Use Your Thumb

I Am Alive!! (Steve & Flo are too...I think)

These last few months have been wild to say the least: Flo decided to participate in one of the largest home merges in the last couple of decades (I wonder if that's true). Steve decided to PMA his way into being a better witness for Jesus (Also into having no spare time, GBH). I decided to get married, direct and produce 1 hour and 40 mins. worth of skits/sketches for the FDTP.
We all attended and participated in the FDTP in various ways, and it has been a major source of our joy, fulfillment, and lack of time over the last month and a half. Check out the Official FDTP Blog to see what went down!

The FDTP is over, the PMA is over, the Flo's-house-merging-with-the-other-house is over, my marriage is not over, and we are all alive and well. We played some of the rough demos of our SBJ songs during the FDTP closing celebration as BGM...it was getting people excited and we were getting requests to leak the demos. NEVER I TELL YOU!! You WILL hear the finished product, I swear you will...there's no need to hear the demos!
So for us SBJers, it's back to the lab again! You'll be hearing from us soon!

--Masa

Strawberry Jam Cam: Cooking with SBJ

Extra Strawberries: 3_The Snake

UPDATE FROM FLORENCE

We definitely took a little lull in Strawberry land there. We've all been busy doing our busy things waiting for feedback from the IJTB, and we got what we waited for. So now the ball's in our court again, and we hope to get together for some more finalizing of a few more songs that are still only percolating in our minds. (Yes, still.)
So we're back to calling and emailing each other to decide and schedule stuff, and that means continued progress toward the final product--great songs for you all to hear (and hopefully use in your witnessing!)
The IJTB also got some great ideas for videos and more song/music-related goodies for you besides the packaged songs themselves, so we're looking forward to pioneering that as well.
Will keep you posted!
Also, Masa's got some great videos coming your way soon, so keep your fingers peeled and your ears crossed. (That's a tough one.)

Update from Steve

Hey guys! I hope you've been enjoying our video's. I'm sorry that we can't seen to film anything serious, for all you serious folks out there. Maybe we can do a "serious video" where we only be serious and boring, so all you straight folks out there.
Well, I'm posting just to clarify something. Someone asked me the other day If we were almost done the CD. And well, Maybe we haven't been too clear on this blog. BUT- the answer is NO. Up till this point, all the progress on the album has been writing and composing. We haven't gotting into the recording and producing stage at all. Demo's, yes, but only demo's. Since about 4 days since we last met up, (that's been close to 3 weeks) we have been waiting on lyric approval. PTL, It just must be done this time Since we are running through a different avenue then we are used to. Apparently, the JTB has just come out of international board meetings...and should be getting back to us soon, so we can move forward with whatever it is we need to do. Pray for this! We love you
-Steve

Strawberry Jam Cam: Bayside Interviews pt.2

Masa's Verse of the Week

Hey guys, I know this is totally unrelated to SBJ. But when has a little Bible verse here or there hurt? Right? I was chilling with a beer and reading different parts of the Bible, and I started to get the giggles very badly. Soon every verse I read became more funny than the first. And now I just have to post one of them.

Proverbs 23:29~30

"Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?

They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine."

Stay away from the "Mixed wine" folks. You'll get that "redness of the eyes"... you know the drill. I love you.

--Masa

Strawberry Jam Cam: Bayside Interviews pt.1

Strawberry Jam Cam: Bayside Studios

You'll enjoy this one. It's less retarded than usual, and it sort of shows a bit more of what we're actually like in the studio. We still owe you a more realistic look, though. Sorry that everything that's come out so far as been sort of random "bits and pieces"...mostly the foolish bits. Stick with us; soon we'll figure it out.

Strawberry Jam Cam: Gear Reviews #1

Strawberry Jam Cam: Couch Time

Here's us on the couch at the end of our three-day songwriting blitz at the HCS. We've since been reinspired, rejuvenated, and thankful for the experience. Hope you enjoy our lesson-sharing!

Strawberry Jam Cam: Natural Disasters

An incident in the studio. TYJ no one was hurt.

What's Waiting in SBJ's Video Camera

Gosh, I know you've all heard this a million times, but things have been really busy around here. So that's why the Jam Cam hasn't seen a lot of action. I'm hoping to have something out by April 21st. So don't go away, we'll be right back, etc.

