... for that style ... but I don't  "get it" .. in other words it's not my cup of tea ... I think  the melody in songs needs to be able to be played in phrases with notes on any instrument...not just grunted, talked, or rapped..... I know some may hate that opinion of mine  - but it's just an opinion so chill 

the instrumental section had well thought out melody and phrases - especially Steve's guitar playing  - at least I think it was Steve - maybe Danny - either way - all guitars - awesome   


overall very nice job  - love the mix and musicianship 

 

Philip


Part of the problem may be that I don't keep up with movies and entertainment ... and I am a melancholy faint-of-heart (a nervous wreck to be sure)

Danny and Strummer ... you should know full well I have the utmost envy and respect for you as persons as well as your excellent productions and performances.  If this is top-shelf to you, then its top-shelf ... please don't change anything.  OTOH ...

Danny, you've mixed with Bob Katz, IIRC, and I don't mean to abuse nor dishonor your utmost expertise in mixing this.  Your excellence is much higher than mine and I'm sorry if I offended in any way (not knowing the cliches hooks and politics that motivate this genre). 

I've learned a lot from you (and Strummer) and I doubt I'll ever reach your levels of performance and production.  Your paradigms will always creep into my performances and productions.

Nevertheless, this is your neo-Rock creation and you will have pros and cons, depending on your target audience.  My *violent disgust* of this today may turn into a *hearty embracement*, tomorrow.  Who knows.

Oft I'll confess, I've allowed my kids to sit through cursing-shows, but never alone.  Life is a freak-show curse that you and I struggle with.  I support the need to do art freely ... as long as there is 'decency and order'.

... and I may have cursed more than Philz in front of the kids ... when devils get on my soul.  (I'd prefer not to chastise capricious fools with the belt ... though I try to chastise appropriately ... etc.)

Now I've been accused (publicly by my county) of abusing my children with my mouth.  But these innocents I'll somehow try to cherish and not abuse by my mouth or music.  I suppose theater laws exist to protect innocent eyes and ears from freaking out.  Else we chide each other to 'shut-it' when little children are around.

And, would Katz have gleefully mastered this thus?  Or would he have pondered "loudness race" issues or "distortion dissonance" issues.   Might he ponder oceans of sweet performances here competing excessively and/or frivolously. 

Would Katz sit at this sketchy piece for minutes or hours ... or would he ponder to send it back to you, Danny, to perhaps adjust at least a couple track volume levels?  I don't know?

Several forum artists/bands (Alice Sweet Alice, Batsbrew, Darwin's God, etc.) have done similar alternative rock techniques as well ... giving a surreal blend to everything and/or dehumanizing all the timbres with compression ... as a valid and potent art form.  Batsbrew managed to do it with out grating my nervous ears.

MGH seems (to me) a black metal Armegeddon powerhouse; the guitar cacaphony of his pieces are unsurpassed yet convincing (to my ears) ... he balances with rests, surges, anticlimaxes, climaxes, devils and angels ... apocolyptic lyrical battles, etc., that my children can listen to. 

Likewise, Yoyo Factory, with his firery complex majestics, is a perfectionist beast, but with an orchestrated fire that blows most top-pop shelves away by the time the pre-chorus sets in.  Yet Yoyo has his lapses.

FWIW, Phil, I hope this song will sit passionately well with my nervous ears and I learn to appreciate without ear-pain.  But I haven't had much luck with Darwin's God Band: ... e.g., whose snidely recurring "I don't care" lyrical hooks seemed far more vexing than G-D cursing.

Now that is a great response and I can totally appreciate it and respect it. A much different tone than what upset me yesterday. I thank you for that, totally accept your apology and am sorry for my response as well. I'd like to address a few things if you care to read them?
 
Thank you for the kind words in regards to me and the others. As to your question about Katz, he most likely would not have mastered this as aggresive as I did. However, and I mean Bob no disrespect because I think the world of him, but he's a bit too conservative at times in my experience. This is not a bad thing mind you, it's just that for certain styles of music, the aggressive approach seems to just give the music a bit more kick and impact. You had mentioned levels etc. We're only averaging -12dB RMS...which is about normal for a "sane" rock/metal record. Most average these days at -8dB RMS or louder. LOL! So I played it a bit by the books and could have really crushed it. But like Bob, I'm against the "square box" wave form thing and like to have dynamics where they need to be.
 
