So I'm told it's Halloween, and as you all know that's the best time of year to scare the crap out of yourself, and with my self appointed title of "Biggest horror movie fan in Early Next Year". I thought I'd use this day to recommend a few good horror movies for you to check out tonight and really whenever you wanna feel uncomfortable for an hour and a half. Some of these you've probably seen and some of them maybe you haven't, but they are all worthy because I said so.
1. High Tension - This one came out of France a couple years back and ended up doing really well enough to warrant an American release (and it must have done AMAZING over there for Americans to release something from France, but that's another blog entirely) and I'm glad they did cause I might have missed out on it otherwise. Anyway all the elements for a great horror movie are here. Slowly rising suspense that builds to the boiling point by the climax of the movie. Fantastic gore, special effects make up, and a twist ending that would make M. Night Shyamalan realize that it's just time to give up (seriously dude, you made 2 and a half good movies hang it up). So this one tops my list for this year.
2. Audition - The director of this film, Takashi Miike(whose work was considered so extreme that Showtime refused to air his installment into their Masters of Horror anthology) has been been unfortunately omitted from the flood of Asian horror to make it's way to America in the past 4 or 5 years since "The Ring" came out and made people think it was OK to make horror movies that were rated PG-13. Not that I didn't enjoy "The Ring",I did, but the movie itself better be damn good to cut gore in favor of tickets sold at the box office to 14 year olds looking for a way to spend their paper route money. Alright enough with that rant and back to the business at hand. Takashi Miike's "Audition", this is the most uncomfortable a movie has ever made me feel. If you'd like to see where Eli Roth got the inspiration to make "Hostel", look no further than "Audition", and prepare to cringe during the final act. This is probably the most famous of Miike's films but a very honorable mention also goes to his "Ichii The Killer".
3. Halloween - King of all the slasher movies, the title is Halloween, and there isn't much scarier than a mental patient with a butchers knife in a William Shatner mask. Need I say more?
On a side note the original Halloween is playing in certain theatres tonight (Oct. 31st). If you have one of these screenings in your area please do me a favor and go see it for me. Early Next Year is going to be in the studio tonight, thus rendering me unable to be there.
4. Dead End - Who says direct to DVD movies all suck? Well, normally I would and this one is definitely the exception to the rule, and it's fantastic. Here's a quick synopsis. A family is driving to grandma's house for the holidays when Dad decides to take one of his famous "shortcuts". The family ends up on a road that never ends, and strange stuff starts happening. A good portion of this movie is set inside the car which really gives sort of a claustrophobic mood to the whole thing. Scary stuff. Rent it wherever you do that sort of thing.
5. Alkaline Trio: Halloween Live at the Metro - Ok this DVD really isn't scary at all, but this is the Trio at their best in their hometown. This was filmed on Halloween of 2002 I believe so all the songs are predate the band's two most recent albums "Good Mourning" and "Crimson". So if you've gotten into the Trio more recently pick up this DVD and brush up on their early material. Great B-sides and rarities are peppered into the setlist some highlights include "Hell Yes", "Queen of Pain", "My Friend Peter", and "Private Eye". I wish they would have done "Enjoy Your Day", but that just wouldn't be appropriate for a Halloween release now would it? If you are asking yourself right now if I'm aware that I'm typing over the head of anyone who isn't an obsessed Alkaline Trio fan like myself, the answer is yes I'm aware of that, and no I don't care.
So there you have it. Five DVD's that will make for a bone chilling and face rocking Halloween. If you start finding them and watching them right now you should just be able to finish up before the clock strikes midnight.
Happy Halloween everybody!
Doug
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
This calls for a suckerpunch.
I hate Martha Stewart. I've said time and time again that she's the only woman on planet Earth that I would punch. Maybe it's her deep voice, overly-masculine vibe, or the fact that she's famous for doing arts and crafts on TV so that lazy, obese people can sit around watching her do arts and crafts.
She did go to jail though. Funny stuff.
THIS JUST IN: I've just added someone new to the list of women I would punch.
Now, before I begin, I do realize that this blog is going to make me very unpopular with most of the universe. Punching women is not funny, and I would never actually do it, but I think it's so funny to talk about in this scenerio that I have no qualms about putting it out there. I was raised on good morals and won't ever be accused of domestic violence. (end legal red tape here)
First, allow me to introduce some interesting backstory in order to make my final punchline even funnier...
This story takes place in my car.
I've always had this thing about turning right during a red light. In most cases, it is completely legal to do so, and in Orlando it could totally get you killed, so when this situation arises I prefer to look at the situation and proceed with caution. If I do not feel safe turning right while the light is red, I will not.
