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Volume 3

Posts 51-75

Tuesday, October 9, 2007to

Thursday, November 1, 2007

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T U E SD A Y , O C T O B E R 9 , 2 0 0 7

Collector's Corner #13

What is better than a parabolic dish festival? A parabolic dish festival with an odor!

This publicity poster for Isthmus' newest album, Parabolic Dish Festival, was

created on July 2, 1998. It was printed on an inkjet printer and spray painted with

green spray paint. This is the only color print in existance, the copies were all

black and white.

On the black and white prints the background looked like a negative of the night

sky (which represents the inspiration for the title of the album). These were

passed out a couple of weeks before the album was released.

Today this original poster and a few of the copies are displayed in the Promotional

Poster Wing of the Metal XOR Studio Museum.

Posted by - Mune Mud - at 11:16 AM 0 comments

Labels: Collector's Corner

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W E D N E SD A Y , O C T O B ER 1 0 , 2 0 0 7

Project Spotlight #7: What is Binary Pipedream?

Although most of the music that has come out of Metal XOR Studio has been a soloeffort, sometimes a guest musician will stop by to lend their talents to a project.

In the early days of the Studio it happened more than it does now. So years ago it

was decided to collect some songs that other people had helped record and put

together an EP.

The project was called Binary Pipedream. The name can be broken down into two

parts: binary refers to two people working on each song and pipedream refers to

the idea that some day one of these musicians could be famous.

Only one album has been released so far and that was the self-titled Binary

Pipedreamalbum released in 1994.

There was no fancy logo created for the project. In fact, the album had a very

limited release, so most people do not know of it. But one day there may be

another Binary Pipedream album.

Next week: What is ORC?


Labels: Project Spotlight

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T H U R SD A Y , O C T O B ER 1 1 , 2 0 0 7

Lyric Booklet #1: Underwater Problem Factory

This is a new feature that will discuss the often rare and overlooked lyricbooklets that have accompanied various Metal XOR Studio albums throughout

the years.

The first album to include lyrics was Mune Mud's 1992 album Underwater Problem

Factory. The booklet was ten pages long. It was typed on a Brother word processor

and printed out. There was no cover and the booklet started on page 1 with the

first song, "One Last Time."

For each song the lyrics were typed out. Also included was a list of any samples or

sound effects used in the song. A couple of songs included a 'background' section

that gave some background or trivia on the song.

The booklet ended with a 'credits' section.


Labels: Lyric Booklet

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F R I D A Y , O CT O BE R 1 2 , 2 0 0 7

Article: Blog Categories

This article explains the different featured categories found on this blog site. Alink to each category can be found at the bottom of the navigation bar on the right

side of this page.

A Look Back

These look at one-time events that have happened in the Studio's history.

Album of the Week

This feature focuses on different albums that have been released by the Studio.

This is a weekly feature that gets posted every Sunday.

Article

These are articles on various topics having to do with the Studio in some regards.

Blog News

This is where you will find news about this blog website.

Collector's Corner

These are items that are currently housed in the Metal XOR Studio Museum. They

are collectible items that range from posters to objects that inspired songs to

pieces of Studio history. You might find anything featured in this section!

Interviews

The first three installments were to make available past interviews conducted with

the Studio. It will also be where you will find future interviews.

Just for Fun

These items are just for a quick laugh.

Listen Online

Occasionally a song will be posted that you can listen to online or download to

your computer. This will announce when a new song has been posted.

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Lyric Booklet

There have been a few albums released that had an accompanying lyric booklet.

Each installment of this feature will focus on one of those lyric booklets.

Project Spotlight

This feature is posted each Wednesday. Each week a different Studio project is

highlighted. The posts include origins of the project name, members of the

project, albums that the project has released, and various facts regarding the

project.

State of the Studio

These are posted on the first of every month and are an update on what has been

happening in the Studio and future plans.

Studio News

If there is any news to report coming from the Studio, this is where you will find it .

This Day in Studio History

There are certain big dates in the Studio history, such as album releases or new

versions of the Studio being built. This section will highlight those historic dates.

