life in the abstract

1984 or 1776?

2012-01-01T18:17:00.002-06:00

president obama just signed a bill into law known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA for short. You can read pretty much everything you need to know about it HERE.

one of the things that the 5th ammendment to the US constitution guarantees is the right of due process. that means if you stand accused of a crime, you have a right to a trial, legal representation, etc. the government cannot throw someone in jail for no reason. or even if their is a reason, they can't just keep them in jail indefinitely without giving a trial. however, this new bill gives the government the right detain indefinitely anybody who they consider a terrorist. while this may sound ok to some people, what's discomforting especially is that the definition of a "terrorist" is incredibly broad. if a US citizen is detained as a terrorist, the government, by law, doesn't even have to state the charges, i.e., the reason for detainment. let alone a trial.

i just sent this message to my representatives in congress:

I am incredibly upset that you voted for the NDAA bill. This bill deprives citizens of their constitutional right to due process. How can a public servant who swears an oath to protect the constitution sleep soundly at night when you vote to tear it to shreds?

i don't care if this bill would help fight terrorists. i don't care if the passage of this bill were to somehow magically end Al Qaeda. i don't care how many lives this bill theoretically "saves". by taking away our right of due process to save lives, you are inadvertently throwing away the lives of those who have fought and died in defense of those rights.

shame on you [representative name]. shame on you. i promise that i will be voting against you in the next election.

All I Want For Christmas

2011-12-22T10:04:00.009-06:00

i love christmas. many of you may even know that my birthday is on christmas. so this time of year is like a cornucopia of presents for me. most people get presents throughout the year, but i pile it all into one lump sum like a white trash lottery winner. but here's one thing that is kinda unfortunate (and i'm speaking in a 1st world problems sort of way). when you're a kid, the stuff you want doesn't cost much. now that i'm older, all the toys i want cost hundreds and thousands of dollars. expensive guitars and amps, pricey guns and studio gear aren't exactly stocking stuffers. but a couple years ago i had a wonderful experience. as a joke, my parents bought me and my two brothers-in-law one of those toy RC helicopters. i played with that thing CONSTANTLY. that year i had a revelation that from now on, i want TOYS for christmas. and i really mean toys.

do yourself a favor. get up early and turn your tv on nickelodeon or some other channel with cartoons. now wait for the commercials. and pick your jaw up off the floor and try to comprehend how awesome toys are nowadays. i mean seriously, when i was a kid we had GI Joes and legos. i got so bored with toys that i pulled out pots and pans and made my own drum set. the stuff they have now is ridiculously awesome. here's a few

1. RC Helicopters/Planes/Cars/Boats, etc.

radio controlled cars have been around since i was a kid, but now we have RC helicopters and planes. and yes, smart aleck, that stuff did exist years ago, but they were high priced hobby-grade models that were a serious endeavor. i'm talking about the $30 impulse buy that provides hours of fun to a newbie and will break a few hours later. the company Air Hogs makes tons of different flying RC stuff. i have the most fun hovering the helicopter a few feet in the air and watching my dogs go crazy trying to jump at it and catch it.

2. ANYTHING FROM NERF

when i was a kid, nerf made footballs and that's about it. nerf meant taking regular sports balls and make them soft and squishy. now Nerf has become training ground for kids who grow up building their own assault rifles. the guns look like something out of a space age war movie. they have semi-auto and fully auto rifles that shoot a barrage of soft projectiles to give you all the real fun of murdering people without the messy cleanup. the next tour i'm on, i want to have everybody get nerf guns and have a giant nerf fight one day.

3. Xploderz Water Guns

when i was a kid a squirt gun was exactly that. a little piece of plastic shaped like a gun that squirt out little whisps of water. now kids have super-soakers that can drench a kid from a half mile away and now this - the Xploderz water gun. this water shoots projectile beads of water kinda like a paint gun. i mean, how cool is this? i want to go get this now.

4. Lego

do i really have to explain the awesomeness of Legos??

5. Video Games

when i was a kid we had video games, but this is what i had to look at -

i mean, don't get me wrong. i love me some mario bros. but how can those 8 bit graphics compare to the realism of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3?? i mean, seriously, this stuff looks like it's REAL

when we all get older, we start asking for lame gifts. clothes and socks and tools and scented candles. i mean, seriously?? if you are to the point where you don't really want anything or really care about christmas, ask for toys!! you save a lot of money and it's seriously way more fun.

i'm going to be a daddy in april. and one of the coolest aspects is that to a certain degree i get to be a kid again. for instance, if i were to go play on the playground and jump around on the inflatables people would look at me funny and maybe call me crazy or think there's something wrong with. HOWEVER, if i do all those same things with my kid, then all of the sudden i'm a good father. go figure.

the inevitable

2011-11-14T22:22:00.003-06:00

the other night i watched the republican debate on foreign policy. i know what you're thinking - this is gonna be one of his political blogs. well, yes. deal with it. and honestly i won't get too far into it. i recently posted something about Iran on my facebook and it erupted into a huge ordeal as facebook posts tend to do. anyway, the whole thing got me thinking about a theory i have. full disclosure - i didn't come up with this one. i got it from a former boss years ago, however i have modified it a bit. i gave it a new paint job, spoiler and installed a new stereo.

my political views. narcissist much?

my theory isn't necessary a republican or democrat belief. however it's a philosophical foundation that can make or break certain aspects of foreign policy from both parties. ok here it goes:

A nation's leadership and government is, for the most part, a reflection of what the people want and deserve based on their culture as a whole.

another way to say it is that in the same way that the unseen market forces of supply and demand determine the price of goods, so do the values of a given culture or nation determine the type of government and leaders they have.

this may seem counter-intuitive. for instance, probably half the people reading this voted for obama and the other half didn't - statistically speaking. but i'm not talking about minor differences between a republican or democrat. we as americans put a high value on life, personal liberties and self reliance, therefore we have a government system that has more protections of those values than any other country. our presidents may disagree on a few things, but they're all relatively the same compared to leaders of other countries. and what's funny is how the problems of the nation are so similar to the problems of individual citizens. americans are up to their ears in credit card debt while at the same time the nation is trillions of dollars in debt. our nation worries about health care while we as individuals are the fattest we've ever been (myself included).

europeans have similar values, and thus, similar style governments and leaders - usually elected, well spoken leaders wearing suits (as opposed to military garb) making decisions about trade rules and arcane social issues. however in societies when human life and personal liberties are valued less, you typically find more oppressive regimes with military dictators whose strength, while derived from their ruthlessness, is also what holds the country together. look at sadaam hussein. if you study anything about him, it becomes clear that he was very cut-throat and bludgeoned his way into power. however, iraq has for a long time been divided between different sects of islam so it's no wonder a military baathist dictator was the only thing that could keep order. and from a culture that sanctions "honor killings" as a normal way of life, it's no surprise they tolerated hussein using mustard gas on his own citizens.

if a leader of government grows too far out of step with what a culture wants, they rise up. it's as natural as water seeking the lowest place. some people would have us believe that whole countries are being held hostage by a certain political leader but this is false. a leader derives his power from the people he leads. and while he may be able to stretch how far they're willing to let him go for a time, eventually they will rise up for change when needed.

some of the worst dictatorships are those in tribal africa. how much of a coincidence is it that they are in countries with different tribes constantly at war with each other amoung people who regularly commit atrocities to their neighbors. when the local pillars of a society are telling the people that the only way to get rid of AIDS is to rape an infant, is it really a surprise that a leader like Mugabe exists?

there is a lot of beauty in different cultures, but not all cultures are equal. some value human life more than others. some are decidedly more evil, and their government and leadership are just an extension of those values.

so that's my theory. the real test is in the application of that theory. for instance, take the concept of spreading democracy to other nations. over the centuries, euro and american culture evolved into democracies because it was what their values demanded. it happened naturally. and while certain monarchies worked hard to hold it back, in the end there was nothing they could do to hold the tide of democracy back. if democracy is what a country wants, then it WILL have it. it might take a few years, but it WILL happen. the whole notion of american troops going into a country that has, by all means, chosen a different system, and we think we can change their culture as well as government to match our own is a bit ridiculous. why are military generals afraid to pull out of iraq and afghanistan? because they know the people are just going to go back to the way it was before.

for years our CIA has aided certain political figures in the middle east in their rise to power. these same leaders have essentially been puppets of the american government. and although it has worked out for us for a few decades, eventually the people and the culture get what they want. look at what's been happening with the whole arab spring thing?? our puppet in egypt has been replaced by a leader that represents the people and their beliefs. the same can be said for syria. our CIA helped prop up a puppet leader in Iran in the 60s, but eventually the people rose up and now they have a state run by sharia law. and i believe in the next decade or so we will see a transition to a more westernized way. and how? consumerism. young muslims love western culture - video games, music, movies. i mean, who wouldn't? but the difference here is that the shift (when it does eventually happen) will happen because that shift was in the hearts and minds of the people, not just because a new leader was installed.

i'm not saying this to side with either political party. and i'm not trashing certain cultures. i'm trying to remove any passion or emotion from the argument and just make it a rational fact. the point is, once you recognize this basic philosophy, it can dramatically affect the way certain foreign policy decisions are made.

the little waterpark that grew

2011-10-26T09:52:00.006-05:00

Success - we all want it in some way. when i was a kid i knew i wanted to be a musician....well, either that or a baseball player. and although i started in the varsity squad most of my high school years, i was not blessed with the ability to hit a ball 400 feet over a fence. the desire for success comes with an equal desire for success to come QUICKLY. when i was 21 i was working at a big recording studio in chicago (www.chicagorecording.com). and when i say working, i mean making coffee, wrapping cables and taking my boss' dog outside (and yes, picking up the dogs' success in a plastic bag). i remember listening to a Spitalfield record that i loved and finding out that Sean O'Keefe, the producer was about my age and had already produced a great record. i would get so frustrated and wonder why i wasn't producing great records yet. i wanted success NOW. but over the years i've learned and am still learning that the road to success is frequently the slow and steady approach.

oh, you want an example? well, ok.

i grew up in springfield, IL. as a kid, we would go to a little waterpark called Knights Action Park. (www.KnightsActionPark.com). this "waterpark" was built on flat cornfield land. somehow they built a single hill about 4 or 5 stories high and had a grand total of 3 waterslides. except one of the waterslides is only for kids under 50 lbs. (that's 22.7 kilos for the rest of the world). they had mini golf and batting cages and go karts, but really, we all made fun of the place. i remember going to other waterparks on vacation and thinking about how much they dwarfed our little waterpark. when people from springfield would talk about Knights Action Park, it was almost as if we were embarrassed.

pictured above: everything they had when i was a kid

but here's the thing - the owners of the park kept at it, slow and steady. i've heard that their goal was to add one new thing a year. they added bumper boats, a lazy river, then a giant wave pool. i would come back to springfield every summer and they would have something new. and you know what?? one day we all woke up and realized that Knights Action Park was actually a pretty sweet place. they now have tons of waterslides and are still adding things. a few years back they added on a couple of drive-in movie screens. what waterpark has that???

pictured above: awesome attraction they DIDN'T have when i was a kid

my point is, there was nothing special about Knights. i mean, who ever heard of a waterpark built on corn fields? but they kept their heads down and did their best and eventually they had turned into a monumental success. i have no idea how much money that place makes, but i can make an educated guess that whoever owns the park is doing just fine.

the same applies to pretty much any situation. i remember talking to an older engineer back at that chicago studio asking how he got things to sound so good. he told me "i wish there was some trick i could tell you, but there isn't. you just get better over time." and you know what? he was right. the path to success is not about getting a big break. if you're a musician, it's not about getting discovered and getting a huge record deal. if some record company had found me as a 16 year old and given me a million dollar record deal, i would have failed MISERABLY and then my music career would have been over. patience and hard work are the key. when the time is right, opportunity will present itself and you will be ready. so if you're like i was, don't waste all your frustration just because you're not yet where you want to be. i mean, it's good to be motivated, but don't kill yourself because you haven't yet taken over the world. just keep your head down and keep working. one day you will look up for a second and realize that everyone is looking at you

If Dave Ramsey Was A Musician

2011-10-06T11:44:00.004-05:00

Musicians are supposed to be young, cool, and fly by the seat of their pants. i've been playing music in some sort of professional capacity for about 7 years now. i am none of these things. and i admit, back when i was bachelor i (attempted to) dress cool, i was younger and i would do anything at the drop of a hat. now i am older, married, and if you haven't heard yet, i'm going to be a daddy in about 6 months.

growing up will change you. especially in the money area. when i was a bachelor i had roommates and found living situations where my rent was as cheap as humanly possible. ("humanly" possible - as if being an animal would qualify for cheaper rent). i ate hamburger helper and mac & cheese like my life depended on it....and realistically, it did.

if money was low for a certain month, no big deal. but now i have a family. i actually have car insurance and health insurance now. and in case any of you have been living under a rock for the last couple years, the economy hasn't been so great. especially in the christian music industry. so the last two years trish and i have been working the Dave Ramsey plan to get out of debt and get our financial house in order.

but lately (and by lately, i mean the last two years) i've been wondering what would happen if bands would run their business according to the Dave Ramsey plan. or better yet, what would Dave do if he was a musician?? well i've gone through and picked out a few of Dave's rules that run counter to what is common practice in music today.

1. PARTNERSHIPS

Dave has a saying that goes something like this: A Partnership is the only ship that will never sail. he ALWAYS advises against partnerships. and for good reason too - mixing business, friends and money is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. but here's the thing - a band is essentially a partnership. does that mean it's financially irresponsible to start a band? not necessarily. in many cases, when a band gets a record deal and makes the jump from amateur to professional, there is frequently one person (usually the singer) who does the majority of the writing. it is common practice for the label to sign just this person to a record deal and the remaining members are paid a per show rate. there are many ways to structure a band to avoid a partnership. many create a corporation with each member owning shares and when decisions are made it's based on a simple majority vote of shareholders.

my point is this - when a band has been together for years, eventually the members, no matter how good of friends they were in the beginning, slowly start to resent each other for whatever reason. but the reason 9 times out of 10 has something to do with pride.

2. DEBT

Dave is probably most known for his stance against credit cards. they're a trap that is too easy to fall into and everything you can do with a credit card can be accomplished with a debit card. most bands have credit cards. and honestly, a lot of them are responsible and pay their bills on time. but i often wonder if by having more cash reserves to book flights and rental cars instead of floating on debt would decrease the likelihood of a band getting in over their head when times get tough.

3. CASH FLOW

a way to avoid debt is to use existing cash flow to cover expenses. for instance, instead of taking out a big student loan, Dave would suggest getting a job, going to a less expensive state school and paying cash for college.

how this could best apply to musicians is in merchandise. here's how many bands handle merch - when you place an order for tshirts or any other merchandise, you usually have to place large orders. i'm talking $10k, $20k or more at a time. bands usually find a way to pay for the order whether through an advance or credit cards or whatever, and then when they sell it at the table, they spend that money without setting aside money for future orders. doesn't it make sense that if you sell a shirt for $15 and it costs $5 to make the shirt, you should set aside that $5 for a future order and consider the remaining $10 profit that can be spent on other things?unfortunately, this is not usually the case.

4. EMERGENCY FUNDS

Dave's plan suggests to first get a $1000 emergency fund, then later to work towards an emergency fund that covers 3 to 6 months of expenses. if you are a brand new band wanting to go on your first tour to the west coast, get some sort of emergency fund together. i promise you things WILL go wrong. you WILL break down from time to time. promoters will stiff you of money. i know from experience that getting stranded an hour outside Salt Lake City in December because your alternator went band can really turn a fun tour into something less than fun.

for established bands, cash reserves should be observed religiously. this business is either feast or famine. we go on tour and make lots of money, and then will go two months without significant income.

5. INVESTING FOR THE FUTURE

for most people Dave says to put aside 15% of your income for retirement. for professional sports athletes, i've heard it said that they need to be saving at least 50% of their income because their careers don't last as long as other jobs.

most bands don't last a long time. for every Newsboys that have lasted 30 years, there are 500 bands that get record deals but don't last longer than 5 years. if you are one of those few artists who are fortunate enough to do music full time, consider investing 15% or more into some sort of mutual fund or annuity for when the band does eventually break up or move on. you may not save up enough to make each member independently wealthy, but what if you built up a nest egg that spins off $10,000 for each member in interest every year for the rest of your life? now that is doable.

basically, i can sum up this whole blog by saying Dave would use common sense and rational decision making in an industry that's based around people pursuing dreams and making decisions based on dreams and not money. and i don't mean to be a buzzkill. i know you want to buy that tour bus. but instead getting ahead of yourself because it appeals to your ego and your dreams, take it one step at a time. buying that bus or lights or hydraulic spinning drum riser before it's financially feasible is the quickest way to get into trouble and take all the fun out of a career that is supposed to be fun. if you're a brand new band, don't immediately buy a van and book a 2,000 mile west coast tour for your first shows. start regionally and build a following. then branch out from there. i know you want to road trip to LA with your buddies and play some music. but what if you van breaks down and you end up putting thousands of dollars on a credit card to fix it - and when you get to that show in LA only 5 people are there and your van gets towed because it was illegally parked?

don't overextend yourself. there's a lot of competition with little reward in the music industry. one of the few benefits is that it's a fun lifestyle. don't ruin it by getting in over your head.

sports

2011-08-20T22:42:00.003-05:00

oh man...@adamagee and @briancalcara are definitely not gonna like this post. probably a lot of you too.

the other day i came across a quote from Noam Chomsky, arguably one of the brightest intellectual/philosophers of our time. This quote pretty much embodies everything i've thought about sports for a long time but didn't know how to articulate. here it is:

"Take, say, sports -- that'sanother crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it offers people something to pay attention to that's of no importance. That keeps them from worrying about -- keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it's striking to see the intelligence that's used by ordinary people in sports. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in -- they have the most exotic information and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.

them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.

You know, I remember in high school, already I was pretty old. I suddenly asked myself at one point, why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? I mean, I don't know anybody on the team, you know? I mean, they have nothing to do with me, I mean, why I am cheering for my team? It doesn't mean any -- it doesn't make sense. But the point is, it does make sense: it's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements -- in fact, it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that's why energy is devoted to supporting

ok, i can identify with about half of this comment. first of all, i am NOT a sports hater and i don't think you're an idiot if you watch sports. i mean, one of the greatest albums of the 80's was titled Sports and if you don't know who recorded it then don't tell me you don't know cause i will definitely think less of you. anyway, if i'm with a good group of guys watching a football game i can totally enjoy myself. i love going to cubs baseball games.

and i'm not the nerd who was completely un-athletic in high school and now has a grudge. i started varsity baseball. i even hit two homeruns over the fence.

the part i can identify with is the building up irrational attitudes about submission to authority and the general pointlessness. sports are a fun pastime but the real problem arises when people treat them as if they hold any real importance. i played baseball from the time i was 5 years old all the way through high school. my parents had a rule that i could not miss church on sunday and our midweek service on thursday. in 7th grade i moved to the other side of town and went to a different private league. my coach had a weird grudge against me that i couldn't figure out until one day when he said he questioned my "commitment" because i went to church.

in high school i was chewed out many times by coaches who seemed to think that my whole life should revolve around how far i can hit a ball. the mantras, the diatribes, and the hoopla was just ridiculous. one time i was on a school basketball team and we lost a game. on the way home in the team van i pulled out a harmonica that i had been recently messing with and me and some friends started making up funny blues songs (i could only play one thing). the whole team was laughing until the coach started screaming that we should be more sober and in a bad mood because of our loss. seriously?? it's a freaking game. i played, had fun and would have liked to win, but you can't always win. no big deal, right? but to some people absolute success and absolute dedication to winning a silly game is their life. and furthermore, if it's not your life, then you are a horrible person.

this is more of a rant. i'm not sure i have much of a point to make. i guess i could say to any kids or teenagers out there that exerting yourself and pushing yourself and having fun playing sports is great, but if you have some douche bag coach in your face looking down on you because your life doesn't revolved around something that involves balls and cheerleaders, don't buy it for a second. just let it roll off your back. have fun playing sports. have fun with your friends. enjoy being outdoors. if you score a goal or hit a homerun or make a basket, then GREAT! i'm so happy for you. and ya know, if sports really is your passion and you work hard in the off-season and are hoping to go pro, then more power to ya. but don't get in your teammate's face because he's more worried about a girl in the stands than he is about the game. he's a teenager - he's hard wired to think about girls all the time. just let it go.

We're overcompensating for something...

2011-07-13T10:11:00.005-05:00

getting great guitar tones is achieved by a combination of three factors: 1. Great Players, 2. Great Gear 3. Great parts/riffs/arrangement. well this week i think we've had all three.

this week i've been working with my buddies in @CaptionsFL from Pensacola, FL again. what's especially fun about these guys is they have really good gear which always makes it more fun to record. if an indie band comes to me and all they have is an Ibanez Jem and a Crate combo amp, that's totally fine - we just end up using my gear. that's why it's there, right?? what's cool is when we don't have to use mine and i get to play with new toys. here's a quick rundown on guitar world for the past couple days:

CABS

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here we have three different cabs. to the left is an ORIGINAL Orange 4x12 from the 70's. i don't know what kind of a speakers were in it but it had a smooth tone that breaks up nicely without being too harsh. if you look on the back the cab is actually rated at 15 ohms instead of the standard 4, 8 and 16 ohms because apparently Europe (this cab is English made) was using a different ohm standard back then. i don't know the full story on that. maybe someone can chime in on the comments with the real story.

on the far right is a newer Orange 4x12 with Vintage 30's - the same cab that i own and use on almost everything. if you ask me it's one of the best sounding cabinets out there.

in the middle is a Bad Cat 4x12. what's interesting about this amp is how dark it is without the low end becoming spongy. we also found out if you take the speaker grill off there is a metal bar running right across the middle of each speaker so the most direct method of micing the cab is actually to be off center. if you've ever played a BadCat amp you'll know that they're pretty bright on the top end so it makes sense that their cabs are darker sounding to complement the heads.

GUITARS

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the amount of guitars in studio is in direct proportion to the size of your ego. haha. the two racks of guitars on the left are mine. the 5 guitars on the right are the ones they brought. there's 4 different kinds of Les Pauls which is AWESOME. and of course one Tele which we used on some clean parts. the one we ended up using a LOT was the one with P90s. it took a bit for us to figure out the right way to use it. P90s are a little muddy, but once we got some of that low-mid stuff scooped out it really sounded amazing.

