Mike Martin releases his new single “Wherever You Are.”
Wherever You Are
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Dec. 16, 2015 – PRLog — Guitar virtuoso Mike Martin (http://www.mikemartin.net) releases his new ballad single “Wherever You Are” digitally on iTunes and cdbaby (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mikemartin4). In an excerpt from his blog on releasing this single Mike states, “Wherever You Are” was written in January of 2005 as I was preparing to head to the UK and EU for the first time touring with both heavy metal bands Fozzy and Stuck Mojo for about five weeks. Being prone to OCD and feeling quite anxious about the tour preparations both logistically and mentally, in a calm moment in the chaos this ballad came out of my head!
It was written and a demo comprised of just two acoustic guitar parts was recorded in about an hour the day before my flight overseas. I enjoyed being a heavy metal animal on the road and forgot all about this tune for a while. It was only performed one time live on the radio in Atlanta, GA as part of a promotion for a show I was performing locally later that year and was put away. Until now…
I have delayed work on my follow-up album to “2 of 5” for a number of years due to my touring, writing and recording commitments with other projects, so I have been going through the archives looking for songs that would be fun to release as singles while I’m finishing up my new album “Drive” which I expect to release in Spring of 2016.
The title of this piece is for my wife. She has held me together through all of the roller coaster highs and lows of this music career and when I am traveling, I often look up in the sky to get my bearings and send her thoughts of missing and loving her wherever she might be at that moment in time. The release date is also perfectly timed with the 20th anniversary of our meeting.
Written, Recorded
Mixed & Produced by Mike Martin.
Mike Martin – Guitars & Bass
Kerry Denton – Drums
Mastered by – SING Mastering
Photography – Bonnie Moret
The single is available on CD Baby for only .99₵ and his previous single “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel” is .50₵ and his CD “2 of 5” is now available during the promotion of the new single for only $5.00.
The Lowry Agency is a full service artist management/development and promotions agency. Primarily they work with musicians, actors, speakers, voice over artists, entertainment companies as well as music coordination/supervision for film and TV.
For more information about Mike Martin please visit the web site and social media accounts:
This was the first tune of the host set. I usually like to play some sort of spontaneous composition as a way to warm up the ears and hands. Really get the band listening to each other. It was very cold here in GA due to Al Gore’s Arctic Sharknado Vortex (or something like… oh, I don’t know… WINTER…) so the venue had a small kerosene heater on for a bit to help warm up the room. The smell of kerosene in a small room is a bit strong to say the least!
In any event, Scott started playing this bass groove and we immediately dubbed it “The Kerosene Jam”.
A side note about my rig for the evening:
I’ve had some custom speaker cabinets made for me by Glenwood Enclosures in High Point, NC. This one is a 115 cabinet loaded with an Eminence Legend. It’s my first 115 cab so I’m learning a lot about how this speaker sounds as I’m breaking it in. I really dug the tone! This speaker breaks up much later than the Vintage 30’s I’m used to but the tone is warm and full. I think it will be complemented well by the 212 cabinet I also had built to match. I was driving it with an Orange OR15, a 15 watt tube head, which is more than loud enough for a small club like this where I don’t mic the cab.
One of the fun things for me is getting to hear other guitarists playing their guitars through whatever set-up I bring out so I get to walk around the room and listen so I can make tweaks!
Jam Night 1/8/2014 @ Darwins Burgers & Blues (Marietta, GA)
Host band:
Mike Martin: Guitar and Vocals
Scott Williams: Bass
Kerry Denton: Drums
Shot with ZOOM Handy Video Recorder by BA from Picks & Strings. Thanks, BA!
Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. As a child, growing up in New England, I was always singing in the church choir, concert choir at school, caroling, performing in Christmas Pageants and plays. So many wonderful memories and experiences with my family and friends and just doing my active part in my hometown.
I have often been asked about recording some Christmas music, and this year (2012) the time was finally right for me to make an offering to the Christmas catalogue!
I chose to pull together this arrangement from some of my favorite spiritual Christmas carols. As much as I enjoy the fun of all of the secular traditions, imagery, shopping and gift giving it felt right to make this first one reflect a bit more of my own humble and personal sentiments for “The Reason for The Season”. (I was raised Catholic. What can…
This is a demo/review of the Orange OR50 Head and PPC412 Compact Cabinet. I mic’d the cabinet with an SM57 into my Pro Tools rig and used no effects or EQ to give an honest representation of the sound of the speaker.
Spoiler Alert: You may hear a couple of snippets of new music that has yet to be released…
I received some great feedback, comments and questions on my last video for the Orange OR15. Thank you guys for that! Several questions were in regard to the TH30 amp (among others) and how it compared to Orange USA was kind enough to lend me one to have some fun with. This video is the result. I hope you enjoy it!
Don’t forget to subscribe to my youtube page and post your comments and questions.
You can email me directly here: mike@mikemartin.net
Gear used:
Orange TH30 head (full power mode)
Glenwood Enclosures 2×12 cab (Vintage 30’s)
1994 Ibanez AS80
1998 Ibanez UV777
No pedals or EQ & compressors were used in tracking or in Pro Tools with the exception of some light master-bus limiting to normalize the over-all track. My goal was to explore the TH30’s real world versatility by using only the amps channels and tone controls to create space in the mix for each guitar part.
Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. As a child, growing up in New England, I was always singing in the church choir, concert choir at school, caroling, performing in Christmas Pageants and plays. So many wonderful memories and experiences with my family and friends and just doing my active part in my hometown.