Update: Since the original post there have been a few new blog categories added.

Equipment File

This is the feature that replaced the weekly Wendesday feature Musician Profile.

There are a finite number of musicians who have worked with the Studio, so when

the blog ran out of musicians to highlight it switched to the equipment that has

been used. Each week described a different piece of equipment.

Musician Profile

This is the feature that replaced the weekly Wednesday feature Project Spotlight.

There are a finite number of projects that have worked with the Studio, so when

the blog ran out of projects to highlight it switched to individual musicians who

have worked with the Studio.

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ORC Update

This was a weekly feature on Mondays to track the progress of the new ORC album.

It lasted for eight weeks, then was put on hold when the album was put on hold. It

will resume when recording resumes.

Studio Chapter

This is the feature that replaced the weekly Monday feature ORC Update. Each

week another 'era' of the Studio's history is explained. The feature began by

documenting the Studio from the early 90's before it even had a name. It

continued to the present-day incarnation of the Studio.

Video File

This is similar to the Listen Online feature but it highlights a video instead of

audio. There are not many posts in this category yet, but as time goes on more

video will be made available from the Studio.

These are the current categories that this blog site offers, but there will be more

coming in the future. If enough new ones are created there will be another Blog

Category Articlewritten to update the readers.

Posted by - Mune Mud - at 5:43 AM 0 commentsLabels: Article

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SA T U R D AY , O C T O B ER 1 3 , 2 0 0 7


What is the best thing to use to write Mune Mud lyrics? A Mune Mud pencil!

The picture is not very clear, but the pencils say "Jason Watson is Mune Mud."

These were a gift to the Studio soon after Olympuswas released in 1991. It was a

pack of twelve pencils. Although a few have been used throughout the years,

seven remain wrapped in plastic and on display in the Unused Pencil Wing of the

Metal XOR Studio Museum.



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SU N D A Y , O CT O B E R 1 4 , 2 0 0 7

Album of the Week #8: Purging the Great Abyss

Project name: ORCAlbum name: Purging the Great Abyss

Release date: March 2, 1999

Release format: CD

Studio name: Metal XOR Studio

Tracks:

1. Magician's Companion

2. U-505

3. Element of Earth

4. Better Left Unsaid

5. Satellites

6. Flying Cloud Drive

7. Copekata

8. Element of Air 2

9. Vandetta (Constant Build)10. In There

11. Mother Nature

12. Happy Little Squirrel

13. Placid

14. Ttub

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15. Meaning of Number

16. Element of Water (Neptune's Mix)

17. Dawn's Tomorrow

18. Transducer Man

19. Herueux

20. Wooded Harbor

21. Animosity 3

22. Intercostal Communication

23. Sunny Ways

24. Element of Fire

Some things only happen once in lifetime. Some albums are timeless masterpieces

that will never lose their unique identities. It is important to recognize such

achievements for what they are. And Purging the Great Abyssis arguably the most

important release in Metal XOR's history in terms of its cutting edge experiments

and dabbling in the avant garde. Books could be written about this album. This

short synopsis will not even scratch the surface on what this album is. But for a

few of the more important details, read on.

It took over five years to create this album, from the first recording to the release

of the CD. It started when Jimmy visited Jason in the Studio while Jason was

recording the song "Pedestal Song" in 1994. Jason revised the lyrics a bit, handed

Jimmy a mic, and they both recorded vocals for the song. For a while that is how

ORC songs were recorded. After a while Jimmy started helping with the lyrics.

Then he started recording various music parts. Soon it was a collaborative effort

that resulted in some very experimental sounds and melodies.

The name of the album came out of Jimmy's mouth at McDonald's one day when

Jason and Jimmy were out gallivanting around. Jimmy wrote the title on a napkin

and that napkin now resides in the Metal XOR Studio Museum.

