The Variety Store EP

The new album is out. The Variety Store EP is a four song collection that has some of my wackiest tracks yet. "Ants" is about how we all act sometimes. "Ricky MIA" is a goof on early 90's trippy-type style tracks. Never in a million years did I think I'd write a song about my own pet but...yep, "Johnny the Cat". "Variety Store" tells the story of my wasted youth hanging out a Checkers Variety in Oshawa with my friend Jeff.

You can buy the EP here for only $3.33 on Zunior.

To celebrate the release of the new stuff, I put together another video on an iPad using clips shot by my brother Bob. The coin catching stuff is a reference to this classic Happy Days episode where Fonzie's cousin tries to break a record by catching coins on his elbow. Back in the day, after this episode, everyone in the schoolyard was trying this for weeks. I got pretty good at it myself, not that you can tell in this dripping wet footage.

Variety Store EP Out on June 21

Here is the artwork for the new EP out in a few weeks. Trevor did an awesome job once again and even included the subtle touch of calling the store 'Checkers'. This is a tribute to the real store at the end of my street growing up in Oshawa. Many hours were wasted there playing Galaga and eating Mr. Freezies.

I also put together a new video for this song:



It tells the story of fictional rapper called Ricky. I made the vid myself on an iPad and it features some Creative Commons footage from a piece called 'One Night in New York'. It is old school footage of a guy riding his bike at night in NYC with a camera on his handlebars. It matches the story nicely. Thanks to Jackson Darby for adding the excellent scratching on this track.

Dave

Variety Store EP Coming Soon

Once again I used the March Break to record some new Egger songs. Similar to the Eggybeats EP from last year, I set out to try and make a batch of songs from scratch over a few days. Although I started with just a few small ideas and lyrics, I set up my laptop and cheapo tube mic to start laying down tracks.

I always start drums first, so I layed out a few simple patterns and put it to digi-tape. Guitars go next, then vocals. From there I usually add everything else including percussion, backup, etc. This is the way I did it for three of the songs called 'Variety Store', 'Ants' and 'Johnny'. Then Andrew Green showed up and added some great guitar parts to all three of these songs. He even added a backup vocal, or two.

The fun really started when we broke out a brand new (to us) vintage Moog that I picked up on Mike O'Neill's behalf. This machine is absolute classic from the era of Rush/Steve Miller/Cars. You could say it 'played itself' (in this case, Andrew let it play itself!), it was so good. The result of our noodling was a fourth track called 'Ricky MIA' that tries to dance like Stevie Wonder but slouches like Beck. I'm in the process of getting a friend to add some turntables and then we'll have a final product. Andrew is currently doing all the mixing at his place and hopefully we'll have something out in May. Even better, Trevor Waurechen is going to be doing the artwork and his illustrations have been included in many Zunior Label albums over the past few years.

I set up a dedicated Youtube channel for Egger stuff called Eggychannel. I'll use this to post videos, songs and few proper video-type ideas that I have for this album. Stay tuned for updates in the next few weeks.

Dave

Zunior 2010 Holiday Album

This is a belated update, but I put out a new track as part of the 2010 Zunior Holiday Album called A Country Blues Christmas.

The track is called 'Snowfort' and it an original collaboration between Andrew Green and myself. I set out to create a true 'county blues' track in the pre-war country blues style. Stuff like Mississippi John Hurt is the real deal...and Egger ain't, but we tried anyway.

I made up the words and vocal melody and recorded it here in Toronto. The file went sight unseen to Andrew Green and he cut a crackin guitar part. The result is simple, clean and fun.



Stay tuned for a new Egger EP in the spring of 2011.

Dave

The Lost Weekend Sessions

Well, I'm back. As you can see by the length of time since my previous post, the process of doing some follow up recordings took much longer than expected. The good news is that I came up with a solid plan to finally get this project off the ground. For the first time in years, I had access to an empty house for a full weekend and I knew it was time to record. There needed to be a framework for the session that would provide a new challenge and provide an interesting result.

Here was the deal going into the weekend:

1. 5 Days - I had a grand total of five days to record, with only Saturday and Sunday being full recording days because of work.
2. Laptop - I would record everything to my laptop by myself using just my $200 tube mic, a Beta 58 and a copy of Audacity.
3. No Ideas Going In - I went into the session literally with no riffs, no lyrics and just a couple of song titles.
4. Guest - I invited just one person to play on the Saturday session. My old friend Andrew Green (The Shermans) came down to play guitar.
5. 3 Songs - The goal was to complete 3 songs and then officially title the result the 'Eggybeats EP'.

