The artwork is by an esteemed member of The Scourge (Electric Mummy’s facilitators of the Undead), our very own Dead Parrot.

The three songs in the album are:

1. I Wanna Live Forever

Xo and Xexa decide to delve together into the afterlife.

2. Damned

Xo and Xexa seal their deal with the devil.

3. I Got The Rot

What’s the one thing that scares mummies the most? And wait, The Rot can affect humans too?

You read that right. The long awaited mini-album, the first official release ever from Electric Mummy will be FREE for everyone who attends the show at this year’s School of Rock Halloween Party.

Top 10 Reasons why you will come on Friday:

10. It’s Halloween weekend and humans like to see mummies this time of year.

9. Come check out the open house at The School of Rock, and see where kids and teens learn the greatest tunes from Van Halen to Rush to AC/DC.

8. It will be over by 9pm so there’s still time for debauchery the rest of the evening.

7. The evening is FREE and open to humans of all ages.

6. It’s your chance to participate in the annual School of Rock costume contest and win awesome prizes.

5. Because Electric Mummy is your favorite band and you were already coming.

4. There is no reason number 4.

3. You want to partake in the infamous Mummy Ritual.

2. To get your free copy of the new Electric Mummy mini-album.

1. You are thirsty for The Rot! This is Electric Mummy’s last show of the season. Miss the fun and you will be cursing yourself for eternity.

Details for the evening:

This Friday (ohhh Oct 28th)

at The School of Rock

The Halloween Party/Open House runs from 6 – 9pm. Be there no later than 7:20 to see Electric Mummy.

120 Elm Street, Watertown, MA

617.612.5784

Second major announcement: Electric Mummy will be premiering two new songs sure to be platinum sellers (in someone’s lifetime). The haunting groove of ‘Sin‘ will drive you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. And the hard rocking ‘C’mon And Raise The Dead‘ will, uhm, drive you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. Come to the show and get mummified!

We raised $1,500 to support Team Rose and the M.S. Society!

Of course, mummies are already cursed with every disease, plus we have a vivacity to spread The Rot wherever we go. But it felt good to do something to benefit living humans and to honor the memory of those who have passed away due to this disease.

Just for the record, no one has ever died of The Rot. We pass it out prolifically to pretty much everyone at our shows.

Watch it and join us this Friday at the M.S. Benefit. We’ll be accompanied by the loud, abrasive, and startling Hex Map. Sandwiched between Electric Mummy and Hex Map will be the grooving electronic vibes of Making The Noise.

Show details:

Friday, April 8th @ The Dilboy VFW Hall in Davis Square
371 Summer St, Somerville, MA
8pm – Midnight
Full Bar, 21+
Free Admission, recommended donation of $10.

Give us a shout if you like the video, and we’ll give you… The Rot!

After you purchase these tickets we provide you with this picture to stare at endlessly.

Composing with sweeps

Sweeps are never random sequences of notes that happen to sound good together. They are based on a chord, sometimes with other notes for color. The three chords in 10K Dead are Bb Minor, C Major, and F Major.

For this passage I had the harmony/rhythm part already worked out. Then while I was away from the guitar and computer (both instant recipes for writer’s block), I sang to myself some musical ideas trying to imagine the most awesome guitar solo ever (of course!). After I had a few ideas, I hopped back onto the computer with my guitar in hand and figured out what the heck I was hearing in my head.

On sweep technique

Alright, most of you shredders out there own me when it comes to sweeps. But here’s my pointers on what I got to share technique-wise.

First on picking. Generally you want to do all down strokes, this is what makes it sweep technique instead of arpeggio technique. Assuming all the notes are on consecutive strings this will work out great. There are some variations, namely when more than one note is on a string. We’d have to do either a quick alternation, or a hammer-on/pull-off. In our case we are lucky, we are sweeping on the top four strings. And the final note of each sweep, you could say is part of the chord or arpeggio, but it’s really not part of the sweep since it’s a quarter note apart. Therefore we alternate the picking to grab the final note which accounts for our two notes on the 1^st string. With me so far?

Second, it’s important to practice hearing each note of the sweep evenly. A good practice idea is to setup the metronome and play through the sweeps as if each note was written as an 8^th note. I’ve heard humans say, you can’t play it fast till you can play it slow. Very, very true!

The third sweep in the series is high up on the neck which makes it very difficult to get all the notes at the same time. The suggestion here is to begin the sweep with the 3^rd finger down on the 4^th string. Then as the sweep progresses, lift the 3^rd finger and slightly increase the pressure of the 1^st finger bar towards the 1^st string. I imagine this as creating a rocking motion with regards to where I’m applying pressure on the fretboard.

Another tip on these sweeps: Rhythmically we should be thinking about the destination point of each one. In these cases I’m thinking about the note on beat one. I’m less concerned on exactly when I start the sweep, but I know it needs to hit one beat one. This is something that I’m focusing on while I’m playing. That is, beat one should have a bit of an accent on it, whereas the first note of the sweep is not accented.

Another way to think about it, and I’m sure I’m over-explaining it by now, but I think of each sweep as a wave. When the wave is up, I begin the sweep. And as the wave flows down and reaches the bottom I end the sweep.

