Things are getting WEIRD!

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.

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?

Van Diesel is ALIVE!

See you soon, Ocala.

BIG NEWS!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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

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.

Show me what you've got!

When one door closes, another opens, right?
More and more doors seem to be opening for us as of late. Enough doors that were my father here, he'd yell "What are you doing? Air conditioning the neighborhood?"
Actually that was a lie.
My father never really yells, and my parents house has no air conditioning.
He'd make some smartass comment though. Trust me on that.

In the last post, I spoke of recording some songs with a friend. This is something we're still hoping to do in the near future. We're going to be demoing some of the newer songs to see how they shape up with the full band playing. I'm hoping for the best. Some of these tunes we've been playing live and have become second nature.

At present, we only have one to two songs that you've probably never heard. Only three of our non-Sarcasm songs that we play live on a regular basis will likely be on the next CD. Speaking of which, I'm still writing, thinking, and dwelling on the final product. I'm challenging myself to write at least 8 more songs at the very least and go from there.
From this point on, everything will be kept tightly under wraps. (Hopefully) No demos will be posted on MySpace or PureVolume and we probably won't play anymore of the "next album songs" live. Just the 2 or 3 we've been rotating in and out of our set.

I'm still working on getting the new Moog up and running, but it will probably still be a while before that thing finds itself on stage with me. It's pretty. It glows a lot.

So thank you for reading what I like to call a "Time Filler Blog."
I hope you wasted as much time reading it as I did writing it.

Kitlers will inherit the Earth. Look out.

We had a busy weekend.
Friday was a whole lot of me sitting around waiting for my new synthesizer to come via UPS. It took forever. I was late to the show at the Science Center due to waiting. I had already waited almost 3 months for this thing and was not going to miss it. The show itself was very fun. We played with a couple Ska bands, which isn't a usual event for us, but the second band, Underdog Trio was great and the audience was up and dancing on the floor, in the aisleways and on stage. They did the same during our set. There were many dance breakdowns, conga lines, and some little kid spinning around on stage on his butt. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and I know I had a good time. People were hitting up our merch table before we even played, buying CD's, shirts, and grabbing stickers. Hopefully no one asked for a refund after they actually saw us play.

Saturday we spent the day shooting our music video for "Through My Eyes" with Joel Black who drove up from Palm Bay to spend the day with our crazy selves. He had some great ideas and hopefully he was able to capture what he wanted to. We listened to the song a lot. We faked playing it a lot. Then we crowded into my bathroom, pushed each other around, sang, acted poorly, and got really really warm.

Such is the life. Hopefully you guys will be able to see the video somewhere down the line. I think it will be entertaining. He seemed happy with the results, as did we. We even took him our for an ENY sponsored dinner at Ti'Juana Flats. We love that place.

It's looking like a possibility that tomorrow night we may be recording some songs in our friends studio. We'll see how that goes.

This weekend we visit Gainesville for the first time. We're playing at Eddie C's with our buddy Josh McCabe and his band/solo act "Along the Sidelines."
That's gonna be a good time.

A walking, fire-breathing Nun.

Friday.

In other news, I somehow found myself at Wal-Mart last night around 10pm. It had been probably a year since I stepped foot into such an evil place, but Amanda and I were determined to find what we needed. However, before we found what we needed, it was obvious that food was needed so neither of us passed out. Our only option at that point was the in-store McDonald's restaraunt. She and I both avoid that eatery like the plague and tend to have bad experiences at fast food restaraunts. This time was no different.
Amanda quickly got her food and grabbed a table. As anyone would do, she had to grab a bunch of this little cups to fill with ketchup. Usually the pumps that dispense this stuff are fairly manageable and simple machines. Not this one. What she did not realize was that this dispenser was pressureized and when she unloaded the condiments into the cup, it knocked it out of her hand and sprayed her with ketchup. That's one strike against the place.
After waiting seven minutes to get the one item I ordered, I joined her at the table to hear of her traumatic experience. She insisted that I also dispense some ketchup even though I didn't need any. Sure enough, that sucker darn near knocked me on my butt. I jumped with surprise and like her, also got my hand covered in ketchup. That's 2 strikes.
I don't want to go there again anytime soon, but I would like to spray someone I don't like with pressurized ketchup. I think that would be amazingly fun.

You don't care.
If my story bored you, please refer to the top of this posting and just gaze at the picture.

Oh, and I set up a new webstore for us. It's a work in progress, but looks really professional!

http://earlynextyear.bigcartel.com/

016812

Thanks for a great show on Saturday, Ocala.
Thanks to Josh from Along the Sidelines for playing.
Thanks to Rory for playing (even if it was in their underwear).

Listen to these CDs as recommended by people I know:

Bert:
Breaking Benjamin - Phobia
Billy Talent - II
Unearth - Eyes of Fire

Doug:
The Format - Dog Problems
Smoking Popes - At The Metro
Less Than Jake - In With the Out Crowd
Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel As School Children

Wes:
Say Anything - ...is a Real Boy
The Progress - Merit

And I still don't know what JoAnna recommends because I still don't work with her.

Auto Insurance sucks. Don't grow up.

