It's fun to have fun

Yay for candy day. I don't know who's idea it was to combine candy with horror, but good-on-ya, whoever you are. Not that they have anything to do with each other. It's just neat to scare the bajeezus out of someone and then hand them candy corn.

On a completely unrelated subject (I have a feeling this kind of nonsequetor will be a regular occurrence in this blog), I was interviewed by another online magazine (yay for me!), this time by Junior's Cave Magazine, an affilliate of JC Internet Radio. You can read the interview here.

Now proceed with dressing yourself in some sort of scary/bloody/freaky, humorous, cute, or otherwise witty costume so you can get free candy. God bless America.

I'm gonna be busy...

Not too long ago, I signed up for a music submission service online. The site is called MusicSubmit.com (go figure) and they pass your music on to webzines, blogs, radio, podcasts, indie record labels, etc. The number of submissions varies depending on the package you choose. I picked the 800 submission package, which came with a bonus 200 submissions for free for my genre. It seems like a cool way to get exposure for independent music like mine, and it's all done via the glorious internet machine.

Starting a couple days ago, I've been receiving feedback from the site telling me who they've submitted to so far, and I've also gotten some emails from some of those sites saying they dig it and would like to do a review, and one of them even sent me questions to answer for a virtual interview. So far, MusicSubmit has sent 25 submissions out of 1000... I'm realizing that I'm about to get real busy following up on this. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about it and I've always known it would be a lot of hard work to gain the kind of exposure I need. But now I realize I'm basically going to have an office job (working for myself) responding to these musical leads. Looks like it's time to hunker down in the trenches and get to work... rockin.

By the way, as I'm writing this I'm listening to some killer old funk. The 70's were badass.

Electificate '08

I voted! Well, I haven't turned it in yet, but I filled out an absentee (or vote-by-mail, as they call it now) ballot, so my vote has been inked. I'm not going to be out of town on Nov. 4th. In fact, I don't have much going on that day, and my polling place is literally across the street from my apartment. I chose to go with the vote-by-mail option so that on Nov. 4th I can go to my polling place and turn in a paper ballot that must be counted by hand (I could mail it, but I want to make sure it gets there, and I want the little "I Voted" sticker). After all the crap that's gone on with electronic voting machines (have you seen all the documentaries on how easy it is to hack one of those things???) and voter fraud, I'm not taking any chances. Screw the computer screen, give me a pen and paper. Electronic voting might be monumentally faster to count, but seeing as how there are people who can't be trusted to act with integrity and honesty and who choose to try and mess with the rest of us, I think patience is a small price to pay for accountability and accuracy.

I'm not saying it's all going to go smoothly now that I've chosen against electronic voting machines. In fact, I'm counting (and I'd put money on it, but no one would take the bet) on there being some sort of drama, crisis, uncertainty or suspected fraud surrounding the election results. After what happened in 2000, it's hard to imagine a presidential election, especially one of great importance like this one, to go off without a hitch. So no, my one pink vote-by-mail ballot won't rock the system and eliminate subjugation, but my mommy told me that one person can make a difference, and I love my mom, so don't try to tell me she's wrong.

On a completely different subject, Sierra Nevada's Winter seasonal "Celebration Ale" is officially available. Praise be to BevMo for carrying it in large supply -- what a great beer! Cheers, and happy voting!

Back Home

I love what I do, and I love traveling to do what I do, and I have a blast doing it, but man does it feel good to come home. I got home Sunday afternoon and have spent my time since then catching up on everything that gathers while away: bills, banking, laundry, "shout-outs" to friends, voting stuff, car stuff, gig stuff, indie promotion... yeah, it's always a big pile o' stuff. So now that I've taken care of most of it and I'm mostly caught up with the now, I feel the relief of home.... *siiigghhhhhh*

I tried blogging while on the road, but when you email a blog from your phone, it ends up formatting funny. I had to borrow a band-mate's laptop to fix it. No biggy -- I expect a Blogger app to appear soon for the iPhone.

A couple hip things occurred this tour: firstly (that's a cool word), I filmed a television special with Frankie Valli for NBC. It's called "Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons Tribute On Ice." We played a full show while Brian Boitano and other notable ice skaters performed some bad-ass routines. It was a unique experience to be making music along with visual art as well. It was a blast and I'm excited to see how it turns out. The special airs Sunday, November 2nd at 4pm EST. There will be re-airs on the Style network as well. Here's the schedule page.

Secondly, (not as cool of a word) I recently was interviewed by Feeling the Vibe Magazine, and they notified me that the interview and CD review are now up on their website: FeelingTheVibeMagazine.com. Click on over and check it out -- I even did a video intro for their site... yeah, I'm that cool.

Rock on.

Oooooooo I can blog from my phone

Yeah, this is pretty hip. Kudos to Blogger for making it possible to
post blogs via email -- technology rocks.

I'm in Biloxi, Mississippi today. Arrived last night after a flight
and a bus ride. We flew into New Orleans, so we saw much of the
devastation from Katrina that still hasn't been taken care of. We saw
a lot of abandoned homes and businesses, and even a temporary bridge.
It's pretty amazing that 3 years later you can still see the effects
of that storm. Unreal.