For some reason though, people will waste no time in honking at you if they see the area as clear even though they are six cars back. Do not force me to go when I am not ready. I will make poor judgments and harm myself or others. Wow, it's almost like I'm a good driver, right?
A few days ago I was introduced to a new experience that I found to be equally annoying to the situation I just described. I was sitting in my tan 1994 Geo Prizm (AKA - The Broke White Boy Car) waiting in the left turn lane. While I waited, I did what I always do and gazed into my rear-view mirror in an attempt to spy on the person behind me and possibly catch them doing something silly. The woman behind me looked to be middle-aged and was perched behind the wheel of a blue Dodge Caravan. Come to think of it, she kind of looked like a soccer mom. And not the good kind of soccer mom. The kind where she's on the sidelines yelling at her child and punching out referees who make poor calls that she doesn't agree with.
I refocused on the the road, wondering why the light had not turned.
Now, once in a while with lights in Orlando, they take a while to turn green and sometimes your mind goes other places while you're waiting. If you're first in line at a light, you had better not drift off because you have about 10 people behind you just waiting to be somewhere very very important and they will honk if it takes you more than 15 seconds to begin moving. When I'm first in line at a turn light I become completely paranoid of this occuring so I focus on the light. I become one with the light. I know that as soon as I see green, I'm going for it!
At this particular light, I was first in line. FInally, after what seems like months the light turns green and I move my foot to the gas pedal. Keep in mind this light has not been green for more than a 3 seconds. Suddenly, from behind me, the soccer mom begins to lay on her horn. I glance into my rear-view mirror and watch in horror as she slams on her horn repeatedly while foaming at the mouth. Actually, she wasn't foaming at the mouth. When I say "foaming at the mouth" I really mean "being a complete bitch."
So what do I do?
I don't go anywhere.
The honking gets louder and I... well, I just don't care.
She may as well have been honking while the light was still red.
So, to the lady in the blue Dodge Caravan: Screw you.
If I see you again, I'll probably punch you.
You couldn't wait 5 seconds for me to put my foot on the gas.
You gave me 3 seconds.
And now I hate you.
Enjoy your kids soccer game. I hope his team loses tonight.
She did go to jail though. Funny stuff.
THIS JUST IN: I've just added someone new to the list of women I would punch.
Now, before I begin, I do realize that this blog is going to make me very unpopular with most of the universe. Punching women is not funny, and I would never actually do it, but I think it's so funny to talk about in this scenerio that I have no qualms about putting it out there. I was raised on good morals and won't ever be accused of domestic violence. (end legal red tape here)
First, allow me to introduce some interesting backstory in order to make my final punchline even funnier...
This story takes place in my car.
I've always had this thing about turning right during a red light. In most cases, it is completely legal to do so, and in Orlando it could totally get you killed, so when this situation arises I prefer to look at the situation and proceed with caution. If I do not feel safe turning right while the light is red, I will not.
For some reason though, people will waste no time in honking at you if they see the area as clear even though they are six cars back. Do not force me to go when I am not ready. I will make poor judgments and harm myself or others. Wow, it's almost like I'm a good driver, right?
A few days ago I was introduced to a new experience that I found to be equally annoying to the situation I just described. I was sitting in my tan 1994 Geo Prizm (AKA - The Broke White Boy Car) waiting in the left turn lane. While I waited, I did what I always do and gazed into my rear-view mirror in an attempt to spy on the person behind me and possibly catch them doing something silly. The woman behind me looked to be middle-aged and was perched behind the wheel of a blue Dodge Caravan. Come to think of it, she kind of looked like a soccer mom. And not the good kind of soccer mom. The kind where she's on the sidelines yelling at her child and punching out referees who make poor calls that she doesn't agree with.
I refocused on the the road, wondering why the light had not turned.
Now, once in a while with lights in Orlando, they take a while to turn green and sometimes your mind goes other places while you're waiting. If you're first in line at a light, you had better not drift off because you have about 10 people behind you just waiting to be somewhere very very important and they will honk if it takes you more than 15 seconds to begin moving. When I'm first in line at a turn light I become completely paranoid of this occuring so I focus on the light. I become one with the light. I know that as soon as I see green, I'm going for it!
At this particular light, I was first in line. FInally, after what seems like months the light turns green and I move my foot to the gas pedal. Keep in mind this light has not been green for more than a 3 seconds. Suddenly, from behind me, the soccer mom begins to lay on her horn. I glance into my rear-view mirror and watch in horror as she slams on her horn repeatedly while foaming at the mouth. Actually, she wasn't foaming at the mouth. When I say "foaming at the mouth" I really mean "being a complete bitch."
