The official FredNukes blog - Life in the music business

Whattup! I have been sick this past week or so. Doing nothing but sleeping my days away. Doc said I had some kinda virus, and that I just had to wait it out. That’s what I’m doing at the moment (while coughing my lungs out). So not too much going on at the moment. I can feel this bothers me. Also the grey weather and rainy days simply torments me. I think, I am starting to get a case of the winter blues. Now, if I had the money I would get on the next plane to somewhere hot and warm, but since I don’t.. guess I will have to do with out.

Also, I have like 2-3 tracks that I have produced for people which are almost done, but only needs little interaction from their part to be finished. Still, the people involved are slow as fuck and I am waiting for them to do their part. This shit is driving me crazy and really, I feel like pulling the plug and say: “fuck it, you’ve had your chance”. But the thing is, the tracks will look really good on my curriculum vitae. So should I svallow my pride and wait for these slow fucks? Or should I just say fuck it? Argh, these choices are tough. I hate it when the making of a track extends to anything beyond a month or 2.

On another note, I’m also really tired of making music by myself. Music making is supposed to be funny. I can’t remember when’s the last time I had fun making music. So I think I will prioritize this in the future. Finding someone to work with - make beats together, whole songs and writing lyrics. I am open to suggestions. Anywho, this has been enough rambling from me. I will get back to wiping my nose with extra soft kleenex.

I am working on a track for a new Little Vic mixtape. I have been cool with Vic for some time now and he asked me to write a verse for a hot beat from DJ JohnJohn, which I offcourse accepted! It will be hosted by G-unit’s DJ Whoo kid and should be finished sometime soon. Producers on the mixtape should include Big Ko, Buckwild, Alchemist, Red Spyda, Double Shot, Marco Polo, Velotz, Sly Vest, Al Tarba, Muneshine, FredNukes, Hitfarmers & TZar thus far. You will get to hear me spit on a real grimey NY beat - hey, there is a first time for everything eh? Look out for this one..

Inspired by the good readers of this blog, I decided to deconstruct one of the beatmaking moments from my album. My favorite beat on “Deconstructing Fred” is the outro, entitled “What’s next” (and not just because I did it myself, but basically because this beat touches something in me - no homo). I re-recorded the same verse over 3-4 different beats, but just couldn’t get that “closing” feeling I was looking for. After a couple of days, I found an old soul sample which had a really nice sound to it (sorry, can’t share the sample here). Chopped it up and put on some heavy drums, actually I think I took a kickdrum from a Kanye track and blended it with another breakbeat drum to create a slamming kick. After that, I played a heavy synth on the beat (from my motif rack - I think I blended 2 different sounds together to create a wider 80’s synth sound) and added strings. My plan was to get these strings re-played with real instruments: Violin, cello and more - to get that really big, orchestral, larger than life feeling. But unfortunately we didn’t have enough money on the budget or time left to do it. When I look back at it, I really wish we could have done it.

The track turned out close to how I imagined it; I even sampled my favorite movie (American Splendor - “Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff”) for the closing seconds of the song. I have uploaded the instrumental beat if anyone wanna peep it - sounds a bit different without any vocals on it. The original album track is also there to listen to.

What’s Next (Instrumental)

What’s Next (Original)

Some bonus material:

When I was in the booth recording the album track “I see the light“, i had a bit of a cold. Therefore I was all drugged up on chamomile tea, trying to wrap the track up. But unfortunately, when doing the first verse, I started to sneeze, badly. This is what it sounds like..

Bob Saget, eat your heart out and peep this blooper:

Hope you enjoy this, hehe.