News

Let the Acoustic Shows Begin!

04.24.12

That's right, you read it here first! Well, maybe you saw it on Facebook or Reverb Nation first, but this news entry is only available RIGHT HERE!

Anywho, it is time to bring this thing to the stage! Since there haven't been too many bites on my search for band mates, I figured it's time to start playing acoustic gigs again, and hopefully network with some like-minded folk who love music as much as I do. I'll be playing a few tunes from the upcoming Band Quest Demo, maybe one or two from The Archives: 1–10, and a plethora of brand schpankin' new '90s covers!

Jefe… What is a plethora?

So check out the calendar page for more details! Of course, it's only one show for now, but rest assured: I'm definitely going to be booking more! If you have a suggestion for a place for me to play, or you want to put in a request for an acoustic cover you want to hear, use the contact form and let me know!

Somewhere in Dreamworld and The Band Quest Begins

04.13.12

Yesterday morning, I uploaded "Somewhere in Dreamworld" a bit prematurely, but I'm going to move forward anyway. Most of you know that I struggle with mixing, due to my obsessive compulsive tendencies—I mix the same song over and over for hours and days until my ears get fatigued and the song turns out muddy. Instead of pouring more time into the one song, I'm going to move on to the next one, dammit! Why? Because this is a demo, that's why! The album version will be professionally mixed, I promise!

In other news: I've decided to start searching for musicians! Now that I have at least 1 song uploaded that isn't from The Archives, I am ready to start searching while I finish The Band Quest Demo. Isn't that exciting!? So far, I have only posted to Craigslist, but as I near the completion of The Band Quest Demo, I will branch out into other media.

Lastly, I'm putting together a list of songs I can play in an acoustic set—both originals and covers. My goal was to start booking gigs by April, and the month is upon us! Since I don't have a band yet, I will start playing acoustic shows until I have one! As always, I'll keep you posted when that happens!

Introducing: THE DREAMBOOK PAGE!

04.02.12

Okay, so I realize I mentioned it in the last post, but I just wanted to OFFICIALLY announce that it is up and running! It is fully functional, dammit!, so go use it! I want to hear about your dreams, and I'm sure everyone else would love to read them as well!

Also, try clicking around a bit! The site is up and running! Although I'm still missing the about sub-pages (band and gear), and the song lyrics/album info isn't yet up, the site is pretty much done! How about that! I think this is my most professional looking site yet!

New Web Layout!

03.31.12

Woah! What a big change, huh? To go from that ugly, black, beginner's site to this, beautiful looking quest map!? Hells yeah!

As usual, I'm not done with the whole thing. As a matter of fact, all of the content that USED to be available, isn't anymore. BUT IT WILL BE SOON! I PROMISE! I've got the layout all set, so all I have to do is fill in the rest of the stuff, and hopefully that won't take too long. I've also decided to clean up some of the useless crap and make sure you only have what you need to know (who cares about my previous bands anyway? Sheesh!).

Also, if you'll take a look up at the navigation bar, you'll notice a NEW page called "dreambook". Are you excited, or what!? What do you think it's going to be? Only time will tell!

Band Quest Announcement!

02.28.12

Whelp, it's been almost 2 months … WHERE IS THE BAND QUEST DEMO!?

There has been a change in plans, which means I have to delay its release a little while longer. Sorry! Let me explain:

The concept behind The Band Quest Demo is that it will help me find band mates to join me on stage—hopefully by summer. In order to fully prove myself (see what I did there?), I want to show them that I can actually do all of the things I'm asking them to do, so I've decided that I will be filming the demo as I record it at the same time. I'll play each instrument separately for each song, live (in my basement), and compile all the parts together like I did with my split-screen cover of "Fuel".

Because I have some borrowed mics and stuff, I'll be able to get a much better recording of these live takes, so the demo will be available both as an audio download and a YouTube video playlist! How cool is that? Heck, I might even upload the individual parts so you can learn the songs for yourself. Eh? Sound cool?