So what do I do?
I don't go anywhere.
The honking gets louder and I... well, I just don't care.
She may as well have been honking while the light was still red.
So, to the lady in the blue Dodge Caravan: Screw you.
If I see you again, I'll probably punch you.
You couldn't wait 5 seconds for me to put my foot on the gas.
You gave me 3 seconds.
And now I hate you.
Enjoy your kids soccer game. I hope his team loses tonight.
Monday, October 23, 2006
MeWithoutYou is not fun live.
It takes a lot to drag me out to a show that's not ENY related.
These are my 3 stipulations for going and paying for a show:
1. There has to be at least 2 bands on the bill that I know that I will like.
2. It has to be at a good venue.
3. The door charge cannot be higher than my expectations.
On Saturday there was a show that I actually went to. A show off mass proportions that I had been eagerly anticipating since the moment tickets went on sale.
The entire band ventured out to House of Blues to partake in a show consisting of the bands Days Away, Piebald, MeWithoutYou, & Say Anything.
Sure, I was really only there to see Piebald and Say Anything, but I figured I'd give the other bands a chance. I'd never heard of Days Away and found them to be very forgettable. They played a quick 20 minute or so set and took off so that Piebald could play and so that Wes would be happy.
Piebald was up second but only had 30 minutes to control the stage because MeWithoutYou was coming up after them to put everyone to sleep. I'd never seen Piebald live before so this was a fun experience for me. They had fantastic energy and sounded really solid. A good mix of old and new songs, drawing mostly from "We Are the Only Friends..." and "All Ears, All Eyes...." they even tossed in "Grace Kelly With Wings" and their newest tune "Getting Mugged and Loving it."
They pretty much played everything I expected and it was a great time. They also had the best merch of the night. Myself, Doug, and JoAnna all walked away with something from their table. They need to come back to FL more often. Glad that they made it onto this tour. They deserve big things.
MeWithoutYou was up next and made noise. I don't get the band or their music and I was a little ticked that they got to play longer than the 'Bald. I spent the majority of their set outside with Doug making fun of them. I'm such a terrible person. Actually, no I'm not. How can I be expected to tolerate nine minute long songs with each consisting of a drum circle midway through each tune? Ugh.
Say Anything was the obvious headliner and played for nearly an hour and a half. They managed to play every single song I've ever heard by them with the exception of about two. It was awesome. The band was super tight and barely missed a note. The crowd was rowdy and almost everyone was singing along with each word. I didn't realize just how popular that band was. Crazy that they released their record 2 years ago and are just now picking up some steam. It gives me hope that it can happen to other bands, not to mention us.
I left a happy camper. Then we got back to the house and the gunshots started... but that's a story for another time.
These are my 3 stipulations for going and paying for a show:
1. There has to be at least 2 bands on the bill that I know that I will like.
2. It has to be at a good venue.
3. The door charge cannot be higher than my expectations.
On Saturday there was a show that I actually went to. A show off mass proportions that I had been eagerly anticipating since the moment tickets went on sale.
The entire band ventured out to House of Blues to partake in a show consisting of the bands Days Away, Piebald, MeWithoutYou, & Say Anything.
Sure, I was really only there to see Piebald and Say Anything, but I figured I'd give the other bands a chance. I'd never heard of Days Away and found them to be very forgettable. They played a quick 20 minute or so set and took off so that Piebald could play and so that Wes would be happy.
Piebald was up second but only had 30 minutes to control the stage because MeWithoutYou was coming up after them to put everyone to sleep. I'd never seen Piebald live before so this was a fun experience for me. They had fantastic energy and sounded really solid. A good mix of old and new songs, drawing mostly from "We Are the Only Friends..." and "All Ears, All Eyes...." they even tossed in "Grace Kelly With Wings" and their newest tune "Getting Mugged and Loving it."
They pretty much played everything I expected and it was a great time. They also had the best merch of the night. Myself, Doug, and JoAnna all walked away with something from their table. They need to come back to FL more often. Glad that they made it onto this tour. They deserve big things.
MeWithoutYou was up next and made noise. I don't get the band or their music and I was a little ticked that they got to play longer than the 'Bald. I spent the majority of their set outside with Doug making fun of them. I'm such a terrible person. Actually, no I'm not. How can I be expected to tolerate nine minute long songs with each consisting of a drum circle midway through each tune? Ugh.
