Listen to our new album, INSANITIZER!

Introducing: CHEMICAL EDGE

Everybody check out this new band. Ray and Mike are in it, and they're already awesome.

Not the kind of holiday music you hear at the mall.

Ken here, bringing tidings of joy to all in this frantic, stressful holiday season.

Tyrannovox will be playing The Double Six on Friday, December 23, (That's Christmas Eve Eve!) along with a lineup of fantastic bands including Billiards Music, The Rotten Bastards, Arrythmia, and Sin Sick World. The master of ceremonies will be none other than Adam, our dynamic lead vocalist. Entry will be free and drinks will be cheap, so knock back a few and warm up!

The Double Six:

4680 N Sheridan Rd M-66
Stanton, MI 48888

Presenting the album cover to INSANITIZER!

That's right, folks. Ken here, with the new name and a look at the cover of our forthcoming second album.

We're calling the album Insanitizer, and the cover artwork follows below:



But that's not all. Click here and you'll be taken to a rundown of all the features of the artwork, hosted on my personal blog.

As for the album itself, we're nearly finished, with a few bits and pieces here and there left to be recorded, plus post-production chores. Keep it here for more information, and look forward to a release date soon.

See us at Cranefest, 9/17/2011

Ken here.

At long last, Tyrannovox's appearance this summer at Cranefest is locked in. Here are the deets:

• Saturday, September 17 @
  
• 2201 W State RD, Lansing, MI
• $5 per person
• 18+ (sorry, kids!)
• Show starts at 4:00 PM.

This is going to be a great opportunity to experience a lot of local music, so don't miss it!

Mac's Bar, 5/13/2011!

Ken here.

We will be opening for Burton's Garden and Chester Brown at Mac's Bar on Friday the 13th of May. That's right--Friday the 13th. Does the coincidence of the date and the day of the week make your bones feel chilly? Mine do.

MAC'S BAR
2700 East Michigan Avenue
Lansing, Michigan

(Entry amended on May 3, 2011. Flyer originally listed the door fee as $5. This has been corrected.)

Uli's aftermath.

Ken here.

Thanks to everybody who came out to Uli's these past two Thursdays. Tyrannovox, Glass Moshpit, and Billiards Music--what else could you ask for?

(If the answer is, "A Venn diagram to explain how each of these bands overlaps with the others," I have just the thing for you.)

-----

Mike has taken the right side of the stage these past two shows. This isn't an accident. When you're playing at Uli's, the right side of the stage makes you look way cooler than the left side. Thanks to the inestimable David Loomis, I have been photographed there many times, bathed in glowing lights, lasers, and fog. At Mike's request, we switched places these last two shows, so that he may know the glory as well.

To make up for all the times when he stood on the uncool side of the stage, I have retouched a photograph of Mike from one of those older shows and simulated the fabled "right side of the stage" effect.

Excelsior!

Return to Uli's!

Ken here.

We will be playing at Uli's Haus of Rock on Thursday, March 17. Appearing with us will be Glass Mosphit Fighting and Billiards Music, both very excellent bands whom we've played with a number of times. It's going to be a great show.

And, as if that weren't enough, we will be returning to Uli's with the same lineup of bands on Thursday, March 24. Come to one, or both! Three bands for a very modest door charge of 5 bucks. Show up before 10 PM, buy plenty of food and drink, and be sure to tip the wait staff.

Uli's Haus of Rock:
4519 S MLK Jr Blvd
Lansing, MI

From Tyrannovox to you.

Tyrannovox @ Uli's Haus of Rock
(1/21/2011)
Photography by David "D. Lo" Loomis

We had a great show Friday night. Thanks to the 100+ people who came out to Uli's Haus of Rock, made the wait staff work for their money, and had a good time with us.

Congratulations to Gravemind for their advancement in the Band of Bandz contest.

Thanks to Uli for having us over once again.

And from us, Tyrannovox, to our fans: Excelsior!

Revised show schedule. Next stop: Uli's, 1/21!

Ken here, with a few corrections to our schedule of upcoming shows.

Our appearance at The Loft on 1/12 has been CANCELED. There will still be a show that night, but we will not be there. We regret having to withdraw, but we hope to play at The Loft again soon.

Our Band of Bandz show at Uli's Haus of Rock will be on 1/21. This corrects our previously posted date of 1/14. Sorry for the mix-up, folks. As always, the show will begin at 9:00 PM and will feature us and two other bands. Only one will stay in the contest.

