Friday, August 31, 2007

Listen Online!

The second song available for listening is a song called "The Manor Court". It was recorded in 2006 and will be on an upcoming, as of yet untitled, album. Enjoy!

Click here to listen to the song.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Studio News: The 2007 Musik Catalog

How many albums has Metal XOR Studio released? Are any lyric booklets available? What about obscure interviews?

See the entire Metal XOR Musik Catalog at the Metal XOR Studio Information Source.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Project Spotlight #1: What is Mune Mud?

The year was 1990.

Several experimental songs were primitively recorded that year. Near the end of the year, it was realized that there would soon be enough songs recorded to compile a tape. The big question was "What is it going to be called?" Not worried about the album title, efforts were concentrated on naming the 'band'. The following is taken from an interview with Mune Mud front-man, Jason: "I've always had an interest in space, so I knew the name would be astronomical. I set my sites on the Moon. The name had to have something to do with the Moon. Then I decided it would be a two-word name with the first word being Moon and the second also starting with M. Then in late December 1990 or early January 1991, after having spent several days of thinking of names, I was laying on my bed and the name just came to me: Moon Mud. And to be a little different, I changed Moon to Mune." Thus the name was born.

Mune Mud design 1

The above scan (from January 5, 1991) shows the evolution of the name and design of the letters. In the center at the bottom of the scan shows the final letter design. It was used on the cover of the unreleased 1991 Mune Mud debut album. The scan below shows an alternate name design with an Arabic theme (sketched by co-worker Kevin).

Mune Mud design 2

In November of 1991 the next album, Olympus, was released. 1992 saw the release of Underwater Problem Factory and 1993 released Pryme Material. 1994 had two releases, the first being the re-release of the debut Mune Mud album and the second being the EP Devaulted. 1996 also had two Mune Mud releases, the first was a "live" album called Monograph and the second was Equation of Time. Sleep State F was released in 1997. The Search for Metropolis was released in 2001. It was the first Mune Mud album to be released on CD. The Singles Collection was released in 2004 along with Hobson's Choice. And the last new Mune Mud release to date was in 2005 with Hobson's Second Choice. Update: In 2008, the restrospective Precursory 33 was released. This was a re-re-release of the original Mune Mud debut album.  And in 2010, a long-awaited new album was released titled The Zodiac Road followed shortly by a reworking of that album called Beyond the Star King.

In 2001, the Mune Mud 10th Anniversary Collection was started. The first one was Olympus. Each song was remastered and re-released on CD. Each CD also contained bonus material, usually unreleased songs or demos of songs appearing on the original album. There are five albums in the Mune Mud 10th Anniversary Collection.

But who is Mune Mud? It has been one person since it was created. Mune Mud is Jason Watson. There have been various guest musicians and singers on songs throughout the years, but it has always been a solo effort.

By far the project with the most released albums of Metal XOR Studio, Mune Mud continues to thrive with the occasional new recording being made. When enough material is recorded, there will be a new Mune Mud album. But that could still be a year or two away.

Next week's Project Spotlight: What is NueroMorgue?

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Collector's Corner #2

Where did Mune Mud get the name Underwater Problem Factory for the third album? This rare piece of history holds the answer. . .

Collector's Corner 02

Here's the story straight from Mune Mud front-man, Jason.

"It was probably early 1992 when I was at work looking through the newspaper. They had a section called 'Kids Corner' once a week where kids could submit stories or jokes or whatever. I never read that section, but this particular day I did. It contained two stories written by kids. So I read through the first story, The Polar Snake, and thought it was a typical kid story until I got to the last three words. . . underwater problem factory. WOW! Where did Talia come up with that? Whatever it meant it was pure genius. So I borrowed the phrase for the album I knew would be coming out soon. And that's how the album got its title." - JW

Monday, August 27, 2007

Collector's Corner #1

The Collector's Corner feature will spotlight collectible items and merchandise that have been found or created over the years. It could be items with a band name on them, rare advertisements or posters, or items that have some connection to the Studio.

The first item is a 6.5" x 10" ultra-rare advertisement from 1991 to announce the new project, Mune Mud, specifically in regards to the upcoming debut album.

Collector's Corner 01

This poster hung on the Studio door for quite some time so all who entered or walked past the Studio could see it. It was created on the same Commodore 64 used to print the cover of the Mune Mud debut album (notice the lettering for the words Mune Mud are the same that was used on the album.) This was the first public appearance of the two-square Mune Mud symbol.

This poster was created on January 5, 1991, and remains in the Mune Mud Master File stored within the Studio vaults.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Listen Online!

You can now go to this blog's companion site, Metal XOR Studio Information Source, to listen to Metal XOR music online. New songs will be added periodically, and each time there will be a blog entry for notification of the new track.

The first song available for listening is a song called "Moon Spell". It was recorded in 2006 and will be on an upcoming, as of yet untitled, album. Enjoy!

Click here to listen to the song.

