My current band

JoshL

JoshL

http://www.reverbnation.com/ghostestate

Well, it's a duo, but we approach it with a band sensibility. We just finished demo recordings of the first few songs (a cleanly recorded "as we play it live" recording). The general idea is mostly traditional songs, done with my electronic and rock background and Virginia's classical/opera background. These three songs are Celtic, but we do plan on arranging some American traditional folk songs as well. I'm particularly proud of our version of "Roslyn Castle", one of my all-time favorite Scottish tunes.

Give them a listen, and let me know what you think!

In the off-topic forum, of course, because it is!

And for the gear-spotters among you, Virginia is of course singing and playing a Wood Electric Violin. Most of the percussion comes from an EMU XL7 (also used for live sequencing) and the synths are mostly a Virus TI. I'm also playing a cheap lap dulcimer and a Jay Turser electric 12 string, tuned to CGCGGC.
 
Wonderful track, Josh (and Virginia). The violin on Roslyn Castle is at once haunting and beautiful. Love the hollowed out sound, as if she's playing in an empty hall. And I like the introduction/inclusion of guitar on that piece. :)
 
As always, thanks for listening :) My "standard" for that tune is the recording by the Old Blind Dogs (off "The World's Room" album), they trade the melody off between the fiddle and flute, with fingerpicked guitar backing. Stunning track, and the best version I've heard. Glad you liked our take on it!
 
A couple months have passed and some progress has been made. We finished our first EP, which is available through CD Baby (http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/ghostestate) and through them, Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, etc. The woman who did our (amazing) cover art is doing a website for us now, so hopefully that'll be ready soon. In the meantime, we're sending out as many copies as we can for airplay (radio stations and podcasts) and review (magazines, webzines and blogs). We've had our first couple bites.

Our first review came from a friend we met at our first show. Don't know that her blog gets much traffic yet, but it's a good review:
http://musicsunderworldblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/ep-review-ghost-estates-no-earthly.html

Our first airplay came this weekend in Wales, courtesy of Celtica Radio. They stream live at http://celticaradio.com/ as well as having podcasts of their shows (they're VERY underground). We're on the Andrew John "New Music Radio Show" which can be downloaded all month at http://celticaradio.com/podcast.html

Hopefully we'll get more airplay/reviews, and we'll probably start doing shows late spring/early summer. If anyone here wants to review the EP, let me know and I'll hook you up. Otherwise, thanks for listening!

And if anyone still cares about gear, I've added an Ibanez 6 to the mix (on Greensleeves and The Girl Who Walks The River), in standard tuning.
 
Thanks for the kind words, Zensteve and Ernest! I'm really excited about this project. I mean, I have a huge ego and love everything I do ;) But this is almost accessable to other people too! ;) Response has been pretty positive so far.
 
Time to babble and pat myself on the back some more! Tiffany Apan, who gave us our first review up top also gave us our first interview:
http://entertainmentsunderworld.podomatic.com/
You can watch me looking like an idiot and not having anything interesting to say! But if you fast forward to the last 5-6 minutes of the second part, you can hear a new song we've been working on. We're playing the full version at our next show, but this is a rare probably-won't-play-it-again (unless we really need a b-side) acoustic version!

Booking shows in the area, so if anyone knows bands or venues in Cleveland or Columbus we should contact, let me know! We're here on 8.2 and 9.15, and in Erie on 8.10
 
That's pretty great, Josh.

And you all had interesting things to say, of course! Very nice perfomance. Hope the shows go great.

Have you seen The Secret of Roan Inish? Good good.
 
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Been a while since I've had anything new to share. Recorded a couple demos over the past couple weeks. Both songs are originals (we do have some more traditional tunes coming soon as well)

https://soundcloud.com/ghost-estate/selkie
https://soundcloud.com/ghost-estate/believe

Sort of high-quality demos...I'm pretty pleased with the mix (though the vocals on Believe need a bit more de-essing and there's some other tweaks that I would like to make), but Virginia's not entirely happy with her vocals and wants to redo them in a few months (Believe is a very new song). So not exactly sure what to do with these recordings...not going to make a sell-able release out of them, so maybe use for promotion? A friend keeps talking about wanting to do a video for us, he can certainly start with this (and then plug in the version with redone vocals when it's done).
 
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