Category: samples

we made a thing

~ Adam Johnston ~ 2 Comments

It’s not as though this has been a secret, but we’ve been keeping it to ourselves until everything was ready.

And now, it’s ready.

We spent an afternoon in the studio and recorded stuff worthy of your favorite speakers or headphones. Either way, turn it up to 11 and listen.

You can go to the dedicated samples page (substandards.band/samples) where there’s a description of each track (plus one bonus demo track!), or push the play button on the player in the side bar (often pushed to the bottom if you’re reading this on a smaller device), or let us know if you’d like these in another format and we’ll be delighted to share them with you.

While you’re listening, here’s a few snapshots from The Proper Way studios on a Saturday afternoon. When we look back on this, we were clearly having a good time playing through the live takes to get each track just like we wanted it. It was also intimidating and stressful. But you’d never know now. We’re proud of these, and grateful that we got to do this. We hope you enjoy it, too.

For gigs, Caryn’s usually in heels. This should be our album cover.
Ian with 4 microphones and a room all to himself
Tim and his fretless bass.
Tim and Caryn getting situated.
Adam warms up and figures out headphones.
Caryn listening to one of our takes.
Hanging up the headphones and listening to tracks in the studio.
Caryn, Caryn’s microphone, and Caryn’s headset all getting a break.
Caryn with Scott Rogers, our recording guru who puts all the sounds through the cables and into the boxes.

get ready

~ Adam Johnston ~ 1 Comment

Remember that time we got to play Jazz at the Station? We’re still tickled about that. Being up on a stage in that giant hall where the sound hangs in space, all in front of old friends and new friends — this all makes for a really fun gig.

People Get Ready
We’re using the train station theme. Listen to the end when Caryn gets the audience on board.

Since then, we’ve been keeping to ourselves but busy working. In the next couple of days we should have something new to share!

Edit: A few days later in the studio, we’d record a demo of the same song while we were checking microphones. It’s fun to play with the variation the song affords.

People Get Ready demo

professional courtesy

~ Adam Johnston ~ 1 Comment

We enjoy taking other artists’ music and crafting it according to our own style and musings. On some level, this is just for our own entertainment and enjoyment. But I also think it’s a professional courtesy. We take music that’s pretty good and then see what we can do to make it better. Take, for example, the Grammy nominated The Middle. Sure, it’s already a fine song, but we thought it might be improved if we traded in its dance floor and synth for our blues scales and fretless bass. We think it works quite well. 

Caryn, Tim, Ian, and Adam at Cuppa, 14 Dec 2018.

Zedd & company have literally a million times as many plays on YouTube as we do. But we’ve got a better following at the vegan coffee shops. 

50 Ways

~ Adam Johnston ~ Leave a comment

There are 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, as Paul Simon advises. We think there are at least as many to cover a song. This one is fun for us because the chord changes are so interesting and they beg for flourishes. It’s fun to hear Ian mix it up with percussion while Tim really anchors the almost creepy changes in a bluesy way. And, of course, Caryn belts it out with zeal.

Watch how at around 3:00 Ian laughs out loud as he and Adam spontaneously feel the need to fill in with the same triplet. That’s one of at least 50 ways it’s fun to play in the band.

fall gigs

~ Adam Johnston ~ Leave a comment

We’ve got a couple more gigs coming up!

First, we get to play Brigham City Farmers Market @ 10AM-Noon this Saturday, Sept 22. Get your peaches and some of our latest tunes in the same trip.

And, we return to Cuppa in Ogden! 7-9 PM, Friday, October 5. We love that space, that piano, the pastries and tea. But we especially love the welcome that we get there from the Cuppa community.

Follow our Facebook for event pages and other updates. For now, here’s a clip that Caryn surreptitiously recorded of an early take of The Middle. We’re having a lot of fun with this. (This is the most you’ll ever see Adam groove. Something good must be happening.)