Live at Shogun Bey Lea in Toms River

Fiery dinner at Shogun Bey Lea

Wrong Side of Dawn will be entertaining the lucky people eating and drinking at Shogun at Bey Lea in Toms River on Friday July 9th and Saturday July 10th, 6:30pm-11pm both nights. The show is free! The food and drinks are not, but we promise that they’re worth paying for. We’ll be playing outside on the lovely roofed deck, which should be pleasant no matter what the weather is like. Friday will be an acoustic set with just Brian and Nelson, while Saturday will have more of a full rock band lineup and potentially rock harder 😉

If you’re on Facebook, attend the Facebook event.

Bass tabs – we need a bass player!

Since we’re searching for a bass player to play at least a few gigs with us (Andres can’t make it to some of our upcoming gigs), I thought that now is as good a time as any to publish the bass tabs for our album! We have tabbed out every song that has bass on the album except for the opening to Crossing the Bar, which we haven’t figured out yet. The tabs were created using TuxGuitar, which is an open source, cross-platform tabulature editor.

Here is a zip file containing all of our bass tabs in PDF format.

Here is a zip file containing all of our bass tabs in TuxGuitar format.

If you think these songs look fun and you have the chops to play them on bass, please e-mail us at band@wrongsideofdawn.com or call us at (732) 503-9763! Our next couple of gigs are in south Jersey by the shore, but we rehearse in central/north Jersey.

Song Stories: “Running Scared”

In the coming weeks, Nelson and I have decided we’ll relate some of the stories behind how our songs were written and recorded. They might not be as exciting as, like, a story about how we thwarted a bank robbery or something (I’ll tell you if we do), but the hope is that if you know a little something about the songs, maybe you’ll get more attached to them. Actually, forget what I just said. It’s too early to reveal our master plan.

Starting from the beginning of the album, we’ll skip over the 47-second “Flight I” (perhaps including it in a combined post with “Flight III” later) and start from track 2, “Running Scared.”

Running Scared

Very rarely have I ever sat down and said “I am going to write a song now.” Most songs I write begin with some sort of lucky accident; I’m more likely to begin a song by fumbling around with some chords that I played by accident than I am to begin writing with any sort of conscious attempt. (Specifically, the guitars to “Out of Time” and “Where Is Bobby McGee” were born out of a misplaced finger that occurred while attempting to play something else.) When I take the latter approach, it usually winds up being a waste of time, and I spend many hours working on something that will get thrown out by reason of sucking real bad.

That’s why “Running Scared” (track 2 on our album) sticks out for me among our songs. When I started writing it, I sat down with a specific goal in mind. Naturally, the song was a total FAIL in actually accomplishing that goal. This is about as close as I come to consciously choosing the direction of my songwriting.

“Running Scared” was supposed to cure a recent spat of amateur attempts at weird chord voicings and other experiments that sounded like shit. The basic idea behind the new song was this: Stop trying to find sounds that are weird or unique. If no one’s ever done anything like it before, that’s probably because it sucks. (Actually, I’d still argue that the main riff to “The Grinder’s Tale” is unique, but I’ve already spent too much time on that story.) Instead, create something straightforward and old-fashioned, and use your instincts to make it catchy. Go for something simple, something “Stones-y,” something short and powerful that will leave an immediate impression. Oh, and it should be nice and easy to play, like a Stones song.

Keith Richards

In the interest of being Stones-y and rootsy, I started with something resembling a boogie pattern on an A. Nothing more basic rock-n-roll than that. From there, I played some other barre chords, throwing my fingers on to all the most practical embellishments I knew, until I had the basic form of the chorus: A-D-C-G-A-D-C-F.

By the next day, I was back to being dumb and trying to do things the hard way: “Hey, I’ve never written anything starting with the bass before. Let’s do that today!” I took up my bass and bounced through an overactive, unseemly, ostentatiously funky bass line. “This will be the verse to my rootsy song!” said I, rather arbitrarily and stupidly.

But first, I needed a guitar part to play over my hyperactive bass line. Following along the chord progression that my bass line only obliquely suggested, I wrote a guitar riff that was as fast, active, and funky as the bass. Rookie mistake. If I had really wanted to go all the way with this bass line, the smarter decision might have been to simplify the guitar as much as possible. The bass line was so overactive, I had simply run out of room for more interesting instrumental parts. Try as I might to cram by the guitar and bass together on a demo, it all sounded like unconnected mush.

Something had to go. It was the bass. The guitar part that I’d written to “support” the bass stayed, and it became the basis of the verses. I’ve since forgotten the bass line. Go figure.

There was still one more problem to get around in order to awkwardly paste my chorus and verse together. While the chorus had been written in A, the verse was written in G. To accomplish the modulation up to A, I hammered out a simple pre-chorus. Of course, it wasn’t until long after the song had been recorded that I realized, “Gee, I don’t use any open strings in the verse. I could have played the verse in the same key as the chorus by just moving my fingers up 2 frets during the verse.” Way to write a whole section that you didn’t have to, genius.

