News Archives
The newest news is always on the homepage.
News Archives
The newest news is always on the homepage.
12/9/2018
HUGE down HERE presents: "Wednesday"
11/5/2018
HUGE down HERE is gonna keep it #100 for you right about now. We're halfway done mixing this new record. If we stick to our current working pace, it should be done and out (digitally) by the end of December - just in time for Festivus! We're looking into getting physical CD copies semi-professionally made this time around, and that would take a little time after the official release. It costs a little bit, too, but frankly... with all of the ink I buy at ridiculous prices to make them all myself, it might even be cheaper. Certainly it would be less work! And I am a bit of a control freak about those kind of design details, so it would be a small leap of faith, too... but I'm definitely leaning towards outsourcing (who isn't these days!)
It's a bit of a process to get songs out of the mixer and into suitably real-world-worthy speakers (my car), but I have to check the mixes to see what needs to be tweaked, as that process can nudge things one way or the other (way out front or way buried). It's simultaneously kind of thrilling and frustrating. I'm stupidly proud of a lot of the different parts of these things I've created from scratch and it's fun as shit to hear them at high volume. It's also a pain when it doesn't sound how you want it to or think it's going to. But I've now heard these songs a bajillion times, and that's when thoughts begin creeping in... I know I'm not much of a singer, but I start feeling like my voice is often horrendously bad. I spend a lot of time and effort in crafting these tunes, so my baseline is to think that they're worth... something. I kind of don't want to just give them away. People far more talented than me have done just that, though. But I also don't expect anyone to think I'm a professional musician because obviously I'm not. I can handle not being all that great, but I think I can write a song. I'd much rather they were at least interesting if not actually good. I am generally happy with them, myself. But I've gone back and forth quite a bit in wondering how to offer them to other people. It seems presumptuous and borderline vain to assume anyone would be willing to spend actual money on them. I'm not sure I should expect someone who wants a CD to pay more than actual cost, if that. On the other hand, I almost feel like it would be insulting to myself to just give everything away for free. But I'm not sure if that's just a dick move. I mean, I'm recording in my unfinished basement here, people!
The short of it all is that I'm almost done, and it's been such a long time coming, the end can be kind of anticlimactic. I range between excited and apprehensive. I find the entire creative process very personally satisfying. It's the whole "other people" thing that gives me pause. I mostly just want it to be worth the trouble.
8/9/2018
Eight Colossally Coincidental Things I Have In Common With Jim Croce:
(A #TBT Think Piece)
Jim Croce and I both once lived in Upper Darby Township, PA. Not at the same time.
Jim Croce is buried in Malvern, PA and I once was stuck in horrible traffic in Malvern which made me wish death upon most of the people blocking my way.
Jim Croce later moved to San Diego. I spent a weekend there once. (Hi, Mike!)
Both Jim Croce and I believe his mustache was superb.
Both Jim Croce and I think he died way too soon (presumably).
Jim Croce wrote a song called "New York's Not My Home" and I also do not live there.
At some point, I assume, someone probably referred to Jim Croce as "Jimmy". I have written a song called "Jimmy" which, if you are reading this post, you will probably hear at some point in the distant future (thinking next record). Ironically, it's one of my most autobiographical songs.
Jim Croce and I have both sung the song "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" in public, though our respective crowd sizes were likely very different. You can hear my version here, circa 2007:
One thing Jim Croce and I do *not* have in common... HUGE down HERE has a new record coming out this year! Bring It On, currently being mixed... stay tuned!
5/21/2018
Step by step... inch by inch... HUGE down HERE moves ever closer to THE MIXDOWN. We finished vocals for another tune today, which leaves only about 3 or so left to track. I can feel it, y'all. OK, so... yeah, it's no longer really "early" 2018, though. Pretty much everything I say about when this record's coming out, you can just bank on it happening "when it's done" and not a minute sooner, so that should probably be before the end of this year... but who knows? Shit happens, bro. Sometimes literally. Don't ask.
