Ground To Zero

Freedom and music

So I thought I’d take a few moments to share what I’ve been doing outside of Ground To Zero. Welcome to part three.

I got to talking with guitarist Adam Kurzel last year. Both of us were badly depleted of motivation since the demise of Nitidus and its short-lived successor Shotgun Zero. However, Adam had written a bunch of songs that never quite suited either band. We jammed on some of the songs and liked what we were hearing, so we recorded a few rough demos, nabbed ourselves a bass player in one Ben Howling (from Immersion) and settled on the band name Romeo Knights.

As of this writing, most of the songs are already good to go. We plan to write a few more, then lay down the best tracks in a home studio so you can hear our new sounds before we take it to a stage near you.

For now, here’s one we prepared earlier. This is a track Adam and Marki recorded during the Shotgun Zero days that has found a home in the Romeo Knights set list.

If you would like to keep up to date on the band’s progress, head over to www.romeoknights.com and subscribe to the feed.

Don’t let all the internet politics and piracy debates fool you, the Ground To Zero project is all about making music and sharing it freely!  The music-making machine fired up again last Saturday (thanks again Jake and Gazz), however you may have noticed that I’ve totally slacked off in the music sharing department.  That ends here dammit!

Unfortunately we don’t have any studio tracks for you, but we do have a metric shit-tonne of raw video footage taken from our 2009 jam sessions. “Shit-tonne” is of course the technical term for a hard disk full of video files, which I’ve been trawling through like a pig digging for truffles.  Before you get too excited, let me first point out that these videos were never meant to be high quality productions.  What we have is a demo reel of musical experimentation, and some of those experiments failed spectacularly.  Others sucked considerably less (to my ears anyway), so I’m going to release those ones to the world.  Why?  Because that’s how we roll bee-atch (cue the gansta beatz).

My god that was a lot of preamble.

If you’re keen to hear some raw new music, check out this demo track I cobbled together from our second jam session on 28^th March 2009.  It features Jase on bass, Jake on guitar and both Gazz and myself on the duelling drum kits.  Roll it…

So now that we’re all sharing, it’s time for you to share your comments.  You can even share the video itself if you want, it’s free under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.  Have fun!

Welcome back to the Ground To Zero project. It’s been a while since last update and much has happened, so here’s a quick primer for those out of the loop:

• Jam #3, #4 and #5 happened, and they were good!
• Jam #5 was extra special because it was our first laid-back-unplugged-family-fun-day-BBQ jam session, just in time before Melbourne’s weather became penguin paradise.
• Many more awesome songs were conceived thanks to my talent …ed collaborators.
• I have a (digital) stack of photos, videos and demo recordings to sort through and edit. I’d like to get them online for you soon, but that all depends on my productivity.
• Speaking of productivity, I have been working on another project of mine these past few months: the rebirth of Nitidus under the new name “Shotgun Zero” (yes I realise the similarity, but it’s the only name that the three of us could agree on, and I’d much rather play gigs than argue band names).
• Shotgun Zero had their first gig at Musicland last week in support of Spark Iris (fronted by Ground To Zero regular Jake James). If you missed it, check out the Shotgun Zero website for full coverage.
• Oh, and between all that I’ve been working long hours at my day job so I can keep this project afloat and the internet bills paid.  You’re welcome.

Enough of the retrospective, now let’s look towards an even brighter future:

• From today, we’re trying on a new website design by AskGraphics.  I think it’s an improvement over the last one, but if you think you can do a better WordPress theme, drop us a comment below.  Ground To Zero is all about supporting creativity so we’d love to get you guys involved in any way we can.
• Jam #6 happens real soon, which means another load of photos, video and demo tracks for me to sort through, yipee.

Later down the road we will take our ideas, form them into completed tracks and record them so you can have something to put on your iPod, won’t that be fun.  More on that another day, but for now it’s back to day job.  Make sure you’re subscribed so I don’t have to keep throwing rocks at your window to get your attention.

Now we’re starting to get into the swing of things after another fun Saturday of jamming.  Extra fun for me because I got to try out my new digi-kit at full volume.  For all you drum nerds, I’m talkin’ about the Yamaha DTXtreme III Special.  I’m not sponsored by Yamaha (wish I was), but the kit is pure magic!  So much that I could hardly get Gazz off the thing, which brings me to my clever segue to introducing the line up for ‘open jam’ number 2:

• Jase on bass.  My brother joined us for the first time, but you can catch him on stage with his band Dusted Orange on Easter Saturday at Ruby’s Lounge.
• Jake on guitar.  The man whose riffs evolved into our first song returned for more mayhem.  He is currently working hard on an album with his band Spark Iris (formerly Against The Grain).
• Gazz on acoustic drums.  This time, the mean machine of the metal marching beat brought out his monstrosity of a Tama kit (that thing is HUGE!) and laid down some rocking grooves.  You can catch Gazz on stage with Crimson Face and check their Myspace for some freshly recorded tracks.
• Me on the digi drums.  While I’m plugging, I might as well mention that you should definitely see Dusted Orange next Saturday because my other band (currently known as Nitidus) will also be on stage rocking out.

