2009
July, 2009
Making Progress: Thirteen of Everything continues to work on new material PLUS we have actually started recording basic tracks for one of the completed pieces. There are currently three realized pieces (i.e. the arrangements are basically worked out). We have started recording basic tracks for one of those and continue to refine the other two, while also introducing new song ideas for further development. Two of the three pieces are in the 8-10 minute range, and the other one is a 3-parter (or more) that will likely be rather long.
2008
Moving Forward at a Slow but Steady Pace: Throughout 2008, Thirteen of Everything continued to work on new material as time permitted (which was not very often, with obstacles such as business travel commitments, car accidents, surgeries, etc.) :(
2007
August, 2007
Bruce McIntosh joins Thirteen of Everything as keyboardist after a trial period to get better acquainted by jamming and co-arranging new material together. Bruce was already an acquaintance of ours as he was formerly with another local Austin "prog" band (originally Gambit, and then later changed their name to Austin Power Station). With Bruce now in the fold, Thirteen of Everything returns to having regular rehearsals & writing-arranging sessions.
February - June, 2007
During this time, Thirteen of Everything held auditions for a new keyboardist.
January, 2007
And then there were three... again (!). On the 13th day, of the 13th month, Thad announced with regret that he had to leave due to a lack of time available to commit to the band any further. Thirteen of Everything must now search for keyboardist number three.
2006
December, 2006
We recently
began rehearsing again, with plans to play some local shows here in
Austin beginning April 2007. A local club has expressed interest in us
playing there, and maybe even a larger event with other local
progressive and/or experimental bands.
As far as writing and recording, we are gradually compiling and
arranging new material for what we hope will eventually metamorphose
into another album.
Stay tuned...
October - November, 2006
Updated and cleaned up the website (long overdue!) and added new, improved samples of songs from "Welcome, Humans". Also created a MySpace page and Wikipedia page. The MySpace page features the same MP3 song samples as our official site. If you have a MySpace account yourself, we invite you to come visit our MySpace page and request to add us as your "friend".
September, 2006
Ted attended ProgDay with a vendor table again. Enjoyed performances by Echolyn and fellow Texans Hands as well as many others including the very nice guys from the great fusion band, Woodenhead, who were also on the bill that weekend. Had nice conversations with Ernie Meyers of Hands, Chris Buzby of Echolyn and Tom Brislin (journeyman keyboardist for Yes, Camel, etc.) who was there performing with his own band, Spiraling.
July, 2006
Ted attended CalProg for the first time and set up a vendor table there, accompanied by a couple of friends from Tucson and L.A. Had a great time and met some new friends and fans.
Three of us (Mick couldn't make it this year) attended NEARfest again. We had a great time as usual and were once again privileged to visit with both Frank Wyatt of Happy The Man and Gary Green (formerly of Gentle Giant).
2005
October, 2005
We received an invitation from Giancarlo Bolther, of Rock-Impressions for an email interview (He had also previously posted a review). He sent us questions and Mick and Ted both replied. The interview with Rock-Impressions is posted here.
September, 2005
Ted attended ProgDay and manned another band vendor table. Fellow Texas proggers and firends, The Underground Railroad performed and were wonderful. Frank Wyatt of Happy The Man gave a listen to Welcome, Humans for a few minutes on the headphones and then bought a copy. Later Ted was able to visit with Frank and all of Happy the Man over dinner and talk drums with new drummer Joe Bergamini. A photo of Ted shamelessly posing with the HtM guys can be found here.
July 11th, 2005
We have just returned from this year's NEARfest in Bethlehem PA, and, as usual, it was a wondrous marathon of great bands and good friends. This year, for the first time, all four of us managed to make it. We had a table in the vendor room where we were selling the CD and it was great to meet so many new folks, get so many rave comments and sell so many CDs! We sold a bunch, and Musea actually sold out of those that they brought.
We also had some T-shirts for sale. We may eventually put those up on the website, so you can get your essential ToE wardrobe needs fulfilled.
What else? Well, we spent some pleasant time with Bernard Gueffier, the chieftain of Musea (photo here); we did a brief interview with the famous Pete Pardo from Sea of Tranquility (photo here); we got to hang out with our friend Bill Pohl from The Underground Railroad (who also have a new CD); we schmoosed a little (our vendor table was right next to Echolyn and we met a long-time "hero", Gary Green, formerly of Gentle Giant), spent WAY too much money on CDs, got WAY too little sleep, but witnessed some awesome performances - the highlights probably being PFM, Le Orme and the amazing Kenso. So...see ya there next year?
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Pete Pardo beat the rush and published the first review of the CD and gave us a "highly recommended" four stars. Thanks Pete!!
So now...back to reality.
June 5th, 2005
"Welcome, Humans" is now available from many on-line sources in the US and Europe. For a listing of where you can purchase the CD online, look here. To listen to samples of album tracks, click here.
