ERT - Epic Rock Talk (angra1 and JRundquist new experiment)

Okay, for those who are curious, or enjoy a lot of the music Josh and I talk about here on the forum. Music, mostly, this is an experiment to do some kind of long-winded "epic" (audio recorded) discussion
 
http://epicrocktalk.blogspot.com/
 
1st show/test run:
http://epicrocktalk.blogs...03/hello-test-run.html
 
Of course, some people have seen music reviews on youtube, etc. And on blogs as well I imagine. But for people around here or into obscure, underground music like prog and metal especially, this likely will include.
 
We're certainly hoping some folks may enjoy it (and not get too bored).
 
This is the 1st recording, and a 1st shot. I.e. the frequency and format of this may change, improve, be modified, etc. But for now, this is our 1st experiment.
 
also the name, may stick. But of course "ERT" is a word used at 1 time around here. Forum-slang or speak if you will. So the acronym sort of fit with the wording. Epic Rock Talk. So in a way, it's a tribute naming it partially after a forum-ism.
 

I don't get it. Are you guys just reviewing your favourite albums?
 

Hey dudes, I'm about 20 mins in right now. Agree on your points about DT, progressive metal, tastes changing and no such thing as guilty pleasures and Long Distance Calling's second album so far. You guys definitely have the voices/background knowledge/love for music that could make something like this interesting.
 
I think if you developed the format a bit, maybe had consistent sections, play some music (is this even possible? Not sure how radio/podcasts work), this is definitely something I'd listen to. I'll post back some more opinions when I finish it. But yeah, so far so good, I think if had a bit more than just talking back and forth, this can definitely be something special.

thanks  Scherztastic. Yeah, we do have almost too much info in our brains and tastes to not be able to do something like this.
 
This is not just album reviews necessarily. What it may be is kind of open-ended right now. Format, segments, etc. Old music, new music, whatever. We just did this the other day as an experiment but it was a bit rushed due to the fact we were headed to a 6:30pm doors show and were up against the clock.
 
But Josh and I have these conversations on the phone or at shows all the time, so we figured why not share them with others in some format. UsedBin Radio does it well, so does Sound Opinions, youtube reviews, etc. So, why not us? We'll see I guess. the frequency of how often we may be able to make them is the biggest hurdle right now given recording them in the same room doesn't seem that viable too often. But via telephone skype or maybe the local community radio station I volunteer at may allow us to make them more often.

Glad to see it's finally up.
 
We've talked about doing this for a long time, Hell I think we even talked about it way back at the BTBAM show back for the Colors tour. Basically everything Angra said above. Whenever we talk on the phone or talk after a show is basically what this show is.
 
This was absolutely a first time run experiment. None of it was really planned out besides the outline of 2011 albums so far. Everything else was just on the top of our heads and unscripted, which lead to the A.D.D. switched between bands at some points.
 
The next edition will depend on me. I don't get to make it out to Minnesota that much to where I have spare time often, but I w3ill be doing my best to make something more out of it. I'm guessing it will be either late April early May before the next edition, but I know it will be worth it.

Got ten more minutes in and had to turn it off, just couldn't focus for that long on just the talking. I think your experiment worked, with a little tweaking/refining like you've mentioned, I think people will definitely enjoy this. Just gotta make it a bit more concise. In depth music discussion like this is always fun.

Totally understandable man. But I would suggest maybe taking a break and then coming back to it. Some of the best stuff is near the end,
 
Maybe during our next show we can break things up and actually be able to play some music as well.

That's exactly what I'm planning to do man!

bump.

well the 2nd episode/experiment of sorts is on the blog. I may try and reupload it with higher mic levels at some point.

http://epicrocktalk.blogs...reviated-2nd-show.html
 
 

Will be listening to this when I get the time. However, I know I'm in for a good time. Off the top of my head, my CD shelf thanks you guys for the inclusion of Devin Townsend and Fair to Midland. 

HOORJ!!

BUMP!

This is a great idea and you guys will certainly fill it with interesting opinions, but yeah, for what it is it's very very long. You could probably record that much, then cut it down to something like 40, dare I say 20 minutes, since I can't for the life of me work out how I could stay engaged the whole time.
 
That said, I skipped to the middle and hit the Protest The Hero section. When I know the albums in question, the analysis is *great* and very fair. The move from that to the loudness war, and then Born Of Osiris, is also good, and so on. Probably gonna follow both your blogs now.
 
