Strike a pose.

19Oct09

Yesterday, we had our very first photo shoot.  We had scheduled the day months ago and none of us were really surprised that the forecast called for weather in the high-thirties and rain.  Joseph Sinnott was our photographer.  We got incredibly lucky with Joe as he was willing to risk his equipment in unfavorable weather to make sure we got killer outdoor shots in the band’s official hometown, Astoria, Queens.

Our first location was on the waterfront in Astoria Park, with the Hell Gate bridge in the background.  Joe had an incredibly powerful strobe pack with him that would surely explode if wet and it was drizzling, so he pulled up next to the curb, kept the strobe pack inside and then mounted the lighting umbrellas directly to his Subaru Forrester.

Next we went up to the pool and stood above it.  The rain inspired Joe to buy us four identical black umbrellas to pose with.  We definitely looked like we were headed to a gothic prom.  People running by or walking their dogs seemed pretty amused.  Between takes, we would rush to throw our jackets back on, as we were all shaking from the cold air.

Finally, we headed to Socrates Sculpture Park.  There is always lots of interesting stuff on display there, but we settled on this glass structure with a dark black tree painted on it.  It was now getting into the evening and absolutely freezing, so Michele and I kept our coats on.  Usually the park is crawling with people, so it worked out well that the crappy weather made it more desolate.

After wrapping up the shoot, we went home.  Matt made glogg and we worked on mixing.  Hopefully, we’ll have the CD ready by the end of ’09!

xo – Lauren

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…and so it begins.

24Sep09

Welcome to the official SleepCrime blog.  

I’ve thought about starting a band blog about a million times, but today is the first day I’ve followed through.  For those of you who aren’t too familiar with us, SleepCrime is a rock band from Queens, NY consisting of Michele & Lauren (ex-Bettie After Midnight) and Matt & Andy (ex-Sayonara). As our facebook blurb says, “they tune down. WAY DOWN.”  Michele sings and plays guitar, Andy plays lead guitar and Matt plays bass.  I, Lauren, play the drums and sing occasional backups.

Back in April, we began recording our very first album, “Everything Secret Degenerates.”  I spent one incredibly long day laying down drum tracks for ten songs at Savaria Studios.  The engineer and owner, Tamas, is quite possibly the coolest dude I’ve ever met.  Not only is he an insanely talented drummer and engineer, but he is a Hungarian native and former member of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey’s circus.  SleepCrime had written the majority of our tracks a month or so before and we had only been a band for about 6 months, so my confidence heading into the studio wasn’t 100%.  Andy and Peter (our #1 supporter) came for moral support and I managed to get everything tracked in a little under 8 hours.  

I took a bunch of rec-tech classes back at NYU and decided who better to record and produce the rest of our album than us?  It is a decision I reconsider almost every day.  In the last year we’ve all experienced break-ups, moves and stress from our day jobs/other projects.  We’ve played some killer live shows to packed houses…but most of the time, the crowd consists of friends, co-workers and assorted other people who know us.

Now that a lot of the life disruption is behind us, we’re all refocused.  Last week, we played a show with a bunch of other local bands at Tommy’s Tavern in Williamsburg.  We’re about halfway through mixing the album and hope to have tracks online next week.  This will finally take us from make-believe band to real band.   I’m hoping this blog will be an interesting record of our successes, failures and lives in general.

xo – L

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