So our show last night at Back Booth was a lot of fun.
We found out the day before that we were due to play last.
A Thursday night show with 5 bands starting at 9pm is not a time where you want to be last. However, I think we made the best of it. We're doing this new thing called "networking." Apparently it's where you talk to people or something.
We befriended the touring band from Austin, TX called Meryll. Really nice guys and good music. Look them up on MySpace and give a listen.
The coolest thing about this whole show was the fact that everyone did a great job of sticking to their time limits and breaking down/setting up as fast as possible. We had anticipated not playing until about 1am but I think we were jamming our first notes around midnight. Big thanks to anyone who was there and stuck around. I counted about 30 people in the crowd, and I recognized about half. It's cool when people who don't know you stick around to give you a chance, and it's even cooler when they're still there by the end of the set.
We played nine songs, and things went very smoothly.
I can only hope things go just as well, if not better, on Saturday in Ocala. We've been looking forward to this gig for a while and I hope we don't disappoint.
Oh, who am I kidding. We won't disappoint.

Big thanks to our friend Donnie for mentioning the gig to us, Chris at Back Booth for letting us on the show, and everyone who said hello or watched us play.
By far one of our best Orlando shows to date, with hopefully many more to follow. We'll have a fanbase there yet!

I couldn't have asked for a better 70th show.
We've been scheming plans for our 100th gig as well. It's just around the corner, you know. We've decided that regardless of where we play or who we play for, it's gonna be a party.
More on this as it develops.

I'm paranoid about being paranoid.

Tomorrow is our 70th show ever. SEVENTY.
That's kind of a big deal.

Has your band played 70 shows? No? Shut up.

5 things I enjoyed about July:

1. Moving out of my old apartment.
2. Finally seeing Inkwell live.
3. Discovering the Say Anything record "...is a Real Boy"
4. Our first show with Bert and JoAnna in their rightful places.
5. Getting new a perspective on so many things.

Hello August.

5 things I'm looking forward to in August:

1. Moog's Little Phatty synthesizer
2. Moog's Little Phatty synthesizer
3. Shooting our first music video
4. Moog's Little Phatty synthesizer
5. Demo recording. It's time.

(did I mention we're playing our 70th show tomorrow?)

You have reached a number that's no longer in service...

Two weeks?

Dear friends and family, once this is in my hands, expect me to drop off the face of the earth for a few days.
Only a few.

I prefer normal Tang over the Wu-Tang clan.

Finally after many days at work listening to the 5 tracks on Purevolume, I finally managed to grab a copy of the Say Anything record "...is a Real Boy". Alright, fine... so Bert grabbed it for me, but I got it nonetheless. I really don't know why I waited so long to pick up this record. I think it's one of the most inspirational albums I've heard in a long time. If you know me (which you only think you do) then you're probably aware that I'm a HUGE sucker for concept albums. I honestly believe that every album should be one. To me, ...is a Real Boy takes that to the next level. Written in the format of a "rock opera" and similar to Green Day's "American Idiot" it takes the listener on a trip through the mind of the main character who, in his day to day life, will stop and break out into song anywhere about anything. It's really nice to hear an artist say whatever he wants about anything he wants to and keeps it brutally honest. No sappy metaphors or blanketed analogies, he keeps it real.
I've been listening to it non-stop, and I suggest that you do the same if you haven't already.

It makes me want to sit down and finish our next album. Almost.

In other news, we picked up a show this coming Thursday at Back Booth in Orlando. We'll be sharing the stage with Worth Fighting For, who we haven't played with since Jennannapalooza was it? And Woodale, Derek Stroker, & Meryll whom we'll be seeing for the first time.
9pm, 18+, $5 cover. Should be a blast. This is kind of a live rehearsal for our show in Ocala. Those are the best.

Keep it real. 4-eva.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear... and backwards.

As usual... behind on the blogging.

THURSDAY - All ENYers went downtown to catch the awesome show happening at Back Booth. Inkwell, History, and some other bands I can't remember right now played. Good show overall. The opening bands were all fairly decent and there was theme for the evening where nearly all the bands had a female bass player. JoAnna feels that much cooler for being a drummer.
History, the remnants of what was Sound the Alarm, played a great show. It was my first time ever seeing them and I would definitely go out of my way to do so again. Their songs were catchy and they had a Moog player which was fun to watch. Interestingly enough, we both share the same tattoo. I geeked out on that with him for a minute.
Inkwell closed the show. Our first time seeing them too. Doug and I had verged on the obsessed with that band for quite a while and were super excited to finally see how it went live. It went awesome. It really was an inspiring performance. Everyone on stage looked like they were having the time of their lives and the music was super tight and I don't think anyone missed a note.
We ran into a lot of friends throughout the night and made a lot of new ones as well. Familiar faces included Donnie, Touch, and Phil from Fellsmere, Marc from Rory, Drunk Jenn, and Anna.

I finally finished cleaning and moving the crap out of my apartment. It took a couple nights, but cleaning up three years of filth was easier than I imagined. Thankfully I live with some strong fellas who could lift the heavy crap and have a great girlfriend who volunteered to clean a guy's bathroom. I pretty much owe her big time for that.

We might have a last minute show this week, but we don't know yet.
However, we're still going to Ocala in a week. With Rory.

Rock.

Did Timmy fall in the well again?

I'm sorry that Doug used this blog to invade your lives.
I apologize that he had the audacity to bump a critical post about where to buy our CD down a notch in order to talk about his Pokemon games, or whatever it is he's into these days.

It just occured to me that I haven't explained in explicit detail the events that transpired during our last few shows. Perhaps that's because nothing special happened. I could tell you about how hot in was in Ocala or how we had to haul our crap up the stairs again at AKA in Orlando... but I won't.
Ocala was hot, and we did haul crap up some stairs in Orlando. The sound at AKA Lounge was bad. All I could hear in my monitor was Doug's guitar. I couldn't even hear the snare drum despite the fact that I was standing less than five feet away from it. We botched some songs. Most of them, really.

