Many Days in the life of a Producer

Again, I invite you to become a fan of the ElefantEar band page
and check out some more pictures of me and the extended family
doin' our thing. Looking back on 2011, I have to admit,
I am beaming with pride. Two albums completed, ("Potential" and "Blunt Inspiration")
two more projects in the works, the band has been formed, and the
word keeps spreading. Is there anything better than creating music?

Happy New Year!

Peace & Love

EE

ElefantEar Live Studio Session

Last week, ElefantEar dropped into Forman Performance to record 5 original songs.
A million thanks to engineer extraordinaire Brian Forman for set-up, take down. and
sprinkling that "crack" on the tracks to make 'em pop! We did good for three hours
and the instrumentals are ready for vocals. I took pictures to stamp the whole experience.
Here is a glimpse of ElefantEar doin' the damn thang!

Peace & Love

EE

BLUNT INSPIRATION!

The Mixtape is finally done and ready for your ears! A true VA production.
"Blunt Inspiration" (double entendre people), was put together over the
course of the past year with Tha Product, Kastro, E.P., Natural Born Spittahs,
Don P, Hookstars and myself. 18 original tracks...hot verses over fire beats!!!
No matter which you like, you will find at least a few that you can break ya neck to.
Hard copies coming soon. For now.....go to this link and start cranking!

BLUNT INSPIRATION

Peace & Love

EE

Thursday Baby!

Even though I am deep in Calculus (simultaneous boo and cheer), recording with
the band, and studying; this song came together for me about ten days ago.
For no good reason I took the whole month of August off and hadn't really
been making any new beats until that night. Recently I have been
challenging myself to make songs in under 8 tracks. No duh you say? Well,
My goal in production has been to try and make more with less (and it has been happening
at a snails pace). This offering marries both my writing skill and production skill
into one happy, simple partnership. What are the three truths of life again?
Death....Taxes....and...

GRAVITY

Written and Produced by N. Elefante

Peace & Love

EE

Studio Session and More!

Tomorrow, ElefantEar will jump into Forman Performance Studios (Arlington, VA)
to record live tracks for our press kit. The transition from synthetic sound to live sound
has been eye opening for the band. The songs become this awesome fusion of pop,
blues, rock, and hip-hop. Your ears will be pleased by the results. Once the press kit is
finito, we will be able to play more gigs! Thursday I will do something I haven't done in
soooo long, which is release a new song. It has taken a few months to figure out how to
juggle going back to school and keeping up with this, but when you love what you do,
you find a way...

Peace & Love

EE

One Down...More to Come!

ElefantEar the band broke the ice last Saturday September 17th, 2011 when we
played our first show ever at Ri Ra in Clarendon. We were the first act to go on
for the LocalHeadphones Band Crawl. I'd say for the first show we played well.
People were into it and definitely excited about the music!!! We have a few shows
booked for the future and I will keep you posted as to the whereabouts.
Thank you Arlington crew and strangers for coming out and supporting our
release into the wild blue yonder of performing, kicking ass....and taking names.

Peace & Love
EE

Potential is finally up!!

The whole album, "Potential", released May 25th, 2011 is uploaded
and ready to be listened to!!! My first album!!! I produced all of the songs
and couldn't have done it without the FINE work put down by
EP, DANTE DS, KASTRO, and 51Nh4!!! THANK YOU FOR
YOUR HARD WORK and CREATIVITY!!! If you want a copy
of your very own album, please contact me at elefantearproductions@gmail.com
and we will work out the arrangements.

POTENTIAL

ENJOY!!!

Peace & Love

A Strong Start

Hello! The music lives on! And where? The up and coming one
stop shop for all of the emerging artists in the DMV...(survey says?!?!)
www.localheadphones.com
ElefantEar is one of the lucky few being promoted on this site, plus
we have the two highest listened-to tracks! We are slated to be the
opening act for their release party/bar crawl September 17th. I will
return with a where and a when ASAP. But for now, check out the site,
listen to the music and sike yourselves up for our show.
This is only the beginning....

Peace & Love

July...

A lot has been going on this month. There's been some of everything.
Band practice, studio sessions, songwriting, producing and finding a new job.
51Nh4 and I are working on some things we will be happy to share with you
in the near future. It has been a very creative month! I am excited to start performing
and releasing this music to the world.

Peace & Love

Northside Coolout Type Ish

"First Time" is a song you gotta chill and sit back to. The title fits perfectly,

seeing that it was LadyLeo's first time recording in the studio. Kastro and I

wrote the hook, then turned to her and said..."we need a girl on this...make it

sound like you want us REAL bad!"(why she would have to try to sound

like she wanted us didn't make any sense) And after a few tries, she nailed it. 

To finish it off, EP came through and did what he always does. It's fun working

with people that get what you're trying to go for. If this song makes you hot,

don't worry, it's summer, we won't mind if you shed some layers. ;-)

FIRST TIME

Produced by N. Elefante

Written by N. Elefante, EP & Kastro

First Instrumental Offering

Maybe I heard The Meters too many times this week...or maybe
I didn't have a good enough melody to match the instrumental...yet.
What I do know is that 51Nh4 asked me to make a dance track this past
week and me being the competitive type,  I had to exceed his expectations.
This isn't my usual go-to genre, but when it comes to music...
who wants to be stuck in a glass case of emotion? I know I don't!

TECHNO POE POE

Produced by N. Elefante

I have so much POTENTIAL!!!

The ten song album that I have produced is finally done!