This was Metal XOR's first album released on CD. And it had the widest

distribution. There were two variations of the album. The first ten that were

printed were labeled "Autographed Gold Limited Edition" on the front cover. These

came in a slightly gold-colored jewel case, the print on the CD label was in gold,

and the CD label was autographed by Jason and Jimmy. The second run (twenty

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more copies) was the standard edition in the traditional black-spined jewel case,

the print on the CD label was black, and there were no autographs.

This has been the only album from Metal XOR with the "Parental Advisory" label on

it. There are not many objectionable words but there are enough to warrant the

warning label. And this was also the only album in Metal XOR's history that was

sold. They sold for $5 each and that was to cover the cost of CD labels and of

having someone else burn the CD's. This was early in the CD-burning-at-home days

and there were actually slight costs involved.

There was a nice lyric book also released with the album. It had one page

dedicated to each song containing the lyrics to each song. In the back of the book

was a section about the history of the album. That was followed by a complete list

of ORC songs recorded. And the book ended with the 1999 Metal XOR Musik

Catalogue.

A more detailed history and behind-the-scenes will be told some day either online

or in a paper publication. The complete story needs to be recorded before it is

forgotten in the mists of time.

This has been ORC's only studio release to date. There are a few bootleg sessions

recorded but they have not been officially released. There have been several ideas

for new ORC releases including an album of remixes from PGA, an album of

outtakes and demos, or even an album of brand new music. But nothing has been

decided for sure yet.

One thing is for certain... we have not heard the last from ORC!

Next week's Album of the Week: The Vintage Years Volume 1 by Harry and Jasonfrom 2001.


Labels: Album of the Week

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SU N D A Y , O CT O B E R 1 4 , 2 0 0 7

Blog News: New Logo

Something new has been added to the site. . . the first official Metal XOR Studiologo.

The logo has also been added to the Metal XOR Studio Information Source website.

And it will appear on all official Metal XOR releases from this day forth.


Labels: Blog News

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M O N D A Y , O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 0 7

Studio News: Blog Publication Deal

Metal XOR has just purchased the rights to release a new publication in early 2008.

Metal XOR Press will release a book containing a re-print of the daily posts from

this blog site. It will be a print version of this site that could outlive this electronic

counterpart. It will cover entries from the very first post on August 23 to the final

post of the year on December 31.

If this project succeeds there may be a 2008 edition to reprint posts done

throughout next year.

So watch for the new book in early 2008.


Labels: Studio News

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T U E SD A Y , O C T O B E R 1 6 , 2 0 0 7

Lyric Booklet #2: Pryme Material

The second album to include lyrics was Mune Mud's 1993 album Pryme Material.The booklet was twenty-one pages long. It was typed on a word processor and

printed out.

The booklet started with a table of contents, a two-page introduction, and an

equipment list. The introduction gave a brief history of the album and what it took

to record. And of course the equipment list was just a list of all equipment used to

record the album.

Each song had the lyrics typed out. Also included was the date each song was

recorded, the length of the song, and a brief note or trivia fact regarding the song.

There were only a few copies of the booklet handed out so this is a somewhat rare

piece of Studio history.



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Project Spotlight #8: What is ORC?

ORC was born in 1994 when Jason was recording Pedestal Song and Jimmystopped by the Studio for a visit. Jason reworked the lyrics, threw Jimmy a mic,

and they both recorded the vocals. After that session Jimmy was given vocals to

sing on other songs. Eventually Jimmy was contributing his own lyrics and

recording his own instrument parts.

It was a couple years later when they actually named their project. The name

came from a computer game they had both played called Warcraft. It had humans

versus orcs. A project called Human sounded silly so they went with ORC.

Originally the name was written O.R.C. but they could not decide on what it would

stand for so they dropped the periods and left it ORC.

Their first album took over five years to record. They finally finished Purging the

Great Abyssand released it on March 2, 1999. It was the first album released on

CD from the Studio.

ORC music can best be described as experimental. It is rarely just drums, guitar,

and vocals. They have used a violin, a wrench, backwards recordings, and variousother instruments and sounds. And recording methods are just as experimental.

They have used a 4-track cassette recorder, a computer, a separate sequencer,

and various other hardware to compose their music.