AMPS AND PEDALS

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the first thing you'll notice about this picture is that i'm a horrible photographer. stupid sun ruining my shot. anyway, for amps we've got my Marshall JCM 900, an Orange Rocker 30 which we ended up using a LOT, a Hughes and Kettner TriAmp and a Matchless DC30 which sounds amazing. we had plenty of pedals to go around. the ones we ended up using the most were the OCD and the Full Drive. i'm sure that's no surprise to any of you gear nerds out there. i still think the best rock tone is a guitar with hot pickups using a pedal lightly to hit the front end of a tube amp hard turned up loud. it doesn't get much better than that.

i love my job :)

ONE MAN AGAINST THE PLANET

2011-06-19T19:50:00.009-05:00

i'm writing this from an internet cafe in Zurich, Switzerland. i swiped a credit card off of an unsuspecting american tourist. so Mr. Jason Schmidt of Austin, Texas, if you're reading this, i'm sorry, but there was no other way.

if you think it's been too long since my last post, it's because for the last few weeks i've been on the run. the days blur into weeks and before i knew it, everything had changed. but i had no choice. i mean, what else can you do when men dressed in black fatigues holding random assault weapons repel from your roof and smash through your windows. i was surprised, but really, i should have known. i knew i was playing with fire. and it doesn't matter how good you are, when you play with fire you eventually get burned. little did i know that as i started to pull at a thread of truth that i would beging to unwind the whole sweater and COME ACROSS THE GREATEST CONSPIRACY OF OUR TIME.

this is how i see myself right now

what if i were to tell you that our government, using our tax dollars, has created some sort of cyborg super soldier to dominate and control the music and movie entertainment industry? it's not what you think. i'm not talking about susan sarandon and sean penn giving their unasked for political opinions or oprah winfrey helping obama win the election. no - those are small potatoes. a diversion. just smoke and mirrors. and as i hit the emergency self-destruct sequence at my house and scuttled through my escape hatch it all started to make sense. they had done it before in Roswell, NM.

when i say Roswell, everyone immediately thinks AREA 51 and ALIENS, right? well, here we are years later and it turns out that Area 51 was a legitimate secret base that housed experimental aircraft like the SR-71 and the Stealth Bomber before they were made known to the public. what better smokescreen than Aliens?!?! the government would just refuse to confirm or deny alien reports and all of the sudden they had a license to be secretive. hiding in plain sight. well, pundits and political talk show hosts can complain all they want about politicians giving their unsolicited and uneducated opinions - the real threat is a super cyborg who holds two different identities in the entertainment world. this bionic man/cyborg has been programmed by the CIA to make music and movies that are the perfect combination of entertaining, yet completely mind numbing. this "art" is like feeding valium to the masses making them more apathetic to a government ever-encroaching on our freedoms. who cares if their emails and phone calls are monitored?? as long as the cable stays on everything is fine.

the fact that modern facial recognition software hasn't caught on to the cyborg's multiple identities if proof that there are more people involved that any of us realize. i've been tipped off that interpol will zero in on my location within 15 minutes so i've got just enough time to blow the lid off this thing. THE SECRET IDENTITIES OF THE MIND NUMBING ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY CYBORG IS..........

(cue the dramatic music)

NICOLAS CAGE AND CHAD KROEGER!!!!!

THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON!!!!!!

you may remember him from such movies as Ghost Rider, Con Air and 8MM

as lead singer of Nickelback you may have heard his wise words from their smash hit "Figured You Out" where the poet opines "I like your pants around your feet"

what's particularly insulting is that the cyborg's CIA handlers thought by slapping a gotee on the Chad Kroeger persona nobody would know the difference. it's kinda like how on the old star trek whenever they wanted to have an evil Spock they just slapped a gotee on him. are we really that dumb??? well, i guess if you watch Windtalkers and listen to "Feelin' Way Too D*mn Good" most activity in your frontal cortex would cease.

you're not fooling anyone

don't believe me? let's look at the similarities:

1. they look exactly alike. want some more pictures?? look below

2. they both make really crappy art that sells HUGE. ok, every now and then they'll make something good. i mean, the national treasure movies were interesting and on a good day i might admit i thought that "Photograph" song was pretty good.

3. here is an actual Nicolas Cage quote: "I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility."

4. i can't find any pictures on the net of Nicolas Cage with a guitar. however this is faulty logic because if i HAD found one i would TOTALLY be using that as proof. but still, we're gonna chalk that up as evidence of a coverup.

so there it is - THE TRUTH. i hope you all can handle it. i hear sirens in the distance so that means i need to get going. tomorrow i'll hit up my secret drop site that holds a cache of fake passports, stolen credits card, an MP5 submachine gun, a Glock 9 mil and $10,000 cash in various currencies. once the word gets out maybe then something can be done about the Nicolas Cage/Chad Kroeger cyborg. but until then i'll just be a man on the run. but somehow i think everything will be cleared up in time for the next Stellar Kart show this Friday in Gaylord, MI!!! see you all there!!!

two weeks on tour

2011-05-15T15:34:00.016-05:00

a lot can happen in two weeks. it was about that long ago that we all piled on the bus for another run on the Stellar Kart tour with Seventh Day Slumber and Kiros. it's actually been pretty fun so far. i would love to just bore your brains out with paragraphs and paragraphs of detail but instead i thought i'd make it a little interesting and include some highlight pictures. and these pictures are going to help illustrate the TOP 8 THINGS I LEARNED ON TOUR

1. STELLAR KART FANS ARE CRAZY

and by crazy i mean can do crazy things. this girl came up to us in the signing line and i am not sure how it came up that she can contort her leg like this. it's painful to even look at. but it makes for a funny picture. if any of you have any freakish, i mean crazy abilities, come see us in the signing line and i'll document and post on this blog.

2. PAWN SHOPS ARE AMAZING

check this OUT --

this was in probably the coolest pawn shop i've ever been in. oh, and for those of you who don't know this - i LOVE pawn shops. pawn shops are the guy equivalent to how girls love Target. i love finding deals at pawn shops. but it's usually used music gear, guns and electronics. this shop had not one, but TWO Mrs. Pac Man arcade games. which leads me to the next thing i learned -

3. @ThisEdwinOrtiz NEEDS TO OWN THIS!!

how cool is this bike?? i mean seriously. the handle bars are way up high like a chopper. and notice the extra wide banana seat. it's decked out in all black and chrome. and the best part is the car transmission shifter style gear shift.

4. I DO HAVE THE ABILITY NOT TO MAKE A DIRTY JOKE

that, my friends, is the Thinker - yes, the famous statue of a guy thinking. we saw this at the art museum on kansas city last week. any of you who have seen the will ferrel SNL sketch where he is a nude model probably knows the exact joke pose that i was thinking about at this very moment. (the thinker? or the stinker!!) but i guess i'm growing up cause i stood there like a champ and now have a picture that i can show my grandchildren without embarrassment. next on the list is mental filter to sort out what i say.

5. I HAD THE BEST FISHING DAY EVER

ok, so that's not really something i "learned" on this tour, but how can i catch 12 giant catfish and NOT post the picture??? one day in oklahoma i asked if there was anywhere good to fish....and yes, OF COURSE i bring my fishing gear with me on tour. anyway, a nice guy named Fred told us about a small pond that had big catfish and they wanted them OUT. so we obliged. ya know how we caught these guys?? HOT DOGS. yup. all you need are some fresh weiners to catch some stinky catfish. and what's even better is that a nice older guy cleaned and filet'd them for us and we grilled them at the bus. SOOO GOOD. also pictured are @jeremihough, @briancalcara and @jordanmesser- all who, i must mention, refused to even touch the fish. i mean, they're good guys but i won the manliest man competition that day. i guess no one likes hands that smell like fish.

6. ADAM'S GREAT GRANDPA IS AWESOME

ok so that's not a picture of adam's great grandpa, that's me shooting a gun at his farm. we had a day off in oklahoma and of course we're going to shoot guns. have you guys not learned this about me yet?

7. OKLAHOMA HAS THE MOST UNHEALTHY FOOD EVER

this heavenly entree is from Del Rancho in Moore, Oklahoma. this wasn't some random joint we found - this was recommended by multiple friends and family who don't even know each other. that is a chicken fried steak sandwich and onion rings. i had 3 heart attacks later that night.

8. SHARK IS SOOOOO GOOD TO EAT

that, my friends, is a FREAKING SHARK. in corpus christi, TX we had a couple guys take a bunch of us on the tour fishing off of a pier on south padre island. in addition to many people getting very sunburned, we also caught a lot of fish. this shark was caught by @josephrojas. @adamagee caught a nice pompano and i only got a couple blue runners. our guide caught a similar sized shark and another fisherman ended up giving us a shark that he caught. so OF COURSE we took it back to the bus and grilled them. seriously i want to start my own cooking show where cameras follow us on tour and we have to find local food and we can only use a grill. anyway, i cut up shark steaks, we cooked them in garlic, pepper, salt, butter and olive oil. oh, and i found out that apparently the mercury content in a fish is what makes it taste fishy. and the best way to get rid of the mercury is to soak the fix in milk. ya, seriously, milk. so we soaked in milk for an hour and it was seriously some of the best fish i've ever put in my mouth.

so the moral of this story is - when on tour, go fishing, shoot stuff, go to pawn shops and maybe do something interesting instead of just parking the bus at a mall. seriously, i know of some bands out there who almost refuse to do anything fun or interesting because they're stuck in a rut and the ONLY thing they'll ever do on a day off is park at a mall. i mean, that's cool. it's your life. you can do whatever you want. but we all only have a short time on this earth and if you want to stay in a bubble, that's cool. but i'm gonna at least enjoy it. and i've got the pictures to prove it.

even more..

2011-04-28T22:19:00.004-05:00

hey guys, sorry i haven't written lately. i've been crazy busy. but here's a little video we put together to promote tricia's worship record. i've posted little bits and pieces about the recording process and this video has a few clips. hope you like it

gratuitous self promotion

2011-04-19T00:21:00.003-05:00

i'll keep this post short and sweet. my wife's first single was recently sent to radio and iTunes. here's the link for iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/you-are-my-shepherd-single/id430720406

i expect each and every one of you to go buy it as well as call your local christian stations to request it. this, however poignant, is not a request.

you will buy tricia's single. you will also buy her full record when it comes out on June 7. these are not the droids you are looking for.

resistance is futile. your argument is invalid. that is all.

australia

2011-03-27T22:12:00.007-05:00

so about a week ago we did a one-off fly date....to australia. ya, australia. 30 hours of travel each way for a 50 minute set? sure! sign me up! for those of you with the empathic ability to sense sarcasm in the written word, just relax, i'm kidding. i love australia. seriously. i love the accent, the weather and the fact that they had radio stations that play both christian music and regular music. and i don't mean like here in the US where a christian station will play a Fray song once a day to appeal to a larger audience.

how many of you are scared of flying? ok, well it's a 14 hour flight from LA to Sydney so if you ever find yourself on that flight maybe pull a B.A. Baracus and sedate yourself. i don't expect anybody under 23 to get that reference.

we had a day off in Sydney which was actually a lot of fun. we were about to go walk on the famous bridge at the harbor (i forgot what it was called), but then we found out it costs almost $200 a person to walk up onto a bridge. now i know us christian musicians make loads of money (sarcasm empaths, i'm looking at you), but that seemed a little steep for us. see what i did there? walking up a high bridge?....too steep?....ok i'm reaching now.

here's me taking a picture of @adamagee who's taking a picture of @briancalcara

well, the next morning we had to take a short flight to Melbourne on a ghetto little ariline called Tiger Airways. it was kind of a ghetto airline. think southwest airlines' backwoods trailer trash cousin. anyway, remember this. i'll come back to it.

so here's a picture of the picturesque land where the festival was held:

the whole time i couldn't help but think that this place looks like the sheep hex in The Settlers of Catan. for those of you who don't know what that is, do yourself a favor and buy the boardgame and join the sensation.

i didn't get a shot of the crowd but i did get one of us doing an interview:

shortly after the interview we all got to meet a longtime Stellar Kart fan @innieG who actually took a long flight from Perth to come see the show. she is pretty awesome.

so anyway, about 4 hours after we finished our show we had to get out of bed so start our journey home. well, remember our friends at Tiger Airlines? well, at the airport they decided to screw us over with about $850 in extra baggage fees that we didn't have to pay on the way there. now i wouldn't bore you with a story of something so mundane as an airline screwing over a passenger. what was interesting was that there was a documentary camera crew there who heard our conversation and started filming the whole thing. apparently they're doing a documentary specifically on this airline because they're known for screwing people over as well as canceling 30% of all their flights at any given time. and of course, i didn't want to pass up an opportunity to ham it up a bit for the camera. once i realized there was no way to talk them out of the fees i then directed my energy to thinking of catchy sound bites the film crew could use. however i don't think that one of them will make the cut. at one point i asked them if i should bend over, grab my ankles and make it official. this documentary will apparently be airing on national tv at some point. let's just hope we aren't painted as the ugly americans in the editing.

so anyway, australia was awesome. hopefully next time we can stay a little longer. the morale of this story - if you need to get to australia be ready for the long haul, buy settlers of catan, and if you're getting screwed over, figure out a way to make it fun.

i'm noticing a pattern

2011-03-09T00:16:00.008-06:00

would you all like to know what i hate??????

THIS!!!!

for the uninitiated, i will enlighten you.

that, my friends, is Qdoba queso - and i must clarify that i LOVE Qdoba queso more than a fat kid loves, ummm, well, queso. wow i meant that to be a metaphor but it turned out to be depressingly literal and autobiographical. but enough about me getting old and fat. what really melts my cheese is that when i go to Qdoba and get their queso, they NEVER fill it up. seriously, even if i ask them to fill it up, they REFUSE. i mean, what am i paying for? seriously, it's $3.79. this isn't a side of guac. if you bought a can of coke and you opened it and it was only half full, you'd be pissed too, right?

attention corporate entity that owns Qdoba - please fill up the cup of queso or i will refuse to....well, i won't make idle threats that we all know i won't follow through with. but that doesn't change the fact that it makes me mad.

anyway, i had to get that off my chest. this weekend we spent some time in Washington, DC on a day off which happened to be my first time in the Capitol. i mean, i couldn't believe i was in the same city where our forefathers walked; great pillars of society like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Nicholas Cage. here's me on the Capitol steps:

wow, it's like i'm 8 years old visiting the Lincoln sites again back in Springfield. And here's the view looking down the national mall towards the Washington monument.

hmmm..is that a....well, nevermind.

and here's a nuclear missile on display at the air and space museum:

i'm noticing a pattern in these pictures. every picture has something in it shaped like a....yup, i think we can definitely say that washington is the most phallic city in the nation. but that's no big revelation. it's common knowledge that Washington is full of dicks.

ZING!!!

thanks. i'll be here all week. try the veal and tip your waitresses.

Mic Shootout - Results

2011-03-03T14:09:00.003-06:00

ok ok i've got people on my facebook and in the blog comments wanting to know the answers in the mic shootout. according to google analytics the spike i get when i post a blog lasts about 3 days so i would be doing myself and my blog a disservice if i didn't wait...haha, well, that and i wanted to keep you all in suspense.

Mic A was the expensive mic, the u67 through a neve pre and a blue stripe 1176.

Mic B was the cheaper Rode NT2 through a vintech x81 and a distressor.

first of all, i gotta give props to two people who picked it exactly - my old buddy from college Stephen Hudson from www.TheBusyBoxStudio.com. he owns both mics and knows them well because he was able to tell them apart.

the other guy is @nathantbass who not only picked it, but felt confident enough to actually post his name and not post anonymously. he got it right. the high end gives it away. more about that later...

for those of you who picked incorrectly, don't feel bad. i actually agree with you that Mic B (the cheap one) actually sounds better. i would have picked the same thing. if the majority of people agree that it sounds better, isn't that what counts? i'm just amazed that the cheap mic even stands up to the expensive one. don't get me wrong - if i get rich i'll definitely have some for my mic collection, but unless you're buying old tube mics as an investment strategy, why pay more??

back to the mic differences - as nathan pointed out, the top end gives it away. newer mics seem to have more top end which usually translates to it sounding "clearer". although the u67 has a richer mid range without sounding nasally.

another thing to consider is that you gotta find the right tool for the right job. i have in my possession a borrowed Blue Baby Bottle mic. on most voices it doesn't sound great, but one week i recorded a rock band and did a quick test to see which sounded best. the guy has an interesting and different sound to his voice and the baby bottle actually sounded the best. so for me to say that one mic is absolutely superior to another is just not true. i've got another mic that i would consider too bright for most uses, except on things like acoustic guitar where i tend to add a little on the top end. it really depends on the application and how that mic compliments what you are recording.

but the lesson remains that more expensive doesn't necessarily mean something is better.

Mic Shootout - Expensive vs. Cheap

2011-03-01T23:38:00.005-06:00

here's an interesting experiment for all the techie guys out there reading. and actually, even if you aren't technically minded you might find this interesting. below i've posted two links. both are short clips of my wife, @superchicktrish singing. One mic is an $8,000 vintage Neumann u67 ran through a vintage Neve 8068 console mic pre and then compressed with a blue stripe 1176 - the blue stripe is thought by many people to be the best vocal compressor there is. chris lord alge, the top mix guy in the US, says he uses it on almost all lead vocals.

and for those who have no idea what i'm talking about, here are some pictures:

Neumann u67

Neve 8068 Concole

UA 1176 Blue Stripe

the other mic is a $200 rode NT2 run through a Vintech x81 (a modern copy of the Neve 1081) and an Empirical Labs Distressor (which claims to emulate classic compressors). and here's the accompanying pictures:

Rode NT2

Vintech x81

Empirical Labs Distressor

i've mixed them up and labelled one Mic A and the other Mic B. listen to both and post a comment with what you think is the expensive mic and which one is the cheap mic. to vote, just leave a comment telling which one you think is which.

Mic A

Mic B

here's a hint

2011-02-19T00:46:00.004-06:00

today i had some good luck. i scored some last minute tickets from my favorite sister in law @mel___issa for the Jimmy Eat World show here in nashville. @adamagee was there and let me tell you it was pure bliss. whenever i go to one of their shows i turn into a 12 year old kid who's at his first concert singing along with every word. get this - i even bought a t-shirt. i NEVER buy merch. what the heck is wrong with me?

i was thinking to myself during the shows - what is so special about them? and really, the answer is absolutely nothing. that's right. nothing. there is nothing spectacular about this band - except for the songs. they're not incredibly good looking. they're good players, but they're not virtuosos. they don't have any sort of gimmick to their live show. their light show was cool, but it certainly wasn't what made the show. they're not really funny. but their show is incredibly entertaining because of the songs. ever been to a show where halfway through you start looking at your phone to see what time it was? ya, most shows i go to are like that. what about when a show ends and you feel like it just started?? how often does that happen?

now here's the thing - i've been going to LOTS of shows since i was a kid. and for the last few years i've played plenty of shows in front of thousands of people. after a while it's easy to get jaded. truly original ideas are very rarely conceived nowadays. everybody is copying someone else. there's always been a distinction between bands that are successful and bands that are successful and are respected by other musicians. for instance, you won't find other musicians going to a justin bieber concert, but you'd definitely find them at a muse concert. but even at a muse concert, they're complimenting the crazy light show and how good a guitar player Matt Belhamy is. Jimmy Eat World has none of that, but tonight i saw i whole crowd singing at the top of their lungs and dancing around and truly having fun. why? it's all about the songs. they've always been known for great songs. you like them on first listen, but over time they become so ingrained that they're a part of your life.

this got me thinking that with so many bands trying to get noticed, they reinforce the rule that it's all about the song.

to all you guys and girls in bands out there trying to make it, think about this:

is nobody coming to your shows? write better songs.

are you having trouble selling your CDs to people other than your friends? write better songs.

having trouble getting labels to notice you? write better songs.

are you frustrated because it's always somebody else's band that's getting popular? write better songs!!

(i'm not trying to trash indie bands, i truly want to help)

if you're beating your head against the wall trying to get ahead and get noticed, i'm giving you the answer to all your frustrations - write better songs. don't worry about passing out fliers. don't take out huge loans to buy a tour van and trailer. don't buy tons of merch to sell. i've seen it happen with tons of bands. when an artist has great songs, everything gets easier and starts to fall into place.

it's kinda like this guy

it's kinda like fishing. when i go fishing, for the first hour it seems like i'm fumbling around with tons of variables to figure out what magic combination of bait, lure, hook size and technique will resonate with the fish. i try different hooks. different lures. and it seems like as soon as i find the right combination, it's like a light switch has been flipped and i'm pulling them in left and right. the same is true for your band - except you don't need to fumble around in the dark looking for the right lure. i'm telling you - write better songs!!

sit down one day and figure out how much time in a month you spend doing anything related to your band - practicing, playing shows, putting up fliers, etc. Now take that amount. double it, and that's how much time you should spending writing, refining and re-writing your songs. if you successfully do that, it won't matter if you aren't pretty or if you're not an amazing player or if you can't put on a crazy light show. a person's connection with a great song will forever be far more entertaining than any light show, physical attributes or any other gimmick.

patience

2011-02-09T00:13:00.003-06:00

i want to let you all know that i had a great opening line for this blog, but at the exact moment that it popped into my head, my 16 pound boston terrier just farted right next to me and the by the time i was done wafting the smell away, my genius opening was long gone.

ok, now that the potty humor is out of the way, it's on to more important things.

i'm very pumped because today the Now Hear This Vol. 6 compilation CD was released and on it is a track from my wife's worship record that i've been producing for the last few months. the song is called "Lean" and we wrote it with @sarahhart. sarah was just nominated for a grammy for writing the amy grant song "Better Than A Hallelujah" (watch your feet, i'm dropping names). anyway, we first started talking with the label about this project almost exactly a year ago. it's hard to work on something day after day and progress only inches every day in what seems like a 26.2 mile marathon. i've never been a patient person. i fidget a lot and find it hard to sit still. doctors said i had ADD as a kid and i even had to take ritalin. who knows whether i actually had it or not. i could have just as easily been an energetic kid who didn't want to pay attention in class. all that to say patience isn't my strong suit. i remember a few years ago asking god for patience, and even though i have far to go, he's been using my own ambitions for recording to teach me.

why do records take so long? well, first come the meetings with the label. multiple meetings to get approval for the record, choose producer and work out budget. then the hardest part starts. the writing. the first demo we worked on was in december of 2009. we wrote off and on until september of 2010. we went through about 50 rough ideas, used those ideas and wrote 15 songs in co-writing sessions. we also had over 100 songs pitched to us from different publishing companies. the recording has only taken a few months. then there's mixing, mastering and a few months of lead time to properly market and promote the CD. and finally we arrive at the release date of June 7, 2011. about a year and a half after we first conceived the idea.

when i was a kid my dad and i would build model rockets. the process was agonizing because even though we could assemble it in a few minutes, when we painted it, we'd have to wait a WHOLE DAY for it to dry. i wanted to launch the rocket NOW. my dad once bought me a model car to put together. i didn't even finish it. now, years later, i understand that it's more about enjoying the process and not only looking for the satisfaction of finishing. but i'm definitely satisfied with how this project is turning out.

nothing worth doing is ever easy.

tear gas and molotov cocktails

2011-02-02T16:50:00.011-06:00

hey everybody. it's been a while since i've written. i've gotten your angry comments and messages, and judging by the ferocity i knew i should write something soon or suffer the ire of my legions of followers. and by legions of followers i mean mom and dad. so here's what's on my mind.

egypt. yup. get ready for a real snooze fest. i've got an opinionated and fire-breathing political rant all ready to go. if you just rolled your eyes because you were expecting another commentary on disney movies or pop culture, then tough luck. you'll have to wait at least a few days until i succumb to the will of the masses and post about the plot inconsistencies in Indiana Jones...but i digress...

lots of people in egypt are pissed off. they're rioting and protesting in favor of ousting their "president"...and by president i mean the guy who has held dictatorial powers for the last 30 years. sounds like democracy to me, right? but my point isn't about whether regime change is a good thing or a bad thing. the single thing that nobody seems to be talking about is the fact that these events are bringing to light an issue that hasn't really been on the table for discussion in years - America's interventionist foreign policy.

i'll break it down for you. current egyptian government is a strong ally of the US.....you could even call it a puppet government. they do what we say in exchange for billions in aid every year. the people however, are protesting and rallying for freedom and democracy and basic rights. when egypt does it, the world celebrates. when people in the US do it, they denounce the tea party. but that's a whole diferent issue. anyway, this is a good thing...except it's pretty obvious that the new government that will probably take over will be the Muslim Brotherhood, a jihadist and extremist fundamental muslim theocracy. wow that's a lot of big words. for good 'ol US of A we're between a rock and a hard place.

pictured below: The United States of America

political irony was never so cute. anyway, if we support democracy and regime change, we're losing a strong ally in a volatile region. not only that, but the likely candidate for a new regime will probably make egypt yet another thorn in our oil-loving side. but if we support the egyptian government then we're going against everything that is American.

this exposes the hypocrisy of the whole situation. WHY DO WE HAVE ANY SAY IN HOW ANOTHER SOVEREIGN NATION CHOOSES THEIR LEADERS?? a.k.a. why is it any of our business???

i know i know...because freedom isn't free and these colors don't run and the terrorists hate american apple pie and all that. give me a chance to explain. time for a history lesson.

in 8th grade history many of you might have studied president James Monroe. he was known for implementing what was known as the Monroe doctrine. this was a complete policy change for the US in how they dealt with foreign nations. i'll simplify it for you. it basically says we won't mess with other countries if they don't mess with us. at the time it was more of a statement against imperialism and further colonization of the western hemisphere, but over time it's main meaning was that we as a country minded our own business.

after WWII the public denounced the Monroe Doctrine. they called the US "isolationist" and conjured up images of people with their head stuck in the sand refusing to acknowledge Hitler's aggressive actions that led up to the war. a more fitting word would be non-interventionist. the passage of time is revealing that the bigger cause of WWII was our treatment of post WWI Germany and the ramifications of the Treaty of Versailles that created the conditions that made Germany susceptible to Hitler's rise.

i write all that to say that since then, we've felt the need to "protect our interests" overseas whether that means secretly supporting rebels in a foreign civil war, installing puppet governments or military "police actions". and since that time we are presented with case after case of how our meddling in other countries' affairs, however well-intentioned they were, bring about unexpected consequences that nobody could have seen.

have any of you seen Charlie Wilson's War? it's a true story about how in the early 80's the US secretly funded and armed the Taliban while they were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan because the cold war was all the rage back then. that was before 9/11 when terrorism became the new fear instead of invasion from the godless communists. anyway, some of those same weapons that we GAVE the taliban are being used against us. if we would have known that the USSR would crumble a few years later would we have funneled billions into a guerrilla force that would eventually turn against us?

