CD Is Finished!!

Hey Everyone,

Well the CD is finally finished and will hopefully be available on tunecore, iTunes, Spotify, Amazom mp3 etc..
The name of our band is, Joe Leary & THe Barnshaker's, and the CD is titled, The Barn Sessions!
Please look for it where you shop for new music. We really appreciate it! You can also visit our Facebook Fan page ; Joe Leary & The Barnshaker's and check that out. We just posted a short video clip of most of the band performing another song that is featured on the CD. It was an impromptu performance without our keyboard player at a super huge backyard cookout awhile back!! Check it out and if you like the page, please leave a like on it for us!
We would really appreciate it!!
The Barn Sessions, coming to an on-line music store near you, SOOON!! Rock On everyone!

Hey FREE Download of One of My Songs from My Upcoming CD!!

Hi Everyone,

Jeez how time passes when it comes to writing these damn blogs! Well anyway, believe it or not I just want to say thanks for hanging in there! I have had a pretty good amount of visits to this page for someone has pretty much completely ignored posting on here for such a long time!
So thank you again!

Well as you may have guessed I am a musician and have been in bands since well let's just say a long time. We are a primarily a live band and haven't released any recorded music in forever! Our band is called The Joe Leary Band(what an original title) eh? But anyway, we are about to release a CD on Tunecore in a couple of weeks and decided to release a preview song that I wrote, that will be included on the CD. It is downloadable through the link below and we sure hope you download it and spread the word if you like it! The song is called "To The Bone", so really go ahead and listen and download it and spread it around on whatever social network or any other vehicle you use to talk to your friends etc...

We are looking for gigs and booking agents to work with and we are very proud of how things have come together on this CD. It is tentatively titled "Everything's For Sale". So please look out for it, since we don't have some crazy advertising budget to promote the music. Same old story, right. It always bothered me that there is so much great music out there that no one ever gets to hear because of one thing or another. Hopefully we get lucky and some of the right people hear our music and like it. Hey, stranger things have happened! It's good to dream right?

Anyway I will be updating this blog more frequently and the link for the download is below. You can also get the download on our Facebook Fanpage that we just started and it would be really cool if you could throw a "like" on the page if you visit it. So far that's really the only thing on there right now, but any little bit of momentum or promotion helps right?

So thanks for still reading and here's the Free Download link;;

http://soundcloud.com/e-riemer/to-the-bone-1

Limited Edition Tee Shirts!!

by Joe Leary

Hey there.
It has been quite awhile since I last posted on this blog. I have been extremely busy finishing a CD which is going to be released, hopefully in the next 3 or 4 weeks. My band is called The Joe Leary Band and it is going to contain 9 or 10 original songs, written by me. The band has been working real hard on finishing and mixing and hopefully it will make its mark! There's a little something for everybody we think but its just cool putting it down and getting the songs sounding as good as they can! I will hopefully be able to start whacking away at this blog again and sharing some snippets of the songs that will be on the CD. The title is going to be "Everything's For Sale" and I hope people dig it. We sure had a blast making it!

I designed a t-shirt recently and it got its beginning in a quote by a producer I was talking to, basically about rock n roll music and how it is evolving and getting so technical that it in a lot of ways has lost its way. I am from the school that sometimes mistakes or having the song speed up at certain points kind of adds to the beauty of rock n roll. But one thing he said to me regarding this conversation really hit home so I figured I'd make a limited edition t-shirt to kind of immortalize his insight! So if you go to the link below, the company is taking pre-orders right now! They will only be available for 3 weeks and then they'll be gone forever. They come in men's, ladies and a hooded sweatshirt. So... please check out the link below and get yours now!! In the meantime, I hope you keep visiting this blog because it will be back online in the near future! Rock on everyone!

Limited Edition Rock n Roll T-Shirts!!

Writer's Block 2 and Sound quality too!!

you know I was a bit nondescript after reading the last post about writer's block. I know from experience it can feel like you will never be able to write a song again. It is truly a troubling feeling. In my last post I kind of brushed past what to do, and I am sorry for that. Detachment has always been a great way to deal I guess.
Anyway, if you really are having trouble, I always go back to what inspires me first. Whether that is a feeling, the water, the mountains, the woods, whatever it may be for anyone of you. I always find it calming and inspirational when I am alone, usually walking. I don't know what it is maybe it is the rhythm? But I am always inspired by water. There is a bridge in Boston I have walked over probably 500 times, I would say I get an inspiration 50% of the time I walk over that bridge. Looking at the water, looking at the way it flows out into the ocean, I don't know, it is so speculative I guess.
The other thing though is alternate tunings. You know drone tunings or things that make you hear melodies differently can be very inspiring. I love the tuning, DADGBD tuning, it has this primal drone feeling. Also using a capo can change a melody or thought process also.
I always write the melody first and then come up with the lyrics, but that is just me. There are so many ways to approach a song. Dropped D, Open E, Etc.. I have been using a capo recently to get the pitch I like, it has ben working great. But inspiration is really the key, if you open your heart, the music will come through.
As far as sound quality goes, I think I have had my say about that. But there is one more thing I will say about the download a song, MP3 generation. When I write music, I tend to think of it as a body of work. There is a beginning and an end. So song selection and placement on an album, I still call it an album, sorry, is key for me. I tend to spend a whole lot of time on the placement of songs and the proper order to represent the body of work. I guess kind of loosely like a novel. Where there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Well how do you have that completeness if you download one song? That kind of pisses me off. To me, a body of songs is a snapshot in someones life at a particular moment, just because one might be catchier than the other ones doesn't matter. It is the whole that matters. I don't think people understand that anymore, and that is sad. I think there is something to be said for taking the whole piece and then breaking it down, but hey, I am a dreamer, always have been. What do you think? I think it is important, but I really feel it is getting lost in the download THE SINGLE!! world of today. That's too bad, some of my favorite songs are the, "deep cuts" of albums past. I hope there is a future for that. I don't know what it is, but I hope there still is!! Joe

Tips About Dealing With Writers Block!!!

you know(i am being eecummings) look him up a genius. Anyway, what do you do when you have writers block!! It happens to everyone even the most prolific writer's. Well here it is from my point of view. You either put the guitar or instrument down or you write seven million songs ? Well the 7 million song thing is cool because there is safety in numbers but does it really work?

