early next year

Get 'em!

2007-09-12T10:23:00.000-04:00

Buy these records next Tuesday, September 18:

Motion City Soundtrack - Even If It Kills Me
Metro Station - Metro Station

They are both tons of fun and get my seal of approval.
That is all.

The Rentals, The 'Bald, and Image.

2007-09-11T12:59:00.000-04:00

I just remembered that I was ignoring this. Probably to the point where no one will read it anymore.

Last Tuesday I attended the best concert thus far of 2007.
The Rentals played a killer show at House of Blues in Orlando. It was a show I never thought I'd see! They broke up when I was pretty young but I still played their songs religiously and pushed them on anyone who had the misfortune of riding in my car. Heck, Early Next Year even covers The Rentals' song "Waiting at shows from time to time. It was all in all a big deal. I got to stand through their fantastic 90 minute set and heard every tune that I wanted to. To top it all off, I got to go backstage before their set and meet and greet with the band. I've been a huge Matt Sharp fan since the early days of Weezer, so meeting him was a real treat. Rather than tell him how much I enjoy his music and how much it has influenced my own, we instead geeked out over Moog synthesizers. The rest of the band was just as cool and down to earth but eventually they were pulled away by stagehands to go and play their set.
It's now the concert to beat in my book.

Also, I'm so happy that the band got to see Piebald on their second to last pass through Florida. We actually got to see them several times in one year. They are also a big influence on the band and someone we can all listen to. Recently they broke the news that they'd be breaking up after their current tour. That's very sad, but they are leaving us with some great records and great memories.

Lastly, in our ongoing attempts at bettering ourselves as both people and a band, we have been spending a lot of time discussing our live stage show and band image. They are both two very important points that cannot be ignored if you want to make your passion a career. They are also two points that we are taking very seriously. We've been at this band thing for over 4 years now and whenever we look back at old pictures or video clips we see the progression that we have made since then. At our last show, we had lots of people telling us that we were the best we've ever been and they've seen nothing yet! We've all been shopping around for some new threads and we plan to unveil a brand new look and attitude to go with our new and improved stage show.

It's a very exciting time to be in Early Next Year.

Don't forget that we'll be playing live on Winter Park, Florida's WPRK 91.5 FM on Wednesday, September 26th at 10pm. You can tune in online by heading to www.wprkdj.org and clicking the "Listen Online!" link.

Enjoy!

Tunes!

2007-08-15T12:12:00.000-04:00

Dear 2007:

Thank you for being an awesome year in music thus far.

Buy this -
Eisley - Combinations

You'll thank me eventually.

More Rec's

2007-08-01T17:44:00.000-04:00

Here are some more records I suggest buying if you have disposable income. Both are from bands I really used to like, lost interest in, but have since returned to their fun, catchy, listenable selves.

Sum 41 - Underclass Hero
The Starting Line - Direction

Is anyone else counting down the days to The Rentals show at House of Blues?
No? Just me?
Does anyone else get a backstage pass to meet The Rentals at House of Blues?
No? Just me?

We have shows coming up. As usual. Shows. Shows. Shows.
V-Squat Fest is up next. We have a killer setlist planned. The kids better love us.
After that, the shows drift off into obscurity.

Attention fans in any Florida towns we've never been to: Tell your local venue to reply to my email and return my phone calls and then we'll be there.

Attention fans in any non-Florida towns we've never been to: We're trying. Seriously.
Want to pay the cash to get the brakes on our van fixed? Please?

I desperately want to play a new stage.

One day.

Buy our record. Please?

I just wanna write!

2007-07-26T15:55:00.000-04:00

REALLY Written by Doug

Hello everybody, I've missed writing in this thing. CD sales are going slow but steady, lets hope they pick up as we begin to play more shows in the coming weeks and months. If you come to a show and you like what you hear, please buy the record. We need your help to function as a band and fight through the rough times when it feels like we might never be more than just a fun little band that a very select few like to listen to. We have aspirations to be much more but we can't do it without your support.

Enough of the pep talk.

We're incredibly excited to be heading back to Ocala tomorrow night. It's always fun to head up and see our friends and fans (hereafter referred to as "frans"). We hope to see a ton of you out there rocking out with us and if you know the words to the new songs, sing at the top of your lungs so we know you like it. We couldn't be more proud of the new record, we hope that you guys can feel the passion we have for these songs when we play them live or when you hear the CD.

Touring at the end of the year? Maybe. We're trying to make it work financially and if we can I'll be the first one to pack my bags and hop in the van. Seeing the country with my 3 best friends sounds like a fantastic way to spend a few weeks. So hopefully we'll be able to get out there and meet more frans all across the country. More to come when inspiration strikes.

Doug

I need a stinkin' title.

2007-07-16T20:08:00.001-04:00

I stopped writing in this thing.
After the record came out, I actually started living normally again.
Our CD release shows were fantastic and we hope everyone buys a copy of the album.
We had a big promotion last week where we once again graced the main page of Purevolume.com and received a gazillion listens. We threw our new tunes out there to see what people think, and people are seeming to like it. We spent almost the entire week on the Top 10 bands list and were one of two unsigned artists. I hope people took notice.
Today was our first day not on the front page of purevolume and we've already gotten 650 listens today. That beats our usual 150 a day.

Here are records I recommend because they are a lot of fun.

Yellowcard - Paper Walls (Out tomorrow!)
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start - Worst Band Name Ever (Available now!)
Matthew Good - Hospital Music (Out 7/31/07)

We have a brand new merch store located at http://earlynextyear.bigcartel.com

Thank you. That is all.

It's here!

2007-06-27T14:47:00.000-04:00

Well, the new disc, "Catch These Words", arrived last Thursday, just in time for the first CD release show we had that Saturday in Ocala, Florida.

All of the new material seemed to go over very well and we are happy with the way we played and how the new songs were received. We will play our second CD release show this Saturday in Orlando at Back Booth. Also on the bill will be our heroes, Inkwell. The day before (Friday, June 29) we will do a quick radio interview on WPRK 91.5 around 3pm. It can also be hear online, so head on over to http://www.wprkdj.org for details on how to listen online.

This whole process has been very long and rough, so I lost my will to blog for a while. Hopefully it will return to me as the CD release shows come and go and the record "does it's thing."

Remember, the official release date is July 3, but the cd is currently available at our shows and at Park Avenue CDs (both the main location and UCF branch). We will start taking pre-orders online shortly at the ENY Webstore.

All the best!

In Conclusion...

2007-06-07T15:33:00.000-04:00

The record is officially at the duplication plant!
We sent our baby off to the presses on Monday and now we just have to sit and twiddle our thumbs while the professionals make everything look amazing.

Tomorrow evening we are playing a show at The Liquid Cellar near UCF in Orlando to throw some of our newer material out there and to hopefully make a little bit of buzz regarding our CD release show coming up on June 30th at Back Booth.

Our pals Pop.Culture.Clash and Words Now Heard will be joining us tomorrow, so it's looking to be a fun evening. The Liquid Cellar is definitely a venue/bar in which we got our "start" so it's definitely nice to back once in a while to remember where we've been.

We've unleashed our new single, The Sick Charade, on our PureVolume and MySpace pages, and we intend to add yet another new track in the coming days. We need to prove that there is more than one awesome track one this CD!

More news on our release gig as we have it.

The ENY To-Do List 5.0:

2007-06-03T22:23:00.000-04:00

So we're dropping this CD in the mail tomorrow.
FINALLY!!!

1. Write record / DONE
2. Find producer / DONE
3. Do pre-production / DONE
4. Record album / DONE
5. Mix record / DONE
6. Master record / DONE
7. Title the record / DONE
8. Decide tracklisting / DONE
9. Complete album artwork / DONE
10. Choose a "single" to push / DONE
11. Take new band photos / DONE
12. Book CD release show / IN PROCESS
13. Get Press reviews
14. Get internet reviews
15. Get radio promotion
16. Play CD release show
17. Sell lots of records

Makin' Records!

2007-05-31T11:47:00.000-04:00

As things come to a close with the creation of the record, we still have a few more things to take care of before we mail this thing out on Monday!

While Travis works on mastering the record we needed to take photos for our album art! Turns out that not only does the CD have to look cool (even though everyone will just dump the songs onto their Ipods) but we have to look cool in it!

We really wanted to have a band picture inside the booklet, but didn't want to go the traditional route. So to fit with the rest of our design concept (which we're loving!) we decided to build a green screen in our living room so that our designer, Amanda, could take the background out of the photos and put us wherever she pleased.
So when it came time to build a green screen, what more do you need than green poster board and green duct tape?

Here are some photos from the night that I captured on my phone. They're low quality, but it's better than nothing, right?

I will try to get pics of interesting events more often!

First, we attempt to build the green screen:

Bert tests the lighting and searches for his shadow:

Bert is the guinea pig.

Doug is the second victim:

JoAnna has a very light instrument:

Now imagine a picture of me right here.
Looks like you'll have to wait to have the CD in your hands to see how the pictures of me came out!

This should be some proof that this record is indeed happening.

I heard something about our first single being released on the internet sometime late this week. It could just be a rumor. Who knows.

Details!

2007-05-26T13:40:00.000-04:00

I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that our record is headed to the duplication plant this week!

There's one more panel to design for the artwork and then it's done.
There's one more song to fix and then the mix is done.

We should have our first single online in the next week or so. As soon as I have a mastered copy, you'll be able to hear the track anywhere our music is found online.

Here's the tracklisting that we have planned for the release:

Early Next Year
Catch These Words

01. Say Hello
02. Send A Letter
03. Catch These Words
04. Lifeless
05. Plan B
06. They Always Say
07. Right Here (With Me)
08. Never Saw it Coming
09. One Down, Two to Go
10. The Sick Charade
11. All Your Advice
12. Something That I Miss

For those of you wondering... will we have the new CD for our show on June 23rd?
We sure hope so.

4 of our songs made their way out into the world as we were passing out sampler CDs to both friends and important folks at Florida Music Fest last weekend. Hopefully no one will leak the tracks!

I thought the actual recording process was the hardest part of making a CD. Turns out the hardest part is hanging onto the songs and keeping them secret until the time is right!

Who knew?

Wasbenhapnin'

2007-05-21T16:44:00.000-04:00

I believe the expression goes something like this: "No news is good news."

In our situation it goes: "Lots of news and not very much time to write about it on the internet."

In case you just can't live without an update, here's what's been going on...

Most importantly, we named the record! We finally decided on something that wasn't taken by other bands, and still makes sense and has meaning to our CD. We'll be calling the album "Catch These Words".

Secondly, we have the tracklisting together and the first "single" is ready to invade the internet very soon.

The album artwork is near completion. Just a few more panels need designed and finished.

The mix has shaped up nicely and we only have one major change to make before the Master is complete.

We're hoping to send this thing off to the duplication plant next week.
Let me reiterate that in case you missed it...
Sending. Duplication plant. Next week.

That means the record will soon be complete.

Awesome.

Promises Made

2007-05-07T19:22:00.000-04:00

By this time next week I hope to have announced the following:

The Title of our record

The tracklisting

The name of the first single

The cover art (possibly, but don't get too excited)

The release date (again, don't get too excited)

We're getting closer by the day.

We've been soaking up the latest mix and have run across just a few more changes that made. We hope to turn a master copy quite soon.

More news to come!

News on (the) Record

2007-05-03T14:36:00.000-04:00

Last night involved a trip over the House of Travis for a full band listen to the songs in their (near) final form.

We listened through everything front to back and tossed in our two cents. Changes were made, ego's were stroked, battles were won and lost. In the end, I think the songs are right where we want them to be.

It was awesome to finally hear our record in an almost completed form. This made me even more excited. I just want to get it out there and into people's ears so badly. I can totally relate to other bands now who record an album in January and can't release it until July. It sucks. We don't want to be holding onto this thing for months and months after it is finished, but there is still a ton of work that needs done in all phases of the record making process. We're still aiming for a late June/early July release, but we cannot even book our CD release show until we are ready to send this thing off to duplication. Wouldn't want to be stuck with a CD release gig and no CD, right?

In other major news, we finally settled on a title for the record. After many months of sharing ideas, arguments, and finding out that every other album name we wanted to use was taken multiple times, we finally found something that is unique and fitting to this project. We'll reveal it soon enough!

Also, before too long we'll have some new music for you to sink your teeth into.
Yes. That's right. NEW MUSIC.

Even I'm looking forward to that.

Tonight is Spider-Man 3 at Midnight.
I'm so excited.
And I just can't hide it.

Excitementism

2007-05-01T17:22:00.000-04:00

I'm just going to go ahead and destroy my image right here and now...

I am so excited for Spider-Man 3 to open in theaters that I can barely sleep at night. I saw the first two films on opening night and even revisited the theater 4 more times when the second was released. I have decided to take it a step further and get tickets for a midnight showing this time around. I want this movie in my eyeballs ASAP. I grew up a huge comic book nerd and collected hundreds of issues of Spider-Man. Were I to sell them all, I could probably cover the entire pricetag for our record. But I won't do that. I still maintain that reading Spider-Man comics made me who I am today. I had to pick up my acerbic wit somewhere. If I happen to appear a bit more giddy than usual for the next few days, please forgive me. I will be back to my cynical self in just a few days. Bear with me.

Go see this movie.
I'm basically throwing all this information out there so that people will read it and when they come to see us at shows they can bring me Spider-Man memorabilia instead of cookies. I do love the cookies, please don't get me wrong.

If I disappear for random 2 hour blocks Thursday through Sunday, don't worry, I'll be at the movie theater.

Oh yeah...uh ...record. Sounds good. Out some day.

Another week, another update.

2007-04-24T09:50:00.000-04:00

We played our first show in two months and nothing caught on fire. Ocala was presented a 7 song setlist consisting of only 2 songs from "Sarcasm" and the rest of the tunes were tunes that will be on our record. They were even the first people to hear 2 brand new songs as well! Bert and I almost saw our dooms! We played a dark stage that loomed several feet above the ground. Bert was positioned dangerously to the left of the stage and whilst rocking out, nearly slipped off the stage. He was saved by the arms of Mike from Hey Nice Guy. During the breakdown of our final song, Girl Like Her, I decided to once again climb the amps and got some crazy air with guitar in tow. When I landed I somehow managed to wrap my leg around a mic cable and I also began to topple off the stage in the same direction Bert had. Once again, Mike from Hey Nice Guy was there to keep me afloat and injury free. The crowd was very receptive to the new songs (if clapping and yelling when a song is over is considered "receptive") and overall it was a good show even though the crowd was sparse. It was the ideal way to present new material to people who actually listen to our songs. The other bands were quite good. It was my first time seeing Mashlin in years and Hey Nice Guy was fantastic as always.

We didn't get lost in Ocala this time around (we're finally starting to understand it) but it's nearly impossible to find any cheap food within the downtown area. Our fans brought us 100 sugar cookies to keep us going, and it's always nice to get baked goods. They ensure that we stay alive long enough to get back to their town eventually.

This show was to help us shake off some rust and I think we're quite ready for our next show on Sunday evening with Rory, Fallen From the Sky, and My Getaway at Back Booth in Orlando. Again we'll dish out the new tunes to an unsuspecting crowd of folks who probably don't listen to us... yet.

As far as the record goes, Travis is really hoping to have the mixing done this week and I'm looking forward to hearing some of the changes that he has made and taunted me with.
It's getting to the point where I've started to think more and more about which single to push from this record, titles, artwork, and tracklistings. All the nitty gritty details that have to be thought out before the thing even goes to press.

I've also started to make a list of ways to really promote this thing and get the word out there. Thankfully, I have quite a lengthy list, it's just a matter of making things happen. I really don't care for doing interviews because in the past they have all been generally terrible experiences, but if we can get to the right people, we might be able to say something decent.

We'll so the typical targeting of the radio, web, and press and hope for the best!

Mix #2

2007-04-18T18:01:00.000-04:00

A few nights ago I went to see the Wizard...er... Travis to get an update on the mixing process. Poor guy probably hasn't slept since we finished tracking. He had done a crazy amount of work in a very short period of time. I admire his dedication. I got a quick update on the changes and edits he had made to the songs and things are really sounding quite good. No... wait.. amazing.
I walked out of there with updated versions of 7 tracks. Some have come a long way just since I last heard them. One of the songs was pretty much a finished product and sounded exactly like what I heard in my head. I'm so happy with how these are shaping up.

He's aiming to have everything complete by the weekend and hopefully by next week we will have gotten everything right where we want it to be. Then we're on to Mastering and Artwork, and Duplication!

Slowly but surely we're heading in the right direction.
There's really no telling when you'll be hearing tracks from the record, but it will probably be after we've chosen a "single" to push via the internet.

This record is really shaping up to be everything we wish the last record was and we owe Travis so much for being both an awesome producer and mentor to us throughout.

We'll be playing in Ocala, FL this weekend and we still have a lot to do, so I am off to band practice so that we sound awesome.

Cheers!

Record, records, and shows.

2007-04-12T14:04:00.000-04:00

What's happening with our record you ask?

It's being mixed. Check back in a month.

I visited with Travis a few days ago to listen in on the mixing progress. He's currently in the editing/mixing phase which is always the most time consuming. Tweaks are currently being made to parts of songs that were not either 100% perfect or just needed some additional flair.

Here's an interesting tidbit... we actually have Travis doing quite a bit of programming on songs, so don't be surprised if you hear things that might be considered.... dare I say... electronic. It'll be awesome, I promise.

Second... there are a few records that were recently released that I'm highly enjoying. Pick these up:

The Academy Is... - Santi
I loved this bands first record. I played it over and over in my car on a cassette that I made and then the tape melted and I kind of forgot about them for a while. The band is back with a brand new record and some slick production. Everything is bigger and better sounding this time around. The band takes more of a straight ahead rock and roll approach this time around, but most songs still have the flair that you expect from the band. My only complaints about this record would be that A.) The lyrical content this time around is a little more vague and unrelateable. Most of the time, I have no clue what the dude's singing about. B.) The good songs on this record are GOOD and the bad songs are downright bad. There's not a lot of middle ground. But on the bright side, there are only 2-3 tracks I find myself skipping.

Standout tracks include: Same Blood / Neighbors / Seed

Limbeck - Self Titled
Limbeck is one of those bands where I will listen to and love everything that they release, so in my eyes they can do no wrong. This album keeps the alt-country tunes coming. All the instrumentation is phenomenal and each song tells a great story and provides great mental imagery. My only complaint about this record is that it's just more of the same. I believe they still have a lot of ground to cover as a band, and I can't wait to see them mature a bit more.

Standout tracks include: Trouble / Big Drag / Let's Get Crazy

Now I'm going to ramble a bit about shows.

When it comes to shows that we are involved with, we'll be playing the next 2 weekends. It's time we got back in the swing of this live show stuff considering we haven't been on a stage since mid-February!
We've been practicing whenever possible to try and shake off the rust and we'll see just how things go next Saturday when we return to Ocala, FL to play at the Capitol. We had a blast playing there last time to a packed house and are looking forward to doing it again!
Joining us will be our buds Hey Nice Guy, some touring act, and the 111 Records band, Mashlin. We're systematically befriending all the 111 Records bands it seems.

The following week we're getting to play an awesome all ages shows at Back Booth in Orlando with our pals (also on the 111 Records roster) Rory and the bands Fallen From the Sky and My Getaway. This might be the first show where we've played with all of the bands before.

This is also a huge month for going to see shows. This Friday is Brand New at House of Blues followed by Piebald at The Social on Sunday. The next Saturday, Limbeck is hitting up The Social as well. Good month for music!

Lastly, I just want to make known that writer Kurt Vonnegut died today. He wrote some fantastic books that you probably won't understand. They are way funny though if you're a bit off and have little to no morals.
Pick up Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions or Slapstick for some old fashioned social commentary covered up with shallow characters and bad metaphors.

Who am I kidding.
No one reads anymore.

More record news coming soon!

The Rough

2007-04-06T11:18:00.000-04:00

This past Wednesday was my birthday (Yeah, thanks for all the cards) and it was a heck of a good day. Not only did I get to eat a lot of good food and take it generally easy throughout the day, but I grabbed some lunch with Travis and he provided me with a rough cut of our record. Really rough.

We needed something to reference so we could pick up additional parts that we added during the recording process, but it's awesome to be able to hear the songs that we put so much into. I'm still very excited to hear the finished product, but there's a whole bunch of tunes that sound fantastic even in their rough state. Again, the finished product should be pretty killer.

I've listened back through all 12 tracks numerous times, and I know the rest of the band has been doing the same. There's still work to be done and Travis has been working dilligently on these tracks. The drums sound much bigger than they did and I'm looking forward to hearing the same magic all over the rest of the instruments.

A few of the NEW songs are sounding awesome. Those are going to be exciting to release.

It's about that time for us to begin playing live again!
We booked our first show in almost two months for the end of April. Our buddies in the band Rory asked us to open for them at an all ages show taking place at Back Booth in Orlando on Sunday, April 29th. The show will also feature our old pals My Getaway.
It'll be a great way for us to get back up on stage. We're a little out of practice. It'll be a lot of fun putting together a brand new setlist. Over the last 5 or 6 months we had basically been playing the same setlist, just in a different order. Out of the 7 songs on our "Sarcasm" EP, it had gotten to the point where we were only playing maybe 4 of those songs live, but now we have an additional 12 to choose from making things way more interesting!
We're going to begin incorporating more and more new material into the live shows to (hopefully) build some excitement for the new record.
It'll give a little more focus to our practices, at least.

We're still waiting to hear if/when we'll be showcasing at this year's Florida Music Festival so we'll be sure to make that announcement as soon as we hear something.
If we hear something. You never know.

Things are slowly kicking back up and I'm ready for it! Playing on a stage beats playing in our kitchen any day of the week.

We're still aiming for the record to be released in June, so watch for plenty of dates to pop up around then!

Tonight is record celebration #2!

B-Day or Bidet?

