Hey Friends… so glad to see so many of you show up last night! We had a blast. The most fun we’ve had playing there yet.

Post a message and review the show if you feel like it… We would love to hear from you! We played a lot of new songs and your feedback is appreciated…. oh and If you happened to snap a photo on your phone or anything, go ahead and post that as well:-)

Looks like we’ll be back at The Gypsy Feb. 12th… so if you couldn’t make it last night, come on down on the 12th!

love you guys.

- Adam, Nic, Jules and Matt

AWB

Well, I’m sick. Not horribly sick, but mildly sick. Something is attacking my throat. But the show must go on, dangit!! So who knows what’s gonna happen tonight when I open my mouth, but I promise, I’m gonna do my best to rock. So come on out, throw a cough drop at me, bring some Vapo-Rub and we’ll enjoy ourselves.

Gypsy Cocktail Lounge
23600 Rockfield Blvd # 3A
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(949) 206-9990

Howdy people. It’s me Adam. I must say I’ve had a standout day. It’s nice when one of your better days is also the day you can call “Today”. As you know if you’ve been reading our blogs, we’ve been working on this new EP thing… well it’s pretty much finished, so now we’ve been rehearsing the songs that are on it. And today something CLICKED. We were playing the songs… in the “tracking room” of our studio (see studio photo in earlier blog) and it was friggin loud. Just like it should be. But it also felt right… it felt BIG… hard to know why… maybe it was in my head! But maybe not… it seems there’s like this “e.s.p.” thing (not ESPN) that starts to happen in a band… you can sorta hear what’s in the other dude’s heads and you know it’s kinda the same thing that it’s your own head… and in that moment it’s like your one big head. It’s the best. We’ve playing together for almost 5 years now, and these songs seem to suit us… we’re really stoked to play this Thursday night at The Gypsy Lounge (9 pm! Lake Forest!)…

AWB at the Gypsy 1/29/09

Also, I gotta say that on the “business side” of things is really rocking as well… we’re now managed by a dude named David Pack. David is this awesome guy who’s been in the music business for a long time, he’s a Grammy winning producer, an artist in his own right and has decided he believes in us and what’s to do everything he can to help. What a guy. He’s been kicking butt for us lately. More on this later… super exciting stuff…. but I don’t wanna count any chickens before they’re nuggets……. but I can say that it’s starting to look like 2009 is the year we’re gonna share this music with the world on a large scale… knock on Woodrow Wilson. If you’re the praying type we sure could use some. We want to be a positive force out there in the music world. We wanna tie hope to a musical rope and toss it out into the ocean of humans. 

Let me get back to The Gypsy Lounge show Thursday. I know you might like to be there if it didn’t require actually driving down there… I know the feeling… why go anywhere when you can stay home? But, what if you did? What if you actually got off your stupid butt (your butt’s not stupid, I’m being over-confident and emphatic) called some friends, and came down to the local rock show! It’s kinda on the early side so we can hang after for a minute. It’d be good to see you all. Most of us are facebook friends and we all know each other so it’d be like a non digital facebook hang… okay so, see you there suckers!  

Here we are being thankful in advance for you coming to our show.

A thankful and happy band.

Hi!

Just saw the movie “Revolutionary Road” with Natalie… Nic and his wife, Ashley were there too… somewhere… anyways, It was made by one of my favorite directors (Sam Mendes) my absolute favorite film composer (Thomas Newman), and some great actors (you know who). Man, the movie left me feeling like I had to swim through Jello to get back home and then once I got home I had to breathe with a U-Haul parked on my chest. Even my eyelids are heavy and not just cos I’m tired. Maybe I’m over-exaggerating. It was heavy though.

I’ve always been able to let films (or any art) really rub off on me (if it appeals to me – cracks me open). I remember genuinely feeling like I understood the burden of being Luke Skywalker and that basically, I was him for that hour after the movie, as it’s imagination stirring powers slowly wore off. ha. I was like 7 then… I’m the older version of that now.

The movie has some great scenes, where I did the guy version of ‘crying during a movie’ (i.e. getting that sour feeling in my chest, like I could cry if I wasn’t so powerful, in control and manly).  It’s funny though, though it was super good, it wasn’t a “masterpiece” like a couple of Sam Mendes’ other films are (Road To Perdition and American Beauty)… but then again, it couldn’t be (in my opinion). And it doesn’t have to be. Just like every song doesn’t have to be a hit and every artist doesn’t have to be a rock star. 

I read a review that said something about how you never forget that you’re watching good actors, acting. And it’s totally and strangely true! Odd. I was always (even during those couple man-crying-tearless moments), aware that “hey, that Leonardo DiCaprio can act really mad really well!”… Maybe because the movie felt so singularly focused, that it was hard to believe these were real people. Even their relationship to their kids was very truncated… everything seemed to be distilled down to it’s raw core. Almost felt like a play more than a movie in one sense. Which was fine by me for the most part. For me the meaning of this movie (or the moral of the story) is that dreams can create AND destroy… and they destroy with amazing force when combined with selfishness. Maybe a masterpiece is in the eye of the beholder… the more I think about it, the better this movie gets. That’s the thing about Sam Mendes’ films they are packed with symbolism… in the script, in the set design, in direction of photography… I’m sure if I see it again there are more layers to be found. I love a good movie…. ya know, like “Pootie Tang”.

Okay, talk to ya later!

