We are so pumped to bring you our new featured artist A Million Years.  My Audio Bio has recently relocated to New York and it is only fitting that we feature one of the truly great local acts from Brooklyn.

For being only a few years old, A Million Years has developed an amazingly original and unique sound… that said, if you like Wilco, Radiohead, MGMT (all in my top 10)- you’ll love these guys.

We want to thank Keith, Nick, Andrew and Andrew for putting together some really compelling stories about their music. We had slotted AMY to be featured a few weeks ago, but we were delayed by the release of the MAB iPhone app. We hated to delay because the tracks they provided us to feature in the MAB player are SO good, and we couldn’t wait to share. So please check out the tracks in the player, read the stories behind them (below) and check out the A Million Years MAB profile as well as their official My Space Page for more AMY content, pics and to buy songs. You can also get their album Mischief Maker on iTunes.

California Smile
We have a few different styles when it comes to writing songs. Sometimes
Keith will send out a demo and everyone will take some time at home and work on parts and we all come in to rehearsal with some ideas of what direction we want to take the song. Other times we’re in the studio and a song gets written spontaneously out of a jam. California Smile definitely falls into the latter category. One day in rehearsal Nick just started playing the guitar riff and I remember being instantly blown away by it. At the time Nick was still pretty new in the band too, so I was so happy to hear something so awesome coming out of the new guy. I started playing the first drum beat that came to my head and with the exception of a few fills here and there, that’s the exact beat I ended up playing on the record. Andrew Samaha also had this beautiful, melodic bass fill and wasn’t sure how often he should play it, or where to place it and we worked through some options and ultimately decided that we would get the most out of it if he only played it once and holds off of playing it until the final chorus. So now it’s like the whole song is building to that moment for me and every time we get there it just feels perfect.

Fortune
Contrary to a song like California Smile, Fortune comes from a demo that Keith sent us. I’ll never forget sitting at my computer listening to Fortune for the first time. I was at a complete loss for words. I felt like I had just listened to one of the most beautiful songs I’d ever heard and I had absolutely no idea what I could possibly contribute to making that song any better than it already was. To me we just needed to figure out a way to play that song so we didn’t mess up what was already so perfect about it. That’s when we decided that we should all step outside of our comfort zone a little and try something new. So I decided to get away from my drums and arrange an organ part. I definitely feel like that was the best decision I could have made. It was a pretty special moment recording that song too. We decided that Keith and I would try to play the song together in one take, completely free of a click track and just go for it, so that’s what we did. And the result is quite possibly the song I’m most proud of ever being a part of.

Incandescent
This one always reminds me of dusk, or twilight and there are a few really good reasons for this. When I first wrote the song I had been cat-sitting for my friend Milena’s (of the band Pin Me Down) family. They had this tiny, but amazing apartment in a 6 story walk up in the West Village. I was sitting in their living room watching the sun go down and just messing around with the piles of guitars they have in their house and within minutes the entire song came to me and I started to record the first demo for it. About a year later when the band was in the studio recording our Incandescent EP, this particular song was the last one we were mixing and in the middle of a long session decided to take a break. We headed up to roof of the studio and discovered that the clouds started taking on these weird shapes and the sky had changed to this bright orange color. It was definitely a byproduct of New York City pollution, but beautiful nonetheless. Coincidentally it was sun-down again and to me at least, the recording ended up sounding the way that sky looked.

Suspicious
This one probably started out as me trying to rip off MGMT and instead turned into something else altogether. The reason for this would be that a Mr. Nicholas Werber had recently become the band’s newest recruit. Suspicious might have ended up tossed in the trash pile had it not been for one particular rehearsal session where Nick, Andrew S. and I started working on the idea for the last section of the song. Nick was making all these amazing technicolor sounds come out of his amp and effect boxes. Prior to his introduction to the band I don’t think we had anything like that and very quickly we knew, or at least I knew, that the direction of the music was going to change. For me, that moment is probably the beginning of Mischief Maker’s conception.

Dirt in the Ground
A lesson in trusting your first instincts. This is the oldest song on Mischief Maker. Written when I was in college and all my friends from home seemed like we had gotten sick of one another and were ready to go our separate ways. I had just finished reading John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, and became obsessed with the main character’s desire to keep moving away from everything familiar to him because he felt trapped. This is something that probably everyone wants to do and I struggled with the idea that maybe the guy was right for actually going through with it. I still don’t know. The original form the song took was similar to the electronic, echoey sound on the record but before coming to the conclusion that this was the best interpretation it had gone through some pretty awful arena rock arrangements. Just bad. In fact, I’m going to go burn those
tapes right now.