2007-04-03T15:31:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday to our own bassman, Bert Long, who turns 22 years young today.

The Aftermath

2007-04-02T20:17:00.000-04:00

I must say that I'm actually scared to write in this thing anymore. For one, I feel like I have nothing of interest to say now that our part of the record has been completed. For two, if I do keep talking about the album, then I'm afraid that I might say something that I will regret. Perhaps I'll accidentally drop a few song names. Perhaps my fingers might wander and leak some album title ideas. Who knows, I might even be tempted to release an MP3 or two.

In reality, I'm an adult and have full control over my actions... I'M JUST SO EXCITED!

Last night we had our first practice in eight years.
Okay, so it wasn't really eight years... maybe 2 and a half weeks is a better guestimate.
Anyway, we plowed through the songs in their newest incarnations. We still have plenty of work ahead of ourselves, but things flowed pretty well for the most part.
It's rough when we don't actually have a copy of the record yet, so there are changes we made that I'm sure we forgot about. I know I changed a lot of lyrics and the way they were sung, but until I can sit down and listen over and over, I'm just going to bumble my way through.

This record is really big on the vocal end. Lots of harmonies and big gang vocals. The rest of the band is going to have to step up to the mics in the coming weeks.

Hopefully this week Travis will have something for us to listen to. I'm getting antsy again. I used to hear these songs everyday for hours and hours straight, and now that I can't hear them, I REALLY want to.

As far as album titles, track listings, and artwork ideas... these are all yet to be discussed. So much of that stuff is really going to depend on the songs themselves. I feel like if we cooked up a record title right now, we'd probably just change it later anyway. These songs have to direct us where to go. For the album cover, we can't just grab a paintbrush and fill the canvas with an image of a Sorcerer battling a Dragon. It just won't work!

Here's my one promise to everyone:
This record will have the lyrics inside.
That's my #1 stipulation.

I finally got a bit more work done on the video that I promised to be done with weeks ago. It's very close to being complete!
Does anyone even care?

More news when we have news!

Recording: Day 14

2007-03-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

I lost track of days and ended up a bit behind. As usual.
So guess what?

WE ARE FINISHED RECORDING!

We wrapped on Wednesday night after I finished up vocals for the last 2 songs. Afterwards we sat down and listened through all 12 tracks in their rawest form to make sure we had not forgotten anything.
It was amazing to hear all of our work blast through the speakers. 22 days of hard work and stress came out in musical form and couldn't have been better. We're all very excited to get the final mixes in our hands, but we also know that Travis's job is just beginning. He has to sit down and listen to these songs over and over to get them perfect. I said this a few other times, but these songs are HUGE!

In my opinion, the "Sarcasm" EP was very one dimensional due to time and budget constraints. This record is three times fuller and the life and personality just seeps out of the songs. I'm very proud of all my bandmates for their hard work and dedication to this project. At some point or another we all pushed ourselves to our limits and at the same time we were always there to lend support and to give words of encouragement. I'm thankful to Travis for taking on this project as well. Knowing him, he could have worked with anyone that he wanted to, and he chose us. It makes us feel good to know he believes in this record as much as we do and wants it to be as amazing as we do. What more could we ask for?

Last night, which was Thursday, we spent the evening loading out all the gear we used for the record. The amps, guitars, console, and loads and loads of cables were all piled into our van and returned to Travis. It was a little sad to see things go, but I know that JoAnna was happy to have her room back. She wasn't even able to sleep in her room for this process. Kudos to her for sticking it out and making the most of the situation.

Over the next few weeks we now have to go back and re-learn a lot of the new parts that we added during the recording process. It's going to be fun getting everything tight so that we can replicate what will be on the CD into a live show that holds up.

We'll rehearse through most of April and pick up shows where we can, but due to this schedule along with various vacations happening through May, we might not hit the stage til the Florida Music Festival happening May 16-20.
It's all up in the air right now, but we need the time to get our heads on straight, get back into playing together as a band, and making the extra cash so we can put this record out ourselves.

Tomorrow night we're going to throw a small celebratory bash in honor of our CD being 100% recorded and then over the next few weeks we'll be checking in with Travis from time to to hear the mixes as they progress. Once we find the point where everyone is 100% happy with how things are sounding, we'll get that sucker mastered and sent off to the presses.

Please keep an eye on this blog as we'll be releasing the title of the record (once we have it) and a tracklisting of all the jams which will fill it out.

Lastly, here are some photos from the last few days of recording that I took on my new phone. They're kind of lame, and I apologize for that.

The mixing console and effects racks in our makeshift control room.

This is the bathroom where I sang all my vocals. That is the microphone I spit all over.

These are the guitar and bass amps that you will hear all over our album.
Sweet tones derived from these monsters. They do not belong to us. We are not that cool.

Travis, Doug, Bert, and JoAnna take a break from recording to play some Tetris attack. Everyone else was good at it except for me.

Thanks for checking in throughout the process, and please keep coming back for more updates.

It's been a blast!

Recording: Day 13

2007-03-28T12:36:00.000-04:00

My stress level has been all over the place as of late. I want nothing but great things for this record and I'm feeling pretty good that it will meet and exceed my expectations by leaps and bounds. Having Travis around has taught us all so much. We've approached these newer songs way differently than we may have otherwise and it's opened up our ears and minds to new ideas. Having a producer is one thing, but having a producer who has written some records that I spin on a regular basis and thoroughly enjoy is another.

Personally, I've learned quite a lot about tones, sounds, vocals, melodies, harmonies and... "moxy".
I know that when it comes time to start writing again I will be approaching things way differently and keep a much more open mind than in the past. I'm very excited to see where this record takes us and even more excited to write the next chapter.

Last night I finished up vocals for two more tracks leaving us with just two more to finish. I get more and more excited with each session that we do. Most indie records take about two weeks to finish and tonight we'll crack the 14 day mark, so by all accounts we're really on track even with most of us working full time jobs.

Like I mentioned in yesterday's blog, we should have a guest vocalist coming in tonight and I can't wait to tell you about that after it happens.

Two more songs, a few handclaps and shakers, and we can call it a wrap!

Recording: Day 12

2007-03-27T16:17:00.000-04:00

Let me think a second... how many songs do we have completed for the record?
8 SONGS DONE!

That's right, folks we are now down to the final four tunes. Tonight I plan to wrestle my way through two more and then we'll be sharing some ideas on the final tune that is pretty bare bones at this point. Tomorrow during the day, Travis and JoAnna will take those ideas and coordinate some drums. I know that I've said this 100 times throughout the journal here, but we are not sure which direction this song will take so it's a bit of experiementation on all of our parts. It will be... interesting, to say the least.

Tomorrow evening we're planning to have a guest vocalist come in to lend his pipes to our record. We're not exactly sure where it's going to fit in, or what exactly will happen, but we shall experiement until everything is perfect or at least listenable. More on that after it actually happens. It will be cool. I hope.

So as usual, it's all work and no play, but things are surely coming together nicely. Travis is a vocals kind of guy so we've gotten to toss a lot of great ideas back and fourth. He's been a joy to work with, through and through.

We're all very anxious to get back to playing shows ASAP, so hopefully in May we'll be able to line up a few and we're pretty certain that we'll be showcasing at this year's Florida Music Festival as well.

We hope to have something for you to hear before too long, so keep those ears on alert!

Recording: Day 11

2007-03-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was possibly the longest day of my life.

I had to get myself to work at 5:30am and didn't get home til 5:30pm.
We had decided to take a week or regain our composure and opted to kick back up this week to (hopefully) finish up the record. We've put ourselves on a bit of a time crunch, but deadlines create results. I hope they are good ones.
I spent all of last night in the vocal bathroom belting out extremely high notes to the microphone, the shower, and possibly the neighbors.
I had spent the entire day on my feet and talking so I'll admit to not being in prime singing condition. However, we finished up yet another tune! I believe that brings our total number of songs complete to six. Halfway through vocals!
The evening was dedicated to a song that I was never completely taken with, but it has done a complete 180 since it's conception. The drums are more driving, the bass walks nicely, the guitars shimmer, and now the vocals are sassy, sexy, and driven by some slick harmonies and a big chorus. It is slowly turning into a song that I find to be listenable. I'm sure I will love it after it is mixed.

Tonight the rest of the band is headed into downtown Orlando to see Rory at The Social while I stay home and sing. Sacrifices must be made, y'know?
I'm hoping to get through another song or two this evening and have something to show the rest of the band when they get back. We already wrapped up (what's looking to be) my favorite song for the record, but there are some others coming up that I think are phenomenal as well.

Also - I still have video that I'm editing. It ended up being quite lengthy, so it's just taking a little longer than expected.

Take care!

Non-Recording: Day 1

2007-03-20T11:59:00.000-04:00

Today is break day!!

We're getting a 2 day break to catch up on some sleep and not listen to our own music. It's much needed. It makes me smile though when even when we aren't making a record we're talking about it. Everyone here in camp ENY seems genuinely excited about getting this thing done and getting it out there even though we really don't want it to end. More vocals, harmonies, guitars, and handclaps are due in the future but I think we'll use the next couple days to just chill and catch up on our movie watching. I'll attempt to finish editing some video (if I can sit still long enough to focus) but most likely just be kind of lazy.

I have "Snakes on a Plane" on lease from Netflix and I am dying to watch it. I also want to see "300" sometime in the future. It comes highly recommended from Travis and everyone else I know who has seen it.

If anything exciting happens, rest assured that you will hear about it. I'm trying to book us a few shows for March, so keep an eye on that show listing.

Also, since I'm a bit behind on my music recommendations, here are a couple of records to check out!

Out Now:
Sherwood - A Different Light
A great new album from a great band. Please go get this record if you like music, life, and the world in general.

Out April 3, 2007:
Here are a few records being released on Bert's 22nd birthday!

Chevelle - Vena Sera
The Academy Is... - Santi

Out April 10, 2007:
Limbeck - Self Titled
This might be the only record of 2007 aside from ours that will matter.

Break!

Recording: Day 10

2007-03-20T01:26:00.000-04:00

Tonight's session kicked off around 9pm. Even though I was a little late in getting there Doug was recording some acoustic guitar for the tune that we chose to rebuild.
He built a solid foundation for the tune and we'll prepare to build on it another night. We once again turned the bathroom into a vocal booth and dove into some more tunes. I got a little too frustrated on the song we chose to start off with decided to find something a little more suited to the moment.

Myself, JoAnna, and Bert all ended up lending some vocal stylings to the track and by 1:00am we had something pretty solid. That's 5 songs finished. Doug bumps the percentage complete up into the 80% range.

Travis packed up some gear to get away from us crazies so he could do some mixing in peace. We'll get a short break and then hopefully kick up again on Thursday.
It was obvious that we needed a break simply because as we all sat around in the control room listening back to various parts we were totally reusing all the same jokes from previous days. We were all completely out of new material.

There's only so much verbal, mental, and airsoft gun abuse that people can take!

Recording: Day 9 redux

2007-03-19T17:26:00.000-04:00

Last night we finished up vocals on yet another song.

4 TUNES IN THE BAG!

We turned one of the bathrooms in the house into a vocal booth by throwing towels everywhere to deaden the sound and then stuck a mic in front of me. At this point both Bert and JoAnna have contributed background vocals and things are sounding big, full, and harmonious.

Tonight we power into day number 10. So much for a break, eh?

Travis seems to want to get this thing done about as badly as we do (probably just so he can stop seeing us all the time), but we're anxious to get it done just as much.

We're still re-building one tune from scratch (it's almost there!) and I have to do vocals for 8 more songs. We're averaging about two tunes a day and hope to get through at least one more tonight since we won't get started until around 9pm.

I am still completely baffled by how hard it is to make a record.

More later!

Recording: Day 9 - Part II

2007-03-18T19:36:00.000-04:00

That's 3 songs in the BAG!

We are officially finished with 3 out of 12 songs. Fantastic.
Everytime we complete a tune, I get more excited.
I rounded out vocals for one of our newer tunes and then the rest of the band joined in for gang vocal madness. We've got some super big songs coming your way. I think I can perhaps bump up our percentage to 65% complete.

Ugh, I feel like I keep writing the exact same things a different way.

The recording is going amazing. It baffles me how much work has gone into making this record. Each person put all of their energy into making their parts the best they can be and I couldn't be more proud of my bandmates. Even though I sometimes spent six hours sitting in one place listening to the same song over and over I go to bed each night absolutely exhausted.

I'm a little sad that our sessions are winding down but we have more to do and I hope that it can be completed sooner than later.

We're about to take a quick break for dinner and then hopefully kick up with another round of vocals. I'm a singing MACHINE!

Recording: Day 9

2007-03-18T16:51:00.000-04:00

Here's another quick update while we take a quick break...

We've been working on vocals all day. We officially have two songs finished at this point with one more whole tune to record. Today is our last day for these sessions and we'll likely take a week off and then resume a little later so that we can get both our passion and energy back.

It's coming along! Slowly but surely.

Recording: Day 8

2007-03-18T01:29:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update before I turn in for the night. It's about 1:30am right now and we just wrapped recording for the night. Today was by far one of the longest days for us.

Last night we started on the synthesizer side of things and got through 5 out of the 6 songs which utilize the high pitched squeels of joy. I actually had to take a step back and bust out an older synth and we used that on one of the tracks we finished up first thing this morning. After wrapping that up we headed back to the guitars and fixed up a few things and completely tackled one additional tune that we had yet to touch.

A little later into the evening we decided to start on vocals. I found myself in one of our bathrooms surrounded by towels and I belted through one song and that is now officially in the bag. I started on another song but it was getting pretty late so I only made it a few parts in. Tomorrow we'll finish up with that and hopefully toss a few more in the bag by the end of the day.

As things stand we have one songs COMPLETELY finished. Chances are that vocals will take a few more weeks to finish up as we have time. There's still one song that I've mentioned a few times that we were toying with. Travis wasn't thrilled with the original demo and we broke it down so we could rebuild. However, due to lots of overtime with the guitars I'm not sure if the song will be finished in time to be included in the record. It's a little hearbreaking since it was definitely one of my favorite songs and definitely one of the most personal. I'm not ruling it out yet, but 11 songs is better than 7, yes?

I started editing some additional footage today but since I was playing a more active roll in tonight's session (i.e. playing instruments or singing rather than sitting around bored out of my mind) that will be put on hold until I get a little more time to finish it up.

I hope that tomorrow will be very productive since it's the last day that we have scheduled right now. We'll let you know how things go and hopefully we can make a big dent in the tracks that we have yet to finish.

I'm so tired that my eyes are blurring.
To bed now. Sleep. Good.

Recording: Day 7 - Part II

2007-03-16T22:45:00.000-04:00

So it's been quite the day. Quite a long day to be more specific. Doug and myself have been plugging away all day with the guitar side of the sonic spectrum. Yesterday we finished two songs and got ourselves halfway through two others. Today we riffed it up and I think as things stand right now we only have two more songs that have nothing as far as guitars. There are a few things we plan to revisit over the weekend, but right now it is late and we had to shut down the amps and plan to focus on something a bit quieter. We just made a quick trip to our favorite restaraunt, Ti'Juana Flats and have returned stuffed to the gills with mexican food goodness. Everyone is couch surfing for the moment while I our minds get refreshed and our stomachs settle.

For the remainder of the evening we'll either tackle acoustic guitar or Moog lines. I don't think we have decided as of yet.

When Doug was asked what percentage of the record was complete he responded with 60%. That sounds good to me. We're 60% done with our full length record. Some songs are shaping up nicely, others need work, and some even blew us away.

Have I mentioned lately how excited we are to release this?

Travis has been awesome to us and fits in very well with the crew. Our slightly askew brands of sarcasm mesh nicely and he likes to pick on Doug just as much as the rest of us.

It's been a heck of a day and I can't wait to update you more tomorrow. Soon we should have enough footage to post another video journal, so stayed tuned for that as long as I have time to do some quick editing.

Thanks for checking in!

midday mayhem

2007-03-16T14:41:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,
JoAnna here. Just keeping updates and whatnot. We're halfway through day 7 of recording, and we're crankin' out the tunes like nobody's business. I know we keep saying it, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to hear the revamped versions of some of our stuff. Guitarmonies galore! Anyway. It sounds awesome. We're still only about halfway through guitar parts, but the time and patience is well worth it, because we know this is going to sound great.
Some time is always spent picking on/beating up Doug, but that's everyday. We don't need to be recording for that to happen. For me anyway.
Eh, I'll leave this short and sweet. More to come later, I'm sure.

Recording: Day 6 - Part II

2007-03-15T16:29:00.000-04:00

Aaaaaaaaaand we're done for day numero six!

As I mentioned earlier, tonight was all about the guitars. Switching guitars, shaping tones, and playing really loudly through crazy amplifiers. Nothing better, right?

We spent a whole lot of time making sure that we're really happy with how everything sounds. Sound is important when making a record. Just so you know, this record is so far sounding amazing. One of the big reasons that we wanted to work with Travis in the first place was because his records always were so sonically pleasing. He's an advocate of big sounds and lots of layers. Remember that "Sarcasm" record? This record is going to sound 300 times bigger. Possibly 500 times bigger. There's no telling!

As far as guitars go, we finished up all the guitar parts on 2 tracks and I layed down rhythm guitar on 2 or 3 other songs. I honestly can't remember.
Our ears were starting to get tired so we decided to break for the night and resume tomorrow morning. We should be able to finish up 4 or 5 more songs tomorrow and then hammer through additional guitars, bass, and other instrumentation over the weekend.

While playing through tunes over the course of the day I realized how excited I am to start playing these songs at live shows. Sure, some of them we've been playing live for a while, but they have taken on completely new life and it's going to be exciting for everyone.
As a whole, this experience of working with Travis who is an all around fantastic musician, producer, and person is going to make us a stronger band. You'll see. Soon.

Tomorrow I shall update you again.
Until then...

Recording: Days 5 & 6

2007-03-15T14:35:00.000-04:00

So I totally missed a day. Oops.

Let's see if I can remember all the craziness I missed reporting on...
Yesterday was focused on recording all the bass parts for the record. Bert spent Tuesday and Wednesday hammering out parts for everything. Things were a little bumpy along the way but as of yesterday evening he had laid basic tracks down for everything and I think we're going to go back to a song or two and review them over the weekend.
That went fairly late into the evening and around 9pm we started with some acoustic guitar sounds and decided to tackle one of the tunes that we wanted to rework from the ground up.
We got some structure ideas down and tracked a few things but it was getting late and we decided it would be better left for another evening. We'll also be clunking out some additional drum and bass tracks for that at some point.

This brings us to today... Thursday. Doug and myself managed to get a few days off of work to bring guitars into the mix. We started early at 11:00 in the A.M. and we tracked guitar lines for two songs. So in five hours we did 2 songs. Sure, sounds like a long time, but the stuff we did record is pretty killer.
There were two songs that I wrote the same week we started tracking and we hammered those out first.
A lot of time was put into finding ideal sounds and tones.

We're about to kick up on song number 3 for the day, so more on this as it develops.

More crazy camera footage was captured last night, so expect more video soon!

Recording: Days 3 & 4

2007-03-13T18:28:00.000-04:00

I was slipping there for a day, but I'm back in action now.
Hopefully you enjoyed the video. I put absolutely way too much work into that for what it is.

Anyway, yesterday JoAnna finished up her drums... for now. We have 11 songs with drums. Gotta start somewhere, right? We still have one other tune that's up in the air as far as what we direction we will take with it. It might have some percussion and.... it might not. We don't know, honestly.

After drums wrapped up last night Travis set out to find a good bass tone for the record with a crazy old Mesa bass rig and a Marshall guitar amp. He does crazy things, but the sounds are crazy good.
Today was Bert's day to be in the spotlight and he, Travis, and JoAnna spent all day working on the record's lower end. I believe he completed bass lines for six tracks out of 12. Tonight we're going to turn the focus towards acoustic guitars for some mainlines and some backing layers and then tomorrow Bert will finish up with the bass (hopefully).

Hopefully more video to come soon. JoAnna had control of the camera all day while I was away at work, so I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of craziness she captured.

Are you still with us?
I know it sounds boring, but we're working dilligently and want you to hear this album. We only say that because we know how much you're going to love it.
Trust us.

Video Journal: Recording Days 1 & 2

2007-03-12T13:14:00.000-04:00

Just a brief re-cap of what's been happening... in video form!
Click here to view the madness!

More later!

Recording Journal: Day 2

2007-03-11T15:26:00.000-04:00

Alright alright alright!

So we worked late into the evening last night recording as many drums as we could for the songs. We ended up getting through 4 tunes before calling it a night. Sessions started up again today around noon and since we had already set up mics and got all the sounds, we just jumped right in. Recorded first was one of our newest songs and then we tackled a few older. As things stand at the time of this writing we have 3 songs done for the day and are almost midway through the fourth song, Lifeless. It's been quite loud in this house, but we're hoping to finish up a few more yet.

Bert is scheduled to start bass tomorrow or Tuesday, but we're confident he can rip right through his parts and get started on guitars by mid-week.

JoAnna is powering through like a trooper and we're feeling real good about the sounds and parts we have. Doing our best at this point to make sure everything is real tight.

The rest of us go into the control room, listen, nod and then hang around or get lost in various video game systems found lying about the house. Normally I would be hanging on every drum hit of every song, but we've got Mr. Adams overseeing everything and he's got a good ear for knowing when things can be better or tighter. We've been having a blast working with him thus far and we've barely even began!

Stay tuned for an update later in the afternoon!

Recording: Day 1

2007-03-10T12:50:00.000-05:00

Hey there!

So today is the big day. Today begins the recording process for our follow up record to our 2005 EP release "Sarcasm is Your Friend."
We've been preparing for quite a while now and for the next 8 days we plan to record as much stuff as humanly possible.

