Pindral's Blog

Haiti Projekt - Progressive Rock For Charity

2010-03-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

The Haiti Projekt is officially available. Pindral has donated a track from our upcoming album. This is an effort to raise money for the victims of the Haiti earthquake disaster that occurred this January 2010. With a death toll estimated to be more than 200,000 with over 300,000 injured and millions without homes, food or water, the need for humanitarian help is immense. The Haiti Projekt is a compilation of 40 songs donated by famous and not-so-famous prog bands from around the globe. Please consider donating and getting some great music as an added bonus! Thanks. Click on the banner below to go to the official Haiti Projekt website.

Still Recording!

2010-03-23T07:41:00.001-07:00

We've been making some good progress on recording. Lately we've been trying to do some rehearsing on the next tunes we want to record drums. Looks like next week we're ready to lay down the drum parts for the fifth of seven track we plan for the CD.

Back To Recording

2008-08-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

This past week has ushered in a return to recording our first CD. A loose plan has been put in place. Avalanche has been nominated as the first tune we want to try completing. Since it's an instrumental and one of our oldest songs, that we know well, the thought is that it'd be good one help us get the smooth out any issues with the recording/overdubbing process. So far so good! Drums and bass tracks are down. Acoustic guitar and keys have been worked on too.

-Steve

Videos from our opening set for Fish

2008-07-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple songs we performed at The Fox Theatre on June 12, 2008. Avalanche and Dark One:

Avalanche Live @ The Fox Theatre 6-12-08 from Steve Navarre on Vimeo.

Dark One Live @ The Fox Theatre 6-12-08 from Steve Navarre on Vimeo.

Pindral Pics from The Fox Theatre

2008-06-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

We now have a couple cool collections of pics from our set taken by friends Dave Chambers and Kurt Brown. There's an album by each on my Photo Site.

Fish w/ C.A.R.S. T-shirt

2008-06-18T08:13:00.001-07:00

During our sound check Jamie gave Fish the Colorado Art Rock Society T-shirt he's wearing at the meet and greet in Milwaukee. Cool!

FISH Show was fantastic!

2008-06-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

Was a LONG day. Things went well though. Amazingly enough the Fox's stage was able to accommodate both band's gear. The folks at The Fox are an amazing bunch to work with...very professional and generous. We didn't get to really hang with Fish or many of the band members, but did get to watch their sound check and some brief exchanges with those guys. Favorite Fish moment was when we were doing sound check he came across the stage on the way to the greenroom and exclaimed sarcastically, "Jesus f*cking Christ, do you need all those f*cking drums!" (we had Jamie's drum kit, their drum kit and Scott's percussion rig up on stage) and gave us one of those classic big Fish grins. Jamie presented him with a Colorado Art Rock Society t-shirt...he thought it was cool.

Larry battled his way through his cold/lung infection (I think he drank about 6 gallons of various juices in the days before the show along with other remedies) enough to be able to perform his singing duties on Court of The Crimson Schizoid Man (which he did wonderfully) and Gretchen managed to make it to the theater just as we were to start doing song run throughs during sound check. (She was in Detroit on business earlier in the day).

Fish's set was fantastic! He really is quite the performer still and the band was very solid. His set blended selections mostly from Clutching at Straws and The 13th Star.

I'm guessing there was over 200 people there...not bad for a show like this on a Thursday night.

Our set seemed to be well received and we gave away over 50 free Pindral live CD samplers. Jamie looked stunning decked out in his kilt too!

I have a bunch more pics on my photo website.

Down The Stretch To The Fish Show!

2008-06-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

We had our final rehearsal last night. Why three days before the show? Gretchen has to fly to Detroit for business and won't return until 5:00pm the day of the show. Fingers crossed for airline efficiency that day! In other band member news Larry has come down with some sort of cold-like thing and is resting at home today...good thing we have a couple days until the show. Hoping for a speedy recovery!

Anyway, I think we have a pretty entertaining set worked up. Hopefully we won't be one of those opening bands one hopes gets off the stage quickly! ;)

We're in the middle of producing 60 Pindral Live CD-R Samplers to giveaway at the show. It's a multi-media disc with both audio and video tracks on it. The audio tracks are new mixes from our 9-20-07 show at The Oriental Theater when we opened for Blue Oyster Cult's Joe Bouchard. They are soundboard/matrix mixes. Think they turned out pretty good. We'll have T-shirts and caps for sale too.

Yesterday we found out we can load-in early Thursday if we want so we hope we might get to help Fish load-in and maybe get to sit in on Fish's sound check. One concern we have is we have a lot of gear and since we're the support band we might be rather cramped on stage. I'm sure The Fox Theatre folks are used to this kind of situations.

