2024 Journal
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01/01/24 - Now entering our 25th year of operation.
01/31/24 - First session in nearly a year. Got everything set back up and ready to grind out sticky jams next week.
02/28/24 - Talked and recorded noises as we have done throughout history.
03/07/24 - Discussed putting out an EP and then recorded "jamming".
03/13/24 - Spent the session swapping compressors for the bass and being thwarted by the lack of a 9 volt battery for the Countryman DI box. I took the infamous Roalnd GP100 home.
03/20/24 - Patrick sent me remixes of 12 and sleepnovox for digital distribution. They are currently only available on BandCamp.
03/21/24 - Remixes of 12 and sleepnovox have been submitted for digital distribution.
03/31/24 - Remixes of 12 and sleepnovox available everywhere tomorrrow.
05/22/24 - Still culling "jams" but over the past few weeks we have started using more non-traditional effects like synth and glitch pedals.
06/07/24 First Real Flower Pots single "God's Horn" available today on BandCamp.
06/26/24 Decided to ease into the 1990s and practice in stereo. Aborted when the cables I brought were discovered to be too short and a playback driver went foul and had to be re-installed. We scurried back to the safety of the 1980s.
07/02/24 Real Flower Pots' Saturnine is available on BandCamp.
07/03/24 Decided that next week we would start pawing through years worth of jams to find the nuggets. I hope there are nuggets.
07/10/24 Started actually turning a recent "jam" into a song. I tapped out some beat options. Patrick sang some ideas while playing an acoustic guitar.
07/17/24 Added scratch vocals and acoustic guitar parts to the new song. We turned the acoustic to the song - just finding a note on each string that worked. Ended up with D - A - D - E - A - E.
New Real Flower Pots music - Holiday out now exclusively on Bandcamp.
07/24/24 Started work on turning another jam into a song while I work on the 1st one at home.
07/31/24 Spent the session talking.
08/05/24 I spent the weekend hammering the first 20 minute jam into a 7 minute song. Sent the session to Patrick.
08/07/24 Patrick brought what he had done to Get Off That Stake so far. Steven added a bass part to the first half and I added some little percussive bass bits.
08/22/24 Patrick split up Get Off That Stake into 2 songs and asked me to write more words and sing the new parts. Tonight we celebrate our new schedule.
09/04/24 Patrick sent out a mix of One Pass - which was the first half of Get Off That Stake.
09/12/24 Started work on Faces in the Pond. Added acoustic guitar parts, once again by tuning it to the jam.
09/16/24 New Real Flower Pots music out now. Lots of Girl for Samson music simmering on the stove.
09/19/24 Listened to mixes from some of the most complete songs and realized that we have 12 nearly ready to go:
Blend All the Seasons
Cigaarette
Falling Up
Get Off That Stake
One Pass
Soon
You Better Run
Cut It Out
*Bring My Medicine
*One of Everything
*Winter Mourning
*Faking Your Beauty
* Still Mixing
09/23/24 Two new Girls songs for you to stream: One Pass and Get Off That Stake.
09/25/24 Got the final mix to review for You Better Run.
09/26/24 Got the final mix to review for Cut It Out.
10/24/24 Decided that One of Everything will be the next song we "put out."
10/25/24 Resumed work on Pallet Cathedral (formerly known as "Faces in the Pond").
10/27/24 Thank you Warrior Radio for spinning Cigarette.
10/28/24 Cigarette is Way Out Radio's song of the week. Much obliged! Also on Lonely Oak Radio and Radio Wigwam.
10/31/24 A few Cigarette reviews:
American Pancake
"Beatles-esque kind of swing."
Happiness
"Equal parts britpop, psychedelic rock and dance."
Indie Dream
"Magical"
Indie Obsessive
"Strong Psych-Rock."
Way Out Radio
"Irresistible groove...has us hooked from start to finish."
OIeada Indie
"Transmitting an energy that combines the raw with the emotional."
11/01/24 Have words but am not 100% on the melody I've developed for Pallet Cathedral. Had the notion to send the section of music, with the words but without my melody, to Patrick to see what he comes up with and then build a "best of" from the two.
Another Cigarette review:
11/03/24 In the process of carving off all of the crap I flung at Pallet Cathedral and rediscovering a human form underneath.
11/06/24 Sent Patrick the session for Pallet Cathedral. All we can do is keep making music.
11/08/24 Another status check of Blend all the Seasons songs. Asterisk denotes songs that are still in mixing or incomplete:
Blend All the Seasons
Cigarette
Falling Up
Get Off That Stake
One Pass
Soon
*You Better Run
*Cut It Out
*Bring My Medicine
*One of Everything
*Winter Mourning
*Faking Your Beauty
*Pallet Cathedral
11/14/24 We took group pictures outside.
11/15/24 Thank you Rock Rage Radio for spinning "One Pass".
11/17/24 Thanks as alwaya to the staff at Warrior Radio. Obliged for the play of Flap.
11/18/24 Grateful to Music Mafia Radio for playing Cigarette on their Live TOP 30 Countdown.
Cigarette on this week's I Don't Hear A Single Playlist
11/20/24 To-do list from this evening's meeting:
Master and send out You Better Run
Master and send out (You Took) One of Everything
` Master and send out Cut it Out
Finish Winter Mourning
Madison in chorus
Finish Faking Your Beauty
Arrangement/Mixing/Master
Finish Bring My Medicine
Lyrics/Vocals/Master
Blend all the Seasons looking good for a 12/24 release.
11/21/24 Wrote most of the new lyrics for Bring My Medicine overnight and then tweaked them while singing. Sent to Patrick. Working on Faking Your Beauty next.
11/22/24 Cigarette on Amazing Radio and Lonely Oak Radio's New Music Show today.