Say Anything was the obvious headliner and played for nearly an hour and a half. They managed to play every single song I've ever heard by them with the exception of about two. It was awesome. The band was super tight and barely missed a note. The crowd was rowdy and almost everyone was singing along with each word. I didn't realize just how popular that band was. Crazy that they released their record 2 years ago and are just now picking up some steam. It gives me hope that it can happen to other bands, not to mention us.
I left a happy camper. Then we got back to the house and the gunshots started... but that's a story for another time.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
I'm Having a Candy Dinner!
I'll admit, I really like the fall season. Not because of the cooler weather or the sights of Pumpkin sellers on every street corner but because of the massive surplus of candy that seems to be everywhere I go.
Let me tell you, candy has gotten way cooler since I was a kid and I intend to sample anything and everything I see. There's nothing more perfect than a bite-sized 3 Musketeers bar. Mmmmm.
Halloween is on a Tuesday this year. That's kind of lame. The people who invented the calendar and the holiday should have teamed up to ensure that all national holidays occur on weekends. Except for Columbus Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, President's Day, and generally any other day that actually gets me a day off of work. Those need to stay put.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas should always be Saturday Holidays.
Back me up people! We can start a revolution!
We'll be spending our Halloween evening in the recording studio laying down some tracks and re-recording some songs. New demos are currently high on the priority list, so we'll see what we can rig up.
Intense practices starting soon.
Blah blah blah. Go eat some candy.
Let me tell you, candy has gotten way cooler since I was a kid and I intend to sample anything and everything I see. There's nothing more perfect than a bite-sized 3 Musketeers bar. Mmmmm.
Halloween is on a Tuesday this year. That's kind of lame. The people who invented the calendar and the holiday should have teamed up to ensure that all national holidays occur on weekends. Except for Columbus Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, President's Day, and generally any other day that actually gets me a day off of work. Those need to stay put.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas should always be Saturday Holidays.
Back me up people! We can start a revolution!
We'll be spending our Halloween evening in the recording studio laying down some tracks and re-recording some songs. New demos are currently high on the priority list, so we'll see what we can rig up.
Intense practices starting soon.
Blah blah blah. Go eat some candy.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
One more record to check out.
Didn't get this one in yesterday but I've had it on repeat all morning.
Circa Survive - Juturna
I think I might be late to the party on this one but it's fantastic.
Doug
Circa Survive - Juturna
I think I might be late to the party on this one but it's fantastic.
Doug
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Listen... to these CD's.
Here are some recommendations for ear candy directly from 3/4ths of the band:
Bert
1. Emery - The Weak's End
2. Tourmaline - Strange Distress Calls
3. Blindside - Silence
Wes
1. Sugarcult - Lights Out
2. OutKast - Idlewild
3. Say Anything - ...is a Real Boy (yeah, for the 100th time)
Doug
1. Hit The Lights - This Is A Stick Up....Don't Make It A Murder
2. Me First And The Gimme Gimmes - Love Their Country
3. Bayside - Sirens And Condolences
That's it. Short and sweet. Go listen.
More news when there is news.
Bert
1. Emery - The Weak's End
2. Tourmaline - Strange Distress Calls
3. Blindside - Silence
Wes
1. Sugarcult - Lights Out
2. OutKast - Idlewild
3. Say Anything - ...is a Real Boy (yeah, for the 100th time)
Doug
1. Hit The Lights - This Is A Stick Up....Don't Make It A Murder
2. Me First And The Gimme Gimmes - Love Their Country
3. Bayside - Sirens And Condolences
That's it. Short and sweet. Go listen.
More news when there is news.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Recording Wrap-up
I almost didn't write this blog due to inner turmoil over whether or not the title of this blog was correct. I couldn't remember what to do when you combine the words "Wrap" and "Up" together to form a word. It didn't look right smooshed together and I didn't like keeping it separate so I instead chose to go with the hypen there in the middle.
Okay. Moving on...
My 5 day recording binge was a complete success. I completed the writing and recording of three new jams. Plan B, Say Hello, and The Sick Charade are being heavily guarded in hopes that they won't be leaked out so we can have songs for an eventually album that you haven't heard for a year beforehand. I think at this point the song count is up to 8 as far as new tracks go. We're close to having a complete record. Woot. Everyone was receptive and seemed to like what they heard. Good thing too. If they hadn't liked it, heads would have rolled. Well, maybe not that, but a lot of time and effort went into them.
So somehow this bit of news slipped my mind and I figured better late than never, right?
A few weeks ago we went into the studio for 2 nights recorded some updated demos of Lifeless and Something That I Miss. They were a bit rushed, but we wanted to see where we stood as far as how well rehearsed the new songs were. Sounding good.