We are super exicted about our next K&K Show. Hopefully we'll have a few more heads out this time around. We'll be playing a big set. 11 songs if we have the time. So come out, rock out, and bring your friends along.

In other news, we're back on track for getting new promotional photos done, as well as setting up a time to shoot our music video. It looks like Through My Eyes is currently ahead for being used as the song. It has more substance lyrically and could have a better overall treatment.
I'm still waiting to hear back as to what the treatment is exactly.
It seems that we'll be filming most of it within our house and shooting performance footage at a location that's still TBD.

I was reading MSN news during a break from work today. The big news was that one of the dudes from NSYNC is gay.

Shocker.

Practice continues this weekend. Expect us to be amazing on the 5th.

What the heck is up with MySpace these days. Takes me 3 hours to load my page, and another 2 just to read each message. Can the youth of the world please migrate to another voyeuristic website site already?

I'm Batman.

"There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second."

Mario Bros. is my ringtone

So, it's been a while since anyone other than Wes has touched this thing. I actually just wanted to come on here to let all of you know that I do have a life outside the band and most of it is spent with my eyes glued to my XBox 360 so if you share my addiction and would like to join me online for a game of whatever feel free to send a friend request to gamertag ENYGuitar. I know you probably could have figured that out on your own but now I'm putting it out there. So come kick my ass at some game to make yourself feel better. Street Fighter 2 is coming out for XBox Live Arcade in a couple weeks and I will never be heard from again, so you'd better hurry.

Doug

I drop my cell phone a lot. No, really... like, a LOT.

Hello my fine, feathered friends.

If you live in the sunny state of Florida and you have yet to grab a copy of our Sarcasm is Your Friend EP due to not having a credit card, or not attending one of our shows, here is a list of indie record stores that you can walk into and order our CD from.
Once ordered, it will ship overnight, and you can pick up the next day.

So please keep that in mind. There's no excuse not to have a copy!
I've also included the zip codes so you can see just which store to order from.

Tell you friends.

ORANGE PARK:
CD Warehouse - 32073

ST. AUGUSTINE:
Music Matters - 32084

DAYTONA BEACH:
Atlantic Sounds - 32114
Nite Fire Productions - 32117

JACKSONVILLE:
Johns Records/Gmc - 32203
Smash Music - 32204
Big Al's - 32208
Smash Music - 32250
CD Connection - 32250
CD Warehouse - 32257

TALLAHASSEE:
CD Warehouse - 32301
CD Warehouse - 32303
Vinyl Fever - 32304
CD Warehouse - 32312

QUINCY:
House of Music - 32351

PENSACOLA:
East Hill Cds - 32503

FORT WALTON BEACH:
Jazz - 32548

GAINESVILLE:
Tone Vendor - 32601
CD Warehouse - 32608
Gospel Den Music - 32609

CHIEFLAND:
Billy Bones Music - 32626

DELAND:
Steves Downtown Music - 32720

FERN PARK:
CD Warehouse - 32730

ORLANDO:
CD Warehouse - 32803
Park Ave CD's - 32803
Rock n Roll Heaven - 32804
East - West Disc & Tapes - 32806

SEBASTIAN:
Ma's India - 32958

DANIA:
Captured Image - 33004

MARATHON:
Blind Hairys Music - 33050

MIAMI:
Hi-Fi Music - 33131
Base - 33139
Uncle Sam's - 33139
Route 66 - 33180
Walk of Fame DVD's - 33185
Confusion Records - 33403

WEST PALM BEACH:
AB-CD Sound & Cinema - 33405

DEERFIELD BEACH:
Audio Center - 33441

SEFFNER:
Explosive Sounds - 33584

TAMPA:
Krush Grooves - 33615
Cd City Tampa - 33618
Vinyl Fever - 33629
RF Productions - 33637

ST. PETE:
Asylum Sights & Sounds - 33707
Bananas Records - 33710

CLEARWATER:
Distribution Video & Audio - 33755

LAKELAND:
Cheap Thrills - 33813

FORT MYERS:
Record Trader - 33901

PORT CHARLOTTE:
Tj'S Cd'S & More - 33952

BRADENTON:
Boogie Woogie - 34207

SARASOTA:
Boogie Woogie - 34231

DUNEDIN:
Music Exchange - 34698

Cheers!

PETA needs to chillax.

Since our EP has been out for a year, and we've only sold a few hundred copies, and have a few hundred more to get rid of, we need everyone to help us out by posting this flyer on their websites/livejournals/myspaces.



Just right click it to get the photobucket code and go nuts.
I know it's cool. The girl who made it is even cooler.

Show tonight. Shocker, right?

I just went through a Matthew Good spree on my iPod. I feel so intellectual right now that I want to leave work to go play chess in the park while sipping on foreign teas and eating exotic biscuits. I feel so utterly pompous that I could crap in a bag, give it to someone and expect them to treat it as the best present ever. In fact, I think I'll try that and give it to Doug.

Now comes my music marathon from The Progress. All 3 CD's in a row. That's gonna be over with in about 20 minutes.

I get to sleep in tomorrow. I'm ever so excited. I want to celebrate by napping.

Last night on the History Channel I watched a special on the origins of Soda Pop. I'd love to tell you all about what I learned, but it was so freaking boring that I fell asleep. I'm drinking a soda right now and have no idea where it came from. Ignorance is bliss.

We finally got the plates for Van Diesel last night. I managed to put them on in the middle of the night with no light source. We can drive again!

