Matt Albright Music

I was in Checkerdog from 1994 to 1996 with Dale Block (Secret-7, Freakadora, Greetings From the Imposter) and Rusty Jorgensen (Falken, Lithic, Mind of the Insomniacs, am.psych) on alternating guitar and bass, plus drum machines, with Ethan Frounfelker (drums) and Jason Beardsley (bass) rounding out the gang in our very early days until Ethan decided he wanted to be in a wedding cover band and Jason's wife had a baby and he couldn't commit to a band any longer. * * * Since then, I've written and recorded a lot of songs in my bedroom and haven't wanted to play out live again since Checkerdog broke up. I really hated lugging the equipment around and jamming on the same songs all the time. Plus, not having a real drummer in the band meant that people couldn't fully get into the music with three guys standing semi-motionless with their guitars in front of microphones. * * * The whole band "experience" left a bad taste in my mouth, but I still count Dale and Rusty among my most favorite people in the entire world. They are good guys and I am blessed to have met them. * * * In early 2005, I bought my first drum microphone set. In early 2006, I finally remembered that I bought that and opened up the box for the first time. Then I realized that I couldn't record more than four tracks at a time with my Roland VS-880, so I bought a mixer and a piccolo snare drum. Then I also realized that six microphones just wouldn't do and bought two more. * * * A friend, Sam Larsen, came over and helped me get my drums back in tune. I've never taken any drum lessons, but used to rock out on Ethan's drums that he left behind in my basement between jams, and I bought my own sticks and didn't tell him about it. Once I got decent and he left the band, I bought my own set, piece by piece over the course of about six months with the money I made working at Best Buy. That was over 10 years ago. * * * So I felt it was about time I finally miked up my drum set and upgraded my equipment to a reasonable level. I could really use an 18- or 24-track digital recorder to avoid having to plan out how to make the most use of my current 8 tracks, mix down to CD, and then bring it back to 2 tracks on the recorder and add 6 more tracks, before mixing back down to another CD. Computers give me enough problems normally, so I prefer the stand alone recording decks that Roland manufactures. I think I can do great things with the equipment that I have, so it will probably be awhile before I upgrade that. * * * I'd like to get into a studio someday soon just to watch a pro in action to try to find out what they do to take an artist's music to a new level. I think it would be fun. * * * Anyhow, all of this brings me up to today, putting the finishing touches on a song that could possibly be heard by more than 50 people. :) Sure, it's not an original, but I think this might be the kick in the butt that I needed to make the equipment upgrade and get back into writing and recording my music. * * * With Bill Casper's assistance on the vocals for our ELO Tribute CD contribution, we may be working together again in the future on something original, but only time will tell. I had such a fantastic time working on that song and an even better time sitting in Bill's basement experimenting with recording harmonized vocals for what felt like my very first time. I still love recording instrumental music, but I think I might try my hand at a few non-instrumental songs this year for a change. * * * Thanks for reading! Matt