Updates

So, I woke up Tuesday morning with one of the worst cases of tonsilitis that I have had in a long time. The tonsil on my right side was so swollen I felt like I might gag at any second any time I swallowed, and it was bright red and goopy-looking. Just nasty.

And I had to perform yesterday.

Saturday, we had band practice with Cactus, who is filling in for us on the 21st and 22nd, as our regular drummer can't play on those dates. We practiced with Cactus again Sunday.

Tuesday, I woke up with horrific tonsilitis, but I did perform, thanks to two Tylenols and a healthy dose of my magic throat elixir. My throat still hurts, incidentally, and we may be performing again on Saturday. Lovely.

Booger-pickers & the Wonderful World of Nostril Mining

We played at the Elk Days festival-thingy Sunday. Everybody said that we kicked ass. Everytime I told the monitor guy to turn up my vocals, he turned up my guitar, and it was starting to piss me off. But, oh, well. I sold CDs and made $45 and everything worked out OK.

Decisions

The new drummer came over and practiced tonight, and we're sure enough that he is going to be sticking around for a while that we had him sign the "Band Member Agreement," which makes him a full-fledged, voting member of the band. Now, all I have to do is tell the other drummer that he is no longer with the band.

Bad Mood License REVOKED!

I was all set to be in a bad mood tonight. But then, there was this:

Hey, We'd love to use "Riding the Bell" for BestWeekEver.tv's podcasts…do you
have an address or fax number where I can send a contract?-Jim

For those of you who don't know, "Best Week Ever" is a show on the cable television channel VH1. Best Week Ever podcast has over 500,000 subscribers via iTunes alone.

And, you know, like, my night couldn't get any better, but...Then I got this:

Just joined GB and was puttering around..."Riding the Bell" rocks! I'd love to
hear more of your stuff-- I want the CD!Are you the singer? The voice is great
and perfectly balanced against the lead guitar and, shit, I know what it's like
to Are there vocal harmonies behind the lines"make believe again / make me feel
again?" It could just be guitar feedback but it sounds awesome whatever it
is.Good lyrics too, I know what it's like to be..."tired of keeping
secrets"Great work!

Matt

So, I am in a good mood. :D

My weekend? We played Friday. Our current drummer screwed up all over the place. We get there, and one of the bands that we were supposed to open for has cancelled, and another band is packing up their stuff to leave because - get this - they don't get to open the show. They're pissed because we are opening the show, not them. But the bar is full of people around my Dad's age, and this other band plays punk, and we totally don't, and we know that the patrons of the bar are going to leave if this other band plays first. So we are adamant that we play first. So the second band leaves. So, that leaves two bands. So, we set up, and we start playing, and we're nearing the end of the set, and the booking agent comes up and says that the other band left, too, because they didn't want to follow us. (I'm like, "What?" but, you know, whatever.) So we ended up playing for two hours rather than 45 minutes. And my feet hurt. We sold 6 CDs. It was COOOOOL.

I went home and immediately drove out to my Mom's and ended up staying up until about 9:30 AM, and then ate an egg sandwich and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up around 3 PM, my Dad had brought in the mail, and I had received my diploma.

The next day, Kenny called me and said that I needed to get ready because he was coming to get me to take me to a bar to hear a band. He says that the drummer for said band is bored in his current band and wants to play with ours. So, I get ready, and we go, and we sell four more CDs (in addition to the 6 we sold Friday and the 4 I sold Saturday) and the drummer indeed wants to play with us. So we exchange phone numbers, give him a CD, and we go to another bar and play pool and stuff. Today, I put together about 40 more CDs, sold three more tonight, and I am mailing off the pre-orders and stuff tomorrow. And that's my life. :)

A Little Happiness

I got the CDs today! Everything looks and sounds perfect, and I am so excited to start selling them and getting them out to radio stations and mailing the pre-orders... It looks SOOO killer!!!!

Embarrassment

So, we played our show last night. We were not impressive. We definitely needed more practice, and there was one moment that pissed me off so bad that I did something that will probably haunt me for a while.

We were playing our second-to-last song of the night, an original, Hush Now. The drummer screwed up the tempo so badly that I finally just stopped playing, turned to the audience and said, "I'm sorry. We can't play that song. We don't know it." Even though it was him screwing it up. So, the only thing that I could think of to do was to do something so outrageous that everyone in the bar would forget how badly we screwed up. So, I grabbed the wireless microphone, and I sang Crazy Train from the bar. No, seriously. I climbed up onto the bar, and sang the song from up there on my knees because the ceiling was too low for me to stand up. So. Embarassment. Infamy. LMAO!

Today, My right foot hurts at the joint behind my big toe, my right shoulder hurts, the muscle that drapes across my left shoulder is sore, and my hip hurts on my right side. So I am grumpy.

