Guys in case you missed it earlier, I'm very pleased to announce that Dean Gaudoin and I have just released our Titanium "T:X" double album. Disc One is all the best stuff from the Titanium Archives, remastered by Dean. Disc Two is the free bonus disc containing all of our studio recordings from 1998 and 1999.

So you've got 1 disc of previously unreleased material, + 1 disc of stuff that's been unavailable for quite a few years now since we ran out of the original CDs. So for all you people who've been asking me "where can I get some of the old Titanium stuff?" here is your answer!

You can read more about T:X at www.titaniumarchives.com/tx.php
or just go order it as an mp3 download at www.titaniumarchives.com/webshop

Also we've done some video interviews with my good friend Nicole Christine from Asylum TV, and these are going up online at www.youtube.com/titaniumarchives

Here's me and Dean talking about songs on T:X with a little sample from each song.



Stay tuned because I plan on having some BIG FKN NEWS soonish regarding... well, you'll have to wait and see but it's going to be big!

Here's a video of me improvising over something I call "The Truffle Shuffle", based on some ideas I've had kicking around for about 15 years now. Finally I used that riff!



Also you should know I have a new track called "After You" on myspace, as well as at mp3.com.au.

ALSO there's another track from the Master Of Disguise album now online as well, here: http://www.mp3.com.au/Forms/MediaView.aspx?MediaId=134670

hit it up!

I've started a fitness blog on my website at www.titaniumarchives.com which i update a hell of a lot more than this one.

It's about a year (not quite, but close) since I decided to put music on the back burner for a bit and focus on training instead. I've never felt better, it was a good move to make.

edit: wow - just read the previous blog from the start of the year, and YEP it was a good move to make. My passion for training is right on par with the passion I always had for music, and while I did manage to make a name for myself as a pretty good guitarist, I was always frustrated by trying to work with other people. Now, I'm acheiving or exceeding all of my goals and i don't have to rely on anyone but myself. It's great. But having said that, I'm mixing with a lot of like minded people who are into getting the most out of life, so it's not a solitary existance or anything like that. It's all positive and no negative!

Anyway you can follow all my progress on my blog by following the link above.

Hail and kill!

D

i just typed this in a mail to someone who was asking me what the deal is. I managed to sum up my feelings pretty well (the can of wild turkey and coke helped) so i thought i might as well repost it here, for anyone else who wants to know what's up.

music... mang where do i start. I just feel like i have tried EVERYTHING already and none of it works. I've done the solo thing and couldn't get a line up to play it. I've done the "band" thing in the past and had people start dragging their heels just as we were getting offered free studio time to record an album and stuff like that. I have tried the "play in someone else's band and just be the guitarist" thing and because i didn't take hold of the reigns and make things happen, nothing did happen and it was a total waste of time. I have tried the "play in someone else's band, but be the guy who makes things happen" thing last year and after 3 gigs people start showing up drunk. At the same time i was writing new stuff and offering it to people to sing on, and no one came through. Also offering to learn other people's songs and play live with them, and they can't even get their shit together enough to send me mp3s to learn the songs.

even before the band went to shit at the end of last year, then youv'e gotta deal with bookers who wait until 2 days before the show to tell you "you have to bring your own engineer" or PA or whatever, which you asked them about 3 months ago and couldn't get a straight answer. Not to mention trying to deal with people in other bands to try and get a gig together... "yep we'll do it... oh no we can't do it anymore"... etc.

basically now when people tell me they want to do something with me, i just don't even fkn believe them anymore. I think "yeah, i'm gonna spend 3 or 6 or 12 months practicing my arse off for this, and then you're gonna screw me like everyone else has". People jsut aren't for real mang. They're SCARED that if they give it 100% and when they get there it's not everything they hoped for, they're not gonna know what to do next. Instead they just make sure they never get there by only giving like 25% action and 75% bullshit.

I mean sure... if someone would come through with the goods on drums, we could go play some of my solo stuff... but to who? There's people better than me doing the instrumental guitar thing and not pulling an audience. It would be different if i had a few projects and just did a "dave" show once every month and a half or something, or do shredfests with steve and conrad maybe... but mang i just don't see the point anymore. The amount of effort i have to put in to play at a level i am happy with is not worth it just to deal with disingenuous people and get nothing back for the effort i put in.

wow what a rant. Are you sorry you asked? lol

yep, that's pretty much it.

I don't actually post all that many blogs on here, do I?