"i did not realize that would happen...oh well, not my problem. i'm dead."

what's that?? you want another example?? welllll, ok, here's another. IRAN. everybody hates iran. we're collectively crapping our pants at the thought of them getting a nuclear weapon because hey, they might commit some sort of nuclear suicide bombing. get real. only the pawns do the suicide bombings. the ones at the top love their power and wealth. Achmadinejad, at the top of his throne is the least likely to martyr himself and his whole country.

anyway, what few people remember is that in 1953 the CIA carried out a plan and ousted the democratically elected leader in favor of the Shah of Iran. we liked him because he supported israel and also because we had oil interests in the country. well, that lasted for a while, but in 1979 the people revolted against the puppet government and now we have the Iran we know today.

the point is, even though we may have good intentions, we can never predict how that will negatively affect us in the future. it's happening again in egypt right now. for 30 years we've had our puppet leader doing what we say. all that breeds is anti-american sentiment and the eventual takeover of the most fundamentalist muslim gov't. the most invigorating motivation for muslim radicalization is the US meddling in their affairs. terrorism is a horrible thing and i am in no way saying that we asked for 9/11, but at the same time they do have a bit of a reason to not like us. the CIA even coined the term "Blowback" to mean the unintended consequences of US interventionism.

i'm not sure how this is gonna turn out, but i'm hoping we can resist the urge to find a way to install another puppet leader. EVERYONE is soooo scared of the middle east, but everybody seems to forget that as soon as they either A. run out of oil or B. we stop using oil, they become completely irrelevant again. overnight they will go from being a culture of oil sheiks with lots of oil money that doesn't value human life or human rights to a culture of goat herders that has no money and doesn't value human life or human rights. just like how we didn't realize the USSR would collapse a few years later, can't we find a way to mind our own business and spend our time and money figuring out a way around oil or if that doesn't work, just wait until theirs runs out. terrorist actions cost money. lots of money. more than you think. the 9/11 hijackers didn't just have to buy plane tickets and box cutters. passports, months and years of living expenses in the US. training camps, etc. where does that money ultimately come from?? OIL.

and think about this - the whole rallying cry behind citizens wanting to cut spending in government is this: We have to live on a budget, why shouldn't they?? well, i should ask the same question concerning foreign policy. we're expected to mind our own business unless someone threatens us. why shouldn't the government do the same?

Things I've Learned This Week

2010-12-15T16:34:00.002-06:00

1. The Law of St. Nick: the strand of christmas tree lights that are the hardest to reach are the ones most likely to go out prematurely

2. if you ever try to re-create KFC's 11 herbs and spices original recipe fried chicken, it's gonna take a LOT of experimentation before you get anything that doesn't taste horrible. i learned this the hard way.

3. lately i've been realizing how in the grand scheme of recording, vocals account for about 85% of whether or not it's considered a good recording. for any singer, some days are just not good days to sing. when that happens, instead of getting frustrated and having them do a million takes (which makes their voice even worse), it's better to just work another day.

4. if your tires work out great and last 30,000 miles longer than they were supposed to, you can be sure the company that makes those tires will discontinue them so as not to make that mistake again.

5. frying a turkey is definitely the way to go. ok, technically that's not recently. i learned that a few weeks ago at thanksgiving, but seriously, do yourself a favor and skip the oven. no more dried out white meat.

6. Edy's grape and lime fruit juice popsicles dominate all other frozen treats. if you disagree, Edy herself will punch you in the face.

7. Preparation pays off. Here's a story for you: about 5 years ago it snowed in nashville around christmas. but nobody here sells sleds. so you know what i did? i asked for a sled for christmas from my family in illinois. they were confused, but nevertheless they obliged me and bought me a plastic sled. that sled has stayed in my basement since then. BUT THEN it snowed 4 or 5 inches on sunday. my day of reckoning had arrived. my new place has a big hill in the back. @davidmolnar came over with his snowboard and we were 12 years old again. THE END.

8. the biggest enemy of my productivity is angry birds

9. I am the Lord of Catan

10. watched the new narnia movie. SPOILER ALERT - the lion is jesus

11. Last Christmas is the best Christmas song ever written. there. i said it. thank you george michael.

12. the new my chemical romance record is awesome.

13. @davidmolnar is the best backup swayer i've ever known.

that's all for now!

nick

Bass

2010-12-03T09:05:00.010-06:00

the english language is very weird. take the word "bass". because you are reading this, you have no idea if i'm talking about the fish, or the instrument. while i do enjoy bass fishing, let's talk about the instrument - and more specifically, this guy:

this is my buddy Nathan Thomas. he loves his cat, he loves Prince and he absolutely loves jimmy eat world. the last part is a big reason me and nathan are friends. in addition to being an original member of Cartel, he's played for Avril Lavigne, Shedaisy, Jeremy Camp, Krystal Meyers, Britt Nicole, and Day of Fire to name a few.

we share the same dark sense of humor. he told me a great story the other day where he was hired to play a one-off show for a fairly well known christian rock singer. the music director came to meet up with him to go over the songs the day before the show. when they started to play the first song, nathan proceeded to play the song in its entirety in all slap bass - with a straight face the whole time. he watched the guy's face sink and could practically read his mind as he probably thought "crap, how the heck am i going to find another bass player so quickly." the music director artfully downplayed the atrocity he had just witnessed and proceeded with a very nice "well, maybe we should try something different..." before nathan's face exploded in laughter and let him in on the joke.

anyway, nathan is awesome, and that's why i hired him to play bass on Tricia's solo worship record. he's a great player - he's the type of guy who usually gets what i'm trying to do without even having to tell him. with most songs i usually record a couple of takes without one word of direction and we end up keeping a lot elements of those takes. i'm a fan of melodic, moving bass lines in the style of paul mccartney. some think the bass should be simple and foundational - which there is truth to, but some tasteful movement in the right spots really excites the song.

anyway, he's the lowdown on the gear we used.

here are the main 3 basses we used. from left to right you'll see an Epiphone Jack Casady 2006 strung with flat wounds, a Fender P Bass 2002 with S-1 switching and a Fender Jazz bass 2005. jazz basses are my favorite so i think we ended up using that one the most. but the other two really found their places.

we also used an upright bass for one song.

here's what we had for pedals.

as you can see, he has a lot of aguilar pedals. i'm a fan of the agro pedal. it's got a certain low mid punch that sounds nasty when you hear just the bass but it makes it sit perfectly in the mix. that red pedal up on the top right is a custom fuzz/gate pedal that nathan and his buddy made. the best way i can explain is that it's similar to a fuzz factory pedal except for bass. here's the list of pedals:

Boss TU-2

Aguilar TLC compressor

Aguilar Agro

Aguilar Tone Hammer

Aguilar Octamizer

Home-made "top secret" fuzz/synth

Electro Harmonix Holy Stain

Tech 21 Sans Amp

we ran a clean direct line straight out of the tone hammer and then a "dirty" line at the end of the effect chain. no amp. that scares me a little. i usually like to have a mic'd up amp but this turned out really well.

one of the lines was run into a Vintech x81 and then a tiny bit of compression from a Distressor and the other line went through an Avalon 737 with a touch of compression and no EQ.

if you'd like to follow nathan thomas on twitter, his twitter name is @nathantbass

if you'd like to follow Tricia on twitter, her twitter name is @superchicktrish

work with what you've got

2010-11-17T23:08:00.015-06:00

when it rains, it pours. i am definitely blessed with work to do. i'd rather be too busy than have nothing to do.

first off, i got back yesterday from a two week run with Stellar Kart and got back the first mix from Tricia's worship record. it's a song called "Lean" that was loosely inspired by the old hymn "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms." "wow" you might say. "why is one song done so early?" well i'll tell you. that song is going to appear in an upcoming Now Hear This compilation. we're very excited. we had it mixed by Ainslie Grosser (@ainslieg). i'll have plenty more to show and tell very soon about the rest of the record.

secondly, let's talk about something else exciting. as i said earlier, i just got off the road with stellar kart for a two week run. while i was out, i brough some gear with me and we recorded an EP - the contents which are very very secret. "how secret" you ask? well let's just say that if said secrets were to leak on the internets, many clandestine agents around the world would be outed, nuclear war would ensue and would probably bring about the end of the human race.

i've never done a record while on tour. this was definitely a lesson in less-is-more. what's surprising is how well things can turn out when you don't have your best tools. it just reinforces the fact that what makes a good recording are the ideas, not the gear.

here's a shot of the rig.

a single shock mounted road case, digi 002 rack, motu 8 channel mic pre and avalon 737. that drawer contains a bunch of mics, cables, dongles, headphones and random stuff. everything was run off of a macbook.

the day we recorded drums, we were incredibly fortunate to be playing a show at a church that had halfway decent acoustics. it wasn't as good as a professionally designed studio, but it was good enough. here's a shot:

notice the panels on the wall. they're absorption panels to deaden the room. also notice the angled walls. without getting into a long drawn out discussion on acoustics, just accept this fact when i tell you that you don't want any parallel surfaces in a room where you're recording.

here's jordan's setup

we didn't have the best mics available. here's the quick rundown - audix d6 and shure beta 52 on kick. audix i5 and 57 on snare(s) two unidentified mics on toms that came from manic drive. akg c1000's on overheads, audio technica 4050's for room mics and 57's for hat and ride. what's interesting about using a dynamic mic on hat and ride is that the pattern wasn't as wide as a condenser which is what i typically use. which means better isolation. i don't know why i haven't tried this before.

also, i tried something new with the room mics. i brought a long headphone extender cable with me. i grabbed one of the room mics and record enabled it and put the headphones on. i had jordan start playing and i just walked around the room listening to the mic. the trouble with room mics is usually with the cymbals. it's hard to find a good spot that's not so harsh on the high end. we ended up finding a sweet spot with some good low end about 15 feet in front and to the left of the kit. not exactly where i guessed it would be. if i'm ever trying to record drums in a room that i'm not familiar with, i think i've found a new trick.

here's another interesting thing i tried:

ok, things are about to get nerdy. be warned. if you don't like technical talk, you might want to skip the next few paragraphs.

noticed how one mic is about two feet behind the other mic. 22 inches to be exact. the night before i was thinking about an article i read where chris lord alge was talking about making sure if he was mixing two channels of bass how important it is that they're in phase with each other. forgive me if those of you reading already know this, but when you encounter phase problems, certain frequencies will cancel out depending on the phase. anyway, i was thinking that there could be a way to use phase cancellation to create a desired effect. i didn't have all my normal equipment to record drums like i usually do at darkhorse. with a kick drum i find myself almost always scooping out 300 Hz (or somewhere around there.) different frequencies have different wavelengths - actual physical wavelengths. i figured if i could find the exact wavelength of 300 Hz and place the second mic so that frequency would be exactly 180 degrees out of phase, then that frequency (and that frequency alone) would cancel out. the formula to use is:

c/f = w

where c = the constant (in this case being the speed of sound in meters per second [343 m/per sec])

f = frequency

w = wavelength

so when i plug my numbers in i get this:

343 / 300 = f

f = 1.14 meters

that's science!! well...math, really. mrs. labbe, if you're reading this (and she might actually be), you are probably so proud right now.

yes kids. i just did some algebra. i hate to break it to you, but you actually do need to use some of that stuff they teach you in school.

anyway, 1.14 meters is roughly 44 inches. if i want the mic to be 180 degrees out of phase, i need to place it at half that distance which is 22 inches.

did it work?? BEAUTIFULLY. i couldn't believe it. i didn't use any EQ and the kick sounded great. granted, i did have to move the fader up and down a bit to find the sweet spot where it was canceling out just right, but nevertheless, it worked. also, i should give some credit to @jordanmesser for having a good sounding kick and knowing how to tune it and play it well.

so lesson be learned. to everybody complaining about not having great gear:

a shoddy craftsman blames his tools.

my mom, a.k.a. life hacker

2010-11-12T23:53:00.003-06:00

one of the benefits of playing in a christian rock band is that every now and then i can get tickets to other shows for my family. my mom called me yesterday excited because tobymac and skillet were coming through my hometown of springfield, IL. so of course, i called a friend who got her on the list. i texted her back the good news that she was on the list. later that night she texted me that she had a great time at the show and said thanks.

now this would be a boring story if it ended there. but thankfully, it doesn't.

i got a message from my friend today saying "hey nick! i'm so terribly sorry i was thinking ur mom needed comps for the Springfield, MO show the first week of december and just now realized it was last night's show. did she end up going? pls pass along my apologies if she did try :("

that is the exact text. if you don't believe me, notice the emoticon and shortened spelling of "your" into "ur."

now here's where it gets good. this is one of the reasons my mom is awesome. she managed to get in. long time readers of my blog may remember me occasionally talking about how sometimes just acting like you know what you're doing and acting like you're supposed to be there will get you far. my mom understands this concept COMPLETELY. there is no security guard alive who can keep my mom from getting backstage. anyway, apparently when the people at the ticket desk couldn't find the tickets that were never left, my mom just told them that her son is in stellar kart and he called his buddies and her tickets should be there. i'm not sure exactly what she said, but they ended up giving her tickets.

my mom beats the system like it's her job.

day off

2010-11-11T14:43:00.010-06:00

so here we are. oklahoma city. the stellar kart 3D tour has been going great so far. but today we are just chilling in the bus. if you check google you would think that the shopping mall that we are parked at would keep us occupied. but closer inspection reveals that this is a dying mall. there's nothing more depressing than a dying mall. the empty parking lot. the removed store signs. movie theater shut down. the only signs of life are more depressing than the decay of the deserted and barred up spaces. i mean, who goes to a decrepit mall for a hair weave anyway?

i was in the mood for some adventure so i just started walking. lo and behold i found a pawn shop. I LOVE PAWN SHOPS. seriously. some people love malls, some people love thrift stores. i love pawn shops. i'm always on the hunt for music gear or electronics for super cheap. one of the best things about pawn shops are the DVDs. they have tons of classic movies and the DVDs usually run about $2 or $3 a piece. but nothing would prepare me for what i saw today in the pawn shop.

CHECK. THIS. OUT.

do you know what that is?? some of you probably do. if you don't, i'll tell you.

that is a FREAKING BARRETT .50 CALIBRE SNIPER and ANTI-MATERIAL RIFLE

i don't know if you can tell from the picture, but right in front of the gun is .50 calibre shell. that shell is about 5 inches long. these puppies aren't just meant to take out a bad guy from over a mile away. a well placed shot from this guy into the engine block of a car will stop a hummer or jeep dead in its tracks. remember the movie Shooter? remember at the beginning when mark wahlberg shot a helicopter down with a well placed shot to the rotors? well he was using this puppy, and that is a totally feasible shot. ya know how when you watch Walker Texas Ranger and there's always crazy inaccurate situations like when he shoots one bullet from his handgun and the car blows up? well, this gun is the closest thing we have to Walker Texas Ranger.

God help us all if chuck norris were to get his hands on one of these babies.

anyway, i didn't have $6,000 to buy this guy even though that's a great deal. they usually go for $10,000...oh ya, and the bullets cost $5 a piece. seriously. not a cheap hobby. but i've gotta do something or else the terrorists win.

but i did end up buying all three lord of the rings movies for a grand total of $6. so you know what? our crappy day at a dying mall is turning out to be an awesome movie day. so take that Osama. 'Muricah!! Freedom isn't free! These colors don't run!

and that brings us to the moral of the story. happy veterans day.

by the way, if you wanna hear more about the gun that i just casually found on sale in a pawn shop in oklahoma city, check out this video:

happy halloween!

2010-11-01T00:05:00.001-05:00

here's a little independent film me and the SK guys have been working on. probably gonna enter it into some film festivals...you know, see what happens. no big deal

studio update - worship album

2010-10-28T20:19:00.013-05:00

it's always hard holding out for long term goals. whether it's getting through a 4 year college degree or simply waiting a day for the paint to dry on a model rocket, waiting for the payoff sucks. but it's so fun when you get that diploma.....and even more fun when you shoot off your rocket.

tricia and i started the wheels moving on a worship record last march. (NO, she is not quitting Superchic[k]).

a wise man once told me that nothing worth doing is ever easy, and he was right. after various label meetings, record contract negotiations and about 5 months of songwriting, we finally started tracking drums for tricia's first solo record which will be a worship record.

well of course i booked out the Cabin at Darkhorse studios. i love this room. it's absolutely my favorite place to tracks drums in nashville. when recording drums, one of the biggest factors in getting a good drum sound (after good player, good drums and good song) is having a good sounding room. it doesn't matter how high quality your mics are or if you have the best gear. if you have a bad sounding room that just means those mics will pristinely capture how bad it sounds. i'm no rocket scientist. i don't know a ton about the science of acoustics, but good rooms usually have a few things in common:

- high ceilings

-no parallel surfaces

-wood floors/walls (NO DRYWALL!!)

Anyway, here's a few shots and highlights.

trident series 80 console. i usually use outboard mic pre's, but if needed to, every channel has a high quality pre in it. it's not in-line like an SSL or the newer Neve's, but that doesn't make much difference if i'm using mostly outboard pre's.

here you can see the amek 9098 mic pre/EQ that we use on a pair of room mics. below it are two brent averill 1073 clones that we used on the outside kick mic and the snare bottom. i've decided that i'm not a huge fan of 1073s. i mean, sure they sound fine, but the EQ is so limiting. and speaking of the outside kick mic, check this out. i always experiment with at least one thing when i record drums. this time i tried a royer 122 ribbon mic on the kick. the attack from a kick drum usually comes mostly from the inside mic whereas the outside mic better captures the very low sub frequencies. ribbon mics are known for being darker, and since it's outside of the drum, i usually find myself rolling off the top end to get rid of the extra cymbal noise. but with the ribbon, i didn't really have to do that. finding a natural solution is usually better than having to carve out the sound with EQ. most ribbon mics are very sensitive to very loud noises, but the royers are specially made to handle a lot of sound. check them out here http://www.royerlabs.com.

of course we have vintech x81's which are neve 1081 clones. great sounding mic pre and a very capable 4 band EQ. side note - i finally got to buy one for myself. more on that in another blog.

the white piece of gear is an Amek 9098 stereo compressor which i absolutely love. rupert neve consulted for Amek after he sold Neve and this is essentially a clone of his own design. in a previous blog from Quad studios, i noted how i used the Neve 33609. what's weird is that i like the newer 9098 better than the 33609. anyway, i also used API 3124 pre's on overheads, hat mic, ride cymbal mic. and of course i'm taking advantage of those two distressors down there. although i don't have them pumping that hard....that sounds like a thats-what-she-said joke.

neumann m147's. i usually ask for these mics when i track drums are darkhorse and they always seem to be taken up by another client. i used very little EQ and these guys sounded great.

and of course the best part of the day.....

yes, that's right. i bring my dogs to the studio. DEAL WITH IT. and yes, my wife and i put clothes on them because they look cute. SO SUE ME. i would love to have someone look me in the eye and tell me that those aren't the two cutest dogs in the world. and if someone actually did, i would probably punch them in the face.

oh, and i think i went the extra mile on this blog because i actually got some video. here's the dogs playing, trish looking hot and joey sanchez playing drums in the background. his Mlasko kit and ludwig black beauty always sound amazing. it's one thing to record a good drummer, it's a whole different thing to have a drummer who really knows how to tune his drums. a better sounding drum means less EQ and a cleaner signal path. so anyway, here's the video. side note: the vocals you hear in the background are just a one take scratch vocal.

doctor visit

2010-10-15T23:13:00.004-05:00

ok, i got a weird one for ya. a week and a half ago my ear started acting funny. like, really funny. i actually started hearing everything in a lower pitch in my left ear. seriously. if i whistled, i heard two distinctly different notes. i started to get freaked out that i was losing my hearing.

we were stuck in LA on some days off so somehow i found my way to a clinic in West LA. i'll make a long story short - the doctor saw me and said it was just an ear infection. i was relieved. anyway, he prescribed some ear drops and told me i could buy them for only $75 from him and that at a pharmacy they are normally $150. well, naturally, i was skeptical. when's the last time your doctor tried to sell you something? so i made some excuse and didn't buy it. the last week and a half i either didn't have a chance to get to a pharmacy or flat out forgot to get the prescription. i was just happy that it was just an ear infection and i wasn't losing my hearing.

today i finally had some free time to go get it filled. walgreens didn't have the drug. apparently it's not really used a lot. they suggested a more common drug that's very similar and universally used for ear infections. so they called the doctor, got the ok and switched it. as they were ringing it up, i braced myself for the total. i was expecting something brutal - easily over $100. but when she told me the amount, it was only $30. and no, that wasn't after an insurance co-pay.

so my question is this: was that first doctor just screwy? is it normal for a doctor to prescribe the more expensive and less-commonly used drug specifically so he can sell it to you right then and there in his office for a highly inflated price?

note to self: don't go to clinics in West LA.