We've been concealing the identity of our producer, but now we're ready to tell the world who will be manning the wheel of our record, so to speak.
I'm very happy to announce that our CD is going to be engineered, mixed, and produced by a fellow by the name of Travis Adams. He's an Orlando based musician who recently produced the Band Marino record and is the former frontman of the Doghouse Records act, My Hotel Year. In his free time, he also sings for a little band known as Inkwell. He also engineered and produced their releases as well.

When it comes to bands that everyone in ENY can enjoy, MHY and Inkwell both made the list, so we set out to get him as our unofficial fifth member. Turns out he's a real nice fellow and he spent the last 2 weeks listening in on our practices, disecting our songs and giving advice and pointers on how to make them better, more dynamic, and more diverse. After getting used to everything, we're loving the new material more by the day.

As I've mentioned in previous postings, we opted to record in our house in Winter Park, FL rather than to spend a buttload of money on a studio. This lets us not only take the time we need, but it's a place of comfort to us. Well, it was a place of comfort. Last night we brought in all the gear we'll be using to put this beast of a record together. Currently, our kitchen is full of drums and microphones, our living room is playing host to a countless number of amps and guitars, and JoAnna even sacrificed her bedroom which is now home to our control room which holds a 16 channel mixer, effects racks, computers, and us.

Last night after we had run all over town with Van Diesel picking up gear from shady warehouses, we loaded in all the gear, hooked everything up and proceeded to record some scratch tracks which JoAnna will use to play her drum tracks to. That went late into the evening but we've set the foundation for almost all 12 songs.

It's a new day. Day 1 of recording. As I type this, JoAnna is in the kitchen getting drum sounds while Travis and Doug monitor from the control room. Things are running smoothly and I expect to be hitting the record button before too long.

Throughout the recording process, we'll be taking a lot of video and I will be leaving my computer is our designated "Blogger" where this blog will be up at all times and anyone from the band can sit down and give you an update. So check back with us often for all the updates.

Get excited!!

Pre-Production: Days 6, 7, & 8

2007-03-09T15:56:00.000-05:00

So apparently I'm updating in 3 day blocks now. Better an odd schedule than no schedule, right?

This will be quick...
Throughout Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we spent a lot of time just practicing. Just playing and replaying focusing mainly on songs that had significant changes and the brand new songs which are shaping up nicely and quite quickly. Most of our time has been spent standing in a circle in our kitchen staring at one another. It's been loud, long, exhausting, and exciting. The kicker? We aven't actually started recording yet!

We're feeling pretty good overall and are going into this with the correct mindset and fully prepared to do anything necessary to get the record that we hear in our heads.

Tonight we start bringing in all the studio gear. Computers, mixers, guitars, and lots of amps. Tonight the house officially turns into the recording studio.
There's no telling what we'll get to tonight, but tomorrow we're slated to get things rolling around noon. This is it. The time has come.
In fact, with my next post (whenever that may be), I'll finally give the heads up on who is at the helm of this project for the producing, engineering, and general awesomeness responsibilities.

Stay tuned everyone. We'll be making a conscious effort to grab photos and video as we have the time! This will be your best bet for up to date info for all things ENY.

Pre-Production: Day 3, 4, & 5

2007-03-05T20:15:00.000-05:00

So I'm a bit behind. I'm always behind. The fact that I haven't been updating this thing every 5 minutes usually means that I am keeping busy, which is a good thing since there is a lot to be done.

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we kept the Pre-Production ball rolling and continued to run through each little nuance of the songs. As things stand we are taking 12 tracks to the studio and are generally excited with how they are shaping up. Some have taken on completely new life while others remain similar to their original intent. It's exciting, I promise. We're really looking forward to playing some of these tunes live and can't wait for people to see how they've changed from how we were playing them previously. It's gonna turn heads, for sure.

On Friday, there was an 8 hour day of work and then it was right to rehearsal. We had worked songs to death the previous week and then started on 4 more. At this point we had 10 songs that we were ready to work with, but since options are always nice I decided that I could pen 2 more for the record, so after 3-4 hours of rehearsing I was then demoing on my computer for the rest of the night. I laid the groundwork for 2 brand new songs that were complete polar opposites. I think they'll develop into some of the strongest songs and hope they make the record.

Saturday was a full day of work and then back to rehearsals and more writing. Many other small details were thrown around and other parts restructured and then I laid vocals over the new tracks and added some polish to those suckers.

Sunday was a full 12 hour day of work and then back to rehearsals yet again for another round and then we took a bit of time to learn the new songs so we can start working on those at a feverish page throughout the week. Yoda listened to the new stuff and didn't hate it, so onward we went.

As you can see, we're busting our butts for this and we really want everyone to understand the blood, sweat, and tears that will go into the creation of this. We all had an exhausting but oh so gratifying weekend. On Friday we start bringing in all the recording gear where our producer/engineer will set up shop. I believe we'll also be bringing in a handful of extra amps and guitars to utilize.

It's just starting to dawn on me that we'll be making a record in just a few short days.
I still have many reservations about certain aspects of it all, but we have put full trust into The Chief that he will steer us in the direction we need to head.

Stay tuned for more details and prepare to be surprised.
That "Sarcasm" record? Psh. That was nothin'.

Preepro.

2007-02-26T20:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was day numero dos of our vacation to the crazy land known as pre-production. Day number two was perhaps a few weeks later than anticipated and now we are having to move at the speed of sound to accomplish everything that we want to before we begin tracking in March. We spent the most of the day with our producer jamming our hearts out and sweating profusely while playing new material, meanwhile he sat in a chair and bossed us around....er.... made us sound better. Amazing how playing one riff for fifteen minutes straight can bring so many new ideas out into the open.

We focused on three songs and changed everything that was mediocre about them to make them amazing. Some changes really surprised us, others felt completely natural. It's bizarre when you've been playing a song for a year, or even several months and then trying to change something in the structure or progression can throw off your entire world. This is exactly the reason why we have to take a month just to practice the songs once it's recorded so we can do them justice in a live setting.

Ahead of us is a rigorous practice schedule which will pretty much eat up 4 out of 7 days in the week, but we are absolutely excited and giddy with anticipation. Giddy as school boys and school girls. We still have a lot of ground to cover, and little time to do it in, but we're gonna work hard and bring you guys the best album we can!

At this point we have 10 songs that we're toying with, but Mr. Producer Man (whose name we promise to reveal soon) wants us to bring at least two more tunes to the proverbial table. I have one song nearly 75% complete and another running at about 25%. I really don't know if percentages have a place in the examination of the songwriting process, but it felt natural.

So now we power through the week with practice, followed by practice, which is then followed by a quick break of throwing things against the wall and yelling, and then back to practice. This is one brutal schedule. On Sunday, "The Man" will be back to give us more direction.

It's crazy how this process is so entirely different than our "Sarcasm" EP in that we had absolutely no pre-production and well, let's face it... no production. Hence the whole "demo with a name" thang.

Stay tuned. We've barely tipped the iceberg.

More Gnus.

2007-02-19T17:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we began some pre-production on our new record!

The day we've been waiting for is slowly coming closer and within the next month we should be tracking for the CD. We took a look back at a few of our tunes and talked about what needed to be changed, what could be better, and what was solid. Looks like we'll be reworking a lot of the tunes, so if you've been listening to our demos then please don't revolt when you hear a finished product unlike the previous versions. They will only get better I promise!

We have put full trust in our producer and know that this will be our most solid effort yet.

Get excited because we sure are!

Good Gnus.

2007-02-14T17:41:00.000-05:00

After a long night of mixing and tweaking, there's yet another song in the ENY bag o' tunes.

Trying, hoping, and attempting to pump out two more.
Two.
I can do this...

Next song.... NEXT song...!

Oh, and happy Valentine's Day.
Do something nice for the men or women in your life.

New stuff, good tunes

2007-02-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody it's been a while since I or anyone else has posted anything.

Recording is about to kick off in full effect. We are about to begin pre-production on the next record in the next couple weeks here. The plan, as of now, is to attack the tracking process in full force for about a week in mid-march. After that things are kind of up in the air, but I think our goal is to get the new record into your hands somewhere around July 4th. That would be very near the 2 year anniversary of the release of "Sarcasm is Your Friend." So I think you'll agree with us when we say "it's about freakin' time".

This is probably the most exciting time that I can remember in our history as a band. I have never been more excited about getting a group of songs out there. Some of them you've heard if you've been coming to shows and keeping an eye on our myspace, and some of them are brand new, but they are all amazing. I don't want to get an ego, but this record is gonna blow "Sarcasm" out of the water. I'm not at liberty to say who we'll be working with on this record, but suffice it to say it's somebody that we've looked up to for a long time. This person is probably gonna kick our asses in the studio and make sure that this record is as good as it can be.

So please be patient with us the next few months as we become very selective on what shows we choose to play. If we cancel a date in your area, please accept our apologies. After the record is out we're coming back with a new purpose and many new songs. So keep an eye on the blog for recording updates and all other ENY related updates and general craziness.

In the mean time go pick up the new Lifetime album that was just released. It's the best record I've heard in months. If you would have told me that their new album would be this good a few months back I would have doubted you. If you had told me that it would be better and more listenable than both "Jersey's Best Dancers" and "Hello Bastards" combined, I would have had you admitted to a mental hospital, but it is the best thing this band has ever done. Don't buy it because Pete Wentz says you should, buy it because it's fantastic music. It's an early candidate for album of the year (at least until our record comes out). Also, Alkaline Trio just released a collection of B-Sides called "Remains" go get that as well for an education into this band. It's amazing to me that some of their best songs never appeared on any album, pay special attention to "My Standard Break From Life", "Old School Reasons", and "Warbrain".

That should keep you all occupied until our next update. Until then, keep rockin'

Doug

More Gnus.

2007-02-05T15:00:00.000-05:00

It's cold.
Why is it always so cold.
You spend all summer waiting for things to cool down and then you spend all "winter" craving the sunshine. I put the word winter into quotations marks simply because our winter here in Florida is the wussiest winter of them all. It's under 60 degrees here and I'm freezing to the bone. Meaningwhile, my parents in Ohio are combating minus 13 degree temperatures just hoping that the power or furnace don't give out. I'm so spoiled that I can complain about temperatures below 60.

On Friday we jetted up to Ocala, FL to play at a brand new venue called The Capitol. We'd only played at the K&K Concert Hall in that town before, so this was a nice change. We had a little trouble finding the place. Our GPS got us right where we needed to be, but since the building was unmarked we ended up just going circles around the place until the promoter Ben wandered out to the street to flag us down. No wonder we didn't see the place, it was actually located inside of a former Bank building. It was cool though to play inside of an old bank and seeing bands storing their gear inside of a huge vault. I was honestly too scared to go in them since I figured I would get stuck inside with my bad luck.

We got to open the show to a room packed full of kids. Everyone seemed to have a great time. We played through seven jams, only dropping in two songs from Sarcasm and instead focused on newer material which will hopefully be available sooner or later. After the set, our merch table was mobbed so we cleaned up as quickly as we could and went over to greet some new and old fans. Throughout the evening I ended up signing CD's, writstbands, drum sticks, napkins, and even our own shirts (which I still don't feel right defacing). Everyone was friendly and everytime I turned around there was someone waiting to have a quick chat.

Having shared a bunch of gear with the second band, Hey Nice Guy, it was quick changeover and they were up and rocking before too long. We hadn't seen the Hey Nice Guys in a few years so it was good to see them back. They played all new material which sounded great.
I spent a lot of time hanging out with them and Jimmie from A Denver Mile who played third. I didn't get to see their entire set since we were loading out as they played, but what I heard sounded great and I picked up their CD at some point.

Upper Class Trash was up after that but we were across the street at the Reno Grille which had food that we could barely afford. And not good food either.
We made it back just as the final band Glendale was setting up. That band actually had a bunch of members that we knew from other bands, as well as a fellow who actually took promotional photos for us at one point, so it was a little reunion all over the place. Glendale was really solid and had great energy. I grabbed one of their CDs as well to enjoy later.

After a long night, we headed back to Orlando. Big thanks to everyone who took home a shirt or a copy of our record. We hope to return to that venue again in the near future.

The rest of my weekend was spent being generally lazy and not watching the Superbowl. I'm really hoping to get another song finished in the next day or two and add yet another to the list of songs we're hoping to include on our next record.

Speaking of that blasted record... It looks at this point like we're going to begin Pre-Production sometime in mid-February and then begin tracking come March. Exciting. I talked to our Producer last night and everything still looks like a go at this time.

Here are a few CDs that I've been enjoying lately that I urge you to check out:

Dustin Kensrue - Please Come Home
I was never a Thrice fan, but I'm a huge fan of heart-on-your-sleeve Americana Rock N' Roll. That's just what this CD delivers - a very raw and stripped down romp through true feeling and emotion. JoAnna got me going on this CD by talking it up since she's the biggest Thrice fan....ever. After listening to some demos on MySpace, I knew that I'd give it a listen once it was out. So when I walked into the house one day and saw a copy of the record sitting on the kitchen counter, I knew I was in for an experience. I listened to almost the whole CD in one sitting and loved every second of it. If you dig Limbeck, you'll dig this guys style too.

Cobra Starship - When the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets
Ah yes.... the Starship. This record is just fun. I'm normally not into dancy rock that has more beats than lyrical meaning, but I'd enjoyed Midtown back in the day and was eager to see what Gabe Saporta had been cooking up since the bands demise. I like this dude a lot. Based on the things I'd read about this record, he approaches music very much like I do and knows how to write a fantastic hook. This record just blazes by with track after catchy track. It is over relatively quickly, but just keep it on repeat and enjoy your day. Lots of great guest stars and some uber-infectious tracks make this album one that's staying in regular rotation on the iPod lately. I am looking for good records with substance though, so if you know of any.... toss some names my way.

We have the next two weeks to rest up and tie up some loose ends, finish a couple songs if possible, and then it's SPRING MUSIC FEST!!

We'll see you there!

Gnus.

2007-01-29T13:32:00.000-05:00

What's new?

Well, let me tell you.... not a whole lot.
We did some show shifting in the last week. We cancelled our show for February 10th at K&K Concert Hall in Ocala, FL. Instead, we'll be playing in Ocala a week earlier!
Come hunt us down on Friday, February 2nd at Ocala's newest music venue called "The Capitol" which is apparently located in downtown. You know, in the nice part of town. We'll be sharing the stage with local heroes Hey Nice Guy and possibly one other band. The K&K date has been rescheduled for Friday, March 16th for the first day of our 3 day mini-tour with Along the Sidelines.

We'll have the following week off, and that's been kind of fun lately as it means more songwriting time for me.
Speaking of which, I'm on the verge of finishing yet another tune that I'm quite pleased with. I'm hoping I can finish at least two more tunes somewhere in all of this. We're supposed to start pre-production for our record soon, reworking the songs, adding parts, taking stuff out, rewriting, rearranging, etc...
No official word on when that starts, but hopefully in the near future.
Our shows have been a bit more sparse as of late and everyone is generally pretty busy. JoAnna recently succumbed to a torn muscle in her side, so she'll be taking things easy for a while and probably won't rock out quite as much at upcoming shows. We also haven't booked anything past March since we expect to be doing a lot of writing and recording. Don't worry, once everything is settled with the record, we'll be back in full swing.

I finally broke down and bought a GPS system for our van. Getting lost was getting old really quick. Also, since JoAnna and myself are pretty directionally challenged, Bert usually ends up driving everywhere and that's not fair to him. As of late, he and I had been splitting the driving duties, so this should make things easier for everyone to take the wheel once in a while. Perfect timing for us to get this thing since we're heading back to Ocala soon and that place is harder to navigate than the maze in that 80's movie Labyrinth. Everyime we drive through that town, I get scared that we could get so lost that we end up running into the Goblin King (aka David Bowie).

Lastly, the lineup for Spring Music Fest 2007 is slowly coming together, so hopefully everything will be killer. At this point, I know that we're playing, and I know that Pathway to Providence is also scheduled in, so it's a great start with more to follow, I'm sure.

Overall, we're all getting antsy about starting our record. We have so much that we want to accomplish with it, and I have no doubts that it could take 10 years to put together if we let it, but hopefully a month or two will be enough. I really want to share all the details and let you hear all the songs, but we have to keep some secrets, y'know?
Plus, if I lay out the master plan here, then karma will come around and change everything. I don't want that.

Moral of the story? Come see us play on Friday.
Shows at K&K are a lot of fun, but the place is always so hot and humid. I'm looking forward to playing in Ocala with the air conditioning on high!

100 vs. 1982

2007-01-23T10:56:00.000-05:00

Super big thank you to everyone who came out to our show at 1982 in Gainesville, FL over the weekend. We rolled into town around 6pm for our 7pm load-in, but the load-in didn't occur to closer to 8:30. While waiting, we grabbed some food from a Checker's across the street. What lousy service. We always manage to pick the worst or slowest place to eat in every town. Or maybe everywhere is just slow and uncaring nowadays. We were hassled by homeless people and then retreated back to the van for a false sense of security. There were homeless people laying in a gutter just mere feet away from us. Thank goodness for tinted windows.
The owner of the club was late getting the place up and running so a small crowd began to gather outside the doors. I was getting worried that people were going to start leaving due to the weather, but they were troopers and stuck it out. We made the rounds to say hello to the people we recognized and were happy to see that several people from our faithful fanbase in Ocala, FL made the trip out.
Overall, there were probably 100+ people in the tiny tiny venue. We were scheduled to play second and glad for it since the place was still pretty packed out at that point. Right before us, Tyler Cole from Ocala played some rockin' acoustic tunes, then we proceeded to start a 35 minute rock-a-thon and people really seemed to be enjoying themselves.
After our set our merch table was mobbed and I couldn't walk five feet without someone giving me words of encouragement. Everyone we met was very nice including the bartenders who only charge the bands $1 per drink. The rest of the night was spent watching the other bands and talking to anyone and everyone in our radius.
She's At Lizzy's followed us with some poppy acoustic numbers and then Gainesville band, The Ups played their farewell show for the mob.
Ending out the night was Along the Sidelines. It was their CD release show and singer Josh's 21st birthday, so we made sure to do things right and got loud and rowdy while they played.

Always fun meeting new people and catching up with the old. Based on the sales of our record combined with the smiles and handshakes from audience members, we're hoping to return to Gainesville and 1982 in the near future.

In other news, we were invited to play at this year's Spring Music Fest, held at the Port Orange Amphitheater. When we played this event last year we made a ton of fans and were glad to be invited back for another round. That's taking place on Saturday, February 24th, so mark your calendars.

We have a week or two off til our next show, so I'll be spending that time working on new material and reworking old stuff.

Thanks again to everyone who came out the show, we hope to see you at the next.

Movies and the hateful things I'm going to say about them.

2007-01-19T11:16:00.000-05:00

Due to another free trial from NetFlix, I have been watching a lot of movies lately. Here's what I've seen recently, and what I thought about them....

A Scanner Darkly
From IMDB.com: "The L.A. of a not-too-distant future suffers a surge of drug abuse involving a new ultra-addictive and eventually brain-damaging substance simply named "D". Bob Arctor is an undercover narc leading a double life, dutifully reporting to his superiors while effectively having abandoned whatever normal existence he had for a "D" user/dealer career. But this schizophrenic situation and the drug-induced memory and concentration lapses put Bob under mounting stress."

If you've seen trailers of this movie, then you know right off that the artistic style in which it is done was amazing. This film stars Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. and it honestly took me the majority of the movie to figure out exactly what it was about. It would have paid off for me to read that synopsis posted above. I was so amazed by the graphics that I saw right through the weak plot and apathetic acting. Just as the movie started to get interesting, the credits began to roll. All that build up for the big twist that actually gets me to be interested, only to find out that the movie was over. I hate when that happens. However, I'd love to see the same computerized mapping used over a good Scif-Fi or Comic Book movie that would really utilize it to it's full advantage. I feel like it was wasted on this film.

2 stars out of 5.

Employee of the Month
From IMDB.com: "At Super Club, a large warehouse store, the employees strive to obtain the "Employee of the Month" award with the benefits of having their picture featured on the wall of fame in the staff lounge. Zack Bradley, a box boy, and Vince Downey, a cashier, are two competitive employees. Vince has become head cashier of the store and has won seventeen consecutive "Employee of the Month" awards. Zack, has not won any "Employee of the Month" awards and has no desire to except when Amy, a new cashier who only dates "Employee of the Month" winners, transfers to the store. Zack and Vince compete to get Amy's attention through competition and courtship."

Dear Dane Cook,
Thank you for making this movie watchable.

Dear Dax Shepard,
You were not believeable as a ladies man.

Dear Jessica Simpson,
Why did you always look so nervous on camera, especially when you never delievered more than two words in one scene?

Dear Wes,
Why did you watch this?

But really, it wasn't all terrible and had a few hilarious moments in the first half of the movie only to become completely snorrific towards the end. Worth a rental, but don't expect Dane to leave you in stitches like his standup comedy does.

2 stars out of 5.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend
From IMDB.com: "When Matt Saunders meets Jenny Johnson, he thinks he's found the perfect girl. However, he decides to break things off with her when she becomes too needy, controlling, and jealous. Jenny doesn't take it well and decides to get back at him by using her superpowers, as it turns out Jenny is a superhero named G-Girl. Meanwhile, Matt and his co-worker, Hannah start to have a romance with each other which sends Jenny over the edge."

I'm a fan of Uma Thurman and whichever Wilson brother was in this movie, but this was definitely an underplay of their talents. It was an enjoyable 90 minutes of laughter and cheese-tastic situations, so that made it worth my while. I didn't hate it. Didn't love it. But it was funny. Plus there's a great scene where Uma Thurman's character throws a shark through a window and it chases the Wilson brother around an apartment eating and destroying everything in it's way. That.... was awesome.

3.5 stars out of 5.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2
From IMDB.com: "Captain Jack Sparrow's life is in debt to the legendary Davey Jones, Captain of the Flying Dutchmen who are supernatural warriors out for blood. Facing possible eternal damnation, Jack must save himself with help from Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, who must come to Jack's aid."