We hope you like it! If you are able, leave a review or comment at the site you order it from, and/or let us know what you think directly.... (band@thirteenofeverything.com)
There's also a rather bizarre interview that we recently did via email for Nucleus, an Argentinean site. The interview with Nucleus is posted here.. We were expecting them to edit out all the silliness, but they didn't! So, don't take it too seriously!
May 28th, 2005
"Welcome, Humans" is the featured album of the day at Chris Laine's ProgSpace site. Thanks Chris!
We sent our friend Don Cassidy a special promo copy of "Late for Dinner" and has been playing it on the wonderful Delicious Agony radio station. (You can also find an archived interview with the band there, from last summer).
May, 2005
"Welcome, Humans" was officially released this month, during the week of Friday, 13th (Musea tell us it was co-incidence, but surely it was meant to be). We've just received our own copies and it looks and sounds great. The packaging includes gatefold artwork with an 18-page booklet featuring complete lyrics and photos. The striking artwork is by artist Jim Janknegt. To see the complete gatefold version of the artwork, click here. To listen to samples of album tracks, click here. For a listing of where you can purchase the CD online, look here.
Meanwhile we're making slow progress on some new material and even finding time to play through the "old stuff" (from the new CD) sometimes. Our next big event is Nearfest - we're not playing (unfortunately) but we will have a vendor table and be selling the CD plus some other items. It'll be great to see our Nearfest friends again and get some reaction to the release. Come by and see us if you're there (and don't if you're not).
February, 2005
We'll hard to believe, but we've been working on
this CD for well about 18 months now. We've got hundreds of hours in it...but finally, IT'S DONE! The CD is
currently being mastered by Dave Shirk at
Sonorous Mastering in Arizona
and we're looking forward to hearing the final product. It was a
long road but we're very happy with the result. So, look out for
more news about the CD release plans very soon.
Meanwhile we're actually back playing our instruments. When Mick picked up his Stick he had almost forgotten which end was up. We've got a couple of new songs in the early stages right now. If true to form it'll take months to work them up properly! We hope to get a few new tunes in place and then look at playing some gigs again later this year.
2004
June, 2004
Three of us again attended NEARfest and sat down for our second interview with Don Cassidy of Delicious Agony. A photo can be found here.
March, 2004
We had a great week recording piano at a rather luxurious secret location in Austin (thanks Mary!). As you can see from the photo's here, there was even somewhere to sit. At Ted's rehearsal space these days you have to sit on a box, if you're lucky. You may even be able to see the chandelier in the picture. It was all a bit disconcerting, so we had to make sure we had beer and pizza so we'd feel more at home. Over three sessions we got all the piano recorded, which was pretty fast work. Being done so quickly is good, as I'm not sure I could listen to Thad's warm up routines any more.
For those who are interested, we used two Octava MK12 (small diaphragm condenser) microphones, into the FMR RNP mic preamp. Along with the wondrous tablet PC "global mobile" it was a breeze. Positioning of the mics was pretty easy. We did have to remove the lid from the piano (they're designed that way, it seems).
This week we've also been setting up Joe's computer with his new CuBase software, to allow him to record guitar at his house, rather than driving out to the studio. There are no pictures of that as it's too scary.
This week we hope to track the final bass lines for the long track that we may end up calling "Late for Dinner". This needs keyboards too, but we feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel and we should be onto recording vocals within two or three weeks.
February, 2004
Recording progresses. Keyboards has been the main focus recently - We've been able to record using a rather neat tablet PC out at the rehearsal space, which saves Thad the lengthy drive out to the studio. Some more pictures are here. The best thing about recording at Ted's is that we can get pizza delivery.
We've just started the guitar tracks too. It took quite a while and some experimentation to get a good sound. This included putting Joe's amp in the bathtub (no water) - it didn't work.
In a couple of weeks we have a dedicated two days to try to get all the piano parts recorded, using a baby grand on loan, so the pressure is on Thad.
In other news - our friends in The Underground Railroad have been playing some well received gigs in their native Fort Worth. Meanwhile we're trying to plan a short "Texas tour" with them around late summer. It's rather a lot of work to set something like that up, so it's little more than a dream right now. We'll keep you posted - if it happens then you can bet we'll be letting everyone know!
2003
December, 2003
We've started recording. We managed to get drum tracks for 4 songs down a couple of weekends ago and they're sounding good. This was our first time recording Ted's new "acoustic" drums, which is much more involved than recording the electronic set that we used on the original demo CD. We have 5 tracks, all recorded with mics trying to capture different parts of the kit.
While Ted was playing, Joe, Thad and Mick recorded "scratch" tracks to help Ted remember where he was. Fortunately it was not necessary for Ted to sing at this time, since the additional pressure would have made him forget ALL the lyrics, instead of just most of them. We have a couple of photos of the process here.
It'll be after Christmas now before we can get the rest of the drum tracks down. Meanwhile, Mick will be laying down bass/Stick tracks on those 4 songs.