Robot Voice

2010-10-10T13:32:00.003-05:00

sometimes i hear people say certain things in social situations that are flat out wrong. but the statement is so trivial that for me to jump in and correct it would just make me look like some arrogant snob so i just end up letting it go. when someone insists that some urban legend is absolutely true, all of the sudden i'm captain buzzkill if i say the truth. and that's the story of how 90% of all blogs got started. so here's something that people continually get wrong that i am 100% sure of the answer. and it all has to do with the ROBOT VOICE. when i was in college, i went through a couple month period where i was obsessed with finding out how to do the robot voice. and for the enjoyment of the techies out there, here's how to do it.

There are actually 3 distinct ways to create a "Robot Voice"

1. Vocoder

2. The Talkbox

3. Auto Tune

1. Vocoder

The Vocoder is commonly mispronounced "Vocorder". yes, i know, vocoder is hard to say, but that doesn't excuse your linguistic ignorance. the vocoder works on the principle of combining the pure tone of a synthesizer with the modulation of a real voice. and the end product is a keyboard that sounds like it's talking. Your voice actually works on this principle too. Your vocal chords vibrate and produce a pure tone. but the way you move your move changes how that tone sounds, creating different sounds. So really, your vocal chords provide the pure tone, and your mouth modulates the signal. in a vocoder, the synth is the pure tone and you speak into a microphone which translates that modulation into various filters to make it sound like the synth is speaking.

one of the most popular examples of a vocoder in action is the famous "Mr. Roboto" by Styx

or for those of you born after 1985, at the end of "California Girls" by Katy Perry, the robot voice you hear singing the words "California girls" is also a vocoder.

2. Talkbox

The talkbox has been around since the 60's but was first made famous by Peter Frampton in Frampton Comes Alive where he makes his guitar talk. but when explaining the talkbox, i don't think frampton really counts as a pioneer. the "talking" isn't very clear. richie sambora of Bon Jovi used one at the famous beginning of "Living on a Prayer" but his talkbox playing just sounds like a glorified wah pedal, not a clear and concise talking. the hands-down master of the talkbox is Mr. Roger Troutman from the late 70s, early 80s group Zapp and Roger. You may not know the name, but if you've ever heard "California Love" by Dr. Dre, then you've heard Roger Troutman. He's the guy singing with the talkbox robot voice.

the talkbox works on the same principle of the vocoder, but it accomplishes this in a completely different way. the keyboard provides the pure tone, but instead of speaking into a mic and having the modulating sounds translated into a filter, the effect is accomplished in a much more natural way. the talkbox is essentially just a speaker with a long tube attached. that's it. you plug the keyboard or guitar into it. the sound travels from the speaker up through the tube and into your mouth. the way you move your mouth modulates the sound. it's actually kinda hard to do. it requires practice and skill which is why some people are better than others at it.

a few of you may remember a couple years ago when i was with TFK i used to play a talkbox at the end of one of the songs.

3. Auto Tune

Auto tune is probably the most recognized of the robot voice mainly because of T-Pain. Auto Tune has been around since the late 90s. In 1998 Cher released "Believe" where the robot effect was first showcased. It was actually an accident. back in college, i couldn't figure out how to get this affect. what's funny is that i had auto tune on my computer at the time, but didn't realize what the effect was. then one day for a recording school assignment i walked into a studio on music row in nashville and asked if i could sit in on a session. the studio manager walked me into a mix session with a guy named Reid Shippen who happens to be a big mix engineer in christian music. he was mixing a song by Jump 5 (remember christian boy bands??) and in the song they were using the robot voice i had sought after for so long. i asked reid what it was and he showed me and i felt like an idiot that it had been at my fingertips for so long.

auto tune works on a completely different principle than the vocoder or talkbox. the way the program "tunes" a voice is by analyzing the sound and determining what pitch it is. it then looks at the key you are in and adjusts the pitch to the closest note in the designated scale. one of the controls is for "Retune Speed" which controls how quickly the program adjusts the pitch. the human voice doesn't go straight from one pitch to another. it slides between notes. but the engineers for Cher's "Believe" stumbled upon the fact that if you turned the retune speed allllll the way up, it truncates that sliding and goes straight from one note to the other. and that's what makes it sound like a robot.

the best thing to come out of this technology would have to be the guys who do auto tune the news and gave us the famous bed intruder song.

so there you have it. three ways to do the robot voice. and i have also successfully ended another blog with the bed intruder song. SCORE!

stopit

2010-10-03T03:44:00.005-05:00

This has always annoyed me.

some of you see this picture and don't need to read any further. you know exactly what i'm talking about. but for those of you who don't, i'll explain.

no, it's not the oversized floppy hats. it's not the goofy smile on the girl with dark hair and yellow dress. it's the awkward half-stooping pose that girls universally feel the need to do every time they're in a group picture.

did the photographer catch them right in the middle of sitting down? are they standing on top of a vent and are merely preventing their skirts from blowing upwards? do they need to use the bathroom?

so let me get this straight....you're hunched over, hands in your crotch, knees together and butt sticking out. for those of you familiar with the rocky horror picture show, it sounds strangely familiar to the time warp dance - but with one exception. the time warp was designed to be clumsy and awkward for the purpose of a movie. but the girl-group-photo-pose is somehow the status quo. every girl does it at one time or another. do they give lessons on how to look terrible in group photos during girls P.E. or something?

i know, i know. you're just trying to fit into the picture frame. well try this. when you take a group photo, stand there like normal and just make the person taking the picture take a step back. you can thank me 20 years from now when you're searching through old pictures and you don't look ridiculous. your welcome.

we are all weiners

2010-09-18T17:28:00.008-05:00

sometimes destiny has your name on it. sometimes the skies open up and God looks down on you favorably for a moment in time. and sometimes you show up early to a KC Royals game to watch batting practice and you get asked to be in the hot dog race at the end of the 5th inning.

that is exactly what happened to me, @adamagee and @jordanmesser yesterday. i'll back up. here's a handy bullet point list of what happened:

* day off in Kansas City

* Burro manages to get us free tickets to the KC game

* we show up early to watch batting practice

* nameless, faceless Royals employee sees us and thinks to himself, "wow, these guys would look great in weiner suits"

* he approaches, makes his request. we accept. history is set in motion.

It was an epic race. while suiting up we were all making outrageous claims of who would lose and how. Adam was mustard, i was ketchup and jordan was relish. when the time came we got our two seconds on camera on the jumbo tron. i was talking trash. adam smiled politely. jordan mouthed "RELISH BE JEALOUS."

and then we were off. adam is good at everything he does so of course he won. me, being slightly overweight and out of shape came in last. but it doesn't matter. all that matters was that i made a fool of myself in a weiner suit on the largest HD jumbotron in the world.

how did you spend your friday night?

(video posted below)

choices

2010-09-17T00:16:00.003-05:00

we all face decisions every day of our life. some are more weighty than others. as a teenager growing up i found myself constantly getting in trouble. and of course, many times i would find myself in the office of Pastor Mark. his mantra to me was something like, "Nick, life is full of choices, and what you choose every day affects the outcome of your life". everytime he would see me screwing up, he would just sigh and say "choices, nick....choices." this happened so many times that it almost became a joke if it weren't true.

sometimes we are faced with choices that pit the principle of what we believe against the realistic consequences of those decisions in the short term. for instance, when you have a screaming kid who wants too much candy, do you hold to your principles and suffer the crying, or do you give him candy and risk setting a precedent that the kid can get whatever he wants if he throws a big enough fit? many frustrated and exhausted parents have chosen the latter even though they know better. they let their emotions push them towards a pragmatic decision as opposed to an idealistic one - a decision based on principle.

i'm going somewhere with this. i promise. and ya know where i'm going? politics. yup. don't worry. i'm not going to try to indoctrinate you. i'm not trying to push you to be a republican or democrat. i just think there's a practical lesson to learn from the last two years about choosing between the pragmatic (the realistic, short term) decision and the idealistic (long term, principled) decision.

I supported and voted for Ron Paul in the last presidential election. i liked his small government philosophy and extreme respect for the constitution. i knew he was an outlying candidate that didn't have a huge chance at winning the election, but i really believed in what he said even when he didn't win the primary. some said i was throwing my vote away. and maybe i was, but i was facing a decision to either go with principle or go the pragmatic way and vote for McCain because it was more realistic that he would have a chance at the presidency.

here we are a few years later. of course Ron Paul didn't win. but i realized this - before that election, republicans were still big spending "compassionate conservatives." but now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of smaller government and stronger individual rights. Tea Party candidates are putting old school republicans out of races. and speaking of the Tea Party, do you realize that the first Tea Party (other than the one in the revolution) was organized by Ron Paul's campaign back in the fall of 2007?

listen, i'm not trying to convince you how awesome he is. that's not my point. i'm trying to demonstrate that sometimes you have to just follow your gut and make a principled and idealist decision even if you don't see the benefit in the short term. Ron Paul's run for the white house was not successful. but it was hugely successful in changing the tone and the direction of the republican party. do what you know is right - even if you don't see how anything good can come of it.

15 Things I've Learned Recently

2010-09-12T10:36:00.007-05:00

Hey everybody. it's been a while since i've shouted at you. i've grown, learned many life lessons and quite frankly, am a different human being than i was before. and by quite different, i mean i'm the same cynical, sarcastic and self effacing douche bag you all know and love. here's a few life lessons i've learned in the past few weeks:

1. don't try to film any video blogs while in the red light district in amsterdam. no matter how family friendly your message is, you're bound to get something a little PG-13 in the background of your shot

2. my sister @AlieghShields's music has turned out awesome. that's not so much a lesson as it is a fulfillment of prophecy. we'll have it posted soon.

3. don't mess with @jordanmesser. he will have a smile on his face and then all of the sudden SNAP on you and stab you with a water bottle. i learned that the hard way

4. i am the greatest fisherman ever - and by EVER i mean the best this tour bus has ever seen.

5. Losing weight is awesome....the part that sucks is the not eating as much as you want.

6. i miss my wife. i will not see her for a whole month. to those of you enjoying superchick and stellar kart shows this month, this is the price i pay for your enjoyment. your welcome.

7. i miss my dogs. see #6 for witty, yet scathing comment.

8. if you have an iPhone with a cracked screen, people will constantly ask what happened. just tell them you have the cracked screen app.

9. a good show sometimes has absolutely nothing to do with how well you played or how good it sounds. it's about how fun and entertaining you make it for the audience. no matter how well we play SK songs live or how much we rock it out, kids still tell us their favorite part of the show was "A Whole New World."

10. i don't know if this qualifies as a lesson i've learned, but i have definitey learned that i want this guitar:

one of the guys in Philmont had this exact guitar at a show we played the other day. I COVET!

11. it's all about the song. we've been writing and writing and writing for Tricia's solo worship album that i'm producing. i'm definitely going to do my best to make the record sound good, but the most important part of any record is getting great SONGS. you can have the best production, the best gear, the best performances, but if the song sucks, no one cares. however, if you've got great songs, then at least you have a fighting chance of getting noticed. we've written about 15 songs in the last two months and have had about 45 songs pitched to us for the record. we're still writing and will have to narrow it down to 10 songs eventually. sometimes it's just a numbers game. the more songs you write, the more chances you have at writing a hit song. someone told me a while back that for Tim McGraw's latest album, they sifted through over 1,500 songs. and guess who wrote the lead single? Chad Kroeger from Nickelback. now i'm not a fan of douche bag rock, but the dude definitely knows how to write a hit song. he also knows how to be ugly.

Holland and More

2010-08-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

well, i definitely joined up with Stellar Kart at the right time - just in time to go play Flevo Festival in Holland. i played it last year with TFK so some of the people were a little confused.

let me just say that Amsterdam is amazing. you should definitely go sometime in your life. i know i know...everybody thinks of amsterdam as one giant city of debauchery, prostitutes and illicit drug use. ya, that stuff is there. everybody's read about the red light district. but honestly it's really a beautiful city with canals running through the city, old architecture, museums and great shops.

the shows were great. we closed out mainstage on friday night. the production at the festival is always top notch and they treat us very well. here's cool video someone uploaded on youtube:

the next day we also played a show at the beach stage which was honestly probably the most fun i've had playing a show in a very long time. the stage is actually in the water facing the beach. the kids at the first 10 feet of the stage were actually standing in water. when things got crazy, water was splashing all over the place. we were having so much fun we didn't care that it was getting all over our gear. thank god nothing got fried. here's a crowd shot:

also, i had three different people come up to me and ask for a high five because they read my blog. that is so awesome and unreal to think people halfway around the world are interested in my ramblings.

Also, i have some big news. my wife Tricia, who is the singer for Superchick is working on a solo worship record. the first question from everyone's mouth is if she's quitting superchick and the answer is NO. tricia's got a great voice and has always wanted to do a worship project and this seemed like the right time.

another piece of good news is that i'll be producing the project. we're excited to work together. we've been working on a lot of co writing sessions and are pretty pumped about the songs. i'll also be possibly taking on an intern during the recording process. the internship would include helping me beef up the acoustics in my studio, basic pro tools editing and generally helping out. the intern will receive album credit as an assistant engineer and a small weekly stipend to cover gas expenses. recording school is not required, but a good attitude is. pro tools experience is a plus. you must live in the nashville area from october through early december. anyone interested should send a resumé to NickBaumhardtIntern@hotmail.com

i'll definitely be posting more blogs during the recording process. next up will be a mic shootout to find the best vocal chain for tricia's voice. i would say "stay tuned" but that's kinda stupid. so i'll leave you with the funniest thing to hit the internet in the last month.

Stellar Changes

2010-08-09T10:15:00.003-05:00

all right everybody, here's the deal. i've got good news and bad news. what do you want to hear first?

save your breath. this is a blog. i can't hear you. or maybe i'll pull a little stage trick and act like i can hear someone in the crowd shouting what i secretly want to be first.....what's that? one more time, please?? you want the bad news first? well, all righty then...

I've decided to not play for Stephanie Smith anymore. :(

Stephanie is incredibly talented and was a lot of fun to play for. She treats her band very well, she's down to earth and she has great message. I've only played for her since January, but me, Steph, @nathantbass and @stephenkadaradar have had some fun times. She's working on her next record now and i think it's going to be great. Be sure to follow her on twitter at @stephanaynay. I'm definitely going to missing playing with them.

And now for the good news!

The reason I'm leaving Steph is because God has opened a door to start playing guitar for Stellar Kart. Yup....these guys:

except, see the third guy from the left with the black vest? right now i want you to open up photoshop in your head and past my head over his. except make sure my head is way out of proportion with the body. that way it's kinda funny looking. and maybe give me some muscles. anyway, he is @jonY2K and i've known him for a few years now back when he used to be in a band called Dizmas.

Anyway, this last weekend i played my first show with @AdamAgee, @JordanMesser and @BrianCalcara and i seriously had probably the most fun i've had in a long time on stage. It was a fun road trip. I kinda already knew the guys from seeing each other at festivals, but now that i'm starting to get to know them for real i'm pretty excited. we all like a lot of the same bands, we all enjoy late night fast food and we all like to have fun - and if sometimes having fun means listening to boys II men on the bus, then so be it.

Anyway, we play in Maryland next week and in two weeks we'll be at Flevo Festival near Amsterdam. Come out to the shows and come say hi. if you come to the signing line and tell me you read my blog, i'll give you a free.....wellll....hmmm...i'd like to give some sort of prize but i don't have any prizes to give out so how about mad respect and a high five??

Ok, so that's the big news. i guess i could have just summed it up and said i'm leaving stephanie smith to play for stellar kart, but then it wouldn't have as much fun, right?

late night shopping

2010-08-05T22:33:00.003-05:00

my wonderful wife left for some shows a couple days ago. and of course, whenever she leaves, i work like crazy. when i work like crazy, i also neglect the basics like grocery shopping. so when i finish doing some work at some late hour and i'm starving and there's no food in the kitchen, i kind of enjoy going to the grocery store for late night snacking. and that is the story of how i am getting fat. most people would agree that my late night snack raids are breaking two rules - 1. don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry and 2. don't eat after 9pm. well, you're absolutely right. but to give some semblance that i'm trying to do the right thing, here's a list of late night snack food items i love but are like stepping on a minefield except when you step on a landmine, you blow up, but when you eat these, it's only your stomach that blows up.....well, sometimes the next morning...well, you get the idea...

1. Pickles

ya, that's right pickles. kosher dill spears. only the ones that are white. urban legends say that the green ones come from rotten cucumbers. if the internet says it, then it must be true. and plus, it's a vegetable, right?

2. EZ Cheese - a.k.a. cheese in a can

i honestly haven't had this in years, but i used to LOOOOOOOVE IT SO MUCH. i would eat EZ Cheese everyday if it weren't for the promise of a heart attack at age 34 and the shameful looks from friends and family.

3. Fruit Rollup and Sparkling Grape Juice

but nick, that's two things! you're dang right that's two things, but they go together. a buddy of mine that i grew up with introduced me to this one-two sucker punch of a late night snack. i don't know what sort of chemical reaction happens when these two concoctions come together but it's magic in my mouth. and i'm willing to bet ten american dollars that last sentence made @nathantbass giggle.

4. Popsicles

oh man, these are like kryptonite for me. if the fate of the world rested on me not eating anything for one hour and you handed me a fruit juice popsicle or a bomb pop, the world would end in less that 2 minutes. and yes, they're bad for you. i mean, i rationalize by eating fruit juice popsicles because, hey, it's fruit, right? ya...the fruit to sugar ratio is like creamer to coffee. that analogy only works if you like your coffee strong and black...just like your.... i'm not going to finish that joke because it would be inappropriate. whoever said i don't have an inner censor, TAKE THAT!

5. Steak

yes, i have done this before. sometimes it's 1am and i feel like a steak. so sue me. well, it's not sue i'm worried about. it's the heart attack. but then again someone told me once how not eating meat adds a couple years to your life or something. well, i'd rather enjoy juicy steaks and die a little early. sounds like a good trade to me.

i'm gonna stop at 5 because this is just getting embarrassing. what's funny is that most of the food that i love to get at the grocery tend to be lunch snacks and i think i've figured out why. my mother, like any good mother, didn't load me up with junk food in my sack lunches as a kid. but of course, every now and then she'd throw in some snack like a fruit rollup and i savored every bit of that processed piece of dehydrated faux fruit. i wished i could have more. well, i'm grown up now and have a job so i do what i want and eat what i want. don't even get me started on capri suns. if popsicles are my kryptonite, then capri suns are like my crack cocaine. i would do horrible, horrible things for just one more capri sun. one time i had a piece of gear up for auction on ebay and some guy bid 4 capri suns and i stopped the auction right there and sold it to him. well, not really. i just made that up. but you get the picture.

but seriously, i'm trying to lose weight. i'm cutting out dairy and most breads and all soda. take that, fat american stereotype! that's all i have for you all, unless you speak german. if you do, read on...

Ich lerne Deutsch sprechen. Ich würde gerne mit jedem sprechen, der Deutsch spricht, um mein Deutsch verbessern. Ich habe viele Leute auf meinen Reisen traf nach Deutschland. wenn einer von diesen Menschen lesen, lassen Sie mich einen Kommentar und ich würde gerne reden!

studio update 8.2.2010

2010-08-01T23:28:00.010-05:00

so it's time for another studio update. i know it's a couple weeks late, but in mid july i went into the studio with a band from Illinois named The Ashland Project to start tracking drums. I usually go to Darkhorse, but they were booked out for the weekend. I actually ended up getting a rare treat by being able to track at the Quad Studios (www.quadstudiosnashville.com) A room. the room is outfitted with an 80 input SSL 9000 J console and what's even more impressive, an incredible tracking room. it's been a couple years since i've been at this place, but i've always remembered how great the drum room sounded. i've changed the way i do things since then so i was excited to come back and try some new things out.

Here's the console....mission control.

what's ironic is that this console has 80 channel strips. that's 80 channels. and theoretically, you can bring in another track on the small fader so really, 160 channels. even with all my drum mics and scratch tracks i was only using about 15 of those. overkill? yes. but it still feels good. haha

They had a bunch of neve 1073 mic pre's so of course i had to use them.

although i used these for mic pre's, on some of the channels i ended up using the console EQ just because it's a lot more precise and better for carving out the sound. those neve's only have one sweepable band and two shelving EQ's as opposed to the SSL's fully parametric EQ.

