High Adventure

"Makin' A Video For 'Ballad' Up As You Go"

©1980 Paramount Pictures & Lucasfilm, Ltd. Calling all Indy fans! Create your own video for "The Ballad of Indiana"
to post on our YouTube site and win $100 to Indiana Jones Shop.com!Todd & Glen want to let all listeners know about a contest that they are running at their official site highadventuremusic.com. "The Ballad Of Indiana" needs a music video. They are extending an offer to all Indy fans and fans of the "Indy-Cast" to make their own videos for "The Ballad Of Indiana", and to submit them at the official Hi-Ad site. The winning entry will be posted on the High Adventure YouTube site and the video will accompany all future promotion of the song. More importantly, the winner will get a $100 gift certificate to IndianaJones shop.com, compliments of Todd & Glen, and High Adventure. Feel free to be as original or creative as you want to be, all genres will be considered. Deadline for submissions is midnight on May 21st, 2008. Todd & Glen will announce the winner here and at the official site on May 22nd. Submission details and all contest info can be found at http://www.highadventuremusic.com/video Welcome to all listeners of the MacCast, the Force-Cast, and the Indy-Cast!
Special Thanks To Ed Dolista and Adam Christianson! On behalf of myself and Todd "E-Bones", we are pleased to announce the official launching of our long-overdue "High Adventure" MySpace Music Site. Read the official bio below to learn more about us. This site is also being launched in conjunction with the official "High Adventure" website, which will connect you to all of Todd Howard & Glen Nelson's many other projects and websites, which can be found online at:www.highadventuremusic.comThe official site is being launched in honor of our new single "The Ballad Of Indiana", which is being premiered exclusively worldwide on the April 28th, 2008 episode of "The Indy-Cast: Episode 24" with Ed Dolista, the official fan podcast of Indiana Jones.
Listen to the entire live
interview right here!
Be sure to sign up as a friend of the "Indy-Cast" right here on MySpace! Feel free to download your copy of "The Ballad Of Indiana" today and be sure to grab the sweet album cover artwork for your iTunes or iPod player, made for us by our own and oft-honorary Hi-Ad bandmate, Christopher Eddy. Thanks for the hard work, Eddy!
Download your free MP3! Tell us what you think! There will be much more to come on this site including more new music and artwork, so bookmark us, say hello, be a friend, and be sure to check out our new official Hi-Ad site as well! The eternal conflagration still burns. The names in flames have returned. Click Here for "The Ballad Of Indiana" Ringtones! "Makin' This Up As They Go"The complete scoop on the creation
of the musical fanboy tribute to Indiana Jones
'The Ballad of Indiana' by Glen Nelson and Todd Howard
April 17, 2008After the thrill of having their Star Wars themed tribute song " Farm Boy " played on the October 13, 2006 episode of " The Force-Cast " with Jason and Pete, childhood friends and bandmates, Glen Nelson ( music teacher and co-founder/vocalist/keyboardist of CT-based family-friendly rock band Spaghetti Cake and Flipper Dave ) and Todd Howard (tech/film/music blogger for Zoom In Online, multimedia producer , author and bassist/vocalist of Last Fair Deal , Chalk , and also Spaghetti Cake) felt a calling to return to the genre and write a follow-up tribute song in honor of the new Indy film, " Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ", being released May 22nd, 2008. " The Indy-Cast ," Australia-based Ed Dolista's fantastic podcasts focusing on all things 'Jones' seemed like the perfect place to world premiere an up-tempo rock-pop number written in honor of the good Doctor, and Ed was more than happy to oblidge. The new High Adventure single called " The Ballad of Indiana " is scheduled to be featured in Episode 24 of the Indy-Cast, which comes out out Sunday April 27th or Monday April 28th depending on which side of the international date-line your computer happens to be when that episode hits the show's RSS feed .

