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Sparkledrive !!


NOSValves

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quote:

Originally posted by NOS440:

The CD's he's offering are original from the record label that were given to the group when the record label dropped them and are completely legal to sell.

Craig

yep, and he has quite a few!

------------------

-justin

SoundWise

promediatech@Klipsch.com /1-888-554-5665 - RA# 800-554-7724 ext 5s>

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Looks like I have started a great trend. I would like to hear the inside story of what happened if you would care to share it, or even can legally too.

It's great to support fellow Klipshers and BB people in their music loves too. Matt Whatley is another good example. I was happy to be the first to suggest SparkleDrive, I hope others find it as cool as I do too.

Roger

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The short story...........

Val was at a club watching a band here in Nashville. Some guy walked up and started asking her opinion of the band they were watching. As they talked, people kept on coming up and saying "Hey, your that girl from Porcelain (our ORIGINAL name)- Man..I saw you guys open for The Pretenders last nite !! Great Show, etc..etc". After this happened SEVERAL times- the guy asked Val about her band- and handed him her card. HHmmm..Vice President of Columbia Records...Val had a Porcelain cd in his hands by morning. I warned Val he may NEVER listen to it. Well, after a couple days we got calls from several people at Columbia (NY) and said they loved the stuff. Remember now, this is PORCELAIN- not Sparkledrive.

Well..after a few months- they signed us to Columbia. They had us change our name and proceeded to A&R a much "poppier" record than we would have. Several trax that were live favorites ( like our closer!!)were cut because they were "too rock-y". Val normally wore tight leathers live but they brought DRESSES to the photo shoot..Stuff like that was constant. We had our KNOWLEDGE of who we were- they had an image and sound they were after. Porcelain - as we were signed- we a much edgier band w/ roots is Indie Pop but not as polished as the SparkleDrive record. For instance- the opening track- "Baby Hold On"- has all these really great Feedback guitars and fuzz bass BUT Chris Lord Alge was told we wanted "pop" mixes SO...out went the feedback and fuzztones and turn up those vocals!! So..although I'm glad so many people love the record- I STILL hear other people's influence all over it and it bums me out everytime I hear my original rough mixes cause they are way cooler in many ways..

So..that said..almost from the get-go we were alittle doomed cause we werent willing to do ANYTHING they said and didnt like the feeling of having virtually NO say in anything. We were used to the DIY way of doing things.

Then...they decided to release us on Aware Records - a subsidiary of Columbia. Well- these guys HATED pop stuff and HATED "girl bands" and really did little to help us in any way. All their contacts came to expect Train,Five for Fighting,and other similiar bands from Aware and dint know what to make of the Girl fronted Pop band- SparkleDrive. We were out playing some great shows in the midwest and the VH1 Band on the run winner-Flickerstick" had asked us to tour w/ them for awhile. We had played several shows w/ them and both bands felt that their fans "GOT" the other band and we both did really well with Merch so it was a good combo. We were MUCH more rocking live- Val sang lead and played a mean Rickenbacker. I played and sang bgvs - as did the bass player- and the drummer triggered loops. So w/ a 2 guitar,bass and drum outfit and guys singing the bgvs ,it was definitely more "edgy".. ANYWAY..........Columbia nor Aware was very excited about the difference between the live show and the record so after a while we just wanted out.

Our lawyer is a NY bigwig (N'Sync,ACDC,INXS,etc..)and basically felt if they werent gonna back up the record with a GOOD push- they should just let us go and thats what they did !!

Felt humiliating and frustrating FOR A WHILE- but now we are happy to be doing music HOWEVER we want again. We are planning a cd of 70s cover tunes ( more like REMAKES actually- just modern takes on older songs that were great..any ideas??) as well as a new band cd. we'll see...............

You should hear "the Long Story" !!

