Rave reviews from The Weekly Dig

theWANDAS were featured in The Weekly Dig this week and recieved high praise for their latest work New Wave Blues. Here is what they had to say:

The four-piece group The Wandas separate themselves from the large pack of Boston pop bands with a tightly designed, smart sound. Besides the production from Patrick Krief (of The Dears) and the mastering of Ryan Morey (The Stills, Arcade Fire), the vocals from Keith McEachern and friends are a delight.

Check out the matching harmonies of "Bending Over Backwards" or the falsetto on "Trepidation" for the ingredient that truly adds to the already focused formula. Expect this Berklee-bred band to do what many others have done: blow up. [David Day - The Weekly Dig]

It's always great to be recognized for your hard work and dedication. See you soon at one of our upcoming shows.

New Wave Blues

It's official, our new album New Wave Blues is recorded, mixed, mastered and out for replication. The album will be available on itunes, our web site and stores December 9th. In the meantime some of the tracks are available on our myspace page. The physical CD will first be available at our CD release shows in Worcester, MA November 22nd at Ralph's and December 5th at Tommy Doyle's in Boston.

The album features 11 tracks which were produced and mixed by Patrick Krief and mastered by Ryan Morey. We're very proud of the album and can't wait to share it with everyone.

An Amazing 3 months for theWANDAS

Last July/August we settled down into Paper Cup studios with producer Patrick Krief and hammered out a full length album complete with our best work to date. The album is being mixed as we speak and will be mastered in early November. The album will first be available at our CD Release shows in Worcester MA, USA and Boston MA, USA in late November early December 2008.

We were anticipating a slow September and October in preparation for the album release. Well we were cetainly wrong. Fresh out of the studio session we took First Place out of 600 bands in our genre on the ourstage.com August 2008 song competition. Right after the competition we were chosen as the WBOS Radio 92.9 Best of Boston pick in September 2008. Coupled with a sold out show at Tommy Doyle's, September was a great month.

Just when we thought things couldn't get any better, we got an email from Natalia Yanchak of The Dears asking if we would open for them at their upcoming Boston show on October 21st, 2008. Obviously we said yes right away. Anyone who has followed us  knows how much we love and admire The Dears. This is absolutely a dream come true for us.

The Dears are touring in support of their new album Missiles. They are doing a range of intimate venues around the world, which makes it extra special. The show will be at Great Scott and will undoubtedly be packed. We are so excited to be a part of this.

Please check out the tour section on the web site to see all the shows we have coming up. We have some great ones which include a Nov 4th show in Boston with our producer's band, Black Diamond Bay. These guys are on tour from Montreal, CA and are absolutely phenomenal.

Thank you to all of our great fans who have been spreading WANDA mania around the world.

-theWANDAS

theWANDAS - "Trepidation" Wins 1st Place on Ourstage.com

Hey Guys,

We had a great showing in the ourstage.com August 2008 competition. Our song "Trepidation" won 1st place in the indie pop channel.

Trepidation, by the WANDAS on OurStage

There were about 600 entries in this category and we overwhelmingly took 1st place. Thanks for everyone who judged. We'll probably have more stuff up on ourstage.com soon too.

You can download Trepidation from the download music section or you can get it straight from itunes.

"Trepidation" Makes Our Stage Quarter Finals

Hey Guys,

We got an email yesterday saying that our song "Trepidation" has made it to the quarter finals of the OurStage.com monthly music competition. I actually forgot about the whole thing when I submitted the song, so I never told anyone to go to the site and judge us.

Anyway, right now we're ranked #7 out of about 600 entries in the indie/pop category. The way the competition works is that you are presented two songs to listen to and you decide which one you like more; you'll cycle through a bunch of songs, that way the calculation is fair.

You can access the competition by clicking the banner below.

Studio - Day 12 - That's a Wrap

Well, that's it. We've finished tracking everything. It was a lot of late late nights, but when it was all said and done we finsihed tracking everything that we wanted in plenty of time.

Now onto the next step of mixing. We have a people in mind to mix the album. So we're going to start by getting some sample mixes and go from there.

Brent and I are traveling to Montreal tomorrow to to bring Patrick back and spend the night. I'll keep you posted with the progress of the album.

On a side note, the video for "Thank You Note" has been 99% done for a while. However, we haven't been able to sign off on the finishing touches, just because we've been wroking on the album for the last month,

Cheers,

Ross

Studio - Day 11

Things are coming to an end as far as studio time goes. We had three guest players today record strings on three of the songs. The songs feature violin, viola, and cello. It sounds great. It's funny how after hearing samples for so long you forget that real strings have  such a nice warmth to them.

We recorded some gang vocal tracks which add a nice flare to a couple of the songs. And of course, what session would be complete without some hand claps.

Tomorrow will the last day in the studio. We'll be tracking one more of Keith's vocal parts. Other than that the day will  be used to tie up any loose ends.

Cheers,

Ross

Studio - Day 10

Things are definitely coming to a close. We've got two more days left in the studio and then we're done. Today we tracked some horn parts. We had two guest musicians come in today and play on three of the songs. They did a great job, and their parts definitely add a lot to the songs.