The rest of the pre's i used were console pre's and this vintage API unit.

i don't know much about the history of API, but apparently this was one of the first incarnations of the famous mic pre's according to the studio.

and of course, some distressors. this will be my next purchase.

but like i said earlier, the most important element to a good drum sound (other than the drums and the drummer) is a good sounding room. this studio actually has a vaulted ceiling with adjustable acoustic paneling to control how live the room gets.

as you can see, the whole room is covered in wood paneling which has acoustic properties much more palatable to your ear than typical drywall. that curtain on the left isn't there so much to keep light out as it's there to deaden that wall when closed. the room mics in the foreground are Neumann u67s in an XY pattern as i've been using them lately. what you can see are the Coles ribbon mics behind the camera. i've only use those mics one other time and i really love their smooth sound.

and speaking of those mics, i've been messing around with compressing room mics lately. i've had some success with the Amek 9098 stereo compressor at darkhorse. Quad had a Neve stereo compressor. Rupert Neve also designed all the Amek gear so i figured it would be similar...

maybe i was using it incorrectly, but i couldn't get the same sound. i mean, it sounded fine. it compressed, but not the same crunchiness from the 9098.

monitors at the studio are always tricky. i never really know how the drums turned out until i get back to my place. and they actually turn out pretty good. that's all for now! talk to you all later.

sleep

2010-07-25T21:00:00.005-05:00

hi everybody...it's been too long. i apologize profusely for my absence and utter neglect of this blog over the last week or two. anyway, right now me and @nathantbass and @stevenkadaradar are sittig in a hotel room after having played two shows this weekend at the Mistissini reservation in northern Quebec. and when i say northern, i mean way the heck up there northern.

the shows were great and the people were so welcoming. they even gave me a handmade guitar strap that was made from the hide of a moose. ya, you heard me. a friggin MOOSE.

anyway, the first night the three guys were all sleeping in the same hotel room. apparently (As Kadar tells the story), Kadar got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and i was talking in my sleep. i said something to the effect of "are you there peter?"

now my wife would agree that this is nothing out of the ordinary. i talk in my sleep all the time. but what's funny is that apparently nathan, fast asleep, responded to me and said "ya, i'm right here."

of course i've been thinking about dreaming lately after seeing Inception. and that movie is definitely the best movie i've seen all year....well, i mean, right after twilight: new moon. for those of you who do not know me, yes, that was indeed sarcasm in it's purest form.

i would like to set up a camera to start cataloging what i say in my sleep, except that reminds me too much of another movie - Paranormal Activity. i LOVED that movie but it freaked me out. if there's a ghost in my house i don't want to know about it.

my sister @AlieghShields is known, not so much for talking in her sleep, but for waking up without really waking up. once while a bunch of us were watching a movie, she fell asleep on the floor next to her boyfriend at the time. during the movie, she half woke up and started berating him saying "why do you always light me on fire!!!" another one of my sisters will sometimes sleep walk with her eyes open, but you can tell she's asleep because of this look she has on her face. when you tell her to go back to bed because she's sleeping, she gets very mad at you which is kinda funny, and then doesn't remember a thing the next morning.

and the last thing that i've been thinking about is the idea of lucid dreaming. the concept goes something like this: when you're dreaming, you don't know you're dreaming. if you can train your brain to recognize when you're dreaming, then you can start to control the dream and do whatever you want. my friend was telling me about it and said one trick it to look at clocks because apparently in dreams, clocks never move. so if you think you're dreaming, just look at a clock. if it's not moving, then you know you're dreaming and then you can start doing whatever you want. ya, and when i say whatever, i mean go crazy. i plan on dreaming about a world where the ground is made entirely of trampoline so that i can bounce around wherever i go. either that or something involving me playing a show at an indian reservation in northern canada....wait a minute...

the psychology of pedalboards

2010-07-11T21:34:00.018-05:00

my wife loves accessories. if you look at any of her promo shots, you're sure to find her wearing lots of bangles and knick knacks and thingamabobs to carefully accent her outfit. she's good at that stuff. girls in general like accessories. sunglasses. earrings, jewelry, etc... well, guitar players like accessories too. but in order to hide how girly we really are, we dress up our accessories with an elaborate mess in an effort to make them as manly as possible. our accessories are pedals. guitar effects pedals. for those of you who still don't know what i'm talking about, they are little electric boxes that we plug our guitars through on the way to the amp to give us different sounds. and as you'll find out below, they also make us feel awesome.

i've often said that the size of a guitar player's ego is in direct proportion to the size of his pedalboard. to ilustrate this point, i've scoured the internets for a few examples of pedalboards and the types of ego boost they represent.

1. More Is More

come on, admit it. we've all been there. this pedalboard represents the most common of complexes where the player flat-out does whatever he can to scrounge any and every pedal he can buy, steal, and borrow to cobble together the largest, most douchiest frankenstein you can imagine. you know, because bigger is better, right? kinda reminds me of why certain guys buy big flashy cars...

2. Less Is More

Less Is More is really just the pupa stage of More Is More. as you see here, anything more than one pedal dictates that you need a pedalboard. and as the picture shows, a flight case is probably necessary too. you see, the floor just won't do. i mean, what the heck?? if you don't have a flashy pedal board case so the audience can clearly see you tapping little do-hickeys then why the heck did you join the praise band in the first place??? oh ya, to impress the youth group girls. haha...when i was 14 i thought i was so cool cause i could play nirvana songs...but i digress...

3. The No Pedalboard

this is the setup for someone who desperately needs a pedalboard but refuses to buy one because he/she secretly likes taking their sweet time setting up every cable and every pedal at exact right angles from each other. Howie Mandel obsesses about washing his hands. other guys do this.

4. The Theoretical Pedalboard

this is the pedalboard for the guy who doesn't have and will never have the exact setup they want. for them, planning, sketching and deciding on theoretical purchases give them such a cocaine rush that even those who do happen to come into some money and get the gear they want continue to buy and sell because it's never quite right. cause you see, if they sound bad, it wasn't their fault. they just didn't have the right gear setup. which reminds me of what my old boss used to say - A shoddy carpenter blames his tools.

5. The Geek Pedalboard

seriously? really? a laptop? you might as well wear a tshirt that says "trying too hard."

6. The Messy Pedalboard

we all know at least one guy who is a good player, has a decent setup, yet refuses to put an afternoon of work into making himself a decent pedalboard. he shows up, opens the case and 8 pedals fall out behind a tangled mass of cables. he would probably sound pretty good if he weren't spending half the set adjusting pedals and fixing cable shorts.

7. The One Brand Pedalboard

there's something to be said for brand loyalty, but anybody who truly believes that one single company has the absolute best pedals (whether distortion, delays, trems, etc...) is just plain stupid. there are hundreds of big name and boutique manufacturers making pretty much any sounding pedal you can think of. some are better than others, some worse. usually this mindset is the result of living in a town where there's one music store that sells only one brand of pedal and also happens to have a very savvy salesman. if this sounds familiar, maybe take a road trip to the nearest guitar center or something. also, file this under Multi-Effects Processors.

8. The Ergonomic Pedalboard

i can see how someone would think this is convenient....that is, if you're playing guitar while sitting on a swivel seat.

9. The AWESOME PEDALBOARD

this pedalboard is the AWESOME PEDALBOARD because it happens to be the setup i'm drooling over right now. a simplified switching system tied to racks of pedals and multiple amps with the ability to use whatever gear you want and recall any setting with a single button push. I NEED THIS.....actually, i've been confusing the words "want" and "need" lately. also, the AWESOME PEDALBOARD is a title that can be switched to whatever setup i want at any given time.

10. The Modded Pedalboard

first step, get a More Is More pedalboard - i.e. lots and lots of pedals. then complain about how hard it is to control them all. then get a custom true bypass strip made which conveniently "simplifies" the routing, and also happens to be one more big thing to put on your pedalboard with lots of buttons. more buttons means more choices. more choices means more power. maybe we could call it a form of a classic napolean complex.

you see, here's the thing. any device that you send your guitar signal through degrades your signal by a tiny bit. the most pristine signal goes straight from the guitar to the amp with the shortest cable possible. i can't find what the exact statistic is, but you lose something like 3dB for every 10 feet of wiring and cable. every pedal that you put in your rig harms your signal and adds noise, but we make that sacrifice in order to have a cool effect - a good distortion or delay or something.

ok, now last but not least, i'll give you all a picture of my current pedalboard setup for when i play with stephanie smith (@stephanaynay) and feel free to comment on my narcissistic tendencies. maybe say something like "this pedalboard is made by a minimalist who takes prides in his minimalism - and probably writes blogs about it." peanut, i'm looking your way on this one. don't let me down.

two quick things

2010-07-05T10:38:00.003-05:00

at a show last week a kid wanted me to sign his amplifier.

in addition to signing it, i crossed out the 10 and wrote in "11" because all amps should go to eleven.

and in other news....

DANG REDBOX! YOU RACIST!

click to enlarge

it might take a second, but you'll see it. i saw this in nashville the other day. i'm thinking someone should maybe fix that.

how it is

2010-07-01T18:52:00.008-05:00

i'm not even going to pretend like i'm some young 19 year old kid playing guitar, posting über awesome shots from the stage. i mean, i've done that before and looking back, it's not that awesome. i think my time is much better spent making fun of myself. and of course, real life is funnier than fiction.....actually i think the expression uses "stranger" instead of "funnier", but you get my drift. in that spirit, here's an awesomely horrible shot of me playing a show last week.

what else what else...oh ya. spending every free second recording. that's right. i just finished tracking a project for a band called Captions from Pensacola, FL. they're a 6 piece that's got a big sound and have enlisted me to do a bunch of programming on the record as well so i'm pretty pumped about that. and of course, whenever i track in nashville i do everything i can to work at www.DarkhorseRecording.com. so last project i was on a Neve VR 72 and for this one i was on the Trident Series 80 desk.

the two consoles are complete opposites of each other in the sense that the neve is an in-line console where the mutitrack send fader and the return fader are all on the same channel. there's all sorts of cool tricks you can do with faders swaps and surround mixing that i never learned. i just figured out how to make it record awesome stuff and kept moving. the trident is not in-line meaning that one channel is used to send the signal to the multitrack and another channel is used to for the return monitoring. the in-line console is handy, but is unnecessary if you have loads of legit outboard mic pre's - and darkhorse has plenty.

and of course compressors:

for outboard pre's i used the vintech x81's which have been a favorite of mine lately, the brent averill 1073's, the api 512s as well as a few of the console pre's. for compression i used the distressors and the alan smart c2 which is basically the bus compressor from an SSL 4000 console.

here's my drum setup:

most of my pictures turned out blurry because of low light, but i was excited to try a couple microtech gefell tube mics about 20 feet off the ground up on a ledge on the far end of the recording room. i usually work out of the Cabin at darkhorse but this time we were in the Lodge and these were probably the best sounds i've gotten out of the lodge. and most of it had to do with the room mics.

one other thing to mention is my micing of the hi hat and ride. one thing that bugs me about drum kits is that they are inherently asymmetrical. the snare is a little to the left, the toms a little to the right and the hat way left. but in a mix we put the snare dead center, the toms panned evenly and yet we still put the hat a little to the left. so drum mixes by nature are off balance. so in an effort to correct this, i've been experimenting with treating the ride cymbal and the hi hat as a stereo pair. i mic them with a matched pair of mics that are pointed at the same angle and same height - even if that mean the mic is closer to one of the two cymbals. i'm still working on it, but i've definitely got a good start.

ok, that's all for now. i'll be sure to post some music once this project is done.

back to chicago

2010-06-12T23:53:00.016-05:00

a couple days ago i got back from chicago. i'd been there for about a week and a half recording and producing a project for a worship band named Before Morning. I knew some of the guys from back when i used to live there. in addition to playing at their own churches, they travel around to conferences, youth camps and other church sunday services pretty consistently.

after a few days of pre production, we started with drums at my old stomping ground, chicago recording company (www.chicagorecording.com). we were in studio 4 on the Neve VR72 console. there have been a ridiculous amount of records and major artists recorded here. so much that i'm not gonna even try to list them. they have them on the website if you wanna check.

that big box in the foreground and under the console is a mackie powered sub....a sub usually used for live sound. and you can't see it, but there's an identical one on the other side of the room. this is in addition to the two 18" subs behind the console. when we came in a hip hop session had just ended and apparently two 18's weren't enough bass so they had to hook up these two babies to really bump.

and check this out:

that right there my friend, is a toothpick. why do we stick toothpicks into consoles that cost six figures? well, these Neve VRs get really hot. and they don't have the same cooling fan systems that other consoles do. back at CRC we have a saying that a session is going good when the "neve is cooking". it literally means that after you've been working a while, you could feel the heat coming off the console. anyway, these analog monsters burn through caps like my attention span burns through things to pay attention...what was i saying?? oh ya, the heat also over the years has melted some of the plastic that holds the buttons down and so the assistance of a toothpick is needed.

the drummer, stevie harmantas, was using a vintage ludwig kit that sounded amazing. and what's great about stevie is that he really knows how to tune a kit. he also brought along a ludwig black beauty, a maple snare, a copper snare, and some other snare that didn't sound good so i didn't even bother remembering it's name. here's a pic of the drum setup:

if you can't tell from the pictures, here's what we used:

Overheads - vintage Neumann U67s

Hat, Ride - AKG 451

Toms - AKG 414

Snare top and bottom - Shure 57

on the kick we used three different mics:

here we have a Shure Beta 52 on the inside, a Neumann FET 47 on the outside and a Yamaha Sub Kick also on the outside. i know the D112 is kinda the standard that people use for inside kick, but i just like the 52. i don't know, i guess i'm weird. the FET 47 is like a great sounding U47, but it can handle the level better than the tube mic.

and here's the thing about the sub kick. i've tried sub kicks before. or so i thought i had. on two different occasions i've been at studios here in nashville and asked if they had one. their answer was yes. then they came back with a handmade sub kick which is basically a yamaha NS-10 woofer wired up in reverse as a mic that looks something like this:

i was skeptical but decided it was the same thing. and ya know what? it didn't sound great. after this happening two times, i decided i didn't like it. but this time stevie brought his own sub kick - but the real sub kick, not some cobbled together facsimile of the original. anyway, this thing sounds great. it accurately captures the low sub kick frequencies around 60 - 80 hz without the accompanying muddiness from the low mids. i don't know if the casing makes a difference or what, but the real sub kick sounds better.

and for rooms mics:

vintage Neumann M249s in X-Y pattern

and...

B&K 4011's in X-Y pattern

after the tracking day, we spent the rest of the week at a smaller studio out in the suburbs closer to where the band lives.

we used a geddy lee jazz bass for all of the bass parts. i love jazz bass's. joel from tfk plays them except he switches out the stock pickups. they're one of my favorite jazz basses.

for guitars we had a decent little setup.

in there we had a few tele's, an '89 les paul (it's hard to think '89 is more than 20 years ago), a brian moor guitar and a PRS.

and here's amps and cabs:

we primarily used the Divided by 13 head, as well as the marshall Plexi and that tiny little head on top of the rack is a new offering from mesa that actually sounds pretty good. my scribe skills are lacking because i don't remember the model numbers of the mesa or the divided by 13.

as for Pre's, we used the avalon 737 and the API with distressor.

here we have two different divided by 13 cabs - one closed back 2x12 and an open back 2x12. the third cab had been refinished so i don't know who made it. again, my note taking is unacceptable.

and for vocals, it's the tried and true Neumann U87

well, that's all i've got for now. hope you enjoy. if you have any gear questions about details i forgot, just hit up the comments and i'll try to answer them all.

utter comedy

2010-06-07T22:53:00.002-05:00

the best comedy comes from real life. truth is stranger (and funnier) than fiction. one of my favorite comedies right now is a poorly made low budget movie that's so bad it crosses the line into humorous. it's a movie that was originally put out in 2003. It's called "The Room" (the title has nothing to do with the movie) and it's the brainchild of a European immigrant named Tommy Wiseau who apparently loved american cinema so much that he spent $7 million of his own money to produce this film which he wrote, directed and starred in. and here's the thing - it's utterly horrible. bad writing, bad directing, bad editing - everything about it is horrible. so horrible, that it's funny to marvel at the fact that it was ever made in the first place. anybody can cobble together a CD in a home studio. but a full fledged movie takes crews, actors, producers, directors, catering, city permits, etc. how did everyone involved work on it with a straight face? the trailer is hilarious. here it is:

i especially love how they say it's the "best movie of the year" with a straight face. i mean, isn't that a joke from talladega nights?

Ricky Bobby: wow, i feel like i'm in highlander

Jean Girard: what is a highlander?

Ricky Bobby: it's a movie. it won the academy award

Jean Girard: oh for what?

Ricky Bobby: best movie ever made

the movie has garnered cult film status as they periodically have midnight showings around the country. apparently there was recently one here in nashville at the belcourt theater, but i missed it. what's even funnier is that the guy is now trying to say that he meant it to be so bad it's funny all along. he calls it a black comedy. so we're supposed to believe his movie is the kind of comedic genius that's on par with wes anderson? hmmm...sorry bud.

anyway, i managed to get a copy of the movie. don't see it. it's got boobies in it and a bunch of awkward sex scenes. just go to youtube. all the funny scenes are there without having to wait through that acting that's just bad and not funny at all.

oh, and here's a homework assignment for you all. usually the disclaimer is for kids not to try this at home. but i definitely recommend trying this:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

the next time you're at a birthday party or some event where you need to sing happy birthday with a group of people, have some fun with it. whenever it's time to sing the birthday song, there's always an akward start because no one wants to be the first one to start singing. there's always someone who courageously blazes a trail and the rest follow. well, whenever i'm around, i like to be that someone. except my motives are more devious. you see, the happy birthday melody starts a full octave below the high note. if you choose a starting note that is fairly high, then that means the high note will be a full octave above that and as your voice fades into the background, you enjoy the hilariosity (i know it's not a word) as people awkwardly try to hit the high note. i mean, the average person already feels a little weird singing in front of others, let alone trying to hit an uncomfortably high note.

ok, i just re-read this whole blog and it really sounds like i have a seriously sadistic sense of humor. i promise i don't always laugh at the misfortune of others. i'm not that big of a jerk. oh, and speaking of dark comedies, i found out a friend of mine has never seen a wes anderson movie. if any of you haven't yet, go see bottle rocket, rushmore or the royal tennenbaums. ok thats all i have for now. i wish i had a funny last line to leave you with, but sometimes the witty endings just don't show up. even in a blog about comedy. how ironic.

Lost Finale

2010-05-24T21:47:00.004-05:00

SPOILER ALERT ---
SPOILER ALERT ---
SPOILER ALERT ---
SPOILER ALERT ---
SPOILER ALERT ---

if you haven't seen the finale of LOST yet, stop reading NOW. if you keep reading, it's your own dang fault cause this whole blog is about it. but when you do watch it, please come back and read.

and now, if you want to read more, just scroll past the only xkcd comic i could find that is somewhat relevant.

they're all dead. none of the drama means anything or makes any sort of sense because it's all just some sort of purgatory-ish daydream as they all cross the river styx to the afterlife.

here is an excerpt from one of my blogs titled "[I'm] LOST" from Thursday, March 4 2010:

"when LOST ends, it's going to be the biggest letdown ever. the collective sucking sound you will hear at that moment will be the public reeling from the shock that the story that they've spent countless hours speculating, formulating theories, and reading fan blogs about will have been for something so stupid. remember when seinfeld ended with what turned out to be essentially a clips episode? i'm talking ten times as much of a letdown as that...

...let me spell it out for you. THEY'RE JUST MAKING IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG."

so now with that being said, we come to the next order of business...

I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!

so it turns out that LOST wasn't a sci-fi drama afterall. nope. all of us 18-34 year old male audience members have been suckered into the biggest prime time soap opera ever. there is no elaborate plot that twists and turns and finally comes together in the end. everybody said that the writers knew where they were going the whole time. well, it turns out they did. except they didn't have a plan on how to resolve all the unanswered questions. no, their pre-meditation was about how they were going to bait and switch us with the biggest crock on an ending they could think of. seriously, the whole "they're all dead but don't know it" was the first crackpot theory before everyone started having their own crackpot theories.

and ya know what? i'm not pissed at the writers. they pulled off a genius scam. they created a series that just made up random plot lines as they went along to keep ratings up without any forethought about bring it all together except for the cop-out "They're-All-Dead" trump card. they were creating questions all the way until the end. we never found out exactly what the light was, how it all worked, why a literal "cork" held it in, the sideways flashes, etc...

no, i don't blame the creators at all. they cashed in. they took all the intellectual sci-fi braniacs for a ride. how many of you spent hours on fan sites trying to find clues? how many spent hours trying to figure out what it all meant, the unifying theory to the LOST universe only to find out that it meant absolutely nothing. and the secret ending that nobody could figure out was the sort of obvious plot twist you'd see in a disney sitcom...well, ABC is owned by disney, so i guess that makes sense.

i mean seriously, you know you're lazy when you have a number 1 show for 6 years and your finale is borrowed from an M. Night Shymalan movie.

now don't get me wrong. i'm not a hater. i watched the show religiously. it was entertaining. they definitely knew how to leave you wanting more. but so does Days of Our Lives. that doesn't mean it's great writing. it only means they make stuff up to get people's attention. the standing joke about soap operas is that they make up ridiculous plot twists to keep people coming back.

"oh my gosh, she has a long lost brother! and she's been dating him!"

"i thought he died two years ago, but really he was kidnapped!"

"stefano is actually....HER FATHER!!"

the only reason i have an axe to grind is because so many people out there are completely in awe of how complex the storyline is. at a certain point it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. if a complex storyline equals awesome ending, then the more complicated a show is, then the ending's awesome-ness must be in direct proportion to how ridiculously complex it gets. while Heroes gets canceled because no one can follow the time traveling, LOST maintains its status as #1 with not on time traveling, but also with a completely alternate reality.

i saw a rather philosphical post today about the ending that said "we're all dead now. you just have to touch the right person and then you realize you lived on an Island with them at some point."

seriously? that is the biggest load of BEE-ESS i've ever heard. give me the instruction manual to assemble a cheap piece of IKEA furniture and i can put together some sort of reflective quote about "picking up the pieces of our broken life and making them into something great" or something like that.

and i can already hear one of the arguments against me. the writers have been quoted as saying that the details don't matter. they pointed to star wars:

"Take "Star Wars," for example. When the Force was a more ambiguous notion, it was more satisfying than when George Lucas tried to explain it as particles in the blood stream of a Jedi."

are they trying to say that because george lucas left out a few facts that it's some sort of a parallel for the black hole of answers that is LOST?? i mean, star wars was basically an inter-galactic civil war. LOST didn't even try to explain what the heck the island was, what the heck the light was, among about 1,000 other questions. a good story ties up all the loose ends in the end. they just ignored them and covered it up by saying, "hey, guess what....they're all dead. that other stuff about hatches and the others and alternate realities - ya, that didn't happen and we're not going to explain any of it because, well, we just made it up." it's like when a couple kids are playing basketball, one kid fouls the other, and when called on it, they just say it's their ball and they're going home.

but again, i give them kudos for cashing in and being such a success. they've written many more hit shows than i have. i just have a blog.

p.s. major props to @nathantbass for completely calling Jack sacrificing himself and Hurley taking over as the protector.

