Blog Sinch Archive

Here is a short video clip of our time at Ardent Studios in Memphis Tenn. It was taken in December of 2000 while we were there recording a demo of our song “Pain.” While the version of “Pain” from this session was never used, we later rerecorded it and put the song on our self-titled album that was released by Roadrunner records in 2002. As you can image there’s lots of downtime in the studio. Hours if not an entire day can be spent setting up all the mics and other various technical things so the band if often left to wonder around and explore the studio. This video clip is a good example this. It shows Tony playing his Nord keyboard (r.i.p) and Jamie playing the studio piano.

If you’re interested in hearing the actual song we recorded during this studio session it can be found in the podcast section of the site.

OK, so we’re not technically in the studio yet, but for the sake of simplicity anything that has to do with writing, recording, mixing, etc., will be labeled as “Studio Journal”.

For the past couple months we’ve been getting together about 3 times a week and working on new material. We’re at the point now where we have 5-6 songs that are really far along. They’re not necessarily done, but pretty close. Then we have 4-5 other songs that range anywhere from just a few ideas tied together to a somewhat complete arrangement. Sometimes you find yourself up against a wall with a particular song and you just have to let it sit for a while.

A few of the songs came together very quickly. For me those always seem to be the best ones. Sometimes everything just clicks and the song almost seems to write itself. Then there are other times where we try 20 different arrangements and nothing ever seems right. It sucks because we have a lot of really good parts that just never found their way into a finished song. If we somehow could turn each one of those into a song right now, we’d easily have a double album ready to go tomorrow.

We’re all pretty happy with the progress so far, though. I’m just anxious to get to the point where the songs are done and we really start nailing everything down and getting ready to record. That’s always the most exciting part for me. I tend to be pretty spontaneous when we’re writing. I hardly ever play anything the same twice. So when you get to the recording stage, you kind of have to settle on something. It’s interesting to see where everything ends up and it’s just exciting to be able to hear it recorded properly. Drums just don’t ever sound quite as good as when they’re all miked up and recorded on separate tracks. Well, for me at least… the live sound is cool in its own way, but I just really love the way they sound on tape.

We’re also working on a live performance of some songs from the Subdivisions EP. We tried it for the first time on Monday and it actually went pretty well. I think it’s gonna be really cool when we get out and do these songs live. I think some of you who were a little surprised by how different they are might appreciate them more after seeing them performed live. They can tend to sound pretty mellow on the EP, but I think we’ll probably be bringing some more energy to them live.

So, you’re probably wondering where you’ll be able to see this live performance. Well, so are we at this point. We don’t have anything booked as I’m sure most of you are aware, and for the near future we’re probably only looking at doing some local shows. We need to raise some money to pay for this new album, so we’ll probably be doing a bunch of shows over the summer, but they’ll most likely all be in the PA area. And they’re probably gonna be geared more around our lighter stuff so we can get into some smaller places.

We love doing our big, loud show with the 12 foot screen or whatever, but there’s a lot of cool little places in our hometown here (Doylestown, PA) that we just can’t fit that kind of setup into. And besides, I think we’ve always wanted to try doing a more stripped down show. “Sinch Unplugged,” I guess you could call it, although we’ll still be using electric guitars and synths and stuff.

If the shows go well we’ll certainly be considering taking the acoustic show into some other areas, but for right now we’re starting at home. Hopefully some of you will be able to make it out to the shows and let us know what you think. We’ll try to get some decent video recordings as well for everyone that can’t make it.

We’ll have more info on specific dates and stuff over the next couple months.

A Swarm of Angels is “a groundbreaking project to create a £1 million film and give it away to over 1 million people using the Internet and a global community of members.”

This is a really cool idea. It’s something I’ve considered doing on a smaller scale with a Sinch album (or some other type of release that needs up front money to get started).

People are getting a lot of their music for free these days anyway. Why not flip the whole process around and get the fans to buy the album before it’s even recorded? The band gets the advantage of having the money they need up front, and then all the “investors” get it for free when it’s done. Seems reasonable enough to me.

I’ve actually come across some sites that are attempting to do just that. One of the bigger ones is Sell A Band. Through their site, a band finds 5,000 “investors” (ie: fans) willing to cough up $10 each (or more if they want). Once the total raised reaches $50,000, the band records an album. They do a limited edition release on CD which gets sent (for free) to all the investors. Then they give the tracks away for free online, splitting the ad revenue from the site 3-ways between Sell A Band, the artist and the 5,000 investors. Also, they produce another version of the CD for the band to sell at shows and elsewhere, and that revenue is also split with the investors.

