A Tater Patch in Hell was written back when I was playing with The Gorgeous Boyscouts. It was a pretty straight forward idea that sat in a notebook for 5 years. A little writing and move to Portland later, here is the first B and The McCools release in over a year.
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
A Billion Ways to Look Up
At the start of 2021 I decided I was going to record an album.
It has been 14 months since I made this decision and today I am proud to present, A Billion Ways to Look Up, my first solo album in 14 years. Now available anywhere you stream or download music. Also available for streaming below:
I had some help from my friends along the way.
B and the McCools are:
Brandon Albu
Mike Lomangino
Julie Jamgochian
Micheal DiRoma
John Zilka
Steisha Ponczoch
Jim Shliferstein
Anastasia Roloff
All songs written, recorded, and produced by Brandon Albu. Mixed and Mastered by Brandon Albu and Mike Lomangino. Album artwork by Julie Jamgochian.
A Tenderfoot's Duty: The Call of the Void
This post is about two years too late. As I was updating my webpage for an upcoming music release I noticed this album was never posted to my site. This is the second Gorgeous Boyscouts album to have been recorded. I have learned a lot about recording since this release, part of me wishes I still had the files to go back and remix/remaster these tracks. After recording this album we added a new member to GBS, Michael DeRoma, he played lead guitar and this would not be the last time we made music together. Come back soon for a big reveal - until then, here is, A Tenderfoot's Duty: The Call of the Void
Witchland
Sometime in the summer of 2021 - I was asked to write a score for a play. I have never done this but jumped at the opportunity. I wrote it with my friend Steisha, who was actually the reason I was involved at all, thanks Steish. I don't have much else to say about it so here is a link to the play's website where you can hear our song.
B and The McCools - John Frum
This song is about John Frum. I tried to tell a story with this video. The song was written and recorded sometime in 2018. My computer crashed again and I lost a lot of files. I was able to recover this song so I decided to make a video for it and just release it. My luck with the computer hard drive has not been great in these past 7 years. Tired of losing files. Song written and recoded by myself, Pineapple recoded the lead guitar for this one.
B and The McCools - Oh Siddhartha
My last post was some cover songs I had made. Since then COVID has been going strong and so has my video skills. I recently bought a greenscreen and with the help from my friend Pineapple we recorded and shot this video for Oh Siddhartha. I have posted The Gorgeous Boyscouts version of this song previously - here is the newest rendition:
B and The McCools
So ... COVID happened, I needed to kill the time, I started a band of clones. Here are some of the videos/music I have created over the past months.
Ocean Man (Ween Cover) - The proof of concept video: I bought a mandolin during the lockdown, I had a great financing deal and was bored with guitar. I learned the one mandolin song I knew and later I looked at the bass tabs and realized I could play all the instruments. I hadn't had a video project in a while and because of all the recent Zoom meetings with their digital backgrounds gave me an idea.
I have no idea if any ever goes to my website. I have never told anyone about it really. Its just an online record of stuff I have done. In case there are people that look at this:
Though I am going to be making more of these I am not going to be posting anymore on here. If you want to see the new ones I make the best place to go is the Instagram page I made for them.
The Revenge of GBS
So it has been a very long time since I have update this page. My band The Gorgeous Boyscouts had split up back in 2018. As of the end of 2019 we have reformed - this time with an additional member. A longtime friend of Nick's moved to San Diego and started playing lead guitar. We had our first show back in almost two years on February 28, 2020. Here are two videos from the nights show.
The Evolution of a Song
In 2006 I moved to California and thats when I really started writing music. I didn't have many friends and didn't know of the cool areas in town so I sat around and played guitar all the time. I was going by Slender Loris back then, a name I accidentally stole from a 70s funk band. I gave them their rightful Myspace page and dropped the name. One of the songs I wrote was called Often Times. This song was originally sang by me and I shouldn't even be posting this because it is terrible. But here is the first version of Often Times:
Johnny Z and I have been playing music together since 1999. We were first in a band called Placebo (Also accidentally stolen) with our friends Brian Garrison and Rachel Simondet. We then started writing music as Poor Mister Doggy Man. This was a silly anything goes band. Our three songs were about Tape, Rabbits, and Disney Land. It wasn't until 2008, when I moved back to Minnesota, we formed Girl Shoes. Johnny Z and I finally released an album in 2013 called "Its and EP" and one of the songs on the album was Often Times. We had an old co-worker of mine, Adom do the singing and help with some of the writing. Here is the second recorded version of Often Times:
In 2013 I moved back to California. I eventually started playing in a new band called The Gorgeous Boyscouts. Eventually Often Times made it into our set list. I do not have an official recording of this song preformed by The Gorgeous Boyscouts but we did play it live at a show we did for the Humane Society. Here is the third version of Often Times:
Johnny Z and I have been playing music together since 1999. We were first in a band called Placebo (Also accidentally stolen) with our friends Brian Garrison and Rachel Simondet. We then started writing music as Poor Mister Doggy Man. This was a silly anything goes band. Our three songs were about Tape, Rabbits, and Disney Land. It wasn't until 2008, when I moved back to Minnesota, we formed Girl Shoes. Johnny Z and I finally released an album in 2013 called "Its and EP" and one of the songs on the album was Often Times. We had an old co-worker of mine, Adom do the singing and help with some of the writing. Here is the second recorded version of Often Times:
In 2013 I moved back to California. I eventually started playing in a new band called The Gorgeous Boyscouts. Eventually Often Times made it into our set list. I do not have an official recording of this song preformed by The Gorgeous Boyscouts but we did play it live at a show we did for the Humane Society. Here is the third version of Often Times:
The Gorgeous Boyscouts
Five weeks ago my friend Nick was telling me 1. That he had a band and 2. That they just lost their drummer. I was drunk so I told him I played drums and tricked him into naming the band after my trivia team. Yesterday was The Gorgeous Boyscouts' first show and here is one of the songs we played:
Trampoline - Live at Le Stats (6-17-2015)
Please visit our website www.gorgeousboyscouts.com
Trampoline - Live at Le Stats (6-17-2015)
Please visit our website www.gorgeousboyscouts.com
Choppers Greatest Hits
A coworker used to call in sick for work with ridiculous reasons. A song was made out of these reasons.