Couldn't have done this without Brian, Dante, EP, Kastro, Karl and Yohan

Can't Spell Collaboration Without the Labor

It was a treat last weekend to have S1Nh4 around and ready to create.
I made the skeleton of this beat on Friday and after getting his input
and quality guitar playing, we tracked out most of this bad boy by the end
of Saturday. The lyrics came Sunday and the missing piece of the puzzle,
James on da bass, stopped by yesterday. This song is a banana split of
back-in-the-day R&B, Hip-Hop, and Funk. So...are you hungry?
Then take a bite of this...


INSIDE OUT

Written by N. Elefante & Y. Ferdinando

Bass: J. Keith

Produced by N. Elefante & Y. Ferdinando

You don't know Jack?

Jack Labadie is an incredible artist coming out of the 703.
I have had the pleasure of hanging out with him and seeing
some of his portraits up close. Rising star is an understatement.
The kid is well on his way...see for yourself.

http://www.jacklabadie.com/

Peace & Love

Interconnected

Just in case I wasn't giving you too much...I thought people
may want to have access to the ElefantEar facebook page too.
In the near future it will be a good stop on the interweb connector
to view photos of the crew and get info about upcoming shows.

ElefantEar Facebook BandPage

When the stars align...

You make a track (thanks to Kastro) this hot, with
strong lyrical content (shout out to Tha Product and EP)
and you end up with, in my opinion, some of this trio's
best work to date..."GAMETIME"

A video and a song in one week?

That's right. ; )! Ideally, I would love every week to be like this one.
Do at least a few songs (cause I am on that Ryan Leslie ambition...
and I can get an entire song done in one day), maybe a video and
design a t-shirt or two. For this track, I made the beat, called up
Dante DS and we both put a verse on it. It's simple, yet satisfying
and as DS pointed out to me...most of the time, those are the best kind.


JUST ASK ABOUT ME

Produced by N. Elefante

Written by N. Elefante & D. Stevenson

Thank You Jonathan

Barnes came over the other day and directed the video
for our single "Open Your Lips". We wrote and recorded
this song back in January. No synthesizers or beat machines,
this is a classic.

OPEN YOUR LIPS

Written by N. Elefante, Y. Ferdinando & W. Hall

Drummer/Director Jonathan Barnes

It's Been A Quiet April...

But I promise in May I/we will pick things up and give you
more music! Along with the ups and downs of the weather
recently, the personal drama of ElefantEar has followed a
similar path. However, let us all be grateful for every day
we have and push forward. When music wasn't being made,
cherry blossoms were being seen, Nats games were being attended,
new foods were being tasted, and fabulous concerts (like the Mozart
Requiem) were being heard. I know I'm a townie when I say this, but
I love DC. Have a great Easter...Peeps.

Peace & Love

Cross-Blog Shoutout!

Our next door neighbor Lian came over the other night
and took way too many pictures of us jamming. However,
we are not the types to shy away from any camera. Check out
the results on his blog Ennui CS. Lian, you snap so GOOD!

Peace & Love

HATE/LOVE

51Nh4 and I go back and forth about this song. Some days, we like it.
Some days I wish I had never made the damn thing. I would love
to know what everyone else thinks about it. Without 51Nh4 and EP
however, I think this track would have never left the station. If you
love it, thank them. If you hate it, thank me!


ALPHA GIRL FEAT. 51Nh4 & EP

Produced by N. Elefante

Written by N. Elefante & Y. Ferdinando

Kastro & 51Nh4 & Me OH MY!!!

It is Thursday, and with that I bring you a new song. When I was putting the beat together,
Kastro came over and laid down the hook and a verse...they matched the vibe perfectly.
A few months passed with the last half of the track empty. I thought about singing,
but checked it to my man 51Nh4 who finished it a mere 24 hours ago.
Smooth and provocative...just the way baby makin' music should be.

LET ME GET IT

Produced by N. Elefante

Written by Kastro & Y. Ferdindando

It's Thursday Again...Baby!

This track was a lot of fun! I made the beat, sang the hook
then Bum B and EP came in and ripped the next two verses
after me. We got REAL dirty on this one...enjoy! haHA!


BABY PLEASE DON'T STOP

Produced by N. Elefante

Written by N. Elefante, Kastro & E. Peyton

Shady Kat

Behrooz called me up and said, "hey man, your voice would be perfect for this."
I couldn't turn that down. So we met up, I heard the track and ran through
it a few times and 10 days later I cranked out the final product!
Thank you to Behrooz for writing this catchy tune and Dazzu for producing it.

SHADY KAT

Also, thank you to Brian Forman of Forman Performance for the mixing and mastering.

One Fine Sunday...

Yohan and I decided to make the video for "I Go ALL IN", so we did.

Here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhUvFBawVyU

We shot the video while riding around NE DC and in-between the East and West wings of the National Gallery of Art. It was a beautiful day filled with new sights and sounds. We went to see the spectacular paintings of Paul Gaugin and caught an impromptu performance by the DCFD drum line at The H Street Country Club. An enriching day. Enjoy!

NSNDS & NSCDS Bring To You...

Nasty Things
Featuring EP!!!

Produced by N. Elefante

Written by N. Elefante & E. Peyton

You've Heard Pop and Hip-Hop, Now it's R&B

This is the second song off my album entitled "PoTENtial"

I Had A Woman

Written by N. Elefante

ElefantEar & 51Nh4 At It Again...

New Single produced by ElefantEar,
throw this on the ipod before you go out tonight!

I Go All IN

Written by N. Elefante & Y. Ferdinando

My Girl

The first single off my album entitled "PoTENtial"

My Girl

Written by N. Elefante

New Single

Summertime! Enjoy...

Written by N. Elefante & Y. Ferdinando

Welcome to my new blog!

I'm working on my first album. The cover is almost ready for production. Peace.