Doug's parents are coming to the show tonight, as are JoAnna's, I believe. Bert and I will entertain ourselves by lounging on a couch, sipping on cheap beer and quoting "Anchorman."

I wish I invented the Salad Shooter.
I once imagined an idea for a mechanical device that would pick things off of the floor for you. Turns out I reinvented the vacuum cleaner.
I think I told that story before.

I believe everything I read on the internet, unless it's on Lies.com.

I cannot do long division in my head.
On that same note, I cannot do multiplication in my head either.
Or basic addition. Or subtraction.

The new Gym Class Heroes album, "As Cruel As School Children" comes out next Tuesday. Does someone want to buy it for me?

Okay, for real, time to get back to work.
It's been 15 minutes and I already miss being cursed out and hung up on by these people.
I do appreciate the tough love.

Today is National "Wear Your Boxer Shorts Backwards Day."
Okay, not really, but mine are backwards and I seriously need a good excuse for it.

Peace.

Can't believe I love something as yellow as you.

Last night, kind of on a whim, I got a good 85% of my hair chopped off. I must say, I didn't realize how much weight I had been carrying around, and it's nice seeing my ears again. Poor lady at the hair salon had to use a chisel and a hammer to disconnect the shag from my head. After leaving there, I sped over to Amanda's place. After several looks at me she admitted "If you looked like that when I met you, I never would have dated you."

Ain't life grand.

(she was kidding...right?)

SHOW TOMORROW!

If you let the ferret out... you're gonna have a bad time.

Last night turned out to be our last full band practice before the show this Friday. In the previous entry, I mentioned that we have hit the semi-awesomness level, but I'm happy to report that the alert status has been kicked up to pretty-awesome. So hide the kids in the cellar and prepare to get your eyes, ears, and noses blown into next week.
Holy crap, I kind of just threatened everyone didn't I?

Regardless, I'm no longer terrified of taking the stage. Everyone has worked their butts off to make this a good show and I'm quite happy with how things are shaping up.

Anyone who really knows me is aware of the fact that the only form of sound that my 1994 Geo Prizm pumps out is from an ancient cassette deck through several cracked speakers. I'm old school.
Because I'm cheap and busy, I never bothered to get a CD player installed in my vehicle. Instead I would spend countless hours dubbing cassette tapes every time I bought a new CD so that those albums could be mobile. Over the last few months, this cassette deck of doom decided to slowly start eating the tapes one by one. I lost the oldest ones right off the bat, but that didn't quench it's thirst for analog blood, so over the last few months, it ate the newer tapes as well. Weezer, gone. Old 97's gone. The Progress, gone. Many others too indie and pretentious to list... gone. Luckily there were a couple of tapes that stuck with me including my cassette copy of Motion City Soundtracks "I Am The Movie" which I had to listen to for about 6 months straight because my only other tape, Limbeck's "Hi, Everything's Great" got too warm and the audio was pitched shifted down a couple notches making it unlistenable. Since I had about two albums in car rotation, I'll take on anyone in a trivia contest over those two records. I can sing them forwards and backwards in my sleep. Sometimes I still do. Why didn't I just dub more tapes? Because my home stereo broke as well! What are the odds, right? For future reference, do not buy RCA products.
Anyway, I swear I'm getting to the point here...
A week or so ago I burnt a CD for Amanda with some of my favorite songs on it. We never really see eye to eye on music. She's into a lot of 80's rock (which I enjoy as well, but do not appreciate on quite as deep a level as she) and she also enjoys some good booty-shakin' tunes as well. I made this CD for her in an attempt to force my likes upon her. So last night when I show up to her place she was eager to show me that she had purchased a boat-load of blank tapes and had already dubbed me one for the road.
On this tape was the same CD of my favorite songs that I'd made for her plus Weezer's Blue Album.
Yeah. That's the bee's knee's right there.
In fact, if that's not love then I don't know what love is.

If anyone wants to bring me cassettes at future shows, feel free, but if they suck or have hardcore songs on them, they're getting tossed out the window. In fact, if anyone makes me an old-school mixtape that I actually like, maybe they can win some new merch or something.

For those of you who read the Moog Music website on a regular basis (Yes, I'm well aware that I'm the only one who does) they've been working on getting a new synth out to the masses called the "Little Phatty." It's gonna be the coolest thing the world has seen ever. I preordered this monster several days after it was announced. They're only making 1,200 of them total, so right now I'm on a waiting list waiting to hear my fate on the matter. Will I get it? I'd better.
I've been interested in upgrading my synth for a variety of reasons. First off, my current synth, the MG-1, is from 1979 and has some problems staying in tune and isn't quite ballsy enough for what I need it to do. I bought a Prodigy last year in hopes of getting a better sound, but that synth needs some TLC and rarely leaves my closet. Now us Moogheads are on the verge of getting a piece of gear that's new, stable, reliable, and sounds unlike anything I've ever heard.
The other reason I wanted to upgrade so badly is because as soon as people see me lug the synth on stage, they immediately start the comparisons between ENY and Motion City Soundtrack. I think these comparisons are pretty ridiculous since I know we don't sound like them.
I can't count the amount of times at shows that people have asked me if I bought the synth because of them. The answer is no, I did not. I was in the market for a Moog long before they came onto the scene. Consider this... ENY has been a band for 3 years. How long has MCS been in the spotlight? Maybe two years max. That's why I see them as more of a contemporary. I don't try to copy them, I see them as band doing something very similar to what we are doing, and right now, they're just doing it better. So if the synth player in that band has any common sense, he'll purchase a Little Phatty as well, so one day when we're back to using the same synth, it's not because I'm copying him.
I have original thoughts, you know.

