On July 31st, I saw a blog post on Tumblr for a Soundcloud.com offer/contest.  They were offering up to a $5000 Fellowship program to help complete projects that would incorporate soundcloud.com as part of the project.

http://blog.soundcloud.com/2012/07/31/fellows-selection/

Here’s more info about Soundcloud:

http://blog.soundcloud.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundcloud



I ignored it at first but the day before the deadline, I decided to take a chance.  I recorded a little bit of voiceover in my studio describing my project, and added some samples of the new cd I am currently working on.  I have an album that I’ve been working on for awhile, and I was seeking financing to get it mixed.  I wrote a bunch of songs for The Gandhi Method when I was in that band in San Diego, California in July 2003, and most of the songs were either written just prior to or during my short tenure in that band (about 5 months).  Some of the songs were inspired by the experience of being in the band.  The band was founded by Sven-Erik Seaholm and Chuck Schiele, and they were looking for a third member.  I was introduced to Sven by Scott Lee, who is a drummer/attorney in town, at a Carlos Olmeda show at Lestat’s.  Carlos was recording his album with Sven at the time, and he recorded the group chant for a song called Willamena in Lestat’s (a local coffeehouse) on that night.  Sven gave me a copy of his new cd at the time, called Upload, and we met a week later at his house, and I brought a short work in progress cd that became a few of the songs on this current cd that I am currently working on.

Here’s the link for Carlos’ cd, which is called The Other American:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-other-american/id450570108

Willamena is Track 12.

And here’s Sven’s album Upload:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/upload/id4458588

Lestat’s website:

http://lestats.com/main.htm



I left The Gandhi Method around Christmas of 2003 and Cathryn Beeks replaced me (http://www.listenlocalsd.com).  I played some bass, and guitars on a few songs, and did some background vocals for one song (Turn Away), on the album Hi from The Gandhi Method, which was released in 2004.  The band was nominated for a San Diego Music Award in 2004.  

Before:

After:

I went on to playing bass with Cathryn’s band (The Cathryn Beeks Band) after The Gandhi Method ultimately broke up, before I formed my own band and began playing acoustic and electric shows here in San Diego, and occasionally in L.A.  The first versions of the bands were called Scott Wilson (electric), and Scott Wilson (acoustic), and then afterwards, Scott Wilson and the Complications (acoustic) and Scott Wilson and the Contradictions (electric).

You can find videos from those bands at:

http://www.youtube.com/metapunker

Anyway, back to Soundcloud.  It turned out that I did not win a Fellowship.  It looks like 184 proposals were submitted and 15 of them were approved.  But the good news, something that I did not know at the time, was that everyone who submitted a proposal was given a one year Pro subscription to soundcloud.com.  I already used the free service for my music.  It’s basically a way to post your songs on the web, and they can be conveniently posted to Facebook and Twitter, etc…  But whereas the free service allows 120 minutes of music, the Pro Service offers 36 hours of uploads/music.  

So I have been busy in the last week.  I have posted four of my cds on the site.

Hard rock/Progressive Rock:

VFX (self titled) - I played bass, wrote most of the songs, and produced the disc.

VFX “the next step” - played bass, some keyboards, wrote some of the songs and produced.



To see a video from VFX from the first cd, go to:

Myriad Arising:
http://youtu.be/_ozUhVKS1ZQ

Alt Rock:

Cruel World (self titled) - played bass, sang lead, and wrote most of the songs (3 total on the EP - all were co-writes)



to see a video for Can’t Go On from our tour in Europe in 1995 go to: 
http://youtu.be/_gK6DglV9vQ

Who knows what style?:  acoustic singer/songwriter hard alt rock?

Scott Wilson “Kaleidoscope’s End” - played bass, guitar, sang lead, wrote most of the songs, produced, and engineered most of the tracks.



To see videos from this album go to http://www.youtube.com/metapunker

For the iTunes link:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/kaleidoscopes-end/id89963722



The VFX cds did pretty well in Europe.  ”the next step” hit Number 1 on the Imports Charts in Kerrang Magazine in 1993, and topped Queensryche at one point in the process.  I’ve basically sold out on the original printings of these cds (1000 copies - 1st VFX self titled cd, and appx. 1400 of VFX “the next step”).  Most of them were sold in Europe, where they weren’t so enamored with Nirvana since it came out at about the same time.  I went there for a 4 week promotional tour for the cd and went to MIDEM to shop the VFX cds in late 1993.  I was in Venice Italy when the Northridge Earthquake hit in January 1994 north of Los Angeles, California.  I was living near Venice, California at the time.  My TV was broken in the earthquake when it fell off a shelf, but luckily everything else, including my home studio, survived.  I was offered an independent distribution deal at MIDEM, but decided instead to form Cruel World, and start from scratch, since 1980’s music was basically crushed in the early 1990’s thanks to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Smashing Pumpkins, among other bands.  VFX turned into a cult-like underground band/cd that had its detractors and supporters, and I am often surprised by the amount of magazine coverage those cds received.  I have friends that I met during that time that I still correspond with regularly, and despite the difficulties (and there were many), it was a pretty fun experience at times.