But we asked the band photographer to snap some proof of vocalizationness, so enjoy these rare, candid snaps of our fearless leader... in studio-specs, no less! Stay gold, Ponyboy.
11/14/2017
BIG news in HdH land, folks! Yesterday, we finished instrument tracking for our upcoming 4th record entitled BRING IT ON. This means 3 things, which I will politely enumerate for you right now: 1. We didn't get squat done over the summer, which we kind of expected, but we also have been slow to get back into the groove since summer's end. Our bad. 2. We started VOCAL tracking TODAY! What what! Somebody throw me a lozenge! And finally, 3. There ain't no way in God's green earth that this record's coming out this year. Yes, it's the bummer to end all bummers, but I think we're still on par to make early 2018. That's about as specific as we're able to get. With a little luck and pluck, we might have a first "single" out before the end of 2017, but that's a bit of a carrot-on-a-stick right about now. It took almost exactly one year to get all the guitars and such tracked, after about 4 years of drum programming (and 4 years of absolutely nothing mixed in). I know what you're thinking. Will this record be worth the wait? With all due hyperbole, let me just say - hells yeah!
7/16/2017
The prophecy has come to pass! Holy crap, we said we might and it actually happened... we done made a video, y'all! It's a collage of song snippets from the new record (hardly mixed and surely unmastered and without vocals) all rolled into one, with some questionable melodrama and delightful dancing. We hope you like. Dig it!
We're thisclose to being all done with instrument tracking and then we tackle vocals. So close, yo. Can you smell it? (oh sorry, that was me.) Hope your summer ain't full of bunk!
5/8/2017
I don't know about you, but I can tell you HUGE down HERE is not one of those bands that thinks a lot about armageddon. The end of days. Nope. We're more of a "live in the now" kinda group. But we have seen signs of the apocalypse, and the end is nigh. We now have an official Facebook page. Sigh. It's just to catch us up back into the Aughts and make sure you can get in touch with us if you want. No pressure. Whenever it's convenient for you. And, to spread the word that we have a NEW RECORD coming soon! And we are happy to reveal the title right this very second... and it will be called Bring It On. Consider yourselves warned. We continue to have fruitful, regular studio sessions here at George's End and remain on track for a late 2017 release. We're about 80%-ish done with tracking, then vocals and mixing. And that's it! BOOM. Dig it. If we can get ourselves onto the ball, we might even put out some kind of mini-teaser song snippet or some shit. Behold!
1/9/2017
Happy New HUGE down HERE Year to you! At least that's the plan. We're feeling so good about the progress of our new record that we think it's actually possible this puppy could be in the can by the end of this calendar year. No, like, for REALZ! That seemed like some kind of batshit-crazy pipe-dream not so long ago. We're trying to keep it simple and be as efficient as possible, while making sure the rocking is up to par. But we also want to branch out just a smidge, so we've already added a couple of little extra noises to the mix to spice things up (and one big one - this record will be the first to feature actual bass guitar! Novel concept.) We're about a third of the way into instrument tracking, with vocals to follow. And then it's The Mix Of Doom. (Mixing sucks, if you didn't know, which really just means we're not very good at it). Although, it would probably be a hell of a lot easier if we actually had any kind of audio recording/engineering expertise. We're just making this shit up as we go, folks. But it's fun that way. It's also cold as fuck out there, so basement recording with the furnace turned off (for noise reduction) isn't exactly a walk on the beach. We freeze for your satisfaction! You're welcome.
10/24/2016
HUGE down HERE is tappin' the bottle and twistin' the cap. On the root beer, of course. But there's definitely some celebratin' going on around here! We finished tracking drums for our next record today (we think), and it's been a long fucking time coming. If you recall, we started working on drum programming waaaaaaaay back in July of 2008 (!) for this batch of songs. Never mind the 4-year break in the middle of that after we lost a ton of work thanks to a studio implosion - even with actual time spent, it's been a minute. Three full years, to be exact, since we started working on it again on the regular. I said last update that it might take a year or two to finish a full record, which of course now seems audaciously ambitious (though to be fair, I also added "or more"). But! We're about to start instrument tracking, and that's a huge second step. And we're pretty psyched about that. So drink up! I recommend Chicago's finest, Goose Island root beer. Shit is fantastic. Out!
