Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Making a Music Video

Guys I'm so excited! The other day I was talking to my producer and he thinks that I need to make a music video for my first single "Nothing Without Me". As most things these days are visual, he said it would make a complete package...plus something for me to work on while I am writing other songs for my EP.

So here came the first hard step...where on earth to start??! Where do I find people that can help me make this happen? So like any normal person of this day and age, I posted the question on facebook. To my surprise (and delight!) I had an overwhelming response and have decided to go with a friend of mine, who also fronts the awesome rock band 'Kickstart'. We sat down and had a chat last week and he gave me a lot of things to think about...I can just tell that my control-freak side is going to come out!
He has a crew of people that are willing to give up their time to help Tony to help me make this work which I am so thankful for! I really am very lucky!

The only thing left to do now, is to start doing my homework...watching as many music videos as I can tolerate, and pick out and write down things I like about each one. Whether it's costumes, looks, scenery, backdrop, general ideas or storyline ideas etc.
I also have a friend who is an amazing dancer who said he would be willing to get his crew together if I wanted dancers. Aaaah I'm totally swamped! I have so many ideas and so many thoughts running through my head~how am I ever going to make any sense of it all?!

I am also of course, very willing to hear ideas if you would like to be a part of this process and help feed me any suggestions as I always think "the more the merrier"!

So I will keep everyone updated with my ideas and all, but please do write in and let me know what you think!


Peace xXx

Monday, May 17, 2010

Day One of Get Fit Regime for Music Video-The Morning After...

So yesterday I got the news that I need to make a music video for my first single "Nothing Without Me" which I am very excited about as I've never made a video before! However, then it dawned on me and I thought "this means that even though I've been going to the gym and trying to eat healthily previously,  now I have absolutely no excuses. I'm going to have to step it up a notch!" This will mean including a lot more cardio in my fitness plan (which I absolutely hate doing!). I will always stick by my guns on this one when I say I've never been, nor ever will be, a runner. I am just not built for it~and my asthma makes it more difficult.


So anyway, finding myself absolutely exhausted from a bad nights sleep I dragged myself off to the gym. I go with my boyfriend as he was recently studying fitness at TAFE and being 6'7" with an unfairly fast metabolism~he likes to go regularly. So at least this helps to keep me motivated...most of the time.


Having said I dragged myself off to the gym, I ended up doing probably one of the most intense workouts I've done in a very long time! The only thing that kept me going was watching the TV screens at the gym (one of which plays [V]) so I was watching a never-ending supply of music videos whilst I was working out FOR a music video lol! All in all it was quite a strange experience, but nevertheless I started getting some good ideas for mine.


I have started inquiring and asking around for people who are connected in the industry and who might be able to help me out. I have found that one of my friends (and talented musician also-check out his band at www.kickstart.com) used to work at FOX Studios and I'm meeting with him on Thursday this week to chat about costs and requirements and format etc. Hopefully he likes my song and is able to help me out!


So anyway after a great day, I also had a great nights sleep last night...sad to say I woke up this morning in agony! Hahaha! Ahhhh well, it might take a while with the gym beating me into submission...but don't worry, one day soon (Hopefully) I'll start kicking IT into submission!


Until then...or next time ;-)

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Heard first mix of "Nothing Without Me" and it's ROCKING!

Wow I had another session with JM on Sunday (after 2.5 hrs sleep courtesy of Vanessa...and my rather eager decision to make it an 8am session~Yes I'm that excited!) and after another three hours of hard work listening and choosing, we have finally got our first rough mix of my song!


Of course there will be a few small changes to make upon listening to it a few times, but all in all I'm extremely happy with it! I know it's all I seem to be talking about lately but it's just because I'm so damn excited and I just can't wait for all of my friends to hear it :D


The producer that I'm currently working with is convinced that the song is a hit and he gave me a heads up on Sunday that he is going to show it to the President of EMI Records in L.A. (Billy Mann). He is very confident and thinks that it might possibly land me a deal.


