Less than a month until the album release! 

As we approach the release date, we thought we'd give you all a glimpse behind the scenes at the folks who helped us finish what we started. In that spirit, let's talk about our new logo. 

Joshua Berman (joshuabermandesign.com) and I were chowing down on some sushi in Princeton a month or two ago, and we got to talking about our current project. As this is The Northern's first album, we wanted to have a way of displaying our name that could remain the same over time, so that each time the name was seen, it would denote something about the music, about the heart behind it, and it would establish a physical connection between projects, allowing each project to exist as a part of the greater whole.

It's a name, a compass, a teardrop, a lot of things that I hope will add to what someone is able glean and enjoy from our music. Check it out up top.

Anyway, I think Josh did an incredible job and I'm super thankful to count him as a friend. Let Josh tell you more about his creative process for our logo/name and check out his other wonderful work at joshuabermandesign.com. 

Good Morning!

Dave here. It's been such a fantastic couple of days hearing from old friends and new about how much our little video is being enjoyed! Truthfully, I cannot imagine a better response. In the end, it's all about the art, visual or otherwise, so to know that those who viewed it felt it is a gift unlike any I've ever received before. We Are Films is a company started by Aaron with his brother Alex, so check out their other videos (like the one for The Welcome Wagon) by clicking on their name in our video. Don't know if I'm supposed to share this yet, but next week they'll be working on a vid with Sara Watkins (formally of Nickel Creek), and since she has one of my very favorite voices in music, I just figured I ought to share. Ahhhhhh!FREAKING OUT! [sorry]

Stuart suggested I post the lyrics to All I Live For, so I guess I'll do that. It's not about what you think it's about, unless of course the thing you think it's about is the thing that it is about but that most people would not know it's about unless they already had listened the the entirity of our album multiple times. Now I'm out of breathe. Here goes;

All I live for

All I breathe for is you

You, you

You should see the look on my face

When I wake to ruffled sheets

And no sign of you

Halelu

Where are you?

Halelu

Where are you now?

If I had your shoes

I'd sure have pity on you

If you were me

I'd hold your hand

Halelu

Where are you?

Halelu

Where are you now?

I'm still a kid

Who hates divorce

So what's keepin you

From swooping down

And grabbing my hand?

So that's it. I'm pretty sure I rhymed "you" with "you" at some point in there. I should have at least rhymed "you" with "ewe" somehow! But seriously, as far as I'm concerned, passion trumps poetry any day of the week, or at least that's what I tell myself. :-)

Much love,

Dave

Friends,

We're narrowing in on a release date for the album, and final plans for the artwork and various other things are being put in place. I now have the final master in-hand and I can't wait for you to hear it! That means that Alex, Nancy, Jimmy, Johnny, Judy, Julia, Rus, David, J.J., Joy, Chloe, Nick, Danny, Meredith, Kristopher, Allie, Mike, Taylor, Henoc, Jason, Matt, James, Brittney, Forrest, and Ofelia all have some hand written letters and other goodies coming your way VERY soon. 2 months tops.

In the meantime, I wanted to tell you all a little bit about how we're going about pulling some of the stranger elements of the music off live for the release show.

Below is the my new vocal/guitar set-up. The mic on the left side of the stand will handle all vocals that use effects. In the top right of the image is the pedal board. My vocal will run into the tiny preamp in the middle and out to the big green box (DL4). The DL4 was broken when I got it, so I had to replace some of the parts on the inside. It was scary and fun. The DL4 will allow me to loop several vocal parts together and also allow me to put delay on the vocal, so that it repeats what I'm saying later on in the song. This'll be really useful on The Great Divorce, which is a weird song you probably havnen't heard yet.

The giant box on the right is the guitar effects dealio. It's really great, except a lot of the distortion sounds are a little cruddy. The little green guy on top is a great little distortion pedal that sounds awesome. It is plugged into the effects loop of the M13 (aka big black box), which allows you to set up these things called scenes that allow you to choose whether and when the effects loop enters the signal chain. effectively this means I'll be able to press just one of the buttons on the M13 to use up 5 sounds at once, meaning my feet can save their energy for getting the vocal loops sounding just right. 

Lastly, on the far right, we've got an AB switcher, which will allow me to run the acoustic guitar through the M13 as well. The A output will run out to the sound board, so I'll be able to have the acoustic sounding like it's been double tracked (by added sounds from the M13) and then on songs that need the electric, I'll click the pedal again, and it will send all the guitar sounds to the amp. We've been rehearsing like crazy. Can't wait to play for you guys!