They grow up so fast...

(Originally posted Oct 2nd, 2005)

We've been so busy over the last few weeks, some of our future projects that we mentioned in the last entry became completed ones. Which is almost too bad, as they've been a lot of fun to work on.

Sci Fry

First of all, we managed to finish all of the music for the Sci-Fry show. The final tally was about 10 songs, which needed a fair amount of post-production work to get them the right lengths for the scene changes and such. Two of the songs can be heard by reading the current news story at our website. The show debuted last night, and went quite well. It's sometimes odd to hear something that you wrote and recorded used as part of another performance. We definitely recommend seeing the show if you are from Chicago. It's really a lot of fun!

TV Pilot

Two weekends ago, we went to the studio and wrote the TV Pilot theme song that we mentioned in the last entry. Three BT band members took part, and it was just a great night all around. We were asked to write a 60's-style theme song, with a feel similar to Hawaii-50, The Mod Squad, and Peter Gunn. Now, when you start with an idea like that, the danger is that you use pieces of those other themes. Luckily, we managed to write something original that captured the feel just right. It centers around a guitar lick, with horn hits all over the song. After that first night, we've added drums, horns, and a bunch of other parts. The early demo got the thumbs up from the producers of the show, so it looks like we hit the mark. Certainly, the song stayed in our heads after the first session, which is always a good sign.

Comedy DVD

And finally, next weekend, one of the first parts of that comedy DVD project that we mentioned is being debuted in a private showing. While we didn't do any music for that one, we helped create the sketch, and film the piece. We also did all of the sound, which had some special voiceover work. We'll be doing music for that in the future, as it gets put together with the other sketches.

Other items

The next few weeks sees the band upgrading our studio to use more computers to prepare for the next album recording projects. We have had good luck so far using mostly an HD24 with a Ramsa DA7 mixing board, but the technology has moved firmly into computers since we've worked with that technology. Believe us, we've gotten good milage out of that equipment! Many years of recordings are on it. We're going to be keeping the HD24 and DA7 for recording, but all mixdown and post effects will be done in a computer going forward. We've certainly have a lot of work ahead of us, but our limited set of solid-state effects processors will now be dwarfed by the capabilities that the filters that we've going to have very soon.

And, with all of that, we've have one more project in the works that will be released in a week or so that we have to keep to ourselves until the release. As you can tell, we've been busy! Coming soon: We'll write a new entry here soon about the ABC deal. We promise! There was just so much that happened in the last few weeks that we had to write an article to catch up.

Projects, Prospects and Plans

(Originally posted Sept 15, 2005)

Since we are taking you backstage, it's only fair to share with you our current plans and projects. We promise to track them as they succeed, or fail. The film American Movie seemed to get a lot of mileage out of doing something like this for a movie project. We'll do the same thing for the band projects.

These are all things that we will be working on within the next two years. And in some cases, we expect that the "payoff" won't even happen for quite some time on these. As an indie band, you can't always do things because it gives you a direct benefit. You have to enjoy what you're doing, at the time, for the sake of doing it and with no expectation of reward except working on the project. That said, we're very excited about working on these projects!

Songwriting projects

Theme Songs, and All Backing music for a Comedy DVD

Beatnik Turtle worked with a sketch comedy group two years ago, and played behind them as a Saturday Night Live-syle backing band at Second City. Besides playing transition music, we were also integrated into a couple of musical sketches, so we were half pit orchestra, and also half rock band that played one of their own songs in the middle of the show, like SNL guest bands. It was a total success and a ton of fun. One of the best things that we got out of it was the connections to theatrical folks. A few members of the band ended up becoming writers and producers of a Comedy DVD that is currently in progress. This has already begun filming production, and Beatnik Turtle will be doing all of the music for this project, including incidental music, theme songs for the DVD, and any other music for the project. This will probably not come out for two years or so, but the songwriting and music is ongoing.