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Funny you say this. Upon hearing the cuts, the first thing I thought was that it would sound much better more raw, less produced with the vocals dropped back a bit with less pop snap crackle and clean. She is really thrust forward in the mix, especially with the chorus where they compress the sound a bit thus making her pop forward even more. It sounds like too much was done in the studio as well. The songs would have really benefited from the less is more approach, allowing some more rawness to enter in. Indeed, some fuzz guitar would have really added more grit and edge. What they geared it for is people that don't listen to anything but pop radio or quick "grab and take thy melody" MTV style presentation, now passing for indie rock/Alternative light (a horrible word itself).

After reading your description here, it made all the more sense(and I felt for you there). What a horror and a near crime, although a crime committed all too often. They tried to give the presentation more "bubblegum" with some "Juicy Fruit" thrown in. After reading your take on the Columbia involvement, you could see where the songs might have been before too much Mr. Reverb was added. There actually are a lot of great hooks, but hooks that didn't need to be watered down with extra processing from the studio. You wrote some good songs.

A female lead pop band that made a good compromise was something like the early Breeders but their writing is a bit more esoteric and not quite as straight, which does make a difference. But it seems you got a bad break with the studio. Another GREAT female fronted band is Helium. Check them out if you haven't heard them, especially their earlier stuff with the bass player from Chapel Hill's POLVO. Helium had a real edge with no compromise. Dirt of Luck was a great record. You should have hooked up with an indie label; you probably would have taken off in a whole new direction recording-wise. As soon as they whipped the name to Sparkledrive, the writing was on the wall as the name fit their image for you.

Still, it is a pretty good record. I wonder what it would have sounded like with a bit more edge and more space between the notes. Have you given thought to just taking the raw tracks and re-doing it yourself? You sound like you have some experience here.

kh

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This message has been edited by mobile homeless on 09-11-2002 at 06:57 PM

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I'm with Mobile on this one. I have had the CD for a few weeks now and I really enjoy it. There is no question there is some talent there but it just seems too polished for me. I would definitely like to hear it the way you intended it to be. Harder, with more of an edge.

I really hope you guys get another chance here and look forward to your next effort...

Mike

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YA KNOW...I agree w/ all the above but I'm so sick of talkin about how I think we shouldve done it and how others think we shouldve done it..I just wanna move on and do the NEW stuff the right way- OUR WAY!! We're also both into stuff like Morcheeba and Massive Attack so we'll add something from that influence as well and just do a newer "better" record..dig??

I mean....we cut 6 (SIX !!!) entirely different arrangements of "Baby Hold On" trying to make them happy!! . One alittle more like IVY or something. Another slower..another in a lower key, etc....Its a good record and I can be proud of it but its not the record I WANTED to make !! STILL ..THAT SAID..I've got 10,000 cds in my friggin' garage so who wants a cheap copy !!???

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I just showed Val this thread and her comment was.."well..what did they (Columbia) want?? I mean we spent a YEAR talkin' about makin a record and 2 weeks maybe cutting it !!".... We cut ALL the tracks- INCLUDING VOCALS- at the rate of a song per day !!..We spent 2 days getting drum sounds and keeper tracks and then went in and did all the guitars, bass,keys,etc..and then later that evening (after she heard the song a million times) Val had to go out there and sing "keeper vocals". She didnt feel she even bettered our demos !!...So ya learn..record your demos, boys and girls,like its your RECORD - cause often the actual record is only about "chasin the demo's magic" (as they say)....interesting..very interesting

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  • 8 years later...

Before Sparkledrive became Sparkledrive they was named Porcelain. And its under this name I got their CD. Name of the CD is Porcelain. The front of the cover is white with a black circle. Inside the black circle, "Porcelain" is written.

A very good CD. Some of the songs is also on Sparkledrives CD, like Shy, wanted your kiss, Ugly, Climb out and I was wrong. I quote from cdbaby.com: "We've done a few indie CD's -
two of them were released under the band name Porcelain, but we had to
change our name because there were a few other Porcelains out there"
( http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sparkledrive )

I hope someone can help me get their Porcelain CD. :-)

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