Song: Coldplay - Viva La Vida

So I’ve got a beach trip planned for Ocean City in a little over a month. I love Ocean City, it’s one of my favorite places on earth, mostly because when I was growing up, I’d go there for 1 week every year with my family and cousins and grandparents.

Anyways, my goal for the month of July is to run EVERY day, 2 or 3 miles. I’m trying to get rid of the small layer of fat known as my gut. But I’m not trying to lose weight, as I’m already (and destined to always be, it seems) a thin guy, so I’m also doing muscle-building work outs as well. So far I’ve got …one day done. But it was a good start considering I had work, then band practice (that went longer than usual) and didn’t get around to running until 9:45 - and didn’t eat dinner until 10:20!!!

Updates:

Added an Elementary Theme

Song: The Mamas And The Papas - California Dreamin’

As I write this sentence my ears are still ringing a bit. Remind me next time to wear my earbuds!

Elementary’s first show was last night at DC9 club in Washington, DC. We had a good crowd show up - I think everyone who was there was there for us, and not the other band. That’s not knocking the other band, Children Collide, who were awesome. They’re from Austrailia and I can’t imagine we’d have anyone show up at a show there for us!

We loaded up Arwen’s car with the equipment, stupidly thinking we’d be able to fit everyone in there as well. That didn’t happen, so I took my car to haul people. We got to the club pretty uneventfully and were able to unload quickly (with the help of friends who were there to see the show.) DC9 is an interesting setup. Downstairs is the bar/restaurant, upstairs is the venue. After throwing our stuff into the corner we proceeded to …wait. There were 3 bands meant to play but 1 had cancelled because of illness, so they stalled the show, and instead of starting at 8:30 the first band went on a little after 9. We went on a little after 10.

Lesson 1: Do a soundcheck. We got up onstage, and either through adrenaline, noobie-ness, or whatever, we didn’t really do a soundcheck. We turned our stuff on and went “sound good?” to which everyone went “yeah” and launched into song one. Twice during the night I had to turn my guitar down as well as have vocals brought up.

Lesson 2: Wear ear protection. I brought my earbuds/portable monitor but forgot to put them in for the show. As I mentioned in the first sentence to this blog, I’m paying the price.

Lesson 3: Know your material. I got super excited, did my awesome jump into the first song …then proceeded to totally mess up the first minute of it. That should be second nature to me. Time to woodshed…

Lesson 4: Know your instrument(s). A musician’s instrument should be like a part of their body. You need to know what to do to keep it running like it usually does. In between most songs I had to check my tuning, and although I’m fast, it really slows things down. I think I might be playing too rough. Also, I switched guitars on one song, and the cord was a little loose so it kept cutting in and out (luckily I fixed it right before my guitar solo!) I have to rely on these instruments to do a good job, not be worrying half the time about the instrument itself!

Lesson 5: Rock out. I think we actually accomplished this. Everyone in the audience had a good time, even those who gave me critiques (I actually appreciate this.) We had the audience laughing and dancing and rocking to the music. Lots of fun!

I’m glad we had so many friends there to make us feel great on our first show. Thanks to those of you reading this who came out! We recorded video of the show (I’m sure some of that is going to be painful to watch for the band members) and we’re going to do our homework watching for and correcting the mistakes. Also, we’re going to see what we can do to streamline the lags and keep things going. See ya July 15th!

Added a Photo

Song: Hues Corporation - Rock The Boat

Thursday night I met up with some friends in DC by taking the metro (it was on this metro ride that I received news of Michael Jackson’s death.) While at the metro stop I picked up a City Paper as I had heard Elementary was in there under the music section. I’d been burned twice before (each time it only listed Nico Vega, one of the bands we were playing with that actually cancelled) so I wasn’t expecting it really. But it was better than I hoped! Not only are Elementary listed first AND bolded, but right across the page (the exact center page of the paper, note the staples in the photo) is a huge page-spread of Paul McCartney’s show. Very cool!

I took the day off Friday to drive 9 hours to Lexington, Kentucky to meet up with Elise. Today, June 29th, is our 2 year anniversary, so we decided to celebrate our last time being apart (she’s moving back early August.) Lexington is a bustling city, and seemed like a metropolis compared to the other, smaller places we have met up at. Elise was working that day so didn’t show up until almost 10 pm. When I wasn’t watching coverage of Michael Jackson’s death we had alot of fun. Saturday was jam-packed. First we headed off to some chocolate making place that was billed as a fun, family event. We expecting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and instead got …a sleepy store run by a gang of little old ladies. We felt bad and bought a little bit of chocolate and made our escape.