Album of the Week #1: Mune Mud debut

Project name: Mune Mud
Album name: Mune Mud (self-titled debut)
Release date: unreleased (recorded in 1990-91)
Release format: cassette
Studio name: none

Mune Mud - Mune Mud

Tracks:
1. That's All I Need to Know
2. OminousTrack list - Mune Mud
3. Why Did You Go?
4. Peachtree
5. Just Defied
6. Harley
7. Fruit Preserve
8. The One-Liner
9. Go West
10. Under the Sky
11. I Dream
12. Lyric
13. SC Paradise
14. Umbra Flame
15. That's Life
16. King Song
17. We Dog
18. EnVenum Above
19. Downstairs
20. Disco Babies

This was the album that started it all. Before the Studio had a name. Even before the Studio was a studio. Prior to this, experiments in writing lyrics to instrumental music from the radio were recorded, but not much original music was created. Using a drum machine, a portable keyboard, an electric guitar and amp, and a microphone, song-writing began in June of 1990 during a week-long break between semesters from school. For the next seven months more songs were recorded, sometimes using friends or family members who happened to drop by the Studio during recording sessions. After the music was finished, it took about a month to master the tape and create/print labels, so by February/March of 1991, the album was finished.

The lyrics were fun. Not much seriousness came out of this time period. And many of the rhymes came from a newly acquired rhyming dictionary. Musical influences were from heavier groups such as Faith No More, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Nine Inch Nails, and Ministry, just to name a few.

The equipment used was rather primitive. An electric guitar thru an amp provided the guitar sounds. There were two options: distortion turned off for a clean sound or distortion turned on for a dirty sound. A portable Yamaha keyboard provided all the keyboard sounds. In the earlier songs the drums also came from the keyboard. A drum machine was later purchased and replaced the tin-can drums from the keyboard. And a Shure SM-57 mic was used for vocals, usually going thru the guitar amp for reverb.

The recording technique used introduced a lot of noise into the songs. This was the recording process: the first layer was recorded to a standard cassette tape using a regular cassette deck. This first layer was usually the drum track (sometimes with the keyboard playing along with the drums). Then the first tape would be played back on another cassette deck and an instrument would be played along with the tape in real-time and recorded to a second tape. Then the second tape, now consisting of the first two layers together, would be played and another instrument or vocals would be added in real-time and recorded to a third tape. By this third generation the first layer of music was usually real muddy and the recording itself was very noisy and muffled. So most songs did not go beyond the third layer. The final songs were usually too noisy to play for other people. When a 4-track recorder was purchased in March of 1991 and the recording quality improved immensely, it was realized this album should never be heard. So the few copies that existed were placed in a box and still sit on the shelf.

The tape jacket was designed using a Commodore 64 and was very basic. There was no copyright date (which has been on every subsequent album recorded at the Studio) and no studio name appeared on the jacket. The two overlapping squares became the Mune Mud symbol and every Mune Mud album since has had the blue/green/yellow symbol on the cover. The computer was programmed to draw each letter since there was no font available like that.

A couple of years later in 1993, it was decided the songs were good enough for people to hear, they were just poorly recorded. So a project was started to re-record every song on the album with the 4-track recorder. Four of the songs were started but the project soon ended.

Then in 1994 it was decided to re-release the album in its original state, even with the poor quality. The track list was changed (a slightly different play order and a couple of different tracks used) and it had a real limited re-release.

And now with computers and digital editing, it has been considered to try to clean the songs up and have yet another release of the album that started it all. But no concrete plans have been made and this project will surely remain on the "to do" list for quite some time.


Next week's Album of the Week: Olympus by Mune Mud from 1991.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Just For Fun #1

Just For Fun 01

Paige's new CD has been a huge success. In fact, her Sunday mornings are booked thru the middle of February already!

And she does take requests (she just doesn't know most of them).

Friday, August 24, 2007

Blog News: Site Schedule

In addition to special articles and the regular news updates that will be posted as needed, there will be a couple of regular features posted throughout each week. Here is an introduction to two series that will start next week.


Album of the Week
These will be posted on Sundays. Each week will spotlight a different album that has been released by Metal XOR. A picture of the album cover will be provided along with the album's release date, variations of the album or album cover, the track list, and other interesting facts about the album. There are plenty of albums to be covered, so look forward to this feature lasting a long time. The first album to be spotlighted is Mune Mud's unreleased 1991 debut album.


Project Spotlight
These will be posted on Wednesdays. Each week will spotlight a different project (or group) that has been recorded by Metal XOR. Who is in the group? How many albums have been released under that project name? Where did the project name come from? All of those questions and more will be answered each Wednesday. There have been many projects, so this feature will also last quite a while. The first project to be spotlighted is Mune Mud.


And when these two series are finished, there will be more to take their place. There is a lot of information buried in the Metal XOR vaults just waiting to be released to the public.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Studio News: *** NEW ALBUM RELEASE ***

Tuesday, August 14, 2007, saw the release of the latest Metal XOR Studio CD.

Paige W - My First Album

It is titled My First Album and is Paige Watson's debut album. It contains 23 tracks of her singing standard children's songs, a TV theme, her first recorded original song, and more. The songs are taken from several recording sessions, the earliest was recorded when she was 2.5 years old and the latest when she was 3.5 years old. Additionally, the CD label and optional sleeve art were drawn by Paige.

This is the first of many in her upcoming music career.

Blog News: Welcome Statement

I am going to try something new here!

The goal of this site is to provide the following information:
1. Up-to-the-minute news about what is happening with Metal XOR Studio
2. Announce new projects or albums
3. Discuss old songs, albums, and projects
4. Explain recording techniques and equipment currently or previously used
5. Anything else pertaining to the Studio in any shape or form

I will try to update at least once a week (probably more often).
You can leave comments on my blog entries or email me for private correspondence.

I have lots of information to share. So bookmark this site and check back often because you never know when a pearl of wisdom may appear!