Glad to get that off my chest. It'd been bugging me for ages.

Yeah, so the music video discussion is heating up over on the ENY MySpace group. Cast your votes now while you still can.

Oh, and hardcore music still sucks.

Is your house on fire, Clark?

WES implies the following:

ENY has become a practicing machine.
We're trying to pull our crap together for our show on Friday so we don't look like it's our first show ever. Will it happen? Who knows. I'm really hoping to look and sound professional.
I would highly recommend coming to the Friday night gig at the AKA Lounge in downtown Orlando to see what we've been cooking up.
We recently began to realize that our live set was becoming a bit... well... blah, so we huddled inside our laboratory, mixed chemicals, gauged fusion reactions, noted all possible outcomes in the ledger, and maybe even mixed a few drinks here and there. The result? Semi-awesomeness. We're hoping to kick it up to Pure Awesomeness, but I hate making promises I can't keep. Plus, if this show sucks, then I'll probably just quit the band.

Moving on.

We're in talks to shoot a music video for one of the tunes off of our "Sarcasm is Your Friend" EP. Right now, we have it narrowed down to two songs.

Through My Eyes vs. Completely

Cast your votes here, on MySpace, or by calling Carson Daly and requesting it on the TRL countdown.
Speaking of Carson Daly. He's a tool. In fact, he's the only woman I would ever slap... aside from Martha Stewart.

Now I'm just making things up.
Most of us have new gear that we'll be showing off at the show. Come tell Doug that just because he can be loud, it doesn't mean he has to be.

I leave work now with scraps upon scraps of paper riddled with witty lines and dodgy innuendo. Time to put together some songs.

Anyone been watching the World Series of Pop Culture on VH1? Amanda and I have been doing a good job at keeping up with it. I don't care who wins, I just like watching a quiz show where I actually know some of the answers. I can watch Jeopardy until I'm blue in the face, but when it's over, all I can think is "didn't Alex Trebek used to have a mustache?"

$5 to anyone who can identify the reference in the title of this blog post.
No purchase necessary. Not applicable to friends, family, or members of ENY. Void where prohibited.

Apologies to anyone who has ordered merch from our online store and not received it. Moving took me three months longer than I expected. You'll have it soon.

I went to the mall this weekend. Granted, it's probably been about two years since I went to a mall, but when did scene kids take over as resident Mallrats? I remember the "Abercrombie" crowd being the dominant species the last time I was there, but apparently, they've all gotten $100 mullet haircuts and put on eyeliner. I've never seen so many people standing outside of Hot Topic arguing about which hardcore band has the best lyrics. I wasn't aware hardcore songs even had words. Unless "Chugga-chugga-wheeee-oooooh-WAGHUAGHUAGHU!" means something now. I'll have to consult my "Scene Speak Dictionary."
Speaking of mullets... to the trendy kid who had an actual mullet, white belt, and the mildew-yellow tshirt on: You're a tool. No one will ever love you and you will probably die alone.
I have decided never to go to the mall again if it can be avoided. I'll sooner put on clown makeup and create questionable balloon animals at birthday parties.

In fact, I may do that anyway just to amuse myself.

Van Diesel's temporary tags expired after our last show. We don't have plates yet. This could present a problem.

My bathroom is possibly the coldest place on earth aside from the heart of Bob Barker.

I wish promoters at venues would email me back. Not like it's their job or anything...

I built a lot of new bridges today. I can't wait to go home and burn them.

Don't play with fire.

END TRANSMISSION.

Your mom RSVPed. She's bringing the Tequila.

WES SAYS:

Some of you may be sitting there asking yourselves... just what does Wes do while he's at work all day besides talk to prospective leads of Full Sail College?

Well... let me tell you. When I'm not making calls, talking to Amanda, booking shows, harassing Bert and Doug, tending to the MySpace, or watching videos on YouTube, then I'm reading articles on Wikipedia.org.

This is my new favorite page on the internet. You can learn almost anything about anything... almost. It's a great way to kill some time. Have a favorite band? Look them up and learn some stuff you may not have known about the members, the songs, or their releases. Have a favorite movie? Look it up and find out something that happened behind the scenes. Have a favorite book? Wait... no one reads anymore, so that's not applicable.
It's crazy how lost you can get on that site by just clicking a few links.

I give it two thumbs in the upright position.

Do I need to sign my name on these things anymore?

Ch-ch-changes.

FACELIFT!

We're practicin' and bookin' and hopefully tourin'. Keep an eye on the MySpace for updates. We've actually added on an all ages show at the Orlando Science Center for August 11th, so if you haven't seen us in a while, this is a good opportunity. You'll have a much easier time convincing your parents to take you to a science center for a show rather then a bar or pub. Trust me.

We've realized that our live set had been getting a bit stale as of late, so we came up with some new stuff to inject some life and freshness into it. We'll be trying out some crazy stuff at AKA Lounge in Orlando on July 21st. So come support and have your mind blown all over again.

If you read this blog, then thank you. I've noticed that the views have been slowly increasing over the past few months and this is pretty much the best way to get up to date info on what's happening in our music-related lives. You get the scoop here.