Last night we tried to have an early night but after we left the studio we had some friends over to our place and ending up staying up just as late as the other nights. I've seen the sun rise 10 days in a row now, which has to be a personal record for me.

Tomorrow will most likely be the last day of tracking. We're having 3 more guest players come in and lay down violin, viola, and cello parts. If it goes anything like the horn section, we'll have some great sounding strings.

Cheers,

Ross

Studio - Day 9

Last night was a fun time. Brent cranked through his harmonies. We were joking about how over time Keith and Brent's voices have grown into the perfect compliment for each other.

Getting the bulk of the work behind us, we started trying some extra guitar and vocal parts. Things are definitely moving along nicely. During some downtime Brent and Patrick compared notes on the martial arts.

(Patrick & Brent exchange martial arts moves)

Today, we had a guest female vocalist perform a part on one of the songs. She did a great job and it fills out the song very well.

Patrick spent a bunch of time today writing string and horn arrangements for when we have the guest musicians record next week. We have a vocal track left for one song. After that, we'll be layering all of the extras tomorrow and next week.

 

(Keith tunes up while Joe (lead engineer) admires.)

Until Tomorrow,

Ross

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I beat Mike Tyson's Punch Out!


Studio - Day 8

Today we got into the studio around 3:30pm. This was partly our fault for getting a late start, and partly the fault of the East Boston, Papa Gino's staff. We had been making food on our own from the grocery store, to save money during the whole studio session. However, today since we were running late we thought we'd grab something at Papa Gino's on the way up to the studio.

It took 40 minutes for them to "make" food for myself, Patrick, and Keith. Patrick ordered a turkey wrap, and they litterally give him two pieces of turkey on bread. Nothing else. That was certainly worth the wait.

O.K. back to recording. I finished 99% of my bass tracks last night. Today, Keith finished his vocals for all but 1 final track which still needs to be worked out lyrically. We also tracked a glockenspiel for one of the songs. Brent is cranking out his harmonies right now.

Everything is coming together quite nicely.

Cheers,

Ross

Studio - Day 7

We're definitely on a roll now. Keith banged out vocal tracks for three more songs, as well as acoustic guitar parts for two other songs today.

Brent wrapped up his solo work for a couple songs last night, and is back on for 2 more songs today. After Brent is done, I'll be going back to bass tracks.

We're keeping track of everything on a high tech board, which allows you to keep track of what has been recorded and what still needs to be recorded. I've posted a picture of it below. After the band tracks everything, we are going to include some live string players; violin, viola, and cello. We'll also be tracking some live horns; trumpet, trombone, and french horn.

(The Master Plan)

Everything is coming together nicely. I can't wait to share it with everyone.

Cheers,

Ross

Studio - Day 6

Today has been a real productive day. Everyone was finished by 3:45am yesterday (which was early for us), so we were able to get a bit of an earlier start today.  We finished up a lot of guitar tracks yesterday, so it was onto bass this afternoon. I finished the bass tracks for 3 songs today.

Keith started vocals as well today. He finished vocals for "Bending Over Backwards" and "Please Come Home". They both sound awesome. "Bending Over Backwards" has a bit of an 80's new wave feel, and "Please Come Home" is a slower ballad in 3/4 time with almost a slight country feel. I guess after all these years we're still all over the place. Actually, I think all of these songs are the most cohesive set of songs we've ever assembled. So I guess it just has that WANDAS touch.

Brent will be doing some more solo work late tonight, and then probably back to bass and vocals tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and for anyone who cares, I was recording for the most of the day, so I just resumed "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" and I'm at Super Macho Man.

Cheers,

Ross


Studio - Day 5

I ended up getting a good night sleep last night because I wasn't tracking any bass after midnight. Keith, Patrick and Joe (the lead engineer) had a late night (6:00am) tracking a ton of guitars. Keith and Brent got a bunch of stuff done for about 3-4 of the tracks

Today we're doing a bit more of the same. Keith an brent are plowing through guitar takes. Everything is sounding "amazing" as Patrick would say. This album is considerably more mellow, however the songs have great feel and soul. "Lose You" is shaping up to be an epic song. Patrick put together an unbelievable guitar tone for Brent, and Brent definitely delivered the goods on the performance

We've got a lot done, but there is a lot more to do. I'm definitely looking forward to turning the corner, when you can see all of the songs coming into their own.

In other news, I've gotten completely sidetracked with "Mike Tyson's Punch Out". It's really amazing to me that even after not playing this game for about 20 years, all of the players and idiosyncrasies come right back to me; like riding a bike. This game without a doubt brings back more childhood memories, than any other game.

Until Tomorrow


Ross

Studio - Day 4

We had originally planned to end "earlier" yesterday, but it seems like once you get into that cycle it's hard to break it. We ended up finishing at around 6am for the session. Pete laid down the drum tracks for three of the songs. One on the songs, "lose you" is a real slow laid back tune, with a bit of a swing. Pete's groove, feels great.

Today Pete is finishing the drum tracks for the rest of the album. After that, Brent and Pete will be doing guitar parts for about 2 or 3 of the songs tonight. They'll be a lot of bass to track for me tomorrow.

No monopoly yet today; but we've been preoccupied with "Excite Bike".

Until Tomorrow,

Ross