Hope you had a splendid 2009.

As you probably know, we at Cinematic Titanic have invested much of this past year performing live. And though there has been some speculation as to why we’ve spent so much time and energy touring rather than just generating new studio shows, the answer is simple: we wanted to improve. It worked! Check out “East Meets Watts” our latest DVD. It’s just my humble opinion but I think this next brace of DVDs: “East Meets Watts”;  “The Alien Factor” which is coming out next month; and then, “Danger on Tiki Island”; represents our best work to date.

As you probably know, we all met performing live, doing stand-up in the Minneapolis comedy scene and from the very beginning of Cinematic Titanic, riffing live was built into the equation of how we got the end product. For example, our first week of performing as a group included two days in Los Angeles in the studio recording “The Oozing Skull” and then a weekend performing “The Oozing Skull” for two shows in San Francisco at the ILM premier theater. Then, because of the new stuff we “got to”  at ILM, we then went back into the studio in LA to re-record the new improved riffs and lay those into the mix.

So, as you can see, working our material on the road, we feel, is the most efficient way to make the movie riffing the best that it can be. Actually, as Frank pointed out to me, performing pieces live before you record them is an old development model that dates back to the Marx Brothers – ahem.

So as of this writing, 2010, we have two more films added to the movie line up that we are now taking out on the road. “War of the Insects” which we added in November at the Family Arena in St Louis and “Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World” which we added in December on New Years Eve at the historic Keswick Theatre in Philadelphia. Now, through out this spring, we’ll present these two features to live audiences until we think they’re at their riff-flavor-peak, then we inspect them, pick off the burs, give them a little squeeze, and record those as well. And then, well, um,  it pretty much just goes on like that.

Cheers,
Joel

Sorry for any misunderstanding from my last blog.  To be clear: Cinematic Titanic does intend to put out more DVDs in the future - we’re just not recording any this summer.