Here's just a little peek at what's on our video camera at the moment:

--Little interviews and lesson sharing

--Strange happenings while recording SBJ (Natural disasters and Snakes)

--Gear Reviews

--Vocational Classes

Something I've Learned / Something I'm Learning

When I'm trying to cook up a song inside my head, it doesn't do me any good or get me anywhere in terms of actually writing or figuring out something unless I sing it out loud. And since, in effect, what you're doing is singing out loud something that hasn't yet gotten anywhere, you're doing it when you're not ready. Like throwing a baby into some cold bathwater (misapplied metaphor). So sometimes, that could mean that what you're singing is...garbage. Nothing like what it's going to end up being. Absolutely useless except for the important function of being STEP #1.
So in order for me to ever hit upon anything at all, I just have to sing. I just have to sing until the singing takes me to a place that I like, like going house-hunting on a bike (thanks for the analogy, Dad).
So I'll sing out loud while I'm doing dishes, stuff that makes no sense. Just words and garbage. Sometimes I'll sing a combination of notes that is embarrassingly uninteresting, but I just have to be less self-absorbed and realize that no one cares. No one but myself knows or cares that I'm singing a song that is not a real song that was not in fact written by someone at some point. I just gotta keep singing.
And you know, like, that really embarrassing warbling that you've got to do when you're trying to show "the other guys" your idea for a melody or a beat or something, and you have no words, and no amount of "doopap, dum dum, a la la la" can sound nearly as good out of your mouth as it does Jason Mraz's. You just gotta grunt it out, cause imperfect sounds and imperfect ideas are what make the world go round and there's no way around it. I love those little private, whispered recordings that people make when they're trying to remember a melody that just popped into their head. The ones that you gotta attach some kind of words to in order to sing, but feel like such a loser for the dorky words that are coming out of you as you're realizing that you don't actually have as many immediately-accesible clever thoughts as you wish you did. You're realizing you actually, deep down under the fabricated thoughts, are quite a doof--but you may as well have realized that now rather than later.
So that's my little lesson: Don't be too afraid to just grunt it out. Sing it out. Write it out. Put it down. Throw it out. Just do it.
Much love,
Florence

THE LATEST NEWS FROM THE STRAWBERRY JAMMERS

Hi guys! Here's a little update.
For sure we feel like we've been doing a lot, but when I sit down to write it all down, it's not a whole lot that can be listed in point form, since it's basically just a whole bunch of
the
same
thing.
That is, we've been doing a lot of songwriting.
What we did. We got together for one day (a convenient opportunity presented itself for us to meet at Bayside and borrow the studio) to tie up the loose ends of the songs that we finished. We ended up 1) throwing two songs in the can, 2) entirely rewriting and rerecording one song, 3) writing lyrics for one song that we had left lyric-less on our last go, and 4) adding and moving around the stuff that bothered us in some of the other songs. So we have some songs GOOD TO GO in for lyric approval, which means serious progress.
Homework. We decided to try something a little new to make the last leg of our songwriting blitz--the three of us at home are supposed to each write one song that we can contribute to "discussion" when we all get together again. Wonder if it'll work...?
Stuff for you. No, we've not given up on the videos yet, and there will be some new Strawberry Jam Cam for you every now and then on this blog.

Also, We need something from you. We need you to comment under this post with a question or questions that you'd like us to ask each other in a video interview. We need to solicit questions because, we've tried to interview each other without them and ended up asking some pretty stupid questions. So please, fire away, and we'll answer as many as we can.

STRAWBERRY JAM CAM: WRITING LYRICS

Here are some good times in the studio, beating out lyrics for our songs.

MORE STRAWBERRY JAM CAM

Something I've Learned

So here's something I've come to realize while doing the whole songwriting blitz: Fear of being generic can cause you to be even more so.

What's more generic than writing "Your love came from above like a dove"?... trying to hard to be cool and writing a bad song. There's nothing cool about bad songs, they're everywhere, they're generic. I guess it's sort of pride that wants to be new and different and cool, etc. etc, and makes you start putting in stranger chords and stranger lyrics until the song has no flow and no appeal. Keep it simple, keep it honest, and keep to what you're comfortable with and what you're good at. If "Your love came from above like a dove" really is just what you're dying to say for some odd reason, than don't let fear of being generic hold you back from doing it. But please ask the Lord before you put those exact lyrics into a song, because it's probably plagiarism.

