So as you know, I have quit my job and am strictly focusing on my writing, guitar playing, and showmanship. I have been writing a lot, meeting people in an attempt to network, recording, practicing the guitar, and just thinking about everything.
I realized tonight that my expectations are too high. I am hoping that things will move a lot faster then possible. I am expecting reactions and to be noticed. Not in a serious way or an infamous way. More like in the next step kindof way, where people enjoy my music, and other doors start to open. At the same time that has been happening and it is getting me excited about where that will lead. I mean by playing one open mic night a month ago, I met people who want me to sing in their band, and I have found two new places to play through them. I have also met a handful of other musicians doing the same thing I am doing. Some great, some average. I am learning more and more by the day about what I want to do, what I should do, and what I have to do...So its hard not to get too excited.
The bottom line is I just need to keep doing what I am doing. Writing and playing out every chance I get. Things will fall in place, as they always do. I just have to remember that.
After the New Year, I think I will get a bullshit job to pay for some studio time and will hopefully have enough material to finish my first demo album/EP...Who knows. I mean I have written 10 songs since November 4th and there are 4 or 5 of them that I love to play, and think are pretty solid songs. That is a good ratio to be working with. So we will see what the future brings.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Friday, November 18, 2005
Then There Were Two
Big Plans in the making here. I just heard from Neil Prakash, the sexiest and coolest person on the planet - Yes, even more so then the infamous Candid Bass Player - and he is back in the states. He arrived in Texas a couple days ago and has been going about the usual Army business that a highly respected officer like himself goes through. He has been answering emails from Senators and other officers and blah blah blah, he is the man.
Moving on, He is going back to Iraq, which sucks but at least he is going back on his terms and will get to be with his wife. So thats cool. But he also has until January and has a little vacation time around the holidays. So what does this mean. I will tell you.
Kathy needs her car driven from Maryland out here to California. So Neil and I are gonna drive it. Neil is planning on meeting me in Syracuse after the New Year, and we will leave sometime around the 3rd of January. It wont be an extended - lets see everything road trip - rather it will be somewhat rushed as Neil will have to be back within a weeks time. But nonetheless it is going to kickass. One last hoorah with Neil before he heads back, and becomes married Neil forever. There will be little time for Road Trips after all the little Neils start popping out of Mrs. Prakash.
Its still pending because Neil may have to leave mid-December, but after just talking to him today, odds are in our favor. Its not like he has to let me know immediately anyways. As long as he lets me know before January 3rd (when my flight leaves Syracuse) then we are golden. And he will know within the next couple weeks, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Man I sure am glad I dont have a job.
Moving on, He is going back to Iraq, which sucks but at least he is going back on his terms and will get to be with his wife. So thats cool. But he also has until January and has a little vacation time around the holidays. So what does this mean. I will tell you.
Kathy needs her car driven from Maryland out here to California. So Neil and I are gonna drive it. Neil is planning on meeting me in Syracuse after the New Year, and we will leave sometime around the 3rd of January. It wont be an extended - lets see everything road trip - rather it will be somewhat rushed as Neil will have to be back within a weeks time. But nonetheless it is going to kickass. One last hoorah with Neil before he heads back, and becomes married Neil forever. There will be little time for Road Trips after all the little Neils start popping out of Mrs. Prakash.
Its still pending because Neil may have to leave mid-December, but after just talking to him today, odds are in our favor. Its not like he has to let me know immediately anyways. As long as he lets me know before January 3rd (when my flight leaves Syracuse) then we are golden. And he will know within the next couple weeks, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Man I sure am glad I dont have a job.
The Way We Was...
Well, Well, Well...I quit my job.
Hows that for news. I only worked a total of 6 days, and I quit. Some people might argue that I am an idiot, or that I should have stuck it out, but they are wrong. The job was boring for one thing. More boring then church. Second of all it was frustrating me and making me quite unhappy with my life. I felt the same way I did during the last two years at RIT when I wanted to quit school. The only difference is that I am somewhat glad I stuck that out, because I ended up with a degree I can always fall back on, even though it cost me a lot of money.
So I am jobless and I am just working on my music. After the christmas vacation to Syracuse that I have planned in about a month, I will get myself a bullshit job stocking shelves or something. Something that wont eat up my time, or energy. I just need enough cash to get by, and would rather focus my energies on something more important then a career. I will have plenty of time to establish myself in the working world later on. I mean afterall, I am only 25 years old.
