Zac Lasher

For this month’s Track x Track, welcome keyboard wiz Zac Lasher from prog-meets-jamtronica act U-Melt who will share an anecdote or factoid about each track on the group’s new album, Perfect World.

1) Disclaimer — This album was conceived a few years ago when we were reading a lot of philosophical material. We’d all started writing along those lines independently of each other and thought that was kinda cool, we decided to nurture that instinct and specifically set out to write the songs that would become this album with that in mind. One day while sitting in the van on the way to a show, i was contemplating some of the lyrics i was working on, and i realized that i was spouting a whole lot of bullshit — which isn’t to say i don’t believe in the ideas we were writing about, but, you know… who am i to say “You are the center of the universe” anyway? i decided that it was necessary to put a disclaimer onto this album. I finished the lyrics before we got to the venue, and the music followed quickly, which brings me to…

2) Disillusion — This is the companion piece to “Disclaimer.” the initial intent was that they would always be played together, but we’ve since deviated from that. This was a fun track to work on in the studio as we were able to take what was usually a jam with a bit of structure to it, and turn it into a concise album cut. The fade out at the end is one of my favorite bits of production on the album.

READ ON for more from Zac on U-Melt’s Perfect World…

We’d like to welcome back U-Melt keyboard ace Zac Lasher for the third set of entries from the Tour Diary he kept for Hidden Track. For parts one and two, Zac wrote about U-Melt’s journey through America’s Heartland. Now, we bring you the final installment of Zac’s Hidden Track Tour Diary…

4/27 – On the road to Tulsa

The county gets really big out here. Being from the Northeast, I’m used to everything being really close together. Not here. Another day of driving hours and hours with absolutely nothing around for miles and miles and miles gives me time to reflect. I found out about the pretty serious electronic music scene in eastern Colorado… I gotta say, it’s pretty hip – we opened for an electronic act that rocked the house at the Fox in Boulder, and on Saturday in Denver we played next door to a big electronic music circus complete with fire-dancers, stilt-walkers and live-painters. It was all very Burning-Man.

I’m very into that kind of scene, so I definitely enjoyed it, but it did all make me wonder as to the place of Rock ’n Roll in today’s (and tomorrow’s) world. It seems to me that electronica is a new kind of folk music. It doesn’t really require musical training, and it doesn’t require hours of rehearsal with a band. You just need a laptop, some key software and the inspiration and tenacity to learn how to use it, and you can get a crowd into a frenzy playing your produced tracks. READ ON for more of Zac Lasher’s Tour Diary…

We’d like to welcome back U-Melt keyboard ace Zac Lasher for the second set of entries from the Tour Diary he kept for Hidden Track. On Monday, Zac wrote about U-Melt’s journey through Chicago, De Kalb and Madison. For part two, Zac takes us behind the scenes of the band’s trip to Colorado…

4/20 – On the road to Des Moines, IA

The only thing more boring than driving hundreds and hundreds of miles with nothing to look at but fields of corn as far as the eye can see is driving hundreds and hundreds of miles with nothing to look at but fields of dirt where the corn has yet to really start growing.

Whenever we come out to this part of the country, I am amazed not only by the vastness and emptiness of it all, but by the sameness of it all. From the windows of a van, America is a giant cornfield broken up by concrete oases of corporate consumption – these little paved squares where McDonalds, Arby’s, Hardee’s, Pizza Huts, Taco Bells, and Dairy Queens and the like serve their mass produced food-products along side the BPs and Shells and Mobils — Wal-Marts, K-Marts and Days Inns and Super 8s and Motel 6s and Econo Lodges and Travelodges and and and… These areas are completely devoid of culture, completely devoid of any local color or characteristic other than the different sports team and University logos that can be found emblazoned on trucker caps and sweatshirts and blankets that they sell at the T/A or Pilot or whichever truck stop happens to be at that particular junction.

America. Fuck yeah.

READ ON for more of Zac Lasher from U-Melt’s Tour Diary…

We’d like to welcome U-Melt keyboard ace Zac Lasher, who penned the latest installment of our Tour Diary series. Zac kept a journal for most of the band’s Spring Tour and we’ve divided his entries up into three parts.

[Photo by Jeremy Gordon]

4/16 – Chicago, IL

First night of the Midwestern run. After a highly successful string of shows in our beloved Northeastern United States, we leave the comforts of home for the Central time zone and beyond. Tonight, I got to see a friend who I haven’t seen since high school, and who I probably would have never seen again if it weren’t for that website called Facebook.

I think about the technology that we have at our disposal in this day and age, that was only the stuff of fiction when I was growing up. Personal communication devices that we carry with us that not only allow for person-to-person voice conversation between two or more people anywhere in the world, but also give you virtually instant access to pretty much any bit of information that isn’t a closely guarded secret at the touch of a button – or the touch of a screen. Its pretty amazing what sort of stuff we humans can make. READ ON for Zac’s journal entries from Dekalb and Madison…