I don't think so...........

You see at least when i am writing songs it is not forced, I have in the past met people that can do that, very rare

you see music is out in the universe waiting to be captured, and you are the conduit, the vehicle, in which it becomes a reality. Now you can push it to your topic or you can push it to your sound but that song could have been written a thousand ways and I am being kind. It is a gift, something no one else can experience except you!! It is your baby, it is your thing. How cool is that.............

You see I truly believe it is a living thing that moves humankind in a direction for a purpose. So keep on playing, keep on writing!! people who say it has all been done before are ignorant!! It hasn't there is so much more to do! 

So what does this have to do with writer's block!! A lot

Use open tunings!

Jam with people you don't normally jam with

put the instrument down and really think about it etc........... there is plenty of great music out there that hasn't been written!!! Joe

Is Digital Really Better Than Analog????

Hi everyone,

I think I am on to something, that really is at the epicenter of music for me, SOUND QUALITY!!
Now most people would agree that digital music brought music to the masses in such a way that could probably never been realized without the format! I do. But and this is a big but, do you really want to sacrifice all the sound quality? Well at least most of it, what does the statistics say, you lose about 93% of the warmth and feeling of the actual performance by publishing your songs digitally!! Really 93%? Are you serious?
All I know, and I don't know much is this. Someone a long time ago told me one thing about recording music, and it has stuck with me till this day. He said, "All you need is a great microphone, perfectly placed, don't even worry about the board, in fact, disconnect the board, and run the source right into the tape machine"!! Wow, that sounds like Pro-Tools doesn't it?
Well no it doesn't. But I challenge you! Buy Chuck Berry's Great 28 on vinyl, and then on CD. Play them back to back and see which one you like better! I did this myself about 2 months ago and was amazed at all the warmth and feeling the vinyl had to offer! Maybe I am nuts but my band recorded an album about two years ago, which we are still trying to finish. It will come out eventually. But we recorded that on 1" tape, not even 2" tape and we transferred it over to Pro Tools and it pretty much sucked the life out of the performances! I have to tell you what an eye-opener!!
I keep going back to that guy in the control room in 1981 telling me how to record. I was a young shithead, who didn't like people telling him what to do. I tell you if I listened to him, things would have been a lot different!! Anyway, I can play you a rough mix of the 1" tape now and replay you a done mix on Pro Tools and I guarantee you, 98% would pick the tape rough mix!! Anyway, don't even get me started on being able to change the pitch and all of that crap!! The bottom line is can you play live? Can you deliver the goods? The problem is because of the digital age the tools have changed, the bar has been moved! I used to like when a record would speed up and slow down! I hate 116 beats per minute!! Is that rock n roll? NO, please say NO!! Rock n Roll is feeling, it is a primitive feeling, it is an organic thing! I hope you think so too.... Rock On!!! Joe

Pure Sound For The MP3 Generation!!

Hey Hey MY MY,

I hope everyone enjoyed this video. You maybe have heard that Neil Young can be difficult, detached, self absorbed and kind of flighty(if that's a word). I think that could be said for most super talented artistic individuals, wouldn't you say?
The important message here is he has come up with a fantastic idea to address the sound degeneration you experience when listening to MP3 files and other computer generated sound, that more than a generation has grown extremely accustomed to. Pure sound is something that has disappeared along with the turntable I am afraid. I mean MP3's and the like are fantastic for the convenience and accessibility but they also have been proven to degenerate the original recording by up to 95%. That means the generation that loves their MP3 libraries is hearing about 5% of what the artist actually recorded!! That is Pure Crap if you ask me.
Anyway, Neil has come up with a project called PureTone that he has been working on for quite some time now and it is simply to solve the problem of sound quality for MP3s and other digital audio formats. He is on the cusp of introducing Master Sound Quality through a digital format!! It is a brilliant idea and I can only hope he is successful. There really is a whole generation maybe even 2 that think songs sound like what you hear on your IPod!! I can remember s a teenager coming home with a new album, whether it was Neil, Springsteen, Pink Floyd whatever, and impatiently ripping the plastic wrap and throwing that vinyl album on my stereo system and BAM!!, what sound was there it was almost 3-D, it had warmth and depth and power, because you got to hear the actual music as it was so painstakingly mixed for maximum effect! Well that's what Neil is striving for and it is very admirable!
The MP3 Generation has no idea what they are missing, but they will, when they understand the pure sound quality that is jumping out of their speakers or headphones. I believe the future is Pure sound or should I say Pure Tone and I can only hope that it gets here sooner rather than later! I am sick and tired of hearing tinny, thin sounding versions of songs that I grew up to and even the newer bands I find fantastic like Mumford & Sons, Avett Bros., My Morning Jacket, Beach House, The Shins and on and on... They deserve to get their music heard the way the recorded it. So bring on Pure Sound with Puretone and turn on the MP3 generation!! Real Music Will Set You Free. I hope it is SOON.
Rock On everybody!! and remember "Rock N Roll Will Never Die"!   Joe