On the heels of watching " Raiders of the Lost Ark " and Julie Taymor's Beatles-inspired masterwork " Across The Universe " on DVD for inspiration, the boys put nose to grindstone on March 29, 2008 at Todd's Mac-based home recording studio in the Berkshires of northwestern Massachusetts, for an exhaustive 18-hour, non-stop session, where they wrote and recorded the entire song in one epic sitting. At the beginning of the day, Glen rose early and began blasting out 6 pages of handwritten lyrics in his journal, some 14-odd verses that had to eventually be whittled down to 3. Glen read Todd his lyric brainstorm over rich, dark, strong coffee, and the two knew they had a song in the making. Todd mentioned to Glen an idea he had for the hook lyric that dawned on him a day or so before, which was "I'm makin' this up as I go," as it was always one of his all-time favorite Indy lines, as well as being a perennially-embraced philosophy of life for the two songwriters. Glen had an instinct that the line was great as the hook but that it needed a preceeding line - something to lead up to the final phrase. Then at the same moment, the two of them had the inspiration to look back to the film again, and it turned out that in the actual dialogue of the scene, Indy asks Sallah and Marion to get them passage out on a boat or a plane, and states that he's "going after that truck." "How?" Sallah asks. To which Indy replies off-handedly, "I don't know, I'm makin' this up as I go." At that moment, the chorus hook was born.

Todd "E-Bones" was eager to break in his newly updated Logic 8 Pro digital recording studio, which is running on a 2.4 GHz 24" iMac with a Lexicon Omega digital audio interface, M-Audio Radeon 61 key MIDI controller and had a brand new AT 4050 microphone just out of the box awaiting the vocal performances that were to come. The song was actually written, performed and recorded in separate pieces (loops, verse, bridge, chorus, intro), and as soon as any part of the song's structure was decided on, that piece was immediately captured so they could move on and focus on the next section. "Hit Save" was a watch-phrase of the day. Todd even had his laptop sitting open in the middle of the studio all day long with GarageBand recording everything that went on in the room, lest a fleeting moment of inspiration evaporate before memorization could lock it down and then feebly be replaced with the scowl of loss and the phrase "I got nuthin'". This technique proved all-too useful at least a half dozen times throughout the writing phrase, especially in moments of "E-bones's" spontaneous melodic vocalizations - not the least of which was the unconventional second half of the bridge melody. All of the elements were later magically pieced together, and the form of the song was finally manifested in the wee hours of the morning, at the very end of the writing and recording process! Said Glen of this approach, "I had never written a song like that before, but it actually helped us to write and record it very quickly, once the words were flowing. In the end, the pieces fit together really well. It felt like doing 'Good Vibrations' or something."

Todd composed two downright orchestral ostinato loops in Logic on the piano and Hammond B3 that sort of 're-purpose' melodic phrases from the beloved original John Williams film score. Glen played all the keyboards and drums on the MIDI keyboard, and Todd was able to really get in there and tweak it all in preparation for the final mix. Bones played live bass and guitar, and the boys of course sang their trademark harmonies. The pic on the cover of the February '08 "Vanity Fair" was there all day in the studio for moments of inspiration. (Glen later thanked Bones by sending him an Official Pix© print of "Temple Of Doom" Indy, which now hangs proudly on the wall.) Two weeks later, Todd began the both wondrous and arduous process of post production, and all told spent another 18 hours on editing, tweaking MIDI, deliberating over the final mix, sending WAV files back and forth with Glen, who offered astute notes on each version, and into the final masting process. The results are nothing short of glorious fanboy bliss. Listen for yourself and enjoy.

Remember all you musical scholars out there, that just like in "Farm Boy", there are lyrical and musical cues all over the song, besides the obvious payoff moment at the end. The classic Indiana Jones main theme is indeed re-rendered here on bagpipes, as a tip of the hat to the Joneses long life of globetrotting as well as the heritage of Sean Connery himself who of course plays Indy's dad in 1989's "The Last Crusade", as an example of the copious internal references. (We won't give them away here, but as you discover them, let us know!) The more you listen to the song, the more you're going to pick up", said Todd, "Not a word nor a note was chosen by happenstance - and also like 'Farm Boy' in 2006, 'The Ballad Of Indiana' is a labour of love." "Indeed," adds Glen, "a love letter back to those childhood heroes whom we have loved so much, and have had so much influence over our lives. From the two of us: 'Thank you George, Steven, John, Harrison, and of course, Dr. Jones.'" He concludes, "just like everyone's favorite whip-brandishing, jungle-traipsing, Fedora-sporting, idol-pilfering archaeologist compelled us as pre-teens way back in 1980 to do- we're making this up as we go."