Here's another thing to keep in mind. This style of music is not something I would write and it was already created and provided when I got into the band. This gave me a nice little challenge because it took me out of my personal element. You figure, you get 6-8 musicians from all over the world throwing ideas at you....it's quite a challenge. Also, some of the guys have great resources at their disposal, some do not. So you have to take what you get and try to make something out of it. Some of the instrumentation that was presented here, will probably not get recorded like it was ever again because I have been talking to the band about how and what they record. So our next song should be REALLY interesting now that we have a common ground on our recording procedures. This is not meant to say the guys are not professional or anything...they are all credible, awesome musicians that know how to record and record well. But there are things I mentioned to them that I felt would make a major difference in how our sounds transfer so we have a better understanding on how things will be done from here on out.
 
I can't tell you how difficult it was for me to make this sound like it does, Philip. I'd have to say it was one of the most challenging things to date, honest. I don't say that negatively, but the thing we get faced with as engineers is, there are certain ways that I do things when I record. If something doesn't have the right sound to begin with, it doesn't get recorded. Some of the guys are serious, professional hobbiests. They don't have the time to be as anal as me, and after they work an 8 hour day or longer, the last thing they want to worry about is "Well Danny wants me to do this that this and this in order to make this sound good." LOL!! That makes things stressful, and we don't want that. So we take what gets sent and then it's my job to really try to make it into something that compliments the rest of the tune.
 
The thing that people have a hard time with is, they get this sound that sounds incredible by itself. Once you bring it into a mix, chances are when you carve it up, it will not be the same sound and it may not even work. I had a few of those situations with this song. The playing was always great, but some of the sounds were questionable. I'll use brother Ed as an example here because he has big shoulders. LOL! He sent this bass tone that he really liked that used a sim. We joked about it and he made a mention of "hey, it's my right to use this sound pal!" He sent me another track for something else as well, and this sound was just spectacular. It was so good, I begged him to do what he did to the other sound because it just wasn't doing anything for me. He was still partial to the bass tone that I wasn't crazy about, but sent me a track of the new sound and gave me permission to at least try it. It was such a drastic difference, he was happy he listened to me. Ed knows bass....has incredible tone, and I almost felt like an idiot to even disagree with his choice at first. Here I am the new guy, already being demanding. LOL! He was awesome about it and we feel we made the right choice.
 
That's just one example of how things can be better. We also have guys from all around the world...we have to wait until we get someones take before we proceed...so it can be a long process. But it's one I really have enjoyed and I have no regrets on what we did. Strummy has been awesome with accepting me and is eager to work on stuff with me, Grant has become a brother over night, Ed is my Dad that keeps me focused in life and shares a love for production with me, Jon and I are both drummers and are going to come up with a killer drum kit for our next song, Alex and I have shared some great conversation about production and some things we'll try and Phil and me both love the Jets and share a sick sense of humor. LOL! 
 
So there's really a lot of love that goes into this whole thing as well as a lot of different styles, attitudes and mountains to climb. I also wanted to (being the new guy) treat this project as though the guys were clients of mine. Meaning, they had a direction before I got here. They wanted a song that totally crushed from the word go that didn't stop until it needed to. It had to be their song, not a song that sounded like one of mine. To me, this is quite awesome due to the age of the guys. Most guys our age are more laid back, into classic rock, jazz, orchestra type stuff...these guys wanted molten metal for this tune. So I had to deliver or step away. At first, I was to sing this song...but like Mooch has mentioned, it was a tune that really didn't have enough of a hook for my Richard Marx type voice to handle. Hahaha! I felt what PhilZ had to offer was exactly what was needed for *this* particular tune. (Mooch, we got hooks in the works....if they want my sorry @ss to sing a song or 2, hooks there will be!)
 
So once I got all the instruments to compliment each other as best as I could, the next step was to have it hit with the impact they wanted and to do that, you gotta hit things a bit more aggressively than you would normally. The other thing to remember also is, any time you have massive kick drums crushing you, it's going to sound a bit more aggressive than it really is. Jon really outdid himself with the drum programming on this in my opinion, and I can't fathom how long it must have taken him. If I would have had the actual midi track, I could have done way more with the drums. But since I didn't, there were certain limitations that had to be considered....and when you do a drum line like this, the only program I know of that will make it more human is BFD 2. Since I couldn't use that, I tried my best to choose samples that best complimented Jon's playing as well as what fit the song and sounded the most real. It's really hard to do when I didn't create the part myself though, so I had to find that happy medium and felt we got it.
 
Anyway....sorry for the novel (as usual) but I felt you might be interested in hearing how some of this stuff went down as well as why certain choices were made. I/WE completely understand that this tune isn't for everyone and appreciate the comments and critiques. I didn't say any of the above to make anyone feel for us due to the trials and tribulations that surround internet audio projects, but it gives a little insight as to what goes on in a monster project such as this one. Thanks again for the in depth response Philip and I hope you enjoyed the read even if the song just wasn't your cup of tea. Maybe we'll win you over on the next one. :)