Recorded Music for a Second City Sketch Comedy Production: Sci-Fry

The same Second City folks that we worked with for the sketch show, and the Comedy DVD had a few members that started a sketch comedy project called Sci-Fry, which is touted as "a dark comic roast of the fantasy and science fiction genres." They commissioned Beatnik Turtle to do all of the music for the project. We met with them about three weeks ago, and they brought the script, and told us the music that they wanted for lead-ins to each sketch. Then, the some of the producers/writers walked with us to the studio and we wrote 7 songs for them that night, ending at about 1 AM. The songs came out quite good, including a jazz number, a cartoon theme song, a madrigal-style piece similar to what you'd hear at a Ren Faire (done badly, intentionally), and a 50's style song ("You're My Everything...and more"). We're going to have to re-record some of it for the final version because some need to be longer based on their production, but we knocked out most of their music in a night. The show comes out in October, and the script is hilarious! We actually can't wait to go to it in the audience to see it done. (We're not part of the cast, so we don't see the rehearsals. We just provided recorded works for it to be cued by the sound guy.)

Theme and Incidental Music for a TV Pilot

Another group of the Second City folks, and some from the Comedy DVD project, made a side-project and created a pilot for a fantastic TV show idea. The idea is a very salable one, in particular one that sponsors should love. Because Beatnik Turtle was associated with the Comedy DVD project, and other productions here, they commissioned us to write the pilot and all incidental music. We're going to be working on writing possible themes for this on Friday night, Saturday recording, and Sunday recording with the full band. Out of all of the projects, this one has the chance to go the farthest, because if this show gets picked up by a network, it will do a lot to get our name out there! We'll tell you how the songwriting sessions go, and how the theme songs come out in the next few weeks, as we write and record it.

Theme Song for a TV Talk Show

A friend of a band member has a TV Talk Show on cable access television, similar to the Tonight Show, or David Letterman. It's been getting articles written about it, and the producers are planning to submit it to larger networks for distribution. What it lacks is a theme song, and Beatnik Turtle has been asked to write it. We hope to work on it a little this weekend, in between working on the TV Pilot project, and have some ideas to present to them by the end of the month.

Album Projects

Beatnik Turtle Live Album

In May, Beatnik Turtle recorded a live album of about 20 songs. We've been putting some studio polish on the recording, and are about to move into mixdown within a month. The songs include a whole bunch that are not on any studio album yet, but recording a live album was the best way that we could get this music out there quickly. We tend to write a lot of music! We also didn't have good live recordings of the band, so it was great for us to have it as a memento for the band itself.

We don't know when we're releasing the album yet, as there's a lot of work to do even after we're done with recording and mixdown. We're getting the songwriting projects listed above done first before going forward with this album. We foresee at least two months of work on this before it's ready for release.

Beatnik Turtle Studio Album: BT2

Beatnik Turtle has released three albums so far, and the Live Album listed above will make a fourth album. But our planned second album, which now looks to be our 5th, is still in the wings, calling out to be recorded.

Our debut album release party, in 2001, was a success. One of the features of the release party was the introduction of five new songs that weren't even on the first album! We've played at least four of those songs regularly in shows in the last four years. Those songs, and others that we've written in the intervening time, deserve to be on a studio album. The reason why they're not is…well, let's take you backstage again, and give you some history.

In the early part of 2002, the band went through some band member changes. The drummer for BT at the time got married, and also had a child. His time became quite limited, very quickly, and caused the band to scale back playing live, and even curtailed our ability to record in the studio. What came out of that time was Santa Doesn't Like You, a studio album that made fun of the holidays. It included the title track, Coed Naked Drunk Xmas Shopping, Goin' Through the Motions This Christmas and many others. The album was a success, it made it onto the Dr. Demento show, and also started a Beatnik Turtle tradition of performing an Un-Holiday show. But the album had a drum machine rather than a drummer (except for one song, which was partly performed by other folks).

The album after Santa Doesn't Like You was The Cheapass Album: Songs About or Inspired by Cheapass Games. The short version of this story is that we wrote a song that was published on a popular game company's website, and generated a ton of interest. We wrote an entire album of songs about their tongue-in-cheek games, and got a lot of mileage out of the album, including, eventually, a licensing deal with Disney for an advertising campaign. The point about this album is that we were riding a wave of interest in our band, on the web, and had to record that album before doing our actual second album.