It starts to drift further and further from art the more you try to impress. I guess I've learned this because we just wrote a song with ice-cream chords (for those of you who don't know what ice-cream chords are, it's the chords that you play when you sing "Shake Shake") and it's one of the songs we like the most.

New is good, and wacky is good... but I think I'm learning the other side recently. It's okay to be simple and dorky every now and then. So that's my lesson.

I love you.

--Masa

VLOG

We're all home now, breathing air and getting exercise again. Thanks for your prayers!
Here is the first part (we'll see how many parts follow, but this is it for now) bit of a vlog that we were creating during our blitz. Check it out.

EXFOLIATING

Day 3 of Phase 1:

We woke up this morning more tired and hungry than usual. Also, more behind schedule than before. So we decided to exfoliate.


Now it's the middle of the day and we're feverishly whipping up more songs. Also, eating health crackers to keep us alive.

LATE DINNERS

Raahhh. A blog post right when a blog post is supposed to be. So even if our songwriting isn't on schedule, our blogging is.

Day Two (of Phase One: "Songwriting")

Last night we were so frazzled that Steve crashed with us in building B. After some PMA word time, we made it back to the studio and finished yesterday's third song, and started on some new ones.

Today, some intense songs came through the faucet. Which is always interesting.

We held the fort with no breakfast and dinner until we finally sent Florence out to buy us some food, which we partook of in a dark kitchen at 9:30.

We centered our late-night songwriting around some lemon limes and health crackers that were a little too healthy to have been made in the last decade. Some very "pilgrim" wheat-ish flavors.

Now at 1 in the morning we're pretty much dead tired and we're heading off to have a hygiene break. Have a good night and wake up bright and early (like we plan to do).

Lots of sweet, energizing love.

FIRST POST IS LATE

We promised you a post, and here it is, just a little late.

Day 1:

We spent a few hours last night trying to decide what direction we were headed in. We didn't really come to any real conclusions about how the music is going to turn out, but we know a little more about what we don't want, and we figure we'll trust for the rest.

As I'm writing this, the boys are laying down some demo tracks for the first few songs that we're writing. By estimates, it'll take us writing and recording demos for 4 songs a day if we want to stay on schedule.

We're going to write lyrics in the evening when hopefully the "faucet is lubricated" a little better.

The word of the day is "dancy," but it's anyone's guess whether the songs will actually turn out dancy or not. Anything is possible.

The next morning (right now):

We spent too long last night trying to stay on schedule. We got off with almost 3 songs written. Something's taking a while. Maybe it's because the lyrics are a little less haphazard this time.

Waiting for Steve to come back with some toast and coffee.

CHANGE

Whoa. Check it out, the SBJ site looks different! That's because we're blogging now.
The three of us (Steve, Masa, Florence) are in the varying stages of "been at the HCS," "just arrived at the HCS," and "on the way to the HCS" in order to start writing for another Strawberry Jam.
We have grand hopes of posting pictures and video clips for you in the bits of free minutes that we have between writing and recording to let you know what's going on, what we're eating for breakfast, etc. So come back. Expect your first post tomorrow.
We'll let you know more about what's going on, who's going on, and why...but for now, some of us have a pasta dinner to go to.
See you after the hump.

Introducing the Strawberry Jam

The Strawberry Jam--Masaya Lee Rider, Stephen Douglas McNair, Florence Helen McNair

Download at your leisure (11 audio tracks):

Four Days At Sea

--Trivia about stuff:--

Steve: Oh man....I've known Masa since I was 15; I lived with him for maybe a year altogether and we've always been great friends, if not the best (you'll have to ask Masa). And when we get together we will almost always have some kind of a jam. I'll start tapping the cajon and he'll play guitar and we just sing random lyrics and try to follow each other...it's really fun. Masa is one of the greatest improvisers of all time, plus a genius guitar player, so jamming at whatever is always real fun. Twice we setup a mic to record our jams. Anyway, so we started as a joke calling ourselves the Strawberry Jam. Masa said once about 6 months ago "Dude it would be cool if you, Florence, and I got together and wrote a whole album in one night, and then recorded simple demos of them the next day". (Flo is an amazing singer and out-of-the-box lyricist and just gets tracks done like that, no pitch-tuning was used on any lead vocals on the uh..."CD".) Flo, Mas, and I all live in separate homes so it's not too easy to do that....until New Years vacation came. We just thought we'd bring the idea up one notch, and try to write/record "for real" an album in 4 days. We knew we wouldn't be picky, and we'd have to speed through tracking almost like a jam and sort of see where the song goes as we record it. So that's what happened. Actually...on Four Days At Sea all the lyrics and topics were written after the music for that song was all recorded. Weird. Anyhow...I (I speak for myself here) wanted to make something I would NEVER actually do if I was serious, just cause it was time to experiment. So that's why some of the songs are freaky...we got so many good laughs out of the 4 days, and I think Strawberry Jam will get together again for a second session one day. I think in the future we will keep things more...mainstream, though (whew).

