I’m embarassed that after writing about how much new content we were going to put up this year, we haven’t posted in two weeks. I meant later in the year.

We have been discussing what we’re going to do with the site and how we’re going to try to spread the word, and have come up with some interesting ideas that we’ll be working out over the next couple of months. I’m pretty excited about it and if we can get it to all come together I think it’ll end up being something pretty cool and a bit different.

We just finished another new song, this one is a bit of a self indulgent ‘theme song’, but it’s all in good fun and we’re all pretty happy with the way it’s come out. It looks like we may end up putting it second on the ‘album’ after Rising From The Flames, but those decisions will be made once we’ve got enough songs to choose the best from.

Other than that, we’ve been up to the usual shenanigans; I was hoping to do some video at some point to put up on the site as a bit of ‘making of’ thing, but I wanted to keep it even a little parent friendly, it would end up being half an hour of us laughing at our own dirty jokes, without the actual jokes.

We have 7 completed songs towards the album now, with the goal being 10-12 before we cull it down and get 8 tracks to polish and practise and record onto an album. If we keep up our current rate we should reach that goal in around 10 weeks, which I’m looking forward to. Next week I think we’ll probably start looking at some of our older unfinished songs we wrote before Rob went to Japan, and try to rework them and bring them into our newer style, so I’m looking forward to that.

Until next time…

Happy New Year! This year is hopefully going to be a productive one for Kurodust, we plan to keep writing new songs for the next few months until we’ve got enough to put together into some sort of cohesive release, and then we’ll look at the best way to record them and get it out there. When that point comes we’ll probably start up the marketing machine and figure out some better ways to get the word out about the band. That will mean more regular content on the website (other than just our session updates), getting some word of mouth happening on Myspace and other social networks, and hopefully performing our music live to the public!

Still, it’s a fair way off so we’re concentrating on writing better songs and polishing those we already have. To that end we managed to have two sessions this week thanks to the holidays, and they were quite productive. We got Five Faced Fist to a structurally complete stage on our Friday session, and started coming up with ideas for a new song, although we weren’t so successful at that stage.

On Sunday, however, we sat down and (using the same method as for Five Faced Fist) brainstormed some interesting phrases. The phrase we settled on was ‘You got me on a technicality’ and it turned into a song that deviates from the usual Kurodust style a bit; we managed to finish the whole song in the one session though, and the result is a 2 minute 47 second pop/punk/rock extravaganza! (Yay for setting high expectations!)

Until next week…

Another odd title… sorry.

Good session this week, the last before christmas. Trev debuted his new bass amp and after realising that we had to rewire the odd Speakon connector we got it all working. He now has a more solid attack in his tone, the extra headroom in the amp allowing for the initial bass transients to play true.

I also took the opportunity to take some photos of both my setup and Trev’s… check it out.

Hello all. Yes the new track is aiming to kick your head in with style.. no doubt. I intend to refine the riff even more to pull more power out of the bastard.

The new rig is kicking some serious ass that’s for sure. Apologies to Rob of The Snakes Of Eden that I have no photos of the new set up at this stage, though Ben and I should be able to remedy that soon. Rob will remember how much I love kickass gear, I wonder what his rig currently is…? hmm.

Indeed next week we have no band practice but Trev and I should be hunting for a bass amp head and possibly practicing some riffs and leads by ourselves.

Rob.

What’s the first thing that comes into your head when you hear that phrase? That’s the approach we took this week in writing a new song, and it turned out pretty well.

I asked the guys to come up with a bunch of random and interesting sounding phrases that would make a good hook or chorus for a song. We came up with a list of about 15 different phrases, and then picked one and worked from there. We came up with the vocal rhythm as well as the basic drums and guitar for the chorus before we even started thinking about what the song would be about. By the end of the session we had a fleshed out idea with a clear story progression and tone (Hint: the tone is ROCK) that we were quite happy with, and hopefully at our next rehearsal we’ll be able to finish the structure and start polishing the song.