If you saw the first Pirates movie and enjoyed it, then you owe it to yourself to see this one as well. A fast-paced swashbuckling adventure that serves as a bridge between the first film and the upcoming third film. Be prepared for a lot of cliffhangers. Some of the situations that characters got themselves into blew my mind. I'd love to meet the person who initially had the ideas.
Great movie all around.

4.5 stars out of 5.

The Covenant
From IMDB.com: "Four young men who belong to a supernatural legacy are charged with stopping the evil force they released into the world years earlier. Another great force they must contend with is the jealousy and suspicion that threatens to tear them apart."

Mindless action? Check.
Weak plot? Check.
Crazy special effects? Check.
It's guys who can do anything battling each other for all the power in the world.
Enough said, I think.

2 stars out of 5.

Lady in the Water
From IMDB.com: "Apartment building superintendent Cleveland Heep rescues what he thinks is a young woman from the pool he maintains. When he discovers that she is actually a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the journey back to her home, he works with his tenants to protect his new friend from the creatures that are determined to keep her in our world."

I'm a fan of director M. Night Shyamalan's work. I thought Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense, and Signs were all great but was a little let down by his previous film, The Village. I went into this movie not knowing much about it, other than that it was a fairy tale he wrote for his children, but interested to see what he was going to bring to the table this time around. I enjoyed the story of the movie and even though there seemed to be a lot of characters, everything that they contributed to the movie helped move the story along. Sometimes it was a little difficult to figure out exactly what was happening, but once the story got underway I was sucked in. Actor Paul Giamatti (who I think is great in general) did great in this film and played his part very well. Like I said, there are other characters who make the movie interesting such as a disgruntled movie critic and a guy who only works out the right side of his body.
The biggest disappointment of this movie is that the "Shyamalan Twist" that I have come to enjoy from his other movies seems absent from this one. I mean, there's kind of a twist, but nothing as mind-blowing as some of his past films. If you're a fan of his previous work, then check this one out. We'll see what his next movie brings.

4 stars out of 5.

Superman Returns
From IMDB.com: "After a long visit to the lost remains of the planet Krypton, the Man of Steel returns to earth to become the peoples savior once again and reclaim the love of Lois Lane."

First off, this movie is a solid 2.5 hours, so if you're going to watch it, be prepared to sit for a while. It's a slow start, but eventually sucked me in. This film picks up right where the last left off, and newcomer Brandon Routh is the perfect Superman. Not only does he look very much like Christopher Reeve, but he LOOKS like Superman would. When he does scenes as nerdy Clark Kent, he looks completely different. Director Bryan Singer did an all around great job. Kevin Spacey makes an appearance as crazy man Lex Luthor who once again decides to take over the world, and Superman must stop him all while saving Lois Lane (a lackluster performance from Kate Boswworth) from every bad situation she gets into (and she gets into a LOT of rough spots). They also have a kid together which kicks the superdrama up to 10.
The other thing to mention about this flick is that the computer work was impeccable. It's nearly impossible to tell when they are using the actors versus computer versions of themselves and everytime Superman flies somewhere and does something amazing, it looks beautiful. They definitely left room for a sequel and I'm really hoping we'll see one in the next few years.

4.5 stars out of 5.

There are my reviews.
Go read a book.

Old Town, New Place.

2007-01-15T13:04:00.000-05:00

On Friday we made the trek down to Lakeland, FL to play at a brand new venue for us called Lillian's. The show kind of fell apart and the band we thought we would be sharing the stage with had broken up a week or so prior to the show so they filled out the gig with a few last minute replacements. The crowd was sparse but the venue was great and the stage was one of the best that we've played. Plenty of room for all our gear, plenty of room to move around, and a nice sidestage to stash gear before, during and after our performance.
We're definitely looking forward to going back there as part of a bigger show.
After soundcheck we wandered the town trying to find food and ended up settling on a sports bar. I'm not the biggest fan of bar food so I always look for a safe bet on the menu.
One turkey sandwich and 2 Jukebox songs later, we were headed back to the venue.

We played a forty minute set, jamming out 10 songs most of which was newer material, and we even included The Sick Charade which we've played live a few times (and is one of our new favorite songs) and Say Hello which is an upbeat Moog-powered pop song. I'll admit to messing that one up a bit here and there.
Post load-out, I crashed in the van for a quick nap while the next band, the Suicide Clubs played. We hung out with them a bit while the last acoustic performer played then went on a mission to collect our money.
After collecting what was due us, we decided to head back.
I steered Van Diesel back towards Orlando where we arrived home around 2:30am and went to sleep. We're so rock and roll. We go to sleep.

This Saturday we'll be playing up in Gainesville, FL at 1982. This is shaping up to be a great show. Hopefully everything goes smoothly.

For the Record

2007-01-10T14:08:00.000-05:00

Last night we had a fantastic meeting concerning our next record. We had all kinds of doubts and worries about the project and most of them were put to rest just from talking about what we wanted to accomplish. We're very excited about the whole thing and hope everything will happen according to plan.

We're currently aiming for a March start and still writing songs as fast as humanly possible.

Places to go, people to see.

2007-01-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

We have our first show of the new year this coming Friday at Lillian's in Lakeland, FL. This will be our first time playing at a real venue in that town. In the past we'd only played at a place called Winner's Circle which is a sports bar. There comes a time in every bands life when they need to pull away from playing places which are a bar first and a venue second, which is why this year we are becoming even more selective about the places we play, targeting actual venues or just solid lineups.
We've also tacked on a handful of dates for March in which we'll be doing a small 3 day tour with our buddy Josh Mccabe of Along the Sidelines out of Gainesville, FL. We'll be hitting up Vito's Rock N' Roll Pizzeria in Valdosta, Georgia along with Central Station in Orlando, and ending at the Seabreeze Coffee Connection in Daytona Beach. Should be a lot of fun. We're also playing Josh's CD release show on January 20th at 1982 in Gainesville, and next month he'll be joining us when we return to the K&K Concert Hall in Ocala, FL.

At some point this week we plan to have some meetings concerning our next record. We have a producer/engineer in mind and just have to work out the logistics of the record deciding what we want to accomplish, what songs we will record, and whether it will be another EP or a full length record. We're hoping to start recording by March, so crunch time will soon be upon us.

Looking at the shows we already have booked for 2007, I'm excited about each one of them. We're getting to play at a whole bunch of new venues and getting to play for new people which is always exciting. I just hope all of our travel time pays off. Van Diesel will be getting quite a workout in the coming months.

Happy Birthday!

2007-01-05T10:43:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to our very own Doug McPherson, who turns 24 years old today.

Pic-A-Tures

2007-01-04T16:41:00.000-05:00

Since I took a week off from even touching this thing, I feel obligated to write a bunch of filler in an attempt to give you something interesting to read.

Practice resumes tonight on the new material.
Two more songs to nail down and we might start playing them live. Who knows.
I've also begun work on some new material. Very exciting when that happens.
I hope to pump out a few more songs in the very near future.
I had several ideas I thought were fantastic and then decided they were terrible.
I keep forgetting that the new songs have to be better than everything off "Sarcasm."
Yes, even I have standards now.

Here's more pics from the show we did in Ohio.
They kind of look like the last ones.
C'mon, there's only so much you can do when photographing three people sitting in a line.

Having a good 2007?
I knew you were.

Vacation: Over

2007-01-02T11:35:00.000-05:00

What we have here is the year 2007.
What will ENY be doing during these upcoming 365 days of the new year?
For one, we're going to do everything in our power to record and release a new CD. It's that time. Lately, while playing live, we've been totally skipping over the old songs and are playing 80% new material and we're happy with how those songs sound.
We're also going to try to hit up some new markets and revisit some old. Ocala friends, we'll be back soon but we're also going to attempt to make new friends in towns like Jacksonville and hopefully even return to the Tampa area. For the most part, we are concerning ourselves with the Orlando area trying to build some buzz.
We got to play a great New Year's Eve show at Back Booth with a lot of great bands. We also made it a point to get our CD into the hands of as many people as we could. It was our Christmas present to the crowd.

I spent a week in Ohio. A week without snow for once. Bert, Doug, and myself even got together and played an acoustic show at an Ohio coffee house. It was something we had talked about doing for a while but never got around to, so this year Bert made some calls a few days before we left and the coffee house agreed to host the event. Good thing too since we completely packed the place with friends and family. We got a small article in the local newspaper and apparently word got around. I saw people that I hadn't seen in five years, so it was a little bit show, a little bit reunion, but fun all the way around.
Our first out of state show and JoAnna was in California. She missed a good one.

Happy 2007.

Top 5 Albums of 2006

2006-12-22T10:25:00.000-05:00

This is is an annual event for us where each of the band members deliver their Top 5 Favorite Albums of the Year to you, the reader.
As always, the disclaimer still stands: These are our favorite records of the year, we are not saying that they were the best. Otherwise you, the reader, would probably disagree.

So without further ado, I bring you the tunes that we rocked out to in '06.
Feel free to post your favorites in the comments.

JoAnna's Top 5 Records of 2006:

5. Saves The Day - Sound the Alarm
After I finish my daily dose of metal, I manage to put in Sound the Alarm, Saves The Day's newest release. Again, this album took some getting used to, but I began to get used to it after five or six spins. This album strayed from the path that Stay What You Are and In Reverie led, but rather went back to the styles of Through Being Cool. Sweetness.

4. Bury Your Dead - Beauty and the Breakdown
I recently started listening to these guys and I wasn't too fond of them at first. I gave the album a second chance and realized they had an awesome keyboard as well. It's like Bleeding Through meets Hatebreed. Two very good bands that should mate and have babies. Babies that rock!

3. Bleeding Through - The Truth
This album came out at the beginning of the year and honestly, I don't listen to it as much as I used to, but one look at the "most plays" list on iTunes and it's easy to see that I listened to this way more than anything else this year. Again, adrenaline pumping, fast paced... yes, I love it. Seeing them play at Hard Rock Live with Every Time I Die was the icing on the cake. After seeing the keyboardist (FEMALE!) rock on stage, I gave them extra credit, just because (What? Who's biased?).

2. Thursday - A City by the Light Divided
Okay. So everyone hates this album because of the quality of the recording. GET PAST THAT. If you can actually listen to the tracks as they were intended, you'll hear beautiful songs and gut-wrenching tracks that make me listen to it over and over. Lovesong Writer is an extremely slow song that is way out of my style, but I am entranced by it. Yes, this album was recorded "live," but it's one more step in the right direction for the band.

1. Unearth - III: In the Eyes of Fire
Oh. My. Goodness. This album kicks ass. Like, OMFGROLFAACD, aka - Oh My F**cking Goodness Rock Out Loud Amazing CD. From track one to the instrumental ending of Big Bear & the Hour of Chaos, everything blows me away. I don't care that I can't understand a word he's saying, the raw feeling of the album is nothing less than incredible. If you can make my adrenaline jump that high, you've done your job well as a metal band. Perfect 10.

Honorable Mention:
Streetlight Manifesto - Keasbey Nights, Vol. 2

Doug's Top 5 Records of 2006:

5. Good Clean Fun - Between Christian Rock and A Hardplace
This is how melodic hardcore is supposed to be. Loud, fast, catchy and funny are just a few of the words that could be used to describe this album, and all of them would fit. This is one of those bands that will forever refuse to fall in line with whatever subgenre is hip these days and will always stick to their guns. I get the impression that I will never be surprised by what I hear from a Good Clean Fun record.

4. Rocky Votolato - Makers
It had been a while since I'd heard a great "one guy and an acoustic guitar" type record. This is the next great one. This isn't Rocky's first album but it's the first one where his potential really becomes fulfilled. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he follows this one up because it's gonna be hard.

3. Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
One of the few albums I've ever heard where it's the lyrics and not so much the songs that make it great. Brand New has reinvented themselves in between every single album they've released and their albums always challenge the listener. Very few people can honestly say they enjoyed either Deja Entendu or this album on the first listen, but they become great. Keep listening if you gave up on this record you will be rewarded.

2. The Format - Dog Problems
A great example of a band evolving without forgetting why they became popular in the first place. Catchy songs. This band got more mature on this release and this sounds like the album they wished "Interventions and Lullabies" could have been if it weren't for major label interference. The title track might be the song of the year in my opinion, but we'll see I haven't made that list yet.

1. Blackpool Lights - This Town's Disaster
The Get Up Kids were great, everybody knows that, but Jim Suptic's first post-GUK project is better than all but one Get Up Kids album. This album has some of the greatest pop songs I've ever heard. Didn't leave my CD player for at least 4 months and that's good enough for number 1

Honorable Mention:
I discovered the Smoking Popes recently and I would encourage everyone to go find a copy of their 1997 album "Destination Failure". The Popes have recently reunited and I can't wait to hear what they come up with next.

Bert's Top 5 Records of 2006:

5. Saosin - Saosin
4. Billy Talent - Billy Talent II
3. Rory - We're Up to No Good, We're Up to No Good
2. Unearth - III: In The Eyes OF Fire
1. Breaking Benjamin - Phobia

Wes's Top 5 Records of 2006

I'll be completely honest. I spent most of the year listening to music from 2005. There were only a handful of records for 2006 that blew me away and commanded my attention, so I guess this would be them.

5. Taking Back Sunday - Louder Now
I had a difficult time deciding who would take the number 5 spot on my countdown. As you can see, Taking Back Sunday won out. I owe a lot to TBS. As with most people in my age group, they were one of the bands to really expose a lot of listeners to the current scene and I'm so glad they are where they are in their careers. When I first heard their debut, Tell All Your Friends, I was just beginning to write songs and by listening to that record it gave me an idea of how meaningful lyrics could still be over face-melting guitar riffs. When half the band left to form Straylight Run, I really didn't want anything to do with them anymore. The second album Where You Want to Be really kind of dragged and seemed like a band releasing their first record all over again. At one point I read an article on the band in Alternative Press and kind of gained a new found respect for them. There was an interview with Adam Lazarra and he talked about the situation of two band members leaving and how they really did throw together their second record so they wouldn't be dropped by their label. I was very hesitant to even listen to Louder Now but when they released the single "MakeDamnSure" I really felt it was a throwback to their original style and I was welcoming to the new members once I realized that their new singer/guitarist Fred was a heck of a writer. I can listen to this record start to finish without skipping a track. I've never had the pleasure of seeing these guys live, but I have seen a ton of live video on the internet and they are the rockstars for this generation. I hope they're still releasing records in ten years.
Standout tracks include: Liar (It Takes One to Know One) / Twenty Twenty Surgery / Error Operator

4. Action Action - An Army of Shapes Between Wars
I was really looking forward to this record from the second I heard the release date. Action Action is definitely one of those bands that has their own sound. There's really no one who sounds like them, regardless of what Victory Records tells you on their stickers. Sometimes their songs are catchy as hell, other times the songs are just noise, but regardless of what sound they happen to be recording, they do it well. This record was released back in January and the fact that it is still in constant rotation on my iPod speaks volumes of it's quality. I've learned a lot from their music that I would love to incorporate into our own. Plus I'm just a sucker for bands who do cool things with vintage synthesizers. Also, I read that they even built some synths and guitar pedals of their own for use on this album. That's just freakin' sweet. As with both CD's from this band, they flow very well and segue amazingly from song to song with short poppy electronic interludes. Some people don't like Mark Kluepfel's voice, but I find it very haunting which matches the music and lyrical content nicely. People who have reviewed "An Army..." had a blast giving this record a 1 Star review, but I give it a 5. For me, great records bookmark a certain time in your life and whenever you listen to that album you are transported back to exactly where you were when you first listened to it and it brings back all kinds of emotions and memories. This is one CD that will take my mind on quite a trip if I let it. Apparently I'm sentimental after all. Who knew?
Standout tracks include: A Tornado; An Owl / The Game / 120 Ways To Kill You: An Illustrated Children’s Book

3. Inkwell - These Stars Are Monsters
Inkwell rose from the ashes of My Hotel Year, one of the best local and live bands I have had the pleasure of seeing. After they went on one of those Hip in '06 "indefinite hiatus" breaks, this project popped up a few months later with their first disc "Chaos Reveals Rhyme", but "These Stars..." went above and beyond that disc in every way possible. The songs themselves go everywhere but where you expect and you can hear the passion in singer Travis Adam's voice burning in every line of every song. Seeing them live was amazing. I saw them in a tiny little venue and yet felt like I was at an arena rock show. But back to the record, it's awesome to see a band who's not trying to follow any trends, but instead blazing their own sonic path through the local scene. They were quickly picked up by local label 111 Records and soon after, hopped on tour with Mae. There's a reason that they rose to the top so quickly. Listen, and you'll see why. There are definite Death Cab for Cutie comparisons to be made, but the two brains behind Inkwell know how to craft a pop song in true indie rock fashion. You'll go start to finish, not skipping a song, and hit the Play button again once the disc has ended. Inkwell has solidified themselves as the best that Orlando currently has to offer.
Standout tracks include: Just Take the Monkey and Leave / No You Drop It / These Stars Are Monsters

2. +44 - When Your Heart Stops Beating
This dark horse was released in mid-November and solidified itself at the number two spot simply because I listened to it non-stop at work for about 2 weeks straight. Not only did it drive my co-workers crazy, but the songs embedded themselves in my brain and I think it's some of the catchiest songwriting that I heard this year. Every song on this CD with the exception of two could be hit singles. Now THAT'S how you write a record. My only complaint is that it's over too quickly. I told myself that I wouldn't count any records released in November/December in this countdown, but this one is too good not to. Mark Hoppus, you are the man, and this showed me where the real talent was within Blink-182.
As a sidenote: Sorry Mr. Delonge, your Angels & Airwaves record was painful for me to listen to and I would like a refund.
If this is only the first record for +44, then I cannot wait to hear what happens in the future.
Standout tracks include: When Your Heart Stops Beating / Little Death / Make You Smile

1. The Progress - Merit
I don't know what I can say about this band that I haven't already said 8 bazillion times. So I'll say it again. These are some of the nicest and most talented individuals that I have had the privilege of listening to, hanging out with, and sharing the stage with. I picked up this record, hit the play button, and never looked back. I wouldn't dream of skipping a single song on this release as I would only be doing myself a disservice. Once again, my only complaint here is that it's over so quickly. Some songs barely clock in at over two minutes, but they do what they do, and they do it quite well. If I had to choose a record as my "Soundtrack to 2006" then this is it.
The sound quality is impeccable, the call-and-response vocals are spot on, and I think both Mike McNelis and Evan Weiss have very original sounding voices and are easy to listen to. Another major highlight is that the theme for the record is very easily overlooked. You just expect bands nowadays to write about broken hearts and impossible love, but this record is all about friends. I'd give anything to find out the secret to their songwriting, but until I do, I'll just shut up and keep listening. They recommend you listen with headphones.
Standout tracks include: Nightlife: Tornado Alley / Paper And Ink / Merit

Honorable Mention:
My choice for honorable mention is the band Say Anything with their disc ...is a Real Boy. Sometimes in life a record comes into your ears right when you need it most. This record taught me a lot about myself and music in general. I highly recommend giving it a listen if for some odd reason you have not, and please go see them live if you can since they definitely put on the best live show that I saw in 2006. I'd love to tell you some standout tracks from this record, but just listen start to finish and you'll hear them.

That's it for our end of the year round-up. Be sure to check out our individual MySpace pages for additional Top 5's, Top 10's, and general randomness about the year 2006 in music.

It's vacation time for us, but stay tuned as we may have interesting stories from our Holiday destinations.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Return of the King...er... ENY

2006-12-20T10:38:00.000-05:00

Right, so we played a show this past weekend. Our first show in almost six weeks. Were we a little rusty? Maybe, but we did a ton of practicing over our break and things sounded good. It was one of those nights where the sound was great both on stage and in the crowd. We were the opening act at Back Booth, supporting Auto! Automatic!!, Inkwell, and History.
First off, I have to admit that this show almost didn't happen for us. Doug and JoAnna were both under the weather and JoAnna was slowly getting worse as the day went on. By the time we were loading up the van to head into downtown, she was on her hands and knees in the yard unloading her lunch onto the grass. Sorry JoAnna... hope that's not embarassing for you.

We started off the night around 9:30 to a reasonably packed house. We had planned for nine songs but only managed to squeeze in eight. We made that difficult decision of not playing Girl Like Her. That's always scary not playing that song since it usually is the deciding factor on how many CDs we sell in a night. Somehow we only managed to play three songs from "Sarcasm" and instead decided to focus on jamming out our newer, stronger material. We even debuted a brand new song called The Sick Charade and honestly, it was probably one of the best songs in our set. Even with JoAnna barely able to stand, so made it through the entire set without missing too many beats. She's such a trooper.

Auto! Automatic!!, from Tampa, were up second and played some cool instrumental songs. I'm usually not into that type of thing, but they had song structures that were like normal songs, and you never really noticed that no one ever really sang. I must say that they were really nice dudes. Really nice dudes who love to party, apparently. They had never played the Back Booth before so they were all walking around with big smiles on their faces. Their drummer talked to me forever and updated me on all the cool places to play in Tampa and Ybor. Once we were finished playing he caught me at the bar and was telling me how much we reminded him of Piebald. That was probably the best compliment I received on our music all night.

Inkwell was set to play third and as always, decided to bring 600 different intruments to the stage. They had 2 drum kits, many many guitars, a keyboard and an instrument that may or may not have been a farfisa. They rocked out a great collection of new and old songs and the crowd went nuts. It's always so much fun seeing those guys live. They just get on stage and make noise and the crowd just eats it up.

History played last. What a band. These guys and girls are definitely doing their own thing. They also have a Moog player and a gal playing another synth and manage to stick lots of crazy sounds into their songs without sounding cluttered. They're all very nice people as well and we had blast hanging out with them throughout the night.

