Videoblog 12/6/2007

World Racketeering Squad latest live music videos: Trophy's 11/27, Green Muse 11/29

Here are the last of the videos from November's open mic live sets!  Our show at Conan's Pizza on Monday 11/26 had some sync issues we're still working out, but here are Tuesday's and Thursday's shows:

Trophy's 11/27/07

Green Muse 11/29/07

Enjoy!

If you want to be alerted to when we're playing next and any other band news, you can subscribe to our mailing list!

Isaac

Summing up November and two gig announcements!

Hey everyone,

Got some more updates on what's been going on with World Racketeering Squad.  I've been filling out my pedal set lately to give me a lot more control on our songs.  Got a CryBaby, a Maxon OD808, Big Muff Pi, and an Ibanez CS-9 stereo chorus.  I've started running the stereo outputs to my Vox AD30VT and my little Kustom amp, just for fun.

After complaints from my neighbor, we've started renting rehearsal space and practing there on Saturdays.  It's great to get to focus in an environment where we won't be distracted, and where we can turn up loud.  Although my ears are still ringing from when we played a bit of "Hey Hey, My My".  I really turned it up too loud in that case, I've gotta be careful.  Need to get some earplugs for sure.

We spent November playing 3 open mics a week, focusing on the same set list to hone the songs and get them tight.  As a result, we got a studio recording of one song, we got our first bar gig, and built up our mailing list and made some great friends!

This month we're doing it a little different.  We're taking the first week of December off for the most part--my left hand's been getting sore and I want to get it rested up.  We're going to find some new open mics we haven't played at before, just to branch out a bit.  We're also playing a LOT of new songs!  We've been building up a stock of songs we haven't played yet, and we're dying for folks to hear them!  We've got some dark and intense grungy stuff, a bluesy soul number ("Hoarse angel"), a super-funky tune ("Screwed you"), and several parts of a rock opera about a quantum band who only exists when enough people are watching them.

We're also working on covers, which is new for us: "I Feel Fine" by The Beatles, "99 Luftballons" by Nena, "Elephant Stone" and "Waterfall" by The Stone Roses, and some others.   I'd love to do "Johnny B Goode", but we haven't worked on that one as much!  We're going to add some more Beatles as well, because they're such a huge influence on us.

And the biggest news is that we've got some better opportunities to play those songs!  We opened for bluesqueezebox in November and they asked us to play with them again on December 18, which is great.  Even greater is that we've got a headlining gig at the same club on December 27!  And I just got a text message from my bandmate saying that our friend we tapped to headline for us has confirmed that she's in!

So now we've got our longest set yet, from 10pm to midnight.  It's going to take basically ALL the songs we know well enough to play to fill out that slot, and it's gonna be awesome.   We've got a number of songs on the keyboard as well, so we can mix up the night and give the keyboard songs a chance to shine too.

This is super-exciting!  We've been extremely focused and as a result, a lot of great stuff is happening in a shorter time than we thought possible.  Now our next big result is to audition and find a drummer and a bass player--there are two more squad members of the World Racketeering Squad out there who just don't know it yet!

Isaac

World Racketeering Squad at Carousel Lounge

Here's the full video of our gig at Carousel Lounge. Enjoy!

Isaac

Gig report: Carousel Lounge, 11/21/07

Terrific show at the Carousel Lounge last night opening up for Blue Squeezbox.

It was fun and inspiring, lots of our friends showed up, and the guys in Blue Squeezebox were enthusiastic and very cool. 

Both Reed's folks and my Mom showed up, which was nice!  Reed's folks came to his Halloween party but my Mom hadn't seen us play, she had only heard a few recordings.  The crowd that had showed up by the time we started filled the Carousel Lounge on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we consider that to be decidedly awesome.  Lots of our personal friends showed up, and people we haven't seen in a while, who heard about it through other friends or through our mailing list.  Blue Squeezebox had a decent contingent, but we'd been promoting the show like mad since we found out, so I think that helped our turnout.

As for the show itself, our strong points are our energy and our sense of fun.  We're doing stuff that nobody else seems to do on stage, a variety of styles and attitudes that combines to create a pretty unique and entertaining show. 