You could cut out some of the "oh I'm trying to find the name of this band, I'll check the blog... where is it..." with some logical fades.
 
Here's an idea: put down some bookmarked points (just as text) where certain topics come up (certain bands or genres) so that people can stick to the stuff they know about. You do reference a lot of bands which is very good, so I'm likely to know most of them and hence can draw comparisons, but if I don't know who you're discussing it's a lot less interesting.
 
Not sure about the full left-right panning (unless that changes much from the start), it would get on my nerves if I was listening with headphones. I think your voices are different enough to have panned 30L/30R or 20L/20R. The mic quality is reasonable (could be better, but it's certainly listenable), might want to reduce the background noise.
 
Other things you could add: samples of the music (if that's legal/doesn't detract), original "jingles" at the start or to divide sections (not too cheesy though). It would mix it up a bit, but it would also turn it more towards a radio show which you might be trying to avoid, but you could totally make it work. You could record cool guitar licks, short drum lines with fills, etc, or use your own band's music for the samples. If you make them varied that would be ideal (eg. not all metal, some acoustic, some electronic, etc).
 
So ideally, I'd love to listen to a monthly/bi-weekly thing which lasted 15-30 minutes, discussing bands you guys have seen live/can produce interesting opinions on (like the ones you mention here), bit less background noise, 20/20 panning, and seperate sections that come back every time (eg. new albums, live shows you've seen, incoming albums, general topics, all of which digress nicely as with this pilot).

Staker, thanks for taking the time to not only listen, but give feedback. I might ask if you've ever heard UsedBin Radio for example. They go from topic-to-topic, pretty randomly actually, and at least their listeners still find it works.
 
We're still obviously a work-in-progress. And much of that will be contingent on how often we're able to try and put these together.
 
But part of the idea behind this, is not really restricting it to huge amounts of EDITS. That's why the name is "Epic" Rock Talk (as opposed to "EDITED" Rock Talk). And part of why that is, is, Josh and I will have these lengthly phone chats about music. At times lasting a few hours or more. So we just wondered, if more or less sharing those conversations in a podcast might make sense, since we chat about a lot of stuff on the forum, but even at times stuff that doesn't get discussed or not enough (such as topics about bands that see very few or any replies).
 
the music thing, yeah the idea of using some of our own music probably makes sense for background, but right now I don't have any of that (but I may eventually as I want to try writing my own music soon).

I really loved listening to it actually. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't mind the length at all. The topics move forward enough that it's just interesting to keep listening. The only two things I can think of to improve it are to maybe change the name (It reminds me of Epic Rock Radio every time I see it), and to play music in the show. I don't know how that would work with royalties and all that, but it would be cool to hear what you think about songs right after you hear it for the first time. You guys keep telling each other to check out certain releases, well I think you should do just that on the show if you can. I think it sounds good though, I really like what I hear.

Like Staker said, it's always more interesting to read/listen/etc. these types of analysis when you're familiar with the works discussed... Any chances of a short summary of what you guys touched upon the last two podcasts?

yeah, a Summary could be written up.
 
The latest one, I guess could be outlined like this:
 
Devin Townsend discussion/Longest time waiting to see an artist live
Josh's albums of the year list
a) Daniel J
Karnivool
b) Battle Circus
c) Devin Townsend
d) The Dear Hunter
angra1's albums list:
dredg
Al Di Meola
Yes
Brice Plays Drums
Orphan Bloom
The Book of Right On
 
coming albums:
Decapitated
Tangled Thoughts of Leaving/Meniscus
Fair to Midland
Mute Math
Neverending White Lights
House of Fools
Dream Theater
Portnoy's projects

I thought it was interesting, but not sure if it's got legs....

I enjoy your ramblings, funny that you switched sides btw:P
 

I got excited when I saw ERT. It brings back memories of an earlier time here in Forum land.

oh, and i agree on the lack of good follow up records this year...
Most anticipated albums are a big let down so far, hope the 2nd half gets better

Improvement from the first for sure, I felt the shortened length and more focused (as focus as a random talk can be) conversation really helped it. I definitely agree with all of Staker's points. I only really keyed in when you guys were talking about bands I already knew, then when you mentioned bands which were similar, I became interested in checking them out. For example when you talked about Ghost and mellow music/post-rock music then mentioned Shells (sp?) I wanted to check that out.
 