The Cruel World cd was released in August 1995.  The band financed the recording but the cds were bankrolled by an independent label in Germany.  We toured Europe briefly in August of 1995, and a video was made from that footage and can be seen at:

Can’t Go On:
http://youtu.be/_gK6DglV9vQ

It was an alt rock band, more in line with the trends at the time.  We played at PopKomm, which was a big convention in Cologne Germany, and we did a few radio interviews and gigs in Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands.  We were nowhere near as big as Gregory Page (from San Diego) is there now, but it was fun nonetheless.  I sang lead vocals and played bass in this band, and it was my transition from being a bass player/singer, to a singer/songwriter which happened during that period between 1994 -1997.

Back to San Diego:

At the time I met Sven-Erik Seaholm in 2003, I was still working on the Kaleidoscope’s End cd, but it had not been mixed yet, so I was still in the process of applying the finishing touches on that album, ultimately released in 2005, but it was pretty close at that point.  Just prior to our meeting at Lestat’s in 2003, I went to Germany and wrote a bunch of songs for a friend that I had met during the 1995 Cruel World tour named Michael Ketteniss, in late 2000-2001 .  I spent 3 months there in Aachen Germany, saw George Bush inaugurated on CNN Europe, and basically saw the whole stolen election process from a German perspective.  And I also discovered Stereophonics, which is a great band from England that is very big there and in Europe, but played in San Diego at The Epicenter to 150 people.  They sell out Wembley Stadium regularly.

So, as a result of this soundcloud.com opportunity, I have decided to post as much material that I can get my hands on, including demos (old and new), soundtrack songs ( I wrote songs for the films Tombstone, Better Way to Die and Henry Poole is Here), instrumental songs I wrote as part of the Behind the Music: Bobby Brown VH1 show that was broadcast in 2009, and various other bits and pieces that I have.  Some of them were recorded on 16 track analog 1/2” tape in my home studio in Los Angeles, where I lived until 1997, and a lot of them were recorded in my home studio in San Diego California, which happens to be right next to my bed.  Luckily there is very good soundproofing in my place, and I’ve only gotten one noise complaint because I forgot to close the window (it was hot.)  My studio in San Diego is basically a personal studio with Digital Performer software, Pro Tools LE, Garage Band, with a digital preamp and interface, and a MacBook Pro laptop.  I have been recording most of my material with that configuration, and I also record drums at studios/rooms around town since my system is portable.  These are some other bands I have recorded over the years:

http://www.myspace.com/metalogicmusicrecording

I worked as an freelance engineer at Universal Sound when it was at the Clairemont Mesa area in San Diego.  It was a 24 track ADAT studio, and many of the drums and guitar solo tracks for Kaleidoscope’ s End were recorded there, among some of the bands on the MetaLogic Music Recording Myspace page.



I have also included/uploaded the complete set of demos that I recorded for the album that I wrote in Germany in 2000-2001.  After I returned from Germany in Ferbuary 2001, I was in L.A. working on a short documentary for Nikka Costa, who just played at Del Mar Racetrack in Del Mar, California opening for Ziggy Marley on Saturday night (9/1/12).  She is a great performer, and I try to see her whenever she’s in San Diego.  I recorded the demos at a home studio in the San Fernando with a friend of mine named Brian Yaskulka, who has had some pretty good success in L.A. as a producer engineer.  He and I wrote 3 songs on the Kaleidoscope’s End cd and he is also a very good singer.  He mixed a few of the songs on the Kaleidscope’s End cd also.  The Germany demos were pretty quick demos just for copyright and so I wouldn’t forget them.  I recorded them in the evening after working all day on the Nikka Costa video press kit as an editor.  The project was a documentary on the making of her first album on Virgin Records - Everybody Got Their Something.  My demo cd was ultimately mastered by Justin Stanley, who is Nikka Costa’s husband, and also a great producer/engineer in L.A.


