Tulsa Time

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

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

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

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.