New music from Blend all the Seasons out today:
(You Took) One of Everything
Cut It Out
You Better Run
New Soundclound set up.
11/23/24 Thank you Prospect Radio for playing Cigarettte!
11/24/24 Wrote the words for Faking Your Beauty overnight, sang a few guide tracks in the morning and sent them off to Patrick.
First reviews in for You Better Run:
American Pancake
"Kansas City, Missouri based Girl for Samson and the cagey, dreamy indie rock sonic indie film "You Better Run" runs on evocative vox and surfy western noir sonic atmospheres."
Voxwave Magazine
"Great arrangement, very original. The melody is catchy, combination of rhythm is superb."
ParaPOP
"Cool composition with flowing harmonies and dense melodies that create a dramatic atmosphere."
Os Garotos de Liverpool (Portuguese)
"We love the track, it has very well executed guitar chords and great vocal arrangements, whether lead or backing, in a mesmerizing way that leaves us involved from start to finish."
11/25/24 Thanks to The Sound Lab for playing Cigarette on their New Music Show.
11/27/24 Patrick sent a mix of Winter Mourning with assorted female Meaghers assisting in the chorus. It's glorious.
11/28/24 Thanks Barry Lee and KKFI for playing Cigarette on Signal to Noise.
12/02/24 Winter Mourning available for streaming/purchase now. It's pretty. It's also:
Alternative Rock (37%)
Progressive Rock (24%)
Indie Rock (18%)
Post Rock (14%)
Pop Rock (13%)
12/04/24 Marvelous review by Cosmonauta Radio.
Girl for Samson - You Better Run
December 4, 2024
Few artists, concepts and/or musical groups transcend the passage of time, so that their work generates a common thread, which is perpetuated from Album to Album, or from single to published single and that this allows them to continue growing artistically and creatively without breaking the streak and delivering radiant music as happens with the North American group Girl for Samson , which with a long career of 24 years, does not stop building great albums, presenting us with their new song You Better Run .
This power trio, made up of Patrick Meagher as the project leader, Johnny Marie and Steven Brown, develops a sound within alternative rock, which can easily be related to indie rock and shoegaze, but which is based on a movement called jangle pop, which reminds us of some groups from the 60s where psychedelia and acid rock took shape and perpetuated the rebellious spirit of the time.
https://on.soundcloud.com/CA2Lv8FBDi6zDHiG6
Four albums make up the discography of this dense and experimental group that is about to release its fifth album at the beginning of 2025 called “Blend all the Seasons"; formed by jams and improvisations that naturally gave shape to each song. A totally self-sufficient band that handles all the processes from composition, recording, self-producing and generating its own mixing and mastering works; showing its capabilities to the full and surprising us strongly with material that you cannot miss.
Let yourself be surprised by the psychedelia, rebellion and spontaneity of the North American alternative rock band with a sixties aroma: "Girl For Samson"; presenting us with an acid song with a shoegaze and Jangle pop profile to close 2024, as part of their new material in 2025: "You Better Run".
...and another from Oleada Indie
12/05/24 I made Patrick record radio stingers and submit an overview of our recording process for "Winter Mourning" for a review.
The band gets together once a week at Steve's home studio that we've dubbed "Aquasound." For the first four albums each member would bring
a nearly complete song to the band that we'd rehearse, finesse and eventually record.
For our fifth album "Blend all the Seasons" we used a new approach, starting each song from scratch based on elements of grooves culled
from live jams that we recorded directly into Pro Tools. Steve used a 1969 Fender P-Bass plugged into a Countryman DI with an 1176 compressor
inserted into the chain, Johnny with a Strat, and Patrick with a Fano running from pedalboards straight into the DI inputs on a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 interface.
"Winter Mourning" started as a guitar lick recorded during one of these jam sessions. It inspired Patrick to write the main finger picked acoustic part (Martin D-18 recorded with a U-87 into a Neve 1173LB.) Then we added a paraphonic melodic line with a Moog Subsequent 37
synth. The dreamy pedal steel part is a Strat running through a Hologram pedal. Next, Johnny took the Pro Tools session to his home studio and came up with the "Alkali morning, you're sweeping natural away" chorus section that really makes the song. He recorded his acoustic guitar and vocals through an NT1-A. He also added several guitar parts played through an Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar and Synth9. Finally, Patrick took the session back, added his vocals (U-87 through a Neve 1173LB into an Inward Connections "The Brute" compressor) and drums. The song was mixed in Pro Tools.
12/06/24 Last night we got caught up on listening to new stuff, set up the Simmons drums and made plans to get started on the 6th album next week.
"Winter Mourning" is on Indie Gente today. You can listen to it live at https://elrocanrosaurio.com
Bring My Medicine out today on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.
12/07/24 Cigarette is in the top 25 of Fresh on the Net's Listening Post playlist.
Girl for Samson on Oak Grove Radio's Local Legends
show this week.
"Psychedelic-indie trio Girl for Samson may hail from Kansas City, but press play on Cigarette and its funky bass, baggy-beat percussion, and Inspiral Carpets organ accents will fire you straight through a wormhole to 90s Manchester or Liverpool. In its synthesis of cool-cat detachment and oracular yearning, the lead vocal recalls the pleasing retro-pop tang of La's frontman Lee Mavers, a comparison matched by the track's gleaming popcraft.
Cigarette is carved from clattering, grooving instrumentation which the impeccable production clips into a crisp and catchy shape, giving every part a chance to shine rather than clumping it all together in a foggy purple haze. Girl for Samson's fifth album, Blend all the Seasons, is due out at the beginning of 2025. What a way to start a year!"
Patrick sent me a new mix of Faking Your Beauty. So close to hammering this album in the head! We talked about track order at our evening session.