P.S. my buddy peanut is a LOST fanatic and we disagree on how stupid the ending was. he'll be posting his assessment shortly at http://lookingforlike.blogspot.com/

spandex and choke holds

2010-05-22T00:12:00.013-05:00

words cannot describe what i have been through tonight. but i will try anyway. if i were to just tell you, you probably would not believe me, so i'm including many pictures. on one of my rare friday nights at home i found myself heading to a shady motel called the Stadium Inn near the interstate with a few friends. the excitement is bubbling over amongst us as we reflect on the stories and legends we have heard about this magical place.

as we walk in the doors we're greeted by a colorful crowd in the hotel lobby that is filtering its way into the main conference room. as we follow them in we are prompted to pay $8 and are seated amongst a scene that took me a while to process. how the heck did i find myself in the middle of a SEMI-PRO WRESTLING EVENT???

no, she is not one of the wrestlers. yes, beyond the ring you can see that there is enough room for 3 rows of chairs. the room is packed with about 100 people. i start to wonder how the wrestlers are going to jump from the top ropes if their head is hitting the drop ceiling. there are signs posted for their sponsor, a check advancing loan shark business. there's a man running the muffled sound system who is dancing in place and has a cowboy hat with the american flag printed all over it. the event starts and we're all prompted to sing the national anthem.

no sooner had the stereo started pumping some mindless grinder of a song that it all started. this was the real dog and pony show. we all watched WWF and WCW and WWE growing up. you know how it goes. song plays. wrestler comes out. people boo or cheer depending on his status as good or bad guy. but what's crazy is that since we were all packed into a room, how could we help but not to get into it and hurl insults, jeers and praise with everybody else?? best line of the night goes to nate lampa for yelling "attitude is everything" and later on "be optimistic."

all i can say is that my voice is kinda hoarse right now. when Kliff Hanger, a.k.a. The Black Diamond pompously prances around the stage, how am i supposed to just let that go without booing and showing my disapproval?? i mean, they had it all - tag teams, cheaters, a bad guy manager and even the middle of the ring drama of people talking smack over a microphone as if this practiced piece of theater were spontaneous. we LOVED it. the toothless old ladies on the front row loved it - although i'm not sure if they thought it was a real fight.

and in the title bout, one of the wrestlers who is a bad guy that goes by the name of The Crippler had what must be his girlfriend or wife as his ring girl, prancing around the stage, antagonizing the other wrestler and of course, wearing bad-girl black lipstick. you could tell they were a little older. now i'm not bashing this - it was actually kinda cool. they both got really into it and i hope when me and trish are in our late 40's we could do something this crazy.

as the two titans jostled about, we lurched out of our chairs, screaming and whipping ourselves into a frenzy. as the night progressed, i could tell that the "performers" were even starting to play to our side of the ring. in classic wrestling fashion, the fight spilled out on the seats as you can see here.

it appears the Crippler has just taken a bad hit from Boogie and his girlfriend/wife/ring girl is arguing with the ref over the validity of such a hit. the older ladies in the top right hand corner are definitely not happy about this.

the only sad part of the night is when the title bout abruptly ended when one of the guys got hurt - for real. the announcer got on the mic and said something about it being a draw and coming back next week. as people started filing out it became clear the dude was really hurt.

as we left the building, i noticed a bulletin board that was dedicated to some of their champions, past and present.

all i can say is that the experience was incredible. if you want, you can check out their website where they have videos posted at http://www.atlwrestling.net/. i had no idea anything like this existed outside of WWE. it's kinda like only seeing concerts in huge stadiums and one day realizing that bands played smaller shows too. i couldn't think of a better way to spend a friday night. and the best part?? i got my picture with the Psycho Medic!!

the REAL moral of the story

2010-05-17T23:02:00.007-05:00

trish and i just got back from seeing the new robin hood movie. it was pretty good. i would say that it was amazing except for the fact that there is no accompanying bryan adams power ballad associated with it. remember the 80's and 90's when every good movie had a power ballad? if you don't, consider yourself lucky.

anyway, i walked into the theater half expecting some modern day retelling that focused on how evil rich people are with some sort of moral underpinning that rationalizes stealing from the rich to give to the poor via a modern day example of taxation of the upper class to pay for social programs. i was incredibly surprised to find just the opposite. ok, i won't spoil the movie for you, but the underlying message was about how when a corrupt government unfairly taxes their citizens, denies inalienable rights and squanders their wealth, then it is the right and duty for the citizens to rise up in defense of those rights.

i loved the disney version as a kid. but, criminettly nutsy, it doesn't quite pack the same message. in hindsight, it kinda painted the picture that people who are rich sit in their ivory towers all day with their snake-like friends counting their ill-gotten wealth. so in honor of that, i've compiled a list of disney movies and the messed up morals they promote.

The Little Mermaid

-----------------------

this gem teaches young girls that they can only be princesses if they have legs. yes, a nice set of legs are the answer to all your problems. it also says they must win over their prince while keeping their mouth shut. oh, and that they should collect shiny things and hoard them all in a place where they can marvel at what to do with them. and that explains the fascination with walk-in closets.

Aladdin

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this movie tells young boys that the only way to have a chance with a pretty girl is to make lots and lots of money, or at least find ways to appear like you have lots and lots of money. it then goes on to tell young girls that if a guy lies to her and she finds out, she should take him back no matter how much he's broken her trust. it's a great way to get back at your dad. because, after all, he's just a lovable street rat trying to take you on some sort of "magic carpet ride" (or whatever the kids are calling it these days).

and lastly.....

Beauty and the Beast

-------------------------

ok, young ladies, listen up. this movie teaches us that all men are horrible beasts that need to be tamed and taught manners. when you're old enough to date, make sure you find a guy who has tons of issues and is the furthest thing from a real man so you can make him your little project. and if for some reason you get involved with a nice, fairly normal guy, you'll quickly find he isn't half as interesting as a guy who treats you bad.

now that i think about it, disney is all about reinforcing deep-seated daddy issues. thanks walt. you've really done our generation a solid.

TCO98

2010-05-15T16:15:00.005-05:00

ok class. time for a pop quiz. raise your hand if you started reading my blog because i played for TFK? ok, you can all put your hands down. now how many of you realized i was in another band called The Class of 98 before that? ok, both of you can put your hands down. (thanks mom and dad).

here we are:

it's true. we got a record deal back in 2006 on The Militia Group and were super stoked because that's the same label that our favorite bands were on at the time - Copeland, Acceptance, Lovedrug, The Rocket Summer, etc... We toured on and off for a couple years in a van and sold a few thousand records. we weren't a buzz band climbing the charts, but slowly and surely people were getting into us.

well, after a 3 year hiatus which i will not get into, we're back. last year our singer steve wilson (who is a grammy and dove nominated producer) and i decided to start writing for a new record. this time it's different. it's not about touring the country trying to be the next big thing. it's about writing good songs and putting it out there for people who like it.

so anyway, we've posted a 4 song EP (with more to come) at http://legionofboom.bandcamp.com/album/eye-of-the-needle-ep-2. we've got it set up where you can download it and pay whatever you feel like it's worth. you can even download it for free if you don't have any money. we'd rather the music get into people's hands. anyway, i'd love to hear what you guys think. steve, matt and I have been agonizing over the music for the last couple of months so we've kinda lost all perspective.

that's all for now. tell me what you think. even if you think it sucks, that's ok. just be nice about it. haha

Baltimore

2010-05-09T08:01:00.004-05:00

oh baltimore. you've provided a fun weekend. here are a few bullet points:

- we're complete nerds because we listen to NPR Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and Car Talk every week.

- Nathan got his phone stuck in the VCR we have mounted in the console. it took a back scratcher, a small screwdriver, then another large set of screw drivers and an hour of taking apart the dash to get it back.

- This was seen at a gas station somewhere in virginia. creepy.

- and while i'm posting pictures from this weekend, do you see something wrong with this sign?

- Stephanie's brother matt who is a great guy is also a huge gamer and showed us the ins and outs of world of warcraft and how he is a level 80 knight. he also showed us his collections of land and air mounts.

- on the way home we listened to a bunch of records by the late producer Jerry Fin after we found out that he died in 2008. RIP.

Ok, i'm back home now and i'd much rather spend time with my wife than write blogs. no offense. bye.

the more the merrier

2010-05-03T23:46:00.004-05:00

i don't wanna seem like a late night talk show host commenting on the news stories of the day in some sort of strained joking manner like i've got some big chin or something, but i gotta say something about the arizona immigration bill argument that's going on.

we've all heard it before. people on one side say immigrants are taking jobs. others urge compassion for people escaping third world countries. has anybody ever stopped to think that embracing the "visitors" might actually be in our best interest?

the foundation of our basic economic theory comes from a book written in the 1700s by Adam Smith called "The Wealth of Nations." Smith posits that the wealth of a nation is not based on their resources but in the size and quality of its workforce.

it's time to take a hint from a hardcore band and break it down. let's say it's the 1700's and you're living on your own in the new world. you're responsible for everything - hunting food, raising crops, making clothes, caring for children, building shelter, transportation, etc. You and your wife work tirelessly everyday from sun-up to sundown just to squeak by and survive. even then, if a flood hits or there's a drought or someone gets sick, your all is sometimes not enough.

then the industrial revolution comes around. instead of one person being responsible for EVERYTHING, we develop specialized jobs. the assembly line. instead of working all day doing everything, you work all day doing one specific thing. but you see, there's a benefit there - because you're doing one thing all day, you become very good at it and you are able to produce more efficiently than when you were doing everything. the result of that efficiency is that instead of working every waking minute of the day, you have an extra hour or so of leisure time every day. the addition of more people working efficiently provides a benefit to all that would not exist if everyone was working individually.

as our society becomes more efficient at providing things we need, we gain more free time. two things that make us more efficient are our technology and the size of the workforce. as the population grows there's more and more slack in what it takes to survive. heck, we even pay people welfare for doing nothing. our economy is so efficient that we've gone from every family struggling to survive and working every waking hour to a society where we have an 8 hour workday and we can even afford to pay a small portion of our population welfare benefits to do no work at all - but that's a whole different rant. i'll come back to that later.

therefore the most basic economic theory says that the more people we have in our country working, the more efficient we will be. everyone benefits. many people say that immigrants "steal" jobs away from 'Muricans. but nobody ever talks about how for every immigrant who "steals" a job, that same person will use the services of many other americans. he'll buy gas from gas stations, pay for daycare, get his car worked on at the mechanic, pay for internet service, etc. A large portion of the mexican population here in nashville lives near the northern part of nolensville road. what if they weren't there? there's good reason to believe that many of the local businesses in that area that provide jobs to 'Muricans would have to close down. the fallacy of immigrants taking people's jobs is based on the assumption that those same people won't consume goods and services themselves.

now i must make one qualification. back to the welfare argument. the wealth of a nation is built on the size and QUALITY of it's workforce. it's probably safe to assume "quality" of the workforce is assuming that those people are actually working. providing open-ended welfare to immigrants completely negates the positive effect of them enlarging our workforce.

we should open up our borders and let people into our country with open arms. let's maintain existing citizenship and naturalization procedures. immigrants still have to pay their dues and pass the tests. they won't be able to vote. just let them work. they'll have to pay taxes. if they really want to live here, let's let them and make it a really good deal for us. no welfare or unemployment benefits. if they want to come here and work hard, then the only one who is losing out is the country they came from. the USA became a great nation because we were the first truly free nation. we have (somewhat) free markets that reward efficient and hard working individuals over those who are not. the same free market approach could actually encourage other governments to follow our lead lest they lose anymore of their hard working population. and in this case, that government happens to be arizona.

studio time again

2010-04-28T01:38:00.004-05:00

i once attended the annual AES convention in LA about 7 years ago and went to a panel discussion with some great engineers and producers. the biggest thing i remember from that discussion was Jack Joseph Puig talking about always trying new things and never slipping into a mindset where you're running on auto-pilot. you should never just be following a formula. so every new project that i start i'm always trying something different. every time i record drums i try a new mic or a new position. i've really started getting the hang of getting a good drum sound out of the B room at darkhorse studios in nashville, but i still continue to try different things.

last thursday i started a project with a singer/songwriter from North Carolina named Esther Faith. she has an amazing voice and writes surprisingly good songs considering her young age. a lot of the bands i work with are some sort of fast paced rock so we usually record every instrument separate so that we can edit and polish so that when we layer everything we come out with a shiny piece of sonic ear candy. but with esther we were going for a more chill, organic vibe. i've recorded a whole band before , but this project was the first time that i've done the whole deal and hired great musicians, worked up charts and done it right.

joey sanchez locked the beat down on drums. his feel was so good that there's no need to beat detective the drums to the grid. my buddy who plays with me for stephanie smith, nathan thomas, played bass and my good friend Adam Smith from the glorious unseen played piano and wurlitzer while Micah Tawlks handled acoustic guitar.

there's something about getting a bunch of good musicians together and capturing their first impressions that's kinda magical. and i don't mean magical in the douchy ipad sort of way. when you throw some charts at good musicians, you're trusting them to come up with something that has their stamp on it instead of you dictating piece by piece what every instrument should sound like. and although i definitely gave direction on where the song should go, it was really cool to have them all throw in ideas that i never would have thought of.

engineering and producing a band at the same time used to be a two man job, but the way the music business is now, i have to cover both. it's definitely a lot to handle but we somehow got through it with smiles on our faces. and what's great about it is that a majority of the project was completed in one day. we're now in the process of doing vocals and a few other overdubs. we've got a ton of time to focus on what suits the song best and how not to over-produce something that should sound natural and organic.

and that brings up another new aspect of this project - a different approach. you see, with a lot of the rock bands i work with, it's all about stacking guitars and adding tons of layers. i love it. i've done it so much now that it kinda comes easily. but when dealing with a project like esther where the goal is simplicity and feel, it's 10 times harder with about a tenth of the parts. i still have no problem coming up with parts to play. what's hard is finding one or two parts the really stand on their own instead of stacking 16 guitar tracks to build a wall of sound. quantity over quality.

and on another note, go check out a CD that i mixed a few months ago by a band called Act As If. we took a long time on the mixes and really got it right. i've really got to commend singer Peter Verdell for having the courage to not be another sucker in the loudness war. we decided the mixes should not have bus compression in the mix stage. we left them very dynamic even if they weren't as loud as whatever the latest and greatest major label record is. we then hired Troy Glessner to master it. troy has done a lot of work for everybody from tooth and nail hardcore bands to Death Cab For Cutie. troy did an amazing job of using a bit of light bus compression to warm up the mix, get the level up to an acceptable range without utterly smashing the final product. i love the fact that when i put the CD into my car i can listen at a pretty loud level and my ears do no feel fatigued. anyway, the CD is titled "There's A Light" and it's by Act As If and can be found on itunes or ordered from their myspace page.

busy busy busy

2010-04-17T23:58:00.004-05:00

when it rains, it pours. nothing could be more true right now. lately i've had a lot of artists talking to me about producing them. i just spent a week traveling around to different cities starting pre-production with a few bands and i start a brand new project on tuesday - all of which i'm very excited about.

i've heard that a producer is only as good as his last project. whenever i finish a project i'm always evaluating and trying to figure out what i did right and wrong and i've learned a hard lesson a few years ago about putting your best foot forward in every project that you do. a few friends of mine had a side project for a libertarian punk band called Ill Patriot. i did the recording completely for free in my spare time because i liked the guys and thought it would be fun. looking back, i didn't put my usual 100% into the project because it's was just a favor for some friends on the side. well, those guys ended up being a bit of a buzz band and went on tour with underoath for a bit and were featured in AP. people liked the stuff, but i can still hear things that i could have done better and i'm forever kicking myself for it. ever since then i've decided that no matter how big or how small a project, everything gets my best. i mean, it seems simple enough, but it's so easy to only put as much effort as your enthusiasm warrants instead of committing to chronic excellence.

one person who is great at this is max hsu. he's the writer/producer/keyboard/DJ extraordinare in my wife's band Superchic[k]. you can check out his blog at http://homepage.mac.com/maxwax11/iblog/. everything max does is the peak of excellence. i'll bet that if he were to decide to pick up some random hobby like woodworking, he would build himself a ridiculous woodshop with the best tools and would personally fly to the amazon to harvest rare and endangered woods and smuggle them back in his suitcase. this guy decided to shoot his first music video for superchick about a year ago and what he turned out was on par with legitimate hollywood directors. check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U092ClcY8M

it took max about a year of research, harness trials, shooting, and post editing to come up with the final product, but what was left is amazing and last i heard he's being flooded with requests to do other bands' videos - all after his first try. recently he did the artwork and layout and decided to learn how use 3D modeling software and fully model the superchick robot just so that he could then convert it to a 2D image so that the perspectives would be correct.

so anyway, on the discipline note, i'll leave you with a quote from Somerset Maugham

"I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp."

everything sucks

2010-04-14T22:01:00.004-05:00

remember the band Reel Big Fish?? their first record was so ridiculously awesome. that song "everything sucks" was a summer soundtrack song back in high school. wow. i'm dating myself now. anyway, i've had conversations with a bunch of friends in different cities around the country and i've noticed something. the past couple of month have really really sucked for EVERYBODY. seriously. me and trish had a few setbacks. family getting sick, finances, me losing the TFK gig. it's felt like one thing after another. but after about the 8th conversation with a friend who's going through a hard time, i've found it crazy that the past 4 - 6 months have seriously sucked for so many people for 10 million different reasons.

now i'm not trying to be mr. negative. on the contrary, this actually makes me feel better. i don't know if it's the fact that the economy is down and it has a domino effect on EVERYTHING or maybe it's just a huge coincidence. it just feels better to know i'm not the only one. i guess misery really does love company.

i'm just curious. i'm guessing that a lot of people who read this have had a not so good couple of months. if i'm right, maybe you can take solace in knowing that you're not alone.

now on the bright side, i've had an awesome week. i've started pre production with a few different bands. i've been on the road travelling to meet up with them and also spending a few days with tricia's parents on their farm. speaking of reel big fish, i could spend all day catching bass and blue gill at their pond. i also ran into a cottonmouth snake, also called a water moccasin. tricia's dad gave me a shotgun and i promptly blew it's head off. don't believe me? check out this picture.

scientists have figured out that sunlight is one of our primary sources of vitamin D which directly affects our moods, but i'd like to think that there's something magical and awesome about spring and putting on shorts and a t shirt and getting your first sunburn of the season. the pain almost feels good. my loving wife felt generous and started giving me a backrub and was definitely puzzled when i started yelling.

spring is here. the rest of the year is gonna be awesome. i'm excited about the bands and artists i'm working with. david molnar and i have decided to go to some waterfalls in tennessee this summer and to go cliff jumping a lot more often. if life sucks for you now, i'm guessing that if it's getting better for me, it will for you too.

p.s. everyone wish stephanie a happy birthday!

Oma

2010-04-07T22:10:00.002-05:00

sometimes you realize that something you've always had is way cooler than you ever imagined. maybe a toy from your childhood is now vintage and worth something. maybe a movie from your childhood was really really good but the humor was over your head, but now you get it (see my post about ghostbusters). i've figured out in the last couple of years that my grandma is the same way.

Oma is the affectionate German name for grandma (as opposed to the formal Großmutter) and we always have called her that. As a small child i was puzzled by her thick accent and different ways of doing things. but recently i've completely got it figured out. two years ago i went to germany for a TFK show and i loved it. Oma arranged for me to be shown around Düsseldorf by some friends of hers and once i was over there, i started to understand a bit about how she works. while my family has always been fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, loud and boisterous, it seems that many german people have a knack for formality and manners. i know this seems obvious, but once i figured out that basic manners and 'hellos' and 'how are yous' really mean a lot to Oma, it's like a door was opened. we played germany again last december and it just so worked out that she needed to be in germany at the same time (even though she's in her 80's, she still goes back regularly).

what happened when we met up is hilarious. as she and her friends came to the concert hall to meet me, we had to go do a talkback interview in which we are interviewed on a small stage with a translator in front of a bunch of fans. i told her that i need to do the interview and that she could come watch. when i got to the room, i walked up and took my place on stage. Oma followed me on stage, took the mic out of trevor's hand and started speaking in german. it was hilarious. we were all kinda flabbergasted and the crowd loved it. she spoke for about 3 minutes and the crowd erupted into laughter a few times and i still don't know exactly what she was saying. i could tell she was proud of me.

now i've gotten my hands on a copy of the rosetta stone for german and i'm loving learning the language. in years past i would only see Oma at family functions but now i call her every couple of days and she's always ready with a german lesson. it's actually kind of cool. i've learned more about her in the last year than in my whole life. she's told crazy stories about how her family was bombed out of multiple houses during WWII and how when she was later sent to a boarding school in Austria as a young girl, she actually met Hitler when he came to visit the school. i can't even imagine going through all that.

so anyway, sometimes you never know what you've got until you start looking at what's right in front of you.

banksy

2010-04-06T14:35:00.003-05:00

if you were to ask me who my favorite visual artist is right now, whether paint, sculpture or any form of visual art, i would readily say Banksy. for those of you who don't know who he is, he's a revolutionary street artist from england whose use of stencils has changed the face of modern graffiti. his pieces adorn run down buildings and billboards all over major cities around the world and they often make use of the surroundings in a way not imagined before. in order to avoid prosecution, he's extremely secretive about his identity. he's been known to go into an art gallery and place one of his works on the wall in a framed canvas. his paintings convey messages that have to do with hypocrisy and are frequently subversive to the surveillance state that is ever-present in england. the last time i was in new york i had heard that his art was popping up so imagine my surprise when i found this one:

click to enlarge

anyway, there's a documentary being made about him with behind the scenes footage of him creating his art. also, you should check out his website to see his many works of art at http://www.banksy.co.uk. what's kinda awesome is that if he were to reveal himself, he would surely be prosecuted, but many of his works are now being copied and sold for lots and lots of money. one store owner in england had a lengthy court battle when the city wanted to paint over the banksy mural that she had grown to love on the building that she owns.

anyway, the reason i'm excited is because a new trailer for the movie just came out. here it is:

Things I Learned This Week

2010-04-02T23:31:00.002-05:00

1. don't expect worship band practice to get out early when you're planning to catch a concert right afterwards. it's like you're just taunting God to make practice go until midnight.

2. if you're playing in church in nashville and you happen to be playing with ridiculously awesome players (which i am definitely not a ridiculously awesome player), of course that's the night when they throw some crazy charts in front of you with plenty of flat 5ths and 7ths and a few chords that don't belong in the song and then proceed to ask you to play it in D flat all the while coming up with something interesting other than block chords. the other guys handle it with ease. for me, it's utter guitar FAIL.

3. dog vomit does not clean up very easily. don't ask.

4. the fact that netflix streaming service works on a Wii will give me a valid excuse to finally get one. side note - once i get a Wii, expect my blog posts to be fewer and my life to become about half as productive as it is now.

5. apparently health care is a right. sorry doctors and taxpayers. you owe it to people. it's their right. i like this game. can we make owning a Wii an inalienable right too?

6. humankind thrift shop in east nashville has got some good stuff. i finally got a chance to czech it out and get a couple shirts.

7. my little sister has no shortage of guys fawning over her at any given minute

8. being away from my wife sucks hard

9. Three months after the unveiling people are still coming up with fresh iPad jokes

****SPOILER ALERT****

10. Desmond is on the submarine with Whitman

****END SPOILER****

11. Nathan T. spends his days thinking of LOST theories while he's supposed to be working.

12. Modern Family is the best show on TV right now. well, i guess i didn't learn that this week. it was just reinforced.

13. Found out that if God tells you to do something, do it. i won't give out details, but about a month ago God laid it on my heart to do something and it totally came back to me ten fold.

14. Nashville in the spring is awesome

15. fish start biting around April 4th according to the old man fishing at centennial park

16. i was actually genuinely excited the other day when, after leaving my dogs at home for most of the day, that Milla had pooped on the hard wood floor right by the door instead of on the carpet.