Musically, we have a ways to go.  My main bugbear right now is playing too fast.  We're looking for a rhythm section, but right now it's just my electric guitar and Reed's voice.  Watching the video, pretty much every one of the songs we played was too fast, and in some cases it really hurt the song musically.  I get so amped up with energy that I rush through the songs like it's a race.  I've been working on it, but it's really a huge priority for me right now, I just cannot continue playing like that.  Must be smoother, tighter, and combine being more relaxed on stage with projecting an infectious energy.

After the show, Reed took our mailing list around to find that one of our fans had already sent it around the room and we had a page and a half of new entries!  Reed picked up some stragglers that came in late, and we got a sizeable addition to the list out of it.  He also travelled the tip jar, which returned considerably fuller than it started, marking the first time we've ever made money from playing music!   

Blue Squeezebox played two terrific sets afterward, we hung out and enjoyed the evening.   After the show we posted a short videoblog about it and some of the videos of the songs.  The rest will be up soon.

We'll be at Conan's Pizza and Trophy's this coming Monday and Tuesday, and back at the Green Muse on Thursday.  Things are going great!

Isaac

Join the World Racketeering Squad mailing list!

Now that we're playing more around town, we're getting our mailing list together to let fans know where we'll be and what we're up to. Just pop in your email address and you'll be informed anytime we've got a show coming up!

We won't sell your email to anyone, we'll just send you great gig announcements :)
Jeff

Link

World Racketeering Squad's first studio recording: Panic!

Every Monday we play an open mic at Conan's Pizza, where the host, Billy, is really friendly and always does a great job on our sound, especially for what is basically a funky little PA system set up in a pizza shop!  He makes it sound terrific.

Anyway, last week he asked us if we'd be interested in recording a song at a studio and of course we jumped up and down a lot and said sure!  We recorded our fast punky song "Panic" with some friends on drums and bass and it went really well, very quick and tight recording session and very easy.  They suggested it might sound nice with acoustic guitar, but I really didn't want it to have acoustic on it.  I relented and gave it a shot, came up with a little lick and pattern that was decent.  We recorded a couple of takes but I still wasn't feeling it on acoustic, so I played it again on electric, a more distorted lead part.  The whole thing was an excellent experience.

Tonight we went by a party with some folks who work at the pizza shop.  I didn't even know Billy was there, but suddenly Reed gets my attention and I listen to what's playing over the speakers at the party.  It's our song!  Billy had mixed and mastered Panic and people were bopping to it and getting down.  A bunch of people complimented us on it and Billy played it twice!

Listening to the track, Billy had done a lot of creative mixing to our very simple punk song.  The electric guitar is cut out in the second verse, and he used some of my acoustic lead work that I hadn't expected to hear again.  He said he mixed the acoustic and electric lead licks in the rest of the song as well, because they matched up. 

He fixed a notable error late in the song--there's a driving verse, then suddenly a sharp hit, and everything cuts out for a couple of beats before it all comes back in again.  The drummer had kinda flubbed the lead-in to that part, and we hadn't re-recorded it to get it right.  Billy took that part and cut everything out for two successive hits, which sounds even better than one!  He just did a lot of stuff that wouldn't have occurred to us, but which sounds great.

The final version of the song "Panic" is up on our myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/worldracketeeringsquad

And on our Virb page:
http://www.virb.com/worldracketeeringsquad

Now I'm working on the sounds with my new Vox AD30VT amplifier, which sounds WAY better than my Zoom G2.1u effects unit, in fact I think I am going to put the Zoom to the side for a while and play with just the Vox.  I just want to get used to its versatility and its sounds are beautiful.  And we're playing our regular open mics on Monday and Tuesday before the big gig on Wednesday. 

Oh, and I finally started teaching guitar lessons!  Had my first lesson today and have two scheduled for next week.  Things are just going great all around.

Jeff

We got a gig!

We got our first proper gig!

We've been playing at open mics and we've gotten to know a local band called Blue Squeezebox, led by a really charismatic frontman on the accordion.

Last night after they played, our singer Reed congratulated him on the set, and they started to chat. He asked if we ever gig, and Reed said we haven't but we're looking to. The accordionist then asked if we had six songs and wanted to open up for them at their show on Wednesday night!

We've been honing our repertoire a lot this month, focusing on getting just a few songs really solid, and as of Tuesday that set adds up to six really tight songs. We'll be practicing this weekend and making sure everything's ready, and then playing our first proper, non-open-mic gig on Wednesday, Nov 21!