It's such great news! Although I am very excited, I'm still trying to keep cool about the whole thing...after all the last time that I was offered a 360 deal from a producer in L.A. it was a very disappointing experience. However, everything seems to be happening a lot differently this time so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!


We will be making the changes this week and then hopefully the song will be about ready for public listening! Providing of course that I don't get snatched up by EMI lol! I will keep the updates on my blog pages and twitter page (www.twitter.com/PetronellaMusic) so please follow if you'd like to be kept in the loop!


That's all for now I think...


Until next time :)

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Post-Gig Adventures

Here we are again...another "normal" gig night at The Mustang Bar in Perth, although we have had a fill in drummer. Awesome BTW! Yeah we all packed in to Damiens' van (Vanessa), including himself, his girlfriend Dolly, our roadie Adam, our guitarist Mike, our drummer Sam, and of course myself! Not to mention all of our gear inclusive...

So we all trundled off to the gig and everything was sweet as apple pie. Gig went well, amidst the show was Sams' challenge to me, to insert a certain (possibly dirty) word into one of my songs, replacing normal song lyrics with *a certain word or sentence* which I have to say I did very well ;-) After the gig, we loaded out and set off on the relatively short path home...or so we thought!

Now of course, we had a rehearsal before the gig this night as we had a fill in drummer playing with us, we needed to make sure that he was savvy with all of our tunes...which he was :)
So all of our cars were nicely parked waiting upon our return to Damiens' house.

So there we all were, happy as larry, heading home via Damiens' house down Orrong Rd until Vanessa started shuddering. Just small ones at first, then small turned into medium, and medium into big until she conked out on the road. CRAP! All these people and all this gear!! But it's OK because it's a gas conversion, so we've run out of gas but we'll just switch it to petrol...meanwhile slowly idling through a major freeway intersection at a speed less than that of walking pace...luckily the lights were still green for us! SO here we go, making the switch over to petrol now...now she'll start...I said, now she'll start...AHEM I SAID NOW SHE'LL START!

Are you kidding??! NO FREAKIN WAY!!! Wouldn't start. Just gave us nothin! So here we all are, once again, in the middle of the road, stopped. Damien says "let's just hop out and give her a rest eh?" "No worries" we all say (Keeping in mind we're still in the middle of a used road LOL!) So we did. Got out, entertained ourselves, waited for about 10 minutes and tried again. But still no luck.
OK so we're gonna have to push her to a petrol station (which luckily is actually in sight!)

What a sight for sore eyes! Damien (A.K.A rockstar), Sam (fighting fit), Mike (unfit) and me (in heels!) running down the road pushing the damn van! HAHAHA if only I had pictures to add :D

We got her to a petrol station, but what a turn of events! We filled her back up with gas and off we went. Got home not a problem. Geez what a night...just what you need after a lengthy and high-energy gig!

There is no moral to this story, however there is a happy ending...we all got home safely ;-P

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Vocals for Upcoming Hit Single "Nothing Without Me" Recorded!

In the studio yesterday! Pretty much consisted of 5 hours of solid singing to get the vocals for my upcoming single perfect! ...although having said that I am a perfectionist so I'm always way too critical of myself. I'm sure everyone can relate somewhat.

Big massive thanks to my good friend Kim Goodlet (Sound Engineer) who spent the hours with me in his studio getting the vocals just right. All in all it was a productive and worthwhile team effort!

I will be sending the tracks to my producer in Los Angeles who is producing the track for me. He will add his magic touches and then I will hopefully have the track all ready to be released in the next few weeks!

Am so excited to hear it! Really can't wait :) It's been a while in the making, and there are plenty more where that's come from so keep an eye and an ear out over the upcoming weeks as I will be releasing my first single "Nothing Without Me" on iTunes very soon!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Amazing Performance at The Ellington

Hey all,

Just wanted to share with you the amazing performance that I saw last week.
As some of you may know I am currently studying the amazing technique of Speech Level Singing, and also am a pre-certified singing instructor. Every six months we get graced by the presence of a member of the Instructor Management Team from America. This time it happened to be a lovely lady called Wendy Parr whom I had the pleasure of meeting about four years ago when I attended the Summer camp in LA in 2006.