Well it's certainly time to post one now, because it's ALL happening here in Dave-world.

First and foremost everyone should already know that next Friday is Melbourne SHREDFEST 2 and I have been invited to start the procedings with some songs from my solo album. This is really a great thing for me, as I've never really had the opportunity to play these songs live before, and I might never have the opportunity to play them again... so to be able to do it at the Shredfest with some of my good friends (and not to mention incredible musicians) on the bill and hopefully in the audience makes it extra special.

I've been having a lot of fun posting my crazy bullitens borrowing pro-wrestling promos and rewording them to be about Shredfest... but on the serious side I have been spending a lot of time practicing my songs and also working on my technique and I really do think that I am playing pretty close to my best ever. There are a still a couple of little sections in some of the songs that I'm only just getting away with by the skin of my teeth, so i'll be working on those parts a lot over the coming week and hopefully it will all sound nice on the night.

The other huge news is that Xistance finally has some shows booked as well! This has really been a long time coming but now that it's finally about to happen, it's actually a very strange feeling for me because really... well, I actually haven't really done all that many gigs over the years. Titanium did about 3, i think! So to have Xistance really firing on all cylinders with a great album coming out any day now and hopefully regular gigs from here to eternity is kind of a dream come true for me.

Speaking of Titanium, i have started going through all of my old tapes of our recordings from over the years and it's kind of mindblowing for me to listen to that stuff. It seems like such a long time ago and we were all pretty young but some of the songs and the playing really stands up quite well. I plan on getting lots of this stuff online soon. I found a few little mp3s on my computer of some really old stuff like "Born Of This Earth" and "The One" which not many people have heard. Hopefully I can find the master tapes for those, but i have a bit of a bad feeling that they might have been lost. Still, maybe Dean will have copies of them somewhere.

That is about all for now I guess.

Come to Shredfest next week and support me and the boys, it's going to be a lot of fun.

Cheers everyone!

D

Hi gang. I've just finished an interview with freelance music journalist Cameron Andrews, which we'll be submitting to some music sites online.

Here's the transcript, for your reading pleasure :o)

Xistance & Titanium guitarist Dave Hargreaves talks with Cameron Andrews about his new "Master Of Disguise" solo album.

How are things going?

Things are going pretty well for me right now. I've been renovating my new apartment and finally have gotten to a stage where I've been able to set up all my music gear again, so I've been getting stuck into writing and recording my parts for the new Xistance album. Along with work and gym, I don't have much chance to get bored.

Sounds good! How much progress have you made on the new album so far?

Well... a lot of the songs are basically finished apart from my parts. I think there are only a couple of others that need some bass, and perhaps one or two that still need some vocals. For my parts... I put down guitar parts for the first three or four songs before I moved, and then there was a delay of a few months before I was ready to get started again at the new place. The songs I've worked on so far are sounding really good though, and people can check out the rough mixes of them at www.myspace.com/heartofxistance.

I'll be sure to check that out. We're supposed to be talking about the Master Of Disguise album here though, so what was the motivation to do a solo project?

A solo album is something I always wanted to do, ever since Dean and I pulled the plug on our band Titanium in 1999. After the band broke up I planned to just record all the songs that I'd written over the years that hadn't been released anywhere else... but that idea never really took off.

We tried again to get the project off the ground at around the same time as we made the Xistance "Heart Of Midlothian" album, which must have been in 2002 or 2003. We couldn't find a drummer who could play any of the songs back then though, so I got disillusioned and gave up on the idea for a while.

So what was the catalyst that led you to start the project again?

There were a few different motivating factors, but basically I just found that I would go out to local gigs and people would approach me saying that they'd heard some of my stuff and would love a chance to work with me. So suddenly I thought, I've got enough people lined up to make this happen, you know?

And those were the people who ended up playing on the album?

No. Pretty much all of them turned out to be full of shit and a total waste of my time. It was discouraging because it was like deja-vu of the last time, you know? But anyway, this time I decided I wasn't going to quit and I'd get the project finished no matter what.

So, that meant I played most of the keyboards myself, for example. I also had a go at singing but the results were definitely not good enough to be released!

OK, so tell us about the musicians who did end up on the album.