We'll be at the Carousel Lounge, here in Austin, TX, Wednesday Nov 21, at 9pm.

Jeff

Link

Video: World Racketeering Squad at Conan’s Pizza 11/12/07

We had a terrific show at Trophy's last night. Video will be up this weekend. Meanwhile, here's our set from Conan's Pizza on Monday. Enjoy!

Jeff

World Racketeering Squad live at Trophy's, Green Muse Cafe

Fellow Racketeers!

World Racketeering Squad rocked the house late in the night at Trophy's on Tuesday, and here is the video:

We'll be back at Trophy's next Tuesday, November 13. We're going to make our very best effort to go on between 10pm and 11pm, the gods and the signup sheet willing.

We'll also be at Conan's Pizza at S 1st and Stassney on Monday night, where we will assuredly be playing between 10 and 11, doing a nice long, rocking set.

World Racketeering Squad also played live, as usual, at the Green Muse on Thursday, and we have the video of that. This show marks our first time ever appearing with a live bass player, which was exciting for us!  And a little unnerving in places.

Those are all the shows from this week, we'll be posting more next week as we continue our schedule of playing out 3 nights a week:

Monday night: Conan's Pizza, S 1st and Stassney
Tuesday night: Trophy's
Thursday night: Green Muse Cafe, S 1st and Oltorf

We may have some other exciting secret news to announce next week, so stay tuned for more announcements!

Jeff

New rock opera demo, "Omega and the Just-In-Times"

This week we started working on a new crazy idea for a set of songs about Omega and the Just-In-Times, a "quantum band" who appear whenever there is enough demand. We've got two songs about them in progress so far:

"Omega and the Just-In-Times"

And "Omega in Love versus the Supermonsters":

These and any other new demos we create will be included in our "Demonstrations" video playlist on YouTube.

Link

World Racketeering Squad live at Green Muse 10/11/07

Here's the video of one of our first sets at the Green Muse Cafe here in Austin, TX. This was the first performance we've recorded on video, and also the first time we took the keyboard to an open mic.

World Racketeering Squad live at Haunted Housewarming X

World Racketeering Squad live at Haunted Housewarming X in Austin, TX, on October 27, 2007. Founding Racketeer Reed Oliver was celebrating the tenth anniversary of his traditional Halloween bash, so the band played our first long set of songs--13 songs, a little over an hour. We've decided since that a 30-minute set probably would've suited the party atmosphere better, but we wouldn't have known that if we hadn't done it! It was a lot of fun and we both learned a lot.

World Racketeering Squad live at Green Muse, 11/1/07

New band photo, super-dramatic style

Late October, originally uploaded by Mister Oliver.

Took this super-dramatic band photo tonight after we recorded the demo video.

Link

New short video from World Racketeering Squad, "The World Revolves Around Me"

Reed's Halloween party was this weekend, and we played our longest set to date--13 songs, over an hour, with guitar and keyboard, a drummer and a backing singer.

More about that later.Here's a quick short video we made of a new little song fragment called "The World Revolves Around Me":

Link

New World Racketeering Squad soul groove--Hoarse Angel

Every time we write a new song, I'm excited, but this time doubly so. 

Up to now most of the guitar parts for our songs have been fairly simple, strummed or chugged chords, power chords, that sort of thing.  I've never really had the confidence and dexterity to do much more. 

Yesterday I spent all day playing guitar--mostly James Brown-style funk riffs, but at one point I got into a Hendrixy kind of soul groove, and it worked itself into the chords for a new song.

I recorded a short instrumental demo at about 4am, and I did what I usually do when making instrumentals or new songs--I named it something random.  In this case, it was "Hoarse angel".  I didn't even think about it, just wrote down the first thing that came to mind.

Today I worked on the chords more, just practicing and getting comfortable with them.  Reed was picking me up for a movie at 6:00, and about an hour before that a melody and some words came to me.

She's a hoarse angel. 
She's got nothing left to say.
She tried her best to help you. 
But you just sighed and walked away.

In a flash, there it was, the meaning of the phrase and the whole approach to the song.  The melody was tricky for my voice, but I knew we could either transpose it to a key I could sing, or find a good key for Reed's voice.

Reed showed up and I played it to him, and when he started singing it was clear that's how it was meant to be.  He just had a beautiful, soulful approach to it. We haven't done anything like soul so he's never had the opportunity to sing like this on any of our songs.

