Wow, it's been awhile, lol.
Well, since this last post, I'm no long in With Honors, but my current punk/HC band The UC is getting ready to play our first show next month here in Lafayette.
We went into Sonic Iguana back in January and recorded our first 5 songs, and may be going back soon to record a few more, and possibly if the production works out well enough, may combine them into one full length album.
We don't have a label yet, but if need be, Shawn(singer/bass) actually has his own label called Middleman Records which he used to release our previous band's John Q. Public and Kaki.o.badi's records that we may make use of if we can't find anyone outside the band interested in releasing the recordings.

Oh, and once again, as with the previous With Honors recordings, I recorded The UC's debut ep myself over at Sonic, and mixed/mastered it at home due to time/money constraints at the time.

no stars falling for me tonight...

I've been getting better at setting up midi drumtracks using EZdrummer and Sony Acid, definitely helpful when trying to write songs by myself without a drummer available to play with. Getting some bits and pieces of songs put together and so far it's not working out too badly, just need to figure out how i want to approach things stylisticly since i've played in bands of differing sub-genres of punk/hardcore over the years, but the last thing i actually wrote myself was a sorta fast pop-punk song that i wrote about 10 years ago. So naturally, i'm a bit rusty. If i can decide how the vocals will be sung and whether i'm gonna do them myself, or try to get someone else to do it and write music to fit their style, things would go so much easier. Hopefully, once i figure out what to do about vocals, i'm gonna try to get a couple of demo tracks finished and loaded up on my Mypsace Music page in hopes of someday finding other musicians to play with again.
Also, I haven't heard from Mass in while about my work/training at Sonic so i'm not sure what's going on over there, or if they're not that busy and Mass and Jorge have things pretty much covered at the moment. Hopefully i can get in there again at some point in the future when there's a project i can help out with.

new myspace acct for music projects...

Well, after years of having sites for the individual bands i've been in, i've decided to set up a MySpace Music page as a way to sorta put most of my personal musical life online for the few out there that may care to sorta accompany my blogspot page since it doesn't have a built-in music player.

http://www.myspace.com/xbradx75

It's now been like three years or so since i've been in a fully functional band and i'm hoping that putting this stuff up here may eventually help to solve that problem... probably not, but what the hell....

xbradx

i've got to find a band...
Shawn's got his new thing going with Alex and apparently they're just a 2-piece at the moment, so while i'm happy for him to finally be getting something going again, i'm all that much more frustrated that i can't seem to find or do anything myself.
And trying to do everything myself here with a software drum machine while not knowing if i'm just wasting my time with all of this since i probably wouldn't be able find anyone willing to help with songwriting or singing anyway generally feels like i'd be better off just sitting here banging my head on the desk(well, that has happened from time to time...). It's just been so damn long since i've tried to write any complete songs by myself either without fellow bandmembers collaborating, or as with everything i've done in the last 8 years or so that has pretty much involved me coming into already existing bands and just making up the bass lines or learning parts already written so that i don't have any really meaningful involvement and honestly, occasionally, feeling like i'm just the only person around with a large van, gear, and money to pay for gas to get to shows.
On a positive note, i've logged some more time at Sonic recently and hopefully that will lead somewhere meaningful in the long run. The work i did on a Big In Japan project for Mass may not have come out perfectly(mostly due to pushing myself too hard and too late and at least once, briefly falling asleep at the board), but it was a great experience and one that i may put to use again soon if i get the money together to dump the Walker full-length from the 2" reel into the Mackie HDR system so i can try re-mixing it here at home for fun, not for a re-issue or any other kind of release. That and the last time i talked to Matt Coles(Walker's drummer), he also wanted to do the same thing at the studio he works at down in Nashville, so i may see if he want's to go in with me on the time at Sonic it would take to do the dumping, and the hard drive.
and finally, i'm really considering either putting in my 2 weeks at Papa John's(and collecting my unused vacation pay) or trying to transfer to the campus store. Things there have really been going downhill for awhile(sales are down, higher management is clueless...$2 fucking delivery charge!...give me a fucking break) and some problem employees are driving me crazy.
oh well.....

