TestToneTape

I am such an idiot. I've spent years working with tape recording... 4 tracks, reel to reel, multiple levels of mixdown between decks. For some stupid reason I've never used a calibrating test tone to stripe the beginning of tapes. I've read about it before, but just always blown it off. This came back to bite me in the ass recently when I dumped some tracks back to the 4track and accidentally had the pitch just slightly off. Re-tuning the track was the biggest hassle I've dealt with in months. As a result, I'm now running a 440hz and 333.33hz tone at the start of every tape. Later, regardless of what equipment the tape is played back on, the deck can be tuned to make it run at it's original speed and pitch. Why didn't I think of this before? Because I'm a moron that's why. Honestly, I would suggest doing this even with digital recordings. It can't hurt.

As a side note about analog vs. digital: I still have 4track tapes from 1995 whereas I've lost whole records due to digital audio workstations crashing. Think about it.

My Minidisc Brings All the Boys to the Yard...

Well, I finally figured out what to do with my $2.00 minidisc deck. I now use it as a lossless, transparent intermixing stage! "But, Mason," you say, "What the fuck does that mean?". Well, dear boy, I'll tell you. When you're 4-tracking, sometimes you actually need more tracks. One option is mixing down what's been done to cassette (what I've done in the past) before running it back into the four track. This leads to over-compression, loss of highs and lows, pitch problems and the over-dubs sounding more clear and upfront than the original four backing tracks. That sucks. The other option (this is where the MD deck comes in) is mixing down to a lossless digital medium to run back into the 4-track. HAHA! Yeah, I know, I'm pretty happy about it too. Is this cheating? Maybe, but who fucking cares. I really need a standalone audio CD burner with a really good A/D converter for the digital dump from the cassette master.

I finally fixed our myspace.

For three years our myspace has been frozen. Now, I hate myspace, but our old drummer set one up. I didn't know the username or password to login to it, so it just sat. Today I got a spam email from myspace, and via that, figured out the login, got the password and changed it around. Friend us if you want, I don't really care, I'll probably never look at it again. Just thought you might want to know.

Also, the next record is about half done. And don't forget to vote for Barack Obama.

Hello, I made a new covers album.

sorry John Prine, the picture of you wouldn't fit.

So I'm sort of into this covers thing lately while we're working on the next album. (Songs are written for new record, drums and guitars are recorded, you'll probably hear it some time). Anyway, it's called "Songs You Loved in High School", so here are fourteen songs by seven artists that I like. It's pretty lo-fi (which is on purpose), tell me what you think in the comments section.


The Cure-Boys Don't Cry
Neil Young-After the Goldrush
The Velvet Underground-Candy Says
Morrissey-Every Day is Like Sunday
REM-Losing My Religion
John Prine-Sam Stone
The Velvet Underground-New Age
The Cure-Friday I'm in Love
Warren Zevon-Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
John Prine-Speed of the Sound of Lonliness
Warren Zevon-Splendid Isolation
REM-Man on the Moon
Neil Young-Tell Me Why
Morrissey-Last of the Famous International Playboys

We recorded drums for our new album

I went to Oklahoma in mid-March and recorded drums and guitar for 11 songs for our As-Yet-Untitled-2009-Album. I forgot to post it when it happened, so sorry for that.

Sharp Dressed Fan: A 4-Track Tribute to ZZ Top

Sharp Dressed Fan: A 4-Track Tribute to ZZ Top

OK, it's done. I present to you our new EP "Sharp Dressed Fan: A 4-Track Tribute to ZZ Top" performed by The Big Black Bearded Caller. Here are the links to the 256kbps MP3 files. Let me know if you want the FLACs or if you want to give me $2 I'll mail you a cassette tape.

01-Gimmie All Your Loving
02-Doubleback
03-Cheap Sunglasses
04-Sleeping Bag
05-Tush
06-Sharp Dressed Man

(you need to right click and save to listen)

I think it's pretty obvious that I really dislike ZZ Top's music. I purposely chose not to listen to any of these songs before I recorded them. Consequently, you get a six new Moon Mission Death Squad songs that just happen to have ZZ Top lyrics. I'm pleased with it.

It's all analog up to the digital conversion. Analog synths, effects and drum machines (and guitars, obviously); analog mixer to the 4-track cassette; analog mixdown to the cassette master. No digital effects, compression, or mastering. Just ripped from cassette to FLAC to 256kbps MP3. I'm really pretty happy with the way it came out. Let me know what you think.

And yeah, so I cross posted this to my personal blog... so what?