Overall, we met a ton of great people and heard a lot of great music. Thankfully JoAnna pulled through and is getting better, and I'm currently the ill one. Thanks to anyone who came out to the show, hopefully we'll be back at Back Booth for their New Year's Eve show and rock the place all over again.

On Saturday we all jump on planes and head our separate ways for the Holidays and then we come back, have less than 24 hours to practice and then get our butts to the next show. Good times all around.

Lastly, my next entry here WILL have our Top 5 end of the year lists. So tune in to see what the members of ENY have been rocking out to as of late.

Cheers!

I almost stepped on her!

2006-12-12T20:40:00.000-05:00

Why do things always get so crazy in December?
It's coming down to the end of the year and everyone has ten million things to think about and process within their brains.
Did I get all my holiday shopping done?
Did I forget anyone?
Do I still have time to book a flight to Antarctica... er, Ohio?
How long will I be gone?
Do I want to be gone that long?
How many ENY shirts do I have to take with me?

On top of all that I'm trying to get our show itinerary in place for the new year. As far as that goes, things are going very smoothly. We'll be playing some great shows with a few more to be added to the calendar in the coming days.

Last night we hit the streets of Orlando to promote our show on Saturday. We headed to The Social for the Kiteline CD release show. As we got there, some band with the word "King" in their name was mid-way through their set. We worked the room a bit trying to find both targets of our flyer assault and familiar faces. I saw some guys from Pop.Culture.Clash. and another band I can't remember the name of. Wow, why did I even bother mentioning that?
Orlando favorite Cori Yarckin played second. She's so short that I almost stepped on her as she was making her way to the stage. She's one of those pop girls with a backing band. As far as I could tell she wanted the crowd to focus more on her abs than on her voice.
Between the Trees rocked the house once she had finished and played a really solid set. When we played with them a few months back I was so concerned with talking to people and packing up gear that I only half-watched their set. This time they got my full attention and I was pretty impressed. We got to chat with them after they played and it was a fun little reunion.
Kiteline was up after that and did a half hour or so of tunes from their new EP which came free with admission. I'll get around to checking that out eventually, but I grabbed a copy of the Between the Trees record at the show and I've been spinning that instead.
After that we ran down to Back Booth and unloaded a few flyers and then dragged Doug out of the venue so that we could leave even though there were two more bands to play and it was already midnight. He was bitter and drunk, but we're pretty used to that by now.

Show. Saturday. Soon.

Eastern or European?

2006-12-11T10:58:00.000-05:00

I've been waiting for a chance to get back at this thing and I finally found my opportunity. The last week was full of band practices, holiday shopping, and sitting around hitting the Refresh button on our PureVolume page. Speaking of PureVolume, our reign has now ended but I think we picked up a few new fans and got a lot of great feedback. We'll keep an eye on the numbers to see if our promotion campaign was worth it or not.

Also, last week when I was out picking up the new Gwen Stefani record, The Sweet Escape for Amanda (that record is halfway decent. If you were a fan of the first, pick this one up too, but don't expect to be blown away. New No Doubt record, please?) I happened to pick up another record on a whim. I was walking the aisles of Best Buy waiting for something to grab at my attention. Finally something did. So not knowing much about the recording and being familiar with only one song, I grabbed the FBR release The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch by Cute is What We Aim For.
Did I get the title of the record right? I only read it in the store.
Since I've had a few days to digest this album I quickly developed a love/hate relationship with it. First off, their singer has a halfway decent voice and is able to hit a lot of good notes. The music is very simple, but everything is very catchy. Each tune got stuck in my head after I heard it.
HOWEVER.... the reason that I cannot fully appreciate this CD and quote it on my MySpace and AIM Away Messages is because I cannot in any way, shape, or form relate to what is being said in the lyrics. I completely understand why this one was such a hit with the kids, because everything is seemingly written to cater to 16 year old girls. All the songs are about things that I stopped dealing with about 6 years ago. A solid release, perhaps next time they'll have something worthwhile to say. Quite forgettable though, because as soon as I remembered that I had the new Piebald record, that re-took over the assault on my eardrums.

Also, I saw the movie Lucky Number Sleven. I remember this being in theaters but really had no idea what it was about. Amanda and I just kinda went for it (since it was the only movie on the list we were familiar with) and I'm glad I watched it because it's possibly the best movie I saw all year.

Okay, I got all the news out of my system. Tonight the band is heading down to The Social to see Between the Trees and Kiteline play. We'll be handing out flyers for our gig this Saturday, so you might catch us wandering the streets if you happen to be out and about tonight.

Have a great week. I'll say more when I know more.

Top 5's of 2007 coming soon. Stay tuned.

PureVolume Power!

2006-12-05T11:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday began our reign of terror on the PureVolume.com front page. We actually managed to nab very close to 5,000 plays in our first 24 hours on there. We smoked the rest of the bands holding Promo Spots (with the exception of the Major Label acts) by about 2,500 plays. It was enough to kick us up to #2 on the overall unsigned charts and #1 on the Powerpop and Emo charts. Awesome.
We had done this same promotion technique a year ago and didn't quite recieve the response we had hoped for. We only had our EP available for listen, so this time we decided to send our song Lifeless into battle in order to rock the listener and hopefully get it stuck in their head so they would come back for more. I guess we'll see how everything goes, but we're hoping to widen our fanbase a bit and gauge how people are reacting to some of our newer music.

Also, we've added another show! This one is on January 20th in Gainesville, FL where we'll be opening for our buddy Josh Mccabe at the 1982 Bar. His music project, Along the Sidelines, is releasing a CD and we get to party with them! If you're in the area, stop on by.

Guess that's it for now, keep listening and we'll keep creating.

Killer Show!

2006-12-02T14:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I recieved some of the best news we've had...well...ever.

Over the last couple Blog entries here I've spoken about our upcoming show on Saturday, December 16th at Back Booth in Orlando, FL.
We finally got the full line up and let me tell you, it's breathtaking.

Not only will we be taking the stage at some point in the evening, but joining us will be Tampa's Auto! Automatic!! and fellow Orlando Moog-rockers History, not to mention 111 Records Artist Inkwell who recently did a tour with the band Mae. This is going to be a killer show and you should not miss it for the world.

Sometimes you just get lucky.

Their misery is my amusement.

2006-12-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

Today I'd like to share with you one of the perks of my job.

Often times, in order to get away from staring at a computer I step outside to enjoy the sights. I live in Florida where it's beautiful almost year round, so why not enjoy it?

Right above the office where I work is a therapist that does counseling sessions for couples. Often times I get to see them arrive for their appointments and they never fail to amuse me. The couples show up, meet by the staircase leading to the counselor's office and then proceed to head in for their session. Most times the couples arrive in separate cars and spend five minutes arguing with each other before heading in, sometimes they rendezvous in complete silence. For these moments I am either forced to witness their bouts of anger and get an understanding of just why they need this therapy, but when they are silent I take the liberty of making up my own assumptions about them and their current situation.
If I happen to witness a really good argument, I will make a mental note to be back outside an hour later to witness them post-counseling. I'm sick and twisted like that.

The very first couple I witnessed, Jack and Joan (the names are made up because I don't actually talk to these people), met up and Joan proceeded to yell at Jack at high volumes because the previous night he had gone to a bar after work and arrived home an hour later than usual. This lead Joan to assume that he had hooked up with approximately 18 high school cheerleaders over the course of that hour. Jack was adamant about trying to get her to calm down since they were out in public and I was standing a mere ten feet away, but that only forced Joan to continue her slander to both Jack and everyone else within a five mile radius.
I saw this couple more than anyone else. They eventually stopped showing up. I had to assume that Jack had probably taken his own life from having to deal with her.
And so it goes.

Another couple I witnessed were Rick and Robin (again, these are false names). They were a couple that arrived in silence and left in silence each taking their own vehicle to their own destinations, which I'm guessing were not the same place. This is one of those times where I had to make up a reason for them needing counseling. Since Rick was short and fat with a bad case of hair loss, I assumed that he probably wasn't hooking up with many cheerleaders these days. Robin was several years younger, stern looking, and always dressed like she was going to a funeral. Perhaps in the end, she was. From what I could gather, Robin was middle management at a semi-successful company and was weary from being passed over for every promotion. In her eyes, she would never fully succeed in the "man's world" that is software engineering. She was a feminist who owned sixteen cats and had an insatiable lust for "Cherry Garcia" ice cream. Rick was a narcoleptic hypochondriac with an insatiable lust for Big Mac's. As irony would have it, the trigger for his narcolepsy was cats.
You can just see the drama unfolding in your mind.

Sure, there have been other couples and other stories and I really wish that I had time to tell you about Sarah the vegetarian and Seth the butcher. They were a good couple.

Were.

I used a lot of quotation marks.

2006-11-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

I wonder if it bothers anyone that I change the look of this blog every few days.
I wonder if anyone who is not in Early Next Year reads this.
A guy can dream.
Regardless, I will continue to vomit randomness and useless facts onto this until someone changes the password, preventing me access.

Now that I've had over 24 hours to digest the Piebald record "Accidental Gentlemen" I will go so far as to say that it is more enjoyable, accessible, and catchier than Brand New's "Devil & God..."
Yes, I totally went there.
Congratulations Piebald, there are a whole bunch of standout tracks on this disc and the little ditty entitled "Oh, the Congestion" might just be their best song since "American Hearts." were this record released in 2006, it would go right to my Top 5 albums of the year.
Speaking of the Top 5 lists. They are coming soon. Very soon.

I really wish I had subtance here. Maybe one day I'll get all deep and talk about depressing things and post black and white photography. Until then I will continue to write about insignificant things and make fun of Doug's mother.'

Yeah, that'll work.

I used a lot of hypens.

2006-11-27T14:43:00.000-05:00

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd we're back!
Well, everyone but Bert is back. He comes in just in time for a Tuesday evening ENY rock-a-thon. That was my fancy way of saying band practice. I had a great mini-vacation in Port St. Joe, FL with Amanda. The little town is located up on the panhandle near Panama City. We spent Thanksgiving eating way too much and spent the rest of the time in the middle of nowhere being generally lazy. The beach was a convenient two blocks away, so Thanksgiving afternoon my toes were in the sand, and the sun in my eyes. It was a lot of fun, but now I'm back to reality where I have to work to make money in order to pay gobs and gobs of superfluous bills. A six hour drive there and then a 7.5 hour drive back since we had to ditch I-75 and take the backroads home from Ocala. Why do I always end up lost in Ocala? It's a curse.

Upon returning to Orlando, Doug gave me the best Christmas present a guy could ask for. Somehow he got his hands on the new Piebald record called Accidental Gentlemen which isn't due out til mid January. What a guy! I've been spinning that pretty non-stop and I'm really enjoying the new songs. They took what was great about We Are the Only Friends We Have and All Ears, All Eyes, All the Time and smooshed them together into one big super-album. Not a lot of slow stuff, everything is pretty upbeat and catchy and they even brought the piano back for a few tunes and they are some of the stand out tracks on the record. So pick that up when it gets released. Or be really nice to Doug or Myself and maybe we'll hook you up with an illegal copy. Sorry mom, I broke the law by accepting stolen music. I'm such a bad son.

Onward and upward...

Brand new Brand New.

2006-11-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was an action packed day of working 8 hours and then moving for 2 and emptying bins/bags/boxes for an additional 3. My arms feel like jelly. Maybe I'll develop some muscle. Although, that's probably about as likely to happen as Jimmy Walker becoming the next American Idol.
On the bright side of things, before jumping in the van and starting the moving process I opened the mail box to be face to face with the brand new Brand New record. Bert and I spun that in Van Diesel but mostly talked over it. Good background noise. I've listened to it all day at work today, and I thought I would take the time to review it here just in case you were thinking of picking it up.

Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
It took me a while to get into BN's first record Your Favorite Weapon. After a while I thought it was amazing. It took me a few months to get into their second major release Deja Entendu. Once I did, I thought it was absolutely phenomenal. After hearing the original demos for their new record and seeing them live just weeks before it was released, my expectations were quite high.
For right now, I can only hope that this record will eventually grow on me and change my life because as for right now I can sum up the record with one word: Eh.
I'm not going to tout this release as the greatest thing since sliced bread because in all honesty, aside from the tracks Sowing Season, Millstone, Degausser, and Archers, everything kind of drones on and seems like one song all the way through.
By all means, pick this record up. I'm sure that I will feel differently about this record in a few weeks, but for right now, I'm gonna listen to Deja.
3.5 Stars out of 5

Only a few more hours of work and then I can go eat some homecooked food and answer to no one.
Haha!

It's a cold, cold world.

2006-11-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

Doug is off to Ohio. Bert is soon to follow.

I spent my weekend helping Amanda pack for a big move across town. Actually, I was more of a supervisor in that I watched her pack while standing around making snarky comments. It's what I do. Tonight is the actual moving process.
What is up with this weather? It's FREEZING!
Florida has ruined me. I spent 19 years living in Ohio where cold was 20 degrees below zero. Now it gets to be 60 degrees out and I shiver like a lap dog. It's 59 out right now. Ridiculous. Enough weather jibba-jabba.
That was a Mr. T reference.
Generation gap?

I got to play the Nintendo Wii last night as our house-friend Jeremy managed to snag one and it was immediately plugged into Bert's big screen TV. So he, JoAnna, Bert, Amanda, and myself spent some quality time trying to Box, Bowl, and play baseball by waving our arms around like maniacs.

I've still been listening to and heavily enjoying the +44 record. I wish it were a little longer. Seems like it's over just as it begins.

We have an official "comeback" show on Saturday, December 16th at Back Booth in Orlando. As per our new policy, we were only going to take shows that matter during our hiatus. This one matters. We get to play with our friends in the band History. If you are not familiar with them, please research immediately. They have a Moog player as well. Hopefully he'll be starstruck when he sees the Little Phatty hit the stage. Of course, I'm starstruck when I see him rocking the Opus-3. Alright, enough geek talk.

I wrote a new song in my head today. I'll probably have to wait until next week to record a demo of it, but I think it's going to be a real interesting combination of music styles. I've had a lot of weird music ideas lately, so I've just decided to go for it and see how it sounds. You may or may not hear it one day.

I'm in town for another day and a half, so expect to see more droning about nothing.

Out.

This is a thing of beauty...

2006-11-17T11:01:00.000-05:00

What are you looking at in this picture?
You are looking at Moog Music's warehouse where the FINAL 35 Little Phatty Tribute Editions have just come off the assembly line.

That's it. No more of these are being made.

Do you hear that? That noise?
That's the sound of my investment climbing in price.
I'm such an elitist.

As you were.

Psh. Like you could do it any better....

2006-11-16T11:20:00.000-05:00

I go through these phases where I completely forget that the ENY blog exists. Big apologies and big thanks to Doug for keeping the scene alive!.... or something like that.

Anywho.
We've got plans. Big plans.
If all goes according to plan then you, the listener of all things ENY, will be getting a special treat. But we're awesome at making empty promises, so hate on me if this all falls through.
Since almost everyone will be out of town next week for the holidays, we're squeezing in practices whenever possible trying to shake off the rust and get these new songs up and running.
So far things are sounding pretty good. Instrumentation is almost squared away and then we begin the task of getting the vocals oh so perfect. This becomes difficult when you're not a good singer to begin with and then have to vocalize over instrumental lines that do not in any way, shape, or form go along with the beat to which you're singing. That's my beef anyway. Makes things interesting at least.

What else is happening?
Nothing of note, really.

Anyone checked out the new +44 record When Your Heart Stops Beating?
I've been iSpinning it for the last couple days. I have to look at it as a new Blink 182 record since it's the closest thing we're gonna get at this point. It's quite solid, very catchy, very surprising, and kicks the crap out of Angels and Airwaves which was possibly the biggest disappointment of 2006.
As Doug mentioned below, we'll be sure to share with you our Top 5 Albums of 2006, probably the second or third week of December. We have a lot to think about and he and I have already discussed how insanely difficult this task will be.

Moral of the story? Pick up the +44 album and enjoy it thoroughly.
Also, be sure to pick up Brand New's The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me next Tuesday. I'm hoping to a higher power that my pre-order will make it here before I leave town.
I was able to catch Brand New when they came through Orlando last week. Amanda and I went to see them at the UCF Arena. So did about 10,000 other people. We got to see the band jam out a few songs, mostly new stuff, and then hit the road before Dashboard Confessional took the stage because honestly, who gives a crap about them?
Bert and Doug got to see them at a headlining show show in Jacksonville the next day. Go check them out if/when you get the opportunity.

Why do I always walk around with so much loose change in my pocket?

More of the same

2006-11-14T12:34:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody. It's still a slow time for Early Next Year but we don't want any rumors of our demise spreading around so we'll try to keep this thing updated every few days. We are planning a couple practices this week to keep ourselves sharp on the old material and further hone our skills at playing the new stuff. This has been said before but we are all really excited about the new songs and feel they are a giant step forward, so we can't wait to play them for you as much as we know you can't wait to hear them. It's getting to be that time of the year where there seems to be a new holiday every 3 days so the 4 of us will be in and out of Florida over the next few weeks eating a ton of food, spending time with our families, and at least in the case of myself, Bert and Wes, freezing our asses off. We have declared that 2007 will be the year of ENY so please help us make it that way and join in the celebration. Until then here's some music that you should all listen to to help pass the time until we give you some new tunes.

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (yes, seriously)
Heavens - Patent Pending
Foo Fighters - Skin and Bones
Latterman - ....We Are Still Alive
Me First and The Gimme Gimmes - Love Their Country

Enjoy those and we'll see you all Early Next Year (pun definitely intended)

Doug

P.S. It's almost time for our annual year ending Top 5 albums lists, and it's been a great year for music so it's gonna be REALLY hard to do that.

I wish I could leave this blank.

2006-11-10T11:52:00.000-05:00

Here's the part where I fill you in on all the exciting stuff that happened over the last 4 days.

This concludes my journal entry.

Joking. I felt like after that last deep entry I wrote, I needed some humor on here.
Last night Doug and I took a look back at some of the demos we did in the studio and re-recorded a few guitar parts for Lifeless and Something That I Miss. Everything is sounding pretty rad. Over the weekend I think we'll be re-recording some bass lines and then hopefully mixing a few of these tracks for our own personal use. Mostly so we can listen to them on our iPods while no one else can. Muahaha!
They're good. We sound like we know what we're doing. I guess playing the songs for a year doesn't hurt either. After recording, I headed over to Amanda's place where we watched the movie Hard Candy. It was bizarre. Watch it if you're into really really REALLY messed up movies. It was almost like a second cousin to the Saw movies.
Bert bought a massive TV a couple of days ago. It's freakin' huge. Maybe he'll start locking the front door now. Oh, snap.

Keep an eye and ear out for some newer demos. Full band stuff. None of that Wes-plays-everything-over-crappy-sequenced-drums stuff. I'm telling you, we're gonna blow some minds. And if we don't blow minds, maybe we'll at least get a new fan or two.

My world of music has been interesting as of late. I've found lots of inspiration in the following albums which have been digitally spun on my iPod in recent days...
Action Action - Don't Cut Your Fabric to This Years Fashion
Moth - Provisions, Fiction, & Gear
The Progress - Merit

Speaking of The Progress, they have some interesting side projects going on lately. Check out both Emergency! and Relief.

Cheers.

Time to Face the Music

2006-11-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

I started writing this blog on July 11, 2006. I feel that I'm finally ready to post it.

I look at our debut EP "Sarcasm Is Your Friend" as a generic poppy, punky, immature stroll through adolescence, experimentation, and pure luck. I had never written a CD before. I just wrote songs. I never knew what it meant to write an album. I had no idea what I was doing. Most days I still don't, however I feel like that's been changing over the last few months. I went through a period of time where I was really pressured to write new music and have it be a certain length in a certain style, with certain instrumentation and certain melodies. This pressure wasn't from any outside sources, it was all coming from myself.

Nothing's certain in music.
I'll probably say that 100 times throughout this rant.

I have a complete understanding for why bands will release Sophomore records that their fans hate. As songwriters we figure out what we like, what we don't like, have ideas on what we'd like to try, what works, and what doesn't work.
Sometimes I want a challege, other times I know what's safe to write and I don't get in over my head. In the end, I'm writing music that I want to listen to. I don't write it for you, I write it for myself, and if you happen to dig a song here and there, then bravo. That makes me feel good about what we do and gives us some purpose.

Maybe no one will like it. Some days, that's how it looks.
Nothing is certain in music.

For a long time I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish with our next CD. Our first full length. Our first album. I've become so sick and tired of hearing records that sound exactly the same the entire way through, and I'm sick to death of listening to CD's where the songs don't have any kind of collective feel to them.
I've listened to a lot of styles of music in the past year and a half, tried a lot of new things, some which worked, others which tanked, but I feel better about what I can and cannot tackle musically.

I decided very quickly after "Sarcasm" was released that I wanted our full length to be very cohesive. I want it to have hooks and melodies you cannot get out of your head. I want it to have tracks that you'll skip over but mean the more to me persoanlly than they ever could to you.
I want it to sound more mature.
I want to write about real things.
Real people.
Real events.
I want it to be real.
I don't want to sugarcoat anything anymore.

I feel as though my writing slowed down simply because I was afraid to say what I wanted to. I don't want to offend anyone with the music. Especially people that I know. I feel as though my songs represent a moment in time and not how I feel all day every day. A song is like a picture. You look at it, get some sort of vibe and that memory comes back to you. It's like an audio photograph. Or this blog. Much the same. Just because I hated someone for a 24 hour period and wrote a song about it doesn't mean that person should be offended when they hear that song months later.
I felt like if everyone would just assure me that nothing I say would get to them, we'd be three albums deep at this point. Instead I use metaphors. Metaphors with a catchy guitar riff behind them. Everyone wins.

I once even had delusions over writing a whole concept record. I love them. I think that when done well, they are the best pieces of music. Music usually tells a story. It's insanely hard to tell a coherent story over 11 or 12 tracks, so I always give kudos to bands who manage to pull it off. Green Day, Say Anything, Armor For Sleep, and even The Early November who just recently released a massive 3 disc concept album. Bravo to them all. I tried to gear my writing towards this for the longest time, but I don't think I'm ready to tackle it, so instead I'm sticking with the theme album idea.

