"The Band Practice" - a movie my band EARWACKS made back in 1978...

[stlsaxman]

starring yours truly. It's got a bunch of music we made and everyone will hate it. We all grew up with The Beatles (of course), Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Supertramp, Miles Davis... etc. It's got a "Prog Rock" bent but we never limited ourselves to just that style. Shortly after our DIY singles and albums were released the local scene started getting all Punk and New Wave, but we held our own and had their respect because we had a modicum of integrity... they appreciated that.

30 years to the day after our first official concert, we had a re-union show! It had been 20 years since playing any of this music and, i must say, we pulled it off magnificently! We ended the 1st set with the song "Listen To Me" (that opens "The Band Practice&quot with the movie playing on a big screen behind us and when the song ended (as i enter the diner for coffee) the stage lights went off and the movie continued...

It's 25 minutes long but i hope folks here will find that time well spent and enjoy themselves!

[stlsaxman]

1. shameless self-kick for the Saturday morning folks.

i'd like to, maybe, get some thoughts on this...

[IdaBriggs]

2. I have bookmarked and will watch later.

Looks like a fun time!

[logosoco]

3. Very interesting! And enjoyable.

I seem to recall seeing a band called the Earwacks (who could forget that name?) playing at Kirkwood Park. Probably around 77-78. I was very young.
This video really takes me back (and I am a little astounded that it looks so old> was it really that long ago?)

The city scenes here look a lot like St. Louis (although like I said, very dated!).

Thanks for the music. It was very nice this morning.

[stlsaxman]

4. OMFG... the very same guys! We just had a reunion concert last year that was 30 years

TO THE DAY of our first concert in Kirkwood Park Amphitheater!



We're having the DVD release party tomorrow (Sunday) evening at The Famous Bar.

[logosoco]

5. Well, isn't it a small world!

I don't remember a lot of the music, but the name has stayed with me all these years.
I am even more glad you posted this, and very glad you have stayed with the music.

[Taverner]

6. I like it!

Nice sax playing!

Ever thought about getting the sound remastered?

[stlsaxman]

7. Thank you, Taverner! much appreciated! Now- let me tell ya about "the sound"...

it's a pretty cool story...

When we did the original filming on Super 8 the soundtrack was (i believe) a magnetic strip at the side of the film. Over a period of 20 years the emulsion wore thin, or off. The scenes in the basement give a clue to how the whole film sounded. Upon digitizing the reel the audio was horrible... i had very few options but to replace it, but how...?

First thing i did after loading into the computer was eliminate all the empty space and tried to clean up the remainder. Not so good. So, i overdubbed all my dialog in the first segment, with many passes, shifting the audio back and forth, and speaking in a higher voice because my voice is lower... got it to match up pretty good. The basement conversations weren't so easy 'cause the other members were hard to get to dub their lines and, besides, it was kinda incidental talk, so i went the subtitle route.... On to the Music-

Only one of the songs in the film had seen the recording studio - Listen To Me... and that was put in after i had the film digitized. The others especially the one for the dream sequence were available only in memory and the sound on the film was horrid... what a loss. Until one day the guitar player came up with a "live radio broadcast concert" we did around that time and the student staff of the station gave us the mix that they did and we "forgot about it" over the years... EUREKA! It even included the song used in the dream sequence!

So, after years of working on this piece by piece... i think it turneded out pertty good...

[Taverner]

8. Yes it did.

And if I may compare a similar timed work - the Superfly restoration sounded and looked as good as your movie

[Tobin S.]

9. That was wonderful!

Definitely worth the view and listen. You guys were very good. How did you not make it?