Uli's Haus of Rock:
4519 S MLK Jr Blvd
Lansing, MI

Band of Bandz showdate: 1/14

Ken here, with a brief reminder that the Band of Bandz contest is coming back very soon.

We will be at Uli's Haus of Rock on Friday, January 14. The show will begin at 9:00 PM, and, as usual, will feature us and two other bands. Only one will stay in the contest.

(Here's hoping that they don't make us all stand onstage again while they call the winner. Gosh, that was so embarrassing.)

Another brief reminder: don't forget our show at The Loft on Wednesday, January 12!

Uli's Haus of Rock:
4519 S MLK Jr Blvd
Lansing, MI


The Loft:
414 E MI Ave
Lansing, MI

Show @ THE LOFT Jan. 12 + GUANO LOCO recap!

Hidy, folks. Ken here.

We have a new show date to announce: January 12 at The Loft. The event is called Renegade Wednesday, and people of all ages are invited. We had a great time at The Loft the last show we played there, so show up and help us make it a repeat success.

The Loft:
414 E MI Ave
Lansing, MI

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GUANO LOCO

is the title of our first album. We're making slow but steady progress on the new one, which has me thinking back on how it all started.

You can listen to the album using the players below and read on while the songs play.

"China Glass"


"2131"


"Clockwise"


"Crooked House"


"Gulf Breeze"


"Supernova Red Hot Halen"


"The Hydration Cure"


"Wild Desert Bikers"

In a month, it will have been three years since Mike, Ray, and I came up with the jams that would become the first Tyrannovox songs. Mike brought in a lick originally written by his uncle, our esteemed photographer David Loomis. That lick germinated into "Crooked House." Ray came up with a powerhouse riff that became the main part in "Wild Desert Bikers." I had the chords for the clean bits in "Clockwise." We never knew how all this stuff would eventually turn out as songs. We just tried to arrange it in a way that made sense.

We sure as hell weren't thinking in terms of verses, pre-choruses, and choruses when we did that. It fell to Adam to eventually figure out where the words went. A lot of the songs already had names, which he worked seamlessly into the lyrics. Some of those names were taken from a long list of fantasy band/album/song names that I kept folded up in my back pocket. "Crooked House" and "Wild Desert Bikers" both come from that list.

There's some great stuff on the way for the next album. One track, "Squidbillies," is built on a powerhouse bass riff that Garry wrote, plus some wicked pull-off licks by Mike. Another tune, "Strange Shuffle," is one reason why we've coined the term "Raymond" as an adjective. The best way to describe "Strange Shuffle" is that it's very Raymond. And then there's "K.A.I.O.F.," based on a riff I wrote that intentionally stacks minor and major sevenths on top of each other. I know it sounds complicated, but you don't need a degree in music to feel the weirdness.

But enough spoilers. Until the new album comes out, the only way to hear the new stuff is to come out and see us. Remember: we play at The Loft on Jan. 12!

Show this Saturday!

Ken here.

We have added a show to our schedule: this Saturday evening at Family Connection. Details are a little fuzzy right now, but it is located on S Waverly Rd near the southwest corner of S Waverly Rd and W Jolly Rd.

More details as soon as we have them.

EDIT:

We will be playing at 9:00 PM. Don't be late!

We're back!

Ken here.

Like Jesus, Spock, and Superman, it seems you can't kill us for long.

On January 14th, round three of the Band of Bandz tournament is on once more. We will be there and we hope you'll be there, too.

We can't explain why we've had this reversal of fortune, except that the universe is a strange place to be.

Stay tuned for location, times, and other developments.

Washed out.

Tyrannovox @ Uli's Haus of Rock
(11/21/2010)
That's me defying gravity in my Van Halen high tops.
That's David Loomis on the opposite side of the camera.

Ken here.

Well, that certainly happened a little sooner than any of us expected. We knew we had the chops to go far in the Band of Bandz contest, but as fate would have it, chops weren't enough.

Congratulations to Shell Shock Brigade for their victory this evening. Congratulations also to Blackened Earth for their righteous cover of "Heaven and Hell" by Black Sabbath. Most of all, thanks to everyone who came out to root for us.

We're continuing work on our next CD, and we have some possible live recordings in the works. As always, keep it here for the details. Even with the contest behind us, there's much to look forward to.

Uli's this Sunday, 11/21/2010!

Tyrannovox @ Uli's (July 2009).
Memory logged and filed by David Loomis.

