Dandy Lions in the Doll House

Playing with Dandy Lions in the Doll House (but more commonly known as The Dandy Lions) has been one of the most fun projects I’ve been a part of since getting to SUNY Purchase College. It all started up on Bear Mountain, when Dante Deleo turned to his sister, Lena Deleo, and said “Lena we should make a band together.”

Lena thought it was a good idea, and so Dante and Lena did the most important thing a band can do: picked outfits. After agreeing on the aesthetic of a pocket watch, a vintage wedding dress, and an old vintage sombrero, Dante and Lena moved on to their next most important decision; their band name. They were soon known by the mountain folk as Dandy Lions in the Doll House.

Clad in 1920s garb, roaming Bear Mountain under the nick name “Dandy Lions,” Dante and Lena took the last step in creating their band. They wrote a song.

This past weekend, we got into my white minivan, drove into Connecticut, walked into Sammy’s basement, and recorded some songs. John Feliciano was the man on bass. Enjoy the pictures!

A Viral Marketing Assignment

I'm sorry to have to disrespect the perfection that is A Room Within a Room, but my Viral Marketing professors are insisting that I use this blog to advertise a podcast I made for a homework assignment.

I invite you to take a listen. I also invite you not to. It focuses on a band called Baba Jaga that I wrote about below. 

L'Chaim! 

Click Here for the podcast

Please give a warm welcome to Baba Jaga. Please.

Of all four blog posts I've written thus far, this one is presenting me with the most difficulty. After much exploration and deliberation, I've decided the best course of action is to take my clothes off, put on my blue striped green robe, throw on my recording of Rob Hokamp's senior recital, and relax in my common room. Consequently, that is what I am now doing.

In 2006, while living in Baltimore, Maryland, I joined a band called August. We played many shows locally, and put out a record titled The Migration (which can be found here.) In 2007, we graduated high school, and went to college.

Time passed. We stayed in touch. I grew a beard.

Today, we are called Baba Jaga. We have a new sound, and with it, a new love and excitement for the music we've been making. We'll be moving into a sublet in Brooklyn, New York this summer with the hopes of exploring the depth of what we're capable of when put in the same with nothing more than a guitar, our voices, and a microphone. 

Below is one of our songs, Half Moons & Bar Stools. It was recorded in my Baltimore basement, and mixed/mastered here at SUNY Purchase College. Stay tuned, as we update our myspace, post additional recordings and videos, and start a blog of our own, Bloga Jaga.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy the pictures.

The Saga of Andrew Fox: Chapter 2

The other day, I ran into a Mr. Andrew Fox in the lobby of the SUNY Purchase Music Conservatory. He urgently summoned me to his side, pointing excitedly at the screen of his Macbook Pro.

This kind of insistent, innocently intrusive behavior is normal for Andrew Fox, so I happily obliged him by putting a pair of headphones over my head, and on to my ears. "Get ready" he said with a grin not unlike the grin pictured above, and then double clicked. My ears were confronted with an onslaught of soaring trumpets and trombones, shimmering strings, and the heartbeat of Spencer Murphy's and my bass and drums. It was Disco Institute: half recorded, unmixed, and without final vocal takes. Considerably incomplete.

but WOW!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Andrew Fox has done it again! Or at least, he's doing it again. Throughout the course of this 5 minute 43 second song, I received enough weird looks to count on both hands, due to my outbursts of laughter and "Oh my God!"s.

I've since begged him to let me upload a 30 second sample of the song. He kindly agreed.

And so, friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears. This is Disco Institute.

***Editor's Note***
Upon my request for a copy of Disco Institute, Andrew kindly sent me a super compressed, low quality version of the recording. Enjoy!