1/15/2015
HUGE down HERE totally missed you. Did you even know we were gone? Not likely. No worries, though - we're back! It's been a long 6 years since our last update, and there have been a few ups and downs. Up? We started working on our next record in July of 2008 and got some good stuff on tape. Had some more trouble with the recorder, but we were making it work. Down? Got about halfway into the drum programming, 5 songs done, 40 hours of work spread out over 30 sessions (that took about 8 months to actually get done)... and the goddamn console up and died. Just totally froze and wouldn't do a damn thing. We were straight-up depressed. Spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out if the data could be recovered, but we ended up having to reset to factory conditions and zapping the hard drive. Lost everything we've ever recorded, ever, including all previous album masters. Big, big down. Up? The factory reset worked great, and our recorder was working like new by June of 2009. Sessions for the new record began again. Down? It was hard getting back into a groove. The re-do was kind of a non-starter, and the sessions sputtered. We did absolutely nothing between August of 2009 and September of 2013. Except, well... my wife had our baby! That's a pretty big up. Kinda gives you more important things to do. But loosens your grip on free time. Living in one place while owning a washer and dryer in another forces you to have time to kill, though, and thanks to a plethora of regularly soiled garments, we had an almost regimented studio schedule from September of 2013 through April of 2014, and we got our groove back. We've now logged more time on the next album than we'd lost in the Great Recorder Death of 2009. Five songs done (well, drums only) and in the middle of #6. Up, up, up. Got rid of one of those places, though, and lost that scheduled play time. Down. Then we finally relocated to a sweet new studio space and have fired that bad boy up as of TODAY! We've even been working on some new songs, which we haven't really done much of since like 2009. We've got one that's close to done and a few more that are essentially lyrically complete but need to get fleshed out musically. Even spent a little time demo-ing a couple things just yesterday. Big ups. We still don't have tons of time to ourselves to make noise, but we'll do what we can. I wouldn't expect a finished record for at least a year or two or more, but it's in progress, fo' sho'. Dig it. Who knows, maybe we'll even have to play out somewhere sometime down the line. First things first, though. Be cool, stay warm! Up & up!
12/1/2008
HUGE down HERE is quietly considering becoming louder. We finally got back on the road recently, and while it was distinctly underwhelming, it was also good fun (blog is on the way). We'll be trying to hit the stage again at least once or twice before the end of the year, even perhaps at a new venue! Keep your eyes on the ol' calendar - er, website. We broke out a new (though-as-yet-still-instrumental) song at The Fire last week, a work-in-progress tentatively titled Brakeman that will be epic once it gets some extra polish and a lot more lyrics. It's got some of the most advanced guitar work of anything we've done, which isn't really saying a lot. It's a swingin' tune, though. There are at least 3 other new songs at about the same level of completion that we hope to work on finishing in the coming weeks, as we ease back into recording mode in 2009. Unfortunately, only one of those is probably likely to make the next record - but this new crop of tunes is really amping up the excitement for the future of this band. We've only spent a small amount of time in studio so far, but we've already hit a couple of snags and have re-routed around them. We've got some new instruments and gadgets and plan on using everything in our arsenal to flesh out this promising group of songs we'd like you to hear. We hope your holidays are merry and your snow tires are fully functional. Cheers!