17. Lady GaGa used to go by the name Radio GaGa but changed it when she left her boyfriend/producer to do her own thing and is now being sued for $30 million

18. Mercy Me is succeeding where Pearl Jam failed in combating ticketmaster with their $10 ticket shows selling out all over the place. well done.

19. Apple did NOT buy EMI. just an april fools joke. i was heartbroken.

20. this blog is getting to be too long. see ya.

Tulsa Time

2010-03-27T20:55:00.003-05:00

today we played a fun show in Tulsa, OK at another Acquire The Fire event. we got about 4 hours of sleep before our 7:00am sound check. this ATF was different because it wasn't us playing in some big arena with more reverb that yelling into a mile long tunnel. it was different because we were playing in an arena that didn't sound like an arena. i'm not sure what the heck they did at Oral Roberts University when they built that place, but it's probably the best sounding arena i've played in.

judging from the architecture of the university and a quick google search, most of the buildings seem to have been built in the 60's or 70's. and historically, that was typically long before architects gave a second thought to acoustics when designing arenas. so whether it was an architect ahead of his time, or some sort of acoustic treatment retrofit, well done ORU.

but on the other hand, there's this:

here's a piece of advice to anyone from ORU who might read this:
whenever you're designing any sort of sign or literature touting your high-class academics, make sure you spell all your words right.

ok, that's all for now. i need to go upload this to failblog.org

I Don't Play For TFK Anymore

2010-03-24T20:58:00.004-05:00

many people have asked me over tweets and comments about my status with TFK. the rumors are true. i am no longer the guitarist for TFK.

it was a good gig that lasted about 3 years but i guess all good things must come to an end. the who and the when are easy to answer, but the why is a little harder. the more i think about it, it probably lasted longer than it should have and was probably prolonged by my friendship with trev. i've always known that i come from a music world vastly different from the other guys. for example, my favorite band is Jimmy Eat World. i'm going to the Tegan and Sara concert next week. i love the new Passion Pit record and my guilty pleasure is that i own everything that All Time Low has recorded. Steve, Joel and Trev listen to Sevendust, Chevelle, 3 Days Grace and Finger Eleven. i'm not bashing it, but they're totally different worlds. i love gibson guitars, boutique heads and classic tone. again, i'm not bashing this stuff. it's just a different world.

the band said we could say that it was a mutual split (or whatever i wanted to call it), but i'd feel like i was being dishonest if i said so. the truth is they wanted a change. it was pretty hard to hear the news coming from a guy i consider one of my best friends. trev was the best man at my wedding a little over a year ago. but we're still cool.

some have asked how they can so easily get rid of me and the answer is simple. i was just a hired guitar player. even though all of the pictures and music videos portrayed me as a member of the band, I was not an owner of the business like the other guys. nevertheless, i tried to jump in head first. even though i never had a financial stake in the band, it was fun to feel like a part of something bigger so i enjoyed helping out in ways beyond just playing guitar because it was fun. i did interviews that weren't always required. i programmed some of the transition music between songs in the set.

like i said, it was a good gig and i'm glad to have been a part of it. if not, i never would have met so many of you at shows all over the world. i've been to germany, holland, canada, australia and pretty much every state in the US because of the band. the real irony is that i earned my coveted elite status on northwest/delta airlines a few weeks before they let me go. the guys and i are still cool. we actually see each other now and then. my wife and i still hang out with trev and erin, although i'd be lying if i said it wasn't a little weird. but sometimes you gotta just make a decision to not let things be weird.

but the good news is that i got another gig playing for Gotee artist Stephanie Smith. It's actually a lot of fun. She may not sell as many records as TFK but i enjoy playing her stuff and musically it's definitely a better fit. we recently played an Acquire The Fire event on the same day as TFK. while i've always thought of myself as one of the miscellaneous band guys in the background, one kid took a TFK poster and brought it over to Stephanie's booth for me to sign because my picture is still on it and then ran back over to the TFK booth to have the rest of the guys sign it. i was genuinely surprised that not only did she know who i was, but that she figured out that i was playing for Steph with completely different clothes and hair. i'm sure there's a number of you reading this who started following my blog and my twitter just because of the fact that i played for TFK, but i've definitely enjoyed playing for you all and hope that you'll stick around even though i'm playing for someone else now.

so that's it. the secret is out. the speculation can end....as all good things must.

CARMAN

2010-03-17T00:53:00.004-05:00

the past can be a great eye opener.

tonight i had a few friends over at my house. yes, we were watching lost, and no, that doesn't contradict my last post. just because i think it's going to end badly doesn't mean i don't enjoy watching it with friends.

anyway, somehow we ended up talking about cheesy christian music from almost 15 or 20 years ago. you see, one of our friends didn't grow up in a christian home so any christian music earlier than 5 years ago is foreign to her. that led to us pulling up youtube clips of old DC Talk. I mean, let's just say TobyMac has come a long way. and let me say that i think toby is awesome. my first cassette tape was DC Talk's Nu Thang. the title alone should give some sort of inkling about what kind of late 80's, baggy and bright colored bib overalls type of rap it was. i'm not saying that to bash toby at all. i have a feeling he's probably proud of it. i know i would be. eddie degarmo from degarmo and key is the head of EMI publishing and the last time i was at that office building a saw an old picture of him with long hair and keytar displayed proudly on the wall. when i'm in my 50's i'm going to look back at pictures of me with pointy guitars and mohawks and i'm going to be proud. seriously.

so all of this eventually led us to the king of all cheesy christian music - CARMAN. anybody who grew up in a christian home in the 80's and early 90's knows who Carman is. For those of you who didn't, he was a very very Italian solo singer. but singer is the wrong word. his "songs" were more like elaborately narrated and sometimes sung epic tales of God triumphing over the Debbil. his theatrical opuses were best experienced at his live events where he would whip the crowd into such a frenzy that by the end of the song people were literally jumping up and down out of their seats and screaming 10 times as much as any excited 11 year old girl at a Hannah Montana show. Some of his biggest hits were titled as follows:

The Champion
Satan, Bite The Dust
A 2 J: Addicted to Jesus
Lazarus, Come Forth
The Witch's Invitation

If you haven't experienced it, you need to watch at least one of these videos:

We all had a good laugh at how dated and cheesy these videos were. and after everyone left, i found myself watching them all and remembering experiencing this as a kid. slowly, my delight from laughing at how corny the videos were turned into a bit of genuine respect. As i watched the climax of one of these live events on video, i couldn't help but think about the fact that nobody in christian music is doing anything close to this. the applause and screams we hear as we take the stage are nothing compared to the frenzy that Carman routinely whipped his crowds into. the videos may not show it that well, but anybody who went to one of his shows can tell you that he created an experience that took you from one place to another and could literally be more exciting than a roller coaster ride.

now i'm not saying that i'm about to start writing cheesy allegories about jesus verses the devil in some sort of combat situation, but let's just say that G. I. Jesus is gonna be a huge hit. hahaha. ok seriously though, instead of writing the most vague feel good christian song just to try to get a song on K-LOVE, i'd rather write something that evokes real emotion. well done Carman. you may be a cheesy guido from the past, but you absolutely knew what the heck you were doing and were very good at it.

[I'm] LOST

2010-03-04T00:54:00.007-06:00

ever since the new season of LOST started a few weeks ago, trish and i have been getting together with some of our friends on tuesday nights to watch LOST. millions throughout the country have been completely enthralled and caught up with the show since it's inception. and the excitement for this season is at a fever pitch because it's going to end - and people are assuming we're finally going to get some answers. ASSUMPTIONS.

i love lost parties. i like them because it's fun to get together with good friends to watch something entertaining. it doesn't really matter what we watch. bum fights, cable access, really bad chick flicks - i don't really care cause i just like the time with my friends.

i got hooked on LOST for about 5 minutes. then i realized what was going on. let's get back to those assumptions. a wise man once said that assuming makes a sumo of U-M-E....wait, i think i got that wrong. let's talk about the main assumption that people have about the show that i think is completely 100% wrong. that assumption is that J.J. Abrams and the other writers have put together an intensely complex, well-written and intricately woven story that will end in the biggest "a-ha" moment ever recorded in human history. but you would be wrong...at least i think so.

i'm going to go way out on a limb here and make a prediction. babe ruth walked up to the plate years ago, pointed at center field and promptly hit a home run right where he pointed. imagine if he would have struck out, or grounded out, or even successfully got to first base. he would be laughed at. well, i'm gonna do the same thing. i'm calling a huge shot right here and if i'm wrong, you can all call me an idiot and laugh in my face and i will be ok with it.

when LOST ends, it's going to be the biggest letdown ever. the collective sucking sound you will hear at that moment will be the public reeling from the shock that the story that they've spent countless hours speculating, formulating theories, and reading fan blogs about will have been for something so stupid. remember when seinfeld ended with what turned out to be essentially a clips episode? i'm talking ten times as much of a letdown as that.

J.J. Abrams is good at what he does. he's a far better writer than i am. but what makes him good is that he's extremely good at creating questions, making the viewer want more so they'll tune in next time. unfortunately, creating those questions is only half of a good story. the way you resolve those questions and end the story is the other half. he's just been lucky enough to put off that moment for 6 or 7 years now. it's like he started a giant pyramid scheme and has successfully gotten America to buy in to the scam, but eventually it has to come to an end.

let me spell it out for you. THEY'RE JUST MAKING IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG. the show lost [sic] me when the island started time traveling. i mean, seriously? you're weaving together a story and suddenly your ridiculous plot gets so far fetched that the only way to make things fit is to start creating smoke monsters and time travel and polar bears? do they think we're stupid? obviously yes. but people tell me "they've got the whole story written for years now." i'm just going to call a big BEE-ESS on that one. it's easy to write more episodes that raise new questions. you just start making up random crap and if you present it in the right way with the right dramatic pauses and creepy music, anything seems interesting. i could write a screen play about who drank all the orange juice and left the carton in the fridge that would be just as dramatic.

want my evidence? cloverfield. cloverfield is a perfect example of something totally created by J.J. Abrams that mirrors the LOST format. it's just a two hour movie instead of a TV show that stretches over 6 seasons. the whole movie follows his formula of slowly giving out tiny bits of information. by making even a slight iota of information so dramatic, it lends credence that gives more importance in a way that could sell ice cube trays to eskimos. it's incredibly interesting, except that it's all predicated on the notion that there's going to be a huge payoff. WRONG. did you see cloverfield? it had a stupid ending that answered abso-friggin'-lutely NOTHING.

but didn't he just leave it open on purpose for a sequel?

that's exactly my point. he just creates questions so you'll tune in to the next episode or sequel. he never answers anything.

but nick, what about star trek? that had a well developed ending?

well, first of all, there's more plot holes in that movie than irony in a steel mill. and second of all, star trek isn't his story that he created. he's just giving his take on the franchise. to a certain degree, he has to stick to the formula. those plot holes are his lame attempt to actually tie up all the loose ends in a story - something he's not accustomed to doing.

so let me just recap: the ending is going to be stupid. many questions will not be answered, and America will say, as the great John Malkovich in a terrible russian accent in the movie Rounders once said, "i feel so unsatisfied."

i've thought this for a while, but decided to actually write it down and get it out there so that when i'm right, i'll have a big fat i-told-you-so.

Spies Like Us

2010-02-28T10:49:00.004-06:00

ok check this out. some times real life events echo fiction. i love reading those mystery and suspense novels that you buy at airport bookstores. i especially love stuff about spies. so it gets me excited to see news stories of real life spy stuff. a couple years ago a russian defector to the UK was poisoned with some sort of radioactive substance and they still haven't figured out who did it even though it's kinda obvious that it was some sort of KGB operative.

recently the leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas was killed. it was meant to look like an accident, but a close examination of the evidence starts to show otherwise. here's an article about how the autopsy has shown that he was injected with a muscle relaxant and then suffocated. the story also shows this picture:

these 26 people used fake passports to get into the country and fled after the murder. dude, these are real freaking spies! i mean, in reality, most of them are probably computer analysts more like chloe than jack bauer, but i'm betting that at least one of them is some sort of jason bourne type of martial arts master assassin. we don't know for a fact that these people are guilty, but there's a high probability. so the real question is, which one do you think actually did the deed?? my first instinct is that it was actually one of the girls who seduced the Hamas leader and then inserted a needle. i mean, a few of them are kinda pretty - and these are passport photos so you know they're probably hot in real life. but that would be too hollywood. maybe the not-so-happy gottee guy with the glasses. but that seems too obvious too. i'm curious what you all think???

and speaking of autopsy's and CSI type stuff, check out this video of tricia's uncle barry who entered a contest for Horatio look-a-likes on CSI Miami.

[[ there was a video here but it has been taken down by either google or CBS]]

if you wanna go vote for him, here's the link:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi_miami/upload/video.php?vid=4406

take that keynes!

2010-02-06T22:20:00.001-06:00

this is genius.

and what's crazy is that it's completely true. ok, so a video about opposing economic theories isn't exactly the coolest thing to talk about, but it's on my mind.

i'll give it to you straight

2010-02-06T16:47:00.009-06:00

some friends of mine were joking the other day about how single youth pastors end up marrying girls from the youth group when they get old enough. out of that came the quote of the week. here's the setup: whenever a guy sees a pretty girl and wants to communicate his interest to his friends, he need only to say "man, i wish i was her youth leader." but i'm happily married so i don't notice pretty girls anymore. so for all you single guys out there, you're welcome.

you know, they say that a wedding ring is a chick magnet. and i think they're right. but i believe there's an alternate explanation. girls are drawn to confidence. but when a guy is trying to play up his game, there's always a fear of rejection. but now that i'm married, i'm not trying to win the attention of girls. i kinda don't really care what they think. it's remarkably freeing. and that translates as confidence. so here's another one for the single guys. just have fun with your friends and find a girl naturally instead of grasping at straws. and by grasping at straws, i mean going to bars with loud dance music trying to dance all up on some girl as if she's someone you'd want to bring home to mom anyway. take your affliction clothes and your shaved chest and your spray on tan home cause that modern mating ritual is lame.

let's talk about another method that is complete bull: the friend zone. this is the complete other end of the spectrum. some guy who doesn't have the confidence to risk telling a girl he likes her. if you're a dude that is deeply in love with a girl who is just a good friend, let me spell it out for you. your love is not a secret. it's obvious to the whole world - and especially her. does she always tell you how you're such a good friend? do you sit idly by while she flirts with other dudes? and worst of all, do you buy her stuff all the freaking time? if so, you have two options. either you strap on a pair and tell her how you feel, or take what has invariably been the world's biggest hint and move on.

and girls...wow, did you actually think you were off the hook on this one?? you know what's total Bee Ess that girls the world over are completely guilty of is the "He-likes-me-and-i-like-him-but-my-friend-liked-him-first-so-we-can't-date" line of reasoning. seriously? you're gonna let some childish, jealous "friend" keep you from a legit relationship? why do girls think it's ok to stake a claim on a dude and no one else can come near him? ya know, it's probably more of an issue of blackmail than anything else. that same girl who is immature enough to get mad at you because some guy likes you and not her is probably the same catty b-word who would make it her life's ambition to ruin you if you actually did. i remember growing up hearing the drama that my sisters went through and i kept saying "why do you even talk to these people?"

my theory is about girl's being catty is that it's connected to how helpless they feel. many girls still think that it's completely up to the guy to make a relationship happen. so if they no longer have any power to pursue a relationship, the only means of controlling your fate is to jealously guard the dude you've "claimed" in the hopes that one day he'll "wake up" and see what a [sic] catch you are and what he's missing. the reasonable thing to do would be to take initiative and try to talk to him. who knows, maybe tell him how you feel. but nooooooooo...you couldn't do that. that would actually be a rational, efficient and drama free way figuring out the situation.

"oh nick, you don't understand women"

i guess i don't.

grammys

2010-01-31T09:10:00.004-06:00

so here i am stuck in richmond virginia hoping to get home in time tonight for the grammys. it'll be fun to watch. for the past couple years some friends and i have gotten together at someone's house to watch. tonight is kinda bittersweet considering that i came very very close to having a credit on a grammy nominated album.

first i need to offer a huge congratulations to my buddy steve wilson. steve and i were in a band together called The Class of 98 a few years ago and even toured the country for a bit. you become very good friends with someone when you spend two years in a van. steve is incredibly talented and one of the best writers i know. he produces a ton of stuff and every now and then calls me to help out. you see, he producers AND engineers so sometimes it helps to have someone there to take a bit of the load off when you're recording drums. last summer i got one of those calls from him asking if i could come help record drums for the new Leeland record.

he didn't have any money for me but i'd probably get a credit and it was only one day of work. i looooove recording so i would probably do it for free anyway. well, to make a long story short, i didn't end up getting a credit. and that record was nominated for a grammy. so technically if i had gotten that credit, i wouldn't necessarily have gotten a little statuette, but i'd definitely have a grammy credit under my belt. i don't blame steve at all for this. there's plenty of roadblocks to actually getting credit on a record. legal issues, formalities, etc. and really, i only worked one day. does one day deserves accolades from the industry?? no, probably not.

ok, i didn't really mean for this to happen, but this blog sounds kinda bitter. and i don't mean it that way. i'm very proud to have even been a small part of the whole process. steve is a good friend and i couldn't be happier for him. he continues to help me out all the time. and i should take this opportunity to let you know that he and i are working on some new music for The Class of 98. we're not sure how or when it will be released, but we're definitely excited to be creating music of our own again. if you have never heard the previous record, go to www.myspace.com/TheClassof98 or check out the music on itunes.

hilarious

2010-01-27T16:52:00.002-06:00

ok, this commercial is hilarious to me. everything from the MAN keeping people down and quoting a t-pain song to the white girl talking all ghetto. it's so bad i almost wonder if it's on purpose.

guy time

2010-01-19T21:56:00.010-06:00

right now it's about 9:57 on tuesday night and i'm watching scott brown's victory speech. he's the republican senator who just took the senate super majority away from the democrats by winning ted kennedy's old seat in what has historically been a democratic stronghold. WAIT...HOLD IT....i saw that. you started rolling your eyes. oh, here he goes again getting all political.

relax. i'm not going to start ranting about health-terror and demopublicans.

no matter what side you're on, it's kinda cool that any political office is up for grabs, and a person's vote actually matters. i have a rule when i vote.

When In Doubt, Vote Them Out.

when you go in to vote for the president every four years, there's usually a bunch of smaller state and local elections you vote on too. if there's a smaller election and i'm not sure who to vote for, i ALWAYS vote against the incumbent no matter what party they're in. even if both candidates are equally good or bad, it's better to unseat a representative who is likely to continue their inevitable journey down the road to compromise. our politicians should live in constant FEAR of losing their positions. they should walk on eggshells and lose sleep at night worrying about losing their seat because they didn't stand up for what their constituents want. it's kinda like how in court you're presumed innocent until proven guilty.....except the exact opposite.

see? it wasn't that bad.

ANYWAY, i'm thinking that i need to put more work into my segues.

so this week tricia is halfway across the world in Uganda on a trip for Compassion International. and i'm here alone....well, i have the dogs, but pretty much alone. sidenote* does that last statement give you an insight into my psyche? are you starting to wonder if i'm one of those animal people who sees their dogs are real people? well......MAYBE. what's wrong with dressing your dogs up in hoodies?? do i talk to my dogs?? all the freaking time!

no, i didn't find this on google images. this is my dog.

ok, we have derailed. let's get back on topic. i'm home alone all week. when my wife leaves it's like a magic button is pushed and the place gets trashed. have you ever seen old gangster speakeasy movie footage where the push of a button makes walls move and flips tables to conceal the gambling? well, somehow when trish leaves the sink fills with dishes, clothes go everywhere and there's stuff all over the bathroom. i mean, usually we get out of bed and sometime during the day, the bed gnomes come out and make the bed because it's always made when i go to my room at night. but when trish leaves, it's like the gnomes leave too. hmm..weird.

here's a few things that are on the agenda for the week:

1. giant hoagie sandwich
2. shooting guns with buddies
3. wrestling with the dogs
4. eat more of giant hoagie sandwich

also, i'm working tirelessly on my sister's music. her name is Aliegh and me and Trev have been working with her for the last year and a half and we're almost done. Aliegh is a much better singer than me and she's a lot funnier and prettier and looks better than me in a dress. wow, that's kinda weird. any of you out there have multiple sisters? ok, then you know that if you compliment one, you have to compliment them all. my sisters Aubrey and Ashley are also better singers and prettier and funnier than me....especially when ashley does her sound effects. sometimes she tells stories and tries to accent the story with big sound effects, but instead, they end up sounding tiny. for instance, a big gun will come out sounding like "pew! pew! pew!"...and also she makes the best chili ever. ANYWAY, i can't wait to show you aliegh's stuff when it's done. i think she's going to do really well.

Left to Right: Aliegh, Ashley, Aubrey
I'm gonna get so much crap from them for posting this

and speaking of artists i've worked with, check out a band called At Cliffs End (www.myspace.com/atcliffsend). they're on tour right now. i think they're in baltimore tonight. they've been working hard and are on the verge of some really good things happening and i'm really proud of them. check out their schedule and if they're playing in your town, definitely go see them and tell them that you know me. don't worry, i'll vouch for you.

ok, it's time to get back to work. that hoagie is calling my name again.

a new year

2010-01-14T23:26:00.004-06:00

here we are. another new year. and what do we do on new years? we resolve. we make resolutions. is it cheesy and cliche? of course it is. is that a good reason to not do it? NOPE. i'm a firm believer in having goals. and this year, my goal is to write every day (songwriting, specifically) . Even if it's just one line. Even if it's just one riff. I've heard so many great writers talking about developing the discipline to write every day so i've decided to try out their advice. the hardest part is motivating myself. cause right now i'm all fired up. but next week i won't have the willpower to do it. how do you force your will to do something that it doesn't want to do? you enlist the help of others. so i've gotten 4 people in my life who have committed to call me once a week for the next year to push, shove and gently nudge me to keep writing.

and it's working great so far. i haven't missed a day. it's actually incredibly liberating. here's how my writing cycle used to work:

1. write a song by agonizing over lyrics and melody for many hours
2. neglect to write for 3 or 4 weeks because i'm so burned out from the previous day
3. feel guilty cause i haven't written in so long
4. finally muster up the willpower to agonize over another song
5. go back to step one

but now i just write a little bit every day. a verse melody today. chorus melody tomorrow. verse lyrics after that.....and before you know it i've got a finished song and it seems so easy that i'm even more pumped about doing more writing. and another cool thing is that the people who i asked to remind me once a week are very important to me and it's a great way to keep in touch with them. so there's my resolution. i'll let you know how it goes in a year.

Also, there's this:

my photographer extraordinaire friend david molnar ( www.DavidMolnar.com ) and his wife treated me and trish to a showing of Avatar. We saw it in 3D at the Imax in nashville and it was incredible. seriously. love love love love loved it. ya know how sometimes when a movie is built up like it's this huge thing it lets you down even though it's a good movie? well, i kinda wondered if that would happen. but i STILL thought it was amazing even though it was so built up in my head. if you haven't seen it yet, i would definitely recommend 3D imax. such a cool experience.