Okay. Well, obviously Dean Gaudoin played the majority of the bass. Dean has played on almost everything I've ever worked on over the years, including of course the Titanium and Xistance stuff. Dean is a full time professional bassist these days, and I wasn't sure if he'd be available to help me out, because he spends a lot of time touring overseas and keeps busy when he's at home as well. But as it turns out he told me "don't even think about getting anyone else on bass", so that was great. Prior to that, he'd been working with a great singer called Marion Norris, and I asked him to see if she'd be interested in singing on "The Haunting", which was a song that Dean and I had written for Titanium back in 1999. Marion had about one week before she was due to fly to China to sing jazz in one of the casinos there, so we nailed The Haunting in one day and that was that.

I wrote a couple of new songs (Smashed Crab & Explosion At The Bubble Gum Factory) while I was trying to find a singer for the other two non-instrumental tracks. Smashed Crab I played myself, because I actually wrote most of it on the bass anyway. The other one, Dean had to fly to Cypress for some fusion gigs, so he recommended Amy Campbell as a replacement. Amy came in and nailed everything in one session as well, so that was great.

For the last two songs, it took forever to find anyone who was serious about doing something, but I finally had a choice between two very good singers who would have been able to help me out. But then I heard that Marion was back in town again so it was an easy decision to ask her to come back for the final two songs instead.

Also I can't forget Wade (Saliba, Xistance's main man) who gave me a shitload of help with drums, keyboards, midi programming and production duties across the whole album.

There's quite a mix of styles across the album. Was this a deliberate move?

Yes and no. I mean, I didn't make an effort to write different sounding songs, but then again I didn't try to write songs that were all in the same style either. I think if you listen to the great bands, they always have some variety in an album. It's not just all fast songs, or all crazy technical songs, or whatever. You can have some rock songs, some more metal songs, some that are more technical than others, a ballad, or whatever.

Also you have to remember that a lot of these songs were written several years apart, so there's bound to be some variety as a result.

It must be a lot more of a challenge to create a solo album, compared to a band album?

Well... in this case it was a challenge because I hadn't really played much guitar in the previous few years, and I hadn't written anything new in quite a long time. So really it almost felt like I had to learn to play guitar again, and get back up to scratch on my instrument. Then I had to relearn my older songs from the demos I had, and then when I started trying to write new songs that was a big challenge as well. And of course I'd never really played keyboards before, so... I basically taught myself piano overnight just out of spite, you know? Hahah! Drum programming was very time consuming as well.

A band album like with Xistance is still a big challenge though, but for different reasons. So far I haven't written a song for Xistance, but it can be challenging to come up with guitar parts for all these different sounding songs that are often in unusual (or non-existent) keys. For my solo project I just play like me, but for Xistance I have to be a lot more versatile and try to play in some styles that might not be all that natural to me. Those are all good things though that will make me a better musician, so I'm not complaining about any of it.

Two final questions....

Okay!

When can we expect to hear some of this stuff live?

Oh... well, I can definitely say that we'll be doing some gigs with Xistance to support the new album, and we plan on including "Insomnia" from my album in the set. Apart from that I'm still hopeful of doing some shows with my good friend Steve Turner once his album is finished, playing a mix of material from each of our projects.

OK then! Final question. What's the deal with the tenth track on the CD? Only nine are listed on the booklet....

Oh man everyone asks about that! That's supposed to be like a hidden bonus track... it's the acoustic version of Smashed Crab. There's four different versions of that song, but so far only two of them have been recorded... the others only exist in my head. That's why the other version on the album is called "Smashed Crab IV", you see.

Well that solves that mystery. Thanks for your time!

Cheers! All the best!

The Dave Hargreaves Project "Master Of Disguise" album can be purchased online at www.titaniumarchives.com. For samples from the album, visit Dave's profile on myspace, at www.myspace.com/tinman666.

There you go!

Man you can't believe how much myspace kept screwing that up over and over again in between pasting it from the word document to actually posting it. Crazy bananas.

First off, a belated Happy New Year to all my friends, readers and listeners.

2006 was an awesome year for me. Enjoying my affluent lifestyle at Melbourne's Docklands. Then finally realising my life long dream of releasing my full length solo album, and even becoming a home owner and moving to my new place which I'm sure your aware I'm still renovating, but enjoying a lot.

As well as doing all this I also kept up my training and nutrition, and I think it's safe to say i've gotten back into the best shape of my life. I now weigh the same as i did when i was 20, so that's the proof right there.

SO, how to top such an awesome year in 2007?

Easy. In three ways.