Oh, a self-proclaimed prophet in Texas just predicted that Thursday, June 12, 2008 will be the end of the world. Hopefully that won't put a damper on the show. ;)

New Pindral Portraits

2008-05-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

We had some fun on Memorial Day and had a Pindral BBQ/rehearsal/band pic day. Here's some favorites:

New Pindral Videos

2008-05-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

These are from our Progenstein's Halloween Bash back in October 2007:

Usher Jam by Pindral @ Progenstein's Halloween Bash from Steve Navarre on Vimeo.

High Over by Pindral @ Progenstein's Halloween Bash from Steve Navarre on Vimeo.

We're Opening for Fish!

2008-05-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

We are extremely honored and excited to announce that Pindral will be performing the opening set for the upcoming Fish show at The Fox Theatre in Boulder on Thursday, June 12th.

8:30 doors - 9:00 show
21+
$30

Tickets are available now: www.foxtheatre.com

Hope to see you there!

Onward Ho!

2008-02-26T10:22:00.002-08:00

Here's some pics of the new digs. We've set up a control room in a spare room right off our basement practice room and have been testing the new equipment. Things are coming along nicely and work on the first tune has begun. The full collection of pics can be seen here.

A couple recent recording experiments:

Here's part of an improved jam Jamie, Dave and I did last rehearsal while waiting for the others to arrive.

And this is a little experimental ditty I made using one of Jamie's drum parts we recorded a couple weeks ago, then I added some synth parts to it. It's called Duke's Lost. Why Duke? Jamie's was practicing parts of the Duke "Suite" by Genesis.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

We had our first band gathering last week. The goal was to map out priorities/goals for the coming year. Number one priority?

RECORDING A CD!!!

New mics, recording software and a multi-track computer interface have been ordered!

Halloween Bash - What Fun!

2007-11-06T09:03:00.001-08:00

Even though we were competing with The World Series that night we felt a decent crowd came out to check out the show. Thanks to everyone who came. There was a bunch of cool costumes as well. Congrats to the contest winners! Photos of them, the rest of the event and our specially decorated stage can be seen at my Photosite Here.

Also, thanks to Sons of Nothing for performing a kick-ass set of tunes. We really enjoyed listening!

Here's some very nice quotes and/or comments about the show:

"For those of you who attended last night's Progstein's Halloween Bash, it was great to see you. For those of you who did not make it, I think that you missed out on something truly wonderful. Our comrades in Prog, those lovable Pindral guys, really put on an amazing show - costumes (like the Prog Village People?), lavish stage-setting, theatrics, multi-media projections...and great music...made this a performance the likes of which is all-too-rare these days."
- Scott M. (the Paul Whitehead inspired Foxtrot album costume pictured above...Prog costume of the year!)

As told to Larry. "...Tom said you go to these things wondering just how good it's going to be and this completely took them by surprise. He's so use to hearing good musicians perform but there's just no "show" and here we ended up pulling out all the stops and put on an incredibly well produced event."
-Tom O

"Thanks Steve - and all the Pindral folks...you REALLY went over the top on the "spookifying" of the stage! I am sure that it took a lot of time and thought to pull it off.
The mad scientist, Larry, wheeling Jamie up to the stage.....in full Hannibal fashion.....then the escape and chasing Larry across the stage with a bloody knife..,great stuff...I hope someone got that on film. And yes, I agree, Scott M. should have taken home the prog costume of the evening - he Foxtrotted his ass off! Another evening of prog so good it was actually quite SCARY!"
-Peter

"WOW You guys are big time! Nice set, lights and great UTube :)"
- Tammy B.

Speaking of YouTube we posted the special Monster Mash "Public Service Announcement" video we made and debuted at the show with the performance of the song at PINDRALvision.

Also, here's our set list featuring the debut of a couple brand new original tunes:

Usher Jam (improvised opener)
Blackest Eyes-Porcupine Tree
Dark One-Pindral original
First Thunder-Pindral original
Avalanche-Pindral original
Shoot High, Aim Low-Yes
Under The Surface-New Pindral original
Hall of the Mountain King-Grieg (Pindral original arrangement)
Monster Mash-Bobby Pickett (Pindralized with special public service announcement video)
Metro Spacial Groove-Pindral original
High Over-New Pindral original
Court of the Crimson Schizoid Man medley-King Crimson

Halloween Bash Preperations

2007-10-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

This note to the rest of us from Gretchen pretty much sums up what we've been up to lately!

"Schweeet Flyers, check

"Killer Lights, dude!" check.

Scary and sometimes icky Props, check.

Wild variety of costumes, check.

Screen Show, almost a check - SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!