Lastly, I had a creative spark about a week or two ago that got me thinking about this website again. Even though I just launched it a few months ago, I think it's time for a makeover! Here's a preview of what I hope it to look like:

Pretty neat, huh? It's all formatted to the feel of The Band Quest Demo, and much more professional than the current layout! Well, I thought so anyway… I can't wait to finish it!

Oh, by the way: these drums are sounding FANTASTIC! I should be recording every day this week, so I'll keep you posted!

Thank You, May I Have Another?

01.06.12

You know, I'm starting to grow fond of this mixing thing… I find it to be one of the most stressful processes in my life, but I'm slowly starting to enjoy myself. Thanks to a new Pro Tools version and interface, a new operating system, and a few new tricks that I found (courtesy of Google), it's getting a little bit easier, and I hope my new mixes sound better than anything I've ever done before. EVER!

Hey, whaddaya know? I'm getting off-topic again!

Last night, I posted a status update on facebook about how—out of 981 local (Minnesota) bands currently signed up on ReverbNation.com—Midnight Notion was ranked at #533. I mentioned that I would upload a new song if you would help me get up to #500 or better.

Well, I JUST uploaded the song, "Last Breath", and I'm already at #492. I don't think anyone has even listened to it yet, so let's take it up to #400, okie dokie? Let's make MN the #1 band in MN!

Wow, did you guys realize the band name's initials were the same as the band's home state? Interesting…

Happy New Year!

01.02.12

Whelp, it's finally here! Our last year in the Mayan calendar before Quetzalcoatl unleashes some sort of fiery wrath upon the earth, and all the Easter Island statues come to life, shouting: "See? We told you so!"

…or we just start over with a new calendar; one of the two.

Oh, and how could I forget? A NEW SONG!!! If you check out the music player (here on the home page, or at reverbnation.com), you'll notice that the first song is called "Prove Myself". Take a listen!

Also, I have yet to officially announce my plans for all this recording, so here goes: I have decided that, instead of releasing all 14 songs from Somewhere in Dreamworld as a demo version, I have selected 4 of my favorites to throw into a 5-song demo with a new instrumental. This demo will be called "The Band Quest Demo", and you can read about it on The Band Quest Demo page!

"Does this mean we'll be seeing more from The Legend of Midnight Notion?"

Maybe…

Calendar and Extras!

12.20.11

Though neither of them have much for content, both the calendar page and the extras page are FINALLY up! In addition, I moved the banner ad thingies from the home page to the extras page, and I put my beautiful face back on the home page instead. Awe, isn't that special?

Media Content and Lyrics!

12.15.11

Over the last two weeks, I've been sneakily adding little things here and there without announcing them… SHAME ON ME!

If you'll turn your attention toward the navigation bar (above), you might notice that "MUSIC" is now "MEDIA" instead. That allows me to have one page for all music, video, and pictures, instead of having an individual page for each. It doesn't save me a whole lot of room, however, because it's heavily subdivided into all kinds of categories (hooray for being a Virgo!).

So if you head on over to the media page, make sure to read up on all of my previous releases, including lyrics and links to my former projects. Though I don't have any video pages yet, I plan to put them together very soon. If you're absolutely desperate for Midnight Notion-related videos, just go to the Midnight Notion YouTube Page! It'll be the same thing, anyway! SHEESH!

Happy December!

12.01.11

Howdy! I hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving. I know I did! I made all kinds of music all day long, and then got to eat a bunch of free food that I didn't have to make or clean up. At the moment, I can't think of anything better than a full stomach, so cheers to that!

Anywho, I have a few updates for y'all!

The demo version of Somewhere in Dreamworld is pretty much finished, musically. I'm unsatisfied with my vocal performance, so I will be practicing and re-recording the vocals at a later date. I bounced down a rough mix of every song, and was thoroughly disgusted with the quality, so I will also spend some time making my in-the-box mixing sound more professional.

In addition to all the guitar recording I've been doing, I had a good friend of mine, Amanda Irrthum, come over and do a quick voiceover for my song, "Hey, Babe". No, not a guest vocalist, just a … well, you'll hear it when it's done (wink, wink).