I have a vision. The rest of the band is cool enough to baby me and deal with my little tantrums and occasional music-nazi attitude. I don't know if they see and support what I'm trying to accomplish, or if they just deal with it and trashtalk me when I'm not around, but it's cool that they appear to be supportive of this vision of mine and give me the time I need to create it. Never do they say "Hey Wes, how come you haven't written a new song yet?"
It took me 11 months to complete 3 songs and I ended up writing the bulk of them in 5 days. Pressure apparently brings out both the best and worst in me.

For a while there I thought that maybe the well ran dry.
Now I feel like the well is backed up and overflowing into my neighbor's yard. And they're pissed.
See? I just used the well as a metaphor from the mystical place that I draw my lyrics and melodies from. I would name that place if I could. It could be a planet or something. I think it's more of a black hole. Ever try to walk around all day with a melody in your head just waiting to get home so you could play it on the guitar and then when you get to your house you have forgotten the melody? Happens all the time. That's why the "Voice Memo" function on my cell phone is jam packed with snippets of my humming, singing, and reciting various lyrics and melodies that I am desperate not to let slip away.

It's gotten to the point lately where I'm really starting to feel like I've centered myself with certain ideas that I'd like to accomplish. I have songs in mind that I know my bandmates will hear for the first time and laugh because they'll think it's a joke. I want it to be a CD that I'm proud of. That the band is proud of. I want to release a record that I look back on and love. I'll be completely honest here... I can't even listen to "Sarcasm" anymore and really don't have much desire to play more than two or three of those songs live. I've grown. I've moved on. I think all artists feel that way. You love it when it's fresh and new, but here I am now, 22 years old still singing the same old songs about stuff that was relevant to my life when I was 18 or 19. I need to talk about where I am now. What's happening now. How I feel now.

Were this blog posting a movie, this next part would be a flashback.
Of course, were this a movie, the plot development would probably be way quicker and the characters more interesting.
Oh, and I would be played by John Cusack.
Anyway...

I recently took a week long vacation off of work. It was getting to the point where I had so many music ideas in my head and little time to get them out that I thought I was going to explode. So during this week off, I hunkered down in my bedroom and recorded three new songs onto my computer. I recorded these songs as if I were in a multi-million dollar recording studio. I used all sorts of crazy effects and other bells and whistles that will never happen in a live setting, but again, I wrote the songs that I wanted to hear. I'm so proud and happy about how they turned out and it makes me excited to one day hear the finished product if/when it gets recorded in a real studio. Nothing is certain in music.

End flashback.

As things stand right now I feel that we have six really SOLID newer songs that I would be proud to put onto a record. Obviously six songs isn't enough for a full length release, but I'm confident that I can pump out an additional five or six others before the end of the year. When I played the 3 newest demos for my bandmates, they met the songs with a positive outlook and I know since then that JoAnna has been working on making the drums beats awesome, Doug has had some of the tracks on constant repeat to absorb them, and Bert has added his own style of flair to bring you some wicked basslines. I work with good people. There's definitely an advantage to living with your bandmates. You get to create music with your best friends and everyone gets to play an instrument they love to create songs that they also love. It's an amazing thing.

We've had several different opportunities pop up lately and have quite a few ideas on where we'd want to record an album, and who we might want to record it with, but due to the fact that currently we don't bring in a lot of cash means that we have absolutely no budget for recording at this time. We are lucky enough to have access to recording studios here and there and will be recording and re-recording demos as much as possible to make sure that these songs are exactly where we want them to be.
We hope to get these demos into people's ears who might be able to help us out with getting our record recorded and released, but in this industry, there is no certainty. All of our newer demos will be held tightly under wraps and if they leak then chances are I will scrap them and write new material to replace it. There will already be songs on our next record that people have been hearing live for almost a year. That's cool. If you know three of the songs already, then you've gotten a taste of where we're headed, but I want the rest to be a surprise and blow your mind.
But then again, nothing is certain in music.

We hope 2007 to be our year. Help us make it that way.

Ding Ding Dingy-Ding.

2006-11-06T13:05:00.000-05:00

So.
Saturday was our last show.
For a while anyway.
November and December are host to a bunch of holidays and since we will have bandmembers in and out of town for them we have decided to take the final two months of 2006 to hunker down and finish up our new record. I say all of this very loosely. We'll be practicing 2-3 times a week in our kitchen getting these newer songs ready for public consumption. We've been working on the newest 3 for a while, but we're trying to get them to where we feel like they are second nature. We've been playing songs from Sarcasm for almost 3 years now and they've all become embedded in our brains, so we want the new tunes to be just as solid.

I say that we're taking a break from shows, but this isn't entirely true... we're going to take any good offers that come our way and will mainly be focusing on getting the word of ENY out there both locally and nationally. We need to build some hype if we're gonna release a new record, so we have to build up some steam.

That's really all I have to say about things at the moment. Big thanks to the Ocala kids who came out and supported us on Saturday with our friends Along the Sidelines and Pop.Culture.Clash. Hopefully everyone had a good time and we'll see you again in the near future. Also a big thanks to everyone who picked up one of our newest shirts. Sport them well.

My minds kind of all over the place, so I'm gonna end this now before I get in over my head.

A more coherent blog to come, I promise.

Merch!

2006-11-04T13:49:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone!
We have some new shirts that are now available for purchase at shows and online at the Early Next Year Webstore.

Check them out and be sure to let us know what you think!

Both designs are $10 and come in sizes Youth Large, Small, Medium, Large, and XL!

Trailing Stars Tee

Berries and Cream Tee

Tonight we head up to Ocala to try to sell the majority of these shirts. Should be a great time.

Also, turns out that my sister is 27. My bad.

Studio Wrap Up.

2006-11-02T01:24:00.000-05:00

We just finished night number 2 at the studio. Since we got most of the instrumentation out of the way last night, we were all about the vocals, Moog, and weird noises for this session.

I may post one of the tunes on MySpace if it still sounds good in the morning, so keep an eye and ear out for that.

Below are a few random pics taken at the studio by one of the engineers.

Here's me thinking about a new Moog part for a song:

Actually, that's a lie, I was just kind of sitting there looking for something to do.

Instead, here's me recording that new Moog line on the Little Phatty with Bert and JoAnna cheering me on. Don't they look excited?

That was true.

We're quite photogenic. In poor lighting.
Pictures are always fun though. Sometimes words just don't do life justice.

Ocala show on Saturday.
We might have new shirts by then.
They will blow your mind.

Also, a very big Happy Birthday to my sister who turns 26 today. I think.

From the director of "Seven"

2006-11-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I went to see Saw 3 with Doug and Amanda. It was grand. If you were a fan of the first two, then please go see this one. It will answer most of your questions, thrill you with a nail-biting storyline, and even open up a whole new set of questions that will likely go unanswered.

On Saturday we played a show at a tiny bar in downtown Orlando called Central Station. Aside from Doug blowing out his amp twice during the set we played quite well and since we don't pull a crowd in Orlando, we were fortunate enough to have a Pub Crawl come through just as we took the stage, so we had lots of costumed folks dancing around us while we played. Once we finished, they all left. Sorry second band. I was sick all Friday night so I wasn't really feeling up to sticking around for the rest of the show, so once we collected our money we were out like shout.

We spent our Halloween evening in the studio where we tracked drums, bass, guitars, and synth for some updated demos of Send A Letter and The Extra Twenty tonight we go back to do vocals. Hopefully we'll have something we can toss up onto MySpace in the coming days.
It always amazes me how different a live show versus the studio are. Completely different animals. When we're playing live we're there to have a blast and just rock out, but once we're in the studio paying attention to every little detail of each song it makes you realize that maybe one song is amazingly tight, but you also start to hear little things that sound bad that you never really heard before. It's awesome that we have access to some great studios and we can get in there once every few months to see how we're progressing.
Hearing yourself play like crap is definitely the best way to tighten up as a band and force yourself to become better.
Hopefully next time we get some studio time we'll be able to record some of our new jams. I'm looking forward to seeing how those turn out once they're recorded as a full band.

More on this as it develops.

We aren't that scary but these movies are.

2006-10-31T10:23:00.000-05:00

So I'm told it's Halloween, and as you all know that's the best time of year to scare the crap out of yourself, and with my self appointed title of "Biggest horror movie fan in Early Next Year". I thought I'd use this day to recommend a few good horror movies for you to check out tonight and really whenever you wanna feel uncomfortable for an hour and a half. Some of these you've probably seen and some of them maybe you haven't, but they are all worthy because I said so.

1. High Tension - This one came out of France a couple years back and ended up doing really well enough to warrant an American release (and it must have done AMAZING over there for Americans to release something from France, but that's another blog entirely) and I'm glad they did cause I might have missed out on it otherwise. Anyway all the elements for a great horror movie are here. Slowly rising suspense that builds to the boiling point by the climax of the movie. Fantastic gore, special effects make up, and a twist ending that would make M. Night Shyamalan realize that it's just time to give up (seriously dude, you made 2 and a half good movies hang it up). So this one tops my list for this year.

2. Audition - The director of this film, Takashi Miike(whose work was considered so extreme that Showtime refused to air his installment into their Masters of Horror anthology) has been been unfortunately omitted from the flood of Asian horror to make it's way to America in the past 4 or 5 years since "The Ring" came out and made people think it was OK to make horror movies that were rated PG-13. Not that I didn't enjoy "The Ring",I did, but the movie itself better be damn good to cut gore in favor of tickets sold at the box office to 14 year olds looking for a way to spend their paper route money. Alright enough with that rant and back to the business at hand. Takashi Miike's "Audition", this is the most uncomfortable a movie has ever made me feel. If you'd like to see where Eli Roth got the inspiration to make "Hostel", look no further than "Audition", and prepare to cringe during the final act. This is probably the most famous of Miike's films but a very honorable mention also goes to his "Ichii The Killer".

3. Halloween - King of all the slasher movies, the title is Halloween, and there isn't much scarier than a mental patient with a butchers knife in a William Shatner mask. Need I say more?

On a side note the original Halloween is playing in certain theatres tonight (Oct. 31st). If you have one of these screenings in your area please do me a favor and go see it for me. Early Next Year is going to be in the studio tonight, thus rendering me unable to be there.

4. Dead End - Who says direct to DVD movies all suck? Well, normally I would and this one is definitely the exception to the rule, and it's fantastic. Here's a quick synopsis. A family is driving to grandma's house for the holidays when Dad decides to take one of his famous "shortcuts". The family ends up on a road that never ends, and strange stuff starts happening. A good portion of this movie is set inside the car which really gives sort of a claustrophobic mood to the whole thing. Scary stuff. Rent it wherever you do that sort of thing.

5. Alkaline Trio: Halloween Live at the Metro - Ok this DVD really isn't scary at all, but this is the Trio at their best in their hometown. This was filmed on Halloween of 2002 I believe so all the songs are predate the band's two most recent albums "Good Mourning" and "Crimson". So if you've gotten into the Trio more recently pick up this DVD and brush up on their early material. Great B-sides and rarities are peppered into the setlist some highlights include "Hell Yes", "Queen of Pain", "My Friend Peter", and "Private Eye". I wish they would have done "Enjoy Your Day", but that just wouldn't be appropriate for a Halloween release now would it? If you are asking yourself right now if I'm aware that I'm typing over the head of anyone who isn't an obsessed Alkaline Trio fan like myself, the answer is yes I'm aware of that, and no I don't care.

So there you have it. Five DVD's that will make for a bone chilling and face rocking Halloween. If you start finding them and watching them right now you should just be able to finish up before the clock strikes midnight.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Doug

This calls for a suckerpunch.

2006-10-24T16:57:00.000-04:00

I hate Martha Stewart. I've said time and time again that she's the only woman on planet Earth that I would punch. Maybe it's her deep voice, overly-masculine vibe, or the fact that she's famous for doing arts and crafts on TV so that lazy, obese people can sit around watching her do arts and crafts.
She did go to jail though. Funny stuff.

THIS JUST IN: I've just added someone new to the list of women I would punch.

Now, before I begin, I do realize that this blog is going to make me very unpopular with most of the universe. Punching women is not funny, and I would never actually do it, but I think it's so funny to talk about in this scenerio that I have no qualms about putting it out there. I was raised on good morals and won't ever be accused of domestic violence. (end legal red tape here)

First, allow me to introduce some interesting backstory in order to make my final punchline even funnier...

This story takes place in my car.

I've always had this thing about turning right during a red light. In most cases, it is completely legal to do so, and in Orlando it could totally get you killed, so when this situation arises I prefer to look at the situation and proceed with caution. If I do not feel safe turning right while the light is red, I will not.
For some reason though, people will waste no time in honking at you if they see the area as clear even though they are six cars back. Do not force me to go when I am not ready. I will make poor judgments and harm myself or others. Wow, it's almost like I'm a good driver, right?
A few days ago I was introduced to a new experience that I found to be equally annoying to the situation I just described. I was sitting in my tan 1994 Geo Prizm (AKA - The Broke White Boy Car) waiting in the left turn lane. While I waited, I did what I always do and gazed into my rear-view mirror in an attempt to spy on the person behind me and possibly catch them doing something silly. The woman behind me looked to be middle-aged and was perched behind the wheel of a blue Dodge Caravan. Come to think of it, she kind of looked like a soccer mom. And not the good kind of soccer mom. The kind where she's on the sidelines yelling at her child and punching out referees who make poor calls that she doesn't agree with.
I refocused on the the road, wondering why the light had not turned.

Now, once in a while with lights in Orlando, they take a while to turn green and sometimes your mind goes other places while you're waiting. If you're first in line at a light, you had better not drift off because you have about 10 people behind you just waiting to be somewhere very very important and they will honk if it takes you more than 15 seconds to begin moving. When I'm first in line at a turn light I become completely paranoid of this occuring so I focus on the light. I become one with the light. I know that as soon as I see green, I'm going for it!

At this particular light, I was first in line. FInally, after what seems like months the light turns green and I move my foot to the gas pedal. Keep in mind this light has not been green for more than a 3 seconds. Suddenly, from behind me, the soccer mom begins to lay on her horn. I glance into my rear-view mirror and watch in horror as she slams on her horn repeatedly while foaming at the mouth. Actually, she wasn't foaming at the mouth. When I say "foaming at the mouth" I really mean "being a complete bitch."

So what do I do?
I don't go anywhere.
The honking gets louder and I... well, I just don't care.
She may as well have been honking while the light was still red.
So, to the lady in the blue Dodge Caravan: Screw you.

If I see you again, I'll probably punch you.
You couldn't wait 5 seconds for me to put my foot on the gas.
You gave me 3 seconds.
And now I hate you.

Enjoy your kids soccer game. I hope his team loses tonight.

MeWithoutYou is not fun live.

2006-10-23T15:04:00.000-04:00

It takes a lot to drag me out to a show that's not ENY related.

These are my 3 stipulations for going and paying for a show:
1. There has to be at least 2 bands on the bill that I know that I will like.
2. It has to be at a good venue.
3. The door charge cannot be higher than my expectations.

On Saturday there was a show that I actually went to. A show off mass proportions that I had been eagerly anticipating since the moment tickets went on sale.
The entire band ventured out to House of Blues to partake in a show consisting of the bands Days Away, Piebald, MeWithoutYou, & Say Anything.

Sure, I was really only there to see Piebald and Say Anything, but I figured I'd give the other bands a chance. I'd never heard of Days Away and found them to be very forgettable. They played a quick 20 minute or so set and took off so that Piebald could play and so that Wes would be happy.

Piebald was up second but only had 30 minutes to control the stage because MeWithoutYou was coming up after them to put everyone to sleep. I'd never seen Piebald live before so this was a fun experience for me. They had fantastic energy and sounded really solid. A good mix of old and new songs, drawing mostly from "We Are the Only Friends..." and "All Ears, All Eyes...." they even tossed in "Grace Kelly With Wings" and their newest tune "Getting Mugged and Loving it."
They pretty much played everything I expected and it was a great time. They also had the best merch of the night. Myself, Doug, and JoAnna all walked away with something from their table. They need to come back to FL more often. Glad that they made it onto this tour. They deserve big things.

MeWithoutYou was up next and made noise. I don't get the band or their music and I was a little ticked that they got to play longer than the 'Bald. I spent the majority of their set outside with Doug making fun of them. I'm such a terrible person. Actually, no I'm not. How can I be expected to tolerate nine minute long songs with each consisting of a drum circle midway through each tune? Ugh.

Say Anything was the obvious headliner and played for nearly an hour and a half. They managed to play every single song I've ever heard by them with the exception of about two. It was awesome. The band was super tight and barely missed a note. The crowd was rowdy and almost everyone was singing along with each word. I didn't realize just how popular that band was. Crazy that they released their record 2 years ago and are just now picking up some steam. It gives me hope that it can happen to other bands, not to mention us.

I left a happy camper. Then we got back to the house and the gunshots started... but that's a story for another time.

I'm Having a Candy Dinner!

2006-10-19T12:37:00.000-04:00

I'll admit, I really like the fall season. Not because of the cooler weather or the sights of Pumpkin sellers on every street corner but because of the massive surplus of candy that seems to be everywhere I go.
Let me tell you, candy has gotten way cooler since I was a kid and I intend to sample anything and everything I see. There's nothing more perfect than a bite-sized 3 Musketeers bar. Mmmmm.

Halloween is on a Tuesday this year. That's kind of lame. The people who invented the calendar and the holiday should have teamed up to ensure that all national holidays occur on weekends. Except for Columbus Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, President's Day, and generally any other day that actually gets me a day off of work. Those need to stay put.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas should always be Saturday Holidays.
Back me up people! We can start a revolution!

We'll be spending our Halloween evening in the recording studio laying down some tracks and re-recording some songs. New demos are currently high on the priority list, so we'll see what we can rig up.
Intense practices starting soon.

Blah blah blah. Go eat some candy.

One more record to check out.

2006-10-18T13:15:00.000-04:00

Didn't get this one in yesterday but I've had it on repeat all morning.

Circa Survive - Juturna

I think I might be late to the party on this one but it's fantastic.

Doug

Listen... to these CD's.

2006-10-17T10:32:00.000-04:00

Here are some recommendations for ear candy directly from 3/4ths of the band:

Bert
1. Emery - The Weak's End
2. Tourmaline - Strange Distress Calls
3. Blindside - Silence

Wes
1. Sugarcult - Lights Out
2. OutKast - Idlewild
3. Say Anything - ...is a Real Boy (yeah, for the 100th time)

Doug
1. Hit The Lights - This Is A Stick Up....Don't Make It A Murder
2. Me First And The Gimme Gimmes - Love Their Country
3. Bayside - Sirens And Condolences

That's it. Short and sweet. Go listen.
More news when there is news.

Recording Wrap-up

2006-10-15T00:10:00.000-04:00

I almost didn't write this blog due to inner turmoil over whether or not the title of this blog was correct. I couldn't remember what to do when you combine the words "Wrap" and "Up" together to form a word. It didn't look right smooshed together and I didn't like keeping it separate so I instead chose to go with the hypen there in the middle.
Okay. Moving on...

My 5 day recording binge was a complete success. I completed the writing and recording of three new jams. Plan B, Say Hello, and The Sick Charade are being heavily guarded in hopes that they won't be leaked out so we can have songs for an eventually album that you haven't heard for a year beforehand. I think at this point the song count is up to 8 as far as new tracks go. We're close to having a complete record. Woot. Everyone was receptive and seemed to like what they heard. Good thing too. If they hadn't liked it, heads would have rolled. Well, maybe not that, but a lot of time and effort went into them.

So somehow this bit of news slipped my mind and I figured better late than never, right?

A few weeks ago we went into the studio for 2 nights recorded some updated demos of Lifeless and Something That I Miss. They were a bit rushed, but we wanted to see where we stood as far as how well rehearsed the new songs were. Sounding good.

So lots of good news overall in the ENY camp. New shirts will soon be a reality so everyone who was deathly offended by the black shirt design will be able to rest easy.

If you don't care about non-ENY related things, this would be a great place to stop reading.

Other Ramblings:
During a free trial of NetFlix I watched a lot of movies. Here's what I saw that was new to me:

Highways: At least, I think that's what it was called. It starred Jared Leto and Jake Gylenhall. Or however you spell it. Anyway - good flick. It made you feel like you were on some drugs while watching it. It was one of THOSE movies. But good. Check it out. Older film.

Everything is Illuminated: Starring Elijah Wood and some other guy I vaguely recognized. It was about Jews and collecting random things. I didn't get it and don't have any real desire to do so again.

X-Men 3: Lots of action, lots of killing major characters. They were killing mutants as fast as they were introducing them. Better than the last. Director Bret Radner is still a tool.

Underworld Evolution: Did you see the first Underworld? It was pretty much the same. Vampire Girl and Werewolf-Vamp love child Guy run from the bad guys. Oh, and then I feel asleep.

To everyone who came out to see us in Daytona Beach. Um... thanks. And sorry. Again.

2.5 in the bag.

2006-10-12T19:21:00.000-04:00

Bloggers and Bloggettes....

I bring news. News I should have reported long ago, but didn't. My bad.

First. We lost the Bamboozle Contest. Big surprise right? Turns out AbsolutePunk.net didn't actually send judges to the shows, so they based the winners off of who brought the most amount of people to the show. I feel bad for the band who came from Jacksonville who brought five friends. Although, I think that's more people than we brought so whatever.

Second. We're not going to be on the "Rocking Idol" show anymore. We got bumped due to lack of space on the bill. We won't be making our television debut anytime soon.