7/30/2008
HUGE down HERE gets another CD review published online! We thought they might have forgotten about us, but The Compendium finally got around to listening to our record and took some time to write about it and even find a few nice things to say! Check it out! We also would like to apologize for the flurry of scheduled-and-then-promptly-canceled open mic gigs over the past several months. We haven't played out since December and we would really like to get back out there, but things just keep coming up and happening to make those plans evaporate. There was the cut on the thumb of oB's pick-holding hand that negated any strumming for days; there was the broken toe that ended up not being broken but was ridiculously painful (and happened on the eve of a scheduled gig); there was the softball game that got rescheduled on a gig night; there was the day I drank almost a full two liters of coke, which caused me to only get about 3 hours of sleep because I was so wired (and happened on the eve of a scheduled gig, thereby making me ridiculously tired the next day); the list goes on. We are going to actually attempt to play every Monday night in August at The Fire. We'll see how that goes. We've also been laying low because finishing the last record really took a lot out of us. We spent enormous amounts of energy on that thing, then the CD release show was a total bust, and the response the album got was lukewarm at best - when we thought we'd made our best record. We've taken our sweet time beginning the next one and are happy to say it is finally happening, after a solid 6 month break. Look for that sometime in the distant future, though it would probably be a miracle if we finished it before '09 was over. But you never know! We've been doing some writing lately and even finished a couple of good songs which you will probably hear us play at the upcoming gigs. Feel free to check out the lyrics to those new tunes. We've also got some sweet new KICKASS merch, so go check out our T-Shirt selection! You also probably didn't know that we recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of us being a band. And that's pretty cool. Even if it's hot out there.
3/5/2008
HUGE down HERE's newest record, Leave An Impression, gets reviewed in the March 2008 issue of Origivation Magazine! They use awesome words such as "nice", "interesting", "solid" and "intolerable". To find out which one of those referred to gazing into my big brown eyes, you're gonna have to go over here to read it. In other news, we have a probable gig at The Fire's open mic on 3/17/08. Blarney!
12/14/2007
HUGE down HERE is totally co-opting an open mic on Thursday, December 27 as our very own CD Release Party! It's at Crossroads Coffee House in Roxborough (in NW Philly, 6156 Ridge Ave. to be exact) and it runs 7-9 pm, so we could be on anywhere in that time span, playing 3 of your favorite songs. We've never actually been there, but we only hear good things about the ambience, awesome food, and friendly staff and clientele. Come check out the local talent! And also us!
The new record, Leave An Impression, will be available December 18 - yes, this Tuesday - so be sure to get your copy before the gig so you can sing along. Or if you're super lazy and only like to grovel in public, you can probably get a CD at the show, but only if you ask loudly and like a jack-ass.
We're actually mixing the very last track from the album tonight and finishing up the artwork and will start pressing copies over the weekend. More new tracks will be put up on the ol' MySpace player and here on the website for your further critique and possible disappointment and/or astonishment. Check back soon!
We totally love you. -HdH
ps - so we just found out that the very brave, very kind host of the Crossroads open mic has made HUGE down HERE the featured act of the night on 12/27... so we go on at 8ish, for sure, and we get an extra song! Holy crap.
------
We hate the old cliches, whenever a band puts out a new record... they always say THAT album is "our best work". They always say "it rocks harder". They always say "we've never sounded better". It's bullshit.
So let's just be honest here. We have a new album coming out Tuesday, December 18, 2007. It's another collection of songs that we wrote. It's called Leave An Impression. And for real - it fucking rocks harder, sounds better, and is the best work we've ever done. No bullshit.
Well, at least it's as good as we could do. So go hear for yourself... four tracks from the new CD are up on the website for your perusal.
enjoy!