We are thrilled to have one of our favorite bands as the featured artist here on My Audio Bio, Trances Arc! The guys have given us some incredible stories and access to some amazing music. Please check out “Boom City” and “Steep Roof” on our player. Scroll down to read stories on the new material!

Also check out Trances Arc’s MAB profile, where you can get a behind the scenes look at their classic “Bird’s Collide”. While your there, don’t forget to click on the Bio tab for more on the band, and to buy their albums and merch.

Here are two stories from the band, check out the songs in the player while you read.

Boom City (Story by Danny)
There was a time when we were on tour, driving across the country, with two really great bands, The Whigs and Dead Confederate. For me, one of the best parts about touring is spending time with the other bands. Most of the time we would caravan from city to city, which allowed us to switch vans and ride with each other giving the opportunity to bond and just have fun, and in some cases, get into some trouble.   Anyway, I don’t remember where it was but I was riding in The Whigs van with Parker, Tim and their soundman Matt. We were talking and having a great time listening to all kinds of music, among other things, and we saw the biggest, most huge fireworks store I’ve ever seen. It was called “Boom City”. We stopped in for a minute and checked it out. It was HUGE! I could have spent all day in there, but alas, we had to get back on the road. Now, I don’t know why, but for some reason that name stuck with me for the rest of the tour. I just thought it would make a great song title.

Sadly, the tour eventually ended and we all went our separate ways. When I got home though I was feeling really inspired and eager to write some music. I write a lot of music in my home studio. Everything from thrash metal to jazz tunes. And with Garage Band, it’s super easy to get a full song idea down. So on this particular day I was in the mood to write something really pop, but good pop, and I had the “Boom City” idea in my head. I sat down, booted up a session and just started playing. Before long I had the outline of a song. I started with a simple drum track and then strummed out a chord progression on guitar over it. After I was happy with that, I moved on to the melody and guitar layers and then finally a bass part, which took a little while. I came up with a lot of parts that just sucked until I landed on this one that I liked. At one point my roommate, Niki, who heard me writing the song, came dancing in my room and told me she loved it! I knew I was on to something. It’s always good when a chick says she likes your music. So after a little bit more tweaking it was finally done! I decided not to do any vocals because quite frankly, I suck at it! I find it way easier to just write music and melody. Words, not so much. Oh, and I had planned on refining the drum track, but just never got around to it.

It’s amazing to me how music can be inspired by anything, even a fireworks store.

Anyway, as I said, this song was not intended to be a TA song. I was writing just to add to my stockpile of songs, maybe for a solo project one day, who knows? So we’re at rehearsal one day and just kind of screwing around between songs, I think Michael was getting some beers or something, and I just unconsciously started playing the main riff to Boom City. All of a sudden the guys were like “that’s cool! What is it?” I must admit, I was a bit hesitant at first to play them the song because usually when we write everyone builds around an idea as a collective effort. It’s rare that someone will bring a fully completed song to the band and just say “here it is. Let’s learn it.” Nobody likes to be told what to do, especially in a creative environment. And this being a song I wrote for myself, one that I really loved, I didn’t want to get in to changing parts. I’d almost rather keep the song to myself than deal with the conflict that could potentially ensue. Anyway, I ended up playing the song for the guys and I guess they all loved it because we learned it that day! I made a few concessions regarding certain parts, but nothing major, and Brad fine-tuned the drum parts. Eric came up with some really great lyrics, vocal melodies and Boom it was done! We cut a full band demo in our studio and now it’s on our new record, which thanks to all of you will be released out into the wild!

Just as a side note, we ended up recording about 13 tracks at the end of the day for the record. We wanted to cut it down to 10 so some songs had to go. It was tough to do but as a compromise we decided to release an EP on iTunes for digital download only. The EP is titled “Radians” and is available right now. It contains the 3 songs we cut from the record and as a bonus you get Boom City, which will be on the full length as well. Go check it out!

And while you’re at it, enjoy this mp3 of my original recording of Boom City (in MAB Player).

Steep Roof (story by Michael)
Steep So our new record opens up with a bombastic rock anthem called Steep Roof that’s probably one of my favorite songs on the record… not because of all the blood and sweat we put into its current manifestation, but because of how it came to be.

The song has been floating around in some shape or fashion for the better part of the past year and a half and I’m rather pleased that we finally captured it in a proper light. But I thought you might like to hear why this one is so special and what it once was before it evolved into the massive beast that it is today. Like to hear it? Here it goes…

Now we like to write in all sorts of collaborative forums… each one of us bringing different pieces to the table at different points in the writing process, but with the exception of proper drum and bass, this one just sort of came to me all at once. During a time of some serious transition for me, I was visiting my parents in Athens one spring. From the back porch, you can climb on the roof without much effort at all and see out past the property line, through the trees and over to the neighboring farm land. I took my acoustic guitar up there all the time when I was in high school… refuge from the everyday mundane. Things were always clearer up there at a slightly higher elevation. It was on this roof that Steep Roof was written. How convenient. I don’t like to go into much detail about lyrical content, as part of the joy for me is to create an idea abstract enough for everyone to make these songs their own, but I will say that this one is about letting go of someone and the difficult journey that is letting go.

