Unpredictable Winters

This time last year, I was buying long johns because my winter wardrobe couldn't combat the twenty degree high temperatures. Today, I am wearing shorts. Shorts! It is so hot! While I do enjoy the warmer weather, I am a little sad that I won't be witnessing any of the Austinite attempts at snow crafts. Snow men that are really dead grass men held together by rapidly melting ice crystals. Snow angels that just get your jacket dirty, but leave little evidence on the ground of your attempts. It's cute, and fun for everyone.

The joys of the music business

I figured out a long time ago I wasn't playing music for the fame and fortune. It wouldn't hurt my feelings but I did not align my life to making a career out of playing original music. My last high school job was working as a bass instructor at a music store and I met many very talented people that never did anything significant. I also found music stores to be where a lot of the wannabe rockstars go before dying and that I didn't particularly like teaching music to semi-interested and untalented students 4+ hours a day.

Part of that can be blamed on not trying hard enough (but there's no formula for the music business) but trying is a pain. The biz side of being in a band might be the hardest part. The unprofessionalism you encounter at the local-band level is amazing. I recently played a show that had been booked for a very long time, and the day of, I get an e-mail from the booker asking if we'll switch spots and move up and hour and half... as he'd missed an email from the original opening act weeks ago that said they had a conflict. Great. I'd promoted the show, and told lots of people. Eventually we came around to deciding we really didn't need to move spots as there was more than enough time. And many people did come out, on a rainy and dreary night, to see my band - and they paid us pretty generously for a place with no cover. Yet after that, pitching another bill, no response.

Bands too are difficult to deal with. I've been in Austin for 11 years now and know a lot of local musicians, who I frequently go see and support. Yet in asking about shows and doing the legwork of putting a bill together, it's not uncommon just not to get any response from the same people who smile, walk up, and say hello to you out at the clubs. One band refused a show as they thought the club was beneath them. They're not really even well known locally!

Sloth, ego, and incompetence rule the day. Oh well, I'll continue trying to amp up the booking for my bands and do what I can.

As many really talented musicians as I've known over the years, I really haven't known very many that have had success. This tweaks me a little on the occasions I turn on 101.X. However one story I'm happy to report is Andy McKee. My half-brother is quite the shredder, and Andy is his cousin. In his early teens my brother helped Andy learn guitar, and it took in a big way. For many years, Andy played guitar 8+ hours a day and it shows.

Now he tours the world and makes a living off it... still living in Topeka Kansas. Very well deserved, and a little hope for the rest of us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4

Ok, I'll admit it...

Avatar was actually a good movie.
Really pretty, and a nice message. If you are into that sort of thing.

The Tokyo Music Scene

Tokyo's a lot different than what I'm used to when it comes to a music scene. The trains are the main mode of transport here, but they stop at 1 AM. The only option then is to get a cab which are not cheap for any decent distance. The trains start up again at 5 AM, so many youth here apparently go crash with their heads down at McDonalds until dawn. Another option is to get in a Manga (?), which is sort of a cafe where they give you a big comfy chair and let you hang out for awhile for about $25-30.

I looked for some live music somewhat nearby so that if I missed the last train the cab ride wouldn't be killer. The shows here are very expensive. I know nothing about the national music scene, but checking about 6 different clubs the cheapest show I could find was 2000 yen (~$22)... on a weeknight. There were at least three or four shows commanding $40-50. I just paid about that to see the Pixies play a sold out hall in Chicago. I found another upscale Jazz club but the two times I dropped by they were charging ~$46 bucks for a single set from a local jazz musician on weeknights and Sundays. It's a long ways from the Elephant room for sure.

The time didn't turn out to be a problem as everything I found started and ended early. Arriving at 9 PM I got a discount because there was only one more band left. I guess my brain refused to believe they actually ended rock shows at dive clubs by 10:30 PM. Going up 6 floors, through a bar, then back down a winding spiral staircase, I arrived to a room that probably held 200 people max.

I caught the last couple songs of one bands set which was decent punk rock. The last band looked like a bunch of teenagers but turned out to be pretty decent, sorta pop rock but edgy enough it didn't bore me and with some keyboard thrown in to keep it interesting. The band put a lot of emphasis on their rockstar stage presence, unfortunately I couldn't understand a word of their between song banter. However following in the steps of the great cock rockers of the past a bottle of JD was passed around during their set and many rockstar moves were performed. It was packed wall to wall, but I was the only Gaijin!

large and in charge

While at school tonight I discovered a large plotter that I can print from at no charge.

Going global

I post this somewhere over Iowa on my way to Tokyo. I saw Andy and aaryn play to a sold out crowd at the Chicago Vic theatre wiith mistress Stephanie. Then Saturday night I saw the pixies do all of Doolittle and then some. Yesterday was a long day at the shedd aquarium studying deep sea terrors for further zissou material. Fortunately I got my sax into the shop prior to leaving so I'll be set to close out recording when I return. Glad to start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for this cd. I've been in the band for over a year and a half so it'll be nice to finally have a good recording where I'm contributing. I'm also hoping we can knock out a zissou ep fairly soon. That should be easy though as the instrumentation and overall production is a lot less complex than on MD.

Looking forward to the weekend and being crafty

This picture from Devo at SXSW last year is only here because I haven't labeled the photos in my phone, and I guessed wrong with the first photo I uploaded :) But I think it's cool, so I'm leaving it here.



Last weekend I went out and got the goods to start screen printing. This is something that I have been wanting to do for a long time, but was under the impression that it was very hard, so I had never actually gotten around to it. Now, I find out that it really isn't that hard, but can be a bit time consuming.

So, the first thing that I did was a couple of T-shirts with this gear flower on the front (image from our last album cover).


I used a paper stencil for that, and it was really easy and quick to do, but the stencil doesn't last long and is not reusable. So, then we decided to something for the back of the shirt, but wanted to try to do a method where you block out the screen with this masking fluid. Turns out that this way is very tedious, and messy, and I think I might have ruined the screen. But now I have learned the very valuable lesson (that I probably should have known in the first place), which is this: use the supplies that are actually designed for the project at hand.

So, this weekend I am going to use this screen that I made for the back, I'll let you know how that goes.