justin hopper

Feb. 13, 2012 marks the eight year anniversary since Vale and Year Create A Perfect History was released. Greg Cislon and myself entered the former H-Hour studio, home to Modey Lemon's recordings, and set about making our debut record. After two or three days trying to figure out the boards and patching, recording commenced. Each song was written and recorded by Greg and I in the studio, learning how to engineer with a 16-track 1" tape machine as we went. A lot of the record was room-mic'd with a some closer mics on amps, if memory serves. It was probably the most fun I have had in the studio and hasn't been matched since. 

I believe we sold about 200 of these albums and it has been long out of print. A handful of copies may exist at Desolation Row. Outside of a very small stock, the album is gone. Packaging consisted of a four-side cardboard digipack, spray-painted by Greg in four separate colors in a simple rectangle on all four sides. In addition to the CD, mini-lyric cards were printed and cut, along with a student drawing of a shark. Jason Kirker was the only album guest, sitting in on background vocals on "Her Future Awaits". I posted that song below.

Press-wise, the album was well received by Justin Hopper for City Paper and Ed Masley in Post-Gazette, both of whom supported us greatly. Thank you. 

Anyway, check out the press scans to see my first beard. Maybe we'll do something for the 10-yr...

It has been a time of constant activity these past few weeks. Host Skull released their first output, Fourth River, on Chicago's Contraphonic record label. Now, we are busy preparing our debut LP on Antephonic. We are very excited about it. There are a number of guests on it. Here are some of the major contributors: Brandon Masterman, Liz Adams, Kerrith Livengood, Vince Camut and Jim Siders. We'll provide more details later - also, a sneak peak at the artwork.

Host Skull is gearing up for a few European shows and trying to figure out how to realize local performances, too. More to come on that. On the Pittsburgh performance calender, I have a few shows:
- 05/28 Jeff Berman/David Bernabo/Soy Sos @ ModernFormations Gallery with ABLAYE CISSOKO and AND VOELKER GOETZE
- 06/03 Assembly @ Howler's with The Carribbean and All Tiny Creatures
- 06/17 Gia Cacalano/David Bernabo @ Wood Street Galleries - a special performance of improvised dance and music

A few other things of note:

Sometimes collaborator, Justin Hopper, posted more about his fantastic Public Record project on the Congress for the New Urbanism site. http://www.cnu.org/publicrecordpgh

Host Skull received some big Pittsburgh Post-Gazette coverage for Fourth River. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11118/1142357-388.stm

A couple of new projects are in the works. A new band featuring members of Marichal, drugdealer, and Atmosphere. A new classical guitar/percussion album? and some Host Skull stop-motion videos courtesy of Hugh Twyman and myself. 

And a list of recent listening here at Woolslayer Travelling Studios:

The Sea and Cake - The Moonlight Butterfly
The Doobie Brothers - Minute by Minute
Arve Henriksen - Cartography
Motorpsycho - Heavy Metal Fruit
Scorch Trio - Brolt
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Brad Hales' Northern Soul Mixes http://www.100limousines.com/in-the-modern-room-2/