Also, I'm gonna start tacking on band recommendations for music every week or so. Since I'm the only one who really blogs on here, I'll show you what other band members have been listening to and enjoying:

Wes recommends:
The Progress - Merit
Gym Class Heroes - The Papercut Chronicles
The Early November - The Mechanic, The Mother, & The Path
Yellowcard - Lights and Sounds

Bert recommends:
Project 86 - Songs to Burn Your Bridges By
In Flames - Come Clarity
Tool - 10,000 Days

Doug recommends:
Blackpool Lights - This Town's Disaster
Dashboard Confessional - Dusk and Summer
Inkwell - These Stars Are Monsters
Every Time I Die - Hot Damn!

I don't know what JoAnna recommends because I don't work with her.

Listen and enjoy!

Also, I think you can leave comments on this thing now. If you read this, say hello.
Be nice about it.

_Wes

Home again... for the first time.

I bring you my first blog from the ENY House. I finally moved the rest of the way in. As I sit here on my bed, barely able to see the TV over a large amount of boxes covering the floor, I realize that I have a lot of crap.

_Wes

Happy Anniversary! Now go home.

Well hello!

My apologies for being a lazy blogger. It happens from time to time.
Anyway.
Along the line here, we missed some anniversaries.

July 5th, 2006 marked the one year anniversary of our Sarcasm is Your Friend EP being released. Yeah, it's been out for a year, and we still have hundreds of them in our living room. Do us a favor and buy one already?

July 7th, 2006 (which is today) marks the 3 year anniversary of Early Next Year being a band. To be completely honest, we don't remember when Doug and myself got the ball rolling on this whole project, so I just count the day that we met. And I don't know the date we met because I'm all girly and senitmental, I remember it because it was the day we started college.

So now that our CD has been out for a year, that really means that we have 365 days to write, record, and release a new disc, right? I mean, that's how it works.

Yeah, we're getting to that. We have maybe three... four... five new songs? Something like that. More coming.

Enjoy your weekends.

_Wes

Is 110% even possible?

Alright, so I'm not 100% sure how all of this happened, but due to laziness, rain, and total and utter lack of motivation, I have yet to completely move into the ENY house. I'd say I'm a good 55% moved at this point. So as things stand at the moment, I'm spending my time at either my apartment where my clothes are located, the house where my bed is located, or at Amanda's where my girlfriend is located. On any given day I'm not entirely sure where the things I need even are. I need to just suck it up and get my clothes, computer, and tv over to the house where I can maintain some sort of presence. Plus, the sooner I get out of the apartment, the sooner I can clean that sucker and get my security deposit back. Although, as all of my visitors have told me, this is a lost cause. That apartment is a 3 year wreck in progress.
Moving sucks. It rained every time I tried to take initiative. Crap, it's even raining right now. I'm going to drink my coffee and surf the net.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. Blow some crap up.
Amanda bought a small load of fireworks over the weekend which Bert detonated in the backyard. He's such a pyro.

If anyone needs me, there are now 3 locations to search. Have a blast with that.

I think we're show-free for a while, which could be nice since we have some work to do.
Work? Psh. What's that?

_Wes

Don't Mess with Bob Barker.

As I layed in bed this morning with my semi-conscious girlfriend I decided to take on some giant waves and channel surf the unknown that is Brighthouse Networks. I quickly ran across a showing of The Price is Right. Stopping briefly at reflect on the fact that I had not seen this show in at least 15 years, I decided to take a peek and see how Bob Barker is holding up.

Turns out he's not doing so well.

Bob Barker has turned into an old, bitter man and may in fact be Satan himself.
For instance... during one of the bidding wars, the contestants failed to even come close to guessing the price of a patio space heater. The first lady, bless her heart, gave a reasonable bid of $1,000 which of course put her fellow players into a frenzy since they had seen the same space heater at a Wal-Mart bargain bin just weeks prior but still didn't want to bid low and look like a jackass. Their answer was to bid incredulous amounts of money in order to overcompensate for having their national television debut be on The Price is Right. After all the bids were locked in, it was revealed that they had all overbid by amounts of money that would cause riots in third world countries. He tells them to bid again. First lady (whose name I have forgotten even though she wore it on a giant name tag... because Bob is blind) lowers her bid to a cool $600 and once again sends the others into a bidding frenzy. For a second time they all overbid. He deletes the bids, players calls new prices. Once again, no one is even close. Bob flips out.
He momentarily stops the show to chastise the players for not being entertaining (I'm assuming that he means entertaining to the older folks who are killing time by watching TV before the early bird special begins). He tells them "it's moments like this on game shows that cause the general public to get up and change the dial...er... channel on the remote."
Nice save, Bob.

After regaining his composure, Bob proceeded to fart a gaseous dust cloud and the show continued as normal.
He once again asks for bids. The first three players enter theirs without even stopping to think of what is coming out of their mouths. They're all too terrified of Bob to even think rationally. Or breathe. Or blink for that matter. The young gal who is to bid last then pulls the ultimate punk move and bids one dollar. When people bid a dollar on the show, I believe they should be tranquilized, tied up, and then the other contestants should be able to choose between a variety of sharp weapons and blunt objects with which to exact their revenge.
So of course this chump of a human being wins with her $1 bid and goes on to win a car or some crap. I don't remember. I was too busy watching Bob try to trip the guests with that microphone cord of his that apparently stretches all the way to Jupiter.

It's days like this where I wish I had that fancy DVR stuff so I could have recorded that episode and watched on repeat the moment that Bob Barker loses it on the contestants. You could almost smell their fear. The couldn't look him in the eyes, perspiration accumulated on their brows, and Bob's outrage may have even caused a case of uncontrollable urination in one lady. Maybe it was just because she was old? I don't know, I'm not a doctor.
It was all so priceless.

Way to keep it real, Bob.