Even though they have only released one album to date there is a lot of unused

material in the ORC vault. Various releases have been considered but nothing

finalized. There will definitely be more ORC material released in the future.

In fact, the next album released by the Studio could very well be a new ORC

album. Metal XOR Studio is in negotiations with Attic Works Studio to do a joint

recording effort involving Jason and Jimmy recording new material from the two

different studios. This project is still in its early planning stages, so stay tuned to

this blog for further developments in this project.

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Next week: Who are Harry and Jason?



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Blog News: Slow It Down

I have been thinking long and hard about this. And I've been putting off thedecision. But I have decided that this will not be a daily blog any longer.

The original intent of this blog (as stated in the Welcome Statement on August 23)

was to post at least once a week. Right away I created two weekly features, so

that was two days a week. Then I wanted a weekly update and to start sharing

information from the Studio's past. So out of the gate I was posting every single

day. And almost two months later I'm still posting every single day.

Am I getting sick of the blog? Am I running out of material to post? No and no. I'm

more excited about the blog today than I was two months ago! And I don't think I'll

everrun out of material! Is it taking too much of my time to maintain a daily

schedule? Nope. The entire blog only takes a couple hours a week. Time isn't the

issue.

Then why the change? After doing some research into blogging and looking at the

traffic to my blog, I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to post too

much too fast. As the blog stands right now, if someone doesn't visit the site for 3-4 weeks, they would have 28-30 posts to catch up on and no one is going to spend

that much time reading about this Studio. So I am going to downshift. This will be

extremelyhard for me to do. I am now accustomed to making a daily post. In fact,

the blog schedule I maintain has a post scheduled every day through mid-

November already. So I will just have to stretch the schedule out.

So what will the new post schedule look like? I will keep the Sunday Album of the

Week and Wednesday Project Spotlight. Other than those two regular features, I

will try to limit the additional posts to 1-2 a week. That will give 3-4 posts a week.

Of course if something comes up that NEEDS to be posted I will do that. There will

probably be weeks that have 5-6 posts.

So as of today I will attempt to slow down. If after a few weeks I don't like the

snail's pace I will crank it back up. So I will lean back, prop up my feet, and take

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tomorrow off!

See you on Friday!

UPDATE - Oops! I can't postpone tomorrow's scheduled post. So I'll take Friday off.

See? This isn't going to be easy!


Labels: Blog News

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It was October 18, 1994, when NueroMud's debut album, ... Libra 971, wasreleased.

This was the first of two NueroMud albums to be released. The music style was

somewhere between Mune Mud music and NueroMorgue. It had a limited release so

not many people even know it exists.

And today it turns thirteen years old!


Labels: This Day in History

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Jason and Jimmy were hard at work on their new ORC album. They were outshopping on Saturday, January 11, 1997, and went to McDonald's to eat. While they

ate the discussion turned to the name of their album. They had been thinking

about this for quite some time. And then Jimmy mentioned "purging the great

abyss." It had a nice ring to it! They had found their album title!

So they wouldn't forget it, Jason had Jimmy write it down on a napkin. They took

the napkin home with them. Thus the album was named.

Today the napkin resides in the Northwest Wing of the Metal XOR Studio Museum.Posted by - Mune Mud - at 6:58 AM 0 comments


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SU N D A Y , O CT O B E R 2 1 , 2 0 0 7

Album of the Week #9: The Vintage Years Vol 1

Project name: Harry and JasonAlbum name: The Vintage Years Volume 1

Release date: May 23, 2001

Release format: CD


Tracks:1. The Redenbacher Medley

2. The Orvies

3. Danger to the Corns

4. Ode to Corns

5. The Beautiful Corns 1



8. How Beautiful Are Redenbachers

9. Feet Cream

10. The Song

11. The Redenbacher Song

12. The Belly Button Song

13. Hair

14. The Toilet Song

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15. The Computer Song

16. The Radio Song

17. The Native Song

18. The Song of Rock and Roll

19. The Baby Song 1

20. The Baby Song 2

21. The Lottery Song

In the mid to late 1980's Harry and Jason recorded themselves singing many songs.