When I finally went to record what I’d written, I used Nelson’s digital 8-track recorder, and backed it with one of the built-in electronic drum beats. What do you know, the pre-programmed beat just happened to stop at a transition point in the intro, and then restart in the middle of the first verse. This quirk was carried over even when we started recording real drums. Where is that demo, anyway? Oh, here it is. Speaking of unintentional drum parts, you’ll notice that, on the final “Stay Awake” version, Anthony keeps the song interesting by handling each verse and pre-chorus a little differently than the one before. I haven’t asked him about this, but I’m convinced that’s because he was just making all that shit up as he went along. Before going into the studio, he knew the exact beat that he wanted to play under the guitar solo at the very end. (Listen to the drums there starting around 3:49; they’re pretty cool). The song up until then? I’m not so sure. But hey, if you’re good enough to get away with stuff like that…

And then there’s the lyrics. I must have written at least a dozen drafts of lyrics for this one. No, not drafts for “Running Scared,” mind you, but drafts for a whole bunch of other songs with names like “Duck Tape,” “I Can’t Take It,” “She’s Got It,” and God only remembers what else. Nothing really worked.

And there was that day when I decided, “You know what, we don’t do enough backup vocals. In one of our songs, we should shout something catchy and moronic like ‘hey hey hey.’ How about this song?” And so “Running Scared” had it’s first official lyric. The word “hey.”

Finally, I was driving home one day (from Target, how the hell do I remember that?), listening to my instrumental demo, and started improvising some vocals along with the music.

I think the basic idea was about a fear of… what ? Commitment? Success? Of growing up? Maybe a realization that actually reaching one’s potential eliminates the excitement of the potential itself, thus creating an incentive to run away from success? Is that making sense to anybody? Doesn’t really matter. Because either way, the lyrics to “Running Scared” still don’t make any sense to me, and I wrote them. They were written so quickly and in such a freewheeling fashion, I’m pretty sure there’s still a couple lines in there that don’t have any relation to anything.

So I wrote the current “Running Scared” lyrics and showed them to Nelson. And I promptly threw them out on the basis of… they sucked.

Then I wrote some other lyrics on another concept which sucked, and showed them to Nelson. Nelson’s response? “Um, I’m pretty sure you were done with this song last time.”

On and on I battled, insistent that I could do better. But Nelson was right. The song was done. And once a song is done, what else can you really do? Bloodied and exhausted, I came crawling back to the lyrics now known as “Running Scared.”

Stevie Wonder

How should I describe our approach to actually recording the vocals? As a kid, I think I remember seeing a movie on TV in which a guy accidentally pees on his pants a little while going to the bathroom. In order to hide it, he covers all of his clothes in water, so that the wet spot on his pants doesn’t stand out. I think that pretty much sums up the recording of “Running Scared.” In order to cover up the slight sloppiness and looseness with which the song was written, the only solution was to turn the recording into total chaos. Nelson shouts out random lyrics behind the third verse and behind my final guitar solo. The crash ending has a couple gratuitous “heys” after the song is over. In the middle of my first guitar solo, I beg for extra time to continue soloing: “Wait, I got one more.”

This last one caused my high school music teacher, Jamie Egan, to laugh uncontrollably when I showed it to him. I think that was the desired effect. In all honesty though, I stole that one from Stevie Wonder’s interjection of “Can I play!?” in the middle of his “Boogie On Reggae Woman” harmonica solo. It also seems like the sort of thing Buddy Guy or other performers might say in the middle of a solo.

And that’s “Running Scared.” How did we get here? What happened to my easy, simple, Stones song, and why did it turn into the finger-tangling, vocal chord-tearing, most technically challenging guitar song on the whole album? The idea of this song was never to make things harder for me. Things were supposed to get simpler. But why don’t you try playing the verse guitar riff and singing the song at the same time? Yeah, I thought so. Welcome to my nightmare. More self-analysis of our songs to come over the next few weeks…

at the Saint, tonight!

After our first much-anticipated show at the Saint was cancelled due to snow, we finally have another gig there. However, the show is TONIGHT! TONIGHT! TONIGHT!  That’s right, music starts at 7:30, we’re on at 8:45.  Tickets are $10. 18 and older. 601 Main Street, Asbury Park, NJ 07712.

By the way, Nelson and I were thinking of visiting the recently opened Silverball Museum afterwards, which offers all-you-can-play pinball on a bunch of historic machines for a flat fee.  In fact, to get pumped up for this, we might even include an appropriately-themed cover in our set.Brian sitting outside The Saint

Heart us on TheSixtyOne

To build up the anticipation for our CD release show on Weds March 17 (less than a week away!), we will be releasing one song from the upcoming Stay Awake album each day on TheSixtyOne, a “music discovery engine.” Please check out Wrong Side of Dawn’s page on T61, and vote up the first song from Stay Awake that we’ve uploaded, Running Scared!