-------------------------------------------------------
The Moon Mission Death Squad hates ZZ Top

Five New Songs

the worst guitar clip art i could find.

I've written five new songs since I finshed the last record. In case you don't know, that's a lot for me. I usually write about fifteen to twenty a year, but more spread out than this.

The new songs are:
4-Track
The Game Has Changed
Calculated Seasons
Excesses of Waste
Thinning Out the Herd

I'm pretty pleased with all of them. I feel that they're all really strong and I'm definitely moving forward with 4tracker/attacker as a jumping off point. Unlike most of those songs, I'll actually be able to play and sing ALL of these, having written them all on acoustic guitar instead of building them on tape and then writing words over them.

Come over and I'll play them for you.

I love the Gin Blossoms.

Hey, I bet you'd say you don't really like The Gin Blossoms, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be a fucking asshole then. The Gin Blossoms are totally fucking awesome. I love them. Here's a song I recorded on the most classic of lo-fi tape decks. I'm too lazy to run it from cassette into the computer, so I just held my pocket pc over the speaker as I played the tape back and recorded a wave file. It turned out exactly how I wanted it.



feed reader users click here.

------------------------------------------------------------------
The Moon Mission Death Squad rolls joints made of power pop for you to smoke.

moonmissiondeathsquad.com

Hey, Moon Mission Death Squad fans (yeah, both of you, you fuckers)! moonmissiondeathsquad.com is back in action! I re-registered it for three years. Unfortunately, whatever host I had been using before still has .org and .net locked, but we'll get those back eventually. I chose to forgo the .biz or .info, because those are only for white-trash and Nigerian bank scams.

It's just a mask of the virb, but all that matters is it's google-ability.

check it.

4tracker/attacker is HERE!

pull the full size cover here.

Ok, you've heard about it for months now, and it's finally here.

Download the 320kbs mp3 via the web here.
Grab the torrent of the 320kbs mp3 here.
Grab the torrent of FLAC files [if you have your shit together] here.

*****UPDATE******9/26/2007
demonoid.com is having some issues, i will repost the torrents hosted somewhere else.

Some new artwork

4-Tracker/Attacker will be out 8*15*07

In keeping with our schedule of releasing a new album every two years, our new joint "4-Tracker/Attacker" will "drop" on my birthday August 15th. I've mentioned before that it's sort of a solo album by me, but that shit doesn't matter. In reality it's just an MMDS record that Daniel doesn't happen to play on.

If you haven't noticed, he's quite busy with Steeples at the moment.

This album is all 4-track, all the time. It's lo-fi like a mother fucker and I'm almost done. One more level of mixdown and it's all yours my pretties. I'll be releasing it on the VIRB and via bittorrent, so 1337s and n00bs alike will be able to download and listen.

Our New Illegal EP

Daniel and I recorded a James Taylor tribute EP in April. Here it is:

Country Road

Sweet Baby James

Fire and Rain

[you right click and "save as", ya know?]

More changes to how you access our music.

Ok, so the VIRB now has the last three albums on it. This page has the first album on it. Make sense? Good.

Indie Rock is Alive and Well in Texas

I made us a VIRB account today. Check it. I think it's nice. If you're not "hip" to virb.com, it's like myspace, but for people who have some modicum of taste in web design.

Registration is pretty limited for virb right now, so if you decide you'd like an invite, email me and let me know. I have a hundred of them, and I don't know more than ten people, so I have tons to give away.

4 trakker/attakker (that's our new lo-fi record, for all the n00bs who aren't 1337 [leet] in the ways of the MMDS) is on it's way out. I'll post something about it when it's done.

[I know this is a cross post from my personal blog, but I'm a lazy fuck.]

Update, the record has moved.

Ignore all that other shit, the record is now hosted by the goog.

Get it here, bitches.

The New Record

Here it is, the new album, FUCK WHAT YOU HEARD. Two years in the making, so download it. If you know me, you know that I truly believe with all my heart that music should be free, so all mine is. The all new, super minimalist, text only moonmissiondeathsquad.org has all four of our records for free, so get on top of it.

In other news, the Oklahoma Gazette is running an article about us this week, so be sure to pick it up on Wednesday if you live here. I'll be scanning and posting it next week. It was written by notoriously bonkers local n'er-do-well Brian Mangeri, so god only knows what the hell it's going to say. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't make me sound like an asshole.

Daniel's New Album

Daniel's new record is FUCKING AMAZING. I highly suggest you download it. After all, it's free! Also, check out my sweet marker art on his site.

MMDS.ORG

Welcome to the TerrorDome, motherfuckers