So basically I did what I had to do, in order to maintain happiness and productivity in the areas of my life that are most important to me. I have been writing a lot and if you havent checked out my site, there is a link to the right that says, 'My Music'. So check it out.
Hows that for news. I only worked a total of 6 days, and I quit. Some people might argue that I am an idiot, or that I should have stuck it out, but they are wrong. The job was boring for one thing. More boring then church. Second of all it was frustrating me and making me quite unhappy with my life. I felt the same way I did during the last two years at RIT when I wanted to quit school. The only difference is that I am somewhat glad I stuck that out, because I ended up with a degree I can always fall back on, even though it cost me a lot of money.
So I am jobless and I am just working on my music. After the christmas vacation to Syracuse that I have planned in about a month, I will get myself a bullshit job stocking shelves or something. Something that wont eat up my time, or energy. I just need enough cash to get by, and would rather focus my energies on something more important then a career. I will have plenty of time to establish myself in the working world later on. I mean afterall, I am only 25 years old.
So basically I did what I had to do, in order to maintain happiness and productivity in the areas of my life that are most important to me. I have been writing a lot and if you havent checked out my site, there is a link to the right that says, 'My Music'. So check it out.
Monday, November 14, 2005
The Musical Whimsies of Davis
For those of you who dont know, I have been playing Open Mic Nights again at a college town called Davis, CA. I play every sunday at a bar called the G Street Pub, and every first friday of the month at Borders Bookstore.
Davis is really receptive. Its quite refreshing. If you put on a good set, people will stop playing pool and darts to listen to you and cheer you on. So its a nice change of pace. And there are also less covers and more original material, so it has made me a lot more comfortable with putting my originals out there, because I know people are there to check out a little bit of new music. So its been fun. I get compliments after each time I play, from random people in the bar, and from other musicians, and have even made a few friends out of the whole ordeal.
After meeting a guitarist named Mike, who plays with this band called "the Awks", we started talking cause he really enjoyed "Yoshimi Battels the Pink Robots" - which is always a huge fan favorite (thanks Dwight) - He told me after he heard me play that song, he became obsessed with it and was listening to it non-stop. So I arranged for him to join me on stage to play it with me, and he obviously agreed that that would be fun. And it was. I love playin music with anyone, especially if they are good, but Mike really enjoyed it as well, which meant a lot because he was in a band with a lot of really good musicians.
So "the Awks" invited me to join them for a jam session every sunday night before open mic at the G Street, and I gave them my number and told them it was a grand idea. After one jam session and another set with Mike which consisted of "Yoshimi", "One Dollar Bill", and "Get off This", they invited me to join the band. They want me to play rhythym guitar and share the singing duties with their lead singer John, whom they describe as a ego-tistical maniac. John has a really good voice, but he is kindof a douchebag, and since they love me, they are hoping to slowly ween him out of the band. Mike also really enjoyed my original "One Dollar Bill" which we jammed on together a few times already and is excited about working with me. So I am ecstatic if you can imagine. I havent been part of a band yet, and I can only learn from it all. I have no expectations, other then to show up and have fun playing whatever it is we are playing. They are all cool guys too, and are always open to your song ideas and what not, so it will be a good forum to get feedback on my originals, and learn the songwriting process.
So basically I am in a band. Although we havent had a formal practice yet, Mike and I have formed somewhat of a duo already anyways. We dont practice much, because we are both busy with work and him with school, but he is good enough to follow me through the songs I normally play, and it sounds fantastic. People wanted an encore last night from us, but they wouldnt allow it because some hardcore band called "GLUG" was supposed to play.
That was the only negative part of the Open Mic. There were 5 artists playing that night, plus GLUG and the Kid Adam who runs it. After talking to Adam about time constraints he told me that GLUG had to be on from 11 - 11:45 and then Adam was to play his set the rest of the night. I was kindof upset by this situation and felt it defeat the purpose of the open mic night. If this band GLUG is supposed to be good enough to play gigs, then they should not be coming to open mic nights and preventing people like myself from more playing time...Maybe Im just being ridiculous because their music makes me want to murder puppies. But after being spoiled at Downtown Manhattans with a half hour set, it is hard to get my point across in three songs...