A coworker used to call in sick for work with ridiculous reasons. A song was made out of these reasons. Only this is Vol. 2
Girl Shoes
I was/am the second half of Girl Shoes. There is a separate page for the band. Just look up, its the tab that says Girl Shoes. The other half is my good friend JZ. He does cool things on the internets too. His videos are here.
You clicked here for music so visit that shit later, go to the Girl Shoes page and get your jamb on. There are also some music videos below.
You clicked here for music so visit that shit later, go to the Girl Shoes page and get your jamb on. There are also some music videos below.
Girl Shoes - Often Times (Featuring Adom)
Filmed on the roads of Arizona, original music by Girl Shoes.
Slender Loris
I used to play drums, then I moved out of my parents house and couldn't play drums in any of my various apartments I moved into. I tried, I actually yelled at my landlord and requested she apologize to me for acting rudely when confronting me for being annoying with them, but thats a different story. I eventually moved to guitar and thats when all this happened:
Chandelier (2005)
Named after my favorite drinking game, Chandelier probably has my favorite songs I have done solo. The picture on the cover was taken in my car, in a liquor store parking lot with a really shitty camera phone. Its a hula girl air-freshener with an icy car window behind it. Slender Loris MD was the only song I wrote on my mandolin and all the piano parts are played on a children's toy piano, only two keys worked at a time. Tech-no-logy was the first song I wrote with lyrics, but they were never recorded, the reason, you'll see if you keep listening to whats coming up.
Fire, Smoke/Debris (2007)
In 2006 I moved to San Diego and had no friends, I played a ton of guitar. This album was by far the weirdest music I wrote, the only problem, I decided to sing. I am a terrible singer, I know this, but I tried. Often Times eventually became a Girl Shoes song in 2013 with the help of my friends Johnny Z and Adam. Cydonia was by far the best song on the album, and that is not saying much. Literally, the only thing I like about the album is its name and cover art. I had the album title picked out when I was 15, I stole a safety card from an airplane and thats where it came from. This was the last album I did myself.
I may have some more music ventures in my future, but one thing I do know is that I will probably not be singing in them. I liked writing music by myself, I could do whatever I wanted. Most songs were filled with wrong notes and poor playing, but these three albums are where I learned how to play guitar.
The Slender Loris E.P. (2003)
The first song I ever recorded was called 8082. I used Sound Recorder on a Gateway PC running Windows 95. I plugged my knock-off Gibson, Silvertone guitar directly into the sound card and used Fruity Loops for the drums. I was so surprised it even worked. The album cover is a picture of my brother playing with some toy tractors. I saw this picture in an old album and took it, I knew I would use it for something eventually. Here are a few tracks off the album.
Named after my favorite drinking game, Chandelier probably has my favorite songs I have done solo. The picture on the cover was taken in my car, in a liquor store parking lot with a really shitty camera phone. Its a hula girl air-freshener with an icy car window behind it. Slender Loris MD was the only song I wrote on my mandolin and all the piano parts are played on a children's toy piano, only two keys worked at a time. Tech-no-logy was the first song I wrote with lyrics, but they were never recorded, the reason, you'll see if you keep listening to whats coming up.
In 2006 I moved to San Diego and had no friends, I played a ton of guitar. This album was by far the weirdest music I wrote, the only problem, I decided to sing. I am a terrible singer, I know this, but I tried. Often Times eventually became a Girl Shoes song in 2013 with the help of my friends Johnny Z and Adam. Cydonia was by far the best song on the album, and that is not saying much. Literally, the only thing I like about the album is its name and cover art. I had the album title picked out when I was 15, I stole a safety card from an airplane and thats where it came from. This was the last album I did myself.
I may have some more music ventures in my future, but one thing I do know is that I will probably not be singing in them. I liked writing music by myself, I could do whatever I wanted. Most songs were filled with wrong notes and poor playing, but these three albums are where I learned how to play guitar.
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