Hi:-) Twas great seeing some of you down at the Gypsy Lounge Thursday night. Really great crowd of human people! The other bands were cool too…

We’ll be back there in March… if you haven’t come yet… come in March! Like last week we’ll be debuting a few new songs. Oh, and In the next week or two we’ll be posting a live video we recorded there… a few weeks ago… Keep your eyes peeled! 

The rest of today’s blog is just kinda random… sometimes weird little nuggets pop into my head but I rarely write them down… I thought I’d try it and see what it looks like outside my head… here goes:

• Things that are sharp are really just super skinny. It’d be cool if you could get so thin that you could just run into fruit and cut it into bite size pieces.

• When you smell something you’re sucking pieces of it up your nose. Dog poop included.

• I don’t understand how the fashion industry works. It all looks pretty nuts on the “runway” but by the time it trickles down to me it just means my jeans are either tighter or looser.

• I heard once that charity is when you do something nice (usually with money) while other people are watching. Funny. I guess true charity is when you do something nice anonymously. I just realized I haven’t done either in a little while and I feel guilty… which is still a fine reason to do something charitable, I think.

• Why is moral relativity cool? I know it’s complicated, but just because something doesn’t physically harm people doesn’t mean it isn’t doing other kinds of harm… ok, off the soap rhombus. 

• Sometimes I feel like blogging is just a socially acceptable form of ego display. (oh no!)

• It’s a bummer to realize that ‘everyday funny’ usually isn’t even close to good comedian, tv or movie funny… even though we think it is when we’re doing it. It’s the thought that counts:-). when your friends laugh it’s often because they love you… and that’s actually better anyway.

• 50% of those reading this probably think I’m trying too hard. That’s probably what I’d be thinking… 50% of you are right.

• I wish we all sweated the exact same amount… seems unfair for some people to have to be more wet than others at the same temperature.

• I wish we could delete parts of our memory like a hard drive… or at least save it at an offsite location. I also wish we could empty our cache (subconscious) every now and then. A lot of things would be easier.

• I wish I could have an on/off switch for my taste buds (and I guess my sense of smell). Then I could eat absolutely for health most of the time… and then for enjoyment at certain specified times. 

• Since taste is mostly smell… I theorized a diet where you smell something awesome, hold your nose and then eat something (or swallow a pill) that is pure health food… then someone told me that someone is already working on that.

• This guy  Tom Jackson said that everyone is an expert at reading body language. So true. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a personal curtain you could close at moments when you don’t want people reading you? We’d all look like we’re wearing The Karate Kid’s Halloween outfit.

• I love dimmers. Every light switch in the world should have a dimmer. Why shouldn’t we have that kind of control in every room?

• When I was a little kid I wasn’t sure whether it was “take it for granite” or “take it for granted”. And I was afraid to ask anyone because it seemed dumb not to know. I thought maybe it was possible that people were mistaking one rock for another out there in the world… that maybe it was a big problem… and that there was some cool metaphor in there somewhere. Like, “oh, I took that counter top for granite, but dangit, it’s just formica! Ain’t that just life.”

• The amount of people that actually listen to and appreciate lyrics probably isn’t proportionate to the effort that is put into them by a songwriter. But maybe those who do care about lyrics care enough for the rest of them… either way I think sometimes lyrics are the Time Release Capsules of a song… if the song stays around long enough people slowly start to pay attention to them… or maybe we just keep singing along to what we think we’re hearing… which can be great too! Wouldn’t it be great if we could get co-writing for the wrong lyrics we think we’re hearing!? Wait, that almost sounds like socialism!

• Being understood is a luxury. But just being comfortable is often more desirable in my opinion. Not being understood can sometimes provide comfort… which is weird. I guess that’s the paradox of introversion.

• Why don’t I just pee when I have to? I find myself waiting way too long all the time. Including right now. So bye!

Adam

We got a new cannon 5d mark 2…

Hi. It’s been a few days since I’ve laid down some bloggage that didn’t have to do with promoting a show or showing you some photos of band-happenings… and I want this blog to be more than just a commercial for the band, or a photo album:-)… but also a place you can get to know what we’re about as human-people-persons:-) Something happened recently. Well, more specifically something starting growing inside of me (and maybe to some degree the other guys too)… since I tend to not be the stressful type, it took me awhile to realize it was panic. An odd kind of panic that seems to be seeping in from the subconscious… which just might be the second worst kind (the first worst kind being emergency style actual situational panic). 

So let me back up a second so this can make some actual sense to you my blog-reading friend (I think I have some kind of dull point to make). 

Creating is great. What a friggin gift. There’s nothing, then you do some focused thinking, some focused feeling, you stir it up with some desire and your chosen medium and BLAMO: “art”.