Davis is really receptive. Its quite refreshing. If you put on a good set, people will stop playing pool and darts to listen to you and cheer you on. So its a nice change of pace. And there are also less covers and more original material, so it has made me a lot more comfortable with putting my originals out there, because I know people are there to check out a little bit of new music. So its been fun. I get compliments after each time I play, from random people in the bar, and from other musicians, and have even made a few friends out of the whole ordeal.
After meeting a guitarist named Mike, who plays with this band called "the Awks", we started talking cause he really enjoyed "Yoshimi Battels the Pink Robots" - which is always a huge fan favorite (thanks Dwight) - He told me after he heard me play that song, he became obsessed with it and was listening to it non-stop. So I arranged for him to join me on stage to play it with me, and he obviously agreed that that would be fun. And it was. I love playin music with anyone, especially if they are good, but Mike really enjoyed it as well, which meant a lot because he was in a band with a lot of really good musicians.
So "the Awks" invited me to join them for a jam session every sunday night before open mic at the G Street, and I gave them my number and told them it was a grand idea. After one jam session and another set with Mike which consisted of "Yoshimi", "One Dollar Bill", and "Get off This", they invited me to join the band. They want me to play rhythym guitar and share the singing duties with their lead singer John, whom they describe as a ego-tistical maniac. John has a really good voice, but he is kindof a douchebag, and since they love me, they are hoping to slowly ween him out of the band. Mike also really enjoyed my original "One Dollar Bill" which we jammed on together a few times already and is excited about working with me. So I am ecstatic if you can imagine. I havent been part of a band yet, and I can only learn from it all. I have no expectations, other then to show up and have fun playing whatever it is we are playing. They are all cool guys too, and are always open to your song ideas and what not, so it will be a good forum to get feedback on my originals, and learn the songwriting process.
So basically I am in a band. Although we havent had a formal practice yet, Mike and I have formed somewhat of a duo already anyways. We dont practice much, because we are both busy with work and him with school, but he is good enough to follow me through the songs I normally play, and it sounds fantastic. People wanted an encore last night from us, but they wouldnt allow it because some hardcore band called "GLUG" was supposed to play.
That was the only negative part of the Open Mic. There were 5 artists playing that night, plus GLUG and the Kid Adam who runs it. After talking to Adam about time constraints he told me that GLUG had to be on from 11 - 11:45 and then Adam was to play his set the rest of the night. I was kindof upset by this situation and felt it defeat the purpose of the open mic night. If this band GLUG is supposed to be good enough to play gigs, then they should not be coming to open mic nights and preventing people like myself from more playing time...Maybe Im just being ridiculous because their music makes me want to murder puppies. But after being spoiled at Downtown Manhattans with a half hour set, it is hard to get my point across in three songs...
Friday, November 11, 2005
The Boring World That is Validation
Well Im back into things full swing, and Im hating every second of it. I forgot how truly boring Validation really really is. To make matters worse, I have slightly moved up the scale and am no longer working with young kids like myself, which makes me miss workin with Dwight and Pete even more. At least we made it a lot less boring by making fun of each other - well - mostly we made fun of Pete - its just not the same.
To top it all off, I dont really know what I am doing outside of Temperature Mapping and SIP studies. I mean all validation is the same and can be learned pretty quickly, its just a matter of becoming comfortable with your new companies formats, however they are kindof throwing me in the heat of things pretty fast here. There is a lot of temperature mapping that needs to be done, which is easy...but there are other things that are going to involve some research and talking with other departments. This isnt too bad, except not only did they not train me on their documentation format, but I havent been introduced to anyone. I havent even been given a phone list.
My contact is taking a 3 week vacation at the end of next week, and then I will be running the show for the most part until she gets back. So I dont know where to begin. So this could be disastrous, although I am probably overreacting as I usually do. Because in the end, I will realize just how easy validation is, and that you could train a monkey to do what we do. Ok fine, a really smart monkey. A really smart monkey that will be rich if he can figure it out.
To top it all off, I dont really know what I am doing outside of Temperature Mapping and SIP studies. I mean all validation is the same and can be learned pretty quickly, its just a matter of becoming comfortable with your new companies formats, however they are kindof throwing me in the heat of things pretty fast here. There is a lot of temperature mapping that needs to be done, which is easy...but there are other things that are going to involve some research and talking with other departments. This isnt too bad, except not only did they not train me on their documentation format, but I havent been introduced to anyone. I havent even been given a phone list.