So lots of good news overall in the ENY camp. New shirts will soon be a reality so everyone who was deathly offended by the black shirt design will be able to rest easy.
If you don't care about non-ENY related things, this would be a great place to stop reading.
Other Ramblings:
During a free trial of NetFlix I watched a lot of movies. Here's what I saw that was new to me:
Highways: At least, I think that's what it was called. It starred Jared Leto and Jake Gylenhall. Or however you spell it. Anyway - good flick. It made you feel like you were on some drugs while watching it. It was one of THOSE movies. But good. Check it out. Older film.
Everything is Illuminated: Starring Elijah Wood and some other guy I vaguely recognized. It was about Jews and collecting random things. I didn't get it and don't have any real desire to do so again.
X-Men 3: Lots of action, lots of killing major characters. They were killing mutants as fast as they were introducing them. Better than the last. Director Bret Radner is still a tool.
Underworld Evolution: Did you see the first Underworld? It was pretty much the same. Vampire Girl and Werewolf-Vamp love child Guy run from the bad guys. Oh, and then I feel asleep.
To everyone who came out to see us in Daytona Beach. Um... thanks. And sorry. Again.
Okay. Moving on...
My 5 day recording binge was a complete success. I completed the writing and recording of three new jams. Plan B, Say Hello, and The Sick Charade are being heavily guarded in hopes that they won't be leaked out so we can have songs for an eventually album that you haven't heard for a year beforehand. I think at this point the song count is up to 8 as far as new tracks go. We're close to having a complete record. Woot. Everyone was receptive and seemed to like what they heard. Good thing too. If they hadn't liked it, heads would have rolled. Well, maybe not that, but a lot of time and effort went into them.
So somehow this bit of news slipped my mind and I figured better late than never, right?
A few weeks ago we went into the studio for 2 nights recorded some updated demos of Lifeless and Something That I Miss. They were a bit rushed, but we wanted to see where we stood as far as how well rehearsed the new songs were. Sounding good.
So lots of good news overall in the ENY camp. New shirts will soon be a reality so everyone who was deathly offended by the black shirt design will be able to rest easy.
If you don't care about non-ENY related things, this would be a great place to stop reading.
Other Ramblings:
During a free trial of NetFlix I watched a lot of movies. Here's what I saw that was new to me:
Highways: At least, I think that's what it was called. It starred Jared Leto and Jake Gylenhall. Or however you spell it. Anyway - good flick. It made you feel like you were on some drugs while watching it. It was one of THOSE movies. But good. Check it out. Older film.
Everything is Illuminated: Starring Elijah Wood and some other guy I vaguely recognized. It was about Jews and collecting random things. I didn't get it and don't have any real desire to do so again.
X-Men 3: Lots of action, lots of killing major characters. They were killing mutants as fast as they were introducing them. Better than the last. Director Bret Radner is still a tool.
Underworld Evolution: Did you see the first Underworld? It was pretty much the same. Vampire Girl and Werewolf-Vamp love child Guy run from the bad guys. Oh, and then I feel asleep.
To everyone who came out to see us in Daytona Beach. Um... thanks. And sorry. Again.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
2.5 in the bag.
Bloggers and Bloggettes....
I bring news. News I should have reported long ago, but didn't. My bad.
First. We lost the Bamboozle Contest. Big surprise right? Turns out AbsolutePunk.net didn't actually send judges to the shows, so they based the winners off of who brought the most amount of people to the show. I feel bad for the band who came from Jacksonville who brought five friends. Although, I think that's more people than we brought so whatever.
Second. We're not going to be on the "Rocking Idol" show anymore. We got bumped due to lack of space on the bill. We won't be making our television debut anytime soon.
Wow, that was all bad news, eh?
Guess I'll balance that out by letting you know that I officially finished 2 new songs this week with a third close behind. The new tunes are "Plan B" and "Say Hello" and the new one is yet to be named, but I bet it will be something really simple and not incredibly long and having nothing to do with the song's actually message or meaning. I even have half of a fourth song recorded but have little direction on where I want it to go or how I want it to sound. I was attempting to write as I went and realized it doesn't work for me too well. Live and learn.
So 3 new songs in the bag? Looks that way. Soon enough anyway. I'll try to finish up the untitled gem tomorrow. Just needs vocals and some guitar elements. They're all stuck in my head. That's gotta be a good sign.
Tomorrow I believe we're playing a show in Daytona Beach. I'll be honest... I've been so busy recording that I've really done absolutely no promotion for this show. I usually hit the MySpace hard and let everyone know, but I didn't do that. My bad again. There's three other people in this band. Maybe one of them did something. No clue.
