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navigation May and June shows Five shows in Saint-Étienne and Lyon!! There's also a DIY shirt tutorial at the end.
may shows Marceau joined once again for Respect, and a new track called Krasz. When I sent him the demo, he suggested adding an even heavier part at the end. I listened to him and tried, and it turned out even better, so huge props to him for the idea. It's super fun to headbang to that live.
Second show with Sleepoverz!! We actually met in this bar when they hosted jams, so it was super fun to finally play a gig there together.
We didn't have a sound engineer this time (considering the mess it had been at le Contretemps), so they brought a whole PC and hid it in the corner.
They brought a little fog machine, which was pretty funny considering the scale of the bar (small) but made for cool pictures and vibes.
Overall it was super fun, we played the two songs again with Marceau
Lyon tour If it's more than 2 shows, it's a tour! I don't care!!
A show with Cafard Moisi, supporting a libertarian bookstore in Lyon.
Nobody could fill in for guitar this time, so I had to play Respect with a pre-recorded guitar track. I kind of felt bad, and of course it had less energy since I was alone, but it still worked.
PIC HEREThe very next day, I pulled up at the uni festival, the Fest'U. Even though I literally fulfilled all the conditions for a priority spot, they decided I wouldn't play this year. However, they still had a "freestyle stage" where anyone could play anything for 5-10 minutes.
I pulled up, plugged my stuff in, hanged my backdrop and played three songs: Respect, Basketbaurgh and Krasz. Radically out of place, but a few friends were there and it was fun.
Huge thanks to Penser Saboter for inviting us on this one. I played with them, Cafard Moisi and Max Lampin.
Playing in a squat has the pro that people know what to do when they hear the kind of music I play. They might have been the best crowd I had yet. Moshpits were big PLUS PLUS.
The only con was that the cement room reverberated a lot, and the sound was apparently really loud. The sound system had huge subs though. Cafard Moisi's and Penser Saboter's sets sounded huge, and they absolutely killed it. It's always fun to open for other people because you get to see concerts for free once you're done playing.
The guy sniffing a rail of coke and never touched anything before, him telling me yeahh that's good but nothingI literally had every single technical problem ever. The guitar strap fell during the first song, then I unplugged the pedals' power supply by accident, which in turn made me miss the next intro and have to go and manually pause the backing track offstage... It felt good when I started playing Deadlock and people started dancing again, though. I was genuinely so afraid of bombing and making a bad impression.
Everything went well until Wannabe (6th song), when the guitar's connector got detached and couldn't be put back, which stopped the sound entirely. I had to improvise and finish the remaining half of the song with vocals only. I was lucky because the next song (Quarter) had a bass intro, which gave me JUST ENOUGH time to go grab the extra guitar and plug it in.
Quarter worked well, then midway through the intro of Sardened, I realized that the capo wasn't in my pocket. It was still on the other guitar, and I had no idea where the tech guy put it away. I looked around, found it hidden behind the speakers and quickly put the capo on. From this moment on everything went fine, though I'm pretty sure Marceau also had problems with the cables when he took the guitar.
PIC MAYBE??? OF PENSER SABOTER?I decided to start playing Basketbaurgh again, this time only on vocals while Marceau played the guitar part. I just love the slower section, not gonna lie I practically only like playing the song so that I can mosh to it with people.
Also fun to mention my list of injuries: got hit on the head by another guy's head, fell to the floor and ate dust while singing
A review of the show by Black Roger from Pavillon 666 (in french) is available if you'd like to check it out!!
It had actually been a long time since I wanted to play there, so I was happy. It was organized by Rolliver and I opened for Gates of Bethulia (post blackened metal) and Narval (steampunk death metal).
I played War Dog for the first time there. It's a super long song with at least 6 different sections and 3 solos, so quite different from the others. Considering the other bands, I thought a metal song like this one would fit perfectly.
