Mix Master Lee Popa Gets Busy

Excited to be working with Lee Popa on new songs. We both worked the Chicago club circuit a while back, me as band leader, Lee doing sound for the top clubs. Then he put togther his own anarchy-blues-punk band Slammin Watusis. He's engineered or produced tons of bands including Ministry and White Zombie. Now he's going to mix a few of my songs so they sound radio-ready.

August Song-A-Palooza

Progressing on Idolizer, recording vocals at Amp Rehearsal in North Hollywood last couple of Sundays, and best of all, working with the great mixer/sound engineer/guitarist Lee Popa to do a mix on one of the tunes, All Fall Down. Aiming toward late fall release to get the whole thing mixed, mastered and released.

They Just Keep Coming On by Hugh Hart

Album-in-Progress

I'm working my way through a new album's worth of songs. Most of the recording I do on my MacBook with a keyboard I got at Guitar Center. I use Logic Pro, which my tech wizard Tommy kindly installed when I bought the computer from him.

But I need to sing somewhere i can caterwaul without disturbing neighbors.

I spent two Sunday afternoons July 3 and July 10 up the street at Amp Rehesarsal Studios in North Hollywood. There, I locked myself in a basement room with my trusty Shure 57 microphone and sang All Fall Down, Come Out Swinging, Soul Embrace, Set For Life, Too Many Tears, You Never Crack and Lost and Found.

Next step: I'm excited to bring in Lee Pope, ex-Chicago mixer / guitarist / wild man, to mix at least one of the tracks. Stay tuned!

House of Imaginary Hits

With graphic designer Sean Hartter, I've launched House of Imaginary Hits. Sean designed the "album" cover art for songs pulled from the Hugh archives. Check it out at http://www.hughhart.com/music/hits

Remote Recording

Fun experiment in virtual recording now in progress: I've sent Wedge guitarist J.D. Dragus an .mp3 of "I Owe Everything To You,: a country ditty his voice would be perfect for. I also sent the "Owe" audio file - - piano, bass + drums - - to brilliant multi-instrumentalist John Rice. They both live in Chicago and I'm here in Los Angeles. Rice yesterday emailed me his guitar and mandolin tracks, which I imported into an expanded version of the song, which I've now emailed to J.D., which he will now take to his friend John Carpenter's Thunderclap Studios to sing to. Pretty wild. Like Rice says, "No messy relationship stuff and the coffee's really good."

Reptilian Brain: The Movie

For the sequel to Unemployment Polka, I drew on a bunch of sound and image sources. Credits + specs for Reptilian Brain YouTube music video:

Most of the images come from Machinima filmmaker Lowe Runo, who posted clips on the copyright-free Prelinger Archives.

Beast From 20,000 Fathoms also makes a cameo appearance.

Female vocals by Jesse Maltin and the excellent Vikki Gurdas. were excerpted from my Wrecking Ball musical.

Robot vocals filtered through Final Draft "speech" tool.

Harmonica and other stuff by me.

Recorded on Garageband and mixed on LogicPro laptop recording software.

Video was stitched together on Apple's iMovie editor.

Badly translated movie review

Going through old stuff, I decided to Google-translate my review notes for the opening scene of a 2010 action movie from English to Spanish to Swedish to Swahili and back again:
Eyes guys playing cards
When the walkie talkies comes near we hear: "attack abortion"
They are trying to save the Spanish-speaking children on the bus. Bad guy has a knife in the throat of children
Guys eye children from the bus.
Yellow fire catches up to Bush School, which crashes into mountain.
Losers and the children walked through the jungle and get on the helicopter.
One of the children has a teddy bear.
Jet fires on helicopter. Crashes. "Cobra One - Kill! Teddy bear on fire."
People lose their identity

p.s., It's The Losers