1. Stay in shape.

2. New album with Xistance.

3. GIGS!

Watch this space and also the Xistance myspace profile for news, progress reports, and eventually release & gig dates. It's all gonna happen, by hook or by crook.

Lately i've been doing video blogs instead of typing stuff... so if you've missed them, here are the links.

Blog number 1 talking about my new album, and a tour of the home studio.

Blog number 2 more talk about the new album, and showing off my guitars and my bass.

Blog number 3 talk about the new Xistance album, cooking, house hunting and stuff.

I'd all more links as I make new blogs.

(reposted here by kind permission of the author)

The Voice
Sept. 25
Volume 13 Issue 3

Musician branches out on the Net

Kawther Mohammed
Voice Staff

Dave Hargreaves, 32, is a working musician who currently resides in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Having done a final wrap-up on his first real record, "Master of Disguise," Hargreaves is ready to make it big in the music world. With his distinctive sound—progressive metal with a twist of pop-rock— Hargreaves's music is sure to attract Symphony X fans and Evanescence fans alike. As most musicians who interact via the Internet, Hargreaves owes most of his successes to the Web.

As many working musicians do, Hargreaves had to deal with the many ups and downs that came along with keeping a music career alive. In one of his first projects, he made a strenuous effort to put and keep together a band called Titanium. The job was tougher than Hargreaves could ever imagine; he struggled to put together the perfect line-up. With a lead vocalist who was retrieving a PhD in meteorology, and a drummer who was starting his own business, Titanium was having difficulty keeping itself in line.
After coming to the realization that Titanium might not be the best metal band in Melbourne, and after Hargreaves felt neglected by many band members, Titanium decided it was in everyone's best interest to break the project and pack the instruments.

After a few years of keeping away from composing music, Hargreaves's friend, Dean Gaudoin (bassist), dragged him out of retirement. "…I started to get the creative urge again…but I was kind of hesitant about getting back into it, after all the drama in the past." However, this moment of insecurity did not stop him from doing what he loves the most—making music.
Hargreaves and Gaudion recorded three songs, which are now on his "Master of Disguise" record.

With "Master of Disguise," Hargreaves decided to fuel the angst from being disappointed in the past into his record, which conveyed the same sense of anger as he felt when the web of emotions unfolded. "At first, it was all fueled by being pissed off with a lot of people who'd let me down…I think if you read some of the lyrics, you can pick up on that," said Hargreaves.
Like all true masterminds at work, the real motivation for his music appeared from within: "There is a lot of motivation in there to sort of prove to myself that I didn't need these people and that I wasn't going to quit again when things got tough." This was truth spoken from Hargreaves himself.

"Master of Disguise" is boxed in his living room, ready to be sold to those who are interested. Hargreaves has been trying his best to set out for promotions and this is where he has wholeheartedly depended on the Internet for any form of attention. He said that the Internet and outside promotions go hand-in-hand. Sites like Myspace and mp3.com.au have helped him get much exposure. Visiting the Metal forum on Myspace and discussing his and other artists' music help him interact with other musicians. He said people in music-related forums "are keen to hear what you've been working on, so it's good encouragement as well."

Hargreaves remains on the top of many genres on mp3.com.au; he ranks in the top-5 for the "Instrumentals" genre, the top-50 in the "Pop & Rock" genre, and ranks in the twenty-first place in the "Rock" genre.

With his self-motivation fused in tracks such as "Insomnia," "Five by Five," and "Down with the Sixes," Hargreaves' first record "Master of Disguise" can all be previewed at his Myspace page (www.myspace.com/tinman666) or at his archive (www.titaniumarchives.com).

Yeps. Finally finished, only 8 months late!

I'm getting the cds in another week and a half, but i've set things up so you can buy the album in mp3 format online for just 5 bucks. That's SUCH a bargain.

Here's some new samples from the album, featuring Marion on vocals, Dean on bass, Wade on percussion and ME on everything else.

First up is a little section from "Insomnia" - which is one of the more straight-ahead rawk n roll type numbers.

Click here

Also here's the first couple of verses and chorus from Reality Check. Yes - I actually wrote a song that has a chorus, for once. This is one of my favourite songs on the album, possibly the best song I've ever written. I'm especially proud of the piano and synth parts on this one. Anyway, click here to have a listen.

If you like what you hear, there's LOTS more where that came from.

I want to thank everyone who's supported me, encouraged me and especially everyone who is helping to spread the word and get people to check my stuff out.

Cheers everyone!

Dave