I just have to assume that one day when he's finally forced into the wonderful world of fruit cups and sponge baths that we call the Nursing Home, he'll be sitting around watching old reruns of the show, wondering how he managed to never kill one. He'll retaliate by randomly striking out at the next nurse who walks by.

And remember, please get your pets spayed or neutered.

Lakeland has Lakes.

Friday at the Winner's Circle in Lakeland was a good time. We played with Isaac and the Cou (a local acoustic act) as well as From Adam to Atom from Orlando. We were sandwiched in the middle of the set, and I felt like we played very well. The crowd was sparse aside from the regular bar attendees, so it wasn't our target demographic. Everyone we met was very nice and we do hope to return to Lakeland in the near future.
We killed some time playing pool, which is quickly becoming a favorite activity for us in bars, and I sifted through 3,000 albums on their digital jukebox and couldn't find anything worth spending money on.
From Adam to Atom put on a great show. Always good to see those guys. Be sure to give them a listen at www.myspace.com/fromadamtoatom. If you like us, you'll dig them too.

This Friday we make another triumphant return to Ocala where people actually know the words to our songs. Should be a good time. Hopefully K&K isn't so bloody hot this time around. Yeah, right. We're playing with our pals Rosedale and Orlando's My Adalyn with a fourth band TBA.

Keep it real.

_Wes

Lesson Learned.

Things I've Learned in the Last Seven Days:

1. Will's Pub South now has an in-house bidet.
2. ... and a decent jukebox.
3. Warm Pepsi cannot be swallowed.
4. If there's extra room in the van, we really are forgetting something.
5. Cat puke on your pillow first thing in the morning can ruin your entire day.
6. Amanda and I cannot remove a broken door knob to save our lives.
7. The people at Brighthouse Cable love to give you broken stuff.
8. Everyone in my apartment complex has been stealing my internet.
9. Working the late shift interferes with my ability to go to good shows.
10. Booking a tour is hard and stressful.

Winner's Circle on Friday in Lakeland, FL.

We need more shows for early July.
Help?

_Wes

Will's Bidet.

Yesterday: The Show That Almost Happened.

Will's Pub South... that place was a DIVE!
But I liked it. We got to the venue around 4:30 for a 6pm show (we were afraid of getting lost, okay?) because we like to be fashionably early. Looks good on the resume`. We were the first of anyone to show up and killed some time by drinking some cold beers.

It was brought to our attention that a pipe was broken in the men's restroom and and the room was filling up with water. It was shooting out everyone. Basically, the toilet had become a bidet. You know, one of those french things that shoots water up your butt. After a while, a steady stream of water started coming out from under the door. This is bad for several reasons.
A.) Bathroom water is gross
B.) Loose water is never good when you're going to have amps and mics set up in the near vicinity.

The bartender told us that she was attempting to get ahold of the bar manager to see if there was anything that they could do. To distract ourselves, Doug and I attempted to play a game of pool on the world's most dilapidated pool table and kept losing balls. It was not a lot of fun.
After losing the cue ball we called it a draw and I tackled the house jukebox which actually had a decent selection of tunes. I created an awesome seven song playlist to fuel the next game of pool. The jukebox started spouting out the tunes which included songs from The Pixies, Modest Mouse, Old 97's, The Beach Boys, and Journey. Yes, Journey.

Eventually one of the touring bands, Dear Stardom, made their way into the venue followed by the locals, Kiteline.

At this point the bartender told us that all they could do was shut off the water for the whole bar and by doing that, they would have to close for the night. So after we were herded outside, people were calling venues trying to get the show moved with no luck. We hung out with some members of Dear Stardom for a while talking about their tour so far and then we got back in Van Diesel and headed for home.
Maybe it's better that the show got cancelled since we accidently forgot our merch at the house. And we wondered why there was so much more room in the back of the van...

Doh.

We'll see how the show in Lakeland goes. It's on Friday. From Adam to Atom is playing too. Should be cool.

_Wes

Tour, pics, moving, etc....

So we're trying to book a tour. It's hard. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Out of 9 dates we've gotten 1 positive confirmation and 1 maybe. Hold your breath for our sake.

We're trying to get a bit more professional, so we decided we need to get some new promotional photos done. We're hoping to take care of that next week sometime. Tomorrow we're gonna go shopping and try to find some sweet threads to wear since normally all we wear are band shirts and jeans. I don't think we need to give free promo to any bands in our pics. The focus is supposed to be on our ugly mugs, right?

Phase one of moving into ENY-HQ will happen on Saturday.

Guess that's it.

Moo.

_Wes

No Hula Girls to call our own.

Have I really not written since Wednesday? Well crap.

I had a busy weekend.

Friday afternoon we loaded up Van Diesel and headed out to Daytona Beach for another romp at the Seabreeze Coffee Connection. We were relieved that all of our gear actually fit into the van, as there were some concerns early on, but not only did everthing fit, but we could still see out the rear window!
Yeah, I get excited over the little things in life.

Anyway... I took the command chair for the duration of the ride to the venue and did my best not to panic whilst driving on I-4 (that's a really crazy highway for all of you non-Florida peoples). I managed to get us all the way to Daytona without doing anything foolish but had to have Bert take over the reins when it came to parallel parking in front of the venue. Upon arrival we met one of the other bands called "In Plain Language" who were on the road for the weekend. They gave us the bad news that the only local band on the bill had cancelled so the show consisted of us from Orlando and 2 bands from Lakeland, FL. Not exactly what you like to hear when playing out of town shows. We had a few faithful fans make the trip to see us for which we are very grateful. Since the show start time got pushed back from 7 to 8pm we had some time to kill so JoAnna, Bert, and myself headed down to the beach a few blocks away to breath in some of that ocean air. It was nice. On the way back to the venue we stopped into a corner shop full of knick-knacks to see if we couldn't find a dancing hula girl for the dashboard of the van. Turns out that they had everything in the world except what we were looking for. Just our luck.