Time to wrap this up as I have places to go, people to see and music swirling around in my head.
I bring news. News I should have reported long ago, but didn't. My bad.
First. We lost the Bamboozle Contest. Big surprise right? Turns out AbsolutePunk.net didn't actually send judges to the shows, so they based the winners off of who brought the most amount of people to the show. I feel bad for the band who came from Jacksonville who brought five friends. Although, I think that's more people than we brought so whatever.
Second. We're not going to be on the "Rocking Idol" show anymore. We got bumped due to lack of space on the bill. We won't be making our television debut anytime soon.
Wow, that was all bad news, eh?
Guess I'll balance that out by letting you know that I officially finished 2 new songs this week with a third close behind. The new tunes are "Plan B" and "Say Hello" and the new one is yet to be named, but I bet it will be something really simple and not incredibly long and having nothing to do with the song's actually message or meaning. I even have half of a fourth song recorded but have little direction on where I want it to go or how I want it to sound. I was attempting to write as I went and realized it doesn't work for me too well. Live and learn.
So 3 new songs in the bag? Looks that way. Soon enough anyway. I'll try to finish up the untitled gem tomorrow. Just needs vocals and some guitar elements. They're all stuck in my head. That's gotta be a good sign.
Tomorrow I believe we're playing a show in Daytona Beach. I'll be honest... I've been so busy recording that I've really done absolutely no promotion for this show. I usually hit the MySpace hard and let everyone know, but I didn't do that. My bad again. There's three other people in this band. Maybe one of them did something. No clue.
Time to wrap this up as I have places to go, people to see and music swirling around in my head.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
VACATION.
I'll admit. I totally forgot about this thing.
Perhaps it's because my mind has been other place. Perhaps I wasn't in the blogging mood. Or perhaps the mafia threatened me to not blog if I cared about the lives of my friends and family. Actually it's just because I've been on vacation all week!
What am I doing for my vacation?
I'm locked away in my bedroom writing songs, editing video, and recording demos.
It's been a blast. It's been my goal to record 3 new demos for the week. 4 if I get super ambitious. Although, spending two hours writing the Moog parts for one of the tunes really killed my productivity.
So far I've completely recorded one new tune I'm calling "Plan B" and have half-recorded another tune I'm tentatively calling "Say Hello."
That has drums and guitars recorded, just waiting on the vocals, bass, and moog polish to be complete.
I'm going to try to build one song pretty much from scratch and another tune just needs a bridge to be ready for the record button.
More on this as it develops. Chances are these demos won't be posted anywhere, but you just might hear the tunes live sooner or later. Who knows.
I'm off to demo. Again.
Perhaps it's because my mind has been other place. Perhaps I wasn't in the blogging mood. Or perhaps the mafia threatened me to not blog if I cared about the lives of my friends and family. Actually it's just because I've been on vacation all week!
What am I doing for my vacation?
I'm locked away in my bedroom writing songs, editing video, and recording demos.
It's been a blast. It's been my goal to record 3 new demos for the week. 4 if I get super ambitious. Although, spending two hours writing the Moog parts for one of the tunes really killed my productivity.
So far I've completely recorded one new tune I'm calling "Plan B" and have half-recorded another tune I'm tentatively calling "Say Hello."
That has drums and guitars recorded, just waiting on the vocals, bass, and moog polish to be complete.
I'm going to try to build one song pretty much from scratch and another tune just needs a bridge to be ready for the record button.
More on this as it develops. Chances are these demos won't be posted anywhere, but you just might hear the tunes live sooner or later. Who knows.
I'm off to demo. Again.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Why Not?
Thought I'd just give a quick rundown of the Bamboozle Left Break Contest show that we played on Wednesday at The Social.
In 3 words or less?
It was awesome!
We arrived at the venue at 6pm, an hour before the doors opened. As we hopped out of the van, the promoter was quick to let us know that we were late. Ouch. We hate being late. Once we loaded in our gear we found out that the only other band that had arrived and loaded was Between the Trees. They were set to play last, and we were to take the stage in the 3rd position, right before them. We were the two locals on the bill. Harloe from Jacksonville had to bring 2 or 3 cars for all their stuff so they all arrived 20 minutes or so apart and Fallen From the Sky who was supposed to open the show had to drive up from Boca Raton and blew out a tire on their way. Somehow they arrived at the venue right as they were supposed to play and the show went on as normal.