They would turn on an easy-listening radio station that played instrumental music

and make up lyrics as they were recording. They filled many tapes with this kind of

recording.

With many of those tapes reaching 15 and 20 years old, it was time to transfer

them to a computer so the songs would last forever. So the massive transfer

project was started in 2001. The first two tapes that Harry and Jason recorded this

way (circa 1985) were compiled onto one CD and released as The Vintage Years

Volume 1 in 2001.

Tracks 1-14 were recorded one day at Jason's house and tracks 15-21 were

recorded another day at Harry's house. Those 21 tracks were the very first songs

Harry and Jason recorded in this manner. In fact the first few songs don't even

have music, it was Harry and Jason being silly and singing a cappella. It was after

those first few songs that they decided to turn on the radio to find some

background music to sing to, thus creating music history.

The plan was to release further volumes of The Vintage Yearsas the tapes were

transferred to computer but the second album has not been compiled yet. One day

the collection will continue for there is enough material for at least six or seven

volumes, possibly more. There has even been talk of a box set that contains ALL oftheir early songs recorded in this manner.

So only the future knows what is in store for the future of this project.

Next week's Album of the Week: Electric Field Donutby Isthmus from 1996.

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Posted by - Mune Mud - at 9:51 PM 2 comments

Labels: Album of the Week

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T U E SD A Y , O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 0 7

Article: Mune Mud Singles

It is a little-know fact that with each Mune Mud album there were two singlesreleased, usually one faster tempo song and one slower one. The first single from

each album was released four weeks after the album was released and the second

single was released eight weeks after the album release date.

The singles were released on cassette until 2001 when The Searchfor Metropolis

CD came out, then they were released on CD. Each single release contained the

single and two additional tracks, one which represented the b-side as old vinyl

singles had and the other was the instrumental version of the single. The b -side

track was usually an unreleased track from the album, a demo, or alternate take

of a track on the album.

All of the singles and their b-sides were compiled in 2004 and had a very limited

released on CD as The Singles Collection.

Here is the list of singles and their release dates.

From OlympusEtesian Wind- released December 10, 1991

Etesian Wind (album version)

Etesian Wind (original speed)

Etesian Wind (instrumental)

Waterfall- released January 7, 1992

Waterfall (album version)Mystical Dream

Waterfall (instrumental)

From Underwater Problem Factory

Gridlock- released fall of 1992

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Gridlock (album version)

EnVenum Above (original version)

Gridlock (instrumental)

Believe Me- released fall of 1992

Believe Me (album version)

Garden of Hesperides

Believe Me (instrumental)

From Pryme Material

Reality Found Me- released October 5, 1993

Reality Found Me (album version)

Ominous (remake)

Reality Found Me (instrumental)

Clouds Set Free- released November 2, 1993

Clouds Set Free (album version)

Up A Lonely Road (original demo)

Clouds Set Free (instrumental)

From Equation of Time

Summer Song- released September 10, 1996

Summer Song (album version)

Winter Song

Summer Song (instrumental)

One Night (v2.0) - released October 8, 1996

One Night (v2.0) (album version)

One Night (v1.0)

One Night (v2.0) (instrumental)

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From Sleep State F

Ginkgo Biloba- released October 21, 1997

Ginkgo Biloba (album version)Little Germany

Ginkgo Biloba (instrumental)

Reflection- released November 18, 1997

Reflection (album version)

One Second

Reflection (instrumental)

From The Search for Metropolis

From Cousin B- released December 4, 2001

From Cousin B (album version)

Camilla

From Cousin B (instrumental)

Ocean Body- released January 1, 2002

Ocean Body (album version)

Ocean Body (demo)

Ocean Body (instrumental)


Labels: Article

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Project Spotlight #9: Who are Harry and Jason?

Harry and Jason are cousins. Their long music careers began with piano lessonswhen they were young. But when they were in their early teens they began a new

kind of music. They would turn the radio on to an easy-listening station and record

themselves making up their own lyrics on-the-fly as the songs played.