Once our equipment was set up, we launched into a 4 hour non-stop rock soundscape.  The special effects and percussion made possible by the digi-kit blended brilliantly with the acoustic drums, which Gazz and I alternated a few times.  Jase brought his own uniquely progressive stylings to the mix as I’d hoped he would, which fit right in with Jake’s mammoth riffs (the dude seems to have an endless supply).  Some interesting ideas emerged during the session, plus a very interesting reimagining of the Terminator theme.  Video footage was taken, however due to technical difficulties I’m yet to tell if there’s anything worth showing.  The issues involve Sony hardware and Apple’s iMovie, so if you’re an expert in either, it would be awesome to hear from you.

Photos on the other hand…

Thanks Jase, Jake and Gazz for sharing your skills.  Another fantastic jam session down, bring on the next one.

I mentioned in my previous post that, during our first ‘open jam’ session the other week, we actually wrote an awesome song.  Such a tease I am to tell you about our awesome new song without letting you hear it for yourself.  Such a horrible tease I am, all talk and no substance …that’s what she said!

Well thanks to Suzy and Gazz for having the forethought to bring a digital camera along to the rehearsal room, we now have raw video evidence of our first musical collaboration!

This video comes with a little disclaimer though: the featured song is still a work-in-progress and the video itself is not exactly ‘broadcast quality’.  Fortunately the video quality is just fine for YouTube, so check it out!

For a small digital camera, I was actually surprised at the results.  No fancy studio equipment was used (I hadn’t planned on recording anything that day!), but the song is quite audible and the image is not too bad either.  Ain’t technology grand?  Maybe Suzy will let us use her camera again next time (hint hint).

The song itself was only about 4 hours old when we recorded it, so it still needs some more work… and a title.  We’ll keep you posted of any developments in the song’s evolution, as well as any other songs that may emerge.

For now, let me leave you with a few of Suzy’s happy snaps from the rehearsal studio.

Update: seems that folks are liking the video!  The Ground To Zero YouTube channel has reached #52 – Most Viewed (Today) – Musicians – Australia.  Nice!  Remember, if you like the video, you’re free to share it around, so post it on your Myspace, share it with a friend on Facebook, whatever, it’s free*!

*Free for non commercial use only, and Ground To Zero should always be credited for the content (as well as any derivatives, remixes, etc), because that’s just polite dammit!  Check out the details on the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licence.

Last Saturday was the first (of hopefully many) ‘open jam’ sessions.  Seven friends, all musicians from different bands, came together for the first time to play some tunes and see what happens.  The results were… unexpectedly amazingly!

This has been a long time coming.  I’ve been toying with this idea for almost a year now, in fact that’s kinda how this website began.  I can’t believe it’s been almost a year already, wish I’d listened to this guy back then (caution, probably NSFW):

No matter, I’m just glad to get the ball rolling.  Part of my idea was along these lines: “what if a group of musicians got together, not necessarily as a band, but as a kind of ‘fraternity’ of musicians to create something fresh and completely different to what we may have done in our regular bands”.  Not quite an original concept on its own I admit, but for me it’s part of a broader plan that I’ll talk about in later posts.  The point is, I just thought this would be heaps of fun.  When you’re in a band that plays all the local venues, you naturally get to know a lot of folks from other bands.  I’ve sometimes wondered what it must be like to play in a band with these people, or better yet, what if we rolled them up in to one band?  In a way, this is almost a throw back to the sixties, kinda like my very own hippie jam with Melbourne’s unsigned finest!

So about two weeks ago I sent out Facebook invitations to victims participants and booked the venue for our cacophony of sound… and since then it’s been a lot of emotions rolled into one.  Excitement that this is actually going to happen, but also anxious about how the hell I was going to pull this off.  Five guitarists and four drummers in one room would seem like a recipe for certain disaster, right?

The day finally came, and all my fears were set aside.  The event actually went REALLY well, I even Twittered straight afterwards something about it being a “great success” (I had a Borat moment).  Only four guitarists, two drummers (including myself) and one singer were able to make it on the day, so it was somewhat more manageable than I feared.  Most of the participants already knew each other, some met for the first time, but all seemed to mix really well together when the amps started wailing (not quite the cacophony I feared). The players for the day included:

• myself (of course) and Gaz (of Crimson Face) on drums and percussion
• Frankie (solo artist and from Lustre), Ash (from Back Nine and Nitidus), Jake (from Spark Iris) and my good friend Catherine on guitars
• The inimitable Suzy (from Exile and Lustre) rockin’ the mic
• And finally on bass we had the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man… ok, we didn’t actually get any bass players showing up for this session, but we did have a pretty massive wall of guitars, so ya gotta be happy with that!

As host, I tried to keep things as casual and fun as possible, I even brought beer (the traditional social lubricant also works as music inspiration). We jammed on a few covers to warm up, but it wasn’t long before we wrote our first song.  Yes, we actually wrote a freakin’ song! And if memory serves, it wasn’t too bad either!  Pretty good for a group of musos jamming together for the first time.  The only real hitch in the whole event was the realisation that I lost my drum stick bag at the last Nitidus gig, and thus when Gaz broke my last pair of sticks, I had to make a quick drive home to find spares.  In this case it was a blessing to have two drummers because the jamming was able continue in my absence (thanks also to some quick gaffer tape repairs by Suzy).

Big props to all who joined me for six hours of musical madness, and a special shout out to those who couldn’t make it.  I had a blast, and there was definitely a great vibe amongst everyone there, so I’m pretty confident there’ll be an ‘open jam’ number two in the near future.  Can’t wait!