Masa: Steve and I lived in a closet-size room together when we were 14 and 15. Every night we'd split the headphone jacks on our dorky MD walkmans and trade back and forth--showing each other our favorite songs. Our tastes were definitely different--him being a zealous punk fan, and me being sort of confused musically--but I think our love for music sort of made up for any of those differences.

Steve's got this burning creativity inside of him that makes him a joy to work and collaborate with. He's got this sorta blatantness (is that a word?) that's just great. If he has an idea, he'll say it no matter how stupid it sounds when put into words. He's full of energy. He never runs out. I'm serious.

When we work together on anything we always end up laughing so hard. This whole project was worth it even if it was just for all the good laughs we had. I think we sort of bring out the weirdness in each other.

Writing the lyrics was crazy. We'd just sit there with a beer or two and throw ideas around the room and then we'd all go quiet and start writing stuff down. And then we'd sing each other what we wrote and try to get it all in there. We're all really great friends, so I think that was sort of a "creative laxative".

It was so great having Florence, if I value anybody's opinion on lyrics it would be her. And it was amazing how we just clicked when writing together and everything just sorta came out.

There wasn't any plan as to how we'd actually go about writing and recording these songs... or even what kind of style they would be. We just thought we'd start and see what happened. The process was something like:

Masa: What do we do?

Steve: Let's just record it.

Masa: Record what?

Steve: I don't know, lets just do it.

So if it sounds sorta haphazard and unthought-out... it is. I hope you enjoy it. And I'm sorry for any parts that are disturbing either lyrically or musically. I love you.

Florence: I have no words (just watch as I actually manage to think of some). I was honored when Mas and Steve wanted me to beat around with them, and I'm still honored. To be considered in the same breath as them is a high honor. I am clearly the smallest and most insignificant member of this project. Hail, real musicians! I am content to cook your ramen and takoyaki and wash your dishes!

The funnest (it means "most fun" in improper English) thing about putting these tracks together was the way that it was so unorthodox and made zero sense as far as actual songwriting (whatever "actual songwriting" is, who knows) goes. It was like "Okay, what kind of song should we make now? Oh, how about a(nother) dance song!! With this beat! Okay, over there Masa will think of some chords, and we'll record all the instruments, and THEN we'll think about what the song will be about! And now let's all gather around, and Florence, you write the chorus, and Masa, you write the verse--I guess we have to decide that so we don't end up all writing the same part of the song (again). And hey, look at that! PTL they fit together pretty good! How did you know I was also writing about sad people who need Jesus?" So it was thrilling and hilarious and quite a miracle all at the same time. A little humbling at first, stepping out and throwing my little un-armed ideas out into no man's land, but definitely good for the spirit. I don't know how many people will actually enjoy these tracks as real "music", but for all the fun it's been and the time we were able to spend together, I'd say this was a smashing success.

The above video was taken by Kibo on his camera when he came in (we thought he was shooting pictures...haha) to have a listen. For the record, Steve does not always lounge without a shirt on, Masa does not always smile demurely and have very little to say, Florence does not always giggle like an idiot, Steve's studio is not always a disaster, and we are not always drinking beer. Haha! Hope you enjoy it.

The above video was taken during XD 2007, at an appreciation night for the HCS.

APOLOGIES (Credits):

Drums: Steve McNair

Guitars: Masa Rider

Bass: Steve McNair / Masa Rider

Keys: Masa Rider

All lyrics by Strawberry Jam (Florence McNair, Masa Rider, Steve McNair)

All songs produced by Strawberry Jam and engineered by Steve McNair.

Conceived and recorded from January 1st-4th, 2008, in "Studio C" at the HCS.