Babes in Tuneland

Hello, Everyone!

The Dalloways have been majorly biz turning out babies and new tunes. Seriously. With Ricky's daughter, Aaron's daughter, and our twin boys (soon to arrive this May) we're working on putting the junior varsity band line-up together.

We currently have eight new songs almost done as well as a bad-ass remix. We're hopeful for a new full album release, Distant Fairs, sometime this summer. Or maybe fall. Ok, at least by the end of 2009.

Ciao for now!
xo

Dalloways Talk Shop on ABC

The Dalloways talk about Distant Fairs with local celeb news and entertainment journalist N.L. Belardes of ABC 23 after a recent show at The Dome in Bakersfield.

Watch the interview on Youtube posted below, and read a new live review on Buzz Bands.

Dark Disco and September 29

Working steadily on the mixes. Up on the block now is "Didn't Have the Time," a dark disco tune with some very cool vampiresque backing vocals. It's shaping up as one of the dance tunes along with "Dirty Money." Shooting now for a November release of the EP.

Working with our friends at Hectic Films on a video for the single, "Dirty Money." I'll keep the details under wraps for now until productions begins.

September 29 in Bakersfield is our next show for the public in Bakersfield, with Near Miss Mallet and Highway Jones.

Distant Fairs Sound Bites Posted

The Dalloways have polished up yet another tune called "I Love You Regardless." This along with "Me and Thomas Hardy" and "Dirty Money" are now posted as sound bites on The Dalloways Myspace, so take a listen!

The band is actively seeking a label partner to team up with for the next big Distant Fairs EP/LP combo project, so if you'd like to hear the rest of these tracks in addition to other tunes from the project, simply email your request to the band through The Dalloways Online.

Polishing Trona

Wednesday, April 25, Aaron and I worked on the "Trona" mix. This is the toughest mix of the album, it seems, but it's most likely going to be a demo track, so we wanted to attack it first. We've got a ton of tracks to deal with, so basically this session, we picked and chose which tracks to keep, which to dump, and which to quiet. We also worked some delay and Moog effects into a few of the tracks. What I like in particular are Cortnie's backing vocals and the flugalhorn and trombone tracks -- great strengths of this song. Cortnie showed up toward the tail end of the session and offered some feedback, some yea's and nay's.

60's British Gameshows and Spaghetti Westerns

Monday, Marcy 26, and Wednesday, March 28, we managed to get into the studio and finish up all the horn parts for the new album. Trombone player Adan Infante of 40 Watt and many other bands and trumpet and flugalhorn player Thomas Lake came in and tracked my parts for "Trona," "Me and Thomas Hardy," and "Josaie."

"Josaie" is standing out as the dark horse of the lot. The trumpet part is reminiscent of a sixties spaghetti western soundtrack. The song's about three minutes long - perfect for a single - and pretty catchy if we don't say so.

The other two tracks' horn parts are lending a '60s British gameshow feel to the tunes - wonderful and rich sounding. I can almost see the BBC/Thames television broadcasting logo in my mind when I close my eyes.

Ricky also tracked some great arpeggiated and strummed electric guitar tracks for "JoSaie" - a tinge of Johnny Marr in a fabulous way.

Days of Synth

Busy day: Cortnie, AWall and I descended on the demo tunes . We shifted a few around, and some dark horses have now come to the forefront. When this happens, you've got to give them room to sprint.

We started off with "Dirty Money and Filthy Love," a song I'd scratched from the demo list because I felt it was a bit unlike some of the other tunes. But it's got too much of the "single" about it to ignore it. We developed some beautiful and outrageous synth sounds today. All three of us laid down tracks on several different boards, including one fabulous old Crumar synthesizer Aaron discovered for a few bucks at a yard sale of all places. It's so Flaming Lips it's ridiculous.

The other two songs we're considering are waiting for next week's horn sections - otherwise, they're pretty much done. So we moved on to another dark horse, the surprisingly poppy and strangely named "JoSaie." Some synth Tron strings and cellos, and suddenly this spaghetti Western style tune dripped with loveliness.

After the session, Cortnie and I relaxed for a bit at Teazers, our fave Fresno tea house, and worked on polishing up our new bio.

More more more about the Distant Fairs recordings to come. Stay tuned. Until then, enjoy they slide show of today's action.

Three Songs Shaping Up

March 16, 2007 - Royal Dutch Company in Fresno - The Dalloways are honing in on the three out of fifteen songs to be used as demos, developing developing developing through creative tracks.

On Friday, we tracked lots of keys - Hammond and Wurlitzer sounds, among others - in addition to percussion such as cymbal swells, snapping and clapping, triangle, and more.

Right now, we're considering "Me and Thomas Hardy," "Trona," and the dark horse, "Let's Climb the Staircase," which needs the most work of the three. Hopefully we can shape it up and transform it into something really unique and catchy - the key to the demo tunes.

After these three are shaped up and out to the labels, we'll be continuing to develop the rest of the fifteen songs for release. We're planning on a stateside tour in addition to a European tour, complete with radio and press promotional pushes, so we're hoping we can find the right visionary label that wants to join a full-speed ahead project.

More recording soon.

Trona Keys and Triangles

Wednesday, February 28 - Fresno - Royal Dutch Company - Aaron and I got together last Wednesday for some recording time.

We're honing in on three songs we will be using for the demo of the new album, so I brought a slew of keyboards into the studio, and we worked on keys and percussion - triangle and some great sounding Mexican maracas some friends of ours brought back across the border awhile back.

We pretty much finished most of the tracking for "Trona." All we have left for that song are horn tracks.

We'll put together polished versions of the three songs we've chosen and then send demo packs out to some major indies. That's the plan, in any case. Should be able to start sending in a few weeks at this rate.

Distant Fairs Station to Station

Wednesday, February 14 - Fresno - Royal Dutch Company Studios - This was Ricky's day. After some frustrating time spent working out hard drive issues, we finally got down to tracking some tunes. Ricky's Strat's frets definitely need some work - one in particular is making a string buzz lke a sitar - so he played my Riviera with the Seymour Duncan humbuckers in it through the Fender Twin.

"Station Girl" - This one's in 5/4 and has a pleasant lead part I wanted Ricky to play. Nailed it. It's got a bit of a low end twang to it. Beautiful.

"Kenny Filthy (The Distant Fairs)" - Tracked some pretty sliding swells on this song. Then we went on to record some trippy harpsichord to inlay into the end of the song for a dreamy fair-like atmosphere. This will be an epic tune - the epic tune of the album.

After recording, I took the Riviera to Backline in order to fix a sunken pickup I'd damaged in a previous feedback session of guitar abuse. All fixed and leveled and ready for another session.

This recording is developing!

As always, more to come.