To create something honest you have to have control of the outcome to some degree (you can’t just blindly throw paint at the wall and call it art… oh wait, yes you can. ha).. anyways, control is essential or at the very least, it’s YOU who decides when to control (act deliberately)… and when to lose control, when that’s what’s required. It’s left brain, right brain tag team wrestling and the Whole Wide World + Your Limitations = the Opponent.

So while all of that is going on, one day you decide “Wow, I love this. I don’t want to do anything else. I’ll make this ‘creating stuff’ thing my job, and I’ll be stoked all the time!”. And before you know it you’ve invited Mr. Commerce into the vacuum like world of your creativity. Mr. Commerce is quite a guy. One day he’s your best buddy, the next day he’s Adolf Hitler and he’s marching you off to Camp. And not summer camp. Mr. Commerce has data. He has facts. He knows the past like nobodies business. He’s a recent history expert and he believes he knows exactly what tomorrow wants because he’s cashing the checks of yesterday. Mr. Commerce will inhabit you like a parasite if you let him… and you might even like it! I’m writing this blog in a house that I worked in a 50/50 partnership with Mr. Commerce to pay for! 

BUT, I sometimes forget to remember that Mr. Commerce doesn’t live here. He’s a guest, and he’s got to leave when he’s not welcome. He can’t hang around when it’s time to write… sure he can call… or maybe text… send an e-mail… MAYBE even stop in for coffee… but if he stays too long you’ll notice he’s taken over a drawer in your dresser, filled your fridge with sparkling water and he seems to be flirting with your wife.

I have digressed!

Ok, so now that you’ve been introduced to my version of Mr. Commerce, I can tell you that over the past couple weeks, he moved into my house and tried to take over my body. And the whole time I was passive aggressively fighting him. Then I realized you can’t fight passively against an opponent that fights flat out aggressively:-). 

Under the guise of humility, I called into question elements of my music that were 100% honest. I let various outside opinions walk around my mind as if it was a fact. They were mostly well meaning, and what’s funny is 95% of it was totally positive, but I gave the few criticisms or suggestions too much weight… I once heard a Madonna quote where she said something like “if there’s a hundred people in a room and ninety nine of them love what I do but ONE doesn’t, all I can focus on is that one who doesn’t”… even though it’s Madonna, that can sometimes sum up what it’s like being an “artist”… at some level most of us are doing this because we have something to say, something to give and want to loved or known… we want to connect.

Outside opinions and constructive criticism are sometimes extremely helpful. Especially in areas where you have a question mark hanging inside… the hard part is that often those “question areas” are areas of denial! So it will take a few days for a criticism (which might be greeted with defensiveness) to sink in and ring true. So trusted advisors and honest (gently honest) friends are a must. BUT (big butt), when the opinions start stacking up and they are varied and are coming from different angles and they don’t ring true, a line has to be drawn.

It’s a fact that almost everyone has an opinion and in the music industry you gotta watch out for those who might have their own agenda or can find something wrong with anything and everything. We’re all critics aren’t we? It’s fun to be the person with the “great insight” or the “key comment”. What’s weird is that things are going GREAT with the band, the thing is the energy surrounding everything has been cranked up… the stakes are higher and having a solid foundation is more important than ever. 

It’s a little freaky being this honest and open on a “blog”… But screw it. You only live twice.

My problem these last couple weeks was that I care SO much about what we’re doing as a band and these songs are SO personal that I forgot to put on my Thick Skin. And most importantly I had forgotten WHY I write songs and WHO I write them for. Basically I had forgotten to put the Lord first. I had forgotten to filter EVERYTHING through Him. Whether in prayer or intellectually. The second I remembered that things started to become clear… and over the course of about an hour I rediscovered my foundation and perspective came back… my skin grew back to the proper thickness:-). I felt less of a need to defend myself. I felt something resembling humility creep back into my thought process. I felt optimistic, grateful and excited again. Basically I felt the presence of the Lord. Except instead of taking it for granted, I had the memory (only an hour before), of how it felt to PUSH Him out and try to control the whole thing myself. Ouch, what an awful and scary feeling it was to feel so foundation-less.

Compromise is really healthy UNLESS what you’re compromising is yourself and what you believe. Turn on the tv or the radio and it’s clear how much unhealthy compromise exists out there in the creative world… compromise merely to please someone else… compromise to make an extra buck… compromise to appeal to base-level human desires… the list goes on… When the foundation is secure, suddenly things aren’t as blurry.

Lesson learned? I hope so. Maybe part of the lesson is that it’s a daily lesson… it isn’t a one time thing, where you can just “set it and forget it!”… it’s a process.