I called the lawyer to help him with his e-mail, but he hasn't called me back yet. Got the printed materials back for the CD from Dave and they look lovely. Now, I just have to cut and fold them and put them into the cases. Le sigh.

So Spaketh The Patron Saint of Lobsters

I have a disturbing infection on my left-hand thumb. When I was a kid, I had staph infections in my thumbs all the freaking time, and I have problems with getting infections of all sorts in my thumbs since I was 2 or so. Not always staph infections, but weird things like a little spot - for no reason - suddenly swelling up and red streaks running up my arm. Not fun. So, I have this spot on my left thumb again, and it is pissing me off because it makes it hard to play guitar, it makes it hard to type, and it hurts whenever it gets bumped, which seems to be more often now that it is hurting. (Damn it.) So, if it isn't better by Tuesday, I am going to the doctor.

I mastered the whole record by myself on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. It came out well. But I still don't think the process is worth $400.

On Thursday afternoon, I called the replication outfit in San Francisco and got the answers to my questions, and, rather than having me overnight the master CD to them, he wanted me to upload the songs to him. I said fine, and hung up and went to upload the songs to him, and my freaking Internet was down, and it's a long story from this point on, but the short of it is that I got the files to him eventually. However, they're closed over the weekends, so, if there are problems, I won't know about it until Monday morning, at the earliest.

I didn't sleep for over 48 hours while finishing up the mastering and uploading the files to the replicator and finishing my podcast.

Dave (who is printing the inserts and traycards for the band's CD) decided to change the layout for the insert, so as to avoid additional work for me. (He's so thoughtful.) So, instead of having to cut, arrange, staple, and fold all the inserts, now I'll only have to fold and trim them, as we switched from a booklet design to a poster/fold-out design, which looks great, and is totally going to rock. To do this, though, I stayed up all Friday night and went to bed at 11:30 AM Saturday.

On Saturday, we went into Spokane to practice with the new drummer. Practice went well.

Today, I went out to my Mom's. After eating, we all went back into the drummer's house and practiced some more. The gig at the Owl is going to be fine. I know it.So, that was the last three or four days of my life. (It's all still kinda running together.)

D: None of the above

At this very moment, I am listening to the new remixes of the songs, and I am noticing more effing problems. Nothing serious, but I am a total perfectionist. But, as my Mom told me, at some point, as an artist, you have to say that you are done, or it will never be done. She's right. The songs go to the mastering guy tomorrow. We could be better... per se... but what we would end up doing would be nothing that anyone would notice... except for me. And that's okay.

No, really. It is okay.

And Then...

We were finished.

I went into the studio today and me and the bass player helped the engineer remix the tracks that needed work, and now, we are finished. I am sending the WAV files of the songs to a mastering facility online to get the tracks finished up for the replication process, but, at least this guy doesn't charge as much as the last mastering guy. The last mastering guy wanted $400 to master the whole CD, and, when he sent me a sample of my song, it didn't sound any different from what I started with. At least the samples on this new guy's site had distinct differences.

Happy Birthday To Me

Last year on this date, I was listening to Dire Straits' "Lady Writer" and waxing poetic about the goals I wanted to reach between 05/04/05 and 05/04/06. I wanted to get my book published. That happened. I wanted to get the CD done. That almost happened (and will happen within the next two weeks or so). I wanted to graduate. That will happen in ten days. I wanted my business to take off. That one's negligable. With that in mind, my goals to accomplish between 05/04/06 and 05/04/07:

Write the sequel to Night Cries, A Night Borrowed
Write another book about something else.
Start working on the two non-fiction projects I have simmering in my head.
Write material for the second CD.
Sell at least 500 more copies of Night Cries
Sell out every copy of the band's record, "Too Much To Dream."
Get at least 5 new clients for my business.
Add some new services to my business.
Buy a house and a little property.
Fix up my car.

Busy Me

Today, I cleaned my house some more and then went out and drank rum and played cards.

Tuesday, I have to go to the cellular phone store and change my cell phone number and add Kenny to my cell phone plan. Then, I have to go to Coeur d'Alene for my last class!! Yay me!

Wednesday, I am cleaning and re-arranging the house in preparation for the party. I also have band practice that night.

Thursday is my birthday, and the day's pretty much up in the air. I do know that I am doing the second episode of my podcast.

Friday is the party.

Saturday, I am going out with my aunt and uncle.

Sunday looks like the only day I'll have to finish up the last class I have in school... online.

Next Monday, it's more of the same again until the 14th, when there is graduation, which is an event that I am not too hip on attending, but that my Mom REEEEEEAAAALLLLLLY wants me to go to.

It Is Finished

I got the mixes back from the engineer today.It sounds amazing.

So good, that I almost cried listening to "Hush Now" and again listening to "Riding The Bell." "Hush Now" gives me shivers to listen to. (Apropos, no?)