- A

Howdy……  Today was kind of a weird day. It was a day for writing/producing outside of AWB… Andy and I had a writing session booked with a certain girl singer… I won’t name names, but she’s fairly famous:-)… anyways, she was supposed to be here at noon… 3 o’clock rolls around, no call, no nothing… so we figured it was not happening… (turns out it was a scheduling accident)… we did however end up coming up with a song we think might not suck… we’ll see…

So, we were hanging out in the studio with the door open to the backyard… our dog Clementine (the most lovable, amazing dog I’ve met), comes strutting into the room… she heads straight for my crotch and buries her head in… this is “hello” to her sometimes, but this time there was some extra force behind it (I’m okay)… I was laughing and started petting her… then kinda got her outa there… she then starting rubbing her face on the ground… and I knew something was up… I looked at her face and she looked like Clementine’s Evil Twin (see photo). She was gnarled, wrinkled and all puffy. AHHHHHH! Adrenaline RUSH. I hurried in, got Natalie and we rushed Clem to the vet (which is luckily less than a mile down the road)… the vets were immediately like “woah! okay!, lets get her back here!”… I wish I could say I was super calm and collected, but I was pretty worked up… earlier this year when Clem was at the vet for popping a few of my wife’s birth control pills (another harrowing story:-) we saw another dog that was having an allergic reaction and it was super sad… the dog was coming in and out of consciousness and seemed on the edge of death… Anyways, I friggin love this dog… and now we just have to sit and wait. Natalie was staying calm which is normally my job… but I was already imagining 50 different futures that all involved something horrible… creativity working against me:-)… 

So after about 25 minutes, we heard they had administered intravenous steroids and benadryl… another 15 minutes go by and then we get to see her and talk to the doctor… Clem looked worse than how we left her BUT the doctor said she ws looking MUCH better than she was 20 minutes before… when her eyes were swollen shut… by the time we saw her she was getting better (when this photo was taken)… her eyes was still pretty swollen and beet red… She was covered in large hives… her lips were almost an inch thick and she had a a big chunky chicken neck… she looked 80 years old!! But she was acting at about 75% Clemmers, which was good. She was getting better right before our eyes… They said it was either a spider bite or a bee sting most likely, but could be a food thing and that we should try find out which so they could decide whether to empty her stomach (fun!)… they see a handful of these every week… anyways I rushed home to check out the crime scene… I found a freshly dead bee with no stinger. That son of a…!!! We then took her to an all night vet for observation (where she is now). Doc says if we hadbn’t got her there fast she couldn’t gone in to shock, which would have been BAD, life threatening bad.  And if we hadn’t have been home she would’ve died… her throat would’ve swelled shut. 

So who knows… if our writing session would’ve happened we would’ve likely had the door shut playing music… and maybe we wouldn’t have found out about the bee sting until it was too late… yikes.

God works in mysterious ways… glad we got her to the vet in time… and apparently the devil influences the minds of bees.

Anyways back at it tomorrow…. we finished the EP so now we’re rehearsing….we’re playing at The Gypsy Lounge in Lake Forest next Thursday night. Be there! This show will be for our Clemmers (a.k.a. Clem, Clementine, Claps, Clippers, Clapenstein, Clappersteins).

- A

She looks happy, but I doubt she was... swollen Clem via bee sting!

This is as it was getting better... was twice as bad... poor girl!

 
…

FALLBORN Rehearsing

I was thinkin… about music… how we relate to it… what role it plays in our lives……….. It seems to me there’s two ends of the spectrum (at least in this certain way I’m thinking about it): 

MUSIC AS ENTERTAINMENT – the definition (for this blog’s purpose anyway): Music as a way enhance happy feelings and/or create them out of nowhere… Music as an escape from how you feel… music to transport you to another place… music that reflects the way we WISH we felt all the time… music that is in the background enhancing some other activity (driving not included:).

MUSIC AS A FRIEND – the definition: When you see music as a friend you seek out music that takes you deeper into who you are… Deeper in to how you already feel… enhances how you feel… gets you thinking… seems to define or clarify parts of you that you couldn’t explain…. Music that helps you relate to, or contemplate God…  Music that’s there for you when you need to remember what makes you YOU…

MUSIC AS A LIFESTYLE: – lets not worry about this one right now… but it’s more closely related to music as a friend… anyways…

Okay, so if I were you, I’d be thinking: well I enjoy music as BOTH entertainment AND as a friend! Well, yeah, of course “both” is a valid answer… BUT I truly believe that MOST of us are more than 50% in one direction or the other… and some of us are WAY more in one direction than the other. So think hard and make your choice.

This subject is SUPER interesting to me… as some of you know, I’m involved deeply in both ends of the music industry… as a listener and music creator… I’m involved in the side that’s ALL about entertainment and commerce… and the side that would starve for the art of it, and is all about expression. SO I’d LOVE to hear from you Mr. or Mrs. or Miss reader… and yes I do mean YOU… even the you that is like me and never makes a comment or wants anyone to know that you cruise around to blogs. Dive in. This is a juicy topic once you start thinking about it…

So, are you MORE THAN 50% into music as ENTERTAINMENT? Or music as a FRIEND? And WHY (or how does it play out for you)?

As a bonus, (if you’re long-winded like me), try to explain your answer in terms of feelings and bands or songs you like… i.e. “when I’m bummed I put on Radiohead and when I’m stoked and about to tackle someone I put on Andrew W.K. But I relate most closely to Frank Sanatra” etc.

A few “duh” questions that might help you figure it out:

1. What music do you listen to when your bummed out? When you’re Happy?

2. What do you listen to when you drive?

3. Do you care about the lyrics in the music you love the most?

4. Are you a fan of bands and artists and follow them album to album? Or are you a song-whore, just looking for songs you dig, no matter who or what style (that’s a bad name for a good thing)?

5. Are you a musician?

There’s no right answer, or correct equation of course, so feel free to share…

Okay…………………. respond!! Elaborate:-)

Me and jules dictating movie quotes for jules to write on his facebook. “riding majestic translucent steeds shooting flaming arrows across the bridge of hemdale”.