Hello, internet traveller

This is the official internet home for the music of Ben Prytherch.  All other places on the internet that claim to be homes to the music of Ben Prytherch are frauds.  Do not believe the things they say.

Updated mix for "I Just Want to Know Her Name" 

This week I got really lucky.  Audio wizard Andrew Berlin (of the Blasting Room) came over to my dinky basement studio and helped me mix "I Just Want to Know Her Name" for 3 hours.  He showed me all kinds of methods that I probably should have already known about and that can make a huge difference, like bussing to a parallel compressor to slam a group of tracks into a crunchy sonic pancake, and then only putting a small bit of it into the overall mix.  Or using many stages of light compression and EQ, rather than a single compressor and single EQ that do lots of work.

So, I just updated the MP3 for this song, and now I'm happily going to work on the other tracks, trying to apply my newfound knowledge.  If you listen to it and then listen to any stylistically similar ones (I'll Eat All the Pie; Come on Down), you'll hear the difference.  It's fuller, punchier, and less muddy.

Amazing what a difference it can make to just spend a little bit of time with someone who really knows what they're doing.

More new tunes, thoughts on the album 

Aight, there's more new stuff.  "Come on Down" is up under MP3s.  This will likely be the first song on the upcoming (hahaha hah ha aa ugghh) album.

There are two new videos of me and Ken up - one of children's songs we wrote, and one that's too "philosophy class" to be a good joke and too "jokey" to be good in philosophy class.  But still I think it's one of my best songs.  And so is Come on Down, for that matter.  And Ken's "Milk Monster" is infectious and hilarious.  This turned out to be a good update.

Got one more musician I'm gonna add to some songs, and then I'm for real done recording this album.  New plan for releasing it (hahaha hah ha aa ugggh) is winter.  

Tentative tracklist:

1) Come on Down
2) The Writing on the Wall
3) I Just Wanna Know Her Name
4) Practice Makes Perfect
5) Ow
6) Sometimes Sadness is Exactly What I Need
7) You Made a Fool Out of Me
8) I'll Eat All the Pie
9) Melissa
10) Songs to Make Love to Your Boyfriend By
11) The One Who Got Away

New video and new MP3 

New stuff!  Got a video up for "The Evil Queen of the Garden Center", and an MP3 up for "I'll Eat All the Pie".  The MP3 is a full band version, unlike the solo version that's been on Youtube for a few years.  
 

A few years!  And I still haven't put my 2nd record out.  It's pretty much all up on here, save for a handful of tracks.

Updated recording for Practice Makes Perfect 

I just added a new recording for Practice Makes Perfect.  This one is sounding pretty lush now!  Jesse Bates came over and recorded pedal steel, and Annie Sklar recorded vocals.  There's also Liz Gaylor on violin, Jessica Hazlett on cello, Dennis Bigelow on bass, and Ken Monks on guitar.  

New songs and updated mixes 

Got some new tunes and updated mixes of old tunes up.  Ryan Pontillas and Annie Sklar came by and recorded on a bunch of tracks.  

The new tracks are Writing on the Wall, Bad Legal Advice, and I Just Want to Know Her Name.  Fool Outta Me and The One Who Got Away have new mixes up.

A gig!  

I'm in a songwriter's club with three other guys, John Sam and Dennis.  Every month or two we pick a theme or artist and each of us learns a  related cover and writes a song.  It's been good for keeping me in practice; without it I would let myself go for too long without writing anything new.  Or, fall into my more typical rut of writing little pieces of songs (the easy part) but not completing them (the hard part).

Last time we met we decided it would be fun to play a gig together, so that's what we're gonna do on Feb 23rd at Avo's.  

John is going to open with a solo "Nadalands" set.  Dennis and Sam will follow with their band Vee Device.  And then Ken Monks and I (and maybe a guest or two) will close it out.

I'm really looking forward to this.  The other guys are great songwriters, and our styles are varied enough to keep things interesting.  Plus everyone who shows up will know roughly what they're in for.  I get nervous about playing "event" type gigs where most of the people in attendance are not there to hear bad jokes and philosophical navel gazing from a dude with bad pitch.

On the recording front, my Mama Lenny bandmate Crip came over and recorded some killer drum tracks to four of my songs.  I'm working on filling in the rest of the music now (Ken's already laid down guitar), and I'll be sharing the results here when they're "ready enough".  Three of them are songs I have youtube videos for already: I'll Eat All the Pie, Come on Down, and I Just Wanna Know Her Name.   

Ken suggested we aim to release a record in September.  That's 7 months away, which sounds so far out right now!  I said yeah, that's plenty of time, let's plan for that.  I just gotta not neglect these recordings for the next few months.

-Ben (2-1-18)

New tunes!  

It's been about two years since my first post, and going by my standard automotive oil change schedule, it must be time for a new one.  So here it is.

There are new things!  Notably, MP3s of "The One Who Got Away" and "Supertouch" on the music player, and a couple of new Youtube videos for "Come on Down" and "I'll Eat All the Pie".  Among these new(ish) additions there are some deeply philosophical tunes and at least one deeply idiotic one.  Check 'em out on the music tab.

I also have a live show coming up, which is unusual.  And efforts are underway to revive Action Pants, the loud rock version of Guardians of Earthly Delight.

 

-Ben

Post #1 

I have a website!  Right now there isn't much as far as content goes, but boy does this thing look pro.  It used to be that you had to either know html, be skilled at using a web design package, or use Geocities.  And then they got rid of Geocities.

Content wise, I've uploaded a few mp3s and videos of songs that I'm working on.  They'll be on a record that should come out some time next year.  None of them are "done" at this point, but I'm getting sick of waiting for myself to pronounce things "done".  So, I'm now using "good enough" as my threshold for putting songs up on the internet.  This might serve as motivation for getting them finished, and it also gives me a reason to make a webpage.  Because sooner or later someone was going to snatch up "benprytherch.com".  

Between the two, I'd guess later.  

One word about the name of this page... "The Guardians of Earthly Delight" was supposed to the be title of an album for a band I played bass in a while back called The Little Darlings.  The record was never released - hopefully one day it see the light of day, because it is very good.  Our frontman, Theo Williamson, came up with the title.  I asked him nicely if I could steal it and he said yes.  Thanks Ted!

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