Random comments:
1) Josh, I waited just as long for Devin Townsend, I feel your pain.
2) I gave up on Pain of Salvation a LOOOOOONG time ago. But maybe now that I have no hope whatsoever, maybe it`ll happen?
3) But Black Holes and Revelations is a sweet album!
4) So far The Color Spectrum is doing nadda for me. Maybe I have to try it a few more times like Kyle, but I'm just not getting into it.
5) Interesting, your thoughts on Devin Townsend and how his parts are overlong and don't seem to go anywhere, whereas I'm just mesmerized by Deconstruction. Funny how much personal taste plays into it.
6)When you mentioned The River Empires again, were you talking about Epilogue or do they have new material?

Going backwards on comments
 
The River Empires has an EP out now, Hands. And is also planning on releasing an album this year as well.
 
I love The Color Spectrum. Haven't liked Muse since Absolution. I gave up on POS as well. PT has no excuse though, haha.
 
*Shels is the name of the band (spelled exactly like that * and all)

Scherztastic, thanks for the comments.
 
Just to answer some points:
*Shels are similar, I suppose in a way to Devin's ambient stuff (from what I know/remember of that music). But I would recommend just sampling them to judge for yourself:
http://www.facebook.com/shesellsseashels
http://www.shelsmusic.com/
 
Their new album "Plains of the Purple Buffalo" I've been listening to off and on over the last week and enjoy a ton of it. Although it's a long album, like 65 minutes or so, but it doesn't seem to drag for me.
 
Emanuel and the Fear released a new EP about 1 month ago called "Hands" (which I bought, but am only luke warm about. Maybe because it only has 5 songs, a few of them are just singer/songwriter type ballads) their next full-length, I guess who knows right now. Maybe in 2012.
 
The River Empires have a new full-length album expected in September/this Fall called "Mars/Brighton II" But there is a video, which I posted on my blog and is on their facebook with a bunch of new songs live.
 
The Gloomcatcher which is another project from Jessy Ribordy of The River Empires (and Falling Up who we vaguely brought up), have a new EP titled "Starla Over the Fences" coming in a few weeks.
 
I suppose just looking at this, one thing I'll try and do is just make as accurate a list of the bands we mention on the blog and post links to each one of their Facebook/Bandcamp pages, etc. Kind of like I do with my Albums of the Year anyway. It may give people an easy way to quickly sample them.

Didn't notice the shorter new one - will check that one out too at some point.

The shorter one is a bit more straight and to the point. The first one was a complete experiment.

To update you on recommendations I might have gathered from your show: Hotel Of The Laughing Tree are really cool, *Shels are brilliant. So I suppose you could say, at the fundamental level where it encourages people to check out new music, it's a great success for me.
 
 

okay, I re-uploaded the 2nd Podcast with a boosted signal (the "Gain" on Audacity software) since I've seen comments here and other places about how low the signal is,  and both of Us, especially Josh, should be heard better. But as I posted in the edit on the Blog, it does create a staticy/snowy/cloudy background element. And maybe more importantly, in the future if we're making these in the same situation, we'll try and hold the mics closer and/or just speak a little louder.
 
But if Josh is able to come in town often enough, perhaps making these recordings at KFAI with ProTools will help a fair amount in recording levels/quality.

bump.
 
here's the newest edition, which as we mention, may become next year a once-a-month thing.
http://epicrocktalk.blogspot.com/2011/12/episode-3-end-of-2011new-studio.html
 