There's still a long way to go with recording, including some of those details like artwork for the CD, but we hope to make it for a spring release.
Happy holidays to everyone. Thanks for your support during 2003, for coming out to see us, playing our music and words of encouragement. Hope to see ya'll in 2004.
November, 2003
The gig in Fort Worth went well. Instead of Hands, the 2nd act was changed to 99 Names of God (I guess it makes sense to bundle 13 with 99?). It was great to meet some of the faithful prog crowd up there. We debuted the full version of "Dinner's Late" (that's still a "working title"), only 3 days after deciding on the arrangement of the last two sections. It went pretty well actually. We had a few other interesting moments, most notably when Ted's kick beater fell off (he had only acquired his new acoustic drum set for a month or so prior), which resulted in a 64 bar pause in the middle of Flying East while Ted searched for a drum key (his roadie had the night off).
Larry Cross provided backdrop visuals with a projection system. From what we could tell from our backs to the screen, Larry chose some tasteful appropriate images to augment the performance. Thanks Larry! The show was recorded, both video and audio, although there are several parts we may prefer to forget!
We hope to play there again in the future to support Fred, Bill and the others who are organizing this wonderful weekly event.
Next we move on to recording. Starting next weekend (6th December) we'll be recording the drums, and rough tracks for the other instruments. We plan to release in the spring - we'll have to see how quickly it goes, as recording takes a huge amount of time. We'll post progress reports on the web site, and maybe a clip and photo or two, so stay tuned.
October, 2003
The big news at the moment is the November 9th gig at the Ridglea Theatre in Fort Worth. We'll be playing before Hands, who are quite awesome, so it's well worth the trip for any prog fans within reach! This is part of a series of gigs organized by Bill Pohl of The Underground Railroad, with assistance from Fred Trafton of the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock - both fine fellows.
Meanwhile we're just finishing the last demo recording before starting on "the real thing". We hope to have the CD ready for release by June 2004 at the latest. The demo we're finishing has a working title of "Dinner's Late" (Late for Dinner), which has been through numerous variations, but currently clocks in at about 25 minutes. We just need to finish up some keyboards and vocals and we'll be done. We'll probably keep this demo mostly to ourselves - so, to experience DL you'll need to either catch us live, or wait on the "real" CD release.
July - August, 2003
Three more gigs were performed at a
local Austin club called The Vibe. Photos of
the final show which featured the debut of parts 1 through 5 of a still
incomplete "Dinner's Late" (Late for Dinner) can be found
here.
June, 2003
Three of us attended NEARfest and sat down for our first interview with Don Cassidy of Delicious Agony. A photo can be found here.
May 7, 2003
A few months ago, we submitted one of the songs from the demo CD to a Bill Nelson fan-based CD compilation (Ted being the Bill Nelson fan of the group). So today, "Several Famous Orchestras" was released and our demo track of "Bird in Hand" was featured on "Several Famous Orchestras Volume Two".
March 31, 2003
Thirteen of Everything plays debut performance at popular local Austin club called Steamboat to an enthusiastic response. Photos can be found here.
2002
November 26, 2002
On November 26, Thad Miller joined the band to fill the keyboard position. After jamming once to get acquainted, Thad then learned a couple of the band's tunes and came back to ace the audition and reinvigorate the band. This begins a period of intense rehearsal of the older material with Thad, in addition to working on a backlog of new music, including a song-cycle expected to be 25-30 minutes in length.
August 22, 2002
Thirteen of Everything was invited (solely on the basis of their
demo recordings made available online at the
time) to play a local prog festival dubbed "Cattle Prog" in Dallas
(organized by Fred Trafton of
Gibralter Encyclopedia of
Progressive Rock) along with with their Texas prog peers,
Hands,
The Underground Railroad,
Yeti, and others. Unfortunately, Thirteen of Everything was not able to accept this welcome invitation. After the recent loss of their keyboardist it was unlikely that they would be ready in time, but ultimately the reason was due to another member being unavailable on the appointed date of the show.
August 20, 2002
...and then there were three…
Original keyboardist, Patrick McFarland, decided to leave the band for various reasons, but primarily to pursue a different musical path on his own. Ted, Mick and Joe are saddened and disappointed by this potential setback at a critical juncture, but all concerned remain on friendly terms. The band began advertising immediately for a suitable keyboard player.
Until a replacement keyboardist is found, the band plans to forge ahead by focusing on a backlog of new song material.
June 29, 2002
During March through May 2002, the founding foursome recorded a "demo". The 41-minute demo consists of five songs recorded on home PC equipment. All four members shared lead and backing vocal duties. The result was a recording that, while not intended as a final product, turned out rather well and suited its purpose. Thirteen of Everything's self-titled demo CD - only available directly from the band - was distributed to friends, acquaintances and various music industry contacts beginning in late June 2002 at the annual NEARfest progressive music festival, near Philadelphia, PA. Since then it has generated favorable responses