Here’s Justin’s info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Stanley

Here’s the press kit/documentary that Justin and I worked on in 2001 during the making of the demos:

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v510223g6zdmzbc

Here’s the link for Nikka’s album:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/everybody-got-their-something/id16401067

Here’s my resume as a music video editor for bands ranging from Winger to John Mayer and everything in between:

http://www.metalogicmusic.com/resume.htm

and IMDB page:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1502177/

Nikka’s album was released by Virgin Records in 2001.  She’s played with Prince, she’s got some songs in films, she’s just  great soul singer.  I thought she was great at Del Mar this weekend and she never disappoints.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikka_Costa

Back to Soundcloud.com

So far I’ve uploaded about 220 songs on Soundcloud.com .  I think I have 23 hours left, so I’ve been going through my DAT (digital audio tape) collection and transferring a large number of songs from that library into my computer, and then uploading them onto soundcloud.com.   That means I’ve got about 13 hours of music up on the site, including demos, masters, soundtrack instrumental stuff, etc.

To get an overview, you can go here to see the sets, which are collections of songs, like an album, or a folder:

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets

I’m still getting permissions for some of the songs from co-writers, so in the coming weeks I will be uploading as many songs as I can find onto the site.  Some of the songs were written and recorded in the early 90’s when I first bought a Tascam 16 track analog recorder, and a Allen & Heath mixing board, so they are basically experiments in songwriting and production/engineering, and it was the way I learned to be a songwriter and an engineer.  Some of them are pretty rough, but they illustrate a process, and I thought it might be interesting to someone who was interested in how someone develops into who they are.  There are some pretty good songs in there, and the occasional stinker, but I decided to try to put some stuff out there and see what happens.  I have been performing a number of these songs since 2005 when I released the Kaleidoscope’s End cd, so although my bands have been familiar with the demos, chances are the only way that anyone heard any of the original versions of these songs is if I had an email relationship with someone.  I have also been discovering alternative mixes and original demos from the Kaleidoscope’s End cd (Marielle, Too Tired, Shade of Eden and Coffeehouse 101) so I am also posting those on the site.  I have also been going through some live recordings from my 1990’s band Cruel World and will be posting some of those songs in the coming weeks. In addition, I also regularly post songs from Soundcloud.com on my Facebook musician site at:

http://www.facebook.com/metapunker

The deal with Soundcloud.com ends in a year, so after that, they will be taken down, or the subscription will expire (September 2013).  I am open to people buying recordings on the site, and I can work out the details for anyone who is interested, if they would like to contact me. 

There is a contact form at:

http://metalogicmusic.com/reach/fanlist_signup.htm

I have a Paypal account, so it is pretty easy to do for anyone who is interested, and if there is enough interest, I may even earn enough as a musician to finance the mixing of my latest album, which is one of the reasons I’m doing all this.


I am currently working on two albums at the moment.  One is pretty close to finishing - I am going through notes at the moment, and the other was written in the 1990’s, and I started recording it in March of 2012 in San Diego, California.  Nathan Walsh-Haines, a local San Diego drummer, played drums in my rehearsal studio downtown in March 2012, and I played the bass and most of the guitars, and so far, Jonathan Hayes (VFX), Tim Orrahood, Keith Boyce, Mike Walter, and Norm Merton have all played lead guitars on the tracks.  I am working my way through guitar solos, then lead vocals, percussion and then polishing, which may take a little while.  

That’s an additional 30 songs in total, which I will be adding to the souncloud.com page if I get them finished within the next year.  It is my hope to get the mixing financed for the album that’s basically done, hopefully as a result of shopping some of these demos on the site, and then finishing the other album I’m working on a little later.  Michael Ketteniss has decided to finish the songs I wrote in Germany for him in 2001, and I have sent one song (and all the audio files) as a test to see if it works, and then I will send the rest.  I recorded drums with Phil Woodring from the Donnis Trio from San Diego California for that disc, and I hope that it gets done one of these days.  Until then the demos are available for the album, and can be found at:

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/the-revolution-within-demos/

Here are the links to the various sets:

VFX first cd (6 songs):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/vfx-self-titled-album/

VFX “the next step” (17 songs):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/vfx-the-nex-step-full-album/

VFXtras (demos and unreleased songs from “the next step” sessions (1990-1992 - 5 tracks):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/vfxtras/

Cruel World cd (3 songs):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/cruel-world-self-titled-cd/

Scott Wilson Kaleidoscope’s End (13 songs):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/kaleidoscopes-end-scott-wilson/

Instrumental/Soundtrack work (Bobby Brown: Behind the Music and some songs that were written for films - 23 songs/tracks):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/instrumental-soundtrack/

Scott Wilson demos (never released versions of songs recorded from 1992-2012 - 52 tracks):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/scott-wilson-demos/

Scott Wilson Singles (released from 2010-2011 - 4 songs):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/scott-wilson-singles/

Scott Wilson the revolution within demos (12 songs):

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk/sets/the-revolution-within-demos/

The main page for the Soundcloud.com page for Scott Wilson:

http://soundcloud.com/metapunk

(Source: soundcloudarchive)