We talked about it and Reed busted out with a new verse that blew me away:

She's a hoarse angel,
She's got the silence in her eyes.
Though you're the one that's bleedin'
She's the only one that cries.

Great stuff.  After the movie, Reed wrote some more verses and it was clear he really "got" the song, the soulful blues in the idea really communicates with both of us.

We recorded a quick acoustic demo, and here it is for your listening pleasure.  You can hear it in one of two ways:

Download the mp3:

Hoarse angel (demo) (3:47, 3.45 MB)

Or visit our Virb site:

www.virb.com/worldracketeeringsquad/

"Hoarse angel (demo)" is currently the first song on our Virb music player, and the first track on the "Demonstrations" album.

Enjoy!

Jeff

Link

World Racketeering Squad videos--Green Muse Cafe Oct 11, 2007

On Thursday, October 11, the World Racketeering Squad played another open mic gig at the Green Muse Cafe here in Austin. We've been doing that regularly for a few weeks now, and it's a great time. Jules and John who run it are super cool, and they play great music when they get up on stage. It's a friendly atmosphere of cool people.

There were two major differences in our show this week. We used keyboard instead of guitar, and we videotaped the performance in iMovie on Reed's laptop!

I've been playing keyboard for a long time but we haven't done many recordings with it. We've decided to add the keyboard to our performance at Reed's Halloween party on October 27, so we wanted to take it out and give it a test run in front of an audience.

Overall, it went great! I'm a little rusty playing on some of these tunes, but felt excellent and the audience seemed to really enjoy it.

During our soundcheck I was doodling around with Carole King's "Natural Woman":

"Natural Woman" soundcheck

Note John waving his arms and singing along! Then our first song was "Esoteric", our ode to They Might Be Giants:

Esoteric

The crowd seemed to dig the false ending. We noticed at the end they waited a beat before clapping--"We're not getting fooled again!" The next song is our extended science fiction opus, "5017". This time we introduced its new opening section, inspired by old-time radio shows and their sponsors.

5017 (David's theme)

That one's a little weirder, especially without drums! Next up was "Professor Popinjay", our cute bouncy 1960s/Donovan-style song about an imaginary friend. Reed's been working on the tin flute for this song, and he played it here for the first time on stage!

Professor Popinjay

And we rounded out the show with "Perfectly Disposable", a sort of dance ballad. Not so dancy here, without drums, but still very fun.

Perfectly Disposable

It was an awesome show and great practice for the Halloween party. Hope you enjoy the videos!

Jeff

Two new songs in one day!

Reed came in with a new tune called "Professor Popinjay", and I brought one of my older ones to the table.

Jeff

Link

Gig report: WRS live at Trophy's!

"We rocked so hard we cleared the room."

ROCK AND ROLL. Reed posts a little writeup on Tuesday night's open mic.

Jeff

Link

WRS at Trophy's tonight

We're going to be playing at Trophy's on S Congress tonight, probably around 10:30 or so.

----------------
Now playing: The Ramones - Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio?
via FoxyTunes

New song: "Needful things", New-Wave-meets-Stone-Roses

In addition to playing live tonight, we wrote a new song!

I came up with the music for this tune after listening to International Tweexcore Underground, I just had to whip up a New Wave-y little tune.

Reed took it and wrote up some words that should belong to a lost Stone Roses song, and, voila, "Needful things"!

Jeff

World Racketeering Squad, live at Conan's Pizza!

World Racketeering Squad had its second gig tonight, an open mic at Conan's Pizza, of all places. It was a very genial place with a crowd of enthusiastic regulars.

The stage setup was odd, as it was all on an enclosed riser meant to hold a couple of seats, with elaborate wooden banisters and columns that blocked the view from all but a few angles. Plus the columns were draped with leafy plants.

On the plus side, that cramped little riser was stocked! It had a drum kit, a keyboard, a bongo, a guitar and plenty of mics. This is an open mic that even provides instruments!

We played with "Negra", my black Epi Les Paul, and my little Kustom amp, which always seems to find admirers at shows. It's a cute little amp, I guess!

The show was pretty rough, as we were playing some songs we haven't really done before--"Feel so lost" and "5017". When we get those tightened up, they're gonna rock a lot more!

But overall it was super fun and I can't wait to do it again.

Oh, and we're playing the open mic at Trophy's tomorrow night.