in rock we trust,
HUGE down HERE
11/2/2007
HUGE down HERE is super psyched. We've not only been ripping out the vocals in the studio and making fantastic progress, things are actually going better than expected. After 6 weeks we have 3 songs mastered, 4 more with vocals that need to only be mixed, leaving 5 that need vocals recorded and then mixed. It's even surprising to us that the studio work has been persistent and consistently good. We put up a teaser track (Whiskey & Women) on our MySpace page a couple weeks ago and you have to go there to hear it (no downloads yet); ironically, we've already slightly altered and re-mixed that song. When the record is finished we'll put up more songs there and here. The official release date for Leave An Impression is December 18, 2007 and probably by the end of this month we'll announce a date for the release party/open mic performance. We would also like to welcome any pre-orders for the record, starting now. Just send us a quick note or post a message on MySpace and let us know you want one; we'll extort money from you at a later date. You'll see a big push when the record is finished - we're planning on lots more MySpace adds and bulletins, submissions for review from local music 'zines, etc. We're pretty proud of it, so we hope a few of you will be, too. Rock it out. Stay tuned.
9/19/2007
HUGE down HERE can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel... so let's just hope it's not a firefly fucking with our brain. At any rate, we've really been getting down to business in the studio lately and have been cranking out good stuff. We've practically wrapped up all instrumentation excpet for some percussion add-ons and maybe another guitar lick or two; we need to track all vocals and then mix, but that's it. Last album's vocal sessions took 27 studio hours and less than a month. We probably won't work that quickly, and we'll most likely end up laying down one or two songs per week where we'll do vocals and then mix right away, as we get them done. This beast might actually even be finished before the end of the year, possibly as early as November. All this recent studio work even included a complete re-do of all the acoustic tracking we'd done for Temperature, which was lost due to yet another [different] studio glitch. That's really been the only hard drive problem, and we've been furiously saving and backing things up; it's because of that backing-up that we didn't lose Temperature's drums. Things are sounding great and really rocking - we're hoping to open some eyes this time around and we can't wait to let you hear it. In other news, we've cranked out a couple new tunes, one of which is awesome and one of which is OK. Inverted is a definite potential lead-off track for our next record and Everything may show up on the one *after that*. But those are the only two songs we've written all year, so that's good news, and we almost have all the tunes we need for the next record. We've played a couple more open mic gigs since the last update, and had planned on several more... but shit happened and things got canceled and delayed and now we're putting off our next gig probably until we either get the record finished or fix the pick-up on oB's stage guitar. We'll definitely be hitting a show somewhere whenever this CD comes out so we can hand out some free copies to anyone who is brave enough to listen. We did break out a brand new cover (Summer of '69!) and a new version of Whiskey & Women at those gigs, and you can hear those live MP3s right now if you like. So go listen to the live sounds, check out the gig blogs, the pictures from those gigs, and follow the progress in the studio and keep an ear out for new tune previews on our MySpace page.
6/2/2007
HUGE down HERE makes enormous progress and then does nothing for 7 weeks! Extra! Extra! Yeah, that's our headline, pretty much for life. Over the course of a month or so in March/April, we laid down basic guitar tracks for FIVE tunes, almost finishing all rhythm tracking for the entire album (that leaves us with one or two left). And then we did squat for almost the next 2 months, basically. Why? Who knows. We're lazy. And we suck. That stuff we laid down is pretty solid, so it's mostly a lot of details left... bass tracks, extra guitar parts, acoustic fills, percussion, vocals. Oh yeah, vocals. That's a pretty big detail. In time. Things sound good, they just need to happen faster. We're getting back into it. In great news, we're also in the middle of writing a couple of sweet new tunes. This is a big deal because we haven't written a song since November of last year. And both of these sound pretty promising so far... incidentally, the second one happened by accident as we were trying to come up with parts for the first one! The new jam worked well with some lyrics-in-waiting that were needing some music. We're still pondering the future probability of putting up some live video footage. We're still playing the occasional open-mic gig, including a few weeks ago (our 4th this year; gig blog is now fully updated). Got a couple more on tap and hopefully things continue to improve. There's now no way in hell our new record will be done by the end of spring, so now we're just hoping for THIS year. Cross your fingers for us... peace in the middle east.
