Noises From The Basement: The Making of Delusions:
Written by: Jason Foulke (Drummer & Director of “Noises From The Basement”)

If you’ve been following me on twitter (@DemonScars) or really anywhere you have probably seen me talking a lot about a documentary lately. This documentary is “Noises From The Basement: The Making of Delusions”. It chronicles the making of the album “Delusions of Grandeur” by my band Jessica Allyn (@JessicaAllyn). It is meant as an accompaniment to the album itself, a little extra if you will, but it is far more than some lazy bonus material you’d find on a major label release.

First let me tell you a little bit about myself for the Jessica Allyn fans who don’t know me. Besides being the drummer for Jessica Allyn, I have worked in the film industry in some capacity for the last 9 years. I now primarily work as a Script Supervisor (when I can find work that is) and have been involved in many wonderful films. I learned to edit in a full Avid suite while interning for Robert Richter, a wonderful documentarian who has been nominated twice for Academy Awards, once for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and an Emmy winner. Many years later I got a chance to co-edit, co-direct, and co-produce the critically acclaimed feature documentary “Poultry in Motion” for Troma Entertainment along with Andy Deemer. That documentary is currently available on both the “Poultrygeist” dvd and Blu-ray as well as the Direct Your Own Damn Movie!box set (if you rent “Poultrygeist” the doc is on disc 2). I also edited 3 of the deleted scenes that can be found on those discs. So I have some experience with documentary filmmaking (as well as a lot more non-documentary filmmaking which isn’t on topic here).

This new documentary shows the challenges of recording a full album with no money in a basement on Long Island, the bulk of which happened over about a month. It features a ton of funny bits but also doesn’t gloss over the hardships. Mostly it’s upbeat though and will hopefully have you laughing. As I said it is really meant to accompany the album, and so it includes all sorts of stuff you might find interesting if you happen to like the album and the band. You get to see the writing process (complete with original e-mails between the band and raw demos of some songs), the way we figured out how to record drums with no prior knowledge and with the equipment we had and with a drummer who never recorded (me), various takes of songs including comparing versions, what various songs are about and the thought process going into what we wanted out of them, early drafts of Sylvia K’s wonderful album artwork, and what I think fans will really like most: lots of individual tracks. So for example you can hear what just the drums on some songs sound like, or just the guitar, or some strings, and of course Jessica’s raw vocals.

Of course if you haven’t discovered the music of Jessica Allyn yet, the documentary is still entertaining and hopefully informative as well.

As this is a music focused documentary I wanted the sound to be as true as possible to what was heard in the room. So besides adjusting some levels so the drums don’t suddenly blow out your speakers and someone talking doesn’t have you straining to hear, the audio is unadjusted and is very close to what you would actually hear if you were hanging in the basement with us. Also I kept things real. This isn’t reality show “real”, it’s all very honest. No one is made to look better or worse than they really were, myself included. I’m thankful that I have wonderful bandmates in Rob (@RobMJ) & Jess who let me show this honesty (and let me film them all the time).

Also at about a 47 minute running time you get a lot for your money. So I hope I’ve given you some insight into this documentary and all the cool stuff in it (actually you have no idea how much cool stuff, how about a techno remix of one of our songs?) and that you’ll check it out. Right now the album is set to be released with a downloadable version of the documentary on Band Camp March 29th. You’ll also be able to pick up a dvd version at shows and we’ll be selling a hard copy dvd/cd pack as well. So check it out.