One event that is worth mentioning happened last night at one of the
bars in the casino. I was there with a couple guys from the band
having a drink when I met a couple local girls. They in turn
introduced me to a nice, elderly woman from Germany who they had met
earlier that day. Not too much later the German granny came running
over to us in histerics, saying that someone stole $500 out of her
purse. Apparently there was a guy who she was talking to that told
her he was down on his luck, so she gave him $60 to find a place to
sleep that night. After that, he was going through her purse "looking
for some gum" or something, and apparently that's when he found the
$500 and took it. Okay, so it was probably a bad idea to let a
strange guy go through her purse when she had $500 in there, but what
kind of guy do you have to be to take $500 from an old lady? I think
you pretty much go straight to hell for something like that. If
nothing else, that guy has a lot of bad karma heading his way. Good
thing we're only playing Biloxi for one night, because I don't wanna
be around when that guy gets struck by lightning, or spontaneously
combusts.

So we rock Biloxi tonight, and then bus it to Houston after the show.
I'm unfortunately missing out on a friend's bachelor party in Dallas
tonight, but that's how it goes sometimes. The upside is that I still
get to rock for a living... killer.

Something New

Last night I did something brand new; something I'd never done before. I got together with a new friend of mine, Brett Boyett, and wrote a song specifically to be pitched for use in T.V. and film. *And the peasants rejoiced.... yaaayy.* I've been involved in songs that have gone on to be considered (and some used) for T.V. and film, but never started from scratch with that concept as the sole purpose.

I must say, we did a damn good job. After 4 hours we had written and recorded a 3 minute, 35 second song that could easily find its way into dramatic television shows. And it's a good song, too. Brett is damn talented and he knows what he's doing (he's been doing this kind of thing for a while). And since he's the one who knows the people who could actually put the song on T.V., I'm just happy to be involved.

So keep your ears open... you just might hear my voice and acoustic guitar in the background of a love scene in your favorite drama. Nifty.

Rockin' out... on the couch

I recently saw the movie "The Rocker" and must say that I was quite surprised. Yeah, it's a typical garage-band-makes-it-big kind of story, but look past that and the occasional comic genius of Rainn Wilson and you'll find some pretty slammin music.

During the opening credits I noticed a nice bit of credence being paid to the composer of the original music and score, Chad Fischer. After watching the movie, I utilized the magnificent power of the internet to find Chad's MySpace page. There I learned that Mr. Fischer is no newbie to the land of Hollywood and the business of composing for T.V. and film. He penned (and sang) the theme for the T.V. show "Scrubs," as well as doing the score for the Zack Braff film, "Garden State."

The pop tunes Fischer wrote for the singer-character in the movie (played and sang by an actual singer/songwriter, Teddy Geiger) are what I'd call "that good pop" (a term coined by a good friend of mine). Pop can be pretty bland and void (i.e. Hannah-Miley-Montana-Cyrus), but it can also have some substance and push the genre towards something meaningful. While this isn't completely rare (there are lots of artists/bands making "that good pop"), what's refreshing about it is that it was written by a guy on his couch at home -- a guy who makes a living writing music for T.V. and film.

There is definitely some applause for Chad Fischer needed here, because a lot of writers in his situation would simply write carbon-copies of whatever "the kids" are listening to these days, and completely skip over the chance to write something of value. Chad's lyrics are poignant to the character and to the story without being cheesy or lame, and the songs actually go somewhere, instead of just going through the motions. Are the songs going to save the world? Probably not. Is everyone going to agree with me and totally dig the songs? Nope (in fact, AMG's review is pretty harsh). But it is a redeeming breath of fresh air in a business driven more by the dollar than by quality.

I might be standing totally by myself on this one, but I'm applauding you, Chad Fischer. Rock on... on your couch.

Hello, there...

Wow... I'm here. When the whole concept of blogging came into being and made its way to my eyes and ears, I never thought that I would find myself taking part. But then again, when I was 12 in the backseat on vacation to visit my grandparents in Altadena, I told myself that I hated L.A. and would never live there. I've been living in L.A. for 6 years now, so go figure.

But why the hell am I here? Aside from a recommendation from my good friend Cameron Mizell, I've experienced a realization or 3 as of late. The first of which is a realization that what I've been so passionate about since I was 13 is in fact the reason why I am here -- it's what I'm here to do: make music. Following shortly after that was an understanding of what that means, and fortunately it didn't scare me. If it scared me, I would know that my realization was false. Instead I felt very, very alive. After realizing this connection between my life and music, I began to notice things in everyday life that confirmed (and continue to do so) my gut feelings.

I believe we are living in a very exciting time (realization #3). Yeah, I know, Iraq is a drag, the economy is in a nose dive, the planet is pissed off at us, and it's getting harder and harder to trust the people who are running things... but where many see crisis and ruin, I see the potential for change. There is a lot of negativity and negative people around, but I also see a growing percentage of positivity and positive people. I'm not talking about naive, blind-happy type people. I'm talking about people who understand that every situation, event, choice and action is subject to perception. We can choose to be reactive, or we can choose to be proactive, and I see more and more people who want to move towards being proactive. Maybe they don't know how, but the will is there. And where there's a will... hell yeah, there's a way.

So what does this have to do with why I'm here? Because I believe we are all part of the "way." Music inspires me -- makes me feel alive. And when I make music for others, I see/hear/feel the inspiration they are receiving from me. It's not up to me to decide how they are inspired, or what they do with that inspiration -- that's up to them alone. But I do know this: belief + inspiration + action = evolution. I'm here to live music, and this passion drives me to put my music into the ears of the willing. So this blog will be a sounding board for me along this journey, as well as a way to connect with others who have similar feelings/beliefs/inclinations. Somehow I know that's why I'm here... isn't that exciting?