Well, the mission has been accomplished and the songs are in the can. The titles are:

1. Small Time - The track features some great guitar solos by Andrew on the second half of the song. It is heavy-ish and raw, which I like.
2. One-Liner - This track features a guitar riff and bass from Andrew with some lyrics from me about a stand comedian that is bombing on stage.
3. The Poor and the Principled - On this one I'm playing and singing everything.

My plan is to finish the mix of these songs this week and then get the tracks to Dave Clark for mastering. I'll finalize the artwork on the weekend and the Eggybeats EP could hatch as soon as next week. I'll provide some more tales once I have it ready.

Dave

Songwriting

Songs are the heart of music, and songwriting style can easily fall into two types. The serious songwriter/musician will usually focus on the skill of playing and craft of writing. (Basically, it takes years of skill and dedication to approach music in this way.) The DIY songwriter usually just grabs an idea and runs with it. It doesn't matter if you don't have a great voice, great skill on a particular instrument or the best recording equipment. You just roll with it.

My affinity with indie music and indie culture stems from the equality of this approach. In many ways, anyone can do it, if you have the drive. Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy) said he prefers music made by non-musicians over real musicians. If you take a close look at indie rock, you'll see what he means. The approach can really go all the way from Talking Heads and The Ramones, to Pavement, to The Bicycles. If it's done right, it always rocks.

So, putting stuff together for Egger gave me a chance to put my money where my mouth is. I recorded a lot of stuff on my own, and then brought some of that into the studio to record with the guys. The process of doing end-to-end demos on my own was a really great experience, and it really gives you a chance to find interesting ideas that you never would find any other way. It is basically the exact flipside of the same cool discovery process you get when you write and record as a band, and the group creates things you never could. Throw the DIY approach on top of everything, and you end up getting stuff like this:

Egger - Street Fighter Demo

This is the last demo that I did for the album, where I played and sang everything. It is always so cool to see where you can go with this kind of thing. Rough around the edges, but I love the spirit.

Even better is when you get a chance to go into a studio with that same demo and record with a bunch of hot shots to get a final result like this:

Egger - Street Fighter - 2005

Welcome to Eggybeats

It's the spring of 2007 in Toronto. I'm gearing up to do some more recording and it occurred to me that a blog would be the most sensible way to present what I call Egger. Egger is basically me (Dave Ullrich) writing, recording and releasing music. Although I used to play drums in The Inbreds in the 90's, and now I run the online store/label Zunior, Egger is definitely more of a hobby. I got to thinking how it might make a lot more sense to present this stuff in a narrative context as opposed to a 'big bang'...as in, record in isolation, produce a CD, play live, get press. Where I'm at now in my life, a simple ongoing story will probably be more interesting to you. So, my goal with this site is present the back story on Egger and try and tell an good story over time.

So, before I go back and start from the start, here are a few Egger facts:

- the first Egger album is called Force Majeure
- it was released on the Zunior label in 2005
- the primary players on the album were Paul Linklater, Doug Freisen and Don Kerr
- you can check it out here
- we made just one video for "Pixels", directed by Scott Cudmore

The concept for Egger really hit me in March 2005. Mike O'Neill and I had just played a triumphant show in Toronto at Lee's Palace. Although we had not played together in almost seven years, Tyler Clark Burke asked us and it just seemed right. Dave Bookman pumped up the event and the place was totally packed. It was basically the biggest Inbreds gig we'd ever played in Toronto. Given all the crappy shows we'd done for years, it was pretty cool. Anyway, the thing was great, people were so great and we had fun.

Of course, after all the props, cheers and compliments, it was still just Mike and I stuffed into a taxi at the end of the night, freezing cold, hauling our own gear. Pretty hilarious, really. On that ride home I really got it in my head that a) The Inbreds are/were an awesome thing b) The past is the past c) This amazing 'final show' was not an excuse to try to resurrect The Inbreds but an excuse to finally attempt to do my own thing. Given that I didn't write songs in The Inbreds, and I was thirty-five years old at this point, it wouldn't be that easy. Still, the time was right.

So, over the previous few years I had been starting to amass some cool gear that I'd always wanted to have, but couldn't afford. Grown-up toys basically. One of the first things I picked up was a classic Rhodes from Paul's Boutique. I don't really know how to play piano, but those who have ever touched a Rhodes know that it can basically play itself. They sound like everything great about music from Al Green to Radiohead to The Local Rabbits. Timeless.

The first riff I ever started working on was this one:

Egger - Rhodes Demo

I recorded the track directly into my computer layered over a drum sample. After the guitar, I pretty much left it as is for a few months. It's when I came back to it later that the feeling of early Genesis hit me. Odd yes, but I thought it had a weird Phil Collins thing going on. I've always liked this demo, and I thought you might like to hear it.

This song eventually turned into the first song on Force Majeure called Just Cause You Can. The track is basically my manifesto of yuppie restraint:

Egger - Just Cause You Can - 2005