If you’re reading this and you’re coming from the same spiritual place… your prayer is SO appreciated. If you’re coming from a different place, your thoughts, questions and challenges are welcome. 

Thanks for reading this thing.

- Adam

Hey! We had a BLAST at the Gypsy Lounge show last Thursday… it was great seeing all of you out there… thanks for showing up and going NUTS. We were all warmed and fuzzied by the turnout. A lot of you probably made it onto film… I know you did Stearnzy, I saw you on there!:)

As you know if you’ve been reading up on here… we were filming that night… we’re making an EPK (a.k.a. Electronic Press Kit)… it’s basically a 5 minute documentary on the band… there’ll be some studio footage… some live stuff (ala the Gypsy show)… some interview stuff… and some wackness… It should be done in about 2 weeks… can’t wait for you to see it… in it you’ll see some clips of the upcoming video for our song”Poison Soul”… (the song we closed the set with Thursday)…

Here’s a photo of the show last Thursday… !

Blurry at the Gypsy

Looks like we’ll be BACK at the Gypsy Lounge the last Thursday of Feb…. be there, so we can attempt to rock your face off.

with love and hugs,

Adam, Nic, Jules and Mattoxian Reynolds Wrap

Oh and here’s a couple photos from the “Poison Soul” video shoot (thanks for reminding me Jimmy!)

Adam shoots Pat shooting Matt's fretboard to a Jules beat.

Floor falls out from under Nic at AWB Poison Soul video shoot.

Me shooting Pat shooting Nic and Jules while watching the screen to make sure.

Hey All!

We’re filming a live video TONIGHT at The Gypsy Lounge (in Lake Forest)!!!!!!!!! 8pm!!!!

Come hang out and BE OUR AUDIENCE! We’d love to have you there. 

Without you there, we’re just some lonely dorks on a stage. YOU have the power to turn us into fulfilled dorks with friends and fans! Make this the night you finally come down and hang out with us! After we play, the Pawn Shop Kings are playing… good band:) 

High! A natural one. We filmed some of our upcoming EPK and video yesterday… it was fun. For those who don’t know, an EPK is an “electronic press kit”… it’s about 4 – 5 minutes long and it exists to give you a full idea of what a band is about… we’re excited to get ours done… it will have interview footage, “music video” style stuff, and some live performance as well.  

My long time friend Pat Shen is directing it. Pat is friggin AMAZING. I’ve known him since high school. Back then I knew him more as a singer-songwriter, guitar player… we played in a band together called Poppy… then he had a band called Woodface that had some great songs. I was in a band called Bulkhead and we did shows together aong with our mutual friend Matt Ellingson and his band Cutting Room Floor… ahh the good ol days… Anyways, even back then Pat was into filmmaking.

He’s become quite the film maker… and remains a good dude on top of it all.

His film FLIGHT FROM DEATH has one a boatload of awards for best documentary. It’s a phenomenal film about man’s search for immortality. I contributed a song to the film, as did my sister Jenn Shapard (she’s great!). 

I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a truly moving and thought provoking film. He interviews modern day philosophers, psychologists, social scientists and professors. He traveled the world capturing stunning footage of different cultures. Go to his website and watch the trailer (and cruise through his other trailers as well).

http://www.transcendfilms.com/

I’ll be posting some stills from the film shoot soon!

Adam

Hey! Adam here. I’ve been sick the last few days… some weird combo of a cold and maybe allergies? I held up okay through the Gypsy Lounge gig Thursday then the next day I was a mess… now I’m finally feeling more normal… thanks to some allergy meds… yeha!… It’s a beautiful day outside, jeez. Love it. It feels like Sunday out there… how is it that some days really seem to have their own feel? It’s gotta be all in my head… which I guess everything is to one degree or another… it’s all in our heads, all this stuff! Huh? What? Okay.

Anyways, I thought I’d post a few photos of us doing stuff… rehearsing, etc. etc…. Also, we have a couple more Gypsy Lounge Shows coming up (Feb. 12th for instance)… the show last week was a blast (a.k.a. an explosion of fun)… like I’ve mentioned before, it’s a new era for us as a band… and things are materializing in a new way that’s exciting the poop out of us. That’s right we’re so excited we’re poopless! (sorry ladies). We’re filming an epk this week so hopefully that will be up on YouTube by late Feb.

Okay so here’s a few photos… you’ll notice a lack of Nic in some shots… he’s behind the camera…

Matt and Adam Rehearsal Jan. 2009.

Don't know how this happened but Jules looks like a combination of Shrek and a hobbit in this photo.

Ooh arty!

Don't know what that look means.

Nic iphoning pre-rehearsal.