Jeff

Green Muse Cafe open mic set list

Green Muse Cafe open mic set list
Originally uploaded by Jeff Coleman

World Racketeering Squad, live at the Green Muse Cafe!

Last night the World Racketeering Squad made its open mic debut at Austin's Green Muse Cafe!

Expecting a short slot, we decided on a couple of songs to perform, to show up and find out the Green Muse gives each artist 20 minutes to play! We revised our set list to include our original party set of three, plus two newer tunes.

The venue itself is a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, with a simple unassuming stage setup. The host, Jules, was very cool, and he played a set with a small band about midway through the night. We went on later, to a small but enthusiastic audience.

Our set list:

Sylvia
Potential
Can't Keep Track (of Anything These Days)
Panic
Heartbreaker

After "Panic", we were ready to step down but John, one of the hosts, insisted we play another, so we pulled out "Heartbreaker" and rocked out!

The show was what you'd expect from a first open-mic show--lots of warts, but a whole lot of fun. I played electric guitar, which is new for me on stage, and Reed busted out the tambourine for select numbers!

The venue only had two mics, and we have two vocalists plus my acoustic guitar (no pickups), so we signed up, went home and got my Epiphone Les Paul and my little Kustom amp. I've been practicing mostly with acoustic for a long time, and was REALLY green on the electric!

Most of our songs right now are strummed, folk style, and I kept flipping the pickup selector switch with my strums! Also pulled the cord out from the amp during our last number! But we plugged it in and kept going :) It was a huge learning experience--I learned that I need to practice on electric a LOT more!

It was definitely a great experience--the audience made us feel very welcome, everybody we met was very cool, and we're excited to do more. We're playing at Conan's in South Austin at their open mic on Monday night, and at Trophy's on Tuesday, so we'd love to see some friendly faces in the crowd!

Jeff

"Potential", live bossa-nova rock song in video

Jeff

"Heartbreaker" live video!

Special thanks for the video to Mocha Latte

Jeff

New song: "Screwed you"

We wrote and recorded a new song last night! It's called "Screwed you", and it's a funky disco/soul song.

Reed showed up with the chorus in his head, and we built it up into a bizarre little tune. You can check it out here at our Virb page:

http://www.virb.com/worldracketeeringsquad

Jeff

Heartbreaker

Here's "Heartbreaker", the first new song from World Racketeering Squad.

Jeff

World Racketeering Squad

Last summer my friend Reed and I wrote a couple of songs and unofficially formed a band. This year we've been writing and recording a lot more and decided to start playing. Right now it's just me on guitar and Reed singing, and Reed was throwing a party on Saturday so we decided that was the perfect time to debut the World Racketeering Squad.

The party got off to a slow start around 9 but by 10:30 it was really jumping, with a great mix of people and a good energy. Around 11:30 or so we decided we were going to play, and announced it to everyone.

It's been a long time since I've performed anywhere, and I was pretty nervous leading up to it. I realized that 'stage fright' is just a variation on the 'fight or flight' response all animals get, which basically means "pay CLOSE attention, this is important!" Not life threatening in this case, but important nonetheless.

That gave me a great perspective and we went on to play a really fun set. It was very simple, just three acoustic songs, "Sylvia", "Heartbreaker", and "Potential", all of which I've posted here on the Hear Here forum. The audience was all friends and well-disposed towards us but I was surprised by just how effusive they were, clapping and laughing and cheering at all kinds of great places. They really seemed to connect with the songs and it went great. Reed has excellent stage personality and had a good rapport with the group.

After a while a new batch of people had arrived, and a bunch of the folks who'd heard us play already insisted we do an encore for those who had missed it! So we played another set, this time a bit looser and more intoxicated. It was a lot of fun too. During "Potential", a bossa-nova jazz tune, a girl in the audience started tapping out a groovy drumbeat on a tabletop. Turns out she's a drummer and has been wanting to play some jazz, so I got her number! Also talked to some potential backup singers too!

Anyway, it was a great time. Reed posted about it on our MySpace page.

We're planning to find an open mic to go to sometime in September, and Reed throws a Halloween party every year where we're bound to play again. The crowd definitely could've handled a longer set, and we've been working on new songs. The main thing I learned was that I REALLY have to work on my rhythm, and just practice more. Rhythm and Timing has always been an issue for me, and I don't want to sound sloppy in front of people. But I can't wait to play out again!

Jeff