The Saga of Andrew Fox

My first memory of Andrew Fox takes place in my Freshman year Songwriting I class. It was one of my very first classes in college, and the idea of a college education was still fresh and new to me . The class was an open forum, where students could present their songs-in-progress to the class, and receive feedback. Andrew Fox stood up, walked to the piano, informed us that his song-in-progress was titled Londonistan, and proceeded to play a song that got to the heart of just about every musical genre stereotype there is, including Klezmer, broadway showtunes, Arabic Pop, 1970's Punk, and some good old fashioned Rock and Roll.

One year later, Andrew is in the studio recording his album. Tom Rosato, SUNY Purchase alum, is engineering the record. Spencer Murphy (earlier mentioned for Madeleine McMillan's record) is playing bass, and I am lucky enough to be playing drums.

Andrew's recordings, track by track, are becoming epic, and Andrew is becoming known to regularly run out of available audio tracks in Pro Tools. One of his more popular songs, Disco Institute, will be rooted in drums, bass, electric guitar, and Andrew's voice, but will be augmented by tubular bells, latin hand drums, fourteen cellos, ten violins, trombone, trumpet, tenor saxaphone, distorted guitar, and french horn.

Go Andrew!

In Studio with Madeleine McMillan

My good friend, Madeleine McMillan, is a singer, songwriter, and pianist in the SUNY Purchase Studio Composition program. I met her Freshman year in my required Songwriting I class. I was intimidated by her for a long time. She was from the Upper West Side, had long black hair with bangs, wore Doc Marten boots, and sat alone. However, our conservatory is only so big, and before I knew it, she was helping me order Doc Martens of my own from Zappos

I've been lucky enough to play drums for her since Spring 2008. She's also enlisted the services of two of the best groovesters at Purchase, Spencer Murphy on bass, and Rob Hokamp on guitar. I couldn't ask for more.

The following video is my first ever attempt at making a movie. I'm sure this will be somewhat obvious. The documented session was "drum day" which explains the relentless focus on me. Pictures to come.

By the way, I should mention that the recordings of Madeleine's voice and keyboard in the following video are temporary scratch takes, meant only to give the drummer (me) a road map of the song.

An Introduction

I've been thinking about the work I do here at SUNY Purchase, and how it compares to the recordings I used to make. When i was first discovering the magic of capturing sound, it was within the stone walls of my basement, in the company of friends, and in the safety of my parents home. We were creating to fulfill childish curiosities, and recording music to later be examined, questioned, and often laughed at.

It seems that the days of recording in my basement are gone. I am now a student in the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music, surrounded by students who take their craft seriously enough to move away from home, move into a state-school dorm, and dedicate the next four years of their lives to their selected musical niche. This environment is powerful and dangerous. While I feel that a conservatory environment provides countless opportunities and benefits, I feel that it brings with it the constant temptation, or constant trap, of competition.

But the urge to compete...it's not our fault! How can we not compete when our work is constantly being submitted to professors to judge and critique--when the toils of each semester are represented by nothing more than a silly little GPA?

If we're not going to compete, we have two choices: disregard each others' existence, or collaborate. My hopes in writing this blog are to make it as natural and as easy as possible for those working alone in a recording studio at 3:00am to know that they're really not alone at all.

Below, I've uploaded the first music recording I ever made, and the most recent recording I've made. The former was recorded by me and my friend Tamas Szalay in 10th grade under the name Groundhog Revolution, after he had a compositional and lyrical epiphany in the shower. If you don't find this funny, I really can't blame you, but we sure got a kick out of it. I should mention, though, that my dad sung the vocals.

The latter is a klezmer band from Baltimore, Maryland, appropriately titled Klezzazz. I imagine that I'll always have a special place in my heart for klezmer music after this project. When done well, it encapsulates a culture so rich that it makes you want to cry and dance at the same time.* I hope you enjoy.

Cheers!

*I'd like to invite any and all readers of this blog to submit a video of them crying while dancing. Were I famous, my selecting a winner might be enough initiative for you to upload such a video, but in this case, I'm relying on your desire to create something beautiful and eternal.