Bleh

I have a really bad headache. It feels like an icepick being pounded in above my left eyebrow. It sucks.

Went to see my teacher on Tuesday, and talked with the statistician about my data analysis, which I should have tomorrow, so I can get that done and out of the way. Tomorrow, I am going to catch up on all the forum postings I have to do, and then on Friday I am going to do a couple of papers that are due. On Monday, I am going out. On Tuesday, I will write my paper and get my presentation ready. And a week from today, there won't be any practice because my bassist is visiting family in Seattle and New Mexico.

We are playing at The Blue Dolphin in the Spokane Valley on June 2. Starts at 9:30 PM. We play for an hour. Come out and see us. We SHOULD have the CD by then, but the way things are going, I just don't know.

Been Busy And Stuff

Did some more work for the photographer, but my e-mail was down, so I couldn't tell him. Did some vocal lessons. We had scheduled a band practice, but that didn't happen because the drummer didn't show up.

We scheduled another practice, and went over all the songs that the drummer's uncomfortable with. It went fairly well. We played until midnight when we got the cops called on us. We didn't get a ticket, but we did quit.

Whew!

After several grueling hours, I have completed the data compilation for my senior capstone course. All that remains is analyzing it, putting the data into graphs and charts, and writing up the presentation, which very well could take up one whole week of my life, especially if I don't get my butt in gear and just do it and not wait until it The End Of The World. ::insert eye rolling here::

Have to go to class tomorrow, and I ought to be in bed. But I am not, because of school work. Is that ironic? Or wut?

Oh! News!

I got mixes of five of the songs today.

More Recording Stuff

Went in and recorded my Dad's backing vocals on the record today. He did backing vocals on 4 songs, which was very cool. He was really worried that he didn't do a good job, but it sounds great, and we're almost done. Just a little more recording to do, and we can start the replication process. That starts, actually, after the mixing and mastering process, which we still have to do, too. I'm thinking I'll actually have copies od the CD the first week of April or so. The next step after that is to send out the pre-orders and send copies to promoters, booking agents, radio stations (Internet, college, and traditional), and to CDBaby.com, a company who will take a copy of the CD and get it ready fo online distribution with 41 distributors. We're on the way to the BIG TIME!!! Woo hoo!

More Recording

We recorded some more tonight. Kenny re-did guitar parts on "Riding The Bell," "Love, Love, Love," and "Down To You." He did his vocal parts on "Wicked Ways," "Down To You," and "Love, Love, Love." We started working on some back-up vocals for him on "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night," but that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. We'll try again next time. I still need to do the keyboard parts, and we still need to get all the background vocals together. I figure that, since my Dad and me and the kids and Kenny are all going over to my Aunt's to watch the Pro Bowl, it might be a good time to go over what I want to do as far as background vocals go, since my Dad and my Aunt and one of my cousins and my bassist are all going to do some background vocals on the record.Lawyer also said he'd make sure I got paid. Woo Hoo! Money!

Um... well...

So, you see, I had a pretty funny day. It actually started on Monday, when I stayed up all night and didn't go to bed until 9:30 AM Tuesday morning. I was then rousted out of bed to go to Coeur d'Alene for a stupid class that is so pointless, it might as well be a rubber ball. (The teacher talks about nothing, save to hear his head rattle, and then is egotistical enough to think that anyone gives a rusty rat's behind. But I digress.) Anyway, so I was rousted out of bed and took a shower and left the house at 2:00 PM. Kenny was driving my car, which puts my nerves on edge as he breaks his car every other day, it seems (his latest breakage was somehow breaking the clutch pedal in his car). He speeds something awful. (Again, I digress: I'm freaking TIRED.) So, we're driving to Coeur d'Alene and suddenly, I turn to Kenny and I say:

"Do you suppose that CAMO-MEAL is when you're on a diet and you don't want anyone to know what you're eating?"

I have band practice tomorrow with a new drummer who is filling in for this gig. **sigh** I have so much to do.

Last night, I finished up the CD inserts, got the UPC code for the CD, and registered for the ISRC codes. Oh, and I am now an official member of BMI. Woo hoo!

i hate people

I was supposed to interview a drummer today. Well, I get to his house, and I hear people inside, and I hear a dog barking inside, but no matter how much I ring the doorbell or knock on the door, no one answers. Then, I leave and go to lunch ('cause this was about an hour earlier than we were supposed to be there) and then I come back just at 1 (the meeting time) and another car is there that wasn't there before, so I figure that he is home now. Well, I knock and I ring, and I hear people talking inside, but no one answers the door. I go around back and look and there's nothing there. I knock and ring some more, hear more noises, but no one answers. Finally I wait in the car for 10 more minutes, no one shows, no one opens the door or anything, so we leave.

You know a drummer is flaky when he can't even be bothered to be at HIS OWN HOUSE on time.