So, finally, we're in a position to record our second album, and we take some solace in the fact that we've recorded some of the songs intended for this album, some of which have been around since 2001, on the Live Album to give them a home. For those that liked our music, the only way that they could get those songs would be to go to a show.

We're looking forward to recording these songs in the studio, and releasing our second album. Even if it is coming out as our fifth!

Other album ideas

We've got ideas for many more albums after these. Among them:

• An Irish Album, where the band will take traditional irish songs and make them rock out. Hopefully getting Beatnik Turtle into Irish Festivals.


• A Kids album, where we have almost half written already, and just need a few more songs, and some studio time.


• Songs to Offend, Volume one, an album of music that…probably shouldn't be released, but we might have to anyway.

...and there's more, but we want to keep some things under wraps.

Holding Back

Ok, we can't tell you everything that we're planning, because there are a few that are going to be somewhat secret until we have it solidified. We promise to talk about them, behind the scenes, either after or slightly before they are released. There are a few band announcements coming out within a month or so, and we'll announce it here, but then quickly take you behind the scenes to see how we did it, and what our thinking was. Then we'll track it over time and tell you how it goes.

Coming Soon

We hope you enjoyed being backstage for the future plans of an independent band. Coming soon, we'll also talk about the Disney advertising licensing deal, including how we got it, and how it was put together. We will have an entry on one independent band's website, and how it was built (There's a LOT more to it than you might think). And finally, there will be some announcements soon about the release of a major Beatnik Turtle project that has been in the works for almost two years. And most importantly, as promised, we will take you backstage to see the how and why.

Welcome Backstage!

(Originally Posted Aug 31st, 2005)

Welcome to the Beatnik Turtle blog, the journal of an unusual independent rock band. The purpose for this blog is to let you behind the scenes of an active rock band, and to share thoughts and ideas regarding a number of topics that are important to indie bands. As for this first post, we'd like to introduce ourselves.

Beatnik Turtle is a 9 to 12 piece rock band based in the Chicago metro area. We have been active since 1998, and have played over 50 shows in that time. The musicians that make up the band are mostly professionals of different sorts, including graphic artists, Information Technology folks, corporate lawyers, and even a Chicago cop. We can't give you an exact count of how many people are in the group because Beatnik Turtle has a philosophy of having a community of musicians that contribute in varying degrees of time and efforts, and drop in and out of our community. We're a very active studio band, so some of the members spend more time recording than playing live, but as a band, we definitely do both. Our last show was just last Saturday, at a dedication ceremony for a building on IIT's campus where we played an outdoor tent show for 75 minutes. Our last studio recording session was just a few weeks before that.

We currently have three released albums, which you can hear and read about here, and we actually have at least three albums on the way in the next year. More on the upcoming albums in a future post.

If you'd like to know more about us, want to hear our music, and especially if you want to amuse yourself for a while, feel free to check out our website. We're going to talk about the website in some posts in the near future, and our theory behind how we put it together, what works and what doesn't, and also share how we did it in case you are in an independent band and want to know.

We sound like an eclectic mix of They Might Be Giants, Cracker, Cake, Bare Naked Ladies, and The Saw Doctors. We play pop rock with horns, and a sense of humor. But a big focus of the band is our horn section, which sets us apart. A lot of people are tempted to call us a Ska band, just because we have a horn section, but we make sure that they are sorry about it afterwards. (Don't get us wrong, we love Ska! We're just not a Ska band.)

Some of our other notable achievements in our history to this date include licensing a song to Disney for an ad campaign, teaming up with a comedy troupe for a series of shows at Second City, and being played on the Dr. Demento Show.

And, finally, Beatnik Turtle is a fully independent band, not signed to any label or agent.

In upcoming entries, we'll be talking about future plans. We'll also be talking about the Guide for Independent bands, which is an over-70 page work that shares what we've learned to other independent bands. We will also have an entry about how we got the Disney advertising deal.

Welcome to the backstage of an independent band!