So, for a pretty small investment you could actually not only get a free CD, but also make some money in the process.

Sell A Band is definitely trying to sell people on the idea that it’s actually working for some bands, but I’d be interested to know what % of the total bands that have signed up are anywhere near being successful. So far it looks like only 2 bands have actually reached the $50,000 and neither of them has released their album yet. But it’s encouraging to see the idea working if only for a couple bands so far. It’ll be interesting to see what happens once some albums are released:

How involved will Sell A Band be after the fact? Will any of the bands be able to build on this success and create a sustainable career in the process? Will the quality of the album be enough to compete with everything else out there?

Here’s a question: Do you think Sinch should get involved with something like this? We certainly have a lot more than 5,000 fans out there. The question is can we connect with enough of them who are willing to invest money in us? Let us know what you think.

Jamie’s dad, Rod, leads the way through our crib. We didn’t have enough time to show off our rides, but you get the basic idea. We’ll be doing a more thorough tour when Cribs returns to the garage this spring.

Check out the video for Bitmap, now on SinchTV!

This video was edited in real-time with the Ocular Noise Machine. If you’ve ever seen us live you should recognize this as being similar to how the song is performed live. And if you haven’t seen us live, well, this is what you’re missing.

Also just added to SinchTV: Plasma

Have you checked us out on Flickr lately? Probably not. You’re lazy and distracted by the modern world we all live in… just like us.

Here’s what you’ve been missing:

Rehearsal Space - December 2006

We’ve been holed up in our rehearsal space for the past couple of months working on new material. These are some not-very-good photos, taken somewhat-haphazardly after a rehearsal session on Dec 11, 2006.

Creating the Cover for Clearing the Channel

These photos show the progression of the TV we used to create the cover of our album, "Clearing the Channel".

Photo Shoot - NYC 2002

These are contact sheets from a photo shoot we did in NYC prior to the release of our self titled album.

View some more awesome sets here.

Here’s some other cool stuff you can do with Flickr that you couldn’t do on our site:

• View all our photos as a slideshow
• Subscribe to our photos Feed
• View photos by location on the map
• Join the Sinch Fans group
• Add us as a contact on Flickr

There are a ton of new services and applications popping up on the web these days. I tend to check a lot of them out in case it’s something that would be useful in promoting Sinch. It’s how I originally came across sites like Myspace, PureVolume, Flickr, and Frappr.

I recently found a new site called Grupthink that’s pretty interesting. Members can post questions — anything from “Who is your favorite comedian?” to “Do you adhere to, or identify with, any particular belief system/religion?”

As you might expect, in trying it out I decided to post a Sinch-related question:

Best Sinch Song?

I spent a little time adding the songs from Clearing the Channel and our self titled album, and at some point decided I would come back later and finish it. I went back to find that none of the songs had been voted on and the #1 answer with a grand total of 6 votes is now “Who is Sinch?”

I’m sure most of you have an opinion on what our best songs are, so I figured I’d post it here and see if we can get some real answers. Head over to Grupthink and pick your favorites.

Once you create a free account you can add new answers (if your favorite song isn’t there yet) and you can post your own questions. If you add any new questions to the site, post them in the comments so we can all get in on the action.

It’s interesting the way the voting works. You can actually vote for every song if you want to. By default they will be ranked in the order you vote on them (first vote being your #1 favorite), or you can reorder your votes on the right side.

2007 has arrived and once again I tell myself, “This is the year.” I never really have a clear idea of what I think it’s the year of. It’s just the year.

Maybe we’ll sweep the Grammys. Or maybe we’ll play 5 shows on 5 continents in 5 days. Or maybe we’ll just drive a van into a brick wall. Who knows? I certainly don’t. What I do know is that something will happen and if you stay tuned here at Sinch.net (and the still-sorta-new-but-not-really-fully-realized-yet Sinch.tv), you can come along for the ride.

Hopefully everyone survived 2006 without too much of a hassle. (These guys didn’t.) We managed to coast into 2007-town on fumes, but we’re getting gassed up and ready to get back on the road. (Metaphorically speaking. We don’t actually have touring plans yet. And I apologize for how stupid that was.)