Anyhow, Danny had just sold me his old pro-tools rig at the top of the summer and I had all but emptied out my bedroom to make room for recording gear, a desk and piano. Steep Roof was the first song written and recorded on that rig. This version has an extra verse that was eventually cut and an extended outro with a sprinkling of Rhodes throughout. With nothing, but guitars, piano, and vocals, you can pretty much tell right off the bat if you’re working with substance or shit… at least it didn’t sound like shit to me… enjoy.

Being on a military base in Baghdad can be an interesting place to spend a year. Take TV for instance. The free stuff is provided by the Armed Forces Network (AFN) and typically consists of 8 channels of various programming. At any given moment you may find sports, news (24 hrs delayed), older sitcoms, first run shows like CSI and Lost, and children’s programming. The other day I found myself totally captivated by the Disney movie, The Emperor’s New Groove. At one point in the movie, Kronk is sneaking around the castle walls and he starts to hum his own theme music. Classic! This got me thinking, What if everyone had their own theme music? What if you could just stop time after some significant moment in your life and bust out in your own music video. Not only would that be awesome, but then everyone around you could go, “Yeah, I see where he is coming from now. Those choreographed moves speak volumes. This guy is really hurting and we should be more considerate.”

OK, so this leads me to what happened the other day. A guy I know over here had the unfortunate experience of walking in on his girlfriend with another girl. I know what the guys are thinking, but no, it was not that cool and he was basically destroyed. He left the next morning and we were just sort of sitting around the office in the aftermath. We spoke about how he was a good guy and deserved better. We did the obligatory trashing of the girlfriend. And then something different happened. We started thinking about what his theme song would be for this particular moment. There were some early favorites, but ultimately we settled on “I’d do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meatloaf. A morning that started glum was suddenly filled with howling laughter as we planned out every detail of his music video. From the dramatic run in the rain to the scene where he just collapses to his knees looking up in the sky, fists clenched. I have to tell you, it may not have helped my buddy, but the rest of us felt great afterwards.

See you next month for another 96

96 seconds. I read somewhere this is the average time folks are willing to spend reading a blog. This got me thinking about “the need-it-now and please abbreviate” culture we choose to immerse ourselves in. Hell, we couldn’t even take calling it a web log. The collective voice was shouting, “UGH! This six letter concoction is way too long. I’ll just say ‘blog’ instead and save the two extra letters for when I have more time.”

It occurred to me that Top 40 music has also felt the time pinch. Back in the 50’s, Elvis covered everything he wanted to say in an average 2 min 30 sec. Kick it off with a verse, hit ‘em with a catchy chorus, one more verse, two more choruses, outro and Elvis had left the building. Then sometime between Pink Floyd and DMB, the song length grew and grew to an absurd 4 minutes. That was fine for a while, but then folks started getting antsy. Radio stations started to feel the pinch as folks began employing the “station-preset – no whammies – give me something new and make it quick” approach to listening. Even MTV got in on the fun by doing a top-twenty video countdown in half the time by simply mentioning some of the videos. I guess they already knew which ones I was waiting to see. So today I was listening to Train’s new song, “Hey, Soul Sister.” It is a very likable Jason Mraz-esque type song that keeps you humming all day.

The only problem is I found myself wondering if it could do with maybe one less chorus at the end. I mean, I get it. That is Mr. Mister on the radio and if I could see the girl you are talking about, I would probably agree that her moves aren’t fair. I just don’t need to hear you say it a kagillion times.

Isn’t there another song on somewhere I could be listening to more efficiently? Maybe in the 96 second range?

Strong is the upcoming US release from Arrested Development. The album has already been a success internationally. Their hit “The World Is Changing” reached #9 in Japan.

Read below to find out the stories behind some of the amazing new tracks on Strong. We are honored and excited to be featuring Arrested Development on My Audio Bio. Special thanks to Speech for providing these great stories.

Purchase 3 tracks from the new album and more from AD at: http://arresteddevelopmentmusic.com

Check out stories behind their classics on the AD profile page!

Let Your Voice Be Heard (Exclusive Track above in player!)
The 90’s were golden era of Hip-Hop. You heard many points of view from Hammer, to 2Live Crew, to Public Enemy. You didn’t have to agree with everyone, but you definitely heard everyone. I don’t hear this in music right now. When I turn on popular radio in any of our cities, it’s like I hear the same person talking.  Where are the rest of the voices?