Read Todd's Official Zoom-In Blog Post About It Here! The Story of High Adventure Vol. I
The Rock Band Of The Year
©1984 photo by Judy Nelson High Adventure, as best as we can recall, was formed in the Spring of 1984 by two aspiring musicians, next-door neighbors, and close friends, Todd "E-Bones" Howard (14 years old), and Glen "Nukie" Nelson (12 years old). Glen & Todd, as legend has it, first met on the school bus after Todd noticed Glen's pristine "The Empire Strikes Back" lunchbox, while Glen admired Todd's eye-catching "I Love Yoda" iron-on tee. The rest was history.

After a mutual love of all things Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and John Williams was clearly established, the conversation turned naturally to music. Another mutual love affair was soonafter discovered, the music of the legendary Beatles. Todd's father played in a local bluegrass group at the time, Last Fair Deal , and Glen's mother had sung and played piano since before he could remember, so the two were natural-born musicians. The duo started out switching off between drums and keyboards, Glen doing the lion's share of the lead vocals back then, and often still today. (Although it should be noted that Todd "E-Bones" is an excellent vocalist in his own right; for more of Todd's own original compostions, check out his official MySpace at Todd Howard Music .) The two kicked things off in style with a string of homemade recordings made on Glen's Mom's boombox, and an official live gig on Glen's deck Memorial Day weekend, 1984, all of which are in the Hi-Ad vaults safely locked away for future generations to uncover. Their motto, emblazoned upon their newly-customized bass drum head read "The Names In Flames". The fire had been lit. Their setlist in those carefree days included favorites like Van Halen's "Jump", Slade's "Run Run Away", Kenny Loggins "Footloose" (also the inspiration for the band's name from Kenny's 1984 album), an extended jam of the "Masterpiece Theatre" theme, plus early originals like "Some Win, Some Lose", "Some People Say", "I Need Feedback", "Oh Jenny", (Glen's lilting chordal ode to his sixth grade crush Jen Rayno ) and the duo's classic anthem "We Are High Adventure".

As the years progressed, Todd and Glen's interests also turned to filmmaking, as they got a hold of a vintage Super-8 camera, and set out to film their own "Holy Trilogy" of Chris Lickerson space adventurer stories, starring Glen as heroic Chris Lickerson, and Todd as his dashing sidekick and loyal roommate, Doug Jennings. Glen's brother Brian filled in nicely as arch-nemesis and deranged bio-chemist, Higwan. The films were later given sound and audio, and are also safely perserved in the fabled Hi-Ad vault, where you might also find the E.T.-inspired "Biker's Revenge" photo-novel (images to come!). The band then entered the studio (a.k.a. Brian's bedroom) to further sculpt the Hi-Ad sound, with Todd playing drums on Glen's CB-700 kit and a pale yellow electric bass Todd's dad bought from one of his guitar student's with a 10 watt practice amp for $60 (affectionately known as the "Acme Bass"), and Glen branching out to multiple keyboards, including Jesse's futuristic Casio VL-Tone and his own spankin' new Casio MT-41. A final winner-take-all Hi-Ad gig was planned in Glen's living room, during his infamous and incredibly awkward 7th grade party, where fumbling partygoers dined on assorted fine cheeses and played "Spin-The Bottle". Future members of the band would include the hilarious and shred-tastic guitarist Kyle "Van Deferens" Kenny, and the talented Jeff "Buddums Joe Guy" Palmer, as an occassional 'sit-in' drummer when Glen could not get a ride from his Mom to band practice.