#applehead studio

Big news!

We will be heading back down to Applehead Recording in Woodstock, NY to record our next full length album sometime in June '14. Really looking forward to working with Chris Bittner and Michael Birnbaum again. Previously we recorded our last album, Everything at Once, with them. Not only were we extremely satisfied with the outcome of our time there, but while we were there it was just a great vibe, work environment, and really helped shape where we are today.

If you are attending this year's Move Music Festival in Albany, NY and have a smart phone, be sure to download the Timbre app (free) to help you figure out your day. The app features all the acts performing, where they're performing, as well as song samples! 

Upcoming Shows:

4.25.14 - Move Music Fest (Red Square) - Albany, NY w/ Black Taxi & Carl Daniels [Join FB Event]

5.9.14 - Drury HS - North Adams, MA w/ Barricades & Twin Berlin [See FB Event for more info]

5.16.14 - BCHS - Delmar, NY [Join FB Event]

Check out some press we've been getting!

This is our third year in a row being featured in the Metroland's annual "Readers' Poll" edition. Really can't thank the Capital Region enough for keeping us in mind. [Full list of winners]

Back to work...

-Stellar Young

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THE NEESHCAST: WEERD SCIENCE #REDLIGHTJULIET INTERVIEW + TRACKLIST REVEAL

Between recording sessions for the new Weerd Science release (“Red Light Juliet” – May 21st), Neesh caught up with Josh Eppard (Coheed and Cambria), DJ Dirty Ern, and Chris Bittner (Applehead Recording and Production) in the studio to find out more about the release and shoot the shit. Josh put together a killer playlist, and… boom! Neeshcast #42 was born.

Thanks for all of the support!  'No Zeros' drops on December 13th. It is up and available for pre-order for only $3. Individual tracks are $1 each except for "843-3323" which will be a free download. This will be my third EP this year and the first time I've worked alone on my own music. 

July 15th is a day that goes down in thefamily3 as the most commonly shared birthdate.  Celebrating their birthdays today are John Eppard (John The Baker of Instant Asshole), David Parker (Wavis of Weerd Science stuff) and Spider Barbour.

If you click the “Wavis” and “John The Baker” tags you’ll see that there’s a few articles in the database about the two artists.  Spider, on the other hand, has yet to be mentioned, but certainly is not a talent to ignore.  His songwriting has served as a tremendous inspiration to the original 3.  Instead of writing an intro to Spider’s career, we’re going to let Jimmy Eppard take care of that.  Before the copy/paste, aKt would also like to take this opportunity to welcome the tiniest new additions to thefamily3- Gracie and Julian.

The Curmudgeons

I first heard James ‘Spider’ Barbour when I was playing with the Crows in the late 80s.  I was at Crow’s bassman, Mike Dunn’s house one day listening to some music when he pulled out a cassette of “Dog’s Life”. I was completely blown away by this tune.  Mike told me that he was a local guy that he had played with a few years back in a group called “Imago”.  Back in 1968 Spider had a deal with MGM for his band “Chrysalis”.  The Chrysalis record was being recorded @ Electric Ladyland in NYC.  Another band that was also there recording @ the same time was The Mothers of Invention.  Spider, being the crazy brainiac biologist that he is, became fast friends with Frank Zappa.  They spent hours recording free associative conversations under the lid of the studio’s grand piano…‘Pigs & ponys don’t understand the BIG NOTE!’…Many of these raps became incorporated into Frank’s material.  I made Mike promise to introduce me to Spider asap.  A few weeks later the three of us became the original Curmudgeons.

We would get together twice a week & learn Spider’s ‘book’.  I would chart out the tunes & we would arrange them.  Spider has a unique way of voicing chords & the way his melodies flow through them is truly mesmerizing.  I can honestly say that going through this process has given me a more complete understanding of music which has carried over into every project I have been involved in since.  The greatest thing about Spider’s music is that, when it’s done right – it sounds completely simple & straightforward.  When you try to play along with it, then you’ll realise what a completely twisted genius he is!

About a year later I had gotten involved with Michael Birnbaum – a talented, young  engineer who wanted to build a recording studio.  I had cut some tracks in his home studio when I was singing & playing guitar with the Crows & was very impressed by his drive & focus, in addition to the high quality of his engineering work.  Since I had a pretty extensive carpentry background, he asked me to check out an old barn he was thinking about renting with the idea to turn it into a real studio.  The place was interesting.  A wall would have to come down & a couple more would have to go up.  A booth & a control room would need to be built…it could happen…There was no budget, of course, so I opted to do the work in exchange for studio time.  Spider had some construction experience as well so between the two of us we got the job done in a few weeks.  There were several 24 hour work days involved in making that deadline, but it was basically happy work.  Having this opportunity to make a professional recording for our sweat equity motivated us to begin pre – production using Mike’s old Tascam 40-4 & Spi’s Kelsey mixer @ Mike Dunn’s house.  As fate would have it, some of these demos turned out better than the ‘real’ studio!

We cut: ‘Dr. Root’s Garden’, ‘Chilicothe Wind’, ‘Dog’s Life’, ‘Storybook Windows’, ‘Lime Kiln Road’ & ‘(let me) Hibernate’. These 4 track tapes had a significant effect on my 2 young sons.   I swear that they, & all their friends, knew these songs better than we did! This collection of demos really helped inspire them to write their own songs.  Today they both have careers in music.  Joey is making his 6th record. (1 – solo, 5 with his group ’3′ ) to be released summer /07 on Metal Blade. Josh, after cranking out 3 certified gold discs for columbia/equalvision records with ‘Coheed & Cambria’, is finishing up his 2nd ‘Weerd Science’ hip hop release for EqualVision.  This isn’t just me being a proud parent, it’s a living, breathing, WORKING testimony to the inspirational power of great music.  Either one of these guys will tell you that Spider is the MAN!

excerpt from Jimmy Eppard’s blog on MySpace, posted on April 20th, 2007.