Rob debuted his new rig as well; I’ll let him explain the details, but I can say that it fuckin’ Kranked!

No band rehearsal next week due to family commitments but we should be able to fit one more in before Xmas comes along.

08-12-07

Hi all,

Three years ago today Dimebag Darrell was tragically shot dead on stage in the US. l’d like to remember him for all the great riffs and the attitude the man had on life… Pantera opened a lot of eyes and Dimebag will always be remembered for his hard partying and his chainsaw guitar sound. Let’s all have a beer for Dime and think of the good times.

Rob.

Who the hell knows what it actually means, but it sounds interesting.  I thought I would take up the posting duties this week, so here it goes.  On Friday night Rob and I got together to work on a couple of our riffs outside of band practise.  After warming up with Rising from the Flames, we worked on the solo riff from Behind Closed Doors (our second song).  I like the fact that working together like that allowed us to try things that we just don’t have time for in band practise.  At band practise on Sunday, while Rob was setting up I started playing the riff.  After Rob finished getting his guitar set up, without even looking over at me he started playing right from where I was in the riff.  When we finished Ben and Jay were rather impressed and in fact thought it was a riff for another song, as it didn’t sound like the original riff anymore.  But, as Rob didn’t drive in this week we didn’t have the laptop (it was left in the car),  so we couldn’t either record our practise session or listen to what we worked on last week.  Instead we played our whole set from start to finish.  About 40 seconds before the end of the last song, my Amp went into Thermal Shutdown.  As to why it did that, I don’t know cos I was using it within the specifications.  Rob and I checked it out, and nothing seemed blown but the transformer was incredibly hot.  After it cooled down we turned it back on, but by that stage, Ben had already left and I was getting pretty tired, so we called it a day.

Quite a silly title but it was the best I could do.

Another kickass session last sunday. Worked on the new track which is coming along nicely. Just a great cruising track with some cool hooks in it. Next week we plan to continue the work and possibly tinker with some new or revisted material. Also, my new guitar setup will be coming along at some stage. It’s in the testing phase at the moment and is looking promising.

Rock on. Rob.

After a week off we were all pretty anxious to get back into it, and get back into it we did. We spent the hour or so before lunch working on our second new song, Behind Closed Doors, and somehow it got better during the prior two weeks without any of actually doing anything. Since we finally wrote the end to it last time, the song really has a feeling of being whole now, which helps us determine what changes we need to make it into a great song. My vocals need a fair bit of work on this one, but I’ve been working on it during the week and I think I’ve got a better feel for how it should go now.

We also started a new song and got the usual verse and chorus done right away. We’ve gone in a slightly different direction than we’re used to on this one (Rob actually used a major key!) but it’s coming together well already so I have high hopes for the finished song.

Rob made the foolish mistake of sending me the recording of this weeks band practise, so I’ve decided to put up a small taste of what we’ve been working on. The guys wouldn’t like it if I put up any full tracks, we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to go about releasing material on the website, but I don’t think they’ll mind if I play you this small excerpt.

This is from Rising From The Flames, and I think it’s the section that that really makes the song rock:

I’m sad to report that my Engl amplifier was not repairable from it’s fault condition. After searching high and low for the schematic diagram with no luck I had to attempt a reverse engineering of the circuit. Alas my knowledge only stretched so far and in the end she couldn’t be saved. I did however modify the combo box into a kickass little extention cab with it’s quality timber, joints and tone machine of a Celestion Vintage 30 driver living on healthy and well. The actual amplifier parts will be divided up with half sold on eBay and the other half going into my next rig of noise (toneful noise of course). What could it be next …?, a new approach, naturally… as it seems that not even handmade German equipment lasts much over a year these days, disappointing but I’m happy she appeared on a couple of recordings at least.

Megadeth tonight at Festival hall, and beer… ja