Notably, there are two tricky sections where I have to sing a complex vocal rhythm over a rhythmically different guitar riff. To get them right, I first practiced the riff and vocals separately until I mastered them individually. Then, I started singing the rhythm of the vocal melody over the riff, trying to figure out where the notes of the two parts matched. I practiced extremely slowly, progressively building up speed as it felt more and more natural. Once I could play both at the same time, I added pitch.
I found that not being able to hear your voice while practicing helps, because you are not "distracted" by its rhythm. Writing it down can help SHOW IMAGE?
more adventures making DIY shirts Back in 2024, I had made a few experimental shirts with bleach. I decided to reiterate and make new ones for the upcoming shows. Here's my setup and process for black shirts:
Required: · 100% cotton black shirts (I used Gildan 5000's) · mylar sheets · cutter · spray bottle (I used an empty window cleaner one) · bleach + water . shirt-sized piece of cardboard . 1-2 towels/dishcloths · latex gloves + mask (for protection) Steps for the stencils: 1. Print out designs on A3 paper. Some companies can do that for cheap, in France I used Corep 2. Tape the designs under the mylar sheets and cut out the shapes, remember to keep the inside holes of letters like O and A and write their up-side down to make it easier to reposition them later 3. Attach more pieces of mylar to the edges of the stencils so that it protects the shirts when you spray bleach on them. Be careful with small openings, bleach can and will run in them Steps for the shirts: 1. Iron the shirts if you can, it makes them flatter without folds 2. Open the windows, prepare your workspace and put protection 3. Prepare a bleach/water solution and put it in the spray bottle 4. Put the piece of cardboard inside the shirt (prevents the bleach from reaching the other side) 5. Put the shirt on a flat surface and align the stencil over it. If you used letters with holes, put the little shapes inside the holes 6. Protect the edges of the shirt if needed 7. Spray bleach over the shirt. Don't soak the holes too much, but make sure to spray enough bleach so that the entire surface is covered 8. Press on the stencil holes with a dishcloth to soak up the excess bleach 9. Remove the stencil and the small shapes (I use a hair remover for these) and put it somewhere to dry. Dry the stencil with another dishcloth so that it's ready for the next shirt 10. Same step for the other side if you want to bleach it too 11. Remove the cardboard and hang the shirt somewhere for a while (you can start preparing the next one) then wash it in cold water and hang it to dry 12. Wash the shirts before giving them away
Ordering in bulk and using discount codes considerably lowers the unit cost of each shirt. Some websites have discounts when ordering above a specific price threshold, and that's worth it if you know that your shirts will sell. I ordered mine in France from Wordans.
Using 100% cotton shirts make the bleached color brighter. Using more bleach in the bleach/water solution also makes it brighter, at the cost of damaging the fabric a little more. I use an eyeballed ratio of 1/10 water/bleach because I like when the design looks intense.
I'm really happy with the way these turned out. I like the bigger back design. Bleached shirts are cool because they're cheap, you can have two designs on each side for the same price and the bright orange color has a unique vibe. Plus, every shirt is unique.
more thoughts I definitely got better at singing the last few songs with Marceau. It's still high intensity, but I feel like I have better breath control and I know how to use my voice so that it doesn't burn out and turn into screaming after one song.
During rehearsal, I started jumping around and doing squats while singing to train for cardio and the real life intensity of moshpitting. I should do even more, like high knees or running. I've heard afterwards that Chappell Roan did that for her tour.
Some time in early May, I went to a hyperpop concert that had one guy singing while another controlled the backing tracks, which had backing vocals. The singer wore a mask, so you couldn't really tell when he was performing or not. It kind of ruined the authenticity for me. I compared that to why I choose not to use guitar overlays in my own backing tracks, and instead try to use synths so that there's no instrument that's pre-recorded AND played live.
I should probably try keeping the laptop closer to me, just in case I have to stop the set. Something that wouldn't be a problem with real musicians by the way.. They could jam while I fix whatever problem instead of going into the next song.
MAYBE THAT IN WASTE SUMMER?? IDKI'm happy because I reached a point where I can go a few days or even weeks without rehearsing, and pick it up at the same level again.
mixing myself, jeffro, wanting to do it on my own so i can learn and also have CONTROL