Wow, that was all bad news, eh?
Guess I'll balance that out by letting you know that I officially finished 2 new songs this week with a third close behind. The new tunes are "Plan B" and "Say Hello" and the new one is yet to be named, but I bet it will be something really simple and not incredibly long and having nothing to do with the song's actually message or meaning. I even have half of a fourth song recorded but have little direction on where I want it to go or how I want it to sound. I was attempting to write as I went and realized it doesn't work for me too well. Live and learn.

So 3 new songs in the bag? Looks that way. Soon enough anyway. I'll try to finish up the untitled gem tomorrow. Just needs vocals and some guitar elements. They're all stuck in my head. That's gotta be a good sign.

Tomorrow I believe we're playing a show in Daytona Beach. I'll be honest... I've been so busy recording that I've really done absolutely no promotion for this show. I usually hit the MySpace hard and let everyone know, but I didn't do that. My bad again. There's three other people in this band. Maybe one of them did something. No clue.

Time to wrap this up as I have places to go, people to see and music swirling around in my head.

VACATION.

2006-10-11T10:20:00.000-04:00

I'll admit. I totally forgot about this thing.
Perhaps it's because my mind has been other place. Perhaps I wasn't in the blogging mood. Or perhaps the mafia threatened me to not blog if I cared about the lives of my friends and family. Actually it's just because I've been on vacation all week!

What am I doing for my vacation?
I'm locked away in my bedroom writing songs, editing video, and recording demos.
It's been a blast. It's been my goal to record 3 new demos for the week. 4 if I get super ambitious. Although, spending two hours writing the Moog parts for one of the tunes really killed my productivity.
So far I've completely recorded one new tune I'm calling "Plan B" and have half-recorded another tune I'm tentatively calling "Say Hello."
That has drums and guitars recorded, just waiting on the vocals, bass, and moog polish to be complete.
I'm going to try to build one song pretty much from scratch and another tune just needs a bridge to be ready for the record button.

More on this as it develops. Chances are these demos won't be posted anywhere, but you just might hear the tunes live sooner or later. Who knows.

I'm off to demo. Again.

Why Not?

2006-10-06T12:16:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd just give a quick rundown of the Bamboozle Left Break Contest show that we played on Wednesday at The Social.

In 3 words or less?
It was awesome!

We arrived at the venue at 6pm, an hour before the doors opened. As we hopped out of the van, the promoter was quick to let us know that we were late. Ouch. We hate being late. Once we loaded in our gear we found out that the only other band that had arrived and loaded was Between the Trees. They were set to play last, and we were to take the stage in the 3rd position, right before them. We were the two locals on the bill. Harloe from Jacksonville had to bring 2 or 3 cars for all their stuff so they all arrived 20 minutes or so apart and Fallen From the Sky who was supposed to open the show had to drive up from Boca Raton and blew out a tire on their way. Somehow they arrived at the venue right as they were supposed to play and the show went on as normal.

Fallen From the Sky had fantastic energy and a very punk sound. Everyone was jumping around like crazy and they had a lot of fans there to help them sing and scream.

Harloe took the stage second. You could tell that they were an upstart band, so I'm sure this show was big for them. They brought some friends with them who rocked out down by the stage, but overall I wasn't really feeling their music. It was all screaming. Nice guys though.

We took the stage third for a fairly big crowd. We had time to jam out about 10 songs and did so like it was our last show. Doug had a few problems during the course of the show, but only because he was rocking out so hard that he would accidently step on his tuner and cut off his guitar. Only happened a couple times. He also broke a string during Lifess, which never happens to him, and after setting his guitar down after the set he managed to break off a tune roff his guitar. If you don't play guitar, or don't know anything about them, let me just tell you it's not good. Poor guy can't get a break.
We had a lot of friends in attendance who took pictures, Amanda got some fantastic video of our set (which we will release online at some point as a new video series) and the crowd was great about giving us feedback and helping to keep the energy up while we played. All around, it was a great time. Lots of new friends and fans.

Between the Trees played last and did their thing. Everyone was pretty much there for them, and they delivered. They played a solid set. We had never met those guys before but they turned out to be some of the nicest dudes we had met in a while. We hope to share the stage with them again in the future, but they could blow up big any day and we may never see them again.

We spent the rest of the show chatting it up with everyone around and JoAnna "celebrated" her 21st birthday.

Lastly, if you've seen us in concert before then you know that Bert jumps around on stage like a madman during the shows. Our unofficial photographer Tiffany finally managed to catch Bert in one of his many rock poses and forever made his year.

Thanks to everyone who came out and supported. We had more fun than a barrel of monkeys ever could.

Did that make sense?

Whatever.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT, WES?"

2006-10-02T19:40:00.002-04:00

Well - I for one had a very relaxing weekend. After finishing up my latest stint on the Real World I decided to just chill and hang out with my favorite people in the world. My girlfriend and bandmates.

Okay, so I wasn't really on the Real World, but we are determined to get this rumor all over the 'net.

Friday night Amanda and I went to see the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Hilarious. Check it out of you get the opportunity. Perfect DVD rental material. On the way into the movie some guy outside the movie theatre hollered "YEAH! EARLY NEXT YEAR!!!" really loudly at me. I quickened my step.

Saturday I did a lot of sleeping and then Amanda and I braved the perilous lanes of the Aloma Bowl where we both attempted to break 100. I never succeeded. She had the unfair advantage of having been bowling at least 3 months prior to this excursion. She even has her own ball. Yeah. She's that cool. Does YOUR girlfriend have her own bowling ball? Didn't think so.

On Sunday, ENY did our first real photoshoot with a fellow by the name of Andrew Tremblay. Good guy and great photographer. We hooked it up so we could invade Park Ave. CD's... a little indie record store here in Orlando and shot stuff all through the store then ventured out to a baseball diamond and took photos in the grass, the bleachers, and in the shady looking alleyway behind the record store. We even invaded the most pretentious coffee house in the state and were photographed while sipping on $1,000 coffees full of imported spices from Mars.
We should have the photos soon and look forward to sharing them with everyone. It'll be nice to have REAL photos. Then we can get some wicked posters made up to promote ourselves all over the place. It's gonna be neat.

I mentioned us playing a battle of the bands thing a while back at the AKA Lounge in Orlando. We actually tied for 7th place (out of 20some bands) and will get to play the next round at the Hard Rock Live down near Ft. Lauderdale on the 22nd of October. That's coming up. It's for a TV show that will (possibly) air on FOX called Rocking Idol. So you might see ENY on national TV. Maybe. We'll see. Empty promise, really.
We have to play a cover song for this event. Yeah. A cover. I'm not thrilled either.
We're going to be playing for some "celebrity judges" and if they dig our cover, we're gonna get to bust out one of our tunes. What's the cover? We're keeping that under wraps for now, but we're scambling to put it together and will likely give it a go during our set at the Coffee Connection in Daytona Beach on the 13th of October.

So. Crazy things all over the place. I feel like I've mainly typed in senteces fragments for this blog. I'm truly A-OK with that.

WEDNESDAY WE'RE PLAYING THE FRICKIN' SOCIAL!

Had to get that plug in there.
Enjoy your evenings.

Things are getting WEIRD!

2006-09-29T10:38:00.000-04:00

Alright. Fasten your seatbelts for this is going to be an odd blog.

A lot of times I forget that I have my own MySpace account since I primarily run the profile for the band which leads to my forgetting to log in to my personal account from time to time. Today I did. I happened to find an interesting message in my inbox, so let me share this anecdote with you.

I recieved this particular message from a 41 year old woman based out of Pennsylvania. An avid fan of College Basketball, Classical Music, and the Bible, she seems to also be fixated by MTV Reality Shows - in particular The Real World and those MTV Real World/Road Rules Challenge shows where all the former house brats compete at mindless tests of strength, endurance, and smarts for a chance to win obnoxious amounts of money. Oh, and they film all the drama and broadcast it out to people who choose to live vacariously through these twenty-somethings as they learn together the secrets of life, love, and the effects of excessive alcohol consumption.
Throughout the course of the show they all have the opportunity to scheme, lie, cheat, and steal in an effort to vote out the other brats so that they are able to live out their fantasies of having no friends, but being insanely wealthy. There are catfights, sloppy drunken brawls, and F-Bombs going off as if they were weapons of mass destruction. Or in this case, It's white trash kids just being themselves.
The more I think about it, the more brilliant I think this is. Take a bunch of spoiled brats from "different walks of life" stick them all in a house together, add gallons upon gallons of alchohol, a quick sprinkle of lust, drama, and tears... now dangle $500,000 over their heads and let the cameras roll!

Anywho. I got off track there for a minute.
So at one point or another, there was this guy on one of these challenges named Wes.
He looks like this:

He's your typical jocky frat guy who grew up on the mean streets of Nebraska husking corn and wrasslin' pigs for cash. On the weekends he would strap on his beer helmet and cruise from bar to bar trying to get women with his failsafe pickup line: "OH MY GOD I'M SO WASTED!" It would work everytime. Nebraska isn't a big state, so I'm sure he had to venture elsewhere after he'd mistakenly hooked up with all of his cousins.

My name is Wes. This is me:

I'm your typical skinny white guy who grew up on the mean streets of Ohio sitting in my room alone, playing my guitar. I also have a cool hat in that pic, but that is completely unrelated to my main point here.

Do you see any similarities between these two Wes's?
I don't either.
So imagine my surprise when a 41 year old christian woman from Pennsylvania sends me an email thinking that I am the guy from MTV and the Real World Series.
That's right. She thinks that I am that jocky frat guy with the beer helmet.

Let's take a look at the letter that she sent, shall we?

"Hi Wes,
I'm just an ordinary fan, who watched you on the Real World and Fresh Meat. I thought it was great, not that they sent you into Exile every episode, but you kicked ass every time!!!! People said during Fresh Meat that you were conceded, self-absorbled, but I saw it more that you were filled with confidence, there is a difference, wouldn't you agree? I hope to see you on more challenges, they are my favorite shows, and I look so forward to when they are running. You don't seem like some "skinny guy", I found you more one of the most fit guys on Frest Meat. I just loved when you would kick their asses!!!! I can't stand Tina's trap, and I loved the episode when you guys were standing on those logs, and you gave it to her good. I'm not a person full of hate, but Tina really ginded on my nerves. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt that way.
I hope things are going well with Johanna,forgive me if I spelled it incorrectly. She is a beautiful woman and you two fit together it seems, so I hope that part of your life is great.
Best of luck with your band. Something I didn't know about you until I check out My Space. That's totally awesome, best of luck to you. Take care Wes, and I hope this note finds you well. Sincerely, Danae (last name witheld)"

So, there you have it. My first fan letter and it's not even technically to me. This letter caused me to have a moral dilemma. Do I just ignore the letter? Should I respond and tell her she has the wrong Wes? Or better yet, should I respond as this guy and make her day?
I paused to consider which would be the most fun for me, so I've decided to respond as if I were Wes. The other Wes.
Here's the response I plan on sending:

"Hey Danae!
Thanks for watching The Real World and Fresh Meat! I'm a true attention-whore, so it's nice to know that people were tuned in and noticing me. As far as people calling me conceded or self absorbed, I can understand why they would say that. Mostly because it's true. I'm cocky and won every exile because the others were weak, unintimidating, and drunk half the time. You say it's confidence, and I'm glad you saw that. I'm confident that I'm the man. I'm going to keep coming back for these challenges because it's good money and I don't ever want to have to get a real job. I find that bickering, drinking, and busting heads here and there are the most effective ways to garauntee a paycheck, so I'll keep doing them until I lose an arm or leg. And even then I will still try to participate, because as I said earlier, I am the man.
Thanks for saying that I looked fit on the show, but please remember that the camera adds 60 pounds. I admit, I did some conditioning before the show. One steroid shot in the butt and one snickers bar in the mouth really keeps a guy energized. In fact, that was my secret to winning. Please don't tell anyone. If they know I do steroids they won't invite me back next season and then I won't be on TV, and people will forget about me. I'm the man, remember? How am I supposed to be the man if I'm not being broadcasted into 5 million homes each week. If nothing else, it's a way to make ends meet. I have to pay a steep rent on my studio apartment where I keep my 6 cats and live with my Grandmother. Plus she has this glaucoma problem and counts on me to provide her with the medicine.
I'm glad that you saw through Tina. She really isn't a good person. Nobody liked her and when I was watching the episodes back on MTV, they didn't show the best part. I know you remember when I got her on the logs, but what they didn't show you was when I tied her to a chair in the sun, cut off her eyelids with a scalpel that one of the cutters had, and then fed her an entire bottle of sleeping pills. That was AWESOME! She really learned a lesson there!
Johanna is doing well. We're seeing other people. Well, I'm seeing other people. She doesn't really need to know that. After getting voted off the last challenge she developed a nasty Twinkie habit and is now 95% bedridden. It's sad.
My band is going very well. We're gonna hit it big one day and perform on one of the challenges. It's going to be an event called "EXTREME Name That Tune."
My band will jam out a song, and the other brats will have 30 seconds to guess the name of the song or they get decapitated by a large saw blade spinning around at high speeds. Plus, all we know how to play are foreign underground punk songs, so no one's getting out of the next challenge alive.
Thanks for the all the kind words, and be sure to stay tune to see what happens.
And remember, I'm the man!
Sincerely,
Wes"

There you have it. My response.
Let's take a poll now - am I going to hell?
Guess we'll find out.

Poor gal never knew just what she was getting into.

Reviews, Sweiver.

2006-09-26T17:48:00.000-04:00

The shows this weekend were grand.

Saturday in Ocala was fun. Always good to see familiar faces of people who want to see you, as opposed to those familiar faces who always happen to be at the same bars around Orlando. Fans are fun. Wish we had more of them.
We cranked out our new song, "Right Here (With Me)", and surprised the crowd by covering "Waiting" by The Rentals. Probably wasn't the best idea in the world to play two songs in a row that no one knew. Oh well.

Sunday we were briefly at the AKA Lounge in downtown Orlando. We set up, jammed out 5 songs, and took off. It was a Battle of the Bands, or an audition for a TV show, or something. I'm not really sure. But there seems to be money and instant fame involved, so we're waiting to see if we placed/won/whatever.

I got some new and not so new music that I've been listening to lately, so here's some quick reviews:

Ok Go - Oh No
Lots of people at shows and on MySpace have suggested I check out this band. The only thing I'd heard from them was that "Get Over It" song, so I picked this disc up for real cheap and decided to give it a shot. This album has some real catchy tracks on it including the single "Here it Goes Again" along with the tunes "Oh Lately It's So Quiet" and "Crash The Party." Most of the other songs seem pretty interchangeable, and I don't notice when one song ends and another begins. It's definitely a quirky album and I do like that, but not catchy enough that I can't stop listening.
I give it 3 stars out of 5

Angels and Airwaves - We Don't Need to Whisper
Tom Delonge hyped the crap out of this album. Sure, it was genius marketing because by advertising yourself as the savior of rock n' roll, people are going to listen. I finally got around to listening. There's one word that really sums up this record well: YAWN.
With most songs clocking in around 5 minutes, having the same structures and same buildups, this CD gets the awards for "Most Overhyped Album of 2006" and subsequently "Biggest Letdown of 2006."
If you disagree with my review, then you are wrong.
It's good ambient music. Perfect for work where I can't really listen anyway.
2 out of 5 stars

Sugarcult - Lights Out
I loved the "Start Static" album. I could listen to it beginning to end.
I loved the "Palm Trees & power Lines" album. I could listen to it beginning to end.
I love this album as well. I can listen to it beginning to end.
Congratulations Sugarcult, you have released another solid album and continue to be extremely underrated.
I'm not saying that this album is amazing, as many of the tunes use similar song structures and chords that you make you think you're hearing an older tune, but everything is catchy, fast, and hard hitting.
This one is on repeat in my iPod.
Pick this up if you liked either of their other records. Then track me down and we can argue over which of their CDs is actually the best.
JoAnna says nothing can beat "Start Static," I say that "Lights Out" just did.
4 out of 5 stars

Time to go elsewhere and do other things.

You can't take it with you... or can you?

2006-09-23T11:25:00.000-04:00

Van Diesel is ALIVE!

See you soon, Ocala.

BIG NEWS!

2006-09-20T17:14:00.000-04:00

For the last few days we've been keeping a big secret, but now we can finally let it out. Our band, this band, the band you secretly like, Early Next Year, has been selected to play the Bamboozle Left Break Contest sponsored by Absolutepunk.net. What is the Bamboozle Left Break Contest?
Let me tell you.

This year, they wanted to give an "unknown" band the chance to play the festival alongside bands such as Brand New, Dashboard Confessional, and tons of other bands that everyone loves. It started as a simple submission process. I read an article on AP.net about accepting submissions for the event. So I sent an email with a link to our MySpace to some dude.
They said they would be holding 16 shows around the USA with up to 4 bands per show. There was only one Florida date to be held downtown at The Social. The best venue in town. So they chose 4 bands from FL to play. We were picked. Awesome.

Out of all 700 submissions, we were one of the 64 bands they chose for the contest, so we'll be playing a show on Wednesday, october 4th at The Social. We'll be sharing the stage with 'Harloe' out of Jacksonville, FL and 2 other locals: 'Fallen From the Sky' on JMB Records who have made quite a buzz locally, and another band, 'Between The Trees' who just released their debut CD, have been featured on AP.net, and even played some dates on Warped Tour.
So in comparison, for a little band like ours to get noticed and get an opportunity like this is unheard of.
We're going to need all the support we can muster for this show. Time, cover, and age limits coming as soon as I get them. Keep an eye on the MySpace.

The show will be judged by representatives from Absolutepunk.net based on categories such as originality, stage presence, and musicianship.
We're kind of the underdog here, but we still intend to go and rock the place to get some exposure and to play this great venue again.

We'll have banners to add to your MySpace in support of this show soon!

In other news, I've been listening to Ok Go's newest album, Oh No and find myself really enjoying it. It's random and quirky. Two adjectives I like to use in describing myself. I've also been iSpinning OutKast's Idlewild. Solid CD, I'd still like to see the movie.

I also began reading a book I've been wanting to for ages. Matthew Good's At Last There is Nothing Left to Say. I broke down and started bringing it to work. It also is random and quirky.

I highly recommend everything I just mentioned. Whatever that may include.

Free Beer, Flying Bodies, Sewer Grates, and Snake Attacks!

2006-09-18T18:36:00.000-04:00

What a weekend.
Boy, was it ever.
There's one question that rolled continuously through my mind on both Friday and Saturday night: "Why, oh why, did I forget the video camera?"
Actually, I shouldn't even place the blame on myself. Everyone in the band has a brain and a mouth, anyone could have said something.

Anyway.

Friday night after we all got off work we hopped right into the van since we had a 2.5 hour drive down to Bradenton to play at the venue Rockerfellas. Let's fast forward a bit here... two and a half hours later we arrive in Bradenton and realize that the directions I had printed out from good old Google Maps are completely useless. This was the first time we'd ever come to a fork in the road and both sides of the fork had the same roadname. We ended up having to just drive around for 30 minutes going back and forth trying to find the venue. We called them and they provided absolutely no help. We continued to wander. Eventually Bert and Doug (who had taken up post in the front seats) got so utterly frustrated that we had to stop at a gas station (that we had passed 5 times going both ways) to ask for directions. JoAnna ran in and thankfully, the guy at the counter had some idea of where the bar was and gave us a decent description of which roads to follow. We then went down a nice selection of dark alleyways and back streets until we ran across the venue. We then did our load-in thang and waited a while. Then we soundchecked. Then we waited some more. This is probably a good time to mention that we played first. The crowd was sparse, but receptive, and they seemed to have a good time. People actually came up to the stage while we played. That never happens.
We played our set and life continued as normal.
The local band "Stalling Dawn" played after us and were very good. JoAnna compared them to Thrice. I trust her opinion there because she knows Thrice music very well and probably likes them more than you do.
During the last band whose name escapes me at present, we found out that the venue was not going to pay us the money we had been promised, and instead decided to pay us in drinks. Fantastic. Last time I looked, drinks didn't fill up the van's gas tank. Doug took heavy advantage of getting paid in drinks and became a walking, talking, shell of a human who had nothing interesting to day. Mid-way through that band's set, JoAnna, for some reason unknown to humanity, decided it would be a good idea to tackle Doug in hopes of starting a moshpit. She got some running distance from the other side of the Pool room and collided with Doug at high velocity. I think I heard a break in the sound barrier. As I'm watching, I see JoAnna leap through the air, hit Doug, whose feet also leave the ground and they collapse into a heap on the floor. JoAnna gets up, and runs off in fear of retaliation while Doug lays on the ground wondering what happened. It took everyone in the bar a second to figure out what had just happened, and the band on stage was laughing so hard, the members could barely keep playing. This all brought JoAnna a lot of praise, and we started selling CDs. I think she'll have to do that more often.
Bert stayed sober and drove us home. We made some good time, but didn't make it back to Winter Park til nearly 4am.

Consider this your intermission, as we still have to talk about Saturday night's show at the Liquid Cellar in Orlando.
Go pee, get yourself a snack, whatever, but come back and keep reading soon.

Back?
Awesome.
We'll continue on to night #2.