I must admit, one reason we are doing this is because of my curiosity as to whether this is still a popular website. We had a nice experience releasing The Grinder’s Tale 3P on T61 this summer, but since then there has been a massive site overhaul which made the site visually stunning but reduced usability in the eyes of many of its users, resulting in a bit of a user revolt. If our songs can’t get as much attention now as they did this summer… well, the 3 songs on the 3P are almost exactly the same as 3 of the songs on the album! So if you still like TheSixtyOne, vote up our songs to show your continued love 😉

UPDATE: 2nd song on T61: Out of Time.

CD release show Weds March 17 at the Whiskey Bar in Hoboken

Inside The Whiskey Bar, Hoboken

There have been some delays, but Wrong Side of Dawn’s full-length album “Stay Awake” will finally be on sale for the first time on St. Patrick’s Day (Wednesday, March 17th) at the Whiskey Bar in Hoboken.

The Bad Side of Down. That's right, these feathers just don't give a fuck.
The Bad Side of Down. That's right, these feathers just don't give a fuck.

Music should start at 9pm; our set should start at 10pm and last for 45 minutes. Cover is $5. Must be 21 to enter. Don’t believe the Whiskey Bar’s online calendar (http://www.whiskey-bar.com/calendar.htm), which currently lists “Bad Side of Down,” our evil twins in an alternate reality, as performing at 10:00. We’re scheduled for that spot. And if we really were a bad side of down, they wouldn’t have booked us.

Come out to grab a pint or two or twelve for St. Paddy’s Day, hear original music, and be one of the first to own the next big album of the millennium! Our consolations to those who will be unable to make it because they are not in the same hemisphere as Hoboken or are under 21. But even if you aren’t in New Jersey/New York, you can still be a part of the event in your own lame little way. As of our set, our album will be available to the world online! Be sure to check back for details when the date gets closer.

But wait, there’s more! Kickin’ the Mustard, featuring Brian’s fellow North Brunswick legends James Hsu, Wayne Karolevich, Megan Algeo, Matt Astel, and Noah Gordon, will be on right after WSoD. This guarantees that the music will never stop! Or maybe it will stop at midnight, as scheduled. Maybe somebody claiming to be “Bad Side of Down” will show up, and a good old Irish bar brawl will ensue. In any case, you don’t want to miss it.

(Did anyone else giggle at the phrase “unable to make it”? I did, just a little.)

Line-up for this show:
Nelson Pavlosky – Rhythm guitar, vocals
Brian Rose – Lead guitar, vocals
Andres Gonzalez – Bass guitar
Eric Serviss – Drums
Steven Stratvert – Piano
Katie Richards – Backing vocals, percussion

RSVP at the Facebook event ^_^

Tonight’s show is canceled

The venue owner just called me to cancel tonight’s gig, because some of the other bands backed out and he didn’t think he’d have enough people to fill the venue. So I am sorry to say that tonight’s show will not be happening. My apologies to our fans and friends around Asbury Park.

The venue owner intends to reschedule the show, so we expect to play a show at The Saint soon!

Pre-release show this Friday at The Saint in Asbury Park

Brian sitting outside The Saint
Tomorrow, Friday February 25, 2010, Wrong Side of Dawn will be playing a pre-release show at The Saint in Asbury Park, NJ! Our set will begin around 9:15pm, but the music should begin around 8pm, so come and support the other bands too, including Betrayall, Father Divine, The Shock Trials, and Scantily Clad. Tickets are $10 at the door, or $12.55 if you buy tickets online due to “convenience fees.” Sorry, we didn’t make that stupid pricing decision 😉 Anyone 18 years or older can attend, so bring your college friends 🙂 RSVP to the Facebook event if you’re a Facebook-y person.

We are aware that there will be some snow the day of our gig (although it should be dying down by the afternoon), so to entice you to come we will give you this exclusive offer: we will give our new CD to anyone at the show at whatever price they desire! Yes, tonight only at the Saint our CD will be pay-what-you-want 😀 I will also be giving out free hugs or high fives to anyone who needs one.

Oh god, I’ve used up my exclamation point and smilie quota for the day, I have to stop writing now! Hope to see you at our show 😉
The view from the stage

We are alive and well

Several days ago, while our web site was down and we were in the process of moving to a new web host, an ancient blog post was somehow re-posted to our Facebook page, claiming that we were on “indefinite hiatus.” This is definitely not the case, Wrong Side of Dawn has never been more active. In fact, we have booked a show at the Whiskey Bar in Hoboken on March 17 at 10pm. We’ll remind you plenty about that show in the weeks to come, and about other shows and events as we confirm them 🙂 Do not worry, Wrong Side of Dawn will continue to make great music for you for the foreseeable future.