As for the site, you'll notice that the music player is back here on the home page where my face used to be. I've also added two nifty little .gif ads that are sure to annoy you, and I've been working on a new section of the website that I cannot wait to finish! I won't give it away right now, but you can expect to have more information about my songs than you know what to do with!

As always, stay tuned for more!

Music, Music, Music!

11.21.11

I guess these news feed items don't really have to be so long, but you know what? I don't care!

"So what'd'ja add this time, Bruce?"

My name is Bryce, not Bruce. Get it right!

Today's additions are: working navigation links (except the calendar and extras pages still don't lead anywhere), I changed the "shows" link to say "calendar" instead, since I won't be playing many shows any time soon, but I may be doing some interesting things that I'd like to post (e.g., studio times, auditions, etc…). I also added a nice and spiffy music page full of all kinds of information. Check it out!

Contact Page Is Up!

11.17.11

Well, I promised myself I would work on the contact page tonight, so you guys can actually contact me for Midnight Notion-related things. So guess what I did… I WORKED ON IT!!!

In the process of doing so, however, I removed the external site links from the home page to the contact page (in a ploy to get you to click on other pages, duh!), and I completely deleted the music player.

WHAT!? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?

Don't worry, you can still hear the music on Reverb Nation, Facebook, and Myspace (the links can be found on that new contact page, wink, wink). My plan is to have the music player on the music page. I think that's a reasonable place for it, don't you? Of course you do! Make sure to keep checking back here to see if I did it or not. I'm going at a pretty steady rate, so I'm sure it'll be soon. Hooray!

SiD v6 is Ready To Record!

11.16.11

No, this isn't about the Gear section on the About Page. Quit your whining!

I have been working on Somewhere in Dreamworld off and on for about 5 years (almost 6). In that time frame, I have added songs, removed songs, changed lyrics, changed music, etc… Well, it's finally at the point of perfection where I'm ready to release it, so now I have to focus on re-recording it for the 6^th time.

In order to make sure all of the songs flow well together, and to make sure I have all of the parts of each song perfected, I created one, big Pro Tools session. In this giant session, I mapped out the time signatures, tempos, and lengths between songs. Then, I had to record "scratch tracks" (sloppy guitar, bass, drums, and keyboard parts that will be deleted later) for each song, to make sure everything sounds good and works well.

Well, I am pleased to announce that last night, I finished recording the scratch tracks for bass and drums! Since I was already finished with guitars and keys, that means Somewhere in Dreamworld is ready to record! Hooray! I'll start with guitars, but it will take me a few days to get the sounds I want. Maybe I'll put up a video of me trying to remember how to play my own songs, haha! It shall be great-tastic!

About Page Is Up!

11.15.11

Can you say "progress"? Don't answer that…

I am pleased to present to y'all: the About Page! It's got a fancy schmancy little history section, for those of you who want to know all about where Midnight Notion came from, and a gear section with a list of all the stuff I use to make all this fancy schmancy music!

"But Bryce, there isn't anything in the gear section, except for a picture that says 'Coming Soon!' WTF, mate!?"

Hold your freakin' horses! I'm working on this thing as fast as I can!

Welcome To MidnightNotion.com!

11.11.11

Hells yes, there's a MidnightNotion.com! AND YOU'RE THERE RIGHT NOW! Can you believe it!? I had to give up facebook in order to give myself enough free time to work on it, but it's finally here!

Fun fact: I actually bought this domain back in '08, and put up a simple site. I changed it a few times, but then I ended up deleting it because I was unhappy. I have since watched and read so many tutorials, it's not even funny. That's not to say that my web designing skills are perfect, but, you know, they're much better than they were. Woo hoo!

Anywho, I'm glad you came. Make sure you come back! Why? Because there's nothing here yet, silly! I'll be adding content until I don't have anymore content to add (and trust me, I have a LOT of content!). Slowly but surely, of course, but since I'm not currently on facebook … you can expect a finished site pretty quickly, haha!

See you then!

---Bryce | Midnight Notion

Midnight Notion.com