My contact is taking a 3 week vacation at the end of next week, and then I will be running the show for the most part until she gets back. So I dont know where to begin. So this could be disastrous, although I am probably overreacting as I usually do. Because in the end, I will realize just how easy validation is, and that you could train a monkey to do what we do. Ok fine, a really smart monkey. A really smart monkey that will be rich if he can figure it out.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
The New Order of Things
Where to begin...
I got a new job now. I am working for Total Validation Services - although I am hired through Global Turn Key Services - and am contracted out to do Validation work to various companies. TVS is using GTKS as a trial hiring period for me, because I came off as a 'Transient' during the interviewing process. They wanted to be sure I was comfortable here before considering me for permanent hire. However, California sucks, so the jokes on them. In the long run I will probably choose to stay with GTKS since they contract workers out everywhere, whereas TVS is only focused on Northern California.
The job I am at now involves a 65 mile commute which doesnt seem that bad, considering its all highway, but its also 4 lanes of solid non-moving California traffic. It took me close to 2 hours to get home last night. This is a major setback and makes me want to quit already. I mentioned to my boss that my car is leased and the commute is killing me, and he said this job will only be til mid-january then I will be contracted out to a company in Vacaville. So it will be worth it in the long run, cause they are paying me well. So a couple months of long drives, and then I will be ten miles or less from my new place of employment.
This job is easy. There is only one warehouse that needs to be validated which includes like 7 refridgerators, a few air handling units, and the HVAC system. Its all equipment validation. For those of you who dont know what I am talking about, its BORING. Thats all the details you need. So its gonna be a long couple of months, but like I said, will be worth it since I should be able to save enough money in the next year or so to pay off most of my loans, if not all...
On a lighter note, I have begun home recording my own originals. I have only written two so far, and recorded one...It sounds ok, but there were some timing issues since I could only record one track at a time. I have started a web-page through myspace, and you can hear my song, and get all updates there. There is a link to the right - just click on 'My Music' - Last night I went out and bought a USB powered interface so I could record 2 tracks together which will solve my vocal timing problem. So I will be re-recording the first song, as well as a new one I wrote the other day. So keep your eyes peeled on that site for new songs, and better quality recording.
McMahon is coming to see me tomorrow night, and we will probably spend most of the weekend partying in San Francisco for my birthday. It should be interesting if anything.
Congratulate me for posting the most boring update ever...
I got a new job now. I am working for Total Validation Services - although I am hired through Global Turn Key Services - and am contracted out to do Validation work to various companies. TVS is using GTKS as a trial hiring period for me, because I came off as a 'Transient' during the interviewing process. They wanted to be sure I was comfortable here before considering me for permanent hire. However, California sucks, so the jokes on them. In the long run I will probably choose to stay with GTKS since they contract workers out everywhere, whereas TVS is only focused on Northern California.
The job I am at now involves a 65 mile commute which doesnt seem that bad, considering its all highway, but its also 4 lanes of solid non-moving California traffic. It took me close to 2 hours to get home last night. This is a major setback and makes me want to quit already. I mentioned to my boss that my car is leased and the commute is killing me, and he said this job will only be til mid-january then I will be contracted out to a company in Vacaville. So it will be worth it in the long run, cause they are paying me well. So a couple months of long drives, and then I will be ten miles or less from my new place of employment.
This job is easy. There is only one warehouse that needs to be validated which includes like 7 refridgerators, a few air handling units, and the HVAC system. Its all equipment validation. For those of you who dont know what I am talking about, its BORING. Thats all the details you need. So its gonna be a long couple of months, but like I said, will be worth it since I should be able to save enough money in the next year or so to pay off most of my loans, if not all...
On a lighter note, I have begun home recording my own originals. I have only written two so far, and recorded one...It sounds ok, but there were some timing issues since I could only record one track at a time. I have started a web-page through myspace, and you can hear my song, and get all updates there. There is a link to the right - just click on 'My Music' - Last night I went out and bought a USB powered interface so I could record 2 tracks together which will solve my vocal timing problem. So I will be re-recording the first song, as well as a new one I wrote the other day. So keep your eyes peeled on that site for new songs, and better quality recording.
McMahon is coming to see me tomorrow night, and we will probably spend most of the weekend partying in San Francisco for my birthday. It should be interesting if anything.
Congratulate me for posting the most boring update ever...
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