Well over a hundred songs on well over a dozen tapes were recorded over the next

few years. There were two compilations of songs created, The Best of Harry and

Jasonand The Best of Harry and Jason II. This all took place long before the Studio

came into existence.

More than ten years had passed before the project of transferring all of those

songs into the computer began. Some of the tapes were over fifteen years old and

they were deteriorating. It was during this process that it was decided to start

releasing those old songs on CD. So on May 23, 2001, the first collection was

released as The Vintage Years Volume1 on May 23, 2001. It consisted of the first

two tapes that Harry and Jason had made. Future volumes were planned but have

not been completed yet.

But this is not the only musical project Harry and Jason have worked on together.

They have also been in bands such as Pheonix, The Two-Tones, Young Herbage,

The Traveling Deengelburys, The Spartans, The Duke Boys, Isthmus, Muffin Loaf,

and others. It is safe to say that the two of them will continue making music for

years to come.

Next week: What is Muffin Loaf?



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Lyric Booklet #3: Devis Tortura

The third album to include lyrics was NueroMorgue's 1993 album Devis Tortura.The booklet was titled "Devastation and Minim Opi" and was eighteen pages long.

This was the first lyric booklet to have its own title. It was typed on a word

processor and printed out.

This "lyric booklet" did provide lyrics to all of the songs that were on the album but

you had to work to find them for they were buried within the story or hidden in

secret codes. All the lyrics of the songs were chopped up and rearranged, and this

story was written around that.

The booklet started with the table of contents followed by a forward. Following

that was the 5-part story titled "Devastation" which contained lyrics to ten of the

songs on the album. The other seven songs had their lyrics hidden in seven short

stories at the end of the booklet. After the minim opi was an epilogue. And the

booklet ended with a full-page drawing called "Primordial Water and Lotus".

This booklet was meant to be released with the album but it actually came out on

March 22, 1994, three months after the album was released. The cover creditedthe booklet to Gargoyle.



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F R I D A Y , O CT O BE R 2 6 , 2 0 0 7

Listen Online!

The fourth installment of Listen Online presents three new tracks! These comefrom the 2001 album The Vintage Years Volume 1 by Harry and Jason. These tracks

are from 1986 and are some of the very first songs Harry and Jason recorded

together.

Click on the name of the song to listen to it.

"The Beautiful Corns"

"The Redenbacher Song"

"Hair"


Labels: Listen Online

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Below is an inside look into the record-keeping of the Studio. This page actuallydates back to 1991 when the 4-track recorder was bought for the Studio. After

recording a few songs it became evident that some sort of log was needed to keep

track of what songs were on what tapes. So a Master Log book was created. This is

the first page created for the Studio log.

Let's take a tour of the page, shall we?

The title of the page came from the time frame these songs were recorded.

The "Olympus era" (c1991, named for the album that came out of these

songs) took 2 pages in the log book. Following the "Olympus era" was the

"Underwater Problem Factory era" (c1991-1992) that titled pages 3 and 4 as

"UPF 1" and "UPF 2."

The title is "Olympus 2" even though this was the first page in the logbook.

The pages were titled beforethe recording dates were added to the page.

So when it came time to title the first few pages they were mixed up andpage 1 became "Olympus 2" and page 2 became "Olympus 1" and the error

was never corrected.

The date of 8/6/95 in the upper right corner indicates when the page was

titled.

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On the upper left side of the page is the word "counter." This was to be the

column where the counter numbers of the recorder were written down for

each song so a song could easily be found on the tape. But this was soon

abandoned as it took too much time.

The letters on the far left of the page indicate which project the song

belongs too. At the time, Mune Mud was the only project so most of the

these songs belong to MM, or Mune Mud.

The yellow highlight next to some songs indicate that an MP3 exists of that

song. The highlighting is out-of-date as most of those songs are now in the

computer.

In the center of the page are the song titles. Some songs don't have titles

but a short descriptor of what the song was.

As previously stated, the recording dates were added later. And those dates

were not written down for most of the earlier recordings so the indicated

time frames are the best guess as to when these songs were recorded.