Costume winner give-aways, check.

Groovin', somewhat psychedelic, and certainly provocative music, check.

Cool band mates, definitely a check."

Hope you can join us next Saturday, October 27th!

Joe Bouchard Show

2007-09-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

What a fun gig!

Joe Bouchard is a great guy. Very humble, friendly and down to earth. No "rock star ego" as one might think coming from arguably one of classic rock's bigger acts.

He did an acoustic set on a 12 string guitar of his solo material then the local band Roktapus came on and backed him for the BOC tribute portion. It ROCKED! Kudos to the Roktapus guys. They are a trio of 20 something guys who just met Joe the day before and basically rehearsed with him once. They all said Joe was one of the nicest guys they've ever met. He was very patient with them. They didn't just play the BOC tunes straight from the albums either, all got live treatments with extended sections and solos. Came across very well. They even did a funny "more cowbell" homage during Fear The Reaper. A bud of the Roktapus guys came up on stage during the tune with this huge cowbell and whacked away on it throughout the entire song. Very fun!

I got to talk to Joe after our set when I ran into him in the dressing room. He was very complimentary about our set and said he loved our Crimson numbers...all our songs actually. He said they grew up loving those KC tunes, "they were the gospel to us back then." He really dug our projected effects show too and asked me how we did them.

The crowd could've been a little bigger, but, eh it was a Thursday night...oh well. Still a fun time had by all. At the end of the night I thanked Joe again and he said "yeah, lets do it again sometime!"

I didn't get to tell him I saw BOC with Foghat at the Toledo Sports Arena back in 1981. Wondered what his memories may have been about that tour. Maybe next time.

We received a lot of great compliments regarding our set. A big thanks to all!

Final Set Run Thoughs-Uhhhrrg!

2007-09-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

We rehearsed last Monday and Tuesday nights to shore up any performance issues for our show Thursday. These included getting our G-Force effects reloaded on our laptop so our guy Tim could coordinate the effects with the tunes. Monday things went fine. The same can't be said for Tuesday.

Tuesday we hooked the laptop up to the projector so we can all watch the effects...this is always a good idea so when we are actually on stage we don't get sucked into watching them when we are up on stage and forgetting what we are supposed to be playing. Well, the laptop and G-force didn't seem to want to get along when the projector was hooked up and kept freezing up....not good! It took some time and doing but I discovered reinstalling an older version of the program seemed to do the trick. Problem one solved after about 45 minutes or so.

Problem two. One of Larry's keyboard's, the old Ensoniq SQ-2 came up with a battery low warning. This means that when it goes out all the internal, user edited sound will be erased when the keyboard is shut off. Of course we need some of those sounds! Last time this happened we had to take the keyboard into a factory authorized repair place because we were told the battery is soldered in. Soldered in! I found some info online that described what one guy did to solve this problem. It involved taking it to a Batteries Plus store and have them replace it. Without experience one should not the solder a battery can be dangerous...batteries and heat do not mix! Wednesday looked like it was going to be fix the keyboard day. Well, we have all the sounds backed up fortunately so at least we could recover.

On Wednesday I got some great advice from some keyboardist over on the Progressive Ears forum. Why not wait until we can research installing a new battery when we have time? In the meantime we can bring the backup disc to the gig. As long as the board is plugged in it retains the memory. Good plan! None of the repair shops could guarantee getting the work done in one day anyway. We were so consumed with fixing it we didn't think of that really. I also got turned onto a removable battery compartment for the keyboard which when installed would allow us to to just slip a new battery in without solder. Great idea! Wednesday eve I decided to take the bottom off the board just to see where the dang battery is anyway. Guess what? The battery was already in a removable holder! No soldering necessary. We think the guys at our repair place ripped us off for some heavy labor fees ($75) and told us the thing had to be soldered and suggested they do the work. Uhhrg! So, in 20 minutes I had the new battery replaced ...that included running to Walgreens and back and loading the new sounds. Cost of new battery...$4.

Moral of the story...don't believe the manual or your repair people and check their work.

So what was supposed to be an easy/breezy rehearsal to tune up the musical performance aspect turned into a stressball situation.

All is good now. We are ready to prog rock!

Vacations, Holidays and Rehearsals, Oh My!

2007-09-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit of a challenge, seems every week some of us are heading out of town for various reasons, including this week, but we have managed to keep a somewhat regular rehearsal schedule going, even if it means working on videos and stuff for our October 27th Halloween Bash. Throw into the mix the fact The Oriental Theater has asked us to do an opening slot for Joe Bouchard, Blue Oyster Cult's founding bass player, who will be involved in a Blue Oyster Cult Tribute night on Thursday, September 20th, time is whirring by. We have a nice set worked out for the B.O.C. show. Hope to see some folks come out and catch the show!