Fallen From the Sky had fantastic energy and a very punk sound. Everyone was jumping around like crazy and they had a lot of fans there to help them sing and scream.
Harloe took the stage second. You could tell that they were an upstart band, so I'm sure this show was big for them. They brought some friends with them who rocked out down by the stage, but overall I wasn't really feeling their music. It was all screaming. Nice guys though.
We took the stage third for a fairly big crowd. We had time to jam out about 10 songs and did so like it was our last show. Doug had a few problems during the course of the show, but only because he was rocking out so hard that he would accidently step on his tuner and cut off his guitar. Only happened a couple times. He also broke a string during Lifess, which never happens to him, and after setting his guitar down after the set he managed to break off a tune roff his guitar. If you don't play guitar, or don't know anything about them, let me just tell you it's not good. Poor guy can't get a break.
We had a lot of friends in attendance who took pictures, Amanda got some fantastic video of our set (which we will release online at some point as a new video series) and the crowd was great about giving us feedback and helping to keep the energy up while we played. All around, it was a great time. Lots of new friends and fans.
Between the Trees played last and did their thing. Everyone was pretty much there for them, and they delivered. They played a solid set. We had never met those guys before but they turned out to be some of the nicest dudes we had met in a while. We hope to share the stage with them again in the future, but they could blow up big any day and we may never see them again.
We spent the rest of the show chatting it up with everyone around and JoAnna "celebrated" her 21st birthday.
Lastly, if you've seen us in concert before then you know that Bert jumps around on stage like a madman during the shows. Our unofficial photographer Tiffany finally managed to catch Bert in one of his many rock poses and forever made his year.
Thanks to everyone who came out and supported. We had more fun than a barrel of monkeys ever could.
Did that make sense?
Whatever.
In 3 words or less?
It was awesome!
We arrived at the venue at 6pm, an hour before the doors opened. As we hopped out of the van, the promoter was quick to let us know that we were late. Ouch. We hate being late. Once we loaded in our gear we found out that the only other band that had arrived and loaded was Between the Trees. They were set to play last, and we were to take the stage in the 3rd position, right before them. We were the two locals on the bill. Harloe from Jacksonville had to bring 2 or 3 cars for all their stuff so they all arrived 20 minutes or so apart and Fallen From the Sky who was supposed to open the show had to drive up from Boca Raton and blew out a tire on their way. Somehow they arrived at the venue right as they were supposed to play and the show went on as normal.
Fallen From the Sky had fantastic energy and a very punk sound. Everyone was jumping around like crazy and they had a lot of fans there to help them sing and scream.
Harloe took the stage second. You could tell that they were an upstart band, so I'm sure this show was big for them. They brought some friends with them who rocked out down by the stage, but overall I wasn't really feeling their music. It was all screaming. Nice guys though.
We took the stage third for a fairly big crowd. We had time to jam out about 10 songs and did so like it was our last show. Doug had a few problems during the course of the show, but only because he was rocking out so hard that he would accidently step on his tuner and cut off his guitar. Only happened a couple times. He also broke a string during Lifess, which never happens to him, and after setting his guitar down after the set he managed to break off a tune roff his guitar. If you don't play guitar, or don't know anything about them, let me just tell you it's not good. Poor guy can't get a break.
We had a lot of friends in attendance who took pictures, Amanda got some fantastic video of our set (which we will release online at some point as a new video series) and the crowd was great about giving us feedback and helping to keep the energy up while we played. All around, it was a great time. Lots of new friends and fans.
Between the Trees played last and did their thing. Everyone was pretty much there for them, and they delivered. They played a solid set. We had never met those guys before but they turned out to be some of the nicest dudes we had met in a while. We hope to share the stage with them again in the future, but they could blow up big any day and we may never see them again.
We spent the rest of the show chatting it up with everyone around and JoAnna "celebrated" her 21st birthday.
Lastly, if you've seen us in concert before then you know that Bert jumps around on stage like a madman during the shows. Our unofficial photographer Tiffany finally managed to catch Bert in one of his many rock poses and forever made his year.
Thanks to everyone who came out and supported. We had more fun than a barrel of monkeys ever could.
Did that make sense?
Whatever.
Monday, October 02, 2006
"WHAT DO YOU WANT, WES?"
Well - I for one had a very relaxing weekend. After finishing up my latest stint on the Real World I decided to just chill and hang out with my favorite people in the world. My girlfriend and bandmates.
Okay, so I wasn't really on the Real World, but we are determined to get this rumor all over the 'net.