The next column has "T=" for each song. This became the tempo column. A

T=60 means the tempo was 60 bpm (beats per minutes).

The far right column shows the running time of each song.

To date there are 28 pages in the Master Log book.

And this first page is notin the Metal XOR Studio Museum. It is in the Master Logbook that is still being used in the Studio today!



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SU N D A Y , O CT O B E R 2 8 , 2 0 0 7

Album of the Week #10: Electric Field Donut

Project name: IsthmusAlbum name: Electric Field Donut

Release date: July 9, 1996

Release format: cassette


Tracks:1. Safety in Numbers

2. Free

3. Simple G

4. Rain Fusion

5. Farmer's Anguish

6. No Soul

7. Mama Got Caught

8. Jay's Mambo

9. The Long and Winding Road

10. I Saw Her Standing There

11. Nowhere Man

12. Yesterday

13. Help

14. Hey Jude

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15. Let It Be

16. Rocky Mountain Way

17. Wicked Game

18. Flipcharts

This album came from a jam session that Harry and Jason had on February 5, 1995

in Jason's basement. The Metal XOR Studio was still under construction so the jam

was done among the construction materials. They filled three 45-minute 4-track

master cassettes and from those tapes this album was created.

It was a few months after the jam that Jason went back to the master tapes and

started adding drums (most of the songs were recorded without drums since it was

just the two of them), additional keyboards, and guitars. Once the songs were

complete they were compiled for an album. Then it was time to name the album

and the project. After a LOT of suggestions for a project name, they settled on

Isthmus. And Harry came up with the album name. He saw a picture of lightning

striking a baseball stadium and he said "Electric Field Donut!"

Most of the jam was them creating their own music and lyrics as they went, it was

all ad-libbed. After their creative steam ran out they got out Jason's book of

Beatles songs and started recording Beatles songs. Side A of the tape is their

originals and side B is their Beatles covers.

This album also started an Isthmus tradition. The song "Wicked Game" has

appeared on every Isthmus album in one form or another. And this was the first

album to feature it.

For most of the album Jason played the guitar and Harry was on keyboard. They

took turns singing. And this jam session was recorded with a video camera. There

have been talks of releasing a video tape from the session but that has not yetmaterialized.

Below is the schematic for how the equipment was hooked up for this session.

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Next week's Album of the Week: Lambskin Templeby Isthmus from 1996.

Posted by - Mune Mud - at 7:40 AM 0 commentsLabels: Album of the Week

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M O N D A Y , O C T O B E R 2 9 , 2 0 0 7


It was October 29, 1996, when the book "Olympus: Mountain or Molehill?" wasreleased.

This was the definitive guide to Mune Mud's 1991 Olympus. It told how each song

was recorded, the inspiration behind each song, what was recorded on each track

of the 4-track master, hidden meanings, etc. No Mune Mud library should be

without it.

Posted by - Mune Mud - at 5:49 AM 0 commentsLabels: This Day in History

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T U E SD A Y , O C T O B E R 3 0 , 2 0 0 7

Article: Services Used

What makes it possible to share Metal XOR Studio content with the rest of theworld? What services are used to turn the blog from an idea into reality? Let us

take a look at the services used.

Blogger

This is the website you are on now. It allows a user to create a blog, post new

entries, archive old posts, etc. There are manyblog sites available. The reason

Blogger was chosen was because it is owned by Google and the Studio already had

a Google account using various other services.

Verizon Online

Verizon is the Internet provider the Studio uses , so through them there was

already web space available for a Metal XOR website. The Metal XOR Studio

Information Source was created to be a place for the Musik Catalog, songs to listen

to, documents to read, etc. Since the blog site offers no storage for files, the

content needed to be stored somewhere else. So the Information Source site

seemed to be the appropriate place.

Mediamax

The storage at the Metal XOR website was very small. In fact, last night the Studio

hit 87% of its storage capacity. And there aren't that many songs and publications

posted yet. There is a LOT more content planned to become available. So this

morning an account was created with Mediamax to store all the music and

publication files the Studio wants to provide to the public. The Information Source

will still be the website the public will use to access the files, but the files

themselves will now be stored away from Verizon.