Ken here, with the details of our next gig in the Q106 Band of Bandz competition.

ULI'S HAUS OF ROCK

• 11/21/2010, this Sunday
• The show starts at 9:00. I'm not sure when we go on, but we're guessing 10:00.
• Uli's Haus of Rock can be found at:

4519 S MLK Jr Blvd
Lansing, MI, 48910
(517) 882-5900

Uli's is just south of Cavanaugh Road and north of Jolly Road on the east side of the street. It's pretty easy to find. Stumble in and rock out.

"Band of Bandz," plus more gear secrets!

Ken here.

First off, a bit of news about what we're up to currently. Q106 is hosting a tournament for Lansing area bands, called the "Band of Bandz Competition." There are 70+ bands involved. Each band will play one show per week with two other bands, and the best band will advance to the next week. We have already played and won our first show in the contest.

Shows will be on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at Uli's Haus of Rock, Oade's Hidden Camel, and Level II. We'll be playing one show per week for as long as we're in the game, and we'll try to let you know the specific day and location each week.

Last week, we played at Oade's and melted enough faces to win the night. We should find out where and when we're playing this week soon. Stay tuned.

------

And now, part 2 of Tyrannovox Gear Secrets! (Part 1 can be accessed here.)

AMPS, LATER ON

Mike is currently using a Randall Kirk Hammett stack, which uses Randall's tube module technology. It's huge and loud. He still uses the GNX3000 in front of it to get his sounds, so he runs the Randall clean. For practice and smaller shows, he uses the Fender amp, which is mostly reliable despite a strange intermittent buzz that afflicts it from time to time.

I've switched to a Crate GTD120 combo. It's much louder and clearer than the Rogue, and, for a time, I was using the Marshall Guv'nor pedal in front of it. I would plug in clean, get my saturation from the pedal, and use the amp's onboard reverb and delay effects for ambience. I loathed the amp's onboard modulation effects and kept them down to zero.

The amp was unfortunately modified in a car accident. The modulation knob snapped off, freezing it in an unfavorable position--i.e. anything other than zero. There is an input in the back of the Crate which allows the signal to bypass the preamp controls and run straight into the power amp, which is how I use it now. The Guv'nor only includes dry distortion, so I'm back to the GNX3.

GUITARS, LATER ON

After selling off my Kramer, I moved onto a Agile AL-2000, which is a Les Paul-style guitar that I equipped with a Seymour Duncan Custom-Custom pickup, and a Schecter C-1+, which I kept stock. I quickly discovered that the Agile is a little too heavy for me--almost 12 pounds of solid mahogany. When my Rogue amplifier fried a fuse, I bartered away the Agile for the Crate amp.

I eventually got another guitar, a Douglas WRL 590. It's a set-neck Strat with a Floyd Rose system that I partially blocked so that it won't float or raise, but will still dive. I also put in a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker. It's my go-to guitar for Satriani-style screams and other such nonsense.

Mike has used a variety of guitars--Ray's Ibanez, my Schecter, and an Ibanez RG--but he has finally settled on a Gibson Les Paul. A real Gibson Les Paul, as he never gets tired of telling people. It's a terrific slab of mahogany that he's used at every practice and show since he got it.

THE GUANO LOCO SESSIONS

Last year, we recorded and compiled our first disc of songs, which we call Guano Loco. Those sessions occurred before Mike and I got our most recent guitars, and I believe the majority of the tracks were recorded by DI'ing our pedal boards to the computer. You can check out the tracks in the left sidebar on this page.

For a record that was made in a basement, Guano Loco has good production standards, thanks in no small part to Adam's skills behind the console. My one regret is that Mike and I recorded the way we did. There is a quality to the sound of real, moving air and natural acoustics that makes guitars sound infinitely better, and that's what we're missing on Guano Loco.

To compound the trouble, I had a crisis of faith with the sound that I was getting from my custom settings on the GNX3. On Guano Loco, I defaulted to one of the stock presets that I didn't use before and haven't used since. That buzzing mess of thin, mushy distortion in the right channel is me. I'm not sure why I chose it, because it bears little resemblance to the more Van Halen-esque distortion that I like.

PRESENT DAY

Guano Loco wasn't just a way of preserving our songs. It was a way of learning to record, and of figuring out what to do and what not to do.

Our current batch of recordings is coming along. As good as the last one sounded, this one sounds even better. The guitar sound is particularly improved. Real microphones! Real moving air! Real everything!

BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

It occurred to me recently that a lot of the great rock records are a mystery. The people who made them don't remember how they made them, what gear was used, what order things were done in, and so on. Nobody thought it was important to write this stuff down, and they'd forgotten it all by the time they realized that it was worth caring about.

I'm not comparing us to those guys, but I do think it's good to write these things down while they're still fresh enough to be remembered. One day, we can reminisce about the stuff we used to use, back when we played music.

Tyrannovox Gear Secrets, Part 1

Ken here, with the inside scoop on the guitars and gear that Mike and I have used throughout the career of Tyrannovox.

When we first convened in early 2008, Mike and I had pretty similar set-ups: humbucker-equipped guitars, Digitech floor processors (GNX3 for me, GNX3000 for Mike), and solid state combo amplifiers.

AMPS, EARLY ON

My amp at the time was a Rogue RG120R--a hideous little piece of work, but it had two speakers and could struggle its way up to practice volume. Mike's amp was an Ibanez Toneblaster of some sort (the 150R, I think), which obliterated the Rogue in both volume and clarity. He eventually switched to a Fender solid state combo with similar features to the Ibanez.

GUITARS, EARLY ON

My guitar back then was a Kramer plywood guitar--a black and orange Focus 111S that I was always tinkering with. It eventually ended up with a single Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup running to a single volume knob, which was the combination it had by the time I was in Tyrannovox. It also had very nice locking Schaller tuning heads. I had another Kramer Focus, a black one, that I never really did anything with.

Mike had a worn cherry Gibson SG. Aside from accidentally snapping off the headstock, I don't think he ever made any special modifications to it. He also had a great-sounding yellow Strat that he built as a project guitar, dubbed the "Mike-o-caster." I'm not sure he's ever played outside of the practice room.

TONES

To get his sounds, Mike switches between presets on the GNX3000. He uses the "PHISHY" setting for clean tones, the "DOVER" setting for distorted tones, and a weird one--I think it's called "PDLSLIDE"--for the thing in the middle of "China Glass." He has tried playing a few times just using the amp's footswitch, but he always ends up going back to the GNX3000 to keep his tones consistent.

For my part, I don't like to switch between settings, so I set up one sound and leave it alone. I dial in a Van Halen-type sound on the GNX3, usually with a touch of big arena reverb and analog delay. I have the gain up most of the way, and use the volume knob on the guitar to suck out the distortion for clean parts.

I also have a Marshall Guv'nor Plus distortion pedal, which I didn't use with the dreadful Rogue amp. When I got a different amp (more on that next time), I went back to the Guv'nor and made good use of it. It's a great pedal if you're searching for a budget-minded alternative to the classic Marshall sound.

More gear secrets in the next update!

Shows!

Ken here, with an update to our concert schedule.

This Friday (October 1), we will be appearing at Morelands' Motocross Park in Stanton, MI. You can find their information on the event here. Aside from us, there will be other bands, volleyball, and an RV sewage dump. All right!

We will also be at Mac's Bar in Lansing on Sunday, October 10. It'll be five bucks for us and a couple other bands, so it sounds like a great time to me.

As usual, we'll be foisting CDs upon unsuspecting audience members after each show ($3 per, so bring enough cash!), so look out for that as well. And if you're lucky, we might be playing some new material.

To recap:

Morelands' (10/1/2010)
5235 E Pakes Rd
Stanton, MI 48888
(989) 330-2826

Mac's Bar (10/10/10) <--Aw, gee, wouldja lookit that?
2700 E Michigan Ave
Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 484-6795

In the studio again.

Tyrannovox -1 @ Oade's (8/13/2010).
Souls stolen by David "Shang Tsung" Loomis.

And by "studio," I mean "Raymond's basement." Ken here.

We apologize that Adam couldn't make it to our Friday the 13th show, but we did our best to deal without him. I think it went relatively well. Hopefully everybody enjoyed themselves.

The latest news: we're recording again! We're working on songs right now. Some of them you may have heard if you've been to our recent shows. Some, we've had for a while and just haven't committed to tape* yet. And some are brand new, unfinished, and never heard before. It's all awesome, and before long, it'll all be in your ears.

(*Tape? Yeah right.)

Our current set of recordings is available on our first disc, titled Guano Loco. You have to come to our shows if you want a copy! Or, you can be a cheapskate and listen to the songs here on the site. Your call.

As far as shows go, there's nothing definite yet, but we're working on a date at Mac's Bar in October. Keep it here for the details on that.