Almost Kinetic preps new material for Big Mama Recording Studios sessions

“We’ve been playing pretty steady gigs throughout the month and trying to keep our name out there in the area,” Sam McCarson, bassist for Almost Kinetic, said at the Big Mama’s Karaoke Café 2008 Battle of the Bands Awards ceremony held Wednesday, February 11. “We’re hoping that this [award] helps lead to some other gigs in the broader region.” “That’s the life of any musician and any band,” he said, “just playing for fun and trying to get your name out there.”

McCarson and his bandmate drummer Michael Cannon were on hand to accept their third-place prize in the Professional/Semi-pro category, which included a one-day studio recording session at Big Mama Recording Studios, 100 retail-ready CDs of the band’s session, and 50 DVDs of the outfit’s Battle of the Bands performance.

Almost Kinetic will prepare different tunes for the session than they performed at the 2008 show. “We’re planning on writing all new material for the recording,” Cannon said. “We want more stuff to bring to the studio and have it ready to go, and are going to distribute our DVD from the performance at our shows.”

As they draw heavily from personal experience in their songwriting, Cannon said that there have been a couple of experiences since their appearance at the Battle of the Bands that may turn up on the new recording.

“Joe [Basile, vocals and guitar] is starting to get a little more female attention at shows and stuff,” Cannon said, “and I won’t mention any names, but we’ve had one girl who’s been semi-stalking him. He may be going on some personal experience and she may be some future material” for a song, Cannon confided with a laugh.

“I’m really excited to see what will happen with the new tracks. It’ll be great to have a fresh set of ears from the engineers and see how they help us interpret our sound,” Cannon said when asked about how the band is approaching their recording session. “We can’t wait to see what’s going to come out of the studio.”

Cannon said he and the rest of the band were highly impressed with the broadcast quality of their filmed performance last August. “I was blown away by the professional level of the performance video,” Cannon said, “There are bands that would kill for the quality of that DVD, so for us to be able to do that is very exciting.”

And although their personal obligations outside the band have had an impact on their preparation, as Basile struggles with course work at college, and guitarist Adam Blythe and his wife adjust to life their new three-week old baby, the band insists that it all remains both fun, and a labor of love as they make music for their fans, both established ones and those yet to be found.

“It only feels like it’s a business when you’re packing up all the cars, the load-in and load-out,” said drummer Michael Cannon. “But it’s always fun onstage.”

Almost Kinetic MySpace Page myspace.com/almostkinetic

Almost Kinetic at Big Mama’s Karaoke Café’s 2008 Battle of the Bands.