Nearly 2 hours, separated into two parts
 
this is is most if not every band name/topic:
Dream Theater (Red, Ra)
Three
The Dear Hunter (Flying Colors)
Scale the Summit (Mono, Pelican, Isis)
Devin Townsend (Apes and Androids, Strapping Young Lad, Marillion)
Daniel J (Orphaned Land)
Mastodon (Between the Buried and Me, Protest the Hero, Skeleton Staff, House of Fools,
Animals as Leaders (Liquid Tension Experiment, Platypus, Cloudkicker)
Djent (Born of Osiris, Attack Attack, Djentstep/Dubstep, Autotune, Imogen Heap, Cynic, Peter Frampton)
Iced Earth
Revocation (Last Chance to Reason, Dead Letter Circus, Fair to Midland, What's Left of Her, Solstafir, Steven Wilson, Hands of Despair, For the Imperium)
November's Doom (Subterranean Masquerade, Novembre, Klimt 1918, Katatonia)
Doom Metal (Zebulon Pike)
Metal Evolution Documentary
Black Metal (Gloriabelly, False, Alcest, Meshuggah)
Protest the Hero (Coheed and Cambria, Muse, Between the Buried and Me, Zero Hour)
Erick Serna and the Killing Floor (The Dear Hunter, Trent Romens, The Galactic Cowboy Orchestra, The House Harkonnen, Nicole Atkins)
dredg (King's X, Pain of Salvation, Marillion, Dream Theater)The Dear Hunter
Apes and Androids
The Stiletto Formal
dredg
Hotel of the Laughing Tree
Margot & the Nuclear So & So's
The Baltic Sea
Radical Face
Bruce Peninsula
Neverending White Lights (Bed of Stars, Dallas Green)
NewVillager
Team Me
Kimbra
Arch/Matheos
*Shels (Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, Younger Brother, Tokyo Jihen)
The Book of Right On
House of Fools
Ne Obliviscaris
Lehto & Wright
The Age of Rockets (Rosetta)
Fates Warning (Arch/Matheos, OSI)
The Reign of Kindo (Steven Wilson)
Crippled Black Phoenix (Godspeed You Black Emperor, Clann Zu)
Emanuel & the Fear
Spawn of Possession (Subterranean Masquerade)
The Faceless
Cynic (Metal Evolution Documentary: Fates Warning, Between the Buried and Me maudlin of the Well, SikTh, Pain of Salvation, Porcupine Tree)
Local Natives Warpaint
Demians
Flying Colors (John Sykes, Derek Sherinian)
Marillion
The Mars Volta
Meshuggah
Vektor

I will certainly get around to listen this! It will help me to find new stuff, since the kind of music you talk about is difficult to get access to here in Denmark.

thanks Tensed.
 
There's a few Danish bands we have or may talk about though. Mew of course, and Jazzkamikaze off the top of my head.

@ Angra1: thank you for doing stuff like that!
Actually I did not know Jazzkamikaze was Danish! In fact, I am a bit embrassed, that I did not know that!

oh, well they're pretty obscure, but still a rather good band. I think their last record "Supersonic Revolutions" is still available to stream on their homepage.
http://jazzkamikaze.com/
 
And as they've been posting on their facebook page this year, they have a new record coming rather soon, like maybe February/March/April ish called "Future Blaster" I actually think people into Mew and The Reign of Kindo could really dig them. They blend Jazz and dreamy, textured prog rock rather well. Why I'm rather excited to hear that record early next year.

Well, since I love Mew I will probably like Jazzkamikaze then!

Glad you guys are digging this so far. I'd say this one is our best Epic Rock Talk yet.
 
Depending on how things go, this can happen on a semi-regular basis. It all really depends on me. I'm hoping I can make it work out.

How far from each other do you guys live?
This stuff takes sometime to put together!

Only just turned it on but is the extreme panning necessary? Uncomfortable with headphones.
 
edit: Get pop shields too.

@Tensed Josh lives about 90 minutes currently away from me and more or less where we recorded this newest podcast, at the Community Radio station in my hometown in Minnesota. So, while we don't live too close, it's not so far that it couldn't/can't be done somewhat regularly. And with Josh's opportunity to be on the air pretty often at the Station those nights, making a podcast for a few hours beforehand seems like something that could be easily done. But we'll see in the near future. Josh may be moving a little closer soon as well, which probably will help just with time and gas money.
 
@Jason, sorry about the sound issues. This was the 1st time using the studio, as I imagine now hearing how it came out, there are some things we can try to reduce or avoid stuff like extreme panning. 
 
I notice how I am somewhat hotter on the microphone than Josh, and something like that I can just try and lower and monitor the levels more.
 
As far as getting pop shields, I guess if that is do-able, I'd certainly be up for trying to use them. I'm not sure what kind of price or how effective they may be on KFAI's microphones. But there are some people I suspect I can ask.
 
We're not professionals or anything, and we're still just getting our feet wet with this process since this is only the 3rd one we've made. But thanks for the feedback certainly, as we'd like to make this sound as good as possible in every way.

i just realised that i only listened to the first one so ignore my comments if the other 2 are different. You're onto something alright. I'd suggest filming and putting them up on youtube as well as releasing them as audio. Youtube is huge right now and you could get lucky+it's a completely different audience. What's the harm in trying? All you have to do is hit record.