If you follow us on facebook, you already know that we have some demos for the new album online at vi.be/quiet. Recording new stuff is great. Feels good. Now for some live try outs.

Once in a while you need a new bandpic because some people you work with keep asking for it. That means, trying to find a situation where 4 guys standing closely together won’t look awkard or overly artsy. An old school 70ies elevator, complete with carpeted walls and hideous lighting, will do. Thanks to donotfold.be for shooting this. It looks exactly the way we want it: unflattering and nasty.

We’ve been selling this new shirt (which comes with a free pressed album) on our shows and to people we know for about a month and a half now. Sending us pictures like the one above make us go: ‘yiiiiihaaaaa’. So keep ‘em coming people. Note the double benefit: you endorse our next album and you look great.

We have long abandoned the road of trying to point out what defines compassion. In the end it’s highly evident, that no one cares about the rest, as long as they are not affected by the turmoil of misery. Where did I read this thing again? Can’t remember, but it was along these lines: “Are the charitable feelings we have, nothing more than our excuse and desire to feast on the misfortune of others. A bit like that part of us that feels compelled to hang around car crash sites, crime scenes or other disaster areas.” 

Either way, we are not unaffected by this and hope you too will do your part in raising funds and, more importantly, awareness about the issue that Music For Life is addressing this year. Please, find all the details and the bank account number for your donations on this webpage.

If you have a webpage of your own, you might consider borrowing it to Stubru for the time of the Music For Life action.

Check out the last batch of great photos that were shot by Stijn (donotfold.be). As we said: someone has to document this road to perdition. Thanks man.

at Kinky Star 28/11/2010 
at Trix/Hof ter loo 27/11/2010 
at Lintfabriek 13/11/2010

In this entire exercise of offering our songs as free downloads on our site, we got some really excited reactions AND we got politely insulted by our former publisher. But on the other hand, there still were a lot more people that wanted to buy an actual album to support our music, or just because they didn’t like the hassle of downloading music and moving it to a player.

So here’s the album, pressed for your CD listening pleasure. It will be available on our concerts. It is not for sale but you will get it for free if you buy an authentic ‘a school of QUIET’ signature shirt. This is a limited edition print and only 500 will be up for grabs.

The artwork of our Handmade Record didn’t just fall out of the sky. It was created by the Brussels based tattoo artist Arjunah, based on a dream I had. 

Arjunah has been inking me up for about 11 years now and I know how lucky I am to have stumbled upon an artist as great as him by mere accident. Our cooperation dates back to my facedown days and most of my tattoos spring from the things that were active in that community from ’97 to ’99. The reputation of Arjunah’s work is now irrefutable and he is at last getting his long overdue credit and recognition. He has never been a loud, assertive player or networker, but highly committed to his work without getting sidetracked by false ambition. I can only say that his attitude gets my deepest respect and my unwavering support.

I have at first hand experienced the privilege of seeing his work grow ever more detailed and perfected. And I’m not lying when I say that even 11 years ago I was already highly impressed by his versatility and expertise. He can ink just about anything you want. Everything seems to be his specialty but more importantly, his artistic background brings something else to the game: composition. Arjunah has brought order to the chaos of ideas that I have laid on him, time and time again. He has been 10 steps ahead of me every single time. I am convinced that this is a quality that is not only the sum of his experience, but an innate talent for this trade. I am sure that he was ‘meant’ to be a tattoo artist.

If you are thinking about tattoos or you have been thinking about it for a long time but you never took the steps to actually have it done, here’s someone that I can recommend with complete conviction.

These are the paintings that Arjunah made for a school of QUIET.

To all you bands out there … throw away your hand-held recorders, a new toy is available – the Zoom R16. First of all, no I’m not sponsored by the Japanese to advertise this device. I just think it’s so great i wanted to share this with all you bands out there struggling to make some decent rehearsal recordings without bringing out the computers.

So what makes this device so great, well the price for one, but definitely the features are killer. With a price in the same range of those tiny, hard-to-handle-with-their-clumsy-navigation hand-held recorders, you get a device with A LOT MORE features.

The best things is that this device is very intuitive. Sure, there are a lot of menu’s, but after playing around with it for a couple of hours you are ready to go and surprise your band fellows.

After struggling for a couple of years with laptops and external sound card and connector cables or messing around with those tiny recorders I’m considering myself a happy camper with this mini studio.

Some of the features:

• 8 XLR/Line inputs (2 of them are phantom powered) – you can plug in just about everything with an output: guitars, microphones, bass amp line out, keyboards or piano.
• 2 build in microphones through which you can record – this feature comes in handy when your at home and in a lazy mood and you just want to capture some new idea quickly without loosing your inspiration by setting up some mic’s and connect cables … just power on, new project and go …
• Record up to 16 tracks (max 8 tracks at the time) – this is great for recording the whole band in one go and can be used perfectly for demo-making – after laying down the basic tracks you can still punch in overdubs or use the remaining (up to 16) free tracks to record or re-record certain parts or redo vocals and backings.
• Recorded music is stored on a SD card – easy for transfer of data or copying projects to your computer – this cards come in all different sizes nowadays, this device supports SD cards up to 32GB of data. Standard, this device comes with a 1GB SD card.
• There’s a setting where you can choose to record in 16bit or 24bit/44.1kHz and all files are stored as WAV, so no lame-ass mp3 support here.
• All recorded tracks are organized in a project folder (as separate tracks) with a possibility to do a quick mix down (1 stereo track) but you just as well copy the project to your computer and continue in your DAW to do some mixing or rearranging of the song.
• Metronome for click track recording – handy when you want to lay down a basic track during pre-production a move everything to the computer later on.
• Insert / send effects (guitars/basses/fx/mastering effects) – which you would probably not use when recording your band in the rehearsal room, but easy when composing on your own.
• USB connection for moving files between this device and your band members USB sticks or if you connect this device to your computer via USB, it functions as a card reader.
• Powered by batteries (up to 6 hours, not included), an adapter (included) or usb from a computer.

So, that’s it ? Well no, this device can also be used as a controller for your DAW and you can also use it as a sound card for direct recording music onto your computer.

So what else do you need after buying things (whenever you buy something there’s always this other thing you require to get going)? Well, in order to make some decent recordings i recommend you get a few XLR mic cables, 2 omni-directional microphones (Audio Technica AT-2020′s will do a great job) and a headphone.

I don’t go to a rehearsal without this device anymore …