BETARAT.net

A multi-part story about how a guitar guy goes off the grid with a musical project using no guitars. A luthier by trade and a guitar player by choice, I’ve been deeply impeded in the music scene since the early part of the millennium in one form or another. The college years allowed punk roots to give way to acoustic songwriting, and later a hard-rock band followed more recent by an indie-rock stage & studio effort. In the middle of that mix was the birth of my career as a lu

Back in September I spend a good month or so writing a collection of songs that I originally intended to record and release under the name "the Soft Teeth". This venture never really left the ground aside from a 10-song demo of acoustic tracks & lyrics. As time passed and projects took shape (and still no progress on the Soft Teeth besides the previously mentioned demo) the album project fell to the wayside and had nearly become forgotten. Until now... When I decided to rush

Here is the official Beta Rat entry for the 2018 NPR Tiny Desk Contest! This is a last-minute add-on song for the Hungry Gods album (currently being mixed & recorded). This is not the final version of this song, but it'll serve as an appetizer for the main course coming very soon! Oh, and yes - I recorded this last minute without any rehearing. I sang along to the recorded track playing in my pocket, and my original intention was to not lip-synch but to just stare at the came

A little news from the studio: well, just a little news. Mixing is still under-way. Room is being made on the tracks for possible backing vocals on select tracks. Shirt designs are being finalized. That's it for now.

While its certainly not Sound City or Electric Lady Land, Sacred Squirrel Studio is coming together nicely. Systems are a "go" and heavy editing/mixing is underway.

Granted that this video was taken about a week ago, but it's still a snippet of what to expect from the record.

Here's a sneak-peak at an early render of the album cover. Based on original artwork by Naomi Vona.

It certainly has been a very long week - tracking for all instrumentation (besides vocal) has been completed as of Friday morning. The rest of the weekend was spent upgrading & updating the DAW and relocating the studio environment to a more pleasing space for the final steps of the recording process. With the artwork securely wrapped up and ready for print, the final steps are being made to complete the first Beta Rat release. Oh yeah, and we secured BetaRat.net !!! Yes, no

After months of nothingness, Beta Rat is online here at BetaRat.net - the official home for the musical venture. Updates on the album release will be trickling in. Until then, stay tuned.