Saturday evening we pull up the Liquid Cellar. I had driven separately, planning to leave after we played to go visit with my girlfriend. As I was walking into the venue, my cell phone began to ring. On the other line was Doug telling me "Uh Wes, we have a little bit of a situation here."
I headed through the venue and out the back door to see my 3 bandmates crouched down looking under the van. So I'm wondering to myself what they hit, what the van could be dragging, or who might be trapped underneath. Turns out none of the above.
As I walk closer, I see that they aren't looking under the van, but instead at a water drainage grate that the van is parked over. Doug approaches me with a defensive smile to let me know that our van key is no longer in our possession, but down within the depths of this grate. Great.
So with no idea of where the grate leads or how deep it goes we start to put together a battle plan to retrieve it. Bert claimed to have heard the key hit something within, but is unsure as to whether it hit water or something solid. At this point in the evening, the sun had gone away, so there we are in a dark parking lot, the three of us staring into an abyss that holds the key to our transportation. Pun intended. We devise a plan to lift up the grate and attempt to locate it. Bert is the only one manly enough to lift the piece of metal, so JoAnna holds it up against the van while Bert and myself try to locate the keyring. We quickly find out that there is not actually a lot of water in the bottom so I figure we should be able to see it with the naked eye. But remember, it is dark outside. We start waving our cell phones around in the dark, the faint light giving us nothing to work with, instead looking only like the worlds cheapest Rave party.
The pit of doom isn't exactly deep, but it's difficult to reach the bottom without lying flat on our stomaches. I decide it might be a good idea just to jump down in there to look around. So I do.
Within the pit I'm greeted with the stench of trash, dirty water and old cigarette butts. Kinda reminded me of the ENY house, to be honest.
So there I am, waist-deep in this grate waving around two cell phones trying to find our key. I notice a small pipe within the pit running elsewhere. I can only imagine what might be running around down there. After sticking my hand into several of the random puddles, I finally locate the key. Upon pulling it up to ground level, water starts to drain from our electronic keychain which arms/disarms the alarm on the van. Great.
See, our van has this little, incovenient twist to it: While the alarm is engaged, we cannot start up the engine. This comes to our attention as we're all attempting to shower in the venues sink. We head back out to the van, hoping that our biggest fears weren't about to come true. Sadly, the keychain is dead and we cannot disengage the alarm.
At this point we do what everyone else would do and begin to panic. We are so good at panicking. It's quite possible that we're better at panicking than playing music.
We head back into the venue and Bert begins dismantling the keychain in hopes that he can dry it out and bring it back to life. Sadly, those attempts are in vain and the situation has not improved. While all of this is happening, the first band begins to play. We are up second. Luckily, we can still get into the van, though every time we open one of the doors, the alarm goes off causing people to come out back to see just what the heck is going on.
I start calling people to figure out what to do. My father laughs at me, Amanda tells me to check the car's manual, and I rig up a few ideas of my own. Once again, I leave the venue through the back door, preoccupied with my own thoughts and despairs, when all of a sudden I see the ground in front of me begin to move, and I am face to face with a random snake in the middle of the parking lot. We lock eyes. We size each other up, and then I run around it like a little girl. I take perch in the front seat of the van, the alarm blazing, thumbing through the manual to the van. At some point in it's life, I'm assuming that the manual was dropped into a puddle itself because the pages are just tearing out as I turn them. It's at this time that I notice JoAnna coming toward me. I tell her to watch out for the snake. She sees it and also runs away like a girl. She keeps a careful eye on the critter while I continue to scan the manual, finding asbolutely nothing about an alarm system. Apparently it was added in by the previous owner.
I'm reading and accidently ripping out pages while JoAnna gives me a snake update. The enemy has now perched itself under the van, right below where I'm sitting. It had slithered around for a bit even entering and exiting the grate where my skinny non-snake-proof body had been just minutes before.

Alright, let's pause for a minute and re-cap what has occured during the course of the evening, just so you're up to speed: (1) The van keys were dropped into a grate. (2) We cannot disarm the van alarm and it keeps going off. (3) We cannot start the ignition of the van because the alarm is not disabled. And most importantly of all, (4) THERE'S A FREAKING SNAKE TRYING TO GET ME.

Good? Good.

I begin calling Triple-A to see if I can't get some kind of service. Turns out all that they can do is tow it. JoAnna gets numbers for some locksmiths and I collect a few as well. No one can help us. Nobody in the Orlando area deals with keyless entry.
Oh crap, we have to go play a show. Everyone is once again panicking, but this time over the random snake. Bert decides to be proactive and tries to kill...er... tries to move it with a piece of cardboard. It doesn't want to move.
I'm standing a safe distance away from the van on the phone with Triple-A the other 3 are loading our gear into the venue, and I'm doubling as Snake-Watcher. I was supposed to call out if it moved. I'm pretty sure that I was far enough away, parked beside a row of air conditioners that they couldn't have heard me even if I had a megaphone.
So we go in to play the show.
In all honesty, we played pretty well. Not much of a crowd but we had other things on our mind. That may have been the first show where we were so crunched for time that we willing dropped "Girl Like Her" from the setlist.
After playing, we headed back outside. The situation had improved only by the snake wandering off to harass other innocent bystanders.
Prior to playing, JoAnna made arrangements to have her friend Jeremy come to the venue with his gigantic truck to pick up as much of our gear as possible. I called Triple-A for the third time that evening and arranged for a tow. We stuck as much stuff into my car as possible and put everything else in other random cars and trucks. Bert and JoAnna took off to get the gear safely back to the house. Doug and I were left. Left with a two hour wait time. Doug then went off to another bar to drink with an old friend. I was left in the back alley waiting for the tow truck.
Just me waiting in the dark with a broken van and a snake hiding in the shadows.
Around 2:30am, the towing company called to say that they were in the area. Doug had wandered back by this time and we were sitting in my car listening to some tunes.
Luckily, the guy who came to tow the van back to our house was awesome and he built a giant contraption around Van Disel that lifted up the front of the van, and he stuck extra wheels on the back since we couldn't get the thing out of park and into neutral. Around 3am we were on our way home. Finally. Upon arriving back we were greeted by Bert & JoAnna plus a few others. The guy who towed took another 20 minutes to dismantle the monster he had created to lift the van. By 3:45 all was said and done. We were home, the van was home, but the alarm still activated.
If anyone has ANY ideas on how we can possibly fix this situation, please feel free to email them to me immediately.

Now, after reading all of this, I sincerely hope that you can see why I spent these nights wondering to myself: "Why, oh why, did I forget the video camera?"

This is the kind of stuff you only read about on the internet.

All morons hate it when you call them morons.

2006-09-13T15:53:00.000-04:00

I've been wanting to write in this thing for a few days now, but couldn't find anything worthwhile to say.

I suppose I could plug our next few shows, but you can see those listed on any of our websites.

I suppose I could talk about how our earlynextyear.com site has been down for almost 2 months, but no one goes there anyway.

I could even talk about how our next album is coming along, but I've made absolutely no progress on that for about 10 months.

I might even talk about future plans, and personal goals... but... well, maybe another time.

This concludes another pointless post which really only served the purpose of killing a few minutes of my monotonous day.

Football is the most worthless invention since...well... anything, I guess.

2006-09-08T12:51:00.000-04:00

Last night's show at The Haven was a good time. All the bands were great, and the 10 or so people who stayed for our set were a lot of fun.
We'd never played with any of these bands before, so it was our first time experiencing the band Mysterioso. Holy crap, were they good.

Please cruise on over to www.purevolume.com/mysterioso immediately and listen to their track called "Don't Panic."

They're something like I've never heard and words cannot even begin to describe.

Now, here's something I've been wanting to type for a while, but just found the motivation for.
We get asked a lot...well, at least I get asked... who our influences are. They assume that we're just a Motion City Soundtrack rip-off until they find out we've been around for 3 years, then assume we're trying to be a reincarnation of Saves The Day until they learn that I never really even listened to them until a year or two ago, so as far as my personal influences go, read on to get all the dirt from my music past.

These 5 records shaped who I am as a musician and a person.
Please buy or download them (legally!) immedately if they aren't already part of your collection. They will not disappoint.

1. Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
This is one of the first albums I remember being addicted to. Somewhere along the way I picked up a cassette version and would listen to it almost every day in the car when my sister drove me to school. Their hooks were phenomenal and each song was catchier than the next. To this day I have no idea what half of the songs are about, but in the end, who really cares? Go ahead and tell me that songs like "Champagne Supernova" weren't drug-induced pop gems. This tape was later stolen from my sisters car along with the rest of her music. That was a sad day. Thanks to iTunes, it has returned to my collection.

Other suggested listening by this artist: Definitely, Maybe
Their debut CD which is also a concept album about a rock star who is trying to make it within the industry.

2. Green Day - Dookie
What can I say about this album that hasn't been said 100 times in 100 different languages? When I bought my first portable CD player from a friend, he gave me this CD with it. I had no idea who Green Day was, but this album got spun no less than 3 times a day for the first year that I owned it. It definitely taught me that three chords is all you need to put together a great song. I've moved up to using four chords per song. Perhaps I'll upgrade to five one day. It scares me to think what may have happened if my friend had given me a Barbara Streisand CD instead.

Other suggested listening by this artist: ANYTHING
I'll go ahead and push for "American Idiot" since I'm a sucker for concept albums, but "Insomniac" and "Warning" were awesome pop records as well.

3. The Refreshments - Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy
This was actually the second CD I ever purchased. If you were alive back in 1996, then you couldn't escape hearing their radio single "Banditos." In my eyes, this record had three things I loved: Catchy songs, humorous lyrics, and a whole lot of twang. There's not a bad track on this CD and it captures the vibe of driving a broken down car through the Texas desert. Not that I've ever done that, or intend to do so, but you get the idea.

Other suggested listening by this artist: Americano
The Refreshments released one more CD entitled "The Bottle & Fresh Horses" the following year before breaking up. They switched a few members and made a triumphant return as Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. In 2004 they released "Americano" which has a very similar vibe and all around great songs. Our friends in the band Holidaysburg got to open for them when they played in Orlando at The Social. I think we were playing a show the same night and I missed it. Darn.

4. Nirvana - Nevermind
Everyone went through a Nirvana phase right? My best friend growing up hailed Kurt Cobain as the best thing since the best thing and I was forced to listen to them everytime I went to his house. Luckily, the songs grew on me, and I learned that you don't have to be the best singer or musician to sell a bazillion records. Simplicity is key! This record really helped get me through the tough times of Junior High School... wait... looking back, Jr. High School was a cakewalk. But at the time... oh god, the drama!

Other suggested listening by this artist: Incesticide
Equally good songs and lots of them. Just think, if Kurt Cobain was still alive, he'd probably be hanging out with MC Hammer and we wouldn't have the Foo Fighters.

5. Weezer - Weezer (aka The Blue Album)
Yeah, this one was pretty obvious, I know. There was something so comforting in hearing this album and knowing that even though I was the biggest dork in the school, there was still hope for me yet. These songs were some of the deepest pieces of art to ever tingle my eardrums. It still holds up after all these years as a CD I can listen to from start to end and then begin it again once it's finished. Also a great introduction to synthesizers and song structures.

Other suggested listening by this artist: Pinkerton
Weezer's second and last CD, called Pinkerton was very dark and broody but had a raw emotion unlike the first. Each track was full of anguish and clever analogies. I never looked at half-Japanese girls the same way after hearing this. Also, this wasn't Weezer's last CD. Only in my mind. When Matt Sharp left, I LEFT!
Kidding.
Although, there are still some stooges out there who think The Green Album was their first offering. Like any band could break big with "Hash Pipe."

So go get these records and report back to me confirming how right I am about generally everything I say.

91 Acres of Technology and Heat.

2006-09-07T13:14:00.000-04:00

Just a few things...

We're playing a lot of shows this month. Hopefully a lot of good shows.
I targeted a lot of venues where we know that we can walk away with some money in our pockets for gas, but mostly because we're trying to get our next line of shirts printed up ASAP. They're kind of pricey.
First off, we know our first shirt was a little blah, and then we found out that it was all too similar to another band's design, and they were black and a bit unflattering. Luckily, the next ones will be colorful and interesting. Trust me.

Last night I tuned in to the "Comes Alive" show on WPRK 91.5 where each Wednesday they showcase a local band. We'll be doing this show on Wednesday, September 27th. I listened because I wasn't sure what exactly to expect out of this. They featured a band called "21st Floor" and pretty much all they did was play songs live for about an hour. So in case you missed our last performance on WPRK, you'll get another shot to hear us live in just a few weeks.

Today I brought leftover cherry pie in to work to enjoy at my leisure, and we have no forks.
This sucks.
Seriously.

Tonight we play at The Haven which is literally about a 3 minute drive from our house.

This blog is stupid but I can't stop.

Listening to Limbeck while hopped up on coffee is always a good time.
Except when the songs get all slow and then I have to switch to something that won't put me to sleep.

2006-09-06T15:55:00.000-04:00

If your phone has a "Ringback" then you can pretty much rest assured that I hate you.

Scene Haircuts are stupid... according to people who clearly have scene haircuts.

2006-09-05T13:19:00.000-04:00

This weekend was a whirl of shows, driving, and a whole lot of hanging out with friends. Good way to spend a holiday.

Friday night we got off of work, loaded the van as fast as humanly possible and sped (yes, sped) down to Lakeland for our show at Winner's Circle. We were afraid that we would miss load-in due to traffic, but managed to roll into town right at 8pm. We were set to play first, but when we got there, the stage hadn't even been set up, so we ended up having to wait until about 9:30 to play. The crowd itself was definitely not there to see us, and we may as well have played to an empty room. Big thanks to the one fellow who cheered after each song. Glad that one person was paying attention. We stayed for the other bands (MyRage & Madadam) who both played solid sets. They definitely weren't in the same genre, but all good people and very friendly. I like to think we bridge a lot of gaps with our music, but this was a true test to see if we could fit in the the Hard Rock crowd. Turns out that we do better playing alongside Hardcore bands. You live and you learn.

Saturday night saw us in the studios of the local college radio station WPRK 91.5 FM. We did an on-air performance for their annual music marathon (50 bands spread throughout 4 days) and played a 7 song set live on the air. I had a ton of fun doing that, though it was odd not being able to see anyone we performed for. My parents got to listen and had a blast. They've yet to actually see us live (aside from live footage) so it was nice having my parents hear the crazy noise that their son ran off to Orlando to make. Amanda was kind enough to listen and tape it off the radio, so I got to hear it just hours after it aired. I thought we rocked. Thanks to any of our friends/fans who also tuned in. Hope you got to hear everything you wanted to.

Sunday was Relaxation Day. I spent most of it in bed drinking coffee.

Yesterday Doug hosted a Labor Day BBQ at the house, so around 2pm the place filled up with mostly complete strangers. There were burgers, a kiddie pool, and a homemade Slip N'Slide. Our friend Jason stepped on a rusty nail while running to slide and bled everywhere. Nothing a little Duct Tape couldn't fix. I didn't stick around too long, but it was good seeing familiar faces, including Chris, Jordan, and Jeremy from the band Rory.

Today, it was back to work. Thursday we rock the Haven with Snafu and Mysterioso. It's going to be another one of those nights where we try to fit in with a different genre. Both bands are solid and I'm looking forward to the show.

September is looking crazy-busy.
7 shows and 2 radio spots? Yeah, let the good times roll.

Traditional Education?

2006-09-01T13:35:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update:

My throat is a mess. Scratchy, burning, and generally ill-tempered. Good thing I have to talk on the phone all day and then go sing at the show tonight AND the radio performance tomorrow.
Speaking of the radio performance.... TUNE IN!
Try the online stream sometime before we play to ensure it works.
www.wprkdj.org.
That's tomorrow at 9pm.
Tonight is the show at Winner's Circle in Lakeland, FL. We have to leave work, load up the van, get our butts on the road and hope that Friday I-4 traffic doesn't leave us in a standstill.

Also, Piebald just announced that they have a new record coming out soon called Accidental Gentlemen.
But you knew that. You read AP.net too.
Speaking of Piebald, they're playing October 20th at HOB Orlando. WITH Say Anything. Bonus.

Listen to Rory.

Lunch time.

First rule of ENY: You don't talk about ENY. Wait, does this blog break the rule? Oops. Amazing that I could ruin a headline by breaking my own rules.

2006-08-28T17:09:00.000-04:00

Alright, let me relax a moment and recount the last week in my brain. I will try hard to pull out all entertaining anecdotes found within.

And once again, I have come up empty.

I had a very good weekend though. Satruday saw myself and Amanda driving all over the Winter Park area. Found a cool coffee chop, relaxed by a fountain, saw the park where Doug wants us to take our new promo photos (someday!), and then we visited Targets, Wal-Mart, and a video game store for our amusement.
Sunday we packed up the van and headed up to our home-away-from home. The dry, barren, guaranteed-to-get-you-lost city of Ocala, FL to play a birthday show for our friend Jillian. We saw familiar faces and rocked the place. Whenever we play birthday shows (I think this makes about 4 total) we always like to do something interesting. For this particular birthday we decided it would be fun to have partygoers draw our songs from a hat to determine the order in which we would play them. After one song was over, another was pulled from the hat and played. Oddly enough, the people managed to pull the songs out of the hat in the order in which we normally play them. So much for "mixing it up."
Oh, and it was really hot.

Good times.

More on this story as it develops.

This weekend we return to Lakeland and then we invade the WPRK radio station and take over the airwaves. We'll mainly be playing our songs live on the air and possibly splicing in some Judas Priest tunes played backwards.

No one reads this.

Moogerific!

2006-08-21T15:41:00.000-04:00

This is Bob Moog.
He changed the way I think about and write music.
He changed the the way a lot of people think about and write music.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say that he just changed music.
He died a year ago today.

People ask me... "Wes, what's so great about this Moog stuff you always talk about?"

First off, I am NOT a keyboard player. I cannot sit down and play a piano. I can barely read music as it is.
What's so great about Moog Synthesizers and why do I make such a huge deal about them?

Let me ramble a bit:

I had always heard synthesizers on CD's that I listened to growing up. I would go so far as to say that my first introduction to them was probably from bands like Weezer and The Rentals. I thought Matt Sharp's use of Moogs on "The Return of the Rentals" was exciting and brilliant for that time. Amazing how these little monophonic keyboards could make a note or a sound that just rounded out the rest of the music.
Personally, I love them because after laughter, it's my favorite sound ever.
I find it amazing how different it is using an analog synth vs. a regular digital keyboard. Menu's and buttons have little personality. Analog synthesizers require you to use your ears and choose what sounds blend well rather than just going with a number on a little screen. You listen to and feel the way the frequencies blend together to create a rich, full sound. I love it when the highs scream and the lows rumble. There's something to be said about tweaking the knobs while you play. It's a fully interactive instrument, much like a guitar. I know it sounds crazy, but I've read some books and done a lot of research of the history of how the Moog synthesizer came to be. It's a fascinating story considering that the man who made them wasn't even considered a musician. It all started by him designing a box that made noise. Once musicians got ahold of it, they offered up suggestions on how to make it more user friendly for performance and Bob took those ideas and the synthesizer evolved into what it is today.
Having recently gotten my hands on the 55th Little Phatty ever made, it's so much fun to play even by itself. I can get lost just making noises for hours.

I don't use the term "genius" lightly, but aside from Brian Wilson (who used Moogs!), Bob Moog is the only other person I consider to be a genius.

The rambling is over.
Thanks for reading.

Ninja Basics 101

2006-08-21T12:24:00.000-04:00

On Saturday night we drove through a tepid downpour on our way up to Gainesville. The rain was pouring so hard at times that we had to slow to 35mph on the turnpike. Craziness. Once we got to Gainesville, it just kept on raining. It was a dank, wet night at best.
Eddie C's Backstage Lounge is a really cool venue. Reminds me of the way that Will's Pub here in Orlando is set up. They had the bar area and then a whole separate closed off area where the stage and back bar were. We got there around 8pm only to find out that 2 of the bands had dropped off the bill, so we were one of three acts playing. When it came time to load in, we could not open the back van door to save our lives and had to pull everything out the side. Not a great start. After loading the rain began to pour again and we retreated inside to the safety of the pool tables, bar, and jukebox!
Yes, that's right. Another town, another jukebox. This time my Washington got me 3 plays, so for the next 10 minutes I owned the bar. Or at least the audio radiating throughout the bar. The barflys were treated to a nice playlist of Sublime, The Strokes, and I topped it off with a little Blondie. It was the best I could pull from a jukebox full of Creed and Creed-esque bands.
We arrived at 8pm but the show wasn't starting until 10:30 so we had lots of time to kill. We spent it visiting with the other bands and wondering when the crowd would start rolling in. Doug and I adventured into the storm for food while Bert and JoAnna hoofed it across the street to a Winn Dixie and got caught in the rain. It ended with JoAnna being soaked and walking around the bar barefoot.

Ed, owner of the venue had a really cool setup in the soundbooth equipped with a soundboard, lighting board, and a whole camera system which would record bands from 3 different angles recorded straight to DVD.
Along the Sidelines played first, which is our friend Josh and since the last time we'd seen him, he added a bass player named Dmo to the mix. The songs sounded much fuller and I've heard that he's currently working with a drummer to fill out the sound more. As they played Doug and I watched Ed work the camera system. It looked cool so we decided to get a DVD made of our performance.
We took the stage second, and even though we had quite a few technical issues (Mics falling, Bert's bass crapping out) we powered through our 11 song set and were pleased with the response we got from the small crowd. It's always nice to see a line of people waiting to buy your CD when you get done playing. By the last note of the last song I'm usually wondering what people are thinking, but sometimes we had loads of people waiting to talk with us, other times there's no one. Overall I think we made some new fans, and I can't wait to play at that venue again. All the bar tenders were awesome and everyone we talked to was really nice.

Thanks for being fun, Gainesville.
I might rip the DVD and post a few of the songs on our MySpace.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing with Amanda while Doug visited the House of Blues to catch the Head Automatica tour.

Next weekend we're playing a birthday party for some friends and possibly tacking on a last minute Saturday show. We keep busy.

The new CD from This Day & Age called "The Bell and the Hammer" is coming out soon. I was a big fan of their last disc "Always Leave the Ground" as it was very catchy, but very smart and musical at the same time. I've been listening to the new tracks they've been adding to their PureVolume page each week and so far I can say that I'm not all that impressed. I think the songs are good, but it a sleepy, relaxing kind of way. They seem to have lost the kick that made me like them to begin with. I'll probably still pick it up eventually and talk about it here to either rip it apart or explain how it's better than every CD you like.

For now I will sit here and listen to the Smashing Pumpkins while wondering why they never got the respect they deserve.

Quick! Name one band that sounds like the Smashing Pumpkins.
Trick question.
You can't.