Friday night Amanda and I went to see the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Hilarious. Check it out of you get the opportunity. Perfect DVD rental material. On the way into the movie some guy outside the movie theatre hollered "YEAH! EARLY NEXT YEAR!!!" really loudly at me. I quickened my step.
Saturday I did a lot of sleeping and then Amanda and I braved the perilous lanes of the Aloma Bowl where we both attempted to break 100. I never succeeded. She had the unfair advantage of having been bowling at least 3 months prior to this excursion. She even has her own ball. Yeah. She's that cool. Does YOUR girlfriend have her own bowling ball? Didn't think so.
On Sunday, ENY did our first real photoshoot with a fellow by the name of Andrew Tremblay. Good guy and great photographer. We hooked it up so we could invade Park Ave. CD's... a little indie record store here in Orlando and shot stuff all through the store then ventured out to a baseball diamond and took photos in the grass, the bleachers, and in the shady looking alleyway behind the record store. We even invaded the most pretentious coffee house in the state and were photographed while sipping on $1,000 coffees full of imported spices from Mars.
We should have the photos soon and look forward to sharing them with everyone. It'll be nice to have REAL photos. Then we can get some wicked posters made up to promote ourselves all over the place. It's gonna be neat.
I mentioned us playing a battle of the bands thing a while back at the AKA Lounge in Orlando. We actually tied for 7th place (out of 20some bands) and will get to play the next round at the Hard Rock Live down near Ft. Lauderdale on the 22nd of October. That's coming up. It's for a TV show that will (possibly) air on FOX called Rocking Idol. So you might see ENY on national TV. Maybe. We'll see. Empty promise, really.
We have to play a cover song for this event. Yeah. A cover. I'm not thrilled either.
We're going to be playing for some "celebrity judges" and if they dig our cover, we're gonna get to bust out one of our tunes. What's the cover? We're keeping that under wraps for now, but we're scambling to put it together and will likely give it a go during our set at the Coffee Connection in Daytona Beach on the 13th of October.
So. Crazy things all over the place. I feel like I've mainly typed in senteces fragments for this blog. I'm truly A-OK with that.
WEDNESDAY WE'RE PLAYING THE FRICKIN' SOCIAL!
Had to get that plug in there.
Enjoy your evenings.
Okay, so I wasn't really on the Real World, but we are determined to get this rumor all over the 'net.
Friday night Amanda and I went to see the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Hilarious. Check it out of you get the opportunity. Perfect DVD rental material. On the way into the movie some guy outside the movie theatre hollered "YEAH! EARLY NEXT YEAR!!!" really loudly at me. I quickened my step.
Saturday I did a lot of sleeping and then Amanda and I braved the perilous lanes of the Aloma Bowl where we both attempted to break 100. I never succeeded. She had the unfair advantage of having been bowling at least 3 months prior to this excursion. She even has her own ball. Yeah. She's that cool. Does YOUR girlfriend have her own bowling ball? Didn't think so.
On Sunday, ENY did our first real photoshoot with a fellow by the name of Andrew Tremblay. Good guy and great photographer. We hooked it up so we could invade Park Ave. CD's... a little indie record store here in Orlando and shot stuff all through the store then ventured out to a baseball diamond and took photos in the grass, the bleachers, and in the shady looking alleyway behind the record store. We even invaded the most pretentious coffee house in the state and were photographed while sipping on $1,000 coffees full of imported spices from Mars.
We should have the photos soon and look forward to sharing them with everyone. It'll be nice to have REAL photos. Then we can get some wicked posters made up to promote ourselves all over the place. It's gonna be neat.
I mentioned us playing a battle of the bands thing a while back at the AKA Lounge in Orlando. We actually tied for 7th place (out of 20some bands) and will get to play the next round at the Hard Rock Live down near Ft. Lauderdale on the 22nd of October. That's coming up. It's for a TV show that will (possibly) air on FOX called Rocking Idol. So you might see ENY on national TV. Maybe. We'll see. Empty promise, really.
We have to play a cover song for this event. Yeah. A cover. I'm not thrilled either.
We're going to be playing for some "celebrity judges" and if they dig our cover, we're gonna get to bust out one of our tunes. What's the cover? We're keeping that under wraps for now, but we're scambling to put it together and will likely give it a go during our set at the Coffee Connection in Daytona Beach on the 13th of October.
So. Crazy things all over the place. I feel like I've mainly typed in senteces fragments for this blog. I'm truly A-OK with that.
WEDNESDAY WE'RE PLAYING THE FRICKIN' SOCIAL!
Had to get that plug in there.
Enjoy your evenings.
Friday, September 29, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, September 18, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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.
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.
Friday, September 08, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
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