While at the chocolate store I picked up one of those “things to do” brochures and decided on checking out an antique store in the center of town. One trip later we figured out it was closed (it was boarded up.) Strike Two. Re-checking the “things to do” brochure, we decided to check out the mall. Yup, the mall. But it actually turned out great. There were 2 really cool stores: Artiques, which sold very unique gifts, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers, a huge bookstore that eerily looked exactly like Elise’s favorite bookstore, Davis-Kidd (turned out Joseph-Beth “absorbed” 3 Davis-Kidd Booksellers stores in Tennessee in Memphis, and Jackson and, you guessed it, Nashville!)

Next on the agenda was the Kentucky Horse Farm. Elise is a big fan of horses, and Kentucky being horse central, we HAD to check this out. There was some kind of national event going on, with many horse owners from around the country competing in competitions. In the huge event barn we saw 6 year olds riding horses, 13 year old girls who rode as if they’ve been riding for years (probably true), as well as some professional riders who made the horses do weird leg-lift gallops. The crowd who were obviously horse fans, went crazy for this. I don’t really know much about the whole horse world, and although it looked impressive, I’m not sure why anybody cares about these leg lifts. Taking a break from the show, we walked around the farm, checking out miniature ponies and all kinds of other horse breeds. Upon trying to enter the museum we learned the best part of the trip: We weren’t allowed in because we didn’t have our passes on us. Passes, we asked? Apparently you were supposed to pay $15 to get a pass and walk around and SOMEHOW WE HAD BYPASSED THIS. So for the price of parking ($3) we got to experience about 90% (we didn’t make it into the museum) of what everyone else was experiencing for $15!

After a quick, and I mean quick, dip in the hotel pool (it was crowded) we headed off to Cheapside, a bar and grill place with live music, for dinner. Unfortunately there was no live band that night …but there just happened to be the Kentucky Gay Pride parade LITERALLY NEXT DOOR. Elise wanted me to mention specifically that as we were walking to the bar the song we heard was by the performer in the street singing “I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry, only he had changed the words to “I Kissed A Boy.” FUN!

It actually was pretty fun. You could tell most of the crowd were happy to gather together and celebrate their lifestyle instead of pretending they aren’t who they are or being made to feel different. After dinner (and a bottle of wine) we went back as there was a dance party going on (I am not a dancer, but Elise is.) Among the huge crowd we saw three dancers dancing on a riser, and one was obviously going through/had gone through some sort of transgender surgery! It was hilarious, but they were really good. And for once, I can say without joking, that it was also really gay.

The next day we slept in (I love doing that) and had our goodbye lunch. After a quick stop at Best Buy (I was looking for a Michael Jackson CD, but everything was gone) we said goodbye and I was on my own for the next 9 hours. I stupidly stopped twice during the ride to check on more Michael Jackson CDs (I’m missing “Off The Wall” from my collection) but of course, these stores as well were empty. However on the ride home I discovered Sirius XM’s Michael Jackson Tribute station. Very cool!

Oh, and tonight is Elementary’s first show: wish us luck!

Updates:

Added Elementary/Paul McCartney City Paper Photo

Song: Michael Jackson - Another Part Of Me

Holy Crap! Michael Jackson passed away this afternoon of cardiac arrest. And I still don’t believe it’s true - he was only 50 years old.

I’m not really sure how to react, although I do feel affected by this news. He hasn’t done anything good in a long while, and he’s become more known for his creepiness as of late, rather than his musical output. But man, like The Beatles in the 1960’s, this guy WAS music in the 1980s. He dominated the decade with technically only 2 albums …which had blockbuster singles that spanned years.

I’ve heard he was working on some stuff recently, but if it ever gets released, I’m sure it’ll be lackluster (his last album was pretty dreadful.) But Off The Wall, Dangerous and especially Thriller and Bad are legendary albums.

Musically, one of the greats. Culturally, one of the big ones. I think this is going to be one of those “where were you when you found out” moments. I was on the metro, and got a text from Stan; interestingly, perhaps the person I spent more time with in the 1980s than anyone else.