Lance Hahn(Cringer/J Church) benefit/tribute comp article and update...

Just a quick update to pass on a link to an article about the Lance Hahn benefit/tribute comp we're a part of that's currently available from NoIdea Records.
The article can be found here.

the ache on Youtube....

just a quick update to point out the (ache:emelie) vids that have been uploaded to Youtube by a friend of ours.
first one is from back when we actually had a full lineup, of a song we haven't recorded as of yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw-190ei48o

the next few are from an acoustic show we did at the Skylight coffee house in downtown Lafayette on June 28th(this was my first show on acoustic guitar instead of bass, so i sucked all kinds of ass that night, so bear with me, and our on again-off again violin player didn't come to the show):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEt-x1b0M6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN8cSqc3vts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlkqguhWgZ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljaal9ECg-U

also, due to my switching from bass to guitar for the acoustic shows and how well it's turned out so far, Shawn's having me record my "parts" on the acoustic ep recording.
We're still trying to find a permanent drummer, so if anyone reading this knows, or is, a drummer please contact us ASAP.

new mic(finally), new band, re-mastered recordings...

well, looks like tomorrow will be the day that Shawn has long hoped for... I'll finally be able to go pick up a decent condenser mic at guitar center down in Indy so we can finally(almost a year later) finish the [ache:emelie] acoustic ep. Basically, I had been using Charlie's condenser mic for the acoustic recordings until he graduated from Purdue and moved back to Ohio before I could get Shawn's vocals recorded. So the only things left are vocals and keyboards, and now that i've figured out how to set up Lauren's keyboard to use the MIDI ports, I can use a really good sounding acoustic grand piano MIDI plugin I have with the newest version of Sonar I recently installed. So hopefully when I finally get this thing mixed, I think everyone will be very suprised at how good this thing is really shaping up to be, and erase any and all doubts about acoustic ache that anyone that hasn't already seen us in this config still has.

Also on the recording front, using some great Waves production plugins i'm using now with Sonar, i've been able to go back and re-master the ache's 7" recording in a way that I know Shawn expressed a bit of disbelief when he mentioned how much better it sounds now. Hopefully, once we finally have the money to get the actual 7" pressed(the British label releasing it went under before fully paying the bill, so while we will now get the entire pressing, we have to pay for the remainder ourselves), we're hoping to shop around for a US label to either pick up and "take" the 7" after the initial press, or to release the newly re-mastered version I've put together to release on CD. Or if things go well enough here in the near future, the re-mastered tracks could be saved for something else...
Either way, Shawn and I have basically decided that we're going to plan on(for the time being) to be an acoustic band until we track down a permanent drummer, but we've got enough friends and potential fill-ins that any larger shows, or depending on the rest of the lineup at a given show, that we can arrange for a fill-in drummer for some shows we want to do non-acoustic.
And in the mean time, Shawn, Lauren, and i are also working on a side project under the name: ItKillsMe which will potentially be similar in style to our previous punk/hardcore outing John Q. Public, with Shawn on vocals, Lauren on bass, myself on guitar, and previous Ache auditionee Tim on drums. We're not 100% set on the specific style or sound, due to conflicting schedules the last few weeks we haven't been able to get together and start working on the songs yet with Tim. Taking influences as diverse as Lifetime, Propagandhi, Leatherface, Strike Anywhere, SmallBrownBike, Dag Nasty, Samiam, and more, along with all of the varying styles and sounds we've each involved with over the years and trying to sit down and really decide what we want to do next(even if it is just a fun "side project") isn't an easy task.

on the Walker comp front, still waiting to hear back from the former Bollweevils as to whether they have the master DAT from our split from them so i don't have to take the song Pinball from either the vinyl or from an old and worn out cassette.