Anyway, this should be one for the books. Or, I should say, one in which we (maybe) actually release a book. You’ll have to wait and see exactly what that means (we’re still not totally sure yet either).

In all seriousness we do have some stuff planned for this year, most of which will be able to be enjoyed by everyone, no matter what part of the world you live in (as long as you have access to a computer).

SinchCast will be back in some form or another. Sinch.tv will be getting some more content. We have some new music we’re working on. And those are just the first 3 things. There’s at least 1 more after that. At least.

So, let’s close out 2006 with a little piece of good news:

This week, “Identity Theft” reached #2 on the LoudCity charts for 525.com Power Tracks! And this isn’t some chart with 200 bands you never heard of and then us at #2. We beat out bands like Tool, Breaking Benjamin, Nonpoint (they’re not fucking around this time) and plenty of others I’m sure you’ve heard of. It’s not Billboard or anything like that, but we’ll take what we can get.

Request Sinch on 525.com and help us take over this chart. I’m sending them some more music so feel free to request some other songs as well.

When we originally launched Sinch TV, I inadvertently posted an unfinished version of the “Untitled 2005 Documentary“. If you watched that video you probably noticed the anti-climactic ending where it just sort of cuts off with no warning. Well, now the fully restored “director’s cut”, a 12-minute long epic, has been posted for your viewing pleasure.

We’ve been a band 12 some-odd years now. Well, actually, 12 all-odd years. Over that time we’ve played hundreds (if not thousands) (or millions) of shows, yet we’ve never owned an official Sinch Tour Van ™. For a long time we used a minivan that I inherited from my parents but I wouldn’t exactly call it a “tour” van. As far as I know, rock and roll tour vans are prohibited from having wood paneling on the side (unless its a conversion van, in which case the presence of a TV and PS2 overrides any such rules). We’ve also rented, borrowed and otherwise acquired transportation to shows and for longer tours. For whatever reason, we’ve just never made the leap of faith into band van ownership.

Well, I think the time has come. Up for auction at this very moment is a one-of-a-kind van that I don’t think we can afford to pass up:

From the auction desctiption:

1986 SPY GHOST HUNTING SURVEILLANCE PARAPSYCHOLOGY VAN

One of a Kind. Originally used on Miami Vice and Nash Bridges TV shows. Purchased by the American Institute of Parapsychology for investigations of allegedly haunted locations! I purchased it a few years ago and have only driven it a few hundred miles. Diesel Van has less than 60K miles. Comes with working pan/tilt mounted on roof (camera removed), deep cycle battery bank-(all hold full charge), a 250gig 4 channel DVR which also records 4 channel audio and acts as a quad.You could record audio and video remotely for a month. Huge power inverter to run everything you need on 120v AC. Like new Samsung 17″ Flat Screen monitor. 2 smaller swivel LCD Monitors. Pan Tilt Controller, dash mount flip out LCD monitor and rear mount infrared camera for backing up easily. I also have the 20 watt low frequency tx/rx set which is like new,used with the van and already mounted antenna. You can recieve and record clear audio and video for many miles with this setup. Integrated sound system in the back along with a video effects board. All equipment works very well. Four swing out chairs and a practical work area in the back. Even has a huge xray flourescent light table viewer mounted to wall. Windows are mirror tinted. Has a very solid tow bar section for towing another vehicle(see pic). Van has been in everything from childrens books on ghosts to above mentioned tv shows.

Now, I don’t know how much ghost hunting we’d be doing, but it would be nice to have the option. Regardless, this thing is just begging to turned into the Ocular Noise Machine ON WHEELS. Roof mounted camera! Read-mounted infrared camera! Integrated sound system with video effects board! 250GB DVR! Sold tow bar (for our trailer)!

Just add a couple laptops, some more cameras, maybe an external video screen (so we can have video running on the outside of the van 24/7, and a viditar or two and we’d be off to the goddamn races. I guess they’d be some kind of video van races (which might not exist yet), but races nonetheless would be gone off to… by us.

The bidding currently stands at $3,000, but the reserve hasn’t been met yet so who knows what they actually want for this thing. We’ll gladly accept any donations, and in return everyone who donates will have their name and likeness featured on the outboard video screen at least once a day for all to see, for the rest of time (which might not actually be that long, but I think it’s still worth it.
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