She was co-writer (alongside AR Rahman) of the famous song "Dreams On Fire" that was on the soundtrack for the GRAMMY and OSCAR winning movie "Slumdog Millionaire". Anyway she was in Perth with us last week doing a teachers workshop, and booked a gig at The Ellington Jazz Club performing songs from her newly released EP.

She was performing (on vocals) with a pianist, violin, cello and drummer-which is already a very unusual line-up of instruments. I have to say it was absolutely one of the most captivating performances that I have seen in a very long time!
She has an amazing talent. Great voice. But such a comfortable and warming stage presence.
She has this wonderful way of making the audience feel that they are just casually listening and involved in her story. One of her songs "Nana's Secret" was so special, and the background story that she told to us, really made us want to know the details of her experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed her performance, as I said, best I've seen in a long time. And I hope that she'll be back here again sometime soon to share her beautiful voice, and her story.

Thank you for sharing your story with us xXx

Sunday, May 2, 2010

New Single to be Released on iTunes Soon!

Those of you that follow my twitter page (www.twitter.com/petronellamusic) will know that I have been working with an extremely talented producer John-Mark Seltzer.


I have been writing original songs for a few years now, and my style has ranged a little from acoustic to funk/rnb to rock. From writing in these different styles I have now settled with the genre that feels most like home to me...ROCK BABY!

I love it! I love the raw energy, the explosion of adrenaline that I get when I jump onstage and perform rock music. It's so much fun!

So that is currently what I am working on at the moment with JM. JM is a producer at EMI Records in LA, and also a talented singer/songwriter, with the incredible Billy Mann as his manager (the man behind P!nk's 'I'm Not Dead' album).

I completed writing the song and sent it to JM. He immediately liked it, but thought that we could work on it to make it really "pop" in the chorus. So after a few long hours and hard work, we have rearranged and rewritten a few parts, and it is now sounding absolutely incredible! His words were "If I heard this on the radio, I would want to know who it was!" so I can't be much happier than that!

He has since offered to produce it for me, so I am in the process of recording the vocal takes this week and will send them to him for mixing and mastering purposes...then I will have a new track!

I will be releasing "Nothing Without Me" via iTunes in the coming few weeks so definitely keep your eyes and ears peeled for its debut!
And I am currently working on some other material to follow it up with a kickass EP~just the right kinda ear candy :D

I am so excited that I'll be sharing my song with you all very soon!

xXx

Exclusive Artist Interview on WSF Radio (Chicago, IL)

So last night I was all ready for a normal gig night...or so I thought!

We had a lovely pre-gig conversation with a wonderful lady Susan in Fort Payne (Alabama) who finally got to meet the whole band! :)

Well the gig itself was pretty normal (if you can ever really call them that!) songs were rockin' as usual...as were we ;-P

Huge crowd response down at The Mustang Bar on a Saturday night singing with the Damien Cripps Band. Even had a guy tell me repeatedly that he wanted to marry me! HA! Like I said...as normal as it usually is!

Anyhow, we were in for a real treat. After the show, amidst our post-gig hype we got to do an exclusive band interview on live WSF Radio in Chicago! I mean, we were just hangin out on the phone to a lady running a radio station in Chicago! Was a heap of fun! We got to hear the band songs being broadcast live on WSF Radio as we were sitting there on the phone to them! They played about 10 tracks which is really cool.

We did actually take some video of the nights events, so that will be posted up on the internet somewhere at some point so I will make sure that I post the link as soon as I have it. And as for the radio interview, well if you missed it you can listen to it here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/entertainu/2010/05/01/damien-cripps-band 

Well that's about it for now I think!

Until next time...check out my myspace page at www.myspace.com/petronellamusic for some hot tunes!