Next Show News!

2007-08-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

We are very happy to announce that Salt Lake City's Sons Of Nothing will join us at our October 26th show at The Oriental Theater. They will perform a set of mostly original material. More details to come.

Another New Tune/Plans for Next Show

2007-07-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

High Over is the name. Another wonder piece Gretchen penned that we are arranging for full band treatment. Early playbacks of recent rehearsal recordings are giving me goosebumps.

Also, we have hashed out a set of tunes for our Halloween show which will be on Friday, October 26th at The Oriental Theater. Lots of new music and Halloweenish surprises are planned! Please join us. More info to come.

Just Rehearsing

2007-06-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

We've been sticking to our weekly rehearsal routine over the last several weeks. We have a handful of new material in the works. The tune Gretchen brought Under The Surface is sounding really nice. Also, a couple unusual cover tunes have received some attention.

Metro Spacial Groove on Deep Art

2007-04-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

A big thanks to Ribeau for playing Metro on his show early Saturday morning. It was a Pindral first as witnessed on the show's playlist.

First Pindral "Official Bootleg" gets mailed

2007-04-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

It may not be a big deal to most, but I mailed our first demo to DeepArt ( a Colorado based radio show) who's going to play some of the tracks on his show next weekend. Regrettably this will be Ribeau's last show. Thanks for including us!

We're on YouTube!

2007-04-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

Check out PINDRALvision to see a collection of videos from our last show.

Save Internet Radio

2007-04-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

In case anyone's not aware the future of internet radio is at risk. New royalty fees devised by the RIAA and Sound Exchange may all but put many small independent stations and shows off the internet. These stations/shows are often the only exposure independent bands can get.

Check out Save Net Radio for more info and sign the petitions.

New Tune's Working Title

2007-04-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

"Believe Me When I Tell You I'm Going To Love To Drown You Under The Surface Of My Turtle Soup, Or Am I Lying?"

Last week's rehearsal resulted in a some very good progress on the tune Gretchen wrote, which we are now hashing out in a full band manner. There was some confusion over the title. Is it Believe, Under the Surface, or Lie? All which have been mentioned at one time or another plus there's been additional creative embellishment thrown in for good measure since the tune's arrival at Pindral's underground practice lair. Under the Surface seems like the winner, though BMWITYIGTLTDYUTSOMTSOAIL seems like a good prog song title!

This week was a mental health break. Work is coming along nicely on some videos from our last show and on the Official Bootleg CD.

How to obtain free beer at Coors Field

2007-04-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Larry, Jamie, our good friend Gloria and myself attended the Rockies Opening Day game yesterday. Was a glorious spring day at the ol' ballpark despite the fact the Rox lost. Anyway, the place was packed with fans...a new attendance record was set in fact. The beer lines were all long so I decided to head to The Sandlot Brewery since they have an actual bar with multiple taps, hoping the wait wouldn't be long even though the brewery is about a third of the way around the ballpark. Well, wrong. The place was packed liked sardines and at a the fever pitch, everyone talking loudly. I finally inched my way up to the bar after several minutes only to have the bartender knock over a beer just at that moment. A wave of beer shoots across the bar and all over me. The bartender was very apologetic and offered to pick-up my order...so two free and tasty $6.25 Rightfield Red microbrews were handed over to me...I took one for the team! I returned to our seats with the glorious news of free beer, though I was a little stickier than when I left. lol

More Pics and Back To Work

2007-03-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

Our friend Scott Cleland took some cool pics of us. More to come on our website. (click on pic to enlarge)

Our practice schedule is back on track and Wednesday we did some cool-ass jamming and worked on a new tune Gretchen has brought to the table called Believe. We're very excited as early efforts at hashing it out are sounding good. Scott Pringle is back also. Great to have his percussion and vocals back in the Pindral sound. Welcome back Scott!

New Pindral Live samples

2007-03-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

Our MySpace page has recent samples of our original material.

Sons of Nothing/Pindral Show

2007-03-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

It's been almost two weeks since the show...seems like yesterday! We had a blast and felt pretty good about our performance. Sons of Nothing kicked-ass with their set as well. Wow, those guys are good. Thanks guys! We were pleased to see so many people at the show on a Sunday night. Our heartfelt appreciation to everyone who came out and to The Oriental Theater's staff for their hard work.

We've been going over video and audio over the last several days and feel we just might release a live "Official Bootleg" EP CD-r of our original material performed that night. Samples should be available here in the near future. Stay tuned. There will be new videos too.

Pindral's blog

2007-03-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

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