Greener
We have been environmentally conscious from the beginning of our career. On our first album we released “Children Play With Earth”, about getting kids off of video games and outside. On our Second album “United Minds” was about recycling. The Green movement has now come into play, people are respecting the use of resources more, but the rap community hasn’t really addressed this, seemed to be a missing topic.

The Green movement has been championed by white’s but not as openly adopted by the black community. This song is to get people thinking about the earth, acknowledge that African American’s are environmentally conscious, and encourage people to join the movement.

Bloody
In the 90’s Biggie, Tupac, Wutang, and many more started taking precedence. This song represents the downside of what was happening in 90’s hip-hop; the lack of intelligent thought. When you look back to the 90’s at Rwanda, at Republic of Congo, it was reminiscent of Hitler. Millions of people were massacred. What were we taking about in the Hip Hop scene? Bling, getting on private jets, thongs, money…

Chuck D said that Hip Hop is the CNN of Black people. Well, we totally let CNN go off the air. Nothing was being said to about what was happening. Instead we were promoting Crystal and clothing lines. We became voiceless to the real issues and became the voice of corporations. “Bloody” is a history lesson, let’s learn from this so history won’t repeat itself.

The World is Changing:
(From guitarist and song Co-Writer JJBoogie)
Eight years ago I wrote a song for a woman I was deeply in love with. I asked her to be my girl and sang the song for her nervously! Nanyana said yes…..and a year later we were married. Fast forward to eight years later in the studio with Arrested Development writing material for the upcoming release, I started playing a guitar riff. That chord progression was what I originally wrote for Nanyana years earlier. I never recorded the song….I actually forgot most the lyrics. Speech heard it and said “What’s that? I like it!” I told him I would have to get permission to use it from my wife. Later that night I asked her if I could use it to write too and she said “It better make us a million dollars!” and laughed.

So I taught the progression to Za, Omar and Eric and they immediately started grooving with it. Speech started humming a melody then came up with the concept of the world changing before our eyes. The rest is history! The song World Is Changing went to #9 on the Japan Pop Charts from the newly released album entitled STRONG!

Family Force 5 is My Audio Bio’s first featured artist in 2010! That’s right! A big thanks to Soul Glow Activatur, ChapStique, Crouton, Fatty, and Nadaddy the guys with FF5 for being down with the concept and putting a great profile page together. Hopefully you are rocking out to the Family boys right now on our new dynamic pop out player. If not, hit play in the main navigation!

Family Force 5 has successfully promoted themselves and developed an amazing fan base using the internet. With over a quarter million My Space Friends and and even more impressive 70,000 followers on Facebook, the guys are doing something right.

And don’t get me started on the Really Real Show, FF5’s online TV series… it is hours of hilarious ridiculous fun. One of the best is their classic meeting with the one and the only Sammy Stephens, from the viral video: Mini-mall. If you haven’t seen Mr. Stephens and his Montgomery Mall Rap or Family Force 5’s “The Really Real Show,” I guarantee you,  it is a whole new epic level of hilarious… ”We talkin’ about flea market…Montgomery…it’s just like…it’s just like a mini…MALL!” Check out the episode!

Their latest episode is also a riot. It’s based around putting together their Christmas pageant.

As far as their music goes Family Force 5 will hit you with such an original, eccentric, energetic, and eclectic compilation of genres that it will be like getting a musical punch of awesome, straight in the grill. Their amazing upbeat party lyrics and musical flare make them unlike anything else  out there. If FF5 is on, I’m nodding my head… usually ending up with me straight up solo raving in the office.

So once again, a big thanks to Family Force 5. We are honored to have them as our featured artist. We look forward to checking out your stories about Family Force 5′s music in your life!

The holidays are typically the time for guilty pleasures.  Shopping, food, parties, food, drinking, food…we all tend to celebrate and over indulge ourselves to the brim.  While our bellies are full and our hearts are happy, sometimes our ears need a little bit of a musical guilty pleasure as well.

For me, there is a little bit of nostalgia attached to my musical guilty pleasure.  It’s one of the first bands I was ever really a fan of (and by fan I really mean, fanatic). What Miley Cyrus is to the tweens of today, the Dixie Chicks were to me.  I had all the CDs, posters, went to multiple concerts, met them and got autographs and pictures.  Looking back, it was ridiculous, seriously ridiculous.  The obsession eventually wore off, but today their music is still a guilty pleasure of mine.  To this day, whenever I play “Wide Open Spaces,” I am immediately transported back to the 13 year old girl, dancing and singing in my room, dreaming of what my life would be like when I grew up.  I cannot deny that they are an incredibly talented group, musically and vocally.  I’ll always be connected to their songs in one way or another.