And lastly, this:

The guys in Silverline ( www.myspace.com/silverlinemusic )were hanging out at my studio for about three days where we wrote and did some work on their songs for their new album. they're a good bunch of guys. if you haven't heard them, you should check them out. also, whatever you do, DO NOT go to google images and search for "silverline" because i just did and the first image is gross. seriously. this isn't a joke. don't do it.

ok that's it for now. talk to you all later.

tablets, loudess and Ke$ha

2010-01-05T00:48:00.005-06:00

oh man. apple is coming out with a new tablet computer. well, at least that's the rumor. all i know is that thing better mow the lawn or something cool cause between my iphone and laptop i'm not sure why i'd need one. but apple has a good track record of not only coming up with gadgets that we need, but new stuff that we didn't even know we needed....and i use the word need very loosely. i mean seriously, is it necessary that i check my facebook 12,390 times a day?

i've been thinking a lot lately about mixing. for those of you who don't follow the audio world, there's been a battle raging for about the last 15 years called the Loudness War. to make a long story short, every band out there wants their record to be louder than the other guys. but there's a ceiling on a CD of how loud it can be. so the only way to make it seem louder is to compress the snot out of a song. compressing evens out the peaks and valleys so that the loud parts are quieter and the soft parts are louder. on first listen, a louder song may seem better, but it's not. it fatigues the ear and takes away a lot of the energy in the song.

to check out more on the issue, go to youtube and just search "loudness wars" and there's plenty of video/audio examples. Here's one:

Anyway, i did a lot of mixing in the last half of 2009 and the more i think about it, the more the loudness war seems ridiculous. i know how to get a bands' track loud. it's not that hard. but what is hard is knowingly degrading the sound that i worked so hard to achieve. what is also frustrating is that the bands respond to it even when they know nothing about it. i've sent mixes back to a band when they couldn't quite say what they didn't like about it. but as soon as i smash it and compress it they LOVE it. although that's probably partly due to the fact that it's loud rock music. i imagine that if i mixed a three piece jazz outfit then it might be different.....emphasis on the MIGHT. i'd absolutely love to work with a band that would have the courage to let their record be a little softer than the others yet pack a crisp dynamic that doesn't make your ears tired when you turn it up. a band that wouldn't mind if the listener just turned the volume up a little more to really experience the dynamics. whenever i mix a project now the first thing i ask is if it's going to be mastered by anyone. if it is, then the burden of compressing it and making it loud is on them. i mix without bus compression and even though you can drive a mix a little into the red without distorting, i give the mastering guy plenty of headroom to work with. but i'll be honest. it's scary. maybe they'll never use me again or tell their friends' bands that i suck at mixing because i didn't make it loud enough. blah.

ok, on another random note, there's this girl:

if you aren't living under a rock, you've probably heard her song Tik Tok all over top forty radio. what's crazy is that she used to live in nashville. many of my friends and i used to see her all around town. she was just kesha. i knew she was trying to do music, but what the heck, everybody in nashville is. and she never played any shows. then she moves out to LA and a couple years later all of the sudden she's huge. what the heck. i dug through my old archives and found this:

click to enlarge

this was taken at my old apartment at birthday party for ben harms, current bassist for the glorious unseen and lifelong friend of mine. we made fliers with his face on it and called it the Guy-apalooza because everyone called him the GUY back then and we were copying Mitch-apalooza from the movie Old School. there are two things that are funny about this. the first is that all my friends look so young. the second is the fact that the girl in the background all the way to the left is Kesha back when she used to dress like a hippie before she became a pop sensation.

anyway if any of the girls happen to see this photo, i hope you enjoy. haha....ok i'm going to bed.

here's a few tips

2010-01-01T11:37:00.003-06:00

i turned 29 last friday. that's right. my birthday is on christmas. i'm really getting up there in age. i mean, that's practically 30. i've realized that since i'm so old now, that must mean that i'm very wise. so this old sage has prepared a few tips on life in general that i've come across in the last year for all you kids out there. enjoy.

1. if you drop your iphone in the toilet, put it in a ziplock baggie with rice. it works. trust me, i learned the hard way. and if some of you were wondering why my iphone was with me in the bathroom, let me say that Words With Friends, The Deep Pinball and this Euchre app i found are ruining my life.

2. guys, when your wife asks you how she looks, or if this dress looks good or any other question dealing with how she looks, RUN. it's a trap!

3. if you plan on swinging your guitar around your neck, maybe sure your straplocks are on good and tight. technically, this was a little longer than a year ago. if any of you have seen our live show, sometimes i like to throw my guitar around my neck. well,the last show on the creation tour a year ago i didn't have my straplocks on correctly and when i swung my guitar, the strap came off and it went flying off the stage and almost hit a security guard. on a related note, ask me if you ever need a guitar repair guy in nashville. ed beaver is amazing.

4. stay away from credit cards. credit cards are like a christian and alcohol. technically, it's not wrong for a christian to drink as long as he doesn't go overboard. but it's soooo easy to. many of you are responsible enough to handle credit cards, but many are not. just stay away. this last year my wife and i paid them off thanks to the dave ramsey plan and we're definitely happy to be done with it.

5. don't cross the streams.

6. enjoy spicy food while you can because it won't last forever

7. i'm sooooo over IKEA. sure, their stuff looks cool and it's not expensive....but another word for not expensive is cheap. and that's what it is. cheaply made crap that won't last longer than the semester you will use it for in college before you realize a good piece of furniture costs more than $60.

8. pedaltrain pedalboards and cases. amazing. if you're a guitarist that travels, just save yourself a lot of pedalboard headaches and get a pedaltrain. and i'm not sponsored by them.

9. many of us have a natural knee jerk reaction that we are only interested in things or hobbies that we discover. get over this. if someone tries to show you some thing they think is cool, LISTEN to them. they're probably right. and think about this, if someone is taking the time to try to make your life better and tell you about something awesome, how much of a slap in the face is it if you instantly write them off purely because you didn't discover it yourself?

10. write a blog. it's fun and when you go back and read old posts it's actually kinda cool to remember where your head was at a year ago.

ok, that's enough for now. talk to you later

hindsight

2009-12-24T00:05:00.003-06:00

the guy who i worked under and mentored me at Chicago Recording Company for seven years died just over a year ago. You can read the obit here.

as much as he verbally abused me and the other assistants, at times he treated us very well. he was estranged from his family and didn't really have any real friends so he kind of thought of us as family. on christmas' or birthdays (which are the same day in my case), he would get us lavish presents. he bought me a computer one year. i didn't make much money and it was hard to buy a gift for someone who had lots of it. but he always acted grateful when he opened our presents to him even if it was a terrible gift that required no thought.

for some reason tonight i googled his name and came across his amazon.com wishlist. there are many tim butler's, but this list HAD to be his. of all the crappy gifts i got him, and full well knowing he used amazon like crazy, i never once thought to search for his wishlist. here's a link to his list consisting of 22 pages and 541 items. most of which are books under $20. i feel like a jerk.

potato skins

2009-12-20T18:33:00.007-06:00

friday i stepped off the plane into a city much colder than nashville. detroit rock city to be exact. while waiting for my baggage i was enticed the candy machine next to the carousel. here is what i saw:

yes, you CAN believe your eyes. those are two delicious bags of friday's potato skins dangling precariously from their perch. and by the way, when i said delicious, i really mean disgusting. i've been to Friday's. i've had their potato skins. i don't know where these people get their potato skins, but they are definitely NOT the tasty appetizer. heck, it doesn't even have bits of bacon in it. too bad for the suckers who dropped a few quarters in the slot looking for something to fill their stomachs and clog their arteries. actually, what would really be funny is if it was one dude who got suckered twice. hopefully whoever it was didn't suffer from depression because bad luck like this may have been the straw that broke the camels back and caused them graduate from depressed to full-fledged suicidal. actually, it reminds me of those little quarter machines at carnivals. you know, the ones that look like this:

you know how these work. the quarters perched on the edge just waiting for the tiniest of nudges to push them over and into your hands. but that never happens. a single quarter pushed into the crowd is displaced evenly and thus instead of pushing the coins forward a distance equal to that of a quarter, it barely moves at all. well, i almost fished out a dollar bill. i

anyway, i was very tempted. but i could almost hear admiral akbar in my head:

i told myself, what the heck, three bags of potato skins for the price of one. but then i realized that even if i did get all three, i wouldn't exactly be "winning" at life, would i?

oh, and speaking of aeroplanes and aeroports, when a pilot announces their "equipment is still showing that some people's cell phones are still turned on", you can rest assured that they are full of crap. is it possible to have some sort of instrument that detects cell phone radio waves? sure. is there a way you could distinguish between those signals a few feet away in the plane and those a few feet away at gate? nope. empty threats, captain. let's face it. you and i both know cell phones don't affect your equipment.

and there's one more thing i have to rant about. while waiting at my gate i was watching CNN on the big tv. they were doing a report on a guy who had gotten help from the federal loan restructuring plan and what's a great job the government was doing. they said that his current mortgage payment was 95% of his monthly income. then later in the report he said that he walked into the building having to pay $4,700 a month and walked out only having to pay $2400. wow. that's a big difference. this is such a success. but something didn't seem right. so i got out my phone calculator and did the math. if $4,700 is 95% of his monthly income, that means that he makes $5,000 a month ($4,947.37 to be exact). so he makes roughly $60,000 a year. the new payment of $2,400 a month is still almost 50% of his income. anybody out there listening to dave ramsey knows that a house payment more than 1/4 or 1/3 of your income will be a strain. so basically this guy, even with his new restructured loan still has a house that he can't and never could afford. why is this seen as a success?

anyway, that night we played a show for 89x at the Fillmore. the place is an awesome theater and it was packed. flyleaf and thirty seconds to mars were also on the bill. this show felt different because it was for a general market radio station. there were plenty of expletives being dropped from the stage that night. what impressed me about the whole thing was flyleaf. i've never seen them before. what impressed me wasn't how they played, but their conduct. nobody told us to dumb down our message, but even i could feel an unspoken pressure to not talk about jesus. right before flyleaf played "All Around Me", lacey said unapologetically, "this is a song about jesus." later on in the set they played the popular worship song "How He Loves". i was definitely surprised.

anyway, here's a shot of the crowd:

thirty seconds to mars was awesome. i think jared leto is better making music than he is at making movies. ok, well i'm watching movies at home with my wife and my chicken nuggets are done so i'd better go. what better way to end a blog dominated by an anti-potato skin diatribe than to finish it off with the pseudo-meat we can chicken nuggets??

studio time

2009-12-17T18:44:00.005-06:00

ok so remember when trev and i were on the price is right a month or so ago??? well it finally aired on 12/11/09. you can view the entire episode by clicking HERE

Matt from Tooth and Nail actually got called up and won a new car. it was the most ridiculously awesome experience i've had in a long time. sometimes you just have to experience something even if it's cheesy. for instance, when you go to hollywood, you put your hands in the famous handprints at the chinese theater. when you go to chicago, you eat deep dish pizza, and when your buddy gets called up as a contestant on the price is right, you make a complete idiot of yourself to get as much camera time as possible. and proudly, that's what i did. this episode is for you, America. your welcome.

Back To The Ole Grind

today i'm in the studio with my good friends steve wilson and david, seth and lee marie from Children 18:3 working on their next record. steve is an awesome producer and he asked me to help out a bit. Here's a shot of the trident series 80 desk. we're in the B room at Darkhorse Recording in Franklin, TN which is actually the better sounding drum room than the A room, surprisingly.

Here's steve being unwittingly photographed messing with the flux capacitor. but seriously those are vintech x81's and i covet them with all my heart. ok i don't covet them. i'm just going to have a hard time leaving the studio without them hidden under my coat. oh, and that white piece of gear is the Amek 9098 stereo compressor and we had some good results when we placed the room mics in the adjoining vocal booth and compressed the snot out of them with it.

And here's the actual drum setup. it's actually a hodge podge mix of a few different kits. notice the gretsch resonant kick, accent snare and of course, there's a cowbell in there somewhere. but i think i need to hear more of it...ok, call me captain obvious because that was a really obvious joke.

tomorrow i fly to detroit where TFK will play a show with Thirty Seconds To Mars and a few other bands. i'm kinda pumped about it. i hope you are all doing well and i'll holla atcha later.

US vs. The World

2009-12-07T18:31:00.007-06:00

sometimes i have to write when a subject is fresh in my mind. right now i'm in Recklinghausen, Germany and i'm having trouble sleeping because of jet lag. but that's not what's on my mind.

it's no secret that many people in europe and the world are at odds with the US. and that's ok. but what gets me is how supposed "news" organizations present the news as unbiased and whether overtly or inadvertently, that bias is shaping opinion.

i had been following the whole "climate-gate" crisis back in the states before i left. for those of you who live under a rock, a few emails were leaked from the leading climate scientists where they discuss how they fixed the raw data to support their cause for global warming. anyway, at the time only fox news was carrying the story - and let me say that fox news is no angel. they are not very fair and balanced. but anyway, in the past few days the story has grown legs and the networks could no longer afford to ignore it. when jon stewart reported on it, they had to cover it.

over here in germany i've been watching the only english speaking channels available which are CNN World and BBC World. what has been interesting is the discrepancies between the US coverage and the world coverage. fox news has been gloating about this. why are they gloating? because it's right. it proves their point and casts doubts into what many are now seeing as junk science. on the other hand, when the world news reports on it, they focus on the fact that the emails were "stolen" or "hacked" without even addressing the fact that what's in the emails are damning. it's like a guy demonizing his girlfriend because she found out he was cheating by checking his cell phone texts. ya, it's wrong, but the actual deed far exceeds the method of acquisition. the world news networks go on with sound bites from 5 or 6 proponents of climate legislation and two lines from a solitary skeptic. the whole newcast comes off as an annoyance and clearly shows any neanderthal who is watching what the "correct" viewpoint is. the devil is in the details. and they are very clever with the details. for instance, even if the report itself is completely unbiased, sometimes the mere fact that they are reporting it shows bias. if i were to claim that i could fly and the news started doing reports where they ask rhetorical questions like "can this guy really fly?" "is there truth to his story?" the fact that they are talking about it over and over gives credence to the issue. and guess what has been the number one report that has been replayed over and over the past 4 days? the climate change summit in copenhagen. christiana amonpour just did a promo saying "the summit is being hijacked by skeptics, but can they put a dent in the science?" hmmm...i wonder where she stands on the issue. she attacked the issue from two sides. first she vilifies the skeptics for the audacity of requiring scientific evidence and for "hijacking" the summit. and also by asking if they can "put a dent" in the science is subtly telling you that even if it's true, it's not very substantial. notice how she very slyly minimizes and undermines what is actually a clear contradiction to the holy writ of climate propaganda.

so you can obviously see my bias on the issue (at least i'm not trying to hide it). but just to be clear, here's what i think. is ice melting and has the climate gotten slightly warmer? yes. did we have anything to do with it? WE DON'T KNOW. is it a good idea to make efforts to lower emissions? yes, i'm seriously considering installing a solar cell system in my house to save energy and money. but should we make new restrictive and far-reaching laws when the basic premise of said legislation has yet to be settled? absolutely not.

many people claim that the advent of the industrial revolution coincides with the start of the warming trend. but if you look at the data, the warming started before then. there was also a period where the earth warmed in the 1500's and then cooled down. there's also evidence that the earth has natural warming and cooling periods that we can't control. are we causing it? maybe. i'll admit the notion is possible. but we truly do not know. it's like the beginning of shawshank redemption where tim robbins has mountains of circumstantial evidence to convict him even though he isn't guilty. just because certain evidence points one direction, you cannot jump to conclusions before you have all the evidence. cause if you do then the climate will hide under a Rita Hayworth poster and dig its' way out and send evidence of our corruption to the paper and we will have no choice but to shoot ourselves in the face like the warden. ok, maybe i'm stretching that metaphor. it's just that it's probably the best ending to a movie ever. (take that, M. Night Shyamalan!).

Tim Robbins: new lows in stretching metaphors

so anyway, don't believe everything you see on TV.

happy thanksgiving

2009-11-29T23:47:00.004-06:00

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving weekend. trish and i just got back from my parents house in illinois. it was great to see my family. the highlight of the weekend was shooting skeet [insert dirty joke here] at my aunts house. i should mention my aunt kathy because she told me she reads the blog so this is my shout out. anyway, i don't think i'd qualify for gun toting redneck, but holding a shiny hand canon and shootin' some lead at a little piece of clay is pretty fun. if you haven't had a chance to try it, i'd definitely recommend it. the gun in the picture is a remington 870 wingmaster that is about 50 years old. it was my grandfathers gun and now my uncle has it. the gun still shoots like a champ and by the way, my grandpa was pretty gnarley. i heard stories this weekend about him apparently going hunting without a gun by letting his dog chase a rabbit into an old car which he would then reach into, grab the rabbit, snap its neck and have a tasty snack. don't believe me? my dad swears by it.

Anyway, i had a chance to write a few open letters:

Dear Cracker Barrel:
please add some more merchandise displays to your waiting area. i'm still able to breathe a bit

Dear people driving by the accident on I-24 near Hopkinsville, KY:
just because a car is wrecked on the side of the road doesn't mean you need to slow down to a crawl and gape at it

Dear retailers of america:
kudos to you for creating a day where people camp outside your doors in the cold for the chance to give you money and impulse buy things they don't want or need just because they're on sale

Dear Strike and Spare Bowling Alley in Springfield, IL:
$4.50 a game isn't bad, but what's with the $4.00 for shoe rental? those smelly things probably cost five dollars to make and you're probably paying for each pair 5 times over every night. you try to squeeze money out of me, i leave.

Dear Tiger Woods:
you're not fooling anybody

Dear Risk computer game:
i love you but you're ruining my life

Dear 50" LCD flatscreen TV:
you are a dirty temptress. i told you already that i don't have the extra money so stop sneaking your way into my dreams.

Dear deer that i did not see or shoot:
you are very sneaky and i can't figure out if i just picture a bad spot or if you smelled me a mile away. i'm going to figure it out, but in any case, there's no way i'm spraying deer pee on me.

Dear Rain:
STOP IT

Sincerely,

Nick

college

2009-11-24T00:33:00.002-06:00

i've had a few people ask me for advice on how to get into the music industry and what kind of college to go to. i know i've kinda already addressed the subject of recording schools here. but this is a little different. let's talk about college. college as we all think about it is a joke. politicians and news pundits who decry a lack of higher education seem to claim that college is some magical potion that can instantly cure all social ills. but that's stupid. even if their claims weren't outrageous, the fact that "education is the answer" is like stating that investing in the stock market is universally good. that's just not true. sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's bad. the fallacy lies in the generalization.

the problem occurs when we look at college as anything beyond a financially calculated decision. the truth is that whether or not a person should go to college or invest in a mutual fund or open a savings account should be based on the individual situation that each person is in. college can be a wonderful thing and can really open doors for someone who is ready for it and who can manage the cost, but to just assign some sort of blanket statement that it's always good is absolutely false. not everyone can be a doctor or lawyer. not everyone can occupy high-level, high paying jobs. although it is entirely possible to get a high paying high level job without going to college.

would it be nice for everyone to go to a fancy $20,000 a year school to "find yourself" and go to parties for four years. but very few have the means to cover this cost on their own. yes, you can get student loans, but why put yourself $80,000 in debt to get a degree in a field that you probably don't use once you get a job that pays the same amount that a good skilled trade job would pay - except a skilled tradesman doesn't have to pay for big student loans.

people forget about trade schools. electricians, mechanics, paralegals, nurses and many other well paying jobs can be attained through very cheap investment into a vocational school. or let's talk about how many kids who don't have money decide to take out big loans to go to a school far away for a degree they could have gotten at a local college and probably have paid for it all while working. but see, we're all deceived by the beautiful campuses, exotic locations and fun filled student activities. don't get me wrong - there's nothing bad about having fun. if your parents have an extra $80,000 they want to fork over for a fancy degree, then awesome. go for it and have the time of your life. but when politicians on high create some universal expectation that every poor kid should take out loans and go to a big ticket university, it makes me want to scream. yes, that will probably work for a very small percentage of very motivated kids who come from a bad background. but we should expect realistic steps.

what if college as we know it was completely different? i read an article about this a while back and it seems to make a lot of sense. instead of college being a self contained program where the institution handled teaching, testing and certification, what if a college would award a degree based entirely on certification. imagine a system where you go to a college and pay a couple hundred dollars to take a very lengthy and very intense test. based on your score you would be awarded a degree. each major would have its own test. i've told some people about this and they scoff and say that it wouldn't work for people who don't test well. but i say that would be irrelevant because it would be massive tests such as the bar examinations that lawyers take or the CPA exam that accountants take. why can't we create a certification for every major? that way, even the poorest kid could scrounge together the couple hundred dollars for the test fee, spend a few months checking out books from the public library and could have a degree with a little hard work. that seems like the best way to make an education available. the colleges could still offer courses to those who want a traditional college experience. i imagine that there would be a middle ground of competing free market schools. imagine a small specialized school that you could attend at nights that went through the courses for a marketing certification in 6 months and only cost $1,500 but doesn't have all the big costs for sports teams and high priced real estate that a traditional college has. a student could take 3 years and earn a few different degrees at a fraction of the cost.

and the last thing is basic supply and demand. so what if a student wants to make a stupid decision about college. it only affects them, right? well, if we convince a large number of kids to go to a big fancy school when in all likelihood they probably shouldn't even be there, then what we are doing is increasing the demand for higher education in a fairly limited supply of schools. and what does that do? it increases the price artificially. colleges just love to add extra racquetball courts and concerts and big events. they just increase the tuition to cover it. no big deal. it's almost like preying on young and stupid kids while they're young so that they'll spend the next 15 years making monthly payments and wondering if the massive student life budgets were worth the extra costs. when a band plays at a club, they get a certain amount of money. when a band plays at a college, they get MUCH MUCH more money than a club because colleges have big huge budgets and cash that they are just throwing away. and where does that come from? your tuition. the waste is just ridiculous. but people think it was worth it because those were the best days of their lives. but the reason they were the best days is because now they have to work three jobs just to make all the payments. the circular logic is making me dizzy. how about you skip the fancy school and exchange it for the no frills community college and then use your extra income to build some wealth and to make life better and better as your grow older. i don't know, it seems like a good way to do things to me.

basically, college is an investment. but it's not always a good investment. it could very easily be a very bad investment to someone who doesn't have the money and is getting a degree they don't now and won't ever need. each person needs to realistically assess what college is really going to cost them in the long run and what they are going to get out of it in the long run. and if the numbers don't add up, they should have the courage to withstand peer pressure and either hold off on going until things do add up or find another option like apprenticing for a skilled trade or vocational training.