I have often been asked about recording some Christmas music, and this year (2012) the time was finally right for me to make an offering to the Christmas catalogue!
I chose to pull together this arrangement from some of my favorite spiritual Christmas carols. As much as I enjoy the fun of all of the secular traditions, imagery, shopping and gift giving it felt right to make this first one reflect a bit more of my own humble and personal sentiments for “The Reason for The Season”. (I was raised Catholic. What can I say?)
My arrangement begins with the traditional 15th century melody “Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel” and the 19th century choral harmonization by Thomas Helmore straight out of the hymnal all played by a choir of guitars.
From there the song develops like a guided dream through my own Christmas meditation. I imagine a gothic cathedral, candle light vigil, midnight mass…
But more, I imagine what it must have been like at the First Christmas: humble, meager, difficult, dangerous, hopeful.
I meditated quite heavily on the words as I worked:
“O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel.”
I sincerely hope that my emotional intention comes across through this, my reinterpretation of one of my favorite Christmas melodies (one that is so widely beloved!) and humbly represents what this Holiday means for me, as it means so much to so many.
One final personal note: my first guitar was a Christmas gift from my father, so it seems fitting that my first Christmas single is very “guitar-oriented”. Of course all of my early music education and experiences at church did lead me to become a student of Classical Symphonic Composition of which I couldn’t resist indulging in places!
I hope you enjoy this song as much as I did putting it together!
2012 has been a busy year for recording for me. Between working on the new Agent Cooper album, producing new singles of my own and pre-production writing for my new album, I have managed to find some time to guest on a few other projects.
Stickman is the new project from two of my very good friends Trent Horne and James Terry. Their new album “Pull” has just been released by the band. Produced, engineered and mixed by Mike Froedge (The Dreaded Marco, doubleDrive, Black Label Society) at Open Sky Studios in Atlanta, GA, this album is a hard rock tour-de-force.
I’m very pleased to have been invited to throw down some lead guitar work on a number of tracks, but their ain’t no filler on this one. Every track is smokin’. I’m looking forward to playing the Stickman CD release show early next year as well.
You can listen to all of the tracks via the band’s Facebook page, order a limited CD or download your favorite tracks (that’ll be all of them) from iTunes.
I’ve been getting some email asking questions about different things I do/use when performing and recording. One particular reoccuring question has been about what kind of advice I would give about dialing in an amp to get great tone.
Well, it just so happens that my good friends at Orange Amplification had lent me an OR15 head for some recording I was working on while finishing up the Agent Cooper album. It’s an amazing amp! And also a very straight-forward single channel, no B.S. EL84 tube monster weighing in at a mighty 15 watts. Which makes it perfect for recording with and demonstrating how I like to work with gain structure to acheive different tones.
This video is the result. The amp was recorded into a Pro Tools session through a Glenwood 2×12 cabinet loaded with Celestion Vintage 30’s and no effects or EQ added in post. Bone dry. So you get exactly the sound I’m hearing in my studio (depending on what you are lstening to the video on, of course!)
Keep sending in your e-mails and I look forward to answering more of them in another video blog.
And check out Orange’s amazing line of amplifiers here:
I will be performing a set of my instrumental music on October 6th, 2012 at 120 Tavern and Music Hall to raise money for the Atlanta Cancer Care Foundation, a local Atlanta cancer patient charity. Among the bands performing are Halcyon Way, Throatpunch and Inviolate.
Tickets are $10.00 and can be purchased in advance directly through me via paypal. Please email for more information: mike@mikemartin.net
All proceeds will be going to the ACCF. If you would like to contribute to the charity but are unable to attend, please consider purchasing a ticket through me and I will make your donation i your name at the event. Or you may directly contribute to the Atlanta Cancer Care Foundation here: https://www.donate.net/donationSelector/basket.asp?dept_id=1058&shopper_id=1762524
There will be a blood drive at the venue as well. Music starts at 3:00pm!
I’m trying to better about blogging and thought y’all would enjoy this!
Here’s the setup:
For those who don’t know, I used to play for the band Fozzy. On their 2010 album “Chasing The Grail” I produced and co-wrote the song “Wormwood” with Chris Jericho. It’s about the Book of Revelations. Pretty dark subject matter! Chris wrote this long epic lyric about it and I went into a fever-dream to create the music for it. It’s like 14 minutes of progressive-hard rock-symphonic-metal-audio theater…
Anyway, it’s a bunch of stuff and it’s pretty heavy and dark in a lot of places. You should give it a listen before you read the next bit from my friend:
A friend of mine I grew up with sent me this email today and it’s too good not to share:
Mike, Hope you are doing well. I have to share this story with you; I think you will find it funny. My family is vacationing on the Cape this week (Brewster, MA) which we do most every summer. The Cape Rep Theatre does an outdoor children’s musical every summer, and we normally take the kids. This year’s production is “Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical.” If you know the Knuffle bunny the story I am telling is funnier, if not just imagine a cute story about putting a cute stuffed bunny in the washing machine. On the drive there my son says how they are going to make Knuffle Bunny into an hour long show. My wife tells him that it is a musical and the songs will make it longer. My son who is 7 years old pauses and thinks. Then says that is a lot of music, do you think they are going to sing Wormwood? You know that song is like 14 minutes. I laughed at the thought of trying to work Wormwood into Knuffle Bunny . . .
Chris and I may have to re-examine this song and it’s full potential at some point! lol
Needless to say, this totally made my day! Kids are awesome!
mike2of5martin 