And those are the three sites used in this blog. Plans for upcoming downloadable

content include electronic versions of all Metal XOR Studio books and booklets that

have been published, new e-books, entire album downloads, video, and more.

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So keep checking this site for announcements regarding new available content.

Update: Since this article was written there are two other services used by this

blog.

Scribd

Scribd is a site that hosts documents. So all of the interviews and lyric booklets are

now stored there. They offer an option to embed documents on your website, so

that's what the blog uses to allow the reader to view the documents in a small

reader within the post.

Flickr

This is a site that hosts pictures. The Studio has two accounts. The first is for the

album covers, and that is linked to the album cover slide show in the sidebar on

the right of the blog. The second account is for the rest of the miscellaneous

pictures that have been shown on the site. There are over a hundred pictures now

on the site and that number increases every week.


Labels: Article

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Project Spotlight #10: What is Muffin Loaf?

What is Muffin Loaf? It was a snack in the vending machine where Jason works.

It is also the name of the band that played one show where Jason works.

The year was 2003. As a training exercise Jason's department was to design and set

up a small performance area that included a sound system, video cameras, and a

lighting rig to simulate a show site. They decided that if they were going through

all the trouble of setting such an elaborate show they may as well make use of it.

So a few of them got together and created a band.

The players were (from left to right in the picture above) Ken on guitar, Harry on

drums, Brad on vocals, and Jason on bass guitar. They were looking for a name forthemselves and someone noticed a "muffin loaf" in the vending machine. The name

had been found!

They had one rehearsal in Harry's basement on Saturday, March 15, 2003. It was

video taped and recorded on cassette and digital recorder. From the digital

recording Harry made a bootleg practice CD called Tasty Jam in the Cellar. Jason

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pulled some of the songs from the camcorder and created another bootleg CD

called Sounds from Underground. The play lists on both CD's were slightly

different.

The night of the show was Tuesday, March 18, 2003. They had co-workers stickaround after work to listen. It was recorded to 3/4" video tape and SVHS. The

tapes had a bad audio mix, so the planned "live album" was never made from those

tapes. Almost all of the songs they played were covers, but they did have a couple

of originals thrown in.

In 2004 Jason produced a Muffin Loaf video using pictures from the rehearsal and

show and set it to the band's rehearsal version of "Crazy Train."

Muffin Loaf has not played together since. There are plans to have a reunion jamsome day. Maybe another bootleg will come out of it...

Next week: Who are the Traveling Deengelburys?



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Just For Fun #2

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

From all of us at Metal XOR Studio


Labels: Just for Fun

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T H U R SD A Y , N O V E M B E R 1 , 2 0 0 7

State of the Studio #3: November '07

November, month of the turkey, has arrived. And much too quickly. So whatsgoing on in the Studio?

A couple of weeks ago I attempted to change the blog from having daily posts to

only three or four a week, but I haven't seen much success with that. Since that

post there have only been two days that I didnt post, so Ill try harder to post less

this month. Haha.

The Studios online storage just drastically increased. I only had a small amount of

space for songs and other downloadable content at the Metal XOR Studio

Information Source and that was almost full already. So I recently gained a LOT

more storage at a different site. I am in the process of moving the information

from the Information Source site to the new host site. Although most of the

changes are behind-the-scenes, you will notice some differences in the way the

Information Source site is set up. When that conversion is finished a lot more

content will become available for downloading. Watch for more songs (even entire

albums), publications, and video in the coming weeks and months.

As far as new music, Paiges second recording session for her new album will

happen soon. And plans regarding a music project from the past are going to be

announced this month. Watch for that!

For the Project Spotlight features in November I will be digging into some older

music. Expect to read about projects from the late 80s and early 90s.

And there are other changes planned for the blog as well. So be sure to make time

in your busy weekly schedule to visit the blog to see whats going on at Metal XOR

Studio.


Labels: State of the Studio

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