My friends Andrew and Ryan produced this short little video greeting for the Halloween season. Thought you guys would dig it!
The duo recently screened their short film Piano Story at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis – a high honor for two young guys just breaking into the film industry. I advise you to take 10 minutes, visit the site and watch the full version – the cinematography and the score are both extremely contemplative. It’s a cute story too.
Andrew often posts some short works on his blog. You should bookmark it and visit from time to time. It’s clever stuff!
"Loretta" (one of my American Standards) got some shiny new strings and a healthy dose of recording.
Last year over the holiday break, my friends Ryan and Blake helped me record a song (Ryan is a killer pianist. Blake is one of the few drummers I prefer to jam with). Our goal was to write this 5+ minute epic track. We had this great idea for a bridge and it turned out that a song I was working on over the summer was in the same key. We combined them and I think it really turned out great. When I returned from break and asked Ryan to send me the track, it seemed that we actually lost all the drums. That was deflating – and the song never really sounded complete.
Yesterday, I just sorta got an itch to re-record the song and use some sample drums to fill the voids. I changed a few parts around and eliminated all acoustic guitars from the song as well. I hoisted Ryan’s original piano line from the bridge from the old recording and added it to this newer version. I also changed Loretta’s strings yesterday, so it was a productive day all around!
My friend Justin (Ryan’s brother and the singer in my old band) was working on vocals to this song for a while – maybe that’s something we’ll work on over this holiday break!
Here’s the latest re-recording of a song I call “You’d Prefer a DJ”. Excuse the disjointed drums. Let me know what you think!
I get to knock out two friends with one post here. Andy “Tiste” Batista, who hails from my hometown of Cranberry Twp., PA, is starting to make a name for himself by writing and directing tasteful films with simple stories and a focus on the details of filmmaking. Ryan Stewart is one of Andy’s good friends and, fortunately enough, an incredibly gifted pianist and composer. This year they worked together to produce Piano Story, a short film that’s currently working its way around film festivals. Both of these kids are two of my good friends and I’m extremely proud of them. Have a look:
Daily Riffage 