1/8/2007
HUGE down HERE would like to apologize for our delay. We know how much you want to know what's going on inside the HdH inner circle. Here's the straight dope: we're still working on our next record, and it's not close to being finished. OK, now you're up to speed. We haven't been putting much effort into it as of late, however, we're definitely renewing our focus on the project. A few things have happened recently that will allow us to better do just that. We were able to put down some new drum tracks that we're really excited about, so stay tuned to the studio log for up-to-date details on the recording process. We've got a few new songs in our pocket, and a couple of those are even scheduled for the new record. You can check the songs page if you want - otherwise we're keeping it on the down low. We've been continuing to play some live gigs here and there, mostly open mics, but we also opened for Fooling April in September at our guitarist's wedding reception! It was a fantastic one-song set! The gigs are great, it's a good time to play new songs and we keep putting up live MP3s on here for your perusal, along with pictures and detailed gig blogs for you diehards. It's entirely plausible that we could soon be putting up some live video footage from some of those, too. We'll be trying to hit more gigs this year (starting tonight). That's about it for us, except for what we promised last time: our new record shall be called Leave An Impression, it's due sometime in 2007 and that's as detailed as we're gonna be able to get right now, with the possibility of a late spring release if all goes well. Rock it out in 2007. We'll be right there with you.
At some point in the summer of 2006...
There was a news update in June, we think. It may have gone something like this, but we're not really sure.
HUGE down HERE is excited but frustrated, tired but energized, pissed but meditative, yin but yang. That's how it works in rock and roll, you take the good and the bad. We've been trying to continue work on our new record but for some reason the Rock Gods don't seem to want us to finish it. We got some good stuff done just prior to the Big Studio Move of '06, back in February. We got things all set up and good to go, and it's a comfortable spot to create. We call it Twin-B Studios and it's in Drexel Hill, PA. Since the move, it's been a constant struggle just to not have things magically erased from our studio hard drive. We can't tell you how many things we've started and re-started, ad nauseum. It's been mostly drum programming, but we've lost complete tracks after spending hours and hours on them. We haven't exactly been prolific on the songwriting tip, but we have managed to pull out a couple of keepers about the wife-to-be, namely Never Better and Wednesday. We had a couple of interesting gigs at The Fire and are beginning to really love the place. I know we promised you album name and cover art last time, but it'll have to wait for now. Next time, we swear, and we wouldn't lie to you. Twice.
1/25/2006
HUGE down HERE is coming along nicely. We think. We just played maybe our best gig, yet - two days ago at The Fire in Philly, PA. Another 3-song open mic, including two songs until that point never performed, a new cover, new friends in the audience, and the host even remembered our name! Hells bells yeah. It was superfun. We've got two live MP3s up already over in our downloads section for your perusal, dispersal, or recycle-bin-al. And of course, there are photos galore and more details than you ever wanted to know over here, too. And some extra pictures. Special thanks to Jim & Amy for coming out. It's not even the only open mic gig we've had since the last update. I know. We played a shorty 2-songer at Steel City on 12/29, as well. This was was a bit crazier... oB's parents and Steph's mom & fiance were also in attendance. The crowd was rowdy and chatty as all hell and it wasn't all that enjoyable, but at least the parental units got to see the band rock the house. And of course, there are photos and a download from that one, too. We'll try to keep our next gig(s) listed at the top of this little news section in case anyone is actually wondering. And they'll be over at our MySpace page, too. We'd like to be going to The Fire every 4-6 weeks and become a semi-regular. We'll see how that goes. The HdH camp and studio will be relocating at the end of February, so maybe we'll find another venue closer to home to call home. [FYI, the 12/19 Fire gig mentioned in the last update was canceled due to scheduling conflicts. Our apologies.] We've had a mini-run of good studio work recently, finishing up another tune and working on more and more drums (and re-doing more and more drums). We've got about 1/3 done and are humming right along. Next update, we'll give you album title and cover art. We haven't finished any new songs in a few months, but we've got one almost close to being complete, and it's rockin', of course. Details to come. Stay chill, and always remember - polar bears want to rock.
News Archives 2002-2005
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