The sample recording

http://wiggio.com/yui/folder/stream_file.php?doc_key=mTX48ePS/Mrh+GZTmjaKxjUIPbD5cpo3H+ObNs5pvRA=

Here’s a quick sample I put together to show you my sweep picking in “10K Dead”. Some of the middle stuff didn’t make it into the final arrangement. So it’s not exactly what I perform these days.

The transcription

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/9e30bb764564e820d53ed17e1c6a8535cedba25d

I use Noteflight when I want to write out some musical ideas and share them with my mummy bandmates. The transcription is keen, but the midi is midi. Noteflight has a lot of flexibility for choosing instruments, staffs, and tools for creative rhythms and notation. Now if they would just allow me to do Drop-D tuning with the guitar tab I would give it a near perfect rating.

Notes on the transcription

The form of this instrumental section is A B C A B, where A is the sweeps, B is essentially a harmonization of the main rhythm, and C is a bit of a tribute to some Iron Maiden ideas. I love what Murray and Smith do, they influence many of my musical ideas. They are honorary Electric Mummies.

Listen to Electric Mummy live online @ Lasell College Radio, this Sunday, Nov. 21st from 6pm – 8pm. http://radio.lasell.edu/. We’ll be performing acoustically, including an interview from DJ Justin Miller.

Then for our first ever live full-acoustic concert Electric Mummy is returning to the Middle East Upstairs on Monday, Nov 22st @ 8pm. Event Details Here. As if any show with Electric Mummy (performing acoustically) isn’t eclectic enough, this evening will feature Bluegrass, R&B, and Singer/Songwriter tunes. The talent includes…

Electric Mummy
Nicole Alexandra
Wounded Knees
Alexi

More Mummy News!

• Electricity is restored as we storm Bandwidth on CCTV. Contact us to be a special guest in our studio audience, Sunday, December 5th 4:45PM.
• Come out from hiding kiddies. Electric Mummy will be playing an All-Ages show at the All Asia on December 18th @ 3pm, with our demonic associates Beast Over Boston and Opaq.
• Brain Dead has completed the mummification process. Looking forward to his first full shows with Electric Mummy!

FREE Halloween Party this Friday (10/29)

Yes, we said FREE! The spooky shindig starts at 6:00 PM sharp, so throw on those crazy costumes, bring a snack or beverage to share, and drag your buddies out to 120 Elm Street here in Watertown. While mom and dad go off into the sunset for a nice dinner at some restaurant down the street, you’ll be partying with the staff of the School of Rock! We have games, movies, jam rooms, so if you have an instrument, BRING IT!

Some great prizes have come into our possession as well:

• Tickets to Fright Kingdom in NH
• Prize packs of rock, metal, and punk CD’s donated by local Boston bands!
• A 4-pack of tickets to Fright Night (an all-ages metal festival held at the Worcester Palladium on 10/30)
• A brand new copy of Voltaire’s “Creepy Songs for Spooky Kids”
• A free pair of passes to all of School of Rock Boston’s Season 11 Shows (which will manifest circa January-February of 2011)

School of Rock Annual Halloween Party

Friday, October 29th, 2010 – 6:00-9:00 PM

School of Rock Boston

120 Elm Street

Watertown, MA 02472

Here’s some afterthoughts from Mass Morgue:

The Human Floor – Awesome. But don’t be fooled, he’s clearly using Regenerating Protoss Shields around his body to protect him from the pointy objects. Best part hands down was sucking the snot off the nail after it was embedded in his head. If I still had a working stomach, it would have all came up.

Sans Nomenclature – Anders doing some hawt moves we haven’t seen since the Lucky Star video, nice!

Anarchangel – Some real talent there. Excellent singing and guitar playing from the leads. Nice multi-layered textures.

Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band – I did go look up Emperor Norton after seeing this ensemble. Dude sounds wacky in a great way. He had his own currency in his San Francisco neighborhood, people actually accepted it! I know what I’m doing tonight. A little Mummy Money with Dead Beat on the 20 clammer.

Lucretia’s Daggers – I had that Horrors of Retail song in my head all day yesterday! Rocking out to Metal Gods was fun.

Electric Mummy – Good times. Filthy Dead made her premier performance and kicked mummy ass. Dead Sea premiered his new limerick. And Brain Dead joined us for Faster and Cremated. I think we had our loudest audience participation yet with Rot.

Yes, that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach has been trying to tell you Mass Morgue 2010 is upon us! October 24th at The Middle East, Upstairs at 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge.

Now listen up, we have a deal for Electric Mummy fans. Tickets for this show are $15 at the door, but we can get them to you for a bargain at $10. Email us at liveforever@electricmummy.com with the number of tickets you want and we’ll hook you up.

• The Human Floor
• Sans Nomenclature
• Lucretia’s Daggers
• Anarchangel
• Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band

Let’s keep the mortals up to date with a bit of news.

• Dead Sea will be leaving Electric Mummy after our October shows. His remarkable poetry will be missed.
• Electric Mummy is pleased to announce two new additions. Brain Dead will be bringing home the under-tones. And Filthy Dead will be singing some haunted melodies, premiering this October with Electric Mummy at Mass Morgue.