We headed back to the venue and were confused further to find out that we were up last on the lineup for the evening. After the first band played, they left to head home, taking half the audience with them which was kind of a bummer, but whatever. Playing second was a band called "Awesome You" who played with some good energy in the stlye of a Blink 182/Green Day lovechild.
We finished out the night for a small crowd, but everyone seemed to have a good time. There was dancing, singing, and police. Oh yeah, the police came in while we played our encore. Yes, we got an encore. I don't know why they stopped in, but they seemed to enjoy themselves for the few minutes they loitered about. We were playing our song "Window" at the time but they left before I could get them to clap along during the chorus.

Oh yeah: Doug wants me to mention that JoAnna hit him in the face with a water bottle. I didn't see it. Apparently it was hilarious.

We loaded out, shook hands, said our thank yous, and Bert climbed behind the wheel for the drive back to O-Town. We didn't go anywhere immediately though. I sat in the passenger seat exhausted and waiting for Doug and JoAnna to join us. We almost left them there. Almost. Fine, not really.

THE NEXT DAY...

On Saturday we got a house.
First a van, now a house.
That's how we roll.
So we officially have an ENY-HQ where the four of us will be living in tight quarters and probably making music from time to time.
We haven't moved yet, but that should happen over the next few weeks.
It should be interesting. We'll have stories. They may not be all that exciting, but they will be stories nonetheless.

Today I went to work at 6am. Cut me some slack on the apathetic entry that has taken me almost 15 minutes to hammer out due to me having to make everything sound way more interesting than it really is, was, or will be.

Yeah, so I'm getting kind of bored with this.

We're playing in Orlando on Sunday at Will's Pub South.
I've never been there. I guess that's gonna change really soon.

Doug and I are under the impression that Gary Coleman lives in the bushes outside of my apartment.
You don't think so?
Well, have you seen him anywhere else lately?
FACE!

_Wes

It feels like we haven't played a show in months when in reality it's only been about 2 weeks. That seems too long. Luckily we have lots of fun stuff coming up here in June starting with Friday's show in Daytona Beach.

One of the things I love about playing in other towns is seeing how the kids act at shows.
For instance, Daytona kids aren't as rowdy as Ocala kids.
Ocala kids will dance, laugh, and sing along.
Daytona kids stand in front of you while you play with their arms crossed and if they're into it, you might get them nodding to the beat.
Ocala kids talk to you after the show.
Daytona kids ignore you.
Ocala kids bring you cookies and good stories.
Daytona kids ignore you.
Ocala kids are right up front while their favorite band plays.
Daytona kids stand outside.

Sure there are exceptions to the rule, and this doesn't mean I dislike playing in Daytona Beach, I just think the kids could be more welcoming and inviting, y'know?

Moving on...

On Monday night ENY hit up dollar Bowling night at one of the local lanes. We went to meet up with some friends and got to bowl several games with Chris and Jeremy of the Orlando-based band called Rory (www.myspace.com/rory) who are on the Orlando record label called 111 Records, home of other bands such as Mashlin, Inkwell, and This Day & Age.
Rory has a new CD coming out in September called "We're Up to No Good, We're Up to No Good." Please pick up a copy of that when it's released. I got to hear one of the new songs a while back and it was a great tune. They had several tracks produced by Mark Hoppus. Always cool, right? So yeah. Listen and love. They're fantastic.

Friday. Coffee Connection. Daytona Beach. 7pm. $5. Early Next Year. + additional bands.

Rock.

_Wes

Hello there, faithful readers of the ENYBlog!

It's currently a busy time here in ENY land.
First off, we finally got ourselves a Van. About time, right? I'll be the first to admit that it's been a pain taking 2-3 cars everywhere for the last few months. It was hampering our ability to play out of town shows, but I'm really hoping that's all behind us now. I found an ad for the van online on Friday, made some calls and Doug, JoAnna, and myself went to check it out. It fit into our price range and size requirements, so the next day we grabbed that sucker.

It's big. It's green. It's name? VAN DIESEL!!
We'll be test running it to Daytona Beach on Friday.

Second section of big news:
Now that we have a set of "Wheels" we can finally get that touring started.
We've blocked out a week at the end of July/beginning of August, and we're trying to fill up the dates ASAP.

Here's the itinerary so far of where we hope to be:

Friday, July 28 - Gainesville, FL
Saturday, July 29 - Jacksonville, FL
Sunday, July 30 - Atlanta, GA
Monday, July 31 - Athens, GA
Tuesday, Agust 1 - Auburn, AL
Wednesday, August 2 - Tallahassee, FL
Thursday, August 3 - Tampa, FL
Friday, August 4 - Orlando, FL
Saturday, August 5 - Ocala, FL

If you or any of your friends might be able to help us with any of these dates, hit us up on the old MySpace.

In July not only do we celebrate 3 years of being a band, but we get to celebrate the one year anniversary of "Sarcasm Is Your Friend" being released.
How embarassing is that? We're touring to support the record a year after it was released.
Better late than never.

Peace and hair grease.

_Wes

Another day, another van to look at.
Please, please, please let this be the one.
It's blue. Not that I care.

Details sooner or later.
Probably later.

_Wes