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COLD WAVES: THE JAMIE DUFFY MEMORIAL CONCERT
Jamie Duffy 1973-2012

Some of Industrial Music’s finest musicans will perform as a collective at Bottom Lounge in Chicago on Friday, Sepetmber 7th, 2012 to celebrate the life of Jamie Duffy, who passed away on June 21st of this year

Having become an integral part of the local Chicago Music scene, Jamie Duffy worked at such notable live concert venues such as the House of Blues, Cubby Bear, Cabaret Metro and more as a stage manager and also sound man. He learned to perfect his craft at Chicago’s infamous Chicago Trax where he provided technical support and engineering on albums by Chicago’s very own Ministry, Sister Machine Gun, Chris Connelly, Sister Soleil, Method Man and more

In addition to being a sound engineer and producer, Jamie was also well known across Industrial Music’s landscape for his contributions as a member of the Coldwave/Metal hybrid band, Acumen Nation and the Drum and Bass project, Dj? Acucrack.

Jamie Duffy’s contribution to the Metal and Industrial genres crosses over from releases on major record labels such as Warner Bros. Records and RCA records, to large independents such as WaxTrax!Records, to the smaller independent labels such as Invisible, Underground Inc, CrackNation records, WTII Records, Fifth Column records and Metropolis records

If unknown by the wider record buying and concert going public, Jamie Duffy was recognised by his musical peers as one of the greatest stage managers and sound men that Chicago has seen, not too mention his technical and production skills on some very influential albums. Jamie is survived by his mother Patricia Duffy

Friday September 7th’s concert starts at 7pm (tickets $20-$50), finishing around 1am with all proceeds going to assist Jamie Duffy’s family with funeral costs. Paying tribute to this great man will be several of Jamie Duffy’s peers and friends with whom he produced, remixed, engineered or just plain influenced. An all star cast including such well known names of the industrial genre includes Paul Barker, Chris Connelly, Jared Louche, Martins Atkins, Steven Seibold, Jim Marcus, Jason Novak, Eric Powell will be performing selections of songs by their bands; Revco, Chemlab, 16volt, Acumen Nation, Damage Manual, Hate Dept., Claypeople, Go Fight/Die Warzau and more , while finishing with an all star jam worthy to pay their respect to this great man.

More information at COLDWAVES.net

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Double Drumming!

Well how about this? Good pal Victor DeLorenzo (do I really have to tell you that he’s the drummer extraordinaire with 1913 and Violent Femmes) has agreed to join Mike Mangione & The Union for BOTH shows tomorrow at the Steel Bridge Song Fest.

“Steel Bridge”, as we vets call it, is a very collaborative event. Many jams occur both on and off stage during the week, songwriting workshops are the norm and even a few MMTU songs were first conceived up there in Sturgeon Bay.

Still, I can’t believe how lucky I feel and how happy I am that I get to share the drum duties with Victor twice in the same day. His wizardry will no doubt leave me mystified and I’m gonna burst out laughing if he pulls out an air drum fill like I’ve seen him do in the past.

Please dear friends, take lots of pics and videos for me because I’m sure it’s going to be a blur.

(and did I ever tell you about the time a 17 year old Nez went to see the Violent Femmes and was awestruck by the tranceaphone? Well, that’s a story for another time…)

FEmmes

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Steel Bridge Song Fest 2012

It’s that time of year and Mike Mangione & The Unions are off again to one of our favorite festival gigs: Steel Bridge!

2012 Steel Bridge flyerThe festival runs from June 7-10 and we’ll be playing the main stage on Saturday June 9 during the day and taking part in the pub crawl event that evening. Musicians take over every venue in Sturgeon Bay (even the bowling alley!) and your festival ticket allows you entry to every location.

(We don’t have our venue info finalized for the evening of June 8 yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we do!)

Steel Bridge 2012 Weekend Passes are On Sale NOW at all TicketStar Locations,
online at TicketStarOnline.com
or over the phone 1-800-895-0071

$25 tickets purchased through Ticket Star will include a digital download of Steel Bridge Songs: Volume 7 (2012 Release)! These will be mailed out to you a a later date.

Ticket allows access to all venues and also allows for priority admission to venues that are nearing capacity – ahead of persons paying the per venue cover charge.
Certain venues may require passes for entrance.

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Two years!

I just hit my second anniversary using wordpress and I figured it was time to do a little redesign. I’m using a new template and I’ll probably be changing up some of the images in the next few days. Feel free to let me know what you think about the new look.

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New Year, new gear, new music, new shows – YES!

2012 is here and I’m already behind but I wanted to jot down a quick note about what’s coming up this year –

New gear – as usual I’ve acquired a few new cymbals over the past year thanks to my pal Bob Rupp  at Sabian and I’ll be working those into the live rotation this year.  Some HHX, AAX, OMNI and prototypes that are all pretty cool.

Music! The new Mike Mangione release rounded out nicely in mixing at the end of last year and went off to be mastered in December. We haven’t decided on a release date yet but new songs are creeping into the live set and people seem to really like them.  Also, working on both the new Sulek and Justin  Heron releases (even playing some bass!) and those should come out some time this year.

Shows – lots of upcoming shows with Mike Mangione and The Union as well as some shows here and there with my pals in Sulek and Justin Heron.

MMTU dates can be found here: http://mikemangione.com/tour and I’ll try to keep updates on the others as they arise.

Speaking of new and live – here’s Mike Mangione & The Union live on WGN America (and local Chicago channel 9) previewing a song called Burn in My Belly.  Enjoy!

Mike Mangione and The Union in the WGN TV Midday Music Lounge

 

 

 

 

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Mixing….

Thanks to the great Bo Ramsey, our new “record” was recorded in 3.5 days.  We got lots of great takes, I think, and very little if any overdubs at all were tracked and I really think this new release captured what it’s like to see Mike Mangione & The Union live.

Two mixing session have gone by now, one in September and one in October and I think we’ll have a finished to share soon!

 

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Day 3 recap

We took a listen to the 8 (yes 8!) tracks that we had recorded, we averaged about 3 takes a song and then picked the best performance, and then had time to record a non album track, spot check some details and then the rhythm section was done.

Mike had two more songs to do, no drums no bass but strings on one. And on the other Bo decided to lay down some slide work on acoustic that was just too cool. That man is an amazing guitar player as well as producer. We’re so lucky to be working with him.

We had a late night listening session and then I got about 4 hours of sleep before heading back home.

Incidentally, if you have a long, flat, Midwestern drive to do, put on some early Genesis like “Selling England By The Pound.” It will make even the most boring drive seem epic. Haha

(Kitwise, I stuck with the last drum and cymbal setup for the “bonus track”. Why mess with a good thing?)

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Day 2 recap

More cymbal and drum combos – on Friday I used that same kit for all songs:

22 and 16 Taye StudioBirch
12 Spaun wood hoop tom
And then either the Spaun wood hoop snare or the Black Beauty

For cymbal I flipped the mixed hats with the SABIAN HHX groove top and the Mastersound bottom
20 HH French hasn’t left the set up once (love that cymbal! Thanks Jackie and Kevin Laskey at SABIAN for picking me a winner!)
Kept the Ciccerelli up all day too and then rotated between two of the following based on the songs:
18″ HHX Stage, 18″ HH Thin, 18″ AAX Ozone

Progress? Made it through the bulk of 8 tracks and might do a few quick retakes. Our producer Bo Ramsey likes to keep us moving quickly and we’ve have some great takes to show for it!

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Cymbal fever!

Tracked multiple takes of four songs yesterday and they may all be keepers!

So far I’ve used the following sets:

14″ HHX groove hats
20″ HH French (Crash/Ride)
21″ Hammer with 3 rivets (Bosphorus)
18″ AAX Ozone
18″ HHX Stage Crash

Or

14″ Mastersound hats
20″ HH French (Crash/Ride)
21″ signature Andre Ceccerelli ride
13″ AA Thin Crash
17″ Vault Crash

I also did a little Mastersound top (nice and thin) with the groove hat bottom (a little heavier) which worked really well.

Snare wise I’ve used the Ludwig twins (supra and black beauty) and also the Spaun 5.5 x 14 wood hoops with the snares off.

Drums have all been my Taye kit, rack and 14″ tuned up tight and the 16 and 22 tuned low and fat.

Can’t wait to get over there today for more tracking, these sessions are off to a great start!

(ooh and just got back to the studio and realized that I used this set up last:

14″ Mastersound top Groove bottom
20″ HH French (Crash/Ride)
21″ signature Andre Ceccerelli ride
18″ HHX Stage crash
17″ Vault Crash )

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Recording Time!

In the studio in Iowa City this week with the legendary Bo Ramsey (look him up he’s got Grammys all up in his jammies). Brought a whole mess of drums including the following:
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Taye StudioBirch 12, 14, 16, 22 (Autumn Red)
Ludwig 6.5 x 14 Black Beauty, 5 x 14 Supra with a SuperHoop
DW 4.75 x 14 Maple (Red Sparkle)
Gretsch 6.5 x 14 New Classic (Vintage Sparkle)
WFL 24 x 14 vintage Duco kick
Spaun 12 